Giving the book "Harry Potter and Rational Thinking Methods" to olympiadians

On July 16, we launched a nonprofit crowdfunding for the Harry Potter and Rational Thinking Techniques stamp. He collected more than 8 million rubles, becoming the second in the top of Russian crowdfunding projects in terms of fees. After printing the print run, we will present the three-volume GPiMRM schoolchildren and undergraduate / specialist students who won the Olympiad.

What is it all about?

The book popularizes the ideas of critical thinking and effective altruism - and we decided that it is worth spreading it among talented people who, thanks to GMPM, will be able to bring the greatest benefit to the world.
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Details - under the cut.


In addition to “Harry Potter and Rational Thinking”, we will give the Olympiad career guides “80,000 Hours” in Russian.

“80,000 Hours” is an organization dedicated to research in the field of career choice, which allows a person to realize, brings pleasure and makes the greatest contribution to solving global problems of mankind.


Superman could save more lives

Translation GPiMRM ready and lies in the public domain . The layout of the translation of the “80,000 Hours” guide is being finalized, but preliminary versions can also be found .

What some cool people think about GPiMRM:

Teacher at TsPM, coach of the Moscow team at the All-Russian Olympiad of Mathematics Schoolchildren Vladimir Bragin:

In the book "Harry Potter and Rational Thinking Methods," everyone can find something of their own. I was crawled through some episodes, my friends others. It was funny to find this explanation in the difference of values.

An amazing combination of the ideas of Eliezer Yudkovsky and those ideals for which the whole world loved the series of books by JK Rowling: friendship and devotion, the struggle against injustice. In the guise of ideas about rationality and Bayesianism, you look at these things differently, through the eyes of a wise Harry. If you cannot get rid of the idea that attachment to close people and strong emotions go against the rational view of the world, interfere with subordinating life to some master plan, then perhaps this book will help you resolve these contradictions.

It's funny when the author explicitly points you to incidents and inconsistencies in the Rowling universe. Every time you think: “Why didn’t I notice it myself?”

In addition, reading this book, you can expand your knowledge of the history of science, cognitive distortions and the principles of scientific thinking as a whole along the way. It is difficult to understand whether the narrative is specially designed so that almost every page contains references to something similar, or they, with due care, would inevitably arise in any story.
I highly recommend everyone to read this book, I am sure that you will not regret it!

Head of the Bayesian Research Group, Research Professor at the National Research University Higher School of Economics FKN, Head of the Center for Deep Learning and Bayesian Methods at HSE, Head of the Machine Learning Laboratory of the Moscow Center for Artificial Intelligence at Samsung, Dmitry Vetrov:

As one of my graduate students said, who recommended this book to me, it’s about what would have happened if Harry Potter had grown up to be not a very kind boy, but a very smart boy. This is a great book with elements of a detective story, strategy games, time travel, intrigue, and a complex process of achieving understanding between smart and ambitious people. But, from my point of view, the main thing in the book is a popular presentation of methods of logical (rational) thinking under conditions of uncertainty, a description of common mistakes when trying such thinking and how to avoid them. Possession of these methods allows to avoid incorrect conclusions from various life situations and manipulations from other people. It is almost impossible for a rational thinking person to be brainwashed with half or partial truth. It gives a great competitive advantage in life.

As a scientist, it is important to me that in this book there are numerous examples of the scientific method. A method that, on the one hand, allowed our civilization to achieve an unprecedented high level of prosperity by the beginning of the 21st century, and, on the other hand, which is not taught in almost any university in the world. Quoting the Strugatskys, we can say that this is a book that must be read by every scientist of a younger (and not only!) Age. I recommend it to all my students as an excellent tool for working with the riddles of nature and other secrets that lie in wait for us in research work.

To whom do we give books?

• IMO , IOI , IBO , IPhO , IChO medalists from the CIS countries who speak Russian;
• the winners, prize-winners and recipients of the All-Russian Certificate of Merit (the final stages of the All-Russian School Olympiad) in mathematics;
• the winners and prize-winners of All-Russia in computer science;
• the winners of All-Russia in physics, biology, economics and chemistry;
• holders of diplomas of 1–3 degrees of the Open Programming Olympiad ;
• participants of the Summer Conference of the Tournament of cities ;
• participants of the FCSM ;
• speakers of the Moscow Mathematical Conference of the ICNMO ;
• holders of diplomas of the first degree of the Moscow Mathematical Olympiad;
• holders of diplomas of the first degree of the Baltic scientific engineering competition in all subjects;
• medalists of the International Zhautykov Olympiad;
• holders of diplomas of the I degree of the All-Ukrainian student's Olympiad in mathematics, computer science, biology, physics, chemistry.

If you qualify for at least one of these points and at the same time study at school or at a bachelor’s degree / specialty, fill out a short form to get your copy.