Step into the light and open your mind (I need to rummage in it for a while).
The Internet is a wonderful place where you can find anything you are looking for, and almost none of it is useful. The idea of “edutainment” is a joke adults played on children for a few decades, but something that to many feels hollow and kind of underhanded (though logically I really can’t see why getting children to learn against their will is a bad thing). As much as many 90s kids loved Reading Rainbow, it is something that has fallen by the wayside as we grew up–what could a children’s universe have to teach adults?
Tons. Lots. Great volume, high density, world shattering knowledge. And so we arrive on the topic of Eliezer Yudkowski’s Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality.
On the surface, it is a Harry Potter fanfic like many others (many mainstream others, I am not talking about Snape/Teletubby slashfics here) where Harry is a hero and the author casts their own shadow over the events of canon. Rather than being raised by the wildly unpleasant Dursley’s, Petunia in this alternate universe marries a biochemist who teaches Harry the scientific method and rational critical thinking from a very young age–skills that translate interestingly into the Wizarding world of Magical Britain. Few are the Harry Potter fans who have not sat with a group and discussed how impossible the world of Magical Britain is, if there was any interaction with the muggle world at all, and Harry brings that discussion to the very surface of discourse to the frustration of the entrenched magical masses.
While highly enjoyable, it has led many readers to label Harry as (to put it gently) “a highly unpleasant character,” in this universe… And there are times when I cannot fully deny it. I understand Harry wants everything to work, and he wants it to work now, but being aggressively unpleasant to the “old guard” is unlikely to win traditionalists to your side, and holy crap did we just start talking about politics?
The further down the rabbit hole of Harry Potter and the Methods of rationality you go, though, the more you realize that everything is tied very tightly to teaching the reader the very skills that are on display. Where you see Harry making a difficult decision, or discussing the politics of a world in ruin, everything ties into practical thinking skills the reader can apply if they wish to learn them.
Rather than being a passive teacher, though, Eliezer stepped up his game as we approached the finish line; in some of the most recent chapters, he set up a scenario in which escape for Harry appeared impossible and topped his chapter off with an exam. A short version of the exam basically reads “Users can submit methods by which Harry can escape this situation, using only the power he has shown, with skills he definitely already knows. You don’t have to come up with my solution, but if no one comes up with a viable solution, I may or may not kill Harry Potter.”
The whole killing Harry Potter thing is probably my own personal inference, but it could easily be read into the text.
What happened was a beautiful thing; communities banded together, creating something of a Super AI, integrating all solutions into solutions of near perfect beauty and elegance. This was a test, and it revealed that thousands of people were listening as Eliezer taught–and to see a world of adults learning from a Harry Potter fanfiction is an oddly humbling experience. The greatest knowledge can come from the least likely source.
Lessons aside, though, the story itself is incredibly entertaining and fun. Even if you are not reading to learn rational critical thought, there is a lot in this very lengthy series to like. Currently clocking in at over 600,000 words, it is nothing to sneeze at as far as length and depth.
So why am I writing about this merely one week before the series comes to a close? Why am I writing this as only a short primer, almost a teaser?
I don’t mean this to be a comprehensive review of the series, I will likely write than in a few weeks time. I plan to read it from start to finish again once it has come to a close, so I can see all of the foreshadowing with all of the knowledge of what is to come. That is one area where I would say Eliezer is a master; almost everything that happens is available as inferred knowledge to the reader from a very early time. The series is, to put it simply, a very open book for anyone who cares to read into it.
What I want to do is to get you excited. Is it too late? No, it is never too late. But if you start now, you may be able to join us in riding the hype train to the final stop in this series, to join in the final speculations, to ride the denouement of the series to a gentle landing instead of binge reading it and missing the joy of anticipation and suspense.
Or you can wait one more week until the series finale is posted on March 14th, and then drink the whole series, start-to-finish, as though it were a glass of water in a desert.
Either way, this is a series that is worth every minute you put into it. I’d give it a wholehearted recommendation, but if you are the patient type, I’ll be doing something of a much more official review in the next few weeks.
If you want it now, you can start at chapter 1, and I’ll see you on the other side.