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Granting that the jokes you refer to are generally accurate, wouldn't that make the synagogue a better example for a rationalist Cat Herd than some other religious organization where people "think" in lockstep with the Dear Leader? The synagogue would represent an example of a group of people who manage to cooperate effectively even with a high level of dissensus (neologism for the opposite of consensus). Which, as I understand it, is the goal Eliezer is aiming for in this post.
I was trying to convey the Litany of Gendlin as the principle the story was based on. The lesson would be "Don't deny or ignore facts, even if there's lots of money in it for you, because the facts are still facts whether you like it or not." I think situations like climate change, peak oil, over-exploitation of aquifers and letting the FIRE sector run rampant over the real economy count as real-world examples.
Yes, I recognized this as a fantasy application of Jim Bell's "Assassination Politics." I think AP would work better in an Iron Age/fantasy setting than in a modern context where anyone with a computer and a 'net connection could donate anonymously to assassination jackpots. In an Iron Age setting, pretty much the only people famous and hated enough to garner significant jackpots would be despotic kings and priests, and their generals. Assassination itself would be as dangerous as the rulers could make it, so it probably would only happen when a king was genuinely tyrannical, or as a substitute for war. In other words, it would take a lot to provide incentive an assassin under those conditions. So, it would probably reduce the number of unjust or trivial assassinations, like a baker "betting" on the death of a rival baker.
In a modern situation where millions of people could easily and anonymously contribute small amounts to an assassination jackpot, it would (in my opinion) be too easy for a million people to, say, contribute a dollar each to a jackpot for some love-to-hate celebrity like Paris Hilton, Bill Gates, or the quarterback of an NFL team that's rival to theirs in the playoffs.
Also, an AP system could just as easily be used by the wealthy and privileged to fund the deaths of any upstart reformers as by any reform movements to target the powerful.
Not Always to the Swift
Captain Danae Andreadis glanced idly at the image of the Venture Free on one of the screens at her desk. Had she been looking out a window, it would have been a point of light not much brighter than the untwinkling stars. The Argos did not have any windows, since they would represent an unnecessary structural weakness and a breach in the ship's radiation shielding.
Venture Free was exactly like her own ship, the Argos, except for the company logo it bore. Manufactured by the same company according to the same plans. Three habitation rings two hundred meters in diameter rotating around a spindly-looking truss that mounted tanks of reaction mass, the ship's reactor, large heat radiators reminiscent of the giant fins on spaceships from the rocketpunk era of science fiction, and a VASIMR drive. A crew compliment of three thousand people plus equipment.
A chime sounded. "Acknowledge," Danae said. The image of the rival vessel was replaced by the face of Dr. Chandragupta, the biologist who headed the ship's life support team. He looked worried. Danae immediately gave him her full attention.
"Is there a problem, Doctor?"
"I'm afraid so, Captain. It's our soil nematodes. They're dying. If they die out, our life support ecosystem will collapse. We'll be out of oxygen before we reach Helium Diamond."
"Do you have any ideas on what's causing it?"
"I've chemically and genetically analyzed dead nematodes. The problem is an artificial polymer that's toxic to them. I've traced it to outgassing from the ecosystem's air cycling hoses."
"Why hasn't this happened before on any of the Mars missions or on Armstrong or Olympus Base?"
"The hose material is unique to the Deepspace Class ships. We and the Venture Free are the first of the class to go on long-term missions. It's a subtle problem, and it took longer than the Earth-to-Luna shakedown cruise to manifest."
"Is there something we can do about it?"
"I don't know yet, Captain. I have all my people working on it, and I suggest we contact the Venture and get their people working on it too. I'm close to certain they'll have the problem too."
"Is this a direct threat to the crew?"
"I have Medical checking, but the hoses in question are only in the greenhouses, and the polymer's lethality comes from the way it reacts to nematode biochemistry specifically. Can we still divert to Mars if necessary?"
Danae entered the parameters into the ship's navicomp. "Yes, but we'll have to make the go/no-go decision in five days. After that we won't have enough remass for orbital insertion. Do everything you can to find us a solution in that time. You have priority for supercomputer and comms time. If they have to divert too, we can still beat them to Helium Diamond if we get in line first at Phobos Station and get those hoses, and the nematodes replaced."
...
"I'm very sorry to hear that, Captain," Ray "Buck" Williams said. The hint of a sardonic smile and the way he casually leaned back into his command chair said otherwise. "Our little worms are doing just fine. You can still divert to Mars, can't you?"
"Yes," Danae said stiffly. "If your nematodes are immune, perhaps we could arrange to purchase a population of them?"
"I'm afraid not, Captain. It simply isn't in our interest. However much you might offer, it could hardly compensate us if you were to reach Helium Diamond ahead of us. And if you were to offer to split the claim with us, why should we accept, when we have a hundred percent chance of reaching it first after you divert to Mars?"
...
"I hate to break it to you Cap'n, but we've got it here too."
"I wouldn't worry too much," Captain Williams said. "Argos is going to have all the best minds on Earth trying to help them figure out how to save their worms. We can pick up all the transmissions coming back from Earth, so if Andreadis gets a solution, so do we. If she doesn't, we wait 'till she commits to Mars, then we raise Earth and keep 'em working on it.
"Helium Diamond is the richest, most concentrated source of He3 in the Solar System as far as anyone knows. It'll be worth trillions once we get it back to cislunar space. Every man jack on this ship will be a billionaire after we get our commission. Who wants to let a few dead microscopic worms get in the way of that? Not me, and not HQ. Sometimes you gotta go with your gut, and mine says we're all gonna live like kings."
...
"I've read the reports, Captain, and as far as I, or any of our science people can tell, the problem is intractable. But you and your crew are the ones on the scene, and we're not going to armchair-quarterback from Earth," the CEO of Argos Explorations said. "It's your call."
"Thank you, sir." Danae said. "Argos out." She looked to the grim faces of her officers, and sought their council one by one. Their prognoses were as grim as their expressions. Danae sighed. "What's true is already so. Owning up to it doesn't make it worse. Make ready to de-spin the ship for maneuvers. We're going to Mars."
...
Captain Danae Andreadis glanced idly at the image of the slowly tumbling icy comet nucleus on one of the screens at her desk. Had she been looking out a window, it would have been a point of light not much brighter than the untwinkling stars. As happy as she was for herself and her crew to be the first to reach Helium Diamond, she couldn't help but think of the comms that had come from the Venture Free as Captain Williams and his crew slowly suffocated. No human being would ever forget the mounting horror and pathos of those transmissions.
"Andreadis to Helm. Make ready to de-spin the ship for insertion maneuvers."
So that's why '42' is the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything...
Couldn't a Slytherinny parent who wants their child to become powerful coach their child into wanting to be in some House other than Slytherin? Say, MoR!Lucius, coaching his son in all the ways of seizing power, but telling him awful, awful stories of what it was like to be a Slytherin. "No, no my boy, you do not want to be in that House, whatever you do!" Then, Draco under that Hat goes, "No! No! Not Slytherin! Anything but Slytherin!" And thus, ends up somewhere else.
Thus positioned, he does not automatically have to wear a suspicion-generating Slytherin badge, and he gets to be the wolf among the sheep (if he ends up in Hufflepuff or Gryffindor, where there's no Harry and Hermione to match him). Being Slytherin is like being a Ferengi. People already expect you to scheme against them, so their guard is up. But a Hufflepuff or Gryffindor (especially Gryffindor!) MoR!Draco would start out with powerful advantages in his quest for world domination.
Since "rule the world" and "save the world" aren't really that far apart, he probably would have ended up in Gryffindor. If you want to rule the world, presumably you think you've got a better way to run it than the way it's being run. Some would-be rulers might just want the wealth and being able to boss other people around, but it's easier to get that as a cult leader and not have to have responsibility for administering the global economy.
If you want to save the world, you could be defending the status quo (keeping that other guy from conquering the world), or you could see some threat (climate change, death) that isn't being dealt with appropriately, and you have a better way. In either case, you are tacitly assuming that you have a pretty good idea what's best for the world, and act to see that things go your way. Though I'm over-simplifying a bit here, I think there is an element of "who's writing the history?" to whether one's a "Gryffindor" or a "Slytherin." Andrew Jackson: Gryffindor? Slytherin? What about Che Guevara?
My guess is it would be fairly common for partisans of Utopian movements (Communism, Nazism, religious fundamentalism, etc.) to fancy themselves as Gryffindor-type heroes out to save the world, while their opponents and victims would class them as Slytherins. Where would the Sorting Hat put them? :)
I could imagine a Hufflepuff developing some spell to merge or link minds so the group can be even more cohesive and cooperative. A Hufflepuff Borganism could be pretty freakin' scary. "We are One. We are Together. We are Loyal. You should join Us. Yes, yes, you really, really should. What's that? Oh. You just don't know what's best for you. Let Us help you."
Comments cover up to Chapter 46. UN-ROT13'd SPOILERS.
Love the new chapters! Harry's takedown of the Dementor was epic! Yes, I know, that term has been devalued by inflation quite a bit, but in this case its original value and meaning hold. A very nice and emotionally powerful summation of Singularitarian values in Harry's buildup. Also, I didn't stop and try to guess what Harry's Patronus would be, but "the rational animal" is the perfect choice!
One little quibble though. When Dumb-ledore and Harry were trying to guess why Quirrell might want to bring a Dementor to Hogwarts, Dumbles never bothers to mention, "Well, Quirrell did challenge me to a bet, that if any of the First Year students could produce a corporeal Patronus, that I'd let him teach the Killing Curse to anyone who was interested." Naaawwwww, there couldn't possibly be some ulterior motive to Quirrell's desire to teach Dark Magic to the kiddies, could there? Surely not!
And isn't this supposed to be an "Unforgivable" curse, as in, "life in Azkaban" or "the Dementor's Kiss" for using it? Given the existence of such a law in Wizarding society, it doesn't make sense to me for Dumbledore to allow Quirrell to teach young children something that, if used in a moment of immaturity, could completely ruin their entire lives. "The WIzengamot has decided that having a temper tantrum is not an excuse. Send for the Dementor!" Imagine a boy like Canon!Draco given the Killing Curse to use as a First Year.
On the other hand, there are other spells that could be equally lethal, like Diffendo (a cutting spell) or Fiendfyre, and those aren't "Unforgivable." I suppose the thing about Avada Kedavra is that there's no defense against it. So, while other spells might be like teaching a young kid to shoot, the Killing Curse is like giving them a rocket launcher. One that's always loaded, has unlimited ammunition, and is carried with them wherever they go. I.e., not the same thing as a young kid having a gun that they take out and use under parental supervision.
The Wizards can create dimensionally orthogonal pockets of spacetime (for their bags of holding, mokeskin pouches, and TARDIS trunks). If a Horcrux simply has to be hidden where no one can get at it, and doesn't have to maintain a signaling link to the "rest" of the maker's "soul," perhaps Voldy could have made some dimensionally transcendent space (like a BoH or the Mirror of Erised), put a Horcrux in, then destroyed the connecting interface with our reality. Basically, a magical corollary of multiverse cosmology, where the Horcrux is placed in a new "pocket universe" that is then separated from ours so that it cannot be reached even in principle.
I would guess from MoR canon that relativity-compliant signaling is not necessary for a Horcrux to work, since light-lag between Earth and the Pioneer Horcrux would already be significant.
As explained in some of the other comments, there are some good points about it, but it's got some major flaws. One thing I really don't like is that the teachers are House-identified. They're players in the game, and it's OK for them to arbitrarily punish kids from other Houses and show favoritism to their own. That's like making coaches the referees. Hmmm, maybe that's why the House Cup ends up getting decided by something as random as "Who can catch the golden mosquito first?"
An idea I had: Sort kids into the House that's their greatest weakness/what they're least like/the element they need most to improve. So the Hat would be like, "Well, Draco Malfoy, hrmmmnnnn...better be: HUFFLEPUFF!" "Harry Potter...unfamiliar to the Wizarding World, as like to eat an Exploding Snap as play it properly. If I don't do something you might just cast some random curse labeled 'For an Enemy' on somebody without figuring out what it does first...better be: RAVENCLAW!" "Neville Longbottom...you could go faaaarrrrr, in Slytherin." "Not Slytherin! Anything but Slytherin!" "Ooooh, a wise guy, eh? GRIFFINDOR!"
In each House, kids are taught the virtues of that House, rather than put there because they've already got 'em. And also, everyone gets Sorted each year, so you're not pigeonholed once and for all as an 11 year-old (what, nobody who was a bully at 11 ever learns his/her lesson and becomes a better grownup?).
This system would help kids become more well-rounded. Just look how much MoR!Neville is benefiting from his "tuition" by Harry, who is the very model of a modern NiceGuy!Slytherin. Even in canon, Neville does seem to benefit in terms of developing courage and getting over his fears by being Sorted into Gryffindor when (in the canon Sorting process) he "should" have been a Hufflepuff. Plus, since everybody would probably be Sorted through more than one House during their school years, it wouldn't divide the whole freaking society into four sects. Also, it would change things up a bit so one House that got the good Seeker when s/he was 11 wouldn't always, always win the Cup.
Can you provide a cite for the notion that Eliezer believes (2)? Since he's not likely to build the world's first FAI in his garage all by himself, without incorporating the work of any of other thousands of people working on FAI and FAI's necessary component technologies, I think it would be a bit delusional of him to beleive (2) as stated. Which is not to suggest that his work is not important, or even among the most significant work done in the history of humankind (even if he fails, others can build on that and find the way that works). But that's different than the idea that he, alone, is The Most Significant Human Who Will Ever Live. I don't get the impression that he's that cocky.
Ooooops, yeah, major reading comprehension fail on my part. When I read that chapter, I just kinda sped past the squee-ing girls to get to the story, and ended up still seeing things through the lens of canon and Harry's previous impression of "Damn, these Wizards totally missed out on the Enlightenment!" Guess I need to pay more attention to preconceived notions and not letting them cloud my vision. :)
With more reflection though, it does make sense to me that Wizards would have a more enlightened attitude toward LGBTQ people, and find other irrational reasons to hate each other. In a world where some people can turn into animals, or alter their bodies at will (Metamorphomagi), and anybody with a jug of Polyjuice Potion and a clipping of hair can change their physical sex, non-heteronormative sexual identity could be seen as pretty tame. McGonagall could, if she so desired, turn into her feline form and go out lookin' for some tom. Or if she's lesbian or bi, then McGonagall/Mrs. Norris.
So, yeah.
I must have missed the part where we see that MoR!Hogwarts in general differs in gender politics and sexuality than most of real life, except for the "girls can compete in contact sports/armies with boys" bit, but that's a logical consequence of inherent equality of magical power. Lupin and Harry accepted a Peter/Sirius relationship without any squick, but Harry's a child of the Enlightenment (who, by dint of his uber-prodigy-ness likely didn't have jock-type macho-boys or religious conservatives as his formative peer group) and Lupin's a member of a disadvantaged minority himself. Do we have any evidence that someone like Lucius Malfoy would not be about as homophobic as the average medieval baron, of the sort who would teach his son that raping uppity peasant girls with impunity is one of the bennies that comes with "good breeding?" Or that, say, Seamus Finnigan wouldn't have the same kind of teen-boy homophobia/bullying reaction that's fairly common in our world?
I just had a thought WRT Harry's controversial apology to Hermione in Chapter 42. This is the Harry that lectured McGonagall on the Planning Fallacy, while demonstrating that he really does assume a worst-case scenario (insisting on purchasing a magical first aid kit just in case one of his fellow students ended up maimed and dying in front of him). I think it's entirely plausible that he could have spent the whole time Hermione was falling imagining that maybe he'd forgotten to stir the ground hen's teeth (or whatever) into the Feather Fall potion six times, or that it wasn't quite a three-quarters Moon when he started, or that a sudden gust of wind might impale her on the spikes of a wrought-iron balcony fence, or blow her into the Forbidden Forest or whatever other horrific Murphy's Law scenarios his all-too-imaginative mind could concoct, right up until her feet touched the ground.
Also, from the descriptions it looks like he was fighting this battle in ColdDarkLordHarry mode, so in addition to the above, he might even have been worrying that his Dark Side had subconsciously arranged things (such as a Potions failure, or just the situation of random danger with the Feather Fall potion as a false guarantor of safety) in a way that would bring his Intent To Kill to bear. It might even be revealed later that, for just a moment, his Dark Side produced a desire that she actually die, and that's what's making him feel so guilty.
Then, he would have spent the time until she came to meet him imagining that she would have been imagining the same things as an expression of his Planning Fallacy-based ur-pessimism combined with his tendency to try to model other people's minds, i.e., in this case, in the most pessimistic way possible. So, by the time he sees her, he's got himself expecting her to hate, hate, HATE him, and since he cares about her he really doesn't want that. And for her part, she's got him apologizing and willing to let her avenge herself on him, so why stop him now?
Some of the comments here have pointed out Hermione's strong sense of Justice and Fairness as an objection to her behavior in this scene. Maybe we're seeing some Unintended Consequences to Harry's "get Hermione and Draco to work together" plot. For Draco to reflexively try to catch Hermione is (I think) a major change in his character. This is a boy who casually expressed his intention to rape Luna Lovegood to someone he'd just met, assuming that boy's stated "intention" to murder her was equally casual, and equally serious. Major, major misogyny here.
So, for Draco to try to save Hermione, and have difficulty letting her go even as what's left of his Pureblood conditioning is railing at him, and Hermione herself is begging him to drop her so he can beat Harry, is a huge change in his character. If we grant that so much of Hermione's[1] sensibilities have rubbed off on Draco during their collaboration, it's not too much of a stretch to imagine that some osmosis has gone the other way. Hermione's spent the last few months of warfare learning the art of Devious Plotting, and since her alliance with Draco, would be getting lessons from a master. So, if we accept the changes to Draco's character, it's not too implausible IMO that Hermione might have become less of a "goody-goody" by now, and be willing to let Harry grovel, and even enjoy it a bit.
- I'm assuming it would be Hermione's values rubbing off on Draco and not Harry's, since in the portrayed encounters Harry has been concealing his Enlightenment sentiments from Draco to keep him in the Bayesian Conspiracy. "Slytherin! Just Kidding! Ravenclaw!"
Though there's logic to this argument, pretty much everything else about the way house elves were made is evil. They're created, or conditioned to brutally torture themselves if they even think they've displeased their masters or broken a rule. They have no labor rights and can be mistreated at will, to the point that mistreatment is built in as a product feature.
We can only imagine what sort of miserable Dickensian conditions they live in when they're not at work. They're forced to wear ragged, salvaged sacks, as giving them clothes = firing them, i.e. denying them the work and subservient position they're designed to want. This is a needless cruelty on top of everything else. Heck, if I were an aristocrat wizard with house elves, I'd want mine to go around in elegant livery, as a demonstration of how magnificent my Estate is. But I couldn't do that, because the poor little creatures were made (modified?) by a sadist.
I can think of a good reason for segregated dorms: In the MoRniverse at least, rape is something aristocratic boys can do casually with the full expectation of getting away with it. Not to mention panty raids and other assorted sexually-harrassing nonsense. Even in a society without medieval/Victorian mores, girls would still need a place of relative safety in which to sleep, shower, dress, etc..
Oops, I should have been more clear. By "reactionless flight is trivial" I meant in general, not necessarily for persons playing Superman. Wingardium Leviosa is a spell that generates reactionless flight, and it's literally the first thing kids learn. It can be used on persons and has already been employed in combat in MoR (e.g. "Chaotic Twist!"). Then there's other things like Quick Quotes Quills that float and move reactionlessly as they write, brooms, flying carpets, etc.. Since Hermione is a stupendous genius with spells even in Canon, and MoR!Draco is no slouch himself, it just seems likely to me that they would have tried to come up with something. Leviosa on a chair, or Hermione's shoes as a semi-permanent enchantment ("Wait, Draco, I know some 3rd Level spells..."), or something like that.
But it's nothing the Rule of Cool and the MST3K Mantra can't fix. :)
As I recall, In MoR, the Marauder's Map is an ancient artifact that's starting to break down a bit, so "Messers Moony, Padfoot, Wormtail, and Prongs" are not Lupin, Sirius, Peter, and James Potter under animagus-based nicknames. Unless Fred and George are wrong about the Map's origins, though being the master pranksters of the MoRniverse (and canon, for that matter) it seems likely that their judgment would be sound in this case. So, evidence that MoR!Pettigrew, et. al. are not necessarily animagi.
Good points, but I think that with some practice in teamwork of the sort employed in Neville's "Special Attacks," they could have come up with something. Say, Draco levitating Hermione horizontally out the window, so she can use a Shield Charm to cover herself completely while Draco moves her out of Harry's one-handed firing arc. Throw in a baseball-style hand-signal code between them, so if Harry is concentrating on Hermione, Draco lets her go while she casts Leviosa on herself, and he zaps Harry, or if Harry tries to take aim at Draco, Hermione drops her shield charm and fires. And this assumes that neither of them (or Genius!Harry himself, for that matter) can come up with a better flying spell than Wingardiam Leviosa.
Maybe their problem is that they weren't quite ready for that level of teamwork, though if it was me in either of their places I'd have wanted to look into developing an inventory of "Special Attack" type maneuvers after seeing them work so well for Chaos.
OTOH, the likely real reason is that the Gecko Gloves give Harry a chance to use Science! in a fun way, so the Rule of Cool applies. Still, reactionless flight is such a trivial matter in the Potterverse that I still found myself wondering why they just went out after Harry on his own terms instead of trying to wield air power against him somehow. Maybe a couple lines of dialogue along the lines of "Why don't we use [flight-based attack X]?" "We can't because Harry would just use an Indra's Net Jinx!" (or some other expected counter that makes using the Gecko Gloves then sliding around on the slippery roof their best response to the situation).
One thing I do find myself wondering about this latest chapter is why neither of these two Most Brilliant Students (Hermione and Draco) seem to have thought of "Accio Broom!" or "Wingardiam Leviosa" instead of pursuing Harry with Gecko Gloves. If one or both of them is flying while Harry's got his hands stuck to a wall, they win. Also, since they've been fighting Chaos soldiers using hover charms to move while using ball bearings to make the floors impassable, they should have at least tried to adapt and use that strategy (granting that they can't use brooms or other means of flight due to rules of engagement or some such) when facing Harry on the roof. They need to work on their OODA Loops. ;)
ZOMG! That makes sense! So much sense that J.K. Rowling really missed a chance to have a great Revan Moment in canon. Imagine the shock ending if, as Voldemort staggers from a mortal wound in the last pages of Deathly Hallows, he explains this to Harry, then: "I...am only a shell...and have never been anything more. (cough) My purpose has only been to prepare you...Make you strong...make you gather the Hallows and become invincible... You. Are. Voldemort! BWA! HA! HAAAAAA!"
This would make sense of canon scenes like, for e.g., Voldy's re-animation ceremony in Goblet of Fire only using a little of Harry's blood, instead of having Ratface cut his throat, and how he calls his Death Eaters off and fights Harry solo instead of having them Just Shoot Him.
Back to MoR, yeah, I think "Harrymort" is a fiendishly cool idea! (up-voted)
Well, if the pig "is" actually a desk, then perhaps it would only look like it's breathing. It would be a magically animated simulation of a pig crafted from the matter of the desk. Even if it's sucking air in and exhaling it back out, it wouldn't be actually metabolizing oxygen, at least not any more than its "actual" desk-self does. Since Transfiguration is based on Platonic metaphysics, the desk would be a pig "in substance" but still a desk "in essence" (which is why it turns back to a desk when the spell wears off--its true Form remains the same).
Also, the fact that (IIRC) it remains still, quiet, and non-disruptive instead of acting like an un-trained farm animal suddenly finding itself in a room full of humans would imply that it's a magically-animated pseudo-pig, more like a really awesome claymation than a real biological creature. Its pig attributes are only surface appearances, rather than its true nature (in Platonic terms), so it doesn't come loaded with a full array of animal instincts, an empty stomach and GI tract (unless McG transfigured some of the desk into partly-digested pig fodder, other parts of the desk into symbiotic GI tract bacteria, etc.).
Since McG is stunned by the idea of Transfiguration on a level below grossly-perceivable Form, I'm guessing that if someone cut up the pig it would turn out to be minimally simple on the inside--no internal organs, differentiated tissues, etc. beyond what is necessary to make it look and appear to function like a pig from the outside. This would also be consistent with her "Don't Transfigure anything into something that might be eaten!" rule, since a Transfigured "pig" would not look like fresh pork if it were butchered.
OTOH, Harry seems to have bypassed the Platonic aspect by Transfiguring on the sub-quantum level, so if he were able to do the same with a desk-to-pig (necessarily including the microbiology, molecular biology, metabolic sequences, etc.), he might be able to transfigure a Desk-Pig of Doom whose presence would subtly poison a nearby victim with Transfigured respiration products. But then, concretely visualizing a living creature on the level of its constituent quarks should be pretty much impossible unless he can magically give himself vastly superhuman mental-modeling capacity.
I think the question "Is it rational to be religious?" is one that deserves critical attention and testing, but talk of ancestor simulations completely demolishes the point. Any entity capable of creating an actual ancestor simulation--a fully-modeled "Matrix" populated with genuinely human-equivalent sentient Sims--is an entity for whom the results of such a test would be irrelevant and obsolete. The premise, that some form of Faith might be useful or even necessary for rational humans to maximally act in accordance with their values, is not applicable for a posthuman being.
The technology for creating a real ancestor simulation would almost certainly exist in a context of other technologies that are comparably advanced within their fields. If the computer power exists to run a physics engine sufficient to simulate a whole planet and its environs, complete with several billion human-level consciousnesses, the beings who possess that power would almost certainly be able to enhance their own cognitive and psychological capacities to the point that Faith would no longer be necessary for them, even if it might be for us here and now, or for the Sims in the ancestor simulation. A creator of ancestor simulations would for all practical intents and purposes be God, even in relation to his/her own universe. With molecular nanotechnology, utility fogs, programmable matter, and technologies we can't even imagine, conjuring a burning bush or a talking snake or a Resurrection would be child's play.
Proposing ancestor simulations as a way to test the usefulness of Faith is like saying, "Let's use a TARDIS to go watch early space-age planets and see if rockets or solar sails are the best way for us to explore the universe!"
On the other hand, we do already possess computer platforms that are fairly good at emulating other human-level intelligences, and we routinely create plausible, though limited world-simulations. These are "human brains" and "stories," respectively. So one way to partially examine and test to determine whether or not it could be rational to be religious would be to write a story about a rational person who adopts a Faith and applies it to maximally operate according to his or her values.
Then, present the story to people who believe that Faith, and people who don't. Is the story itself believable? Do the other minds processing the simulation (story) judge that it accurately models reality? Unfortunately this method cannot simultaneously generate billions of fully-realized simulated lives so that a wide variety of Faiths and life-circumstances under which they are used can be examined. Instead, the author would have to generate what they consider to be a plausible scenario for a rational person adopting a Faith and write a genuinely believable story about it. To serve as an effective test, the story would have to include as many realistic circumstances adverse to the idea as possible, in the same way that the secret to passing the 2-4-6 Test is to look for number sets that produce a "no." It could not be written like a fictional Utopia in which the Utopia works only because everyone shares the author's beliefs and consistently follows them.
Eliezer's story Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality does a mirror-opposite of this, providing a story-test for the question, "Would the Sequences still be applicable even under the extreme circumstance of being catapulted into the Harry Potter universe?" Some of the best moments in this story are where Harry's rationalist world-view is strained to the utmost, like when he sees Professor McGonagall turn into a cat. A reader who finds the story "believable" (assuming sufficient suspension-of-disbelief to let the magic slide) will come away accepting that, if the Sequences can work even in a world with flying broomsticks and shape-shifting witches, they'll probably work here in our rather more orderly and equation-modelable universe.
So, a "So-And-So and the Methods of Faith" story might, if well-written, be able to demonstrate that Faith could be a valid way of programming the non-rational parts of our brain into helping us maximally operate according to our values.
Another method of testing (perhaps a next step) would be to adopt the techniques of Chaos Magic and/or Neuro-Linguistic Programming and try out the utility of Faith (perhaps testing different Faiths over set periods of time) in one's own life. Or better still: get the funding for a proper scientific study with statistically-sufficient sample sizes, control-groups, double-blind protocols, etc..
Here's what I think will happen:
Zabini stuns himself in the name of Sunshine to create a tie. And here's why:
1) The rest of the school is very partisan about their favorite army, so it's not likely that many are betting on a tie. Zabini (through a proxy or otherwise) put all of his chips on "tie." So he will return to Hell a much richer Prince of Darkness.
1a) "Aftermath" scene: Hogsmeade. Zabini meets his broker. Hogwarts is basically a closed economy, and Zabini has now walked off with the lion's share of the student body's disposable income. He plunks his Bag of Holding on the table. "Take this and convert it to Muggle money. Then go buy unmarked silver bullion..."
2) The three Generals are tied for Quirrell points. Given what we've seen of him in this chapter, Zabini is probably in fourth place, and not too far behind. How many Quirrell points will he get for getting all three generals to play according to his plan? We see Harry and Hermione accepting, and per the Prisoner's Dilemma thing, Harry and Draco had to synchronize their moves ("cooperate") to have a chance against Hermione. This would mean that Draco is also more or less following Zabini's plan. Zabini was able to steer the battle to his personal chosen outcome, so he (as an individual) wins the battle. The betrayal rules+scoring are set up to favor individual objectives rather than army loyalty/collective goals/unity. Zabini has realized this, and acted accordingly.
3) After collecting Quirrell's wish from his come-from-behind victory (which provides a "practical" demonstration of the 2-4-6 Test, since no one, Generals included, expected Zabini to have his own victory conditions), Zabini goes to Dumbledore's office. "Well done, Blaise!" Dumbledore says. "I suppose you're here for your wish..." That is, Dumbledore has offered Zabini a wish if he could steer the battle to a tie, since that would stop a Hogwarts equivalent of a football (soccer) riot, which would be likely if one of the armies won.
4) At the Christmas feast, Dumbledore rises to announce that the three armies are being merged into a Hogwarts Army, and starting at the end of January, the HA will compete in three-way battles with Beauxbatons and Durmstrang. Per the experiment mentioned earlier with the "Eagles" and "Rattlers," the Hogwarts students are united against external foes. He and Quirrell allowed the Headmasters of the other schools to watch the battles using Quirrell screens, and their staffs liked the idea. The mock battles use more magical skills and incorporate more students than Quidditch, and are thus a better encouragement to learning. New rules could be applied to future battles. "You may use any magic item you can make (under teacher or senior-student supervision) in your battles, providing it's not dangerous." "You can use any Potion you can make," etc.