Sad day.

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[–] 31 points 1 week ago* (9 children)

Thiel named his security agency Palantir and calls everyone who criticizes him the antichrist, his group misses the point constantly.

The philosophy of HPMoR is genuinely contemptible though, even if it's not quite as bad as the Dark Enlightenment dorks

I did like certain elements, and I am still amused to this day that the guy managed to crowdsource his ending to a group of "critical thinkers" without any of them catching on.

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  • [–] 12 points 1 week ago (4 children)

    The beginning of the story was definitely stronger than the rest of it, partially just due to the world of Harry Potter being not-well-thought-out. It's fun to poke holes in the poor world-building. As for the ending, I think a lot of web serials are written that way (taking ideas from the comments), and I'm pretty sure he was open about doing it. Right? Am I misremembering that?

    What about the philosophy of HPMoR is contemptible? I'm genuinely curious as to what you find repugnant.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 week ago (3 children)

    Most fanfiction/webnovel authors don't run the comment section like they're enlightening the savages with their grasp and explanation of basic game theory. Yudkowsky, however, seemed to think he was passing down wisdom as the golden god of rational thought.

    As for the contempt I hold for his personal philosophy, I'm not interested in pulling out quotes from HPMoR in 2026 but I'll say that his current thoughts on how a true AI will inevitably kill all humans for not contributing to its goals says a lot more about his personal worldview than any interesting speculation on how an artificial consciousness will see the world.

    I'll give him some credit for rejecting full bore naive utilitarianism though, even if all his other thoughts on the matter bely his true opinions on the matter.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 week ago (1 child)

    Roko's basilisk? That's not in the story, but one of the 'great' outputs from the forum that the author created.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

    No, he's got his own ideas about it. For what it's worth he thought Roko's Basilisk and the whole time war-esque torture cube of it all was a silly extreme of his completely original thought that AI might kill us because it has different values.

    Last I paid attention he was mostly interested in methods to make sure that doesn't happen by making sure any AI shares those values at least in part.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 week ago* (1 child)

    I couldn't get through HPMoR. Did that story really inspire Peter Thiel? I didn't sense anything fascist-coded in it, but again, it was a cringe-worthy read and I stopped right around the end of the first chapter because Harry's barely-veiled smarmy attitude was too noxious for me to tolerate.

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