Ep. 10: Testing Positive

In chapter 8, Hermione Granger meets Harry Potter and is subjected to a series of tests. Our hosts are joined by Lesley, resident fandom person, to play a game, present deconstructed tropes to the Chopped judges, and court corporate sponsorships.

CONTENT WARNING: discussion of rape and racism from 15:43 to 39:56.

Citations and further reading

• Elisa's show notes: https://www.tumblr.com/ecc-poetry/tagged/hpmor%20and%20the%20limits%20of%20rationality 
• HPMOR, Chapter 8, Eliezer Yudkowsky. https://hpmor.com/chapter/8 
• “Eliezer, the Person,” section “1.6: Falling out of school” and “1.7: ‘I can’t do anything.’” Eliezer Yudkowsky. The Low Beyond, 2000.  https://web.archive.org/web/20010205221413/http://sysopmind.com/eliezer.html#timeline_falling 
• HPMOR snapshot up to chapter 21. https://drive.proton.me/urls/9HBTQR7TA0#l2zIorSOyr7m 
• “I've also tried a rewrite on Ch. 7 which I don't feel is a literary improvement, but which does make it clearer that Harry is talking about the Enlightenment having mostly solved the problem of nobility rather than the problem of rape, and which eliminates the explicit reference to Saudi Arabia and the Congo as specific non-Enlightenment countries. Most readers, it's pretty clear, didn't take that as racist, but it now also seems clear that if someone is told to *expect* racism and pointed at the chapter, that's what they'll see. Aren't preconceptions lovely things?” Less Wrong (Yudkowsky)’s review explaining his rewrite of Chapter 7, Yudkowsky. Fanfiction.net, 30 June 2010.  https://www.fanfiction.net/r/5782108/27/1/
• “HPMOR: The (Probably) Untold Lore,” Gretta Duleba, Eliezer Yudkowsky. LessWrong, 25 July 2025. https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/FY697dJJv9Fq3PaTd/hpmor-the-probably-untold-lore 
• “Lotteries: A Waste of Hope,” Yudkowsky. LessWrong, 12 April 2007. https://www.lesswrong.com/s/FrqfoG3LJeCZs96Ym/p/vYsuM8cpuRgZS5rYB
• “New Improved Lottery,” Yudkowsky. LessWrong, 13 April 2007. https://www.lesswrong.com/s/FrqfoG3LJeCZs96Ym/p/QawvGzYWhqdyPWgBL 
• “The New Atlantis,” Francis Bacon. 1626: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2434/pg2434-images.html 
• To Relieve the Human Condition: Bioethics, Technology, and the Body, Gerald P. McKenny. State University of New York Press, 1997. https://archive.org/details/torelievehumanco0000mcke 
• “Irrational numbers,” Rod Pierce. Math Is Fun, retrieved 2025.: https://www.mathsisfun.com/irrational-numbers.html
• “Positive Bias: Look Into the Dark,” Yudkowsky. LessWrong, 27 Aug 2007.: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/rmAbiEKQDpDnZzcRf/positive-bias-look-into-the-dark 
• “On the failure to eliminate hypotheses in a conceptual task,” P.C. Wason. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1960. https://bear.warrington.ufl.edu/brenner/mar7588/Papers/wason-qjep1960.pdf