[Haruhi] Shuffle!

[sarsaparilla]

I see that this thread has derailed but just to put my two cents in the cart, I hadn't read the fic in question (The Riddle of Kyon) before and was completely unimpressed by what I found. An Author Tract with a Possession Sue, delivering the logic of a petulant three-year-old who doesn't understand why she can't live on candy and ice cream alone. I can't see how it is in any way related to Sasaki, but I guess that it was the whole point of bringing it up, right?

I guess my takeaway from Riddle of Kyon is, if you have someone who could be a powerful force for good (which Haruhi could be), but that person is unaware of his ability, you had better have a damn good reason for not making him aware.

That may have been the intention but it fails to get beyond the basic hypothesis. As an example of a deep philosophical and ethical treatise that actually manages to address the inherent problems and consequences of the premise I would suggest Miyazaki's Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (manga, not anime).

[Brian]

I see that this thread has derailed but just to put my two cents in the cart, I hadn't read the fic in question (The Riddle of Kyon) before and was completely unimpressed by what I found. An Author Tract with a Possession Sue, delivering the logic of a petulant three-year-old who doesn't understand why she can't live on candy and ice cream alone.

I laughed; that's the most succinct summary I've heard on it yet.

I can't see how it is in any way related to Sasaki, but I guess that it was the whole point of bringing it up, right?

Ah, as much as there was a point, I believe so.  I just happened be annoyed at that fic, and then ... derailment.  Oops. >_>

[Arakawa]

As an example of a deep philosophical and ethical treatise that actually manages to address the inherent problems and consequences of the premise I would suggest Miyazaki's Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (manga, not anime).

I wanted to summarize to someone what the Nausicaä anime was like once, and I think I came up with something like "it's basically Star Wars for environmentalists" (I mean the good parts of Star Wars). That's basically the level the anime operates on, as a gigantic well-structured aesop: only instead of one Dark side we had several sympathetic but wrong factions whose philosophies have flaws that inevitably lead to despair, and instead of the Light side we have Nausicaa whose philosophy is extremely difficult to swallow at first (unlike the generic Jedi claptrap in Star Wars) but winds up saving everyone's behinds from Mutually Assured Destruction via a bunch of implausibly spiffy action scenes :-)

The manga is significantly more interesting than that, but a tad bit uneven since the guy wrote it on and off for fifteen years, giving him enough time to change his style several times and go back and forth in terms of the message he was trying to deliver. It also went all over the place in terms of new and weird ideas - you had

Spoiler: ShowHide

that psychic prodigy, that extremely virulent mold being developed as a weapon, the Evil Emperor-Twin who lives forever via brain transplant surgery while the other Emperor-Twin is deadly-afraid of the procedure and so winds up rotting Darth Vader-style in a fishtank

. (Yeah, this is basically an "anyone who hasn't should go read it immediately, there's close to a thousand of pages of crazy stuff that wasn't even remotely close to being in the anime" paragraph.) Moreover Miyazaki keeps switching the drawing style up as a ploy to keep himself interested in drawing it. People are still giving serious university lectures - in both Japan and North America - about what he did with it and why it worked so well in spite of the fact that he seems to be learning as he goes along and making a pile of amateur mistakes especially near the beginning.

After finishing Nausicaa I think he went back and filmed Mononoke-Hime to try to wrap the same ideas up into a package that wasn't this huge, rambling 15-year... thing.

The ending of the Nausicaä manga was one of the most-anticipated things in... the history of manga, and it was one of the most talked about things afterwards. It isn't anything like the way Miyazaki ends any of his movies, and he does really weird stuff with his movie endings already. (Consider the way the last two movies he personally directed - Howls Castle and Ponyo - wrapped up and compare with the standard Hollywood approach to things.) I guess the main thing I took away from the ending to Nausicaa the manga was (trying to keep the spoiler as vague as possible)

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that you can't accomplish anything worthwhile by building some giant, multi-hundred-year Ikari-Gendo-style Master Plan that tries to fix all of the unknowns ahead of time. Or, even if you can, you're actually taking away the free will of future generations who will end up resenting you for it. Like Nausicaa ended up resenting the computerized ghosts of the scientists in the Temple, and derailing their awful Master Plan to solve the problems that they thought were plaguing the sinful pre-Seven Days of Fire civilization.

Even if Nausicaa sees many of the same problems with the world as the Scientists did, it's made very clear with all of the horrendous stuff that the Temple keeps unleashing that the Scientists' Plan wound up sustaining and perpetuating the worst of the problems in the name of solving them. So the Scientists wanted to repurpose technology that was originally destroying the world to build this high-concept Singularity style utopia, while Nausicaa was struggling to put together a solution to the same puzzle that only involves things she could grasp directly and intuitively.

Yudkowsky, assuming him to do what he does seriously, is actually making the exact same mistake Miyazaki has his Scientists making. He's not on the level of actually being able to pull his master plan off, though, so many of Miyazaki's criticisms are punching somewhere way above Yudkowsky's stature. (They're meant more for actual scientists and leaders who do actual science and actually govern.)

Yudkowsky is indeed at the level of 'a petulant three-year-old' because apparently his brother died or some stupid nonsense like that and he never moved on and decided to develop this Master Plan to launch the Singularity so that no one ever has to die ever again. So in his fic Kyon is channeling Yudkowsky, which is why he sees Haruhi basically as a tool he can heavy-handedly manipulate to accomplish exactly that - force Haruhi to resurrect him and everyone else who ever died. So no, I think that there's too much wish fulfilment evident in "Riddle of Kyon" for the author to be writing a straightforward trollfic here. Yudkowsky's Kyon is really jarring, because in reality Kyon is supposed to be seeing Haruhi as a human being first and foremost, who just happens to be caught up in the vaguely defined reality warping powers nonsense, and canon-Kyon wouldn't ever consider taking Haruhi on a ride like that. Yudkowsky!Kyon on the other hand... is basically identical to Downfall!Koizumi in terms of how he looks at the situation. Man, that's a scary thought.

So Yudkowsky's actually a pretty interesting person, so long as you handle his ideas and writing at arm's length at all times.

Man, this discussion started with a mostly inconsequential crackfic by Brian and just keeps getting heavier and heavier doesn't it :-)

[Jon]

Yudkowsky is indeed at the level of 'a petulant three-year-old' because apparently his brother died or some stupid nonsense like that and he never moved on and decided to develop this Master Plan to launch the Singularity so that no one ever has to die ever again.

I read a novel a year or so ago whose major NPC was basically this, except replace "brother" with "first love", and the character was of Muslim heritage instead of Jewish.

But anyway, I have a strong sympathy for the viewpoint that "no one should ever have to die ever again". If you ever want to talk about the Singularity and/or transhumanism; I'm down. Probably not in this thread, though.

[sarsaparilla]

Yudkowsky!Kyon on the other hand... is basically identical to Downfall!Koizumi in terms of how he looks at the situation.

That ... is actually a pretty astute observation, and impressingly enough it almost puts the thread back on rails again!

As a side note, my assessment of the story was written in a tone that was unnecessarily acerbic, as I felt a definite vibe of narcissistic hubris which is probably my most obvious personal squick.

Man, this discussion started with a mostly inconsequential crackfic by Brian and just keeps getting heavier and heavier doesn't it :-)

"This is your thread on crack?" :p

[Brian]

The ending of the Nausicaä manga was one of the most-anticipated things in... the history of manga, and it was one of the most talked about things afterwards. It isn't anything like the way Miyazaki ends any of his movies, and he does really weird stuff with his movie endings already. (Consider the way the last two movies he personally directed - Howls Castle and Ponyo - wrapped up and compare with the standard Hollywood approach to things.) I guess the main thing I took away from the ending to Nausicaa the manga was[....]

All I could contribute was, "I liked that; I re-read it every few years, still...."

Yudkowsky is indeed at the level of 'a petulant three-year-old' because apparently his brother died or some stupid nonsense like that and he never moved on and decided to develop this Master Plan to launch the Singularity so that no one ever has to die ever again. So in his fic Kyon is channeling Yudkowsky, which is why he sees Haruhi basically as a tool he can heavy-handedly manipulate to accomplish exactly that - force Haruhi to resurrect him and everyone else who ever died. So no, I think that there's too much wish fulfilment evident in "Riddle of Kyon" for the author to be writing a straightforward trollfic here. Yudkowsky's Kyon is really jarring, because in reality Kyon is supposed to be seeing Haruhi as a human being first and foremost, who just happens to be caught up in the vaguely defined reality warping powers nonsense, and canon-Kyon wouldn't ever consider taking Haruhi on a ride like that.

Well, like I said; I often attribute malice when there is none, especially when it offends my sensibilities.  So, I can see him as being misguided instead of ignorant.  Beyond that, yes, I agree:

The Haruhi novels are a story about Haruhi growing as a person; that story feels like Kyon is discarding all of that as 'not good enough.'

Man, this discussion started with a mostly inconsequential crackfic by Brian and just keeps getting heavier and heavier doesn't it :-)

Well, that's starting to bely the 'inconsequentiality,' but this is very interesting conversation; at least it's still relevant to the characters and our understanding of them, so I find there's still a lot of positive takeaway here.

Especially with cooler heads than mine prevailing to actually consider things. ;)

Yudkowsky!Kyon on the other hand... is basically identical to Downfall!Koizumi in terms of how he looks at the situation.

That ... is actually a pretty astute observation, and impressingly enough it almost puts the thread back on rails again!

I didn't really think about it, but that's very true.  I was trying to think if there was some nuance I missed, some subtlety in difference, but it's pretty much spot on.  Both are fairly specifically 'Utopia Justifies the Means,' and both seek to reduce Haruhi from being her own person, to (largely) being a tool 'for the greater good.'

Admittedly, I presented the concept as a cruel manipulation.  And tagged it 'horror'.  ._.

As a side note, my assessment of the story was written in a tone that was unnecessarily acerbic, as I felt a definite vibe of narcissistic hubris which is probably my most obvious personal squick.

I felt that, too, though it hit my trigger too spot-on for me to easily articulate why it upset me; I'm very appreciative of the additional perspectives that you, Arakawa, and Jon have provided to help me look beyond my own biases; that's greatly appreciated.

"This is your thread on crack?" :p

And one for the quote list.  ^_^

[Arakawa]

All I could contribute was, "I liked that; I re-read it every few years, still...."

Yes, trying to discuss Miyazaki on an anime forum is more often than not akin to walking up to a bunch of hardened rock music listeners and explaining to them that there's this awesome band, it's called the Beatles... :-\

I was sort of surprised to see sarsaparilla bringing it up, but the connection makes about 46% sense to me (which is enough for me to proceed to pompously pontificate on it, apparently). Nausicaa started out as a manga about ecology, but then Miyazaki was forced to make his themes more and more abstract, until the ending ended up being an aesop about human progress in general, which means that he painted himself (by introducing all that retro-futuristic biotechnology stuff) into a corner with all the newfangled Singularity theorists writing fiction about that exact topic, whose views on the problem (even for the pessimistic thinkers) were completely at odds with Miyazaki's. Although of course Nausicaa ended up getting its message out several years before Singularity took off as a really raging Internet fad (I think - I became sort of aware of it as an active annoyance, rather than just some weird fringe idea, only mid-2000s), and said message was promptly ignored by everyone because it's buried at the very end of a thousand-page manga epic about a tree-hugging warrior princess...

The fact that Miyazaki ended up inadvertently writing in a genre he wasn't expecting to, might explain somewhat why the man's publically stated opinion on science fiction then became roughly "science fiction sucks by definition, people use it mostly as a vehicle for stupid anxieties about the future, I'm not touching it with a ten-foot pole anymore."

Hmm... I think I'll strongly recommend the manga to my Yudkowsky-obsessed friend sometime. Not sure if he'll bite (he saw the movie with me and didn't seem too impressed) or if he'll manage to slog through the Buddhist spaghetti western stuff to the part that I specifically would like him to think about...

Well, that's starting to bely the 'inconsequentiality,'

Good point. Amend that to 'seemingly inconsequential'...

I was trying to think if there was some nuance I missed, some subtlety in difference, but it's pretty much spot on.

Actually, having seen the parallel I can also be the one to show where the analogy falls apart.

Downfall!Kyon (let's call him that) has a very imaginative plan based on many years of thinking by Yudkowsky, and unlike Downfall!Koizumi Kyon throws away his life pre-emptively (as opposed to sticking around until Haruhi sets him permanently on fire *wince* -- actually, there's another parallel to the Doctor buried in there now that I think of it). So Yudkowsky ends up unintentionally conveying the idea that not only is Downfall!Kyon manipulative, he's also a completely obsessed fanatic.

It's like the perfect recipe for crafting a fic that will leave people thoroughly squicked with no idea as to why...

Admittedly, I presented the concept as a cruel manipulation.  And tagged it 'horror'.  ._.

Again, Downfall!Koizumi simply tells Haruhi the same unimaginative lie over and over again for many years until she's caught on. Whereas once we stop using Yudkowsky's sympathetic lens, we see that Downfall!Kyon manages to somehow perform the moral equivalent of Downfall!Koizumi's many years of cynical emotional manipulation, and then some, in all of fifteen minutes.

I remember now that Yudkowsky tried to somehow shoehorn this weird fanatic into Kyon's shoes by making it so that the Riddle of Epicurus makes Haruhi's brain want to asplode or whatever and so Kyon has a very strict time limit to fix the situation. Eeeeeeeeeeeenh? It implies that somehow Haruhi has managed to go through almost three entire years of high school without once considering the topic?

BONUS LINK: Eeeeh? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tiu5fJMI4UE

(I think we all need a bit of completely mindless comic relief at this point after gazing for so long into the abyss that is "Riddle of Kyon".)

Hey, I've thought of yet another way to look at Yudkowsky's Haruhi fic. Maybe this is his explanation of why he thinks Christianity/Haruhiism/insert the existence of whatever God, is such an awful notion. Because, by Yudkowsky's twisted reasoning, if Haruhi existed we'd be morally obligated to cut off her head and use it to grant the Emperor immortality or whatever...

Again, I have so many theories because I have this friend who I argue with on this exact topic. It's gotten so that I understand the Bayesian position on things so well I can anticipate most of his arguments before they come out of his mouth. (Well, very occasionally the arguments turn out to be so stupid that I never even considered anticipating them...)

Because I'm trying way too hard to be Canadian, I'm not allowed to be impolite and tell him bluntly that Yudkowsky is just some douchebag with a blog account and a spiffy-but-not-very-useful take on using Bayesian inference in everyday life and that he should just stop taking important life advice from the guy already.

[Arakawa]

Additionally, just throwing out a completely random notion: probably my favourite moment about the Nausicaa ending is when the King of Whatever Country Kushana Is A Princess Of (I... forgot all of the weird place names in that thing) says something like

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"So, you're telling me 'leave this Temple alone, and we give you immortality and Heedra'? Yeah and I'm supposed to agree because that worked out just great for the last ten guys you struck this sort of deal with."

It's just a really awesome 'let's just pause and connect the dots on this thing' kind of moment.

[sarsaparilla]

I guess that I'm late to the party, as I wasn't really aware of most of the stuff mentioned, especially historical background, but yes, I brought up Nausicaä because of the last third or so of the story which pretty decisively deconstructs the idea of a 'rational utopia'.

So Yudkowsky ends up unintentionally conveying the idea that not only is Downfall!Kyon manipulative, he's also a completely obsessed fanatic.

Now that you mentioned it I agree, although personally I saw a mental image of the aforementioned three-year-old toppling over her porridge bowl and stating that if mom doesn't give ice cream instead then she's evil for letting her precious toddler die of hunger.

As my possibly final, weak effort to return to the original topic, this Bayesian talk started from the observation of Sasaki's disregard for wishful thinking. I think that it is somehow ironic because I see (and as I have mentioned, I'm using myself as the most reliable proxy I know when analyzing Sasaki) all this singularity stuff as just another form of wishful thinking, only trying to invoke 'logic' instead of 'magic' without realizing that logic is just another tool. You put manure in, you get manure out. A non-wishful way of thinking suggests that one should approach issues with the proper amount of respect and humility, a test that Yudkowsky!Kyon fails quite spectacularly.

[Brian]

Just to touch on the Singularity issue, most people misrepresent that point anyway.

'Singularity' means 'When we have made a computer that can design a better computer faster than we can.'  Everyone seems to think that the second singularity is achieved, we'll suddenly leap forward decades in technology.

We won't.

We'll just tip the angle of Moore's Law slightly, and even then, we're actually running into real hard limitations on computing (Ie., drives cannot spin much faster, which is the main way to improve their performance, etc.).  Having this new improved design ability is great and all, but we still have real-world limitations to build these better machines.

Bringing it back into line with the discussion and how it applies to Sasaki, I don't actually see her buying into it, either.  I suppose that means she would denounce it as little more than science-based wishful thinking.  Even so, I expect she'd understand the idea a lot better than most people.

So Yudkowsky ends up unintentionally conveying the idea that not only is Downfall!Kyon manipulative, he's also a completely obsessed fanatic.

Now that you mentioned it I agree, although personally I saw a mental image of the aforementioned three-year-old toppling over her porridge bowl and stating that if mom doesn't give ice cream instead then she's evil for letting her precious toddler die of hunger.

I pin the 'fanatic' part on (haven't memorized the phenomes; too lazy to check) the author's own atheism and his difficulty respecting the viewpoint of people who are capable of faith.  He couldn't find a middle ground, so projected his image onto Kyon.

That means he may not have intended the disrespectful representation he shared ... it's just how he actually sees things.

And that's actually more depressing than the story itself.

As my possibly final, weak effort to return to the original topic, this Bayesian talk started from the observation of Sasaki's disregard for wishful thinking. I think that it is somehow ironic because I see (and as I have mentioned, I'm using myself as the most reliable proxy I know when analyzing Sasaki) all this singularity stuff as just another form of wishful thinking, only trying to invoke 'logic' instead of 'magic' without realizing that logic is just another tool. You put manure in, you get manure out. A non-wishful way of thinking suggests that one should approach issues with the proper amount of respect and humility, a test that Yudkowsky!Kyon fails quite spectacularly.

Mm.  Indeed.  And ... I've reiterated a point you already made.  Heh. >_>;;

Actually, having seen the parallel I can also be the one to show where the analogy falls apart.

Downfall!Kyon (let's call him that) has a very imaginative plan based on many years of thinking by Yudkowsky, and unlike Downfall!Koizumi Kyon throws away his life pre-emptively (as opposed to sticking around until Haruhi sets him permanently on fire *wince* -- actually, there's another parallel to the Doctor buried in there now that I think of it). So Yudkowsky ends up unintentionally conveying the idea that not only is Downfall!Kyon manipulative, he's also a completely obsessed fanatic.

See, I can see that applied to Koizumi over years.

Hard to wrap my head around Kyon suddenly reaching this conclusion, deciding it's right, and then forcing it on someone else.  That's just so against his character in almost every way....

Anyway.  Both are basically the same insofar as they're presented as believing they're doing the right thing.  Kyon just happens to be jarringly OOC to be capable of it. >_>;;

Because I'm trying way too hard to be Canadian, I'm not allowed to be impolite and tell him bluntly that Yudkowsky is just some douchebag with a blog account and a spiffy-but-not-very-useful take on using Bayesian inference in everyday life and that he should just stop taking important life advice from the guy already.

Mm.  I believe the cliche (if somewhat ruder than you're used to) phrase for that is:

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Opinions are like assholes.  Everyone has one.  Everyone thinks theirs doesn't stink.

Though, for what it's worth ... I agree with you.

[Arakawa]

Mm.  I believe the cliche (if somewhat ruder than you're used to) phrase for that is:

Spoiler: ShowHide

Opinions are like assholes.  Everyone has one.  Everyone thinks theirs doesn't stink.

Heard that one before.

Which is exactly why I'm not attempting to force my opinion on him. Just attempting to come up with really weird and entirely hypothetical objections to his worldview as a form of mutual entertainment, while carefully dancing around the actual issue...

[Jon]

Just to touch on the Singularity issue, most people misrepresent that point anyway.

'Singularity' means 'When we have made a computer that can design a better computer faster than we can.'  Everyone seems to think that the second singularity is achieved, we'll suddenly leap forward decades in technology.

We won't.

We'll just tip the angle of Moore's Law slightly, and even then, we're actually running into real hard limitations on computing (Ie., drives cannot spin much faster, which is the main way to improve their performance, etc.).  Having this new improved design ability is great and all, but we still have real-world limitations to build these better machines.

I would like to disagree with this claim, but this thread doesn't seem the best place to do so. Perhaps over a beer at Ye Olde Tavern.