Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

Ghost

I care not for these things.

Death and hell have stripp'd away all of my desires,

save for revenge upon my murderer.

HAMLET

Thou shalt not be avenged, save that thou swear:

an I slay thine killer, so wilt thou vouchsafe to me the means

by which I might slay death.

He who killed you will join you in the Pit,

and then that's it. No further swelling of Hell's ranks will I permit.

Ghost

Done. When my brother is slain, he who poured the poison in my ear,

then will I pour in yours the precious truth:

the making of the Philosopher's Stone. With this Stone, thou may'st procure

a philter to render any man immune to death, and more transmute

base metal to gold, to fund the provision of this philter to all mankind.

HAMLET

Truly there is nothing beyond the dreaming of philosophy.

Wait.

The man whom I must kill-my uncle the king?

Ghost

Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast,

With witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts-

HAMLET

Indeed, he has such gifts I near despair,

of killing him and yet succeeding to his throne.

'twill be an awesome fight for awesome stakes.

Hast thou advice?

A cock crows. Exit Ghost.

(HonoreDB has now extended this to a complete ebook)

(entitled 'A Will Most Incorrect to Heaven: The Tragedy of Prince Hamlet and the Philosopher's Stone')

(available for $3 at makefoil dot com)

(yes, really)

MOBY DICK AND THE METHODS OF RATIONALITY

(as related by Eneasz on LessWrong)

'Revenge?' said the peg-legged man. 'On a whale? No, I decided I'd just get on with my life.'

WELCOME TO THE REAL WORLD

(thanks to dsummerstay for reminding me to post this one)

MORPHEUS: For the longest time, I wouldn't believe it. But then I saw the fields with my own eyes, watched them liquefy the dead so they could be fed intravenously to the living -

NEO (politely): Excuse me, please.

MORPHEUS: Yes, Neo?

NEO: I've kept quiet for as long as I could, but I feel a certain need to speak up at this point. The human body is the most inefficient source of energy you could possibly imagine. The efficiency of a power plant at converting thermal energy into electricity decreases as you run the turbines at lower temperatures. If you had any sort of food humans could eat, it would be more efficient to burn it in a furnace than feed it to humans. And now you're telling me that their food is the bodies of the dead, fed to the living? Haven't you ever heard of the laws of thermodynamics?

MORPHEUS: Where did you hear about the laws of thermodynamics, Neo?

NEO: Anyone who's made it past one science class in high school ought to know about the laws of thermodynamics!

MORPHEUS: Where did you go to high school, Neo?

(Pause.)

NEO: ...in the Matrix.

MORPHEUS: The machines tell elegant lies.

(Pause.)

NEO (in a small voice): Could I please have a real physics textbook?

MORPHEUS: There is no such thing, Neo. The universe doesn't run on math.

Chapter 65: Contagious Lies

Hermione Granger had read somewhere once, that one of the keys to staying thin was to pay attention to the food you ate, to notice yourself eating it, so that you were satisfied with the meal. This morning she'd made herself toast, and put butter on the toast, and cinnamon on the butter, and it really should've been enough to get her to notice, this time, the goodness that was in front of her...

Without noticing the cinnamon or the butter, without noticing the food or that she was eating, Hermione swallowed another bite of toast, and said, 'Can you try explaining that again? I'm still completely flabbergasted.'

'It's pretty straightforward, if you think like a Light-Side Slytherin,' said the boy that everyone else in school, excepting only the two of them, now believed to be her true love. Harry Potter's spoon absentmindedly stirred his breakfast cereal; he hadn't taken many bites of it this morning, not that Hermione had seen. 'Every good thing in the world brings its own opposition into existence. Phoenixes are no exception.'

Hermione took another unnoticed bite out of her buttered and cinnamoned toast, and said, 'How can anyone not understand that Fawkes thinks you're a good enough person to ride around on your shoulder? He wouldn't do that with a Dark Wizard! He just wouldn't!'

And she hadn't yelled at anyone about Fawkes's touch on her own cheek, because she knew it wouldn't be right - that if a phoenix touched you, you weren't supposed to brag about it, that wasn't what a phoenix was for.

But she'd really hoped that it would squash the rumors about Harry Potter going evil