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shokwave comments on Luminosity (Twilight fanfic) Part 2 Discussion Thread - Less Wrong
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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.
Fixed. (With a tinge of reluctance. The convention is suboptimal. That's how I would code something in Java, not Ruby. :P)
It was invented/adopted by early fanfiction writers. Just be thankful it's not "wedrifid-who-is-a-vampire".
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:
I have made my position clear and given the morality interrogation more of an answer than necessary. My only response to your objection, whatever it is, is to emphasize the key point once again:
You can call vampire!Wedrifid whatever names you like, evil, whatever. Just don't get in his way with the yabbering about the moral value of the enemy. The moral value has been considered. It will be very sad to lose them. Maybe he'd cry later if he was into that sort of thing. But he's done the multiplication and there was a factor of a heck of a lot more than 2 to spare. It would be a shame if someone interfered and wedvamp had to shed another tear for them once he was done with business.
Vampires are physically incapable of crying.
That's ok. So am I. Believe me, I've tried. :)