katherinakaina

[katherinakaina]

re: your "My theory is that while other characters feel more like you, the player, Daniil always feels like Daniil." point (which I understand you personally also disagree with, so I am not saying this in opposition with you or anything): I have also noticed this and I find it fascinating as a phenomenon because, if you're going into the game blind, should Daniil not be the character you project yourself onto the most? Assuming his route is the one you play first (which I understand is true for most players), I think this means you are less also likely to realize you are Playing A Character who is different from his co-protagonists and simply pick the options that make the most sense for your personality. That was certainly the case for me. So if you're going for the I Am A Dick options from the get go well... quite frankly I don't think the character is the problem. Especially when he comes across as more helpful and polite than dickish in the other two routes.

Yeah, I agree. I don't know why Daniil has such a strong personality it transcends the rules of RPGs or something.

[katherinakaina]

YES YES YES THAT DANIIL POST IS SO GOOD

The intersection between thanatophobic thinking (both fearing death as any other phobia yes but also despising it and believing that death can be overcome) and suicidal ideation is so fascinating to me as someone dealt with both, oftentimes at the same time

How these two aspects can both clash and work together in the worst ways is something I wish was more explored in fiction, unfortunately there is a lot of social stigmas around them

To be suicidal has been historically seen as cowardly and weak (even if in recent times the attitudes has shifted a little, still I don't think society quite knows how to handle those with suicidal inclination)

And to be thanatophobic, to reject death is seen as arrogant, and like, that's not completely without merit, often times those who sought immortality are those most privileged, those who have escaped every other hardship.

But that's not the only reason one would reject death. My parents had lived through a war (a war that was technically not over by the time I was born) so they and people from my parents home country dealt with the grief by accepting death and believing in something better after it, but to me growing up in a family surrounded by the stench of death and being told that's just the way it is felt wrong

to reject death is not always about rejecting pain, rejecting change, but instead it can be about rejecting injustice, rejecting a world that would rather you give in and do its dirty work for it and disappear, to reject death is to live despite your own mind telling you should just lie down and cease all function

The fight against death can be and often times IS a good one

Anyways sorry for the disjointed ask I have just been thinking about this a lot for the past, well, my entire life, and also I have been reading The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere which is dealing with the same themes (its about a bunch of medical students visiting a secret organization that is trying to cure death) so its been on my mind more than usual

Agree completely.

People think rejecting death is empty fantasies of the privileged and arrogant intellectuals. As if most of the world’s religions aren’t built around literal belief in immortality of the soul and life everlasting. Majority of the most marginalized, most impoverished people on this planet live only for the dream of their future utopian life in the sky. Someone more versed in christianity than me should write on all the christian themes in Utopianism but it doesn’t take an expert to see that they are there.

The difference is that one everlasting life is given to you by a heavenly monarch and another is completely in the hands of humans since it’s going to be created by them. And it fits so beautifully into the inherent metaphor of being a doctor.

Is it blasphemy to be a medic at all? Are you fighting God every time you interfere with His plan by saving a life? Or is it a virtuous and merciful act, to help others, to relieve suffering, to prolong life? Are you showing your devotion to God by serving His creatures?

There are religious people on both sides of this argument. But if we reject the former and agree with the latter, then why should there be an end to our mercy? Isn’t curing death the ultimate act of Love towards God’s creations?

I think Daniil and Clara could have a lot of interesting conversations on the subject.

The post in question.

[katherinakaina]

@strange-aeons , you don’t have to like hpmor at all! It has a non conventional style of storytelling that some people really love and others can’t stand. It’s totally fine. But you are factually wrong about plot points and their meaning and omit a lot of context.

TLDR: Intelligence is a virtue, but it’s not even the main one. The villain is extremely evil and also the smartest person in the story. Most of Harry’s misanthropic thoughts are coming from his horcrux and aren’t meant to be taken as his genuine morals. One of the biggest themes of the fic is immortalism and the value of human life. It does not logically lead to the devaluing of human life in any way whatsoever.

In most stories, plot moving forward should be the product (in full or in part) of the main character’s motivations and choices. The objective is better be clear and the characters all should make progress in achieving it, overcoming difficulties. Such plots are universally engaging and easy to follow. They are good.

The plot in hpmor is not like that at all. Which is the main reason why it’s not enjoyable to many people, I believe. They find it confusing and hard to follow, boring. The most of the fic is a character and lore building filler. And if the characters don’t work for you, yeah, the plot's not going to carry you through it (I mean, you had been warned).

But this doesn’t mean that there’s no plot. It’s just that the plot only becomes clear in the very end or worse – on the second read. And you aren’t going to read it again so let me map it out.

• This summer! Voldemort gained a body and is back in business, baby. He knows, of course, that he accidentally created a horcrux in Harry and now there’s a boy somewhere who shares a part of his mind. Clear objective – create himself a perfect disciple and get back to taking over the world by first obtaining the philosopher's stone. Therefore:

• Voldemort gets himself a position in Hogwarts to kill both birds with as few stones as possible. He starts slowly grooming Harry using every manipulation tactic in the book. He is pretty successful for a while. But alas, Harry is way too good! Therefore:

• Voldemort needs to empower the part of Harry's mind that is his horcrux and weaken whatever it is that makes Harry good. Luckily, there’s a creature who can do just that. So Voldemort gets the permission to teach the patronus spell to the first years to have an excuse to expose Harry to a dementor. This even works for a short burst. But alas, through the power of friendship Harry was able to shake it off and also get an insight into dementor’s nature. With it, he finds a way to completely destroy them. Therefore:

• Change of plans. Voldemort can still use just how much Harry hates dementors against him. He can turn Harry’s burning goodness into blazing rage and corrupt him this way. For that he takes him to Azkaban to rescue Bellatrix (part of taking over the world long term planning) so Harry could see how evil the government that allows this torture prison is (also more trauma bonding). But alas, during the mission Voldemort went too far and tried to kill an auror, which Harry did not like one bit. Therefore:

• Voldemort tries to gaslight Harry and press further, suggesting a second mission, a really crazy one this time – to fabricate a duel with Voldemort (whomever that guy is) to convince Dumbledor and the rest of the world that they are safe so they’d stop watching over Harry and would let him do whatever he wants. But alas, Harry can’t shake the murder thing off and he starts to suspect that Hermione was right the entire time to think that Quirrell is evil. Therefore:

• Voldemort needs to brainwash and recruit Hermione too, make her into ‘Harry’s Bellatrix’. Alas, she has a superb moral intuition and is not fooled by clever ruses. Therefore:

• Voldemort needs to permanently alter Hermione. He frames her for attempting to kill Draco so she would be sent to Azkaban. Perfect, this would reinforce Harry’s hate for the government and every single adult around him, isolating him even further while breaking Hermione’s resolve and making her ripe for brainwashing after all. Alas, he underestimated just how much Harry is willing to do for his best friend. Oh well, therefore:

• Voldemort has to remove Hermione entirely. So she is crushed by the troll. ALAS, he underestimated again just how much Harry likes his best friend. This death shocks Harry to the core and cements him on the path to defeating death. This produces a vague and scary prophecy that could mean that Harry will destroy the world. Voldemort cannot accept this outcome (he lives in the world). Therefore:

• Abort the plan, Harry has to go. But Voldemort knows how close to impossible it is to do anything about a prophecy. So he takes several precautions as well, such as reversing his last move that caused the shift in the first place – he brings Hermione back (with special powers so she wouldn’t die easily again). He also finally gets to the philosopher’s stone, seales Dumbledore away, life's looking good. Alas, prophecy is prophesy. Harry defeated him using one secret weapon Voldemort had no knowledge of (all thanks to Dumbledorer’s foresight).

• Harry realizes what a giant doofus he’s been the entire year, that Hermione was right about everything and that Dumbledore was really the one scheming against Voldemort and leading him to this victory. Together with Hermione and the rest he opens free healthcare for wizards and swears to destroy the torture prison. The end!

As you can see, the plot is driven by Voldemort and his motivations. What Harry and the rest of the kids are doing – they are being kids, fantasizing about their future and messing around. The closest Harry is to moving towards his stated goals is having his research with Hermione and his redemption quest with Draco. He’s 11. No matter how smart he is, the villain is smarter.

The original JKR’s Harry, Ron and Hermione are able to foil Voldemort's plans on their own, hpmor Harry doesn’t even realize there are some sort of Voldemort’s plans happening*. He suspects that Voldemort doesn’t even exist from how absent he is being. And Harry is the one to warn others about not being pessimistic enough while underestimating the danger he is in and what’s being done to him the entire time. Pessimism is one of the main lessons of the fic. (remember feeling it can’t get any worse after 2020?)

The second major thing you missed is that intelligence is NOT the only virtue worth celebrating. The smartest person and the moving force of the plot is literally Voldemort, the most evil bastard out there.

Imagine someone who criticises Fight Club for glorifying Tayler Derden and male violence not understanding that the author is on their side. That’s what you are doing. You assumed that the author glorifies the villain because you assumed that intelligence is all that matters to him. But why would you do that?

You explained yourself in the beginning that Yudkowsky’s biggest fear is misaligned and homicidal super intelligent being. Clearly, he doesn’t believe that being intelligent is all that matters. Intelligence is just a universal problem-solving tool. It’s very impressive and is not given proper credit to. But it’s not a motivation on its own. It obviously needs to be guided by humanism. This distinction is all over hpmor. It’s the only difference between the hero and the villain who are both smart.

And Voldemort is written evil from the very beginning, it's not just a gotcha rugpull in the very end. His grooming is meant to be wrong and creepy. But also believable because everyone is totally fooled by it. Everyone except the reader who’s paying close attention (which is difficult to do if you are bored and skip chapters, I get it) and also knows Quirrell’s real identity from the start.

There are multiple moments where even Harry realizes something Professor Quirell did was wrong and those keep piling up. For example, the games weren’t just cool, they were 1) about Harry getting humbled, making friends, learning to work with others and respect others and feeling like a part of something for the first time in his life (something you said isn’t in the fic at all, while it’s most of the fic actually) and also 2) organized by the villain!

Did you skip Quirrell making his fascist speech on Christmas about how he deliberately was trying to build an army and teach children how to fight at war that leaves Harry horrified? Again, it is literally all spilled in the villain’s monologue and then extra clarified in the main character’s inner thoughts. This fic is very blatant in its messaging.

Grooming is a bit less obvious if you’ve never been groomed by a charming teacher like that. But you should be at least able to notice when he's lying.

When Quirrell sells Harry on the idea of being publicly humiliated for personal growth purposes he tells him a story about him doing the same ritual in his travels. Quirrell also tells that after he completed the ritual and left the school – Voldemort went there and was asked to do the same thing. But Voldemort refused and murdered everybody. If you keep in mind that Quirrell and Voldemort are the same person you can piece together that he didn’t sincerely value humility and being able to lose or whatever. Because the real story is that he killed all those people and never took an L in his entire life. He was trauma bonding Harry so he could manipulate him. It was not a good chapter teaching a lesson about rationality. Because being humble toward the truth (actual rationality) has nothing to do with taking crap from bullies. Half the fic is about fighting bullies actually.

A fight Harry doesn’t win! As well as many other fights he took upon himself, like figuring out the entire magic in his first year. I don’t know who promised you he would and I’m sorry you felt cheated by that not happening. But you said the main character is proven right about everything and succeeds at everything and is never wrong (he is proven wrong about something every other chapter, not to mention the final reveal). And then you complain that he didn’t succeed at something?** Pick one.

But the main appeal of Harry as a character is not how he wins or loses. It’s his moral core. It’s how despite having a part of Voldemort’s mind intertwined with his he still remains driven by his dedication to people around him and humanity in general. He and Voldemort really make perfect twisted reflections of each other.

The fic drills in just how evil Voldemort is by mostly highlighting his disregard for human life. We see it when Quirrell shares his insight into Voldemort’s actions and history as if he was the one fighting him and that’s why he knows all that. But the reader knows that Quirrell is just telling on himself. Like how he can use Avada Kedavra so fast because he just doesn’t care, for example.

We also see it through Harry himself. His misanthropic tendencies you actually took care to notice quite a lot are coming from that part of his soul that is Voldemort’s horcrux. Harry does not endorse it and literally calls it ‘my dark side’***. This behaviour comes out when Harry is annoyed or inconvenienced or threatened by other people (regular human emotion, super relatable if you had to unlearn some toxic trait in your life). Emotions of anger, irritation and vindictiveness are crucial to the dark side (see the endnote again). But when Harry thinks about human life seriously and calmly he is able to suppress it every time. Moreso, he is sure the killing curse is a spell he won’t ever be able to use.

I could go on and on (like how hpmor isn’t about science facts and contains very few of them) but I’ll stop here. I think you should have noticed not paying attention while reading. And yet you wrote and filmed a review anyway, despite obviously zoning out while experiencing the work in question.

Also, I haven’t read the books you recommended and I will. But I’ve read many books that are widely considered Great Art and they sucked. People like hpmor and ratfic in general not because we haven’t read good books. It fulfills a need few other books do, that’s it.

Obviously, I have my own criticism of hpmor that mostly has to do with how Yudkowsky writes women. Which is leagues ahead of what JKR wrote but still leaves a lot to be desired. And yes, it is not polished. It’s serialized fiction, it’s usually like that.

More about rationality. More about zizians.

* A huge guess here is those irritating chapters where Harry and Draco are playing at manipulating each other. They are close to being equals and therefore they can see through each other’s schemes. When Harry has to deal with Dumbledore and especially Voldemort he is completely lost, he does not understand that he is being manipulated at all.

** He actually makes major progress and has a good guess by the end (that magic is like a programming language of the world created by some sentient civilization). I mean, the author had to work with the material he inherited, he couldn’t build a more interesting magical system from the ground up. But he expanded a lot on the lore of dementors, some spells and in general brought a lot of sense to the thing.

*** The entire thing is one huge reference to Star Wars prequels. You have the evil dark lord mastermind who plays both sides of the conflict, trying to brainwash the chosen one hero to his cause and make a disciple out of him. They are to become two sith rulers of the world, ‘bringing order to it’. Dark and Light Sides two common metaphors in the rationalist community. Light Side being all the altruistic uses of intelligence and Dark Side is the opposite of that.

[katherinakaina]

I also need to add a bit of context to your very short bit about Zizians, @strange-aeons .

TLDR: Ziz left the rationalist community 6 years ago and even at the time she wasn’t liked there, the fact she managed to exploit. Her actions directly contradict both hpmor and what CFAR was doing and teaching. Her other affiliations that are no less relevant include being an anarchist and a vegan. You are not immune to cults just because you are not into any particular weird internet subculture.

Cults form from niche subcultures, that’s true enough. But any subculture can form a cult because any culture, even the mainstream one, contains some ideas that can be twisted to an insane degree. And any ideology, even the most niche and scary one, can be approached casually and sceptically. What is actually needed to create a cult is not a special ideology but a cult leader and vulnerable people to follow them. That is the main uniting quality between all cults. Trying to figure out what’s wrong with a certain music band or a certain fantasy book forum is an exercise in motivated reasoning. You will always end up finding something that's wrong.

The rationalist community was trying to prevent the formation of a cult as best as they could. Partly that’s the reason why people like Ziz and others with bad and unpopular takes were often tolerated longer than necessary. To encourage criticism and prevent getting stuck in a positive feedback loop. Because it’s not a high control group! You cannot be simultaneously mad that people are allowed to talk about wacky ideas on forums and also that the group is supposedly very rigid and controlled. Apparently, they could use some control. Not like it would actually stop an aspiring cult leader from recruiting, they’d just go some other place.

Zizians were not mostly trans by accident (what are the chances?). Ziz was recruiting the most vulnerable people who related to her and were willing to trust her (also because there’s a lot of trans women in the community, like a lot). She used their very real and grounded experience of discrimination to convince them that her not being liked is not due to her takes being bad but because she’s trans.

And she had a lot of takes, some of them not being popular enough you actually complained about. You criticised LessWrong for being too pro-capitalist for your taste and then started talking about the Really Bad rationalists and THEY ARE LEFTISTS killing landlords and cops.

Now if we are talking about ideologies that devalue human life, how about some that require actual Class War (guess what people do in wars) or violent mass uprisings? Or some that require assassinations of certain select individuals? How come you hear that there are people on forums discussing the ethics of murdering those directly responsible for destroying our planet and you, as a leftist, do not immediately recognize yourself in it? Nothing discussed on LessWrong is more violent than a communist revolution or even the killing of Brian Thompson.

Why being into rationality at some point and reading hpmor is the only thing you told about Ziz? I think I know why. All the right wingers really leaned into the whole ‘trans vegan cult’ thing. That is not a good look for our side, is it? How amazing would it be to find a scapegoat. Who cares about those AI safety freaks anyway? They are all cishet men anyway! All cishet men who somehow have an offshoot of violent vegan queers, that certainly adds up.

Ziz being a radical vegan* (another niche subculture) corresponds to her actions way better than anything that's discussed on LessWrong or happened in hpmor. In fact, there’s an exact scene you probably skipped. Harry is on a very important and dangerous mission with Quirrell and at some point he is told to hide while Quirrell duels a cop guard at magical Guantanamo Bay – a total pig and an absolute scum who Ziz would kill without a second thought. Harry does share her sentiment, he fucking hates Azkaban. But when Quirrell tries to kill the evil torture cop Harry instinctively protects him jeopardizing the entire mission. And it’s not a random scene. It starts the entire disillusionment spiral where Harry realizes his beloved groomer professor might be a bad guy. Murder of a bystander whose only crime is being a product of his society is not something Harry can tolerate. He does end up decapitating a bunch of actual death eaters in the very end (the bit you probably did read) to save his own life and defeat Voldemort and even then he regrets it and apologizes for it (despite it being the right thing to do and not even comparable to a random cop). There’s an entire scene where Harry bonds with Draco over their mother’s deaths where he expresses that every death is a tragedy, even deaths of very bad people (like Voldemort).

Not to mention the entire immortalism theme (did you skip the entire third book?). One cannot read hpmor and walk away thinking human life is worthless or only super geniuses deserve to live. Timeless decision theory leading to murdering people is not in there**, nothing in the fic even suggests such a conclusion. More about how you got most things wrong about hpmor here.

Let’s face it, those were a bunch of sleep deprived vulnerable people high on all sorts of radical ideas, who were kicked out of every decent movement and that’s why they slipped into a cult.

Any subculture can become a cult. If you ever read a boring preachy fanfic or ever went to a physical meeting with internet weirdos. If you ever felt rejected by mainstream society and went looking for ‘like-minded people’, for a ‘found family’, for a ‘place where you belong’. You are not safe. Touching grass from time to time is not enough. You have to never leave the pastures to be highly immune to cults. And that ain’t you, my friend. That’s none of us.

Previous post about rationalist community.

* Ever heard ‘veganism is the moral baseline’ (sometimes minimum or imperative)? That’s not a slander, it’s a commonplace argument and an actual slogan.

** The only use of timeless decision theory in hpmor is about being able to reliably cooperate with other well meaning people, not about killing anyone.

[katherinakaina]

Hello, @strange-aeons . I’ve been a fan of yours for several years. Unfortunately, your last video is very poorly researched, up to not understanding basic definitions. Please read at least a little bit of this.

TLDR: Rationality and rationalism are two different things. Rationality is not about relishing in being right, it’s about searching for the ways in which you are still wrong. And just subscribing to a philosophy is not enough to make you perfect, no one has argued that. Yes, MIRI failed and we aren't hiding from this fact, the community is pushing for regulations or a total ban on AI capabilities research at the moment. The community is very diverse and very queer. SA happens in any group and demographic, it’s a pretty disingenuous way to discredit us.

First, 101 rationality understanding real quick. It’s rationality, not rationalism. Rationalism is a philosophy about Pure Reason being enough for getting the accurate picture of reality. That is bollocks. Turns out you have to actually do science*.

Epistemic Rationality is basically about doing science. As in, trying to obtain the most correct picture of reality by all means available. Then Instrumental Rationality is about trying to make the best decisions with this information. It’s all very common sense and I would guess you’d actually agree with most of it if you just stopped strawmanning. For example:

I saw you agree with the assessment that rationalism is a philosophy that proclaims itself to be correct. I assume you actually think that the rationalist community is this way. That reminds me of people who attack science for ‘those big brain jerks think they already know everything!’ betraying a lack of rudimentary grasp on what science is. In both theory and practice it’s mostly about searching for the places where you are still wrong (to become less wrong, get it?) and correcting your mistakes time and time again**.

It’s actually very similar to how we leftist approach social issues, always checking our privileges, always listening to minorities and always expanding our understanding of oppressive structures. Can being a leftist make someone a bit arrogant and insufferable as if they’re already perfect and have nothing more to learn? Many such cases. Same with rationalists. It’s Dunning–Kruger effect, it’s the same for every field where the point is to become better. People start, quickly learn a lot, become a bit annoying about it, then they are humbled mostly by members of their own community.

Second, you decided based on vibes that the rationalist community is a bunch of sexist elitist tech bros. You didn’t collect testimonials like you often do for your other projects. It looks like you just read a bunch of articles and listened to podcasts made by other biased individuals and maybe looked for ridiculous sounding threads on forums to confirm your suspicions*** (or just took them at their word).

And while it is generally true that ‘something only men are interested in is never cool’, LessWrong adjacent rationality is not that. It’s a giant worldwide community that is very diverse. It is maybe half shy nerdy guys and the other half is women and queer people, also shy and nerdy (read neurodivergent, overwhelmingly). It’s the most pro-feminist and sex positive community I personally encountered outside of feminist and queer communities themselves – and it’s in Russia, even rationalists aren’t too woke over here. The situation is way better in Europe from what I’m able to see in the group chats. All my friends are rationalists and all of them are queer (I do talk to other people, don't you worry, I watch you!).

The community is also politically diverse as well. While the overwhelming majority is liberal, there are many left leaning people as well. There are (unfortunately) many libertarians in the mix and a few conservatives (those who don’t mind being disagreed with most of the time). The thing is the community tries to discourage political tribalism and foster an issue-by-issue discussion instead. So there’s always a percentage of people who disagree with the consensus opinion on every topic, discussion is always happening. And because people are trying to be all evidence-based over there, minds are actually being changed****.

The community isn’t without its biases. The entire MIRI idea was based on this fantasy of a group of math geniuses saving the world, finding the perfect solution even though no one believed in them (including many people within the rationalist community itself). Well, now the realization kicks in that they failed and the problem of AI alignment is way more complex than they thought (if solvable at all) and the actual solution is to push for AI regulations. That’s the state of the AI safety conversation right now. It’s either ‘shut it down’ or ‘put them under the heaviest scrutiny’. Almost no one thinks they have the time to change the course of the iceberg anymore. And yes, they do focus on existential risks but it’s not like they appreciate all the harm AI does on its way to destroy the world.

I’m not going to elaborate too much on how rationality techniques improve my life in ways big and small or we’ll be here all day (it’s mostly problem solving and conflict resolution). But the crucial thing is that LessWrong never claimed humans are perfect robots or have a potential to be perfect robots or can be easily turned into perfect robots. How shit human brains are at actual reasoning if left to their own devices is the entire point (that’s why it is not rationalism in any way).

An analogy sometimes used is martial arts. People can fight with no training, they have some in-born fighting capabilities. But hoo boy does training help. Actual training, years of practice, constant effort of keeping yourself in shape. Not a correct philosophy or one course. Does this sound exhausting? Well, you are neither a scientist nor a sportsman. But some people really do take self improvement seriously and really are this ambitious. Most are practising recreationally, however. And it’s fine. Few people who run twice a week believe themselves to be olympic runners. Few church goers believe themselves to be monks. Few regular leftists believe themselves to be revolutionaries. And few casual rationalists believe themselves to be big time researchers or scientists. But exercising a little is still better than rotting on the couch.

Speaking of couches. As I mentioned, the community is very sex positive. Very kink friendly, very supportive of polyamory and trying out new things just to experiment. Even in the perfect world with no patriarchy involved there would be a bunch of drama caused by just regular human behaviour. Unfortunately, there is patriarchy involved and there are a lot of women in the community. So, a bunch of sex scandals did happen. But framing it as ‘these people don’t respect women, what a surprise’ is highly misleading. By that line of reasoning you could discredit any movement or demographic. The tactic that is indeed used by the right all the time against trans people, immigrants, democratic party, you name it.

And LessWrong isn’t a country. If women felt unwelcomed, they’d leave, like they leave industries and fandoms. Like they leave most ‘intellectual’ communities because they are often hostile to women and queer people. LessWrong is a rare exception and women rarely leave it. They feel very welcomed, in fact. They own the place in many cases (like my first local meetup in one of Russian cities that was run by a wonderful lady).

Yes, it’s not perfect and people are constantly trying to make it better. But it's a general patriarchy thing that was not caused by LessWrong or rationality. The same way there’s rampant misogyny on the left as well and we talk about it but we aren’t cancelling the left, are we?

More about Ziz here.

About hpmor here.

* There’s a saying ‘Logic is true in any universe, but it doesn’t tell you which universe you are in’.

** In fact, even calling yourself a 'rationalist' is something that's being challenged. A preferred term is an 'aspiring rationalist', to empathize that no one here is actually rational, that we all are just trying to be a bit more rational to the best of our abilities. I personally don't use it but many people do.

*** Forums are very big and all sorts of controversial topics are discussed there. It’s not surprising to find threads about accelerationism or longtermism or decision theory that lead to ridiculous conclusions. All of those are controversial but people need a place to talk about it, that’s the whole point.

**** It is way more difficult on political issues than on random science topics. I hope I don’t have to explain why.

[katherinakaina]

i hate this stupid fucking screenshot i hate it it's done more for my mental health than any therapist, psychologist, eating disorder treatment, or medication. Like i'll be really hungry but not able to eat for eating disorder reasons but now every few hours without fail this damnable screenshot pops into my head and i'm able to get myself a snack or at least some water. i didnt eat bread for two years but now i can just like. eat it?? because of a fucking loading screen tip??? Ive been at this eating disorder game for ten years and nothing has allivated it quite like this damn screenshot i hate it i hate it so much

[katherinakaina]

To make an immortalist death fighter depressed and suicidal is a genius move. I cannot overstate how important to me that Daniil is and always has been like that.

He is literally fighting death. Not only as a medical scientist but also personally within himself. He probably considers depression to be just another ailment, a facet of death, a trick it uses to whisk people away, premature aging of the soul. And souls giving in is no different than bodies.

Every day he makes a choice to keep going, keep fighting, keep raging against the dying of the light. For himself and for others. Because life is precious and death is monstrous. A conscious choice, continuous effort. Not to preserve the state of affairs as they’re now but to give yourself a chance to improve someday. Improve himself and society that isn’t living up to its full potential either.

His personal struggle is a perfect microcosm of his scientific work and utopianism. Medical science being this great battle of people against death itself, slowly winning ground bit by bit, and every win being built on countless losses and futile attempts where each individual soldier has no guarantee that their personal contribution will even do anything or they themselves benefit in any way. Working with corpses, infectious diseases, dangerous chemicals – putting yourself in danger of actually shortening your own life, all for the hope to inconvenience the Inevitability Itself at least a little bit. Progress demands willing sacrifices.

People sometimes headcanon Daniil as being traumatized by a loss in his life to make his duel with death feel more personal. But look, he doesn’t need that.

[katherinakaina]

I can’t stand the way people communicate sometimes. Why do they always ask vague questions where the literal answer is one thing but you are supposed to answer differently anyway or you are a monster? My autistic taking things literally ass can’t compute.

As a charged example, ‘Is it ever okay to kill a child?’

Provided you already think there are critical situations where it’s okay to kill, the answer is yes. First, who’s a child? If anyone under 18 then it’s definitely yes. Second, there are all sorts of trolley problem situations I can imagine that are very rare but still sometimes happen. And the question says ‘ever’. Third, killing a child can be a byproduct of another action or an inaction and people tend to dismiss those as a natural cost of doing things in most cases.

But you can’t just answer ‘yes’ and not look like a child murderer.

Why not ask: ‘Should you always take an alternative to killing a child when it’s available?’

The answer to this is very clear, most people will agree and it will make them actually discuss alternative solutions instead of stupid semantics and edge cases.

But people very rarely ask questions phrased in such a way. Because they feel dirty for the exact same reason the positive answer to the first question feels dirty. And people hate feeling dirty way more than being inconsistent. They’ll say ‘it’s never okay to kill’ and then half of them will cheer for war and another for an assassination. They’ll read a ‘thou shalt not kill’ book full of people murdering each other and see no problem in that.

I just wish we could talk about things precisely…

[katherinakaina]

Wanted to make my own Pathologic ask game with questions I love directing at my mutuals:

Favorite flaw of Pathologic?

Wildest theory you’d defend?

Favorite nameless/minor NPC?

What made you giggle hardest?

How did you pick your first ending?

Which character surprised you most?

Headcanons you forget aren’t canon?

How did you react to the Powers that Be?

Who/what do you think the Rat Prophet is?

What do you think the Changeling’s story was really about?

What do you think the Haruspex’s story was really about?

What do you think the Bachelor’s story was really about?

Niche trivia everyone & their grandma should know?

Give a character who could use more love a shout-out.

Any character who reminds you of someone in real life?

Have you ever tried to explain Pathologic to the uninitiated?

Which character do you see yourself befriending IRL?

Dearest in-game friendship/platonic relationship?

Do you think Pathologic is worth adapting into other mediums?

How did you feel about the depiction of older characters/children?

Favorite niche, obscure character? (ie named characters outside the Healers and Bound)

How much of the story were you able to piece together on the first run?

Character you love in Pathologic you wouldn’t stand in another story/real life?

What was your craziest misconception/funniest misunderstanding while figuring out the lore?

If you could play a role in any part of the development (besides narrative), what would it be?

If you played more than one route/series entry, how do you think the order shaped your experience & feelings?

What other media (plays, novels, films, shows, games, et cetera) does Pathologic remind you of? This can be personal and subjective.

What was Pathologic like in your first language? If it isn’t available in that, how do you imagine it would turn out? What did/might it add to the story?

[katherinakaina]

In words of a great philosopher, people expect kindness instead of good and courtesy instead of love.

daniil is such an interesting character of contradictions because when he's talking to people one-on-one it seems like he lacks all sense of empathy. except that he doesn't, actually, because when he's talking to people about the situation - to georgiy (simon?) in marble nest or filat's neighbor in quarantine - he has no problem pointing out injustice, unfairness, and cruelty. he gets accused a lot of being unfeeling and cold, and he will tell people that he's not nice. but he doesn't hand clara over the inquisitor and refuses to accept her attempts to turn herself in, regardless of that being a "win" for him. he spends all of marble nest beating himself up for not being able to save the town. a large portion of his thoughts in quarantine are self-critical. he hates the idea that he let down his bound and his colleagues from thanatica. daniil's outfit - his snakeskin coat, his ever-present gloves - are a border to keep things out. and you'd think they're doing a very good job, from how he acts. except for the fact that the coat doesn't actually close.

[katherinakaina]

Thank you so much for this contribution. I did notice this as well. More so, people not only treat Pathologic differently in this regard, they literally only treat Daniil differently. And it's true that this was the case to some extend before Hbomb's video too.

My theory is that while other characters feel more like you, the player, Daniil always feels like Daniil. You feel like a witness to this weird guy's antics, not a creater of your own story. Even when the character you play is a strong presence (like Artemy, Clara or Harry) they still seem familiar, like someone you can be for a short time and stir their fate for them. Daniil, apparently, doesn't.

For most people, not for me. I have the opposite experience with Artemy, honestly.

Another theory is that it's contrast between Daniil's stated goals to defeat death, to save the world, and his character, that is a very stressed out dude with anger issues. Imagine you play Superman and you have all the bg3 dialogue options. It would probably make you focus on all the bad options more because you wouldn't expect them to be there.

Maybe people do expect heroes to be perfect people. And when they're not perfect it means they're no heroes either. Reminds me of vitriol with which people criticize actual activists for minor missteps. Why would you even demand from this person, who's saving the world as their day job, to be perfect on some offensive language issue here and there? But people do, all the time. Boggles my mind.

Another reason I relate to Daniil so much because I used to be an activist and I received messages like 'How dare you not post today after this tragedy happened?! That means you don't care!' from people who didn't do anything at all, on any day. The amount of criticism you face when you're trying to do good, especially publicly, is honestly unimaginable. It's right there with trying to raise a baby. Everyone has an opinion on what you're doing wrong. But at least with parenting those are the people who presumably have some experience. With activism you are being torn apart by people you are trying to save who demand saving but also fight back against it. This is psychological torture no human is equipped to handle. I mean, Danko does die for the sake of his people in the end, his body and heart stomped into the ground by the people he saved. That's the actual fate of a hero. When you're mean to Daniil this is who you're mean to.

Meanwhile Artemy has more relatable down to earth human motivations. He's taking his place, saving only his own town, avenging his father, proving himself to the people he's destined to lead. He can be as flawed as he wants while doing that. Who the fuck cares if the leader of the Kin is a bit of an asshole, that's way less important.

“Daniil does have genuinely awful text options. Stop pretending he doesn’t. THAT’S what people criticize him for. And y’all are just trying to absolve your favourite guy”

Okay. I don’t know what others do. But I don’t dismiss any of his bad lines (even if he usually has a contradicting line somewhere meaning he is in several minds on the issue, not a raging fanatic). Because:

Pathologic is not about who’s perfect. And it’s not about who’s your favourite war criminal either.

It’s about flawed people in the horrible world DOING GOOD ANYWAY.

You know, like us. Like me, like you. You don’t have to be perfect to go and fight the plague. In fact, you will never be perfect. If that’s what you’re waiting for you will never start fighting.

The only character who believes herself to be a literal saint turns out to be the literal plague. And even she goes and does good anyway. That’s the story we are dealing with here.

Why I am personally a staunch Daniil defender instead of tearing through his worst lines and choices (though I do that sometimes too) is because how the fandom treats him is unfair, it’s disproportionate to his crimes. And he is the main magnet for all the criticism that can be aimed at the characters in this game, meanwhile Artemy ‘these herb-gathering Worms have little in common with men’ Burakh is just as bad (at least) in the games. Seriously, if we start going through every problematic Artemy moment and treat them with as little leniency as people treat Daniil's faux pas we’ll be here all day. It would be so easy to portray Artemy as an absolute monster only using his canon text in either game, it’s not even funny. Not to mention other characters.

So, we either start scrutinizing and making fun of everybody the way we do with Daniil or we treat Daniil with leniency and respect as well as everybody. Those are two fair options. You don’t have to pick but then please be honest with what you’re doing.

[katherinakaina]

I think he should also kill himself but by repeatedly and graphically crushing his head against a wall.

Very curious on what you think the mania death should be to match the tone for the apathy one from your last post!!

I'm not totally sure myself... but IPL seems awfully proud of the apathy death, so i feel like there should be something similarly dramatic. Maybe hallucinating death grabbing Daniil like Lisa in the Silent Hills PT?

[katherinakaina]

“Daniil does have genuinely awful text options. Stop pretending he doesn’t. THAT’S what people criticize him for. And y’all are just trying to absolve your favourite guy”

Okay. I don’t know what others do. But I don’t dismiss any of his bad lines (even if he usually has a contradicting line somewhere meaning he is in several minds on the issue, not a raging fanatic). Because:

Pathologic is not about who’s perfect. And it’s not about who’s your favourite war criminal either.

It’s about flawed people in the horrible world DOING GOOD ANYWAY.

You know, like us. Like me, like you. You don’t have to be perfect to go and fight the plague. In fact, you will never be perfect. If that’s what you’re waiting for you will never start fighting.

The only character who believes herself to be a literal saint turns out to be the literal plague. And even she goes and does good anyway. That’s the story we are dealing with here.

Why I am personally a staunch Daniil defender instead of tearing through his worst lines and choices (though I do that sometimes too) is because how the fandom treats him is unfair, it’s disproportionate to his crimes. And he is the main magnet for all the criticism that can be aimed at the characters in this game, meanwhile Artemy ‘these herb-gathering Worms have little in common with men’ Burakh is just as bad (at least) in the games. Seriously, if we start going through every problematic Artemy moment and treat them with as little leniency as people treat Daniil's faux pas we’ll be here all day. It would be so easy to portray Artemy as an absolute monster only using his canon text in either game, it’s not even funny. Not to mention other characters.

So, we either start scrutinizing and making fun of everybody the way we do with Daniil or we treat Daniil with leniency and respect as well as everybody. Those are two fair options. You don’t have to pick but then please be honest with what you’re doing.

[katherinakaina]

i’m not involving myself in this but peoole calling eva a canonical love interest in P1 ….. babe she’s a canonical love UNINTEREST 😭😭😭 the entire climax of their relationship is about how he didn’t care enough about her and didn’t pay enough attention to what she was saying to prevent her from killing herself…… christ alive sometimes i feel like i’m the only person who actually played the game

Totally agree.

But honestly, I wish it wasn't that bad. I wish he had more of a friendship with her like he has with other women. If I was to write a gay (and autistic) man that's how I'd do it. Being totally comfortable relaxed and safe with women and being a bit more on guard with men. I think maybe he's less interested in Eva in p1 because she's this overtly sexual. It probably makes him uncomfortable. I hope she's going to be more subtle in p3 so Daniil could be her best friend in peace.

Peculiar though, that most women he has a connection with are kinda doomed. They're either humble or kill themselves or he tries to kill Aglaya. Maria should have been his love interest! An extra reason to choose utopians. In times it even looks like they were trying to write it like that but they failed.

Anyway, idk who'd get this comparison, but Eva to Daniil is what Sakura is to Sasuke. She's not his love interest for most of the plot despite being in love with him and being his endgame. Sasuke has no love interests at all, he's too obsessed with other things. She's still a love interest for Naruto though, a guy she explicitly rejects.

[katherinakaina]

what’s your latest post about shipping about? Can’t understand it clearly srry?

I added an explanation in the reblog. Sorry for the confusion.

[katherinakaina]

1. Someone claimed that Serafima and/or Eva are love interests in Quarantine. Therefore Daniil's not gay - canon.

2. Someone else said that it's silly. Women aren't love interests just because they were nice and friendly. Daniil doesn't betray any obvious romantic feelings towards them. (Are we pretending being good with women isn't a common gay men thing?)

3. Someone else didn't like that. They claim that just being corrected on the 'love interest' part means their favorite ships are being disparaged and obvious chemistry between characters is being ignored. (Kinda true, if Eva or Serafima were men there'd be a different kind of reaction)

4. I want to clarify that those are two different conversations. 'Love interests' isn't exactly a thing in Pathologic (with arguably one exception). Shipping is a separate activity. Ship whomever you want. Read characters however you see fit. But don't claim that your ship is an official love interest because it's straight and they have friendly banter. Not cool.

This needs to be said apparently that liking a straight ship and seeing a sexual tension between a man and a woman is NOT the same as calling the woman a 'love interest'. Like, we ship burakovsky, we don't call Artemy a 'love interest' usually. Because getting a piece of those hands is never a storyline for Daniil in the actual games. It's still not cool to assume that women are default love interests when the same rules apply.

(The only character seemingly fitting the love interest mold in any game is maybe Aglaya because romancing her is an actual plot point for Artemy)

[katherinakaina]

This needs to be said apparently that liking a straight ship and seeing a sexual tension between a man and a woman is NOT the same as calling the woman a 'love interest'. Like, we ship burakovsky, we don't call Artemy a 'love interest' usually. Because getting a piece of those hands is never a storyline for Daniil in the actual games. It's still not cool to assume that women are default love interests when the same rules apply.

(The only character seemingly fitting the love interest mold in any game is maybe Aglaya because romancing her is an actual plot point for Artemy)