The target audience is unlikely to have issues with the books being about Harry Potter; most of them should’ve seen the movies or read the books[1]. The age might be important because of, e.g., willingness to read weird fanfiction, but I don’t think it’s important because of the prior familiarity with the original Harry Potter.
We’re also targeting winners of national and international olympiads in economics, biology, physics, and chemistry. But I don’t think we’ll have any localized cause-specific materials except for AI Alignment.
It’s a good idea to target people who might have influence in the future. Thanks! From the top of my head, I can’t recall any reproducible routes currently existing in Russia, but I’ll think about that more. I don’t expect a change in a political situation that would result in much more predictable routes[2].
No university EA groups I’m aware of exist in Russia; the city groups had these books when they still existed, but now most Russian EAs communicate online (most of the group organizers have left the country).
Not sure Harry Potter conventions exist really, and a booth doesn’t seem impactful compared to the alternatives (e.g., giving the books to all math/computer science/biology/etc. students who want them). Also, it doesn’t require many physical copies.
I think not being familiar with the original Harry Potter doesn’t reduce the impact of reading HPMOR that much. But everyone in Russia should be generally familiar with the original plot, I think. Like, for many years, a couple of TV stations showed film marathons every New Year.
A fun fact, Navalny’s brother has read HPMOR while in prison, and Navalny’s org, which is probably the leading Russian opposition structure, has helped us with auditing the crowdfunding campaign to ensure it’s non-commercial.
Thanks for the lots of ideas!
The target audience is unlikely to have issues with the books being about Harry Potter; most of them should’ve seen the movies or read the books[1]. The age might be important because of, e.g., willingness to read weird fanfiction, but I don’t think it’s important because of the prior familiarity with the original Harry Potter.
We’re also targeting winners of national and international olympiads in economics, biology, physics, and chemistry. But I don’t think we’ll have any localized cause-specific materials except for AI Alignment.
It’s a good idea to target people who might have influence in the future. Thanks! From the top of my head, I can’t recall any reproducible routes currently existing in Russia, but I’ll think about that more. I don’t expect a change in a political situation that would result in much more predictable routes[2].
No university EA groups I’m aware of exist in Russia; the city groups had these books when they still existed, but now most Russian EAs communicate online (most of the group organizers have left the country).
Not sure Harry Potter conventions exist really, and a booth doesn’t seem impactful compared to the alternatives (e.g., giving the books to all math/computer science/biology/etc. students who want them). Also, it doesn’t require many physical copies.
I think not being familiar with the original Harry Potter doesn’t reduce the impact of reading HPMOR that much. But everyone in Russia should be generally familiar with the original plot, I think. Like, for many years, a couple of TV stations showed film marathons every New Year.
A fun fact, Navalny’s brother has read HPMOR while in prison, and Navalny’s org, which is probably the leading Russian opposition structure, has helped us with auditing the crowdfunding campaign to ensure it’s non-commercial.