I came here to comment HPMoR. It's a little embarrassing because the book is very cringey at times, full of itself, and for those who care, quite sexist. But it has some incredible lessons in how to think rationally, especially in situations where most people don't believe you or are very used to doing things a certain way even when that way has bad consequences.
My favorite part of the book is when Harry goes around trying to collect the signatures of people who believe (on flimsy evidence and against their better judgement) that another character has committed attempted murder. Their refusal to directly advertise their beliefs (thus subjecting themselves to later scrutiny if they're proven wrong) is a direct reflection of how people in real society like to take intellectual and strategic positions without accepting any of the risk or responsibility of being wrong.
Using a special little carveout theoretically satisfies two groups of people:
1) Those who won't engage with material if it's sexist
2) Those who think other people are stupid for not engaging with material if it's sexist
As an example, I could write:
> Because the book is very cringey at times and full of itself.
I've said this before, and the response was multiple times "who cares about that, what about how sexist it is? Can you believe how the female characters are written?" And then the topic of conversation is about the sexism of the author (and whether or not I can reliably identify sexism) instead of the content of the book, which is what I wanted to talk about.
I could also write:
> Because the book is very cringey at times, full of itself, and quite sexist
But then the response is either "why are you recommending it if it's sexist?" or "no it's not sexist, why would you say that?" And then the topic of conversation is again about the sexism in the book instead of the content of the book.
When things like HPMoR come up, the conversation trends towards the more controversial parts of it and less about the useful parts. I thought that using "for those who care" was enough of a lead-in to prove that I both (a) understand that the book is sexist and (b) understand that one doesn't have to ignore all of the content of a work just because it's sexist, but... apparently not.
It's so embarassing and cringey I couldn't manage to read it at all. I've had more luck with Yudkowsky's other book, Rationality: From AI to Zombies[0], which I've rather enjoyed.
My favorite part of the book is when Harry goes around trying to collect the signatures of people who believe (on flimsy evidence and against their better judgement) that another character has committed attempted murder. Their refusal to directly advertise their beliefs (thus subjecting themselves to later scrutiny if they're proven wrong) is a direct reflection of how people in real society like to take intellectual and strategic positions without accepting any of the risk or responsibility of being wrong.