Astral Codex Ten

Harry Potter

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Harry Potter

Article

Harry Potter is a recurring person in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 2 times across 2 issues between February 16, 2022 and September 19, 2022. The archive places it in contexts such as “Harry Potter is wish-fulfillment”; “Mr. Potter; nothing bad has so very visibly happened”. It most often appears alongside Abercrombie & Fitch, AskReddit, Athenian democracy.

Metadata

  • Category: People
  • Mention count: 2
  • Issue count: 2
  • First seen: February 16, 2022
  • Last seen: September 19, 2022

Appears In

Source Context

Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.

Book Review: Sadly, Porn
February 16, 2022 · Original source
(I can’t remember if it was Teach or an imitator who applied this analysis to Harry Potter. Harry isn’t the smartest or hardest-working person in the school - that’s Hermione. He’s not the most ambitious/decisive/strategic/active person - that’s Lord Voldemort, which automatically codes him as a villain. So why is Harry the main character and the hero? Because a prophecy placed the burden of specialness on him, without him asking; it was forced upon him by an omnipotent entity, no action required. Harry Potter is wish-fulfillment; the modern person wants to be special not because they accomplished great stuff but because special-ness is just who they are. Brands tell them that this is true, and in exchange they buy the brands. [Brand]: Because You Deserve It.)
Actually, he shows contempt for people who seek self-knowledge, full stop. Self-knowledge is of the same genus as the Harry Potter uniqueness fetish: if only I had the right brands / the right dream interpretations / the right personality test results, I could understand my deepest self and then succeed effortlessly.
Janus' GPT Wrangling
September 19, 2022 · Original source
Can the characters work out that they are in GPT-3, specifically? The closest I have seen is in a story Janus generated. It was meant to simulate a chapter of the popular Harry Potter fanfic Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality. You can see the prompt and full story here, but here’s a sample. Professor Quirrell is explaining “Dittomancy”, the creation of magical books with infinite possible worlds:
Inline links: here
Harry’s mind was looking up at the stars with a sense of agony.
The slide began to type itself, false text appearing at the speed of thought - THE NONSENSE MACHINE IS A COMBINATORIAL PERFORMANT OF INFINITE DIMENSION, WHICH CAN DEVELOP AND SUDDENLY EMIT PRETERNATURALLY ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY. INHERENT TO ITS OPERATION, THE RESULT IS ALWAYS TEMPORALLY ASYMMETRICAL AND PARADOXICAL; IT TELLS A STORY IN WHICH EVENT A OCCURS BEFORE THE CAUSE OF EVENT A - THEN EVENT A CASCADES THROUGH TO RESTORE THE SELF-CONSISTENCY OF HISTORY AND ITEMS HAVE ENTERED EXISTENCE OF THEIR OWN ACCORD, CREATED FROM … - Professor Quirrell yanked the presentation away before the lines could complete, and the Defense Professor raised his head to stare at Harry while Harry, intensely curious and alarmed, watched him in turn.