Best products from r/HPMOR

Thanks for the recommendation. Three non-fiction books that I like that might appeal to others who enjoy HPMOR:

Influence, Robert Cialdini. This is like a handbook of ways that people may try to short circuit your rational thinking. And it is written well enough for casual reading, not totally textbook style. Favorite quotes:

• "[P]eople at the racetrack: Just after placing a bet, they are much more confident of their horse's chances than they are immediately before laying down the bet."
  
  
• "[I]t is apparent that good looking people enjoy enormous social advantage in our culture. They are better liked, more persuasive, more frequently helped, and seen as possessing better personality traits and intellectual capabilites" [i.e., why it is worth paying attention to your appearance]
  
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  Rising Up and Rising Down: Some Thoughts on Violence, Freedom, and Urgent Means, William Vollmann. The title pretty much explains it. Quote:
  
  
• "The simple law of might accords respect to an armed individual [...] another way of saying that security is a precondition for autonomy. One long-standing labor unionist and civil rights activist had to contend with the active hostility of American police. In a certain town, Ku Klux Klan recruiting posters adorned the police station. The activist recalls:
  "I am convinced that I'm alive today because I traveled with firearms -- and that this fact was generally known." "
  
  I enjoyed this book more for the "true facts" aspect of historical accounts of the use of violence than the attempt to create a moral calculus. I only have the abridged version.
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  Bargaining For Advantage, G. Richard Shell. This is a straightforward pretty short (~250 page) book about bargaining/negotiation. It is about identifying the situation you are in, evaluating the other parties, evaluating your own tendencies (and if it might be better to delegate), and conducting the business. amazon

In the interest of trying to recommend books you may not have read, I am suggesting some that may seem far afield from books like HPMOR. But I have read each of them multiple times and loved them, and all of them gave me a lot to think about.

I just created a comment for Chapter 85 recommending Between Silk and Cyanide by Leo Marks. It is non-fiction, a painfully honest autobiography, and not very similar except for the bits about Knut Haukelid, but it is an amazing book. The author was the head of codes for SOE during WWII and so the book is about cryptography and secrets. And courage. I'm reading it for the third time right now.

Tuf Voyaging is a collection of short stories by George R. R. Martin (no one named Stark is in it), about Haviland Tuf, a misanthropic cat-loving merchant who starts with his humble ship "Cornucopia of Excellent Goods at Low Prices" and ends up with terrifying power and some hard decisions to make about how to use it. I'd call it comedy because it is hilarious, but it is also brilliantly-written horror.

Memoirs Found in a Bathtub is a tiny surreal book by Stanislaw Lem, about a journal uncovered by a post-apolcalyptic civilization. The main character has no name, and is apparently a spy on a mission so secret even he doesn't know about it. It is nightmarish, has absolutely no rationality to it at all, is clever and unlike any other book I've read, and most people haven't heard of it.

The Control of Nature by John McPhee is another non-fiction book. I recommend it for the beauty of the language, the depth of the research, and the fact that it is incredibly fascinating and impossible to put down. McPhee makes every person he meets into someone you want to know, and his science has substance without ever losing that sense of wonder.

Oh, you're in for a treat. I'm not sure where you can get them these days, if they've been completely translated yet or not (I've read bootleg translations, pretty good), but I'd recommend these two:

The Monogatari series - just an awesome mix of action, silly, sexy and surreal:
http://www.amazon.com/KIZUMONOGATARI-Wound-Tale-NISIOISIN/dp/1941220975/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1454151508&sr=1-1&keywords=nishio+ishin

Haruhi Suzumiya - starts as light fun, ends up as hard SF. I think the best time-travel sf series I've read, among other things.
http://www.amazon.com/Melancholy-Haruhi-Suzumiya-Nagaru-Tanigawa/dp/0316039020

> "Two mounds of promise"

Oh duh, I forgot about that particular sex scene. I also fail at Google, though thank you for not using lmgtfy. I fucking hate that site.

I see where you're coming from in your dislike of Wastelands' style, but we'll just have to agree to disagree. I really liked the style, possibly for the same reason that I really enjoy stuff like Max Payne.

It's also ironic that you say that Wastelands is several steps removed from actually being publishable, since he basically did publish it. Distant Star is probably about 65% the same book as Wastelands (the major plot elements revolving around Atlantis, as well as several action scenes, are lifted directly from the fic), and it's apparently been very successful on Amazon.

I bought it, and enjoyed it (the new elements that he added for the novel were intriguing), though I don't think I'll be buying the sequel.

These are kid's books but well and humorously written: The quartet of fantasy novels that begins with "Dealing with Dragons" by Patricia C. Wrede.

The protagonist is a smart, strong-willed princess living in a very traditional magic kingdom, who comes to the conclusion that the only way to avoid having her parents, sister & fairy godmother marry her off to a dimwit knight from the next kingdom over is to escape and become a dragon's princess. Whereupon she finds herself in a world of magic, new friendships, political intrigue and housecleaning.

The first book is a kid's fantasy classic, the last book was actually written first and has a different tone and protagonist than the other 3 and the middle 2 feel a little interstitial ... but it's all a fun read for a couple of afternoons, if you can find them stocked at your local library.

EDIT: First chapter of "Dealing with Dragons" is previewable on amazon. Includes a great proto-rational conversation between the princess and a talking frog.

Q: Why did this Buddhist monk burn himself to death?

A: Because he was not willing to burn anyone else.

Harry does not think "that [he is] the only one who has any ethical responsibility, and everyone else's actions are simply the consequences of [his] own."

Rather, he believes that he is the only one he can personally be ethically responsible for, and he holds himself to a rigorous standard of existential discipline. This results from his ultimate refusal to be bound by anyone else's ethical ideas, having instead committed himself, in the strongest sense, to the ethical mandates of rationality. If his rational conclusions tell him he must take a certain ethical stance, and back it with all necessary action, then he is committed to do so... or else he may as well give up on rationality altogether and join the lemming horde of mediocrity.

(Edit: this is how he can credibly threaten to wreck Azkaban even at the cost of his life when nobody else would even consider it.)

If you can't fully understand this attitude, it merely means you are like most people. If you can fully understand this attitude, you are probably already a source of wonder in your social circle. You'll be the one who is not lightly messed with.

For an expanded examination of what I am talking about, hunt down a copy of The Outsider by Colin Wilson.

Edit: seriously, downvoted? Whoever you are, my opinion of your intellect just took a hit. You're trying to understand a character who isn't average, as if he were. Not gonna work.

I know there is Luminosity, a Twilight fanfic. This was specifically inspired by HPMOR, as far as I know.

And someone from this community started writing a Pokémon fanfic.

Friendship is Optimal is also frequently mentioned in the same breath as HPMOR, but I don't know if it was inspired by it. It's not true fanfic, in that it doesn't really use any of the original characters or even the actual universe of the source material. It's still pretty good, though.

And as always in these conversations, I'd like to point out that Rational!Animorphs would be really cool and probably lends itself to this genre quite a lot. The only real hurdle to overcome is figuring out Z-space. ^(I'd do it myself, but I'm not a good writer.)

Edit: Since this is the top-rated comment, I'm going to update based on what others have said.

There's also Lighting Up the Dark, a Rational!Naruto fanfic that is explicitly based on an HPMOR omake.

And then there's Rationalising Death, a Death Note fanfic.

Edit 2: Hamlet and the Philosopher's Stone which is touched on in one of the omakes. Unlike the others, you have to pay for this one.

>"Gödel, Escher, Bach" by Douglas R. Hofstadter is the most awesome book that I have ever read. If there is one book that emphasizes the tragedy of Death, it is this book, because it's terrible that so many people have died without reading it."

Apparently I never got remotely far-enough into the book for this statement to make sense.

(I got tired of carrying that huge paperback around in my backpack.)

Lemme go get a Kindle copy.

I've heard good things about Good and Real.

>Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach[2] , also recommended by Yudkowsky, is the most comprehensive, state of the art introduction to the theory and practice of artificial intelligence for modern applications. It's the leading textbook in the field of artificial intelligence, used in over 1100 universities worldwide. I think it's obvious why a community read-through of this would be beneficial.

Russel and Norvig is the standard textbook for "Good Old-Fashioned AI", ie: the kind that's not at all worthy of being called "AI". It's used as a textbook in the first course in GOFAI for undergrads. It teaches fairly little programming, very little mathematics, and covers nothing of the kind of modern machine-learning techniques that actually get results these days, let alone the increasingly elegant and advanced learning techniques that are yielding good models of what cognition is.

On the textbook front, though, I can recommend that anyone with basic Calc 1+2 under their belt can go ahead and read Introduction to Bayesian Statistics to get a first taste of how "Bayesianism" actually works, and also why it hasn't taken over the world already (hint: computational concerns).

True, though multi-factored Bayesian analysis is a thought experiment, and remember the point isn't the probabilities the point is to force your mind to consider factors, look how they combine empirically, and then come to decisions or conclusions.

Remember you chuck the end numbers out and go with your gut after you have forced yourself to think through all of the factors, instead of just taking the solutions you've seen.

Most of the predictions I've seen seem more based on the concepts in Blink where wisdom/expertise is comes from the patter matching Harry decries. Hell arguably I do a fair bit of it based on my meta interpretations.

On the up and down side many people express their odds in high percentages. That makes sense, other than the crack/tinfoils people aren't going to make predictions that don't have high probabilities based on inductive or deductive reasoning, but it's also a fair way to express certainty.

Also, minds don't deal with numbers well. Some people can be trained to do good mental arithmetic, or to be proficient judging an angel within a few degrees, so the difference between 14 and 17 percent being about one in six or one in seven is likely to be missed and things will stay often in approximate terms of numbers easy to conceptualize: ie under six.

That said most of my predictions are based on assumption that I see solution x among n plausible solutions with a approximate percentage of roughly 1/(n+k) or so, where the evidence is about equal and k is generally a fudge less than one. I have a hunch, usually based on Harry's hated pattern matching, that he also lauds as "asking how long it took last time. . . that's called taking the outside view." and I use it to promote a possibility and what I think the solution space is narrowed down to based on the evidence.

Often I throw up here things that come from looking for solutions instead of looking at the problem, with the intent of seeing if constructive /destructive criticism, occurs and I generally try to do the same, because good group discussion, vice groupthink can be very productive (in business this is often called and integrated product team or the like)

Maybe I should take HPMOR more seriously, but I'm in this for the fun and haven't taken the time for all of the series yet.

Your scenario assumes there is only one ransomer and one ransomee in the world. This can make for a good toy problem, but we should be clear that we're diverging from the real world here.

This is one of many scenarios where it is to your advantage for your opponent to believe that there are circumstances in which you will act against your own (apparent) self-interest. The best thing you can do to prevent kidnapping (in this scenario) is to credibly and publicly assert that you will never pay a random.

If you're a kidnapper and you anticipate people attempting this strategy, you can publicly and credibly delcare that you'll kidnap people regardless. (This might be tricky, as kidnappers historically aren't super credible people).

The key is to be (1) credible and (2) first. Whoever makes the first credible precommitment wins.

Similarly: there is a game called "Chicken", where two drivers careen towards each other at high speed; whoever swerves first loses. The dominant strategy...

(think about it for at least 30 seconds)

(it hasn't been 30 seconds yet)

(keep thinking)

(do you have an answer?)

(take a second to write it down or say it out loud)

[solution](#s "...is to throw your steering wheel out the window before the game starts, such that your opponent knows for a fact that you can't swerve.")

Another, similar demonstration of the power of precommitment is demonstrated here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0qjK3TWZE8. If you want to skip the game show fluff: It's a prisoners dilemma and things get fun around 2:40.

tldr: You can use your opponent's model of you as a weapon against them.

Recommended reading: http://www.amazon.com/The-Strategy-Conflict-Thomas-Schelling/dp/0674840313

> So You Want To Be a Wizard by Diane Duane. It's kid-friendly stuff, surprisingly serious, and really amazingly cool. There are digital editions of the 9 book set around for relatively cheap. These books are great.

There's also a tenth book now, as well as a book of three novellas that take place between the ninth and tenth books.

list of linked fictions in order posted repeats omitted, see my other comments for what EY said about them.

Dungeon Keeper Ami by Pusakuronu As a .docx

Mandragora (HP)

To The Stars (Madoka)

My Little Pony: Friendship is Betrayal (MLP)

Earthfic

Unequally Rational and Emotional(Negima/damn near everything)

The Missing Risk Premium (Non-Fic)

Mahou Sensei Negima manga


Harry Potter and the Natural 20 (HP/DnD)

Naruto: Game of the Year Edition(Naruto)

Big Human on Campus(Ranma/RosarioxVampire)

Friendship is Optimal (MLP)

Myou’ve Gotta Be Kidding Me(MLP)

Prince of the Dark Kingdom (HP)

Fallout Equestria (MLP)

Time Braid(Naruto)

Hybrid Theroy(Mega Crossover)

Luminosity (Twilight)

[Discworld] (http://i.imgur.com/kvqoC1h.jpg)

The Best Night Ever(MLP)

Imperfect Metamorphosis(Touhou)

Sanctum

Friendship is Optimal: Caelum est Conterrens(MLP)

Tales of Mu

Black Cloaks, Red Clouds (Naruto)

Dirty Old Men(Naruto)

The Eyre Affair (first novel in the Thursday Next series)

Postnuptial Disagreements(F/SN / Sekirei)

Saga of Soul

Murasakiiro no Qualia

NGE: Nobody Dies: The Trials of Kirima Harasami(Eva)

Love Lockdown(Naruto)

Worm

MLP Loops(MLP)

City of Angles

The Last Christmas

Branches on the Tree of Time(Terminator)

How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love Lord Voldemort(HP)

Emperor of Zero(Familiar of Zero/Napoleon)

Cenotaph(Worm)

Memoirs of a Human Flashlight(Worm/Exalted)

She Who Skitters in Darkness(Worm/Exalted)

Goblin Queen(Worm/Exalted)

Starry Eyes(Worm/Lovecraft)

Tale of Transmigration(Worm)

Bug on a Wire.(Worm)

Sunshine

Toasterverse(Avengers)

Back Again(LOTR)

Carpetbaggers(Narnia)

A Bluer Shade of White (Frozen)

Metropolitan Man(Superman)

Ra

Homestuck

In Fire Forged(Naruto)

Right Moments(Ranma)

Hitherby Dragons

Nice Dragons Finish Last

The Shadow of What Was Lost

The Unwelcome Warlock

Path of the King (F/SN)

Gate! Thus the JSDF Fought There

Weaver Nine(Worm)

https://www.fanfiction.net/community/Rational-stories/117575/99/4/1/0/0/0/0/
https://www.reddit.com/r/rational

EY recently published a light novel, A Girl Corrupted by the Internet is the Summoned Hero?! Short but fun.

The Naruto rationalist fic The Waves Arisen may have been written by EY under a pseudonym. It's similar to HPMOR in style, though again it's much shorter.

Everyone seems to have forgotten about Hamlet and the Philosopher's Stone, probably neglected just because it's behind a paywall. One of my personal favorites out of the rational!fic literature! There's more about it here.

Also, some thoughts, mods: Can we add a "other Rationalist Fics" section to the sidebar, or maybe a wiki page with a link there? We'd include the other MoR-verse fics, the other rational!fics, and the Sequences, as a nice neat little resource for people who want more. That way, we won't have the need for so many redundant threads. And when they start a new fic, authors can PM the mods! Whatdya think?

He published this almost a year ago: A Girl Corrupted by the Internet is the Summoned Hero?!

It looks like Dark Lord's Answer was written first, but not published first because it wasn't up to Eliezer's standards, but he decided to publish it anyway.