Eliezer Yudkowsky, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality
19 quotes
"Most Muggles lived in a world defined by the limits of what you could do with cars and telephones. Even though Muggle physics explicitly permitted possibilities like molecular nanotechnology or the Penrose process for extracting energy from black holes, most people filed that away in the same section of their brain that stored fairy tales and history books, well away from their personal realities: Long ago and far away, ever so long ago."
Eliezer Yudkowsky, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality
"Without thinking about it at all, Harry stepped in front of Hermione.There was an intake of breath from behind him, and then a moment later Hermione brushed past and stepped in front of him. "Run, Harry!" she said. "Boys shouldn't have to be in danger."
Eliezer Yudkowsky, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality
"But it is cute. It's such a boy thing to do.Drop dead.Aw, you say the most romantic things."
Eliezer Yudkowsky, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality
"What people really believe doesn't feel like a BELIEF, it feels like the way the world IS."
Eliezer Yudkowsky, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality
"You couldn't changed history. But you could get it right to start with. Do something differently the FIRST time around.This whole business with seeking Slytherin's secrets... seemed an awful lot like the sort of thing where, years later, you would look back and say, 'And THAT was where it all started to go wrong.'And he would wish desperately for the ability to fall back through time and make a different choice. Wish granted. Now what?"
Eliezer Yudkowsky, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality
"For an instant Harry imagined... Just for an instant, before his imagination blew a fuse and called an emergency shut down and told him never to imagine that again."
Eliezer Yudkowsky, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality
"He wanted to write someone and demand a refund on his dark side which clearly ought to have irresistible magical power but had turned out to be defective."
Eliezer Yudkowsky, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality
"Every mystery ever solved had been a puzzle from the dawn of the human species right up until someone solved it."
Eliezer Yudkowsky, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality
"To worship a sacred mystery was just to worship your own ignorance."
Eliezer Yudkowsky, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality
"I don't want to rule the universe. I just think it could be more sensibly organised."
Eliezer Yudkowsky, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality
"Okay, so either (a) I just teleported somewhere else entirely (b) they can fold space like no one's business or (c) they are simply ignoring all the rules."
Eliezer Yudkowsky, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality
"Boys," said Hermione Granger, "should not be allowed to love girls without asking them first! This is true in a number of ways and especially when it comes to gluing people to the ceiling!"
Eliezer Yudkowsky, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality
"Why does any kind of cynicism appeal to people? Because it seems like a mark of maturity, of sophistication, like you’ve seen everything and know better. Or because putting something down feels like pushing yourself up."
Eliezer Yudkowsky, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality
"Someday," said the Boy-Who-Lived, "when the distant descendants of Homo sapiens are looking back over the history of the galaxy and wondering how it all went so wrong, they will conclude that the original mistake was when someone taught Hermione Granger how to read."
Eliezer Yudkowsky, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality
"Sometimes Harry thought the deepest split in his personality wasn't anything to do with his dark side; rather it was the divide between the altruistic and forgiving Abstract Reasoning Harry, versus the frustrated and angry Harry In The Moment."
Eliezer Yudkowsky, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality
"In a moral dilemma where you lost something either way, making the choice would feel bad either way, so you could temporarily save yourself a little mental pain by refusing to decide. At the cost of not being able to plan anything in advance, and at the cost of incurring a huge bias toward inaction or waiting until too late..."
Eliezer Yudkowsky, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality
"Many have stood their ground and faced the darkness when it comes for them. Fewer come for the darkness and force it to face them."
Eliezer Yudkowsky, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality
"I'm lazy! I hate work! Hate hard work in all its forms! Clever shortcuts, that's all I'm about!"
Eliezer Yudkowsky, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality
"Like that's the only reason anyone would ever buy a first-aid kit? Don't take this the wrong way, Professor McGonagall, but what sort of crazy children are you used to dealing with?""Gryffindors," spat Professor McGonagall, the word carrying a freight of bitterness and despair that fell like an eternal curse on all youthful heroism and high spirits."
Eliezer Yudkowsky, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality