63 KiB
Eliezer's Latest Challenge - a reverse whodunit!
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Author: u/wren42 *
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/9ft8w4/eliezers_latest_challenge_a_reverse_whodunit/
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Score: 111
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Created: 2018-09-14T16:01:43
Post:
A recent post on literary "asteroid strikes" attributed the anonymously published Naruto fanfic "Waves Arisen" to EY - a claim which he has consistently neither confirmed nor denied.
Eliezer himself showed up in the comments to mention that he can still neither confirm nor deny authorship, but also noted that there were not only stories often attributed to him that he did not author, but one story in particular that he *did* write anonymously with a conscious effort to change his style, that to his knowledge no one had ever attributed to him.
He went further to say this:
Nobody responding to this message will mention the work in question either, unless somebody throws out an enormous shotgun list - say, a list so long as to contain at least 9 other works. The writing didn't especially sound like Eliezer, or rather didn't sound like you imagine Eliezer to be; so you didn't notice.
CHALLENGE ACCEPTED
I propose we hivemind to attempt to identify top candidates for this mystery-story. The problem is a reverse Whodunit-- we know the culprit, and need to figure out what he did.
In the spirit of cheeky munchkinry, we will identify our top eight candidates - a bit under EY's definition of a "shotgun list."
The process will be as follows:
PLEASE RESTRICT TOP LEVEL COMMENTS TO ONLY PROPOSALS FOR CANDIDATE WORKS
Proposals should take the following format:
TITLE OF WORK
Link to work
1-2 sentence NON SPOILER description. Keep this minimal please.
NO arguments or pro-con about the merits of the work or evidence for EY's authorship in top level comments. Please put all arguments in REPLIES to these top level proposals. Structure replies to argue FOR or AGAINST the case of EY's authorship of the given work. Comments MAY include spoilers - so reader beware!
Upvote candidate works that you believe are most likely to have been secretly authored by Eliezer, after reading all arguments.
Please put META DISCUSSION and GENERAL ARGUMENTS around search criteria and process, what traits we should analyze, etc in reply to the META comment I will post.
General Criteria:
- Candidates should be works of fiction published online and publicly available
- Authorship should be anonymous or under a pseudonym without other attributed works
- Work is fictional, and likely contains some rational fic elements
- Work is likely at least somewhat known to the rational community: "This work isn't what you could call prominent, but it is sometimes casually mentioned in somebody's "Best Of" list." -EY
I will add to this criteria if discussion in the META thread comes to any conclusions with merit, and maintain a list of the top candidate works.
Of course, Eliezer has already stated he will not confirm or deny authorship of the work even if we find it. Our goal can at best be to prove to our own satisfaction that we have identified his "lost work."
At the worst case, however, we will simply have a discussion about lesser-known but still good rational fiction, and potentially expose ourselves to stories we haven't encountered before. Given the aim of this sub, this seems like a pretty good outcome. =)
Happy hunting!!
Comments:
u/wren42 [+17] (a minute later)
META DISCUSSION THREAD - PLEASE RESTRICT TOP COMMENTS TO CANDIDATE PROPOSALS ONLY
This thread is for discussion of the process, general arguments about EY's style, what criteria we should be using to search, lists of story databases and fiction sites we should be combing, off-topic conversation, etc.
Thank you!
u/EthanCC [+31] (2 hours later)
I... am not sure this is possible to narrow down given what we know. We have no suggestion that it's any sort of rational work, it was just written to test his abilities. Even assuming it was written when he wasn't writing something else, there are so many stories published online we would be looking at thousands.
The only things I can think of that would help us find it
time published- he probably wouldn't write it alongside something else, and if it was a test it may have been before HPMOR
venue published on- probably somewhere he frequents
thinking style- he may have changed his writing style, but it's the same person. We should look for deconstructions, reconstructions, and works that take something to the logical conclusion.
length- if it's a test it's probably short
throw away account or anonymous- EY is aware of opsec, he probably wouldn't risk a more personal account like this. On top of that, he probably would have made an account specifically for this and then no longer had a reason to use it given this is just a test. So accounts with one or two stories and little activity could lead to him.
best of- by far our best clue. If we were to compile "best of" lists on the places EY frequents, remove stories that are attributed to authors we know aren't EY, and check against the other filters above we might be able to find it. I don't know what places EY frequents but here though, and AFAIK there's not a way to search for comments containing a string in reddit.
My suggestion: we all compile our "best of" lists and look for possibilities. Not much I know, but worth a shot. I haven't read much of this thread, so if anyone has said all this already, sorry.
My list is: Metropolitan Man, Dungeon Keeper Ami, Chiaroscuro, To the Stars, (will add more as I think of them).
Note that this is the entire best of list, I haven't narrowed it down.
u/gbear605 [+18] history’s greatest story (6 hours later)
Metropolitan Man
The author of that is alexanderwales, one of this sub's mods and also the author of a lot else. So probably not that?
u/Roxolan [+8] Head of antimemetiWalmart senior assistant manager (6 hours later)
Also people have joked / speculated about him and EY being the same person a whole lot, especially after the whole cthulhuraejepsen incident, so it's unlikely to fit with
To the best of my knowledge nobody has ever accused Eliezer Yudkowsky of having written it.
u/saitselkis [+2] (a day later)
What cthulhuraejepsen incident, that's the author of worth the candle, right?
u/Roxolan [+6] Head of antimemetiWalmart senior assistant manager (a day later)
cthulhuraejepsen and alexanderwales are the same person. When he announced this, there was a lot of musing about who else he might be.
u/saitselkis [+1] (a day later)
Ahh, I only started WtC a couple months ago, so it must have been before my time.
u/Makin- [+7] homestuck ratfic, you can do it (22 hours later)
You know, it'd be really funny if EY legit just asked someone else to publish his story under their name. The perfect crime.
u/MuonManLaserJab [+5] (a day later)
In that case my guess is the DSM-5. Totally different style.
u/EthanCC [+1] (23 hours later)
I just posted the entire list, more data can't hurt.
u/FeepingCreature [+12] GCV Literally The Entire Culture (2 hours later)
Dungeon Keeper Ami is still updating. To the Stars is still updating.
u/EthanCC [+3] (23 hours later)
I just posted the entire list, more data can't hurt.
u/thrawnca [+2] Carbon-based biped (3 days later)
I reckon if he won't confirm or deny even when guessed, then this is basically trying to break a one-time pad. Can't be done because you never know if you've succeeded.
u/FriendlyAnnatar [+1] The Greater Good (3 hours later)
Chiaroscuro
Chiarusco? Haven't heard of that one, is there a link?
u/Areign [+4] (4 hours later)
It's the only thing that pops up if you Google that. It's a Naruto fanfic
u/Roxolan [+8] Head of antimemetiWalmart senior assistant manager (6 hours later)
Author has half a dozen other fics and, unless homonym, an active reddit account with a very different family history (hello /u/boomvroomshroom!).
u/None [+9] (15 hours later)
[deleted]
u/MuonManLaserJab [+4] (a day later)
That's an impressively elaborate ruse, Eliezer.
u/FriendlyAnnatar [+4] The Greater Good (6 hours later)
Huh, I did do a web search for it and it didn't show up. In fact, the first page was full of results about it as an art technique-
Chiaroscuro, in art, is the use of strong contrasts between light and dark, usually bold contrasts affecting a whole composition.
Which I figure is the more common usage. Good to know.
u/hoja_nasredin [+3] Dai-Gurren Brigade (5 hours later)
It is the best Naruto fanfic i have seen.
u/EthanCC [+2] (23 hours later)
u/MINECRAFT_BIOLOGIST [+1] (4 days later)
If by TTS you mean the PMMM fanfic, I've talked to the author of TTS in the TTS discord and he probably isn't EY :P
u/EthanCC [+1] (4 days later)
Note that this is the entire best of list, I haven't narrowed it down.
I know.
u/gbear605 [+13] history’s greatest story (an hour later)
A couple of years ago, I did an lexical analysis of Waves Arisen (based on this script by Gwern) to try to identify the author. It was fairly inconclusive, though one interesting result was that all the Naruto fics were lexically very similar, although that might be because of shared vocabulary. Since EY said that he tried to make this stylistically different, it probably wouldn't show up, but here's a summary of relevant information that I found anyway.
I compared Waves Arisen with:
Popular rationalist fics:
- #Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality - Yudkowsky
- Luminosity - Alicorn
- The Metropolitan Man - Alexander Wales
- A Bluer Shade of White - Alexander Wales
- Branches on the Tree of Time - Alexander Wales
- Three Worlds Collide - Yudkowsky
- The Fable of the Dragon-Tyrant - Nick Bostrom
- Mother of Learning - nobody103
- The Last Christmas - Alexander Wales
- Friendship Is Optimal - Iceman
- Animorphs: The Reckoning - WhatWouldEnderDo
- Pokemon: The Origin of Species - DaystarEld
- Harry Potter and the Natural 20 - Sir Poley
- Time Braid - ShaperV
Examples from Gwern's analysis:
- #Trust in God, or, The Riddle of Kyon - Yudkowsky
- #The Finale of the Ultimate Meta Mega Crossover - Yudkowsky
- #Peggy Susie - Yudkowsky
- Mandragora - NothingPretentious
- To The Stars - Hieronym
Top seven rated Naruto fanfictions on fanfiction.net:
- Team 8 - S'TarKan
- Naruto: Myoushuu no Fuuin - May Wren
- The Sealed Kunai - Kenchi618
- The Lives Worth Saving - cywsaphyre
- It's For a Good Cause, I Swear! - Sarah1281
- The Prodigy Namikaze - SoulReaperCrewe
- A Drop of Poison - Angel of Snapdragons
From all of that, I found that "Trust in God, or, The Riddle of Kyon" was similar to "Time Braid" and "Luminosity"; that HPMOR was similar to "HP and the Natural 20"; and that "Three Worlds Collide" and "Finale of the Ultimate Mega Mega Crossover" were similar to "Branches on the Tree of Time," "The Last Christmas," and "To The Stars." I feel fairly confident that it can't be Time Braid or Luminosity, since the author of Time Braid has written other things and other people know the author of Luminosity. It also could not be "Branches on the Tree of Time" or "The Last Christmas," since AlexanderWales has written widely.
The remaining options are "HP and the Natural 20" and "To The Stars," so those are the only suggestion that this method gives with the corpus I looked at.
u/alexanderwales [+29] Time flies like an arrow (2 hours later)
If anyone has the time to do it, I would love to see a lexical analysis of similarity between Worth the Candle and some of the other stuff I've written. It was written under psuedonym, but no active effort was spent in disguising style.
u/gbear605 [+23] history’s greatest story (2 hours later)
If you have it and your other fics in a nice format (ie. plaintext), I can do it right now. If you don't, I can still go and download them, it'll just be lower priority, since that takes a while and my time is somewhat limited.
u/alexanderwales [+17] Time flies like an arrow (2 hours later)
I'll see what I can do when I have time tonight. Thanks!
u/gbear605 [+8] history’s greatest story (a day later)
I just did an analysis. I looked at all the texts I listed above, plus all of Wildbow's works, plus a few more of yours. The ones of yours that I looked at are:
- A Bluer Shade of White
- Branches on the Tree of Time
- Glimwarden
- Shadows of the Limelight
- The Last Christmas
- The Metropolitan Man
- Worth The Candle
Of those, the groups of similarity were:
- [Branches on the Tree of Time, The Last Christmas]
- [The Metropolitan Man, Glimwarden, Shadows of the Limelight, A Bluer Shade of White]
- [Worth the Candle]
On top of that, it said that the two large groups were fairly close to each other while Worth the Candle was a lot further away from them and more similar to Time Braid, Luminosity, Animorphs: The Reckoning, and all of Wildbow's works.
So apparently you unintentionally changed writing styles by adopting a pseudonym!
u/tjhance [+15] (a day later)
I notice that the Worth the Candle, Time Braid, Luminosity, Animorphs: The Reckoning, and Wildbow's works are all written with first person narration, while the others are not. That might explain why Worth the Candle is closer to those other ones rather than the other alexanderwales works.
u/alexanderwales [+7] Time flies like an arrow (2 days later)
Neat, thanks! I do wonder about the things that might confound style, but I doubt there's much to be done about them. First person narration is definitely one of them, but others include time and place (many more modern cultural references in Worth the Candle), intended tone, etc.
Ideally each work is written in the style that most suits it, and the language in many Romanesque anime battle school story shouldn't be similar to the style I use for fantasy-kitchen-sink-with-meta. You'd have to figure out some way of only getting those things that stay constant between works, which you can probably do, but might take more advanced stylometics. For example, there are probably some words or turns of phrase that I use much more often than baseline, even when I'm writing totally different things, but you'd have to have a large canon of work to actually see that in a statistically significant way.
u/gbear605 [+3] history’s greatest story (2 days later)
Shared vocabulary is also probably what caused all the Naruto fics to be considered similar, so it seems very likely to be important. Unfortunately, removing duplicate words would be a very time consuming task, since it has to be done manually and it's currently 37 kilobytes of individual words.
u/gryfft [+1] (a day later)
Archive Of Our Own has a very convenient "entire work" feature that makes grabbing works from it a snap. (There's download options for several formats, too.)
u/gbear605 [+1] history’s greatest story (a day later)
Unfortunately they don't have a plain text download. :( However, exporting to html and then doing a copy/paste of the html is still a lot faster than going through each one individually and copy/pasting.
u/CouteauBleu [+3] We are the Empire. (5 hours later)
Not WtC, but i remember re-reading your weekly challenge entries after your reveal and thinking "Yes, of course it was alexanderwales who wrote that!"
u/ProfessorPhi [+2] (a day later)
Hmm, I went and read the Alexander wales collection after the reveal and I have to admit, I never got that aha moment. I also feel like wtc is wales pushing himself super hard and is growing a lot as a writer from it.
u/tinkady [+3] (8 hours later)
Why is it under a pseudonym? I would have read it by now if I had known it was you
u/causalchain [+16] (9 hours later)
He wanted the work to thrive under its own merits and see how much viewership it got without being boosted by his popularity. After a while it proved itself to be successful and he revealed himself as the author.
u/FeepingCreature [+15] GCV Literally The Entire Culture (an hour later)
We can, I think, exclude HPN20 because the author is also publishing RPG modules at drivethrurpg.com, and I don't think Eliezer, next to his dayjob, also runs D&D campaigns. (For one, somebody would have mentioned it.)
To the Stars is also still updating. So it's probably not a rationalfic; in fact, it probably predates HPMOR. Hell, Eliezer's phrasing, which may reference Quirrell's description of his Voldemort trial persona, would imply it's something trashy.
u/philh [+9] (3 hours later)
Self-insert pornography confirmed.
u/CreationBlues [+9] (8 hours later)
Considering "The summoned hero is a girl corrupted by the internet", yeah.
u/None [+10] (23 minutes later)
Here's a list of rational fiction which is pretty expansive
With EY's statement that nobody will get it, I'm assuming it probably won't be something that we would usually call rational fiction, and is more likely to be otherwise-nonrational fanfiction; because if it's rational fiction and has been posted here before, somebody would think of it. There hasn't been that much posted here.
Might be worth checking r/HFY for other potential things, but that rather significantly increases the number of possible stories.
I'm not sure how much merit there is to this sort of discussion, though---EY has already said he will neither confirm nor deny it even if someone does correctly guess what this mysterious piece of writing is. We have virtually nothing to restrict the possibility space except for the fact that 1. the writing doesn't sound like his and 2. he occasionally sees it mentioned on "Best Of" lists. Given the varying tastes of people on the internet, those things don't narrow it down by any significant margin.
"9 other works" is a fairly arbitrary number, and not one I would describe as "an enormous list". This in itself could be a hint to the work's identity.
u/wren42 [+12] (an hour later)
- he occasionally sees it mentioned on "Best Of" lists.
I think this is a pretty big hint. I take it to mean he sees it in "best of" lists of people in the rational fic community. I interpret it this way for a few reasons:
First, EY does frequent this sub and comment, so he is being exposed to conversation here and people's preferences.
Secondly, an anonymous work on the internet would be unlikely to garner attention of mainstream "best of" lists -- publisher reviews and bestsellers, etc.
This means it must be 'best of' webfiction of some sort. While it's POSSIBLE he frequents other non-overlapping webfiction communities, I think it's unlikely that he would have written a story that ends up on best-of lists elsewhere on the internet and goes unnoticed by the rational fic community.
If true, this dramatically reduces our search space. It should be a story that has been mentioned on rational fiction websites and forums, possibly including this sub, and has an unknown author. This list is probably pretty short - which is why his "9 other works" shotgun list definition is so small.
u/FeepingCreature [+12] GCV Literally The Entire Culture (2 hours later)
First, EY does frequent this sub and comment, so he is being exposed to conversation here and people's preferences.
Secondly, an anonymous work on the internet would be unlikely to garner attention of mainstream "best of" lists -- publisher reviews and bestsellers, etc.
Not a safe assumption: Eliezer has read a lot of non-rational fanfiction. Consider Finale; consider the amount of anime fanfic referenced. Consider that Eliezer's trialfic is probably old. It might be showing up on best-of Evangelion fanfics, best-of Naruto fanfics, hell, best-of Fate fanfics. Though we can probably exclude all fanfiction explicitly referenced in Finale too.
u/Amonwilde [+4] (5 hours later)
I think it's a safe enough assumption, and also this endeavor would have to come to an end if the assumption weren't made, since the search space would be too large. EY probably isn't going to write something that this community is entirely uninterested in, so that's another reason to assume that it's on best-of lists in this community.
u/gbear605 [+4] history’s greatest story (an hour later)
"9 other works"
That might just be saying that it would be one in ten, with ten just being an round reasonably sized number.
u/None [+3] (2 hours later)
Thanks for pointing it out---I misread the original statement and omitted the "other", so thought he was saying for people to give a list of 9 works rather than a list of 10.
u/sneakpeekbot [+2] (23 minutes later)
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#3: Terran Tears
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u/wren42 [+8] (7 minutes later)
Here's an overview of rational fiction that contains a list of a few works.
https://fictionhub.io/post/rational-fiction/
Things like "three worlds collide" made it in there, which had it not been explicitly attributed to EY would be a good cadidate. Also has some links to other sites.
u/causalchain [+6] (9 hours later)
I don't think we can use "three world's collide" as evidence, since EY's fame would have almost ensured its place on the list. Since our fiction is without EY's backing and quite possibly has vastly different themes to the usual, I wouldn't expect it to be on this list; in fact I would use this list as negative evidence.
u/Schpwuette [+7] (28 minutes later)
I guess the work in question is complete?
And its author will have only written that one fic?
u/wren42 [+6] (an hour later)
yes, I think these are good assumptions to work from. the authorship filter is a big one. we need to work to generate a list of works with unknown or single-story authors.
u/zonules_of_zinn [+6] (5 hours later)
i wonder if there are any communal pseudonyms that he and other authors use for test fics or one-offs to preserve anonymity and muddy the waters.
u/VorpalAuroch [+3] Life before Death (6 hours later)
Three can keep a secret if two of them are dead; I doubt it.
u/zonules_of_zinn [+3] (6 hours later)
aw, no fun! that aphorism just kills all potential conspiracies in the world.
besides, there's still time for a secret keeper to spill the beans.
u/Empiricist_or_not [+3] Aspiring polite Hegemonizing swarm (14 hours later)
Would it be fair to assume this would be posted on fanfiction.net under a singl story author; and also linked on lesswrong, r/hpmor or r/rational?
I don'ts know if I have time for this level of data mining (I'm weak in generating web scrapers and I don't have a truly free weekend to up my regex game enough to really automate this) but trying to define a reasonable search criteria
u/himself_v [+4] (an hour later)
Neither is guaranteed.
u/VorpalAuroch [+3] Life before Death (6 hours later)
The first seems very likely; the second less so. We should expect the body of work under this name to be small, but not necessarily only one work; as long as the listed body of work is 100k words or so, or maybe more if thinly spread out over many years, that shouldn't eliminate that writer from consideration.
u/Makin- [+6] homestuck ratfic, you can do it (9 minutes later)
Candidates should be short works of fiction
Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't think he said it was short at any point?
u/wren42 [+5] (17 minutes later)
True, this may be an unfounded assumption based only on my impression of how he described it.
u/Arancaytar [+4] (45 minutes later)
Did he explicitly state whether it was a fan work or original setting?
u/SkinnyTy [+4] (10 hours later)
Guys, we need to go about this the rational way. If we start by throwing out candidates we are going to be biased toward our original suggestions, end up polarizing debate between whatever people latch onto first and its next best competitor, and end up completely missing the mark because of motivated stopping.
u/himself_v [+3] (an hour later)
A question to native speakers: does the wording of
I did at least once go and write a piece of online fiction to test my writing skills
prohibit
Writing only a part of work?
Collaboration?
u/FeepingCreature [+10] GCV Literally The Entire Culture (2 hours later)
I feel like for "a piece of online fiction" to be part of a work would be a dirty trick of phrasing. Eliezer isn't posing this as a trick question; he genuinely thinks we won't guess it, even having considered it.
u/gbear605 [+2] history’s greatest story (an hour later)
I'd say it doesn't necessarily prohibit either.
u/ishaan123 [+4] Sidebar Contestant (4 hours later)
I don't have time to do this but if someone wants to feed this AI the full text of EYs works, I rather suspect it would be better than human at this sort of thing.
u/None [+2] (6 days later)
[deleted]
u/ishaan123 [+2] Sidebar Contestant (6 days later)
I don't really know, i did not try it. But one would hope that if it took hours the website would make a note of it to let you know that a wait was involved.
u/None [+1] (an hour later)
just a note that everyone should read that essay you linked first. it was insightful
u/VorpalAuroch [+3] Life before Death (an hour later)
I disagree, it was needlessly sprawling and pushpins-and-string rant-y.
u/Tenoke [+1] Even the fuckin' trees walked in those movies (a day later)
I'm disappointed that you didn't munchkin properly by going for a list of 9 works.
u/SevereCircle [+1] (2 days later)
I don't care enough to bother, but if I had to I'd start by looking at chapter publication dates of various works and known activities of EY, if any. You can only get so much work done in so much time.
u/MilesSand [+1] (2 days later)
If someone doesn't want people to know what else they wrote then respect that. It's effing rude to cross boundaries like that.
Dude uses coping strategies to deal with something, and they seep into his writing. This is similar to most writers but it's not a "style" and anyone who uses the same strategies for their day to day isn't necessarily the same person.
Also always remember "we did it Reddit"
u/somerandomguy2008 [+15] (7 hours later)
A Post-Rebellion Puella Magi Madoka Magica fanfiction.
u/somerandomguy2008 [+22] (7 hours later)
This is a long shot. I'm guessing this based on a few things, none of which I find particularly persuasive but I don't really have any other ideas.
Scott Alexander recommended it at one point. I forget where. He doesn't recommend a lot of fiction, much less anime fanfiction. He even said in his recommendation that it wasn't the kind of thing he normally reads but that he was enjoying it. My hunch was that he knew the author or knew someone who knew the author and wanted to give the story a bump in readership. Eliezer could be the author he was looking to help out.
Timeline roughly matches up, maybe? In particular, Bavitz (the pseudonym for Fargo's author) seems to have joined fanfiction.net and started posting Fargo a few months after HPMOR wrapped up. I'm not entirely sure when Fargo finished and when "A Girl Corrupted by the Internet is the Summoned Hero?" was written, but it seems like it might be close to lining up too.
Bavitz's profile claims he's an "internationally-read writer". That would be true of Eliezer. The wording there also makes it sound like he isn't really a professional author, per se, but his work is relatively widely read nonetheless. That would also be true of Eliezer. I believe Bavitz's profile said he was a published author at one point, although I was unable to corroborate this with web archive.
Eliezer has mentioned enjoying both Puella Magi Madoka Magica and Homestuck - the two canon sources for Bavitz's stories.
It fits Eliezer's claim - Bavitz's style is very different from Eliezer's. His stories are also not very prominent but they do get mentioned from time to time.
While Bavitz's stories don't sound much like Eliezer, Bavitz's Twitter sounds not entirely unlike Eliezer (although with more gramatical/mechanical mistakes than Eliezer's Twitter account has).
It's worth noting that this was half-jokingly speculated about here about four months ago and was shot down on account of the styles being too different.
u/Makin- [+23] homestuck ratfic, you can do it (9 hours later)
EDIT: WELP NEVERMIND I got a "can't comment on this" ambiguous-ass response when I asked him directly, all bets are off.
I briefly considered it too, but I've talked to Bavitz a couple times on Discord and he sounded nothing like EY. Very focused on symbolism too, even outside the work itself.
If Bavitz was EY then he'd have to have crafted a whole other personality for the purpose of messing with the Homestuck discord server, which is just really unlikely even for him.
Also, while I don't like Fargo that much, I love another of his works (and have been recommending it in my flair since ancient times) and it reads nothing like EY, not even like EY-trying-something-new.
u/xamueljones [+3] My arch-enemy is entropy (3 days later)
I got a "can't comment on this" ambiguous-ass response when I asked him directly, all bets are off.
Is the him in question Bavitz or Eliezer?
u/Makin- [+3] homestuck ratfic, you can do it (3 days later)
Bavitz, it wouldn't have been remotely surprising if it was Eliezer.
u/xamueljones [+10] My arch-enemy is entropy (9 hours later)
I actually believed it was a possibility at the time (at 60%) when I posted that comment, but wrote it down as a joke, because I didn't think anyone else would take it seriously due to how different the writing style was. Totally forgot about that comment and Fargo until you posted the link to it.
Looking at Fargo again, I think it's a viable candidate for the reasons mentioned and you saying that it's a long-shot (due to how different the writing styles are) in my mind raises the probability of Bavitz being Eliezer. Eliezer is a smart guy and if he says that the writing style is very different and hard to recognize as his, then I would distrust any story that reads as being too similar in style to HPMOR. For example, r Animorphs: The Reckoning is very reminiscent of HPMOR's Ender-style games and when reading it, I am often reminded of Eliezer's ability to make multiple Level 3 characters interacting in chaotic ways.
Long story short, I think this is the most likely story to have been written by Elizer suggested in this thread.
u/VorpalAuroch [+13] Life before Death (2 hours later)
A Voice Across the Void by Zoltan Berrigomo
u/CouteauBleu [+6] We are the Empire. (5 hours later)
Mhh... not a bad guess.
Re-reading it, I'd say the style matches what I'd expect from EY trying to do something different; the mix of methodical epistemology and Star Wars worldbuilding (get it?) feels very much like him.
u/VorpalAuroch [+7] Life before Death (6 hours later)
I haven't actually read it in the slightest; I just looked down the list of things on rationalreads and investigated the second few that I didn't recognize the authors of. (The first one I looked into was Pokemon: Origin of Species, but then I saw that that author runs the rationalfic podcast, which takes them out of contention.) So if, independently of me picking it on priors, it seems plausible, then it may now be the top candidate.
u/VorpalAuroch [+3] Life before Death (2 hours later)
FOR: Berrigomo has written other things, but not many other things, about 100k words in total.
The name is an acknowledged pseudonym (on the SCP wiki) which could be taken from the main character from Mother of Learning.
u/eroticas [+9] (4 hours later)
Does the fact that he thinks it might appear in a shotgun list mean that it is a work which has gained recognition in the community?
Because if it's languishing in obscurity somewhere and never really got popular in the corner of the internet that knows who Yudkowsky is, he's right, we really won't find it. There's just too much haystack.
u/VorpalAuroch [+6] Life before Death (6 hours later)
If not in this specific community, in a related one. If it got recognition in /r/HFY or similar, but not here, that would be fair play.
u/DaystarEld [+17] Pokémon Professor (13 hours later)
Well, at the very least these comments are shaping up to be a great source of less seen rationalfics to check out :P
u/I_Probably_Think [+2] (3 days later)
That is what I was most interested to see, to be honest!
u/lsparrish [+7] (23 hours later)
Friendship is Optimal https://www.fimfiction.net/story/62074/friendship-is-optimal
A game designer makes a series of questionable decisions, resulting in major changes for the entire world. Also, ponies.
Edit: Removed speculation and changed to fit format of this post.
u/ArisKatsaris [+5] Sidebar Contender (a day later)
Ι doubt it. I remember EY offering comments/criticism on a draft version of FiO that iceman had shown on LessWrong. EY also has said that in his take of FiO, it would be populated by mortal ponies, not effectively immortal ones, merely because that's what's shown on the tv show -- thus his take on CelestAI would be more clearly an Unfriendly AI.
u/Evan_Th [+3] Sunshine Regiment (a day later)
Also, a whole lot of the community that's sprung up around FIO portrays CelestAI as a clearly good thing, and Iceman's been fairly quiet on that. If people were misinterpreting Eliezer's UFAI portrayal in that way, I can't see him staying silent.
u/lsparrish [+2] (a day later)
The criticisms could be explained as misdirection and/or intentionally distancing himself from the characters opinions and the direction the story went (things he has had to do with HPMOR). Maintaining distance from the characters and story elements would be further motive for anonymity. But... I think EY would probably just write the story differently for some of these, as he takes it seriously.
I've also updated downward on this after looking at iceman's comment history. (I peeked at it before, but the new site layout confused me into thinking it was shorter than it was in reality.) For a long comment history like that, it would be too much non-fun work spread over too much time with too little reward.
u/lsparrish [+2] (a day later)
Pro: EY's goals include warning the world about runaway optimizers, and teaching people about rationality. HPMOR fulfilled the latter goal, so why wouldn't he use the same tactic for the former?
Pro: EY had written extensively on the topic of a runaway optimizer. Furthermore, in 2013, Nick Bostrom had not yet published his work on the matter. It was starting to look like EY was the only one who believes this. A fanfic from a third party supporting the idea would boost his credibility more than a fanfic known to originate from the same source. So there is motive to conceal his identity if he wrote it.
Pro: EY has talked about the fic without directly denying he wrote it.
Con: The comment history of FiO's author on lesswrong doesn't really look like an EY alt. It is also long enough to require an effort intensive charade.
Con: EY has criticized story elements of FiO from the perspective of realism and story structure, and seems to have a much lower opinion of the characters and outcome than the author.
Con: The work EY seems to have written is not supposed to be one of the most prominent. FiO is relatively prominent (compared to Chiaroscuro, say). Optimizer fics were basically not a thing before this was written.
u/Croktopus [+39] (2 hours later)
I'm pretty sure it's Worth the Candle.
EY is just another Alexander Wales alt
u/saitselkis [+10] (5 hours later)
I would love this, he would be responsible for my two favorite online fictions.
u/ProfessorPhi [+4] (a day later)
I would hate this, the plot twist where he was Cthulhuraejepsen was kind of a bummer in that the rational community writers had fine down by 1.
u/ThatDarnSJDoubleW [+15] (7 hours later)
I'm pretty sure this is a joke, but if isn't, then I'll disagree. alexanderwales has mentioned stuff recently about staying home while his wife to look after his kid, he's written multiple stories while EY only mentioned one, his characterization and tone tend to be massively different from EY's, etc.
u/melmonella [+38] Tremble, o ye mighty, for a new age is upon you (8 hours later)
He also doesn't sound like EY on podcasts.
u/ThatDarnSJDoubleW [+11] (12 hours later)
Oh, uh, right, that too.
u/stale2000 [+5] (a day later)
Alexander Wales is some rando software engineer, living in the mid-west, findable via a couple quick google searches.
He is quite clearly not the same person as EY.
u/petrichorE6 [+3] (9 hours later)
Well if that were true it would make two of EY's works that I've dropped. One because it was an absolutely terrible experience and the other because I really enjoyed it and I'm saving it for a long binge read. So either EY's writing went through leaps and bounds or it's written by two different people.
u/None [+1] (18 hours later)
Thanks for making me laugh.
u/Croktopus [+1] (23 hours later)
You're welcome!
u/himself_v [+7] (an hour later)
Nobody responding to this message will mention the work in question either, unless somebody throws out an enormous shotgun list - say, a list so long as to contain at least 9 other works.
How can he say that when you can just post a list one by one? Or to make things faster, 8 titles a comment. That must be a clue.
u/Nimelennar [+15] (an hour later)
A list that contains the correct entry and nine other works would have ten total entries.
In the "Works similar to HPMOR" thread in /r/HPMOR, under the "Rational fanfiction" subheading, there are exactly ten entries.
u/Killako1 [+12] (7 hours later)
This is not a coincidence because there are no coincidences.
u/Nimelennar [+21] (11 hours later)
Exactly. The number ten is not significant to human physiology, culture, mathematics, or measurement systems in any way, therefore it must have been chosen specifically as a reference to this list and no other lists.
u/meterion [+7] (a day later)
This might be coming too late for it to be seen by anyone, but there’s a possibly significant hint to narrow down the search space for the mystery work.
He comments here (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/sword-art-alternate-ending-oneshot.429412/page-2#post-25623956) that he “likes writing Tomione” i.e. the clever heroine paired with the dark mentor figure.
Since HPMoR doesn’t particularly contain that dynamic, it’s possible his statement is based on prior writing that in his anonymous story.
u/EliezerYudkowsky [+26] Godric Gryffindor (a day later)
In what possible way is HPMOR not Tomione
u/meterion [+4] (a day later)
I’ll defer to your greater familiarity with the story, but wasn’t pretty much all of it Harrymort? (Hom? Tarry?) From what I remember there wasn’t much actual rapport between Tom and Hermione, just a lot of straight dislike on personal and ideological levels.
u/MuonManLaserJab [+16] (a day later)
You're thinking of the wrong Tom.
"...I think that you always were, from the day I met you, my mysterious old wizard."
u/meterion [+5] (a day later)
...oops. I should probably reread it before commenting again, haha.
u/None [+23] (31 minutes later)
[deleted]
u/wren42 [+10] (an hour later)
Please edit to make this a candidate proposal with the following format:
TITLE
Link
Thanks!
u/VorpalAuroch [+20] Life before Death (9 hours later)
A noble attempt to maintain order. Doomed, but noble nonetheless.
u/wren42 [+3] (2 days later)
XD
u/VorpalAuroch [+18] Life before Death (2 hours later)
FOR:
The Erogamer author signed on to the Discord server for glowfic (the large sprawling collaborative RP subgenre centered around Alicorn and descended at a couple removes from Luminosity), and revealed that several minor details were already references to Alicorn, glowfic, and some other ingroup-related fiction. The author, gtwalker, does not wish to participate in glowfic. Eliezer has explicitly expressed in the past that he does not think he could mesh glowfic-writing with how he writes, and if this was not so he would write something collaborative with Alicorn.
I do not know Eliezer to have another Discord account. Ambiguous evidence: he certainly does not openly have an account on that server.
u/VorpalAuroch [+10] Life before Death (2 hours later)
A meta note: I don't think this is it.
u/ArisKatsaris [+5] Sidebar Contender (a day later)
Of all the candidates proposed I think that's the likeliest, but I hope not, because I don't want two of my favourite authors to end up being only one of my favourite authors.
I don't think it's probable though. In his interaction with fans I felt Groon is displaying a different and more modest personality than I think EY has or could fake. And I'm having difficulty imagining EY writing a character like Charles Adan without making him a straight out villain.
u/FeepingCreature [+14] GCV Literally The Entire Culture (an hour later)
I feel that Erogamer too explicitly references rational tropes to be an Eliezer work - I doubt Eliezer would slyly reference his own fanfiction; it's a bit too conceited even for him. Besides, it's still happily updating.
u/PM_ME_CUTE_FOXES [+13] (an hour later)
Yeah, this plus what I've seen Groon talk about on Discord - it's a good idea, but I don't think it's Eliezer.
It would be explicitly tacky and silly to reference his own work so hard and he wouldn't do that.
u/VorpalAuroch [+12] Life before Death (6 hours later)
Eliezer has an ego; I wouldn't rule it out
u/DaystarEld [+5] Pokémon Professor (13 hours later)
Stephen King references Stephen King novels in Richard Bachman novels, and King doesn't seem to be a particularly egotistical guy. It's not unusual or signs of conceit, I think, to put in such nods and winks. Plus Erogamer has two characters that argue about HPMOR, one for and one against. It's a pretty self-aware reference, if he wrote it.
u/tinkady [+5] (5 days later)
I just found an interesting piece of evidence here - his comment 10 years ago here: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/bojLBvsYck95gbKNM/interlude-with-the-confessor-4-8:
I confess that a hidden motive behind this in-passing conversation is that I have an entirely different story in progress where [nonconsensual sex] is a central plot point, and I wanted to see to what degree I could get away with it.
u/VorpalAuroch [+1] Life before Death (14 days later)
That's a very interesting potential lead.
u/None [+3] (an hour later)
would you mind linking to erogamer? what is it? is it only on qq or does it exist somewhere that’s actually reasonable to interact with?
u/None [+6] (an hour later)
[deleted]
u/Croktopus [+5] (2 hours later)
its very nsfw, but its not terribly porny, if that makes sense?
u/None [+4] (an hour later)
oh. huh. i did not understand that it wasn’t safe for work, so thanks a bunch for that. i’ll give it a shot.
u/Argenteus_CG [+2] (9 hours later)
I haven't found QQ at all unreasonable to interact with. I mean, you need an account, but once you've done that (and I think I might have changed the theme, but I don't remember for sure) it's no different than any other internet forum.
u/wren42 [+3] (an hour later)
what do we know about the author? I think you could start a proposal threat for this one if it meets the criteria.
u/NNOTM [+3] (a day later)
I consider this unlikely mainly due to this comment https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/6rmm7w/erogamer_411_distracted/dl6vpl3/
Seems a bit odd to answer your own riddle
u/rthomas2 [+3] (3 days later)
I really think this could be the case, for a bunch of reasons; however, I went on a bit of a hunt for Groon's identity a while back, and when I met someone who seemed pretty sure they knew who it was, they indicated that this person definitely wouldn't want to be found.
The quote above seems to strongly indicate that Eliezer would be impressed if someone figured out which fic he was secretly writing, so...assuming my friend is credible, which I'd really think they would be, either it's a different person, or it *is* Eliezer but he'd be upset if people found out.
So my move here is to avoid making further guesses at Groon's identity, and if it turns out to be Eliezer: yeah, that would make a lot of sense and be cool. But I don't want to press, since my friend tends to know what they're talking about, so I'm pretty sure they're right about Groon not wanting to have people knowing who they are.
u/gRRUR [+3] (15 days later)
Depth, fun, transhumanism, Level 1+ intelligent characters, incredibly clever plots, overall consistency, special respect for Fate/Stay Night and Hikaru no Go, lots of other common references (Suzumiya Haruhi, Tsukihime, etc), BDSM, refusing orgasm fetish, obesity specifics, "Doctor Diminished on Fimfiction"...
I think, it's him at 95+% probability.
u/Makin- [+7] homestuck ratfic, you can do it (41 minutes later)
Seconded (though more than "it's good", it's more that the main character's inner monologue early on sounds a lot like EY wrote Hermione), and I'll submit this additional piece of evidence I found while trying to solve a puzzle.
I'll also mention the way the story focuses on the implications of sexual assault reminds me of that one controversial tidbit of Three Worlds Collide, but I guess that's not really strong evidence. But yeah, I don't think that was the solution to the puzzle, Erogamer is far from obscure and still gets regular threads here.
u/CouteauBleu [+8] We are the Empire. (5 hours later)
Sexual assault is kind of theme for EY at this point.
(Three World Collide, Bellatrix Lestrange in HP:MoR, the non-consensual broadcasting in his Scord Art Online snippet, etc)
u/PM_ME_CUTE_FOXES [+7] (11 hours later)
Sword Art Online snippet? Why have I not seen this where is this
u/Reactionaryhistorian [+6] (19 hours later)
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/sword-art-alternate-ending-oneshot.429412/
u/None [+3] (18 hours later)
Directions to "Scord Art Online" please.
u/Reactionaryhistorian [+5] (19 hours later)
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/sword-art-alternate-ending-oneshot.429412/
u/None [+1] (2 days later)
Much appreciated.
u/causalchain [+1] (9 hours later)
I hope that no Eliezer-hater comes across this comment and decides that this is wonderful out of context.
u/CouteauBleu [+2] We are the Empire. (2 days later)
... I mean, it's a legitimate complaint that doesn't really need context besides "But he's a really great guy otherwise who says really insightful things about a lot of subjects".
u/Argenteus_CG [+2] (9 hours later)
Hmmm... I see the parallels, now that you mention it, but I'm not sure. I don't think it's terribly likely that Groon is Eliezer, but I wouldn't be all that surprised if he was, either.
u/FeepingCreature [+1] GCV Literally The Entire Culture (5 months later)
With the latest update, I've now moved this to Very Likely: the story has turned into a direction that's fairly explicitly out of Eliezer's Humanist playbook, and also literally referenced Harry Potter (probably in the HPMOR incarnation) in a skill text.
u/himself_v [+7] (an hour later)
Well, the obvious start would be to take topwebfiction's top N works and start filtering it. Remove authors who have been seen in real life. Remove wildbow because there's no way EY would write that much.
Edit: Wait, no, that wouldn't do.
u/FeepingCreature [+12] GCV Literally The Entire Culture (an hour later)
Remove wildbow because wildbow is still writing. I think it's safe to assume a one-shot.
u/CouteauBleu [+21] We are the Empire. (5 hours later)
Also because, let's be serious, there's no way EZ (edit: EY) is secretly Wildbow. These people are like night and day, beyond the fact that they each have consistent background info publicly available.
(same reasoning for Alexander Wales and TK17Studios)
u/VorpalAuroch [+9] Life before Death (9 hours later)
EZ: a new nickname for young-Eliezer who thought a sufficiently intelligent AI would automatically be moral
u/VorpalAuroch [+10] Life before Death (2 hours later)
I think that's too strong, but writing more than 500K words with the pseudonym is implausible.
Note also that Eliezer will probably exhibit at least mildly competent opsec in terms of making it not look like a plant.
u/kuilin [+6] (3 hours later)
Note also that Eliezer will probably exhibit at least mildly competent opsec in terms of making it not look like a plant.
Or maybe Eliezer makes himself look questionably but not certainly like a plant? One level higher
u/vorpal_potato [+4] (10 hours later)
You mean like when he secretly wrote Harry Potter fanfic under the pseudonym "Less Wrong"?
u/ProfessorPhi [+3] (a day later)
Update times in ey's Timezone, preferably even cross checked with travel plans if available
u/LatePenguins [+3] (6 hours later)
I read the Waves Arisen yesterday, and while it feel eerily like an EY work, somehow I think EY didn't write it.
There is something off about its pacing and style, and for majority of the story, the protag and his friends feel massively overpowered. EY always maintained that Jedi-Death Star balance in HPMOR.
u/VorpalAuroch [+7] Life before Death (9 hours later)
I thought it was him until Alicorn mentioned to me that Eliezer really, really hates bees. Having a bee-themed character (Killa Bee) depicted unnecessarily would be extremely out of character.
u/None [+1] (2 days later)
I'm reading Waves Arisen now, I think it is an EY story, just with a slightly different style. One of the big points I think in favour is that there's no one claiming to be the author of it, that's pretty rare and would be explained by EY trying to be anonymous. The protag is very powerful, but he also regularly encounters threats that are significant- again something that's actually pretty rare for web fiction where the protag gets really powerful really fast.
u/LatePenguins [+1] (2 days later)
Threats that are significant? Which ones? Except Pein, Naruto didnt even have to think for more than a Page to defeat the others. And him getting all the ninja advantages so easily just somehow doesn't sit right. Specially because I'm sure the infinity chakra bit with the clones was made by the author and not the original series. Juat making up the regen rates to get that infinity chakra hack was not rational imo.
u/None [+1] (2 days later)
The shark guy was threatening and came close to potentially killing Sasuke if Naruto didn't have that syrup technique.
Earlier in the story, Orichimaru would have effortlessly crushed Naruto if Naruto didn't unleash the nine-tailed beast.
It's all subjective, but personally at least I felt like there were stakes and that Naruto could lose or face setbacks. That's something that I feel isn't that common in web fiction. All the good super-well known ones have it, e.g Worm, HPMOR, but in less popular ones like stories on Spacebattles, it's fairly rare.
Also, besides that Pokemon rationalist fic, I don't think there are any rationalist fiction that take such an educational approach where they try to teach people about stuff like game theory.
u/LatePenguins [+1] (2 days later)
I havent read the Pokemon OoS yet. Is it good? Could you rate it relative to say HPMOR?
u/I_Probably_Think [+2] (3 days later)
To offer a different perspective from /u/GeneralKenoA (also hey that is a pretty funny username that I didn't connect the dots on until just now), I personally like OoS more than HPMOR! It's been a long time since I read the latter but I feel like the characters are more realistically portrayed in OoS, and the worldbuilding is really interesting to me. That said, I also prefer Pokémon over Harry Potter, and have seen more other attempts to worldbuild in Pokémon...
u/LatePenguins [+1] (3 days later)
Nice. Will check it out
u/None [+1] (2 days later)
I only read the first couple chapters, I didn't particularly enjoy it, and that was a year or two ago. HPMOR is 11/10 IMO, it isn't actually perfect and has many flaws, but it does do so many things so well it's probably my favourite work of fiction. Pokemon OoS I think I wasn't terrible, just that the writing style didn't click with me and was trying too hard to be rationalist. Maybe 5/10. I'd recommend reading the first chapter at least, it's not a big commitment and there are lots of people on this sub who like it although I don't think many love it.
u/MuonManLaserJab [+2] (a day later)
The weirdest one I've thought of so far would be Mother Horse Eyes.
u/Sailor_Vulcan [+5] Champion of Justice and Reason (8 hours later)
Possible reasons for why EY isn't telling us what story it is:
- It would be embarrassing. Maybe it's a pornographic fic except more intelligent and less cringeworthy to read. Notheless, I doubt he would want to be known for writing rational porn fics.
- It's something poorly written which he wrote a long time ago before HPMOR. I think EY said somewhere in the sequences that he doesn't consider the EY that existed before 2005 to be really him.
- He's trying to reach an audience that wouldn't give his work a chance if they knew who he was. There's a lot of people online who are prejudiced against rationalists and rational fiction, referring to all of it as "sneer culture" or worse, as a "cult". This might be his attempt to write a rational fic which appeals to a wider audience that isn't already interested in rationality or rational fiction.
Depending on which of these three motives EY has for not telling us, the consequences range from mildly bad to very bad. Maybe we should respect his wishes? Just a thought.
Edit: actually I recommend locking the thread. Seriously guys, EY said he doesn't want us to know. We should respect his privacy. The whole premise of this thread is kind of rude and inconsiderate. How would you feel about a thread specifically created to invade your privacy against your own expressed wishes?
u/VorpalAuroch [+14] Life before Death (9 hours later)
He posted on Facebook, significantly after HPMoR wrapped, that he had recently written and/or intended to write something under a pseudonym and that he would not confirm nor deny any pseudonymous work was written by him or, as the pseudonym, confirm or deny being Eliezer Yudkowsky, and as cover specifically requested that other rationalist fic-authors also, if questioned, refuse to confirm or deny being Eliezer Yudkowsky.
I draw from this that he very much expected us to try and would be absolutely fine with us reaching the correct conclusion, much like we collectively determined that you can't lie in Parseltongue.
(Also, I will neither confirm nor deny being Eliezer Yudkowsky. But he is very smart and impressive.)
u/PM_ME_CUTE_FOXES [+8] (11 hours later)
Chiming in to neither confirm nor deny being Eliezer Yudkowsky.
u/Empiricist_or_not [+2] Aspiring polite Hegemonizing swarm (14 hours later)
Can you save use the trial of finding our defunct faceviik and give a datetime datum for this? An uncommitted, but curious dataminer (not willing to expend more than 15 man hours and a $100 dollars of server time) wants to know.
u/Roxolan [+3] Head of antimemetiWalmart senior assistant manager (20 hours later)
u/Empiricist_or_not [+2] Aspiring polite Hegemonizing swarm (21 hours later)
Thank You, April 2015 for anybody else curious & lazy.
u/VorpalAuroch [+1] Life before Death (15 hours later)
No.
u/Gurkenglas [+2] (a day later)
I neither confirm nor deny that EY is ok with this.
u/I_Probably_Think [+1] (3 days later)
we collectively determined that you can't lie in Parseltongue.
Tangent here but I'm curious about this history! How did that happen? Now that I think about it, why was this a quality of Parseltongue anyways? I guess it's a handy but suitably limited plot device from a Doylist perspective?
u/VorpalAuroch [+1] Life before Death (3 days later)
Doylistically, it was something that Eliezer knew that added character to a number of scenes in the story, which was a fact that he, as he said somewhere, made absolutely no effort to hide except that he did not mention it; he mentioned it elsewhere as a useful tool for making stories that followed internal logic but still presented puzzles to the audience.
Watsonianly, it's a device for solving coordination problems and trust problems between the plotters of Slytherin House.
As to how it happened, AFAIK no one's really sure. It became widely accepted fanon over the occasional protests from people that we didn't actually have any knock-down argument that it was true; these were acknowledged but all the reddit audience went on believing it.
u/I_Probably_Think [+1] (3 days later)
Watsonianly, it's a device for solving coordination problems and trust problems between the plotters of Slytherin House.
I meant more along the lines of (Watsonianly) "How did this become a feature of the world???" although to be fair maybe it's just another weird quirk of the world!
all the reddit audience went on believing it
Ah, until EY confirmed it in-story or something? I don't remember too well but I seem to remember it coming up as an important plot point at least once.
u/VorpalAuroch [+1] Life before Death (3 days later)
It was confirmed in the final confrontation.
Watsonianly, Salazar Slytherin was the first, or maybe just an early, Parseltongue; same as Rowling's canon.