Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality
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Oh, that cringe fanfic
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- Sep 28, 2025
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Oh god, I love this. 
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Oh god fucking why.
Just remember the weirdo cult leader who wrote this to this day has no college degree and did not graduate high school. His entire worldview is the result of reading classical science fiction literature and a bunch of advanced mathematics and physics textbooks. But he can in fact cast one entirely real spell at will:
EXPECTNO DIPLOMAS
EXPECTNO DIPLOMAS
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Quite frankly, this is peak. The art is good, the story this comes from is good, can't wait for more! PLEASE let there be more...
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Once again, thank you Strange Aeons
I can kind of understand, there's a ton of quality fanfics out there and yet this one got a fancomic? Then again HP is just that big, can't blame cultural momentum
Didn't the guy who wrote it start a weirdo cult or something? The one that believes in Roko's Basilisk: the AI that'll hurt you for not helping it exist once it exists or whatever-the-fuck that thing was about?
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Unironically, i loved this. An interesting "what if".
I need more, plz. At least until HBO releases the new series
I need more, plz. At least until HBO releases the new series
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My talented friend, I created this account just to tell you, please ignore the uncultured idiots whining in the comments. Thank you for adapting this masterpiece. I will be following your work closely and we sincerely hope you continue with this wonderful project. Warmest regards from Ushuaia, fireland , argentina, the city at the end of the world.
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Yep. I'm quite confused by the other people's comments too.
Despite not being high-school or college-educated, Eliezer Yudkowsky is still widely considered one of the greatest and smartest philosophers of the modern era. Like many of the greatest intellects throughout history, he's self-taught. It's rare, but it happens. Even the philosophy generally community accepts (sometimes grudgingly) his fringe rational thought philosophy.
The AI cult is just another one of his numerous thought experiment--basically a grand What-If. Don't take it seriously.
I mean, I think it doesn't matter if he's a good philosopher or not since that doesn't really affect your experience of this story. To me, it's clear that a lot of the hate for him as an author (not philosopher) is very mis-informed and sophomoric. It has the smell of people hopping on a bandwagon because hating on something is fun. "Hey have you heard how this author is a WEIRDO?"
I do think the fic can be very cringe at times, and also might be bad as art because it kinda does a bait-and-switch[1]. But at the same time, I know for a fact that most of the people going "haha author leads a cult" is just plain wrong about the facts[2] and also I am damned sure that they have lower IQ than the author no matter how cringe he is.
[1]: You think it's a simple, comedic "science meets harry potter". But after the first few chapters it takes itself SERIOUSLY with dramatically heavy plots that are pretty independent of that premise. So a lot of people get cringe vibes from that. It's like having your slapstick comedian unironically try to be a hollywood actor. Most people wanna laugh at it and put them back in their place.
You may feel like this is a HP-parody, but that's what would get you disappointed. It's no more or less than an actual fanfic, as in, the author wants to tell their own derivative version of a story. And this author loves high-stakes drama and plotting characters, so you will get that. It will not feel like a parody anymore after the first few chapters. If you're okay with that sort of story then no problem. It's not a parody in the sense that it focuses on the main premise of "science". It focuses on whatever the author thinks is cool for the story.
[2]: The cult reputation seems pretty much just internet dramatic exaggeration and not a real thing: they keep talking about nerd cults that the author has indirectly ASSOCIATED with. As in, some people he may know or are friends with might be doing weird cult-like things. It's no more weird than Elon Musk and all the other tech bro stuff. It's not like he literally started a cult and there's people brainwashed into worshiping him. The internet drama is pretending there's something of the latter going on when there is only association by a few degrees.
And if you were wondering, I'm speaking as a guy who's familiar (but not professional) with the technical research area that his "philosophy" stuff is related to, I'm familiar with the author's history of things other than this story for more than a decade now. I have mutual acquaintances with this author and have communicated with him directly on the internet a few times. That's why I'm pretty confident in my assessment of the claim of whether he's a cult leader. I mean if he's hiding his cult-leader status from me then it must also be part of a conspiracy of every other person involved that I may have come into contact with.
This fic itself is okay-ish to me and I do cringe when its fans tell everybody that it's the BEST LITERATURE TO EVER EXIST, but hey that goes for literally every fandom so it's not really special.
This manga also may end up as better art than the writing it's based on, so we will see.
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