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I finally took a stab at Homestuck. I went "ehhh".
I finally took a stab at Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality. I'm most of the way through. It's not perfect, it's got its moments of smugness, Mary Sueness, character clumsiness, or cultural arrogance. It also has a fair number of clever takes in it, and is full of CS and physics and SF reference I get because I've read the same stuff Eli Yudkowsky has. I'm actually surprised on the SF front, like when I saw the witch named Dorotea Senjak. And Dumbledore having read Lord of the Rings because Muggleborn students *would* compare him to Gandalf was brilliant.
I'll also give some credit for fanfic Harry not being perfect. He's super-rationaist and getting beyond implausible for an 11 year old -- Eli should really have fast-forward to age 15, say, except then he'd lose his take on Quirrel -- and super genius and all, but also pretty *stupid* in some realistic ways.
Anyway, so in the HP universe there's this horrible Azkaban, with Dementor guards, who drive people to depression and insanity. Really horrible and inhumane, and it seems to speak very ill of wizarding society.
Dementors are also called indestructible (outside of Mary Sue fanfic action.) And while the Wikia doesn't confirm this, in the fanfic they erode matter or magic containing them, so Harry's clever plan of encasing one in titanium and concrete and burying it deep beneath the earth would not in fact necessarily work for very long.
So I wonder if Azkaban is a devil's bargain. Not just about cruelty to prisoners, but about bribing indestructible monsters to stay away from society. Its formation might even be a bedrock of magical (or any) civilization, allowing people to live their lives in peace rather than getting attacked by Dementors in the middle of the night at random. But on the subject of Azkaban fanfic Harry's been pure moralist, without a touch of utilitarian dilemma.
Per the concrete, I thought about possible alternatives. Like imprisoning the Dementors and tasking wizards with maintaining the wards. Though if you've got 100+ Dementors and want say 3 shifts of guards it might take a fair chunk of wizarding society to keep them contained. But what price morality, eh?
Then I realized Azkaban could *be* a prison for the Dementors as well, one with prisoners thrown in to keep them happy and not trying to get out...
I finally took a stab at Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality. I'm most of the way through. It's not perfect, it's got its moments of smugness, Mary Sueness, character clumsiness, or cultural arrogance. It also has a fair number of clever takes in it, and is full of CS and physics and SF reference I get because I've read the same stuff Eli Yudkowsky has. I'm actually surprised on the SF front, like when I saw the witch named Dorotea Senjak. And Dumbledore having read Lord of the Rings because Muggleborn students *would* compare him to Gandalf was brilliant.
I'll also give some credit for fanfic Harry not being perfect. He's super-rationaist and getting beyond implausible for an 11 year old -- Eli should really have fast-forward to age 15, say, except then he'd lose his take on Quirrel -- and super genius and all, but also pretty *stupid* in some realistic ways.
Anyway, so in the HP universe there's this horrible Azkaban, with Dementor guards, who drive people to depression and insanity. Really horrible and inhumane, and it seems to speak very ill of wizarding society.
Dementors are also called indestructible (outside of Mary Sue fanfic action.) And while the Wikia doesn't confirm this, in the fanfic they erode matter or magic containing them, so Harry's clever plan of encasing one in titanium and concrete and burying it deep beneath the earth would not in fact necessarily work for very long.
So I wonder if Azkaban is a devil's bargain. Not just about cruelty to prisoners, but about bribing indestructible monsters to stay away from society. Its formation might even be a bedrock of magical (or any) civilization, allowing people to live their lives in peace rather than getting attacked by Dementors in the middle of the night at random. But on the subject of Azkaban fanfic Harry's been pure moralist, without a touch of utilitarian dilemma.
Per the concrete, I thought about possible alternatives. Like imprisoning the Dementors and tasking wizards with maintaining the wards. Though if you've got 100+ Dementors and want say 3 shifts of guards it might take a fair chunk of wizarding society to keep them contained. But what price morality, eh?
Then I realized Azkaban could *be* a prison for the Dementors as well, one with prisoners thrown in to keep them happy and not trying to get out...