
Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality finished today - Eliezer
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5782108/1/Harry-Potter-and-the-Methods-of-Rationality
======
sowhatquestion
As a philosophy grad who finds this stuff mildly interesting, I wish the
"rationalists" had chosen a different name for their movement. While
"rationality" brings to mind Plato or Descartes, this movement appears to be a
kind of hyper-empiricism informed by cognitive psychology, AI research, and
Bayesian statistics. In any case, if you're going to be an empiricist, it
strikes me as a pretty decent way to go.

~~~
jessaustin
Serious question: what would you recommend, instead of empiricism?

~~~
rpedroso
One thing the parent didn't bring up was there was a philosophical movement
called "rationalism" that preceded the contemporary movement that refers
itself by the same name. These so-called "Continental Rationalists" included
philosophers like Descartes and Leibniz. The British Empiricist movement,
featuring Locke, Berkeley and Hume, arose in response to the Continental
Rationalists.

One of the key points of contention between these two movements was the
problem of "innate knowledge". Rationalists believed that we were born with
some sorts of knowledge (foundationalism). Leibniz believed that we were born
with the basic mathematical knowledge and reasoning. Descartes thought he had
a great deal of innate ideas -- perhaps most famously, his proof of the
existence of God relied on the fact that he had an innate idea of God.

It was really only until Locke came along that anyone presented a top-down
theory attempting to account for the acquisition of basic forms of knowledge
(e.g. difference and similarity, truth and falsehood) while maintaining an
initial "tabula rasa" state.

I wouldn't lump in the contemporary rationalist movement with either of these
previous movements -- it is probably best considered as an extension of
logical positivism, owing to heirs like early Wittgenstein.

However, positivism brushed up against many philosophical problems: semantics,
the analytic-synthetic dichotomy, etc. Things got worse when Wittgenstein
eventually wrote "Philosophical Investigations" which effectively contradicted
everything he wrote in the "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus", the latter of
which was the foundational text of logical positivism. The two schools of
thought were so different that people generally refer to "Tractatus" and
"post-Tractatus" Wittgenstein.

One of the key scientific critics to logical positivism was Karl Popper --
best known for formalizing the ideas of falsifiability -- eschewed the idea of
induction altogether. I highly recommend his "The Logic of Scientific
Discovery" (which is not to say that I agree with Popper, but he is an
important figure in the philosophy of science).

Thomas Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" calls into question
the very idea of there being a "scientific truth" that is independent of
historical assumptions. Contemporary heirs of this kind of historically
focused thought, like Ian Hacking, try to make room for the ideas of
"scientific fact" in some contexts (particle physics) but question it in
others (psychology). I highly recommend Hacking's "Making Up People" \-- a
brilliant collection of essays which is still friendly to people who haven't
read a great deal of Foucault (another important figure in recent philosophy
of science).

Second to last in my brief and certainly not comprehensive list is Hilary
Putnam. It's hard to precisely pin down Putnam's thought -- as a philosopher
he is remarkably open to criticism -- he has written papers in response to
himself. Putnam has mostly kept himself consistent with scientific realism --
which basically states that scientific theories are usually more-or-less
true.. Early on, he was a metaphysical realist who became sharply opposed to
the school. Frankly, I don't know where he stands today, but read his essay
"Brains in a vat" if you're at all interested in Skepticism.

Finally, this list of alternatives to positivism would be incomplete without
Richard Rorty. His landmark text, "Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature",
rejects the possibility of an epistemology altogether. I can't recommend
Rorty's writings enough -- I believe he stands with Foucault as the most
important pair of philosophers in the last 50 years.

I hope that I've given some more background on the rationalist/empiricist
debate and contemporary alternatives to proper empiricist and positivist
thought. I certainly cannot give you anything comprehensive in the space of a
HN comment -- my only goal has been to hint towards various schools of thought
on this matter. Pierre Hadot wrote that philosophy is a way of life moreso
than a domain of thought -- and I tend to believe that in life, the journey is
more important than the destination. In that respect, it is impossible for me
to give you a firm answer to the question you asked of the OP: "if not
empiricism, then what?" \-- but I hope that my comments help you find where
you stand.

~~~
cbd1984
> Thomas Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" calls into question
> the very idea of there being a "scientific truth" that is independent of
> historical assumptions.

OK, let's do this.

We have a scientific theory.

From it, we derive some engineering discipline, which uses the theory to,
essentially, make predictions about what will happen if we do _this_ to _that_
, with the property that, if the predictions hold true, we'll have something
useful.

The people following the engineering discipline create things.

Those things work.

Does that not, then, validate the scientific theory?

And if that scientific theory is validated, does that not knock Kuhn on his
ass?

Because the forces which the artifact the engineers created is subject to
don't give a rat's ass what our current culture says. They were the same
billions of years ago and will be the same billions of years hence, the
existence of our species or intelligent life at all notwithstanding.

OK, some fields of science don't make sense without humans to study. Right.
But others will still be just as true if we're wiped out and replaced by
sapient _Corvidae_ , or not replaced at all.

~~~
rpedroso
Kuhn never denies that there are facts about the universe that we can observe.
And I agree with you about this general class of example: no number of
scientific discoveries or paradigm shifts will ever make the photoelectric
effect cease occurring.

Kuhn's argument is that science occasionally undergoes what he calls "paradigm
shifts" \-- a low-level shift in assumptions about a certain realm of
scientific thought that fundamentally changes the way we approach a particular
field. One example Kuhn gives is the Copernican Revolution. Copernicus, as we
all know, proposed the heliocentric solar model. Before Copernicus, most
people used Ptolemy's epicycles to model the movement of planetary bodies.
Initially, it worked, but the cracks started to show as observations
accumulated. A major shift in our assumptions about the organization and
modeling of planetary bodies had to occur before scientific progress could
move forward.

In this sense, scientific knowledge progresses in giant shifts, rather than
linearly or incrementally. Consider the theory of atomism how it was disrupted
by the Rutherford Gold Foil experiment, or the Double-Slit experiment and what
that did for physics. A dominant paradigm must always make way for a new
paradigm in order for scientific progress to occur.

The upshot of all of this, according to Kuhn, is that the criteria for
scientific truth are always caught up in certain historical assumptions and
that we have to take these assumptions into account when assessing the
veracity of a given theory. He doesn't say that there aren't facts about the
universe, but rather, that the scientific approach to understanding the
universe is caught up in a paradigmatic frame which makes it impossible to
derive a simple, objective algorithm/process for scientific discovery.

Does that make sense?

~~~
the8472
> He doesn't say that there aren't facts about the universe, but rather, that
> the scientific approach to understanding the universe is caught up in a
> paradigmatic frame which makes it impossible to derive a simple, objective
> algorithm/process for scientific discovery.

I don't see how he gets from A to B. How is the fact that we obviously can
only build models based on the past - since the future is not accessible to us
- prove that it is impossible to refine models to asymptotically approach a
hypothetical fundamental truth?

We may not have a formalized algorithm. But whatever is running on human
brains has worked so far.

If I boil this down it sounds to me like he's claiming that a system that
takes its past states as one of its inputs (observation of the universe being
another) is incapable of refining scientific theories? Which, given the fact
that's exactly how scientific discovery has been done so far, seems false.

So what am I missing here?

~~~
rpedroso

      I don't see how he gets from A to B
    

There is only so much I can do to summarize his argument in an online forum
without replicating the entire book. I recognize that I'm not doing the full-
text justice, but it's hard to go into much more depth without simply
recommending that you read the book itself.

    
    
      If I boil this down it sounds to me like he's claiming that a system that takes its past states as one of its inputs (observation of the universe being another) is incapable of refining scientific theories? Which, given the fact that's exactly how scientific discovery has been done so far, seems false.
    

I wouldn't say that paradigm shifts like the Copernican revolution, the
discovery of elementary particles, or the uncovering of quantum mechanics are
acts of "refining" existing theories -- they largely involved throwing away a
significant amount of work and starting from scratch. Scientists since Ptolemy
created extraordinarily complex epicycle models to explain the movement of
planetary bodies from a geocentric perspective. When the Copernican
heliocentric model became accepted, all the work on epicycles became more or
less useless.

Now, we didn't have to abandon Newtonian mechanics entirely, but quantum
mechanics have replaced Newtonian mechanics in most fields dealing with
particles and small numbers of atoms.

Kuhn's argument is that science has advanced, but not through a simple process
of "refining". According to Kuhn, science isn't generally a linear or
incremental process -- it is a cyclical one in which our existing models cease
being useful and we have to find a better one.

I hope that helps! If you're interested, I highly recommend reading the text
-- Kuhn was an excellent writer [1].

[1]
[http://projektintegracija.pravo.hr/_download/repository/Kuhn...](http://projektintegracija.pravo.hr/_download/repository/Kuhn_Structure_of_Scientific_Revolutions.pdf)

------
zyxley
I'm seriously surprised at how many people here are fans of Yudkowsky, given
his lack of any real productive output beyond thought experiments and
fanfiction, the distinctly weird stuff he judges as right by taking his
philosophy to the extremes (e.g. "it's better for one person to be tortured
for fifty years than for an extremely large number of people to each get a
speck of dust in their eye"), and the way he treats certain fringe positions
as absolutely true despite the lack of any solid evidence to support them (for
example, many-worlds theory).

~~~
MichaelGG
>.g. "it's better for one person to be tortured for fifty years than for an
extremely large number of people to each get a speck of dust in their eye"),

The number in question was 3^^^3 using Knuth's Up Arrow Notation. As he
explains, that's a lot of people: (3^(3^(3^(... 7625597484987 times ...)))).

If we decide that one person being tortured for 50 years is worth a quick
blink by all those other people, then a still tiny amount of people (say,
7625597484987) being tortured would be worth everyone else blinking furiously
for their entire lives.

So it's not about deciding one person's fate. It's about being consistent,
because if you make an exception for one person, that turns into several
hundred billion, then that small sacrifice everyone else was to carry now has
destroyed everyone else, too.

(I think the issue is that people tend to round down "speck of dust" to 0,
then multiply, then find of course any amount of torture isn't worth 0.)

Personally, I take a more negative view and see the immense possibility for
suffering as a reason that we should seek to destroy the entire multiverse.
It's just not very nice otherwise.

[http://lesswrong.com/lw/kn/torture_vs_dust_specks/](http://lesswrong.com/lw/kn/torture_vs_dust_specks/)

~~~
zyxley
> I think the issue is that people tend to round down "speck of dust" to 0,
> then multiply, then find of course any amount of torture isn't worth 0.

Why not round it down to 0?

There's some level of discomfort in everyday life to start with that's
effectively negligible for any normal person, simply because it's a
prerequisite for interacting with the world (getting a raindrop in your eye,
dealing with a minor wedgie, having an itchy nose, whatever).

~~~
MichaelGG
If you round down before multiplying, then you get an invalid answer. First
multiply it out. So in my example, torturing 7,625,597,484,987 people for 50
years, versus that many specks of dust for everyone else. (7 trillion is
essentially 1, compared to 3^^^3, right?) 7 trillion specks of dust is enough
to turn all those other lives into torture, as 7 trillion specks of dust is a
few thousand a second, for a very long life.

That's why you can't round down first. Eliezer's entire intent there is to
illustrate that by default, we suck at scale, we're scope insensitive.

Another way: If everyone in the US gave just a penny directly to a poor
person, once in a lifetime, that person would be wealthy for life and be OK,
right? A penny rounds down to zero, thus we can determine that the right
action is to always give money directly to poor individuals, as this will cure
poverty at a cost of nothing.

You're right that if the only choice, ever, in the entire multiverse was this
one 50 years or 3^^^3 specks of dust, then sure, you don't need to follow the
rules/math. But we're never going to be faced with just a single decision.
Instead, we should be consistent and follow the numbers to determine utility.

~~~
zyxley
> If you round down before multiplying, then you get an invalid answer.

Your argument here is based on the premise that the subjectively-inflicted-
pain of "a whole lot of specks of dust in a person's eye" can be treated as a
multiple of "one speck of dust in a person's eye", which to me is the point of
absurdity that makes the whole thought exercise fall apart.

~~~
Houshalter
That's just basic utilitarianism. What exactly are you objecting to? That 2
dust specks in 2 people's eyes isn't exactly twice as bad as 1 dust speck?

~~~
zyxley
> What exactly are you objecting to?

That some arbitrarily minimal amount of subjective pain can be presumed to be
actually distinguishable from the general background unpleasantness of being
human in the first place.

Edit: Rephrased to remove gibberish resulting from temporary brain/keyboard
disconnect.

~~~
zyxley
For some reason HN won't let me reply to Houshalter's post, but...

> objectively

How can pain be objective? The universe doesn't give a shit that some lumpy
sacks of meat dislike certain experiences, and exactly the same action can be
unpleasant for some people but pleasant for others. (BDSM enthusiasts, for
example, often actively seek out experiences that other people would consider
painful.)

~~~
Houshalter
>How can pain be objective?

Do you object that a pin prick is bad? Do you want to avoid being pricked?

~~~
zyxley
>Do you object that a pin prick is bad?

That depends on the context. If it's acupuncture, for example, it can be quite
good, even if the precise sensation is exactly the same as the otherwise
unpleasant case of poking myself with a needle while sewing.

------
fiatmoney
Epub / mobi / PDF available from here, as well as better (IMHO) web
formatting, author's notes, etc:

[http://hpmor.com/](http://hpmor.com/)

~~~
ajuc
Also allows selecting text while reading. Seriously, what were the
fanfiction.net guys thinking?

~~~
Amezarak
It's implemented for copy-protection purposes.

Yes, seriously.

[http://blog.fictionpress.com/2013/10/11/languages-for-
naviga...](http://blog.fictionpress.com/2013/10/11/languages-for-navigation/)

You can get around it by disabling Javascript, but then all the text becomes
annoyingly center-aligned.

~~~
gwillen
You can also get around it, at least in Chrome, by going to the console and
entering:

    
    
      $('div#storytextp.storytextp').css('-webkit-user-select', 'inherit');
    

If that doesn't work, I would also try:

    
    
      $('div.nocopy').removeClass('nocopy');
    

I have no idea what the 'nocopy' class actually does (in Chrome it seems to do
nothing), but it seems like something to try.

------
pavel_lishin
For those who start reading and wonder when Harry stops being an insufferable
little jerk... I'm on chapter 57, now, and he's getting better.

~~~
rictic
One important thing, for those who find the main character insufferable at
times: this is not a simple mary sue story.

When you notice Harry doing something dumb, oblivious, overconfident,
condescending, etc. do not assume that this is the author's personality
leaking through. It may be the intended reading.

~~~
maxerickson
I only read a little of it, but every time a character did something _dumb,
oblivious, overconfident, condescending_ , I braced myself for a thought
missile.

I guess you could say I found it a bit hamfisted.

~~~
db48x
In fact, Harry's personality is a Clue, or rather Bayesian evidence to use
when predicting future events in the story, or deducing the true nature of the
mysterious events that started the story.

~~~
zyxley
Given that the early parts of the story are written in such a way that the
narrative treats Harry's behavior as completely right and justified, it seems
far more likely to be a retcon done years after the fact than some secret
master plan Yudkowsky had in mind from the beginning.

~~~
Eliezer
The ending was explicitly foreshadowed in Ch. 1, including advance quotes.
And, like, all the other early chapters. Nobody familiar with HPMOR could
possibly take seriously the notion that this was a retcon.

------
SoftwareMaven
I'm very happy about this. I got to around chapter 85, but, due to the
author's time constraints, I put it down at that point. I'll have to pick it
up and start over. It is well worth the read.

~~~
mkuhn
Almost exactly the same for me. I read it when he was on Chapter 87. Looking
forward to read the whole thing from start to finish now.

------
Issac
It was a brilliant story , loved it! and did recommend it to i think almost
everyone i know at least once XD ! A bit sad its finished

~~~
qrendel
Ditto. Started reading it a few weeks ago and just caught up two days before
the end. Certainly ranks among my favorite novels now. Almost literally could
not put it down until I finished. Thanks, Eliezer.

------
Luc
Thanks Eliezer. I loved it. People new to HPMOR will be able to gorge on it,
but reading it in episodes and anticipating the next one with a bunch of
people made it something special.

------
grantlmiller
I've recommended this book to sooo many people, I think it is one of the best
ways to introduce rational thinking & understanding to people (well... at
least to Harry Potter fans).

------
Mr24601
Fascinating and excellent story. I was originally "eye rolling" at the
diatribe against death, but I changed my mind when I realized how few people
really have different and thought provoking opinions on what we think about
the status quo. The rationality of the argument got past my original response,
in time.

~~~
jtheory
Similar here -- there are plenty of huge pitfalls there, if we don't die; but
that's not the same thing as saying the pitfalls are insurmountable, and I
value things that get me thinking without just hitting "oh, that's dumb" after
a bit of reflection.

------
kaybe
Thank you for writing this, and also thank you for adapting the updating time
to suitable times for Europe! I'm looking forward to your next project.

------
te_platt
Well done! Thank you for your time and effort to do that. I enjoyed the story
and learned a thing or two along the way.

------
Mahn
Is this something you would recommend reading to non Harry Potter fans as
well?

~~~
skybrian
Absolutely. It makes a fair bit of fun of the original, but doesn't require
that you've read it.

------
pshc
Thank you for the wild ride, Eliezer.

------
adamzerner
HPMOR is available as a podcast also -
[http://www.hpmorpodcast.com/](http://www.hpmorpodcast.com/).

------
robinhoodexe
I'm wondering if this will be published as a physical book. I prefer reading
more than a few pages on normal paper.

~~~
solarmist
Fan fiction at best is a grey area and at worst is blatant copyright
infringement.

The community seems more than happy to leave it in that place rather than put
it to the test by publishing something like that or attempting to make money
from that.

As soon as someone tries to make money from it, even if just to recoup self-
publishing costs there will be a lawsuit and it'll be decided concretely,
probably not in the community's favor.

~~~
zyxley
Yudkowsky has already made money off it by gating chapters behind receiving a
certain amount in donations, which is part of why I find it really strange
that he's apparently now trying to explicitly get Rowling's attention.

~~~
solarmist
I didn't know that, donations are baiting the lion, I suppose it helps though
that his story is almost completely separate from canon. That's a very risky
path to walk though.

~~~
Eliezer
I offered to post pre-written chapters at a higher speed (1 per 2 days instead
1 per 4 days) if a medium-sized charity I cofounded many years earlier made
its annual donation target during a matching grant. Beware that HPMOR has a
hatedom, and don't believe everything you're told about it.

~~~
solarmist
Yeah, donations to a charity and donations to an author are very different
things.

------
orp
Thank you, Eliezer. It's been a great run and the last few weeks have been
indeed special

------
wavelander
Well done ! I started reading this - got around to 10 and stopped for a while
- and totally forgot about it.

It continued and - finally ! - finished.

PS: Fellow readers, did it ever stop being awesome and/or become unpleasant
from the perspective of the original plot ?

~~~
T-A
I loved it. But I did have second thoughts when it started turning dark after
I had already recommended it to a friend as adequte reading for his very
young, Potter-obsessed son. After the troll incursion, I was thinking "Uh oh,
what have I done?!?".

On a lighter note, I was hoping right to the end that the last transfiguration
would end up producing a house elf, ideally Dobby. :D

Eliezer, if you're reading this: thanks. It was awesome.

------
homulilly
Every time I see anything related to Less Wrong all I can think of is Roko's
Basilisk and I can't stop laughing.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Every time I see your nickname all I can think of is that time you got drunk
and puked on the floor.

I'm joking of course, but that and your comment are equally smart ways of
evaluating other people's deeds and ideas.

~~~
zyxley
We have no way to know if homulilly got drunk and puked on the floor in
public, but we do know that Yudkowsky and assorted Lesswrong visitors had a
reaction to the Roko's basilisk concept that most relatively "normal" people
would judge as embarrassing or humorous.

~~~
TeMPOraL
That was one situation in the long history of a community with high standards
of reasoning and discussion, that produces tons of interesting and educative
content. Are you _really_ going to judge the whole community by a single
overreaction they AFAIR later admitted was an overreaction?

~~~
homulilly
I'm not really saying anything about the community other than my own immediate
reaction to it. I've read a bit of hpmor and found it fairly entertaining in
an Ayn Rand sort of way but I have trouble investing the time required in
online fiction as vast as it is and I've found the fanbase to be fairly
obnoxious in my personal interactions.

For the record, while I wont deny that I've had more to drink than I could
handle in the past, I've always made it to the toilet in time to avoid any
public embarrassment.

------
chrislloyd
Thanks Eliezer. That was an amazing journey.

------
GFK_of_xmaspast
I read a bunch of chapters a few years ago and thought it was remarkably
horrid.

~~~
Splendor
Your comment could be more valuable if it included your reasoning or
suggestions for improvement.

~~~
andolanra
I have been following someone's critical chapter-by-chapter criticism of HPMOR
for some time now, which might be illustrative. It is admittedly quite long:
[http://su3su2u1.tumblr.com/tagged/Hariezer-
Yudotter/chrono](http://su3su2u1.tumblr.com/tagged/Hariezer-Yudotter/chrono)

Among other things, I've often seen people try to sell HPMOR as, "Harry Potter
fanfiction in which Harry applies the scientific method to the magical world
of Harry Potter!" And that shows up _a little_ [^1] but is by and large not
the content of the work. Harry does very few experiments to verify his
hypotheses and is actually a broadly incurious character. For example: Harry
is nominally interested in eliminating death, but never once investigates the
many magical mechanisms which seem to eliminate death, preferring to just
_talk_ about it instead. Similarly, he comes up with hypotheses as to how
magic works, but never bothers to investigate them beyond speculation.

Additionally, a lot of the "solutions" to problems Harry has are relatively
unsatisfying: Harry often circumvents a problem by "clever" applications of
the rules, but because the rules of magic as given both in Rowling and in
Yudkowsky are ill-defined and even self-contradictory, this seems less clever
and more like arbitrary author fiat. Harry is also given a small time machine
early on in the plot, and so more often than not, the solution to his problems
is, "Use the time-turner again."

Finally, I personally found the writing style to be generally in need of
editing—not _terrible_ but certainly not polished—but I consider that to be a
smaller problem than the above plot-related issues. EDIT: All this doesn't
mean that _you_ shouldn't like it! These are just problems that I had with the
work.

[^1]: The bit where Harry tries to experimentally prove that P=NP is probably
my favorite part of the entire thing.

~~~
saraid216
While I think the line you were fed about its premise was incorrect, I don't
think you read as far as chapter 28, did you?

The thing is... HPMOR isn't about the scientific method. It's about
rationality. It's not a story about distilling a universal theory of magic or
triumphing over death; it's a story about a kid who's had a rationalist
education fumbling his way through a world that refuses to actually make
sense.

~~~
andolanra
I read well through chapter 70. I did imply that scientific investigation
shows up _a little_ , after all! I agree that the line people gave me wasn't
correct, but I've heard that line enough that I felt it was appropriate to
dispel that particular notion.

Perhaps also germane is that I am not personally a believer in Less Wrong-
style rationality, and so the intellectual content of the work was not
relevant to me except in the detached way that philosophical or political or
religious schools can be interesting to non-adherents (which is one reason I
read as much as I did.) Whether the story accomplishes its _actual_ goal,
then, is something I can't judge, but I can say that, as a non-rationalist
(irrationalist?) I didn't find it to be a good or engaging story.

But as I said in my previous comment, this is my own reaction, and I include
it for informative reasons, not because I think others should necessarily
share it!

~~~
mtae
May I ask what about "Less Wrong-style rationality" you disagree with?

~~~
andolanra
This is the kind of thing which could very easily turn into a flame war, and
is much further off-topic. I'm not interested in that kind of argument right
now, so all I will say in this thread is this:

My personal experience with Less Wrong-style rationalism, to simplify the
situation aggressively, is that it has a core of good, useful tools (Bayesian
reasoning, strict positivism, utilitarianism) that I have no problem with.
However, when pushed too far, those tools tend to break down—but the
rationalist answer to that breakdown is all too often to embrace the model and
discount the reality. This general refusal to regard their core tools with
suspicion results in beliefs which are paradoxically irrational: when faced
with e.g., utilitarianism condoning torture to prevent mild discomfort, the
rationalist response is not, "Perhaps human experience does not map
straightforwardly to integers—we should re-examine our tools," but rather, "As
our mathematical tools are of course correct, we must believe in this
conclusion." This belief in math-over-matter is a major part (though not the
only factor) in my skepticism towards the kind of rationalism promoted by Less
Wrong.

~~~
judk
And yet no one has really made an convincing argument of why the conclusions
of utilitarianism contradict the axioms of utilitarianism. And no one seems to
offer the rather simple solution that utility is non-linear (so dust in ones
eye is really a quite small fraction as bad as a century of torture), and
people who mock Eliezer's utilitarianism hypocritically do so on sweatshops
built&recycled computers, clothes, and food.

The strongest argument against rationalist utilitarianism seems to be that
people don't like the cognitive dissonance it imposes on hypocrites.

~~~
ta82828
The linearity of utility is irrelevant to the dust specks or torture problem
because you can always increase the number of people to receive dust specks so
the utility of torturing a single individual for 50 years is higher.

[http://lesswrong.com/lw/n3/circular_altruism/](http://lesswrong.com/lw/n3/circular_altruism/)

And calling people hypocrites because things like involuntary organ donation
gives them "cognitive dissonance" is absurd. Also regarding hypocrisy, note
that Yudkowski works for an organization whose goal is to protect humanity
from Skynet, while people in Africa are starving. (I'm not personally
attacking him, he can work on whatever he likes, and I think governments of
wealthy nations have both the resources and responsibility to alleviate
starvation, and individual efforts are mostly pissing in the wind. But parent
poster brought up sweatshops &c. so I went there.)

