this post was submitted on 03 Jul 2025
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The get rich quick scheme I thought was well thought out, for the 'in universe' principles that had been laid out. One galleon converted to a lot of copper, so the mary sue could take gold from the muggle world, get it made into galleons in the wizard world, trade those for a metric shit ton of copper knuts, and then take those to the muggle world to be sold for a much larger sum of money than had been used to buy the gold.
As long as you don't expect it to work forever, it would be fine. The writing was terrible, but the character established all the nuts and bolts of the operation by 'just asking' questions to the diagetic narrator: pure gold was able to be made into galleons for a fee, banks would give you your money in knuts if you asked, and the prices would work for it.
The writing was jank and the protagonist narrator insufferable, but the conclusions he drew did make sense for the world he had been placed in, as appropriate for a 'rationalist' critique of harry potter.
Edit: the part where I just threw up was where the narrator had an immediate, perfectly-thought-out-but-the-writer-couldn't-come-up-with-an-actual-thing when mcgonagoll threatened to alter his memory, but he had thought of a perfect solution to that years ago. It reminded me of terrible ttrpg players who just ad hoc added parts to their backstory so they could be mary sues in a collaborative game.
regarding your edit, it was hardly a perfect solution. he just bit his lip real hard. that was his message to himself. i think it's mentioned a few paragraphs before he tells mcgonnagall about it. it is in there, but it is easy to miss on the first read through, to be sure.
If the coins are 100% gold or copper then you're in one of two scenarios: the value of the coin is the scrap metal value, in which case swapping between gold and copper makes little difference; or, the mint buys your scrap gold and converts it in-house, pocketing the difference. A mint has no reason to convert your gold to significantly higher value coins for you, that only loses them their economic and political power in the form of currency control.
The only way it would work is if you specifically build a world where everyone else is incredibly stupid just to make yourself seem smart.
This kinda shit happens in the real world between real currencies
The whole basis of that scheme was the different relative exchange rates in the muggle and wizard world. There are I think 17 silver sickles to 1 gold galleon, but in the muggle world gold is more like 50 times the value of silver. The plan was to take a galleon to the muggle world, melt it down and sell the gold, use the proceeds to buy silver, bring that silver back to the wizard world and have it minted into 50 sickles, and trade those sickles for about 3 galleons.
Like many scenes in HPMOR the author is mostly just roasting Rowling for lazy world building. He didn't have to build a world where everyone else was stupid, the point is that Rowling's wizarding world already fulfilled that requirement.
Exploiting the difference in value of a commodity between communities is a valid way to make a living, traders have existed for a very long time, though if there's little effort required the values will quickly align with each other. Turning it into an infinite money glitch by having a mint convert your raw material into coins is nonsense.
That's all still assuming the coins are made of pure gold/silver for some reason. And assuming the mint is willing to just make money for you in spite what I've already said.
Edit: And that's all if you ignore the fact alchemy, conjuration, and transfiguration exist in that universe so the entire thing is moot anyway. The angle they should have taken is that physical currency makes no sense in a world where you can just summon more, but I suppose that's harder to turn into "I'm so much smarter than the entire world".
I mean if you actually read it, basically every point you made except transfiguration is addressed in the conversation Harry has with a goblin at Gringott's. And transfiguration is addressed later in the book, it's actually a really crucial plot point. Long story short, no, you can't just summon more without the philosopher's stone, which is exceedingly rare.
The angle taken, that from currency to time turners the setting is poorly constructed, is valid. Incidentally, HPMOR Harry suffers due to his "I'm so much smarter than everyone" hubris multiple times throughout the story. Once the story really gets going, Yudkowsky doesn't really shy away from pointing out when Harry's absolutist rationalism comes across as childish, impractical, or straight up unethical.
Harry Potter, especially in the first few books, is really not hard fiction at all. Rowling's worldbuilding is only there to make for a nice, somewhat magical backdrop for a children's story. Close to none of the in-universe rules she sets up really work if you look at them hard enough.
It starts with Wingardium Leviosa (and many other spells) blatantly breaking the laws of thermodynamics, thus allowing for infinite energy generation and thus infinite matter generation, but this continues not only throughout the magic system but also throughout every other system she sets up. Because most of it is nothing but a whimsical caricature of real things.
The money system is a caricature of the old British pre-decimal £sd money system.
Quidditch is a caricature of football (thousands of ways to perform a foul), rugby (brutal tackling and violence on the pitch) and cricket (a game can last for months) rolled into one.
The house system and house cup are only slightly embellished versions of what exists in real-life British boarding schools.
Just a few examples. The books are specifically not written in a rational-logical way. Attacking that is so easy that it's just boring. It's like proving that raindeer noses don't glow bright or that gingerbread lacks the static properties to be used to build life-sized houses for witches.
Yeah, Harry Evans' best friend is a Wizard Nazi. He's not supposed to be a paragon, he's supposed to be a flawed character whose flaw is hubris.
That's just arbitrage
It works until others realize there's an arbitrary opportunity and prices equalize