I too wrote about this, although _much_ longer, if you want a bit of a deeper dive on the subject <a href="https://www.iankduncan.com/personal/2026-09-16-sex-ai-and-the-apocalypse" rel="nofollow">https://www.iankduncan.com/personal/2026-09-16-sex-ai-and-th...
As far as manifestos go HPMOR is a pretty good one. I think that’s what a lot of the critiques about it miss. Yudkowsky is actually a pretty decent writer, especially in the fan fic scene. Not only is his prose actually acceptable which is pretty rare in fanfic it’s clear that he actually thought through a lot of the plot points ahead of time. Harry Potter universe fits very well for his story not only because it’s popular with the target audience, but because there’s a ton of unexplored authority figures in the original and the main goal of the manifesto largely boils down to rejecting blind belief in authority and blazing your own trail. I think it’s hard to separate the number of people who read it because it’s legitimately the best Harry Potter fanfic from the people who read it for the manifesto stuff which again points to the ingenuity of choosing it as a setting.
Let me be clear, he's no cormac mccarthy(my favorite prose is the passage from blood meridian describing the raiders). My bar for fan fiction prose is basically whether it annoys me, its a low bar. Most of what makes hpmor good is the cleverness with which yudkowsky subverts the original harry potter world to try to make a rationalist argument, whether that be by inverting a character or playing off the harry/voldemort relationship in thoughtful ways.
'"Voldemort," said the old wizard. "I understand him now at last. Because to believe that the world is truly like that, you must believe there is no justice in it, that it is woven of darkness at its core. I asked you why he became a monster, and you could give no reason. And if I could ask him, I suppose, his answer would be: Why not?
They stood there gazing into each other's eyes, the old wizard in his robes, and the young boy with the lightning-bolt scar on his forehead.
"Tell me, Harry," said the old wizard, "will you become a monster?"
"No," said the boy, an iron certainty in his voice.
"Why not?" said the old wizard.'
as you can see its nothing special, just good enough
I see, thanks. It reminds me a little of those spam emails which are sprinkled, intentionally, with obvious spelling errors. They aren't trying to trick the average person, they are trying to filter for a much smaller, more valuable audience.
yes exactly. Fan fiction readers largely do not care about grammar or nice prose, just has to not be overly distracting which unfortunately most fan fic fails at
fwiw, I don't think that was intentional here. He's just more interested in "ideas" than prose or people. A more extreme example of Andy Weir. Definitely a niche. I read it years ago while backpacking and it perhaps needed an editor but the overall struggle/war and reimagining of logical fallacies of the HP universe's magic were fun.
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'"Voldemort," said the old wizard. "I understand him now at last. Because to believe that the world is truly like that, you must believe there is no justice in it, that it is woven of darkness at its core. I asked you why he became a monster, and you could give no reason. And if I could ask him, I suppose, his answer would be: Why not?
They stood there gazing into each other's eyes, the old wizard in his robes, and the young boy with the lightning-bolt scar on his forehead.
"Tell me, Harry," said the old wizard, "will you become a monster?"
"No," said the boy, an iron certainty in his voice.
"Why not?" said the old wizard.'
as you can see its nothing special, just good enough
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