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alethiophile comments on Luminosity (Twilight fanfic) Part 2 Discussion Thread - Less Wrong
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Chapter 19.
Interesting.
Since it took Elspeth a day to recover, how long would it take the vampires of the guard? Half the time? Less? I've never seen a hard number for how much more mentally able a vampire is than a half-vampire.
If Addy can be convinced to join a full rebellion against the Volturi, she could be quite a powerful asset. For one thing, she can copy Chelsea and break the enforced bonds; that would certainly cause enough havoc for a while, especially if Chelsea herself can be incapacitated beforehand. For that matter, how is Chelsea at self-defense? Could Chelsea!Del affect her in the same way so as to force her to their side, without her counteracting it? Somehow I doubt it; I would be surprised if Chelsea wouldn't just undo what was done immediately.
There's no real range limit on the wolves' telepathy, right? Previously it was mentioned that a test was conducted from the reservation to somewhere unspecified in Canada without any degradation in quality; can we assume from this that Jake is still in contact with the pack? Does Chelsea work on intra-pack membership bonds (i.e. could she make Jake's pack no longer his?)
In terms of raw processing power, vampires are about twice as fast/capacious as half-vampires. There are a couple of not-quite-qualitative differences (e.g. native architecture to handle seeing ultraviolet) that give them an extra boost beyond that in this sort of thing.
Chelsea's not a primary combatant by any stretch of the imagination, but she is very old and a key member of an organization that some people really don't like. She is better than the average vampire at combat.
Right.
Jake, as an alpha, has full unrestricted telepathy with any member of his own pack while both he and said member are in wolf form. He can also talk (only voluntary messages, no accidental letting slip of other thoughts) to his sisters when he and either of them are in wolf form.
Pack membership isn't the same sort of thing that Chelsea does. She could make Jake's wolves more willing to voluntarily change packs, but not force it without their agreement.
The power can snip immediately, but takes time to artificially grow relationships. I guess this would mean that they would both snip each other's relationships immediately, and then try to grow the desired side's relationship - if they can affect themselves, they would remain relationshipless for as long as they were near each other (constantly snipping the artificial ones growing in them, constantly having the natural ones growing in them snipped). If they can't, it would be a race to grow the right relationships the fastest.
I find one practical way to win such races is to stab the opponent in the eye with a white hot poker. Is that an option here, given that they are apparently near each other?
Witchcraft powers that require both time and proximity to work seem to be vulnerable to the general witch defense strategy.
Interestingly, I would think not. Addy and Chelsea would not normally stab random vampires, so the moment they cut each others' relationships they would lose the option of stabbing each other. Either party would never let the other's animosity grow to the point where they consider violence.
Neither impulsive homicidal tendencies nor a threatened emotional bond is required to prompt a decisive witch slaying in this situation. A vampire wedrifid, for example, would slay the rival in less than the ghost of his lost heartbeat. If you know there is a witch that can eliminate emotional bonds within range and you currently do not have a particularly good reason to trust them then you kill them. You don't feel anything. Just slay because it is the smart thing to do.
It is not clear that either Addy or Chelsea are this practical or rational. This is just what they should do.
Both Addy and Chelsea have extremely good reasons not to kill witches; Addy can copy their power, and Chelsea can convince them to use their power for her own purposes. I suspect this would be enough to lock them in a stalemate. The battle between rebels and Volturi would look interesting - in the midst of wolves and vampires duking it out, you have two vampires who aren't on anyone's side, and who don't care to be on anyone's side.
Yes, the slaying should be limited to witches you are particularly vulnerable to. You can't get much more vulnerable than being exposed to people who can instantly make huge changes to your value system against your will.
Not if they are sane. You don't give people free reign to hack with your values.
Why shouldn't you feel anything, or not be moved by undesirability of murder? (These are two separate concerns.)
These are vampires we're talking about. Non-vegetarian ones.
They have all the usual emotions regarding other vampires, even if the balance is different. Besides, moral considerations can move you where emotions disagree, and it's "should" we are talking about, not "is". What should you do, not what you'll actually do. What should you feel, not what you'll actually feel. For example, non-vegetarian vampires very likely shouldn't kill people for food.
Exactly. And as well as having different emotional responses to murder the line between self defense and murder is altered beyond recognition too. The interpersonal boundaries we have are adapted for human capabilities and to a significant extent by the power structures of our particular culture. Interpersonal boundaries in a culture where people can drastically mess with your mind based on proximity would be quite different.
Oh, you can if you want to. But you don't need to and certainly cannot rely on emotions to be protecting you from threats the way they usually do.
Don't misuse that 'murder' word. I wouldn't walk into another man's house carrying a gun and call it 'attempted murder' if he tried to take me out. Walking into range with values destroying capabilities without some sort of alliance or truce is a far more hostile act. Expect death.
Don't mind the words, we are discussing something more important than that. The consequence of a person becoming dead has the same moral value in each case, some situations might just have that on the preferable side of the calculation. That it's a correct decision doesn't diminish the moral value of the pattern.
(If the implicit inference you were seeing in the word "murder" is that it has a morally negative aspect, then I endorse this particular inference, being right doesn't make it better. If the inference is that one should be punished by society for this act, then it's not an inference I explicitly endorse in this context, and one that's not relevant to the discussed situation.)
If we are talking about the loss of having to kill the vampire witch rather than moral negative of murder then I can see your point. Vampire!Wedrifid would prefer to keep them alive. Unfortunately wedvamp does not yet have the power to protect his enemies from themselves as well as protect everything else he values from his enemies.
This is a matter of values and mathematics. Everything that wedvamp holds dear is at stake (so to speak) and in clear and present danger. His values are vulnerable to instant unwilling modification and the witch has signaled her hostile intent by walking within range without arrangements in place. This is not a time to play Ghandi. And I'm not sure even Ghandi would be willing to stand by as his mind was altered to make him unthinkingly loyal to a group of ruthlessly evil bloodsucking fiends.
No, this isn't a time to signal a naive morality to idealistic lesswrong members. It is a time to shut up, multiply and protect. This Wedrifid is a vampire, he has what it takes.
The way this convention works would have you write it vampire!wedrifid. It's descriptor!character.
Since I'm not arguing about whether the decision is correct, rather that the disutility of having a person killed doesn't diminish from the decision to kill them being correct, it's confusing why the thrust of your replies is on correctness of the decision, dismemberment of arguments for its incorrectness, even the ones clearly not advanced by anyone, and glorification of the decision's correctness. This can't help but leak connotationally into the inference that the value of person's life is getting diminished in this context (and I do keep wondering whether you're evil!). The explicit disclaimer doesn't have much detail to resolve this ambiguity, it only states a sign: