Xom comments on Rationality Quotes December 2011 - Less Wrong

4 Post author: Jayson_Virissimo 02 December 2011 06:01AM

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Comment author: Xom 30 November 2011 10:26:52PM 11 points [-]

Every Sauron considers himself a Boromir.

~ Mencius Moldbug

Comment author: hairyfigment 02 December 2011 11:48:59PM 3 points [-]

I can't let a liar like Sauron win! I owe it to The People!

Saruman, in this image at A Tiny Revolution.

Comment author: Tyrrell_McAllister 17 December 2011 12:23:21AM *  2 points [-]

That doesn't seem like the right pair of characters for making the intended point. Here is the context:

Perhaps the most important fact about power is that the powerful are almost always sincere. They honestly believe they are doing good. Every Sauron considers himself a Boromir. And - as Acton observed - every Boromir has an inner Sauron.

Boromir himself was an example of a character who was doing bad but thought (until just before the end) that he was doing good. So, to consider oneself to be a Boromir is to consider oneself to be fooling oneself in just the way that Moldbug describes. Boromir already is just the kind of self-deluded person that Moldbug is saying that powerful people are. It would have made his point better to say that "Every Boromir considers himself a Faramir". Or, "Every Sauron considers himself a Gandalf".

Comment author: DanArmak 17 December 2011 03:20:28PM *  7 points [-]

Boromir himself was an example of a character who was doing bad

You let an evil magic artifact of unimaginable power sway you for literally two minutes and that's the only thing people remember you for, for the rest of eternity.

Comment author: Tyrrell_McAllister 17 December 2011 03:36:34PM 1 point [-]

Heh. But, didn't Boromir advocate using the ring as a weapon in the war with Sauron since the Council of Elrond? And wasn't it implied that, even as he acquiesced, he was still hoping to sway the others to this course down the line?

Comment author: DanArmak 17 December 2011 04:38:16PM 5 points [-]

What's wrong with advocating a minority view, as long as you're not acting against the consensus?

He first heard of the Ring at the Council. So did many of the others there. And yet he was the only one who asked the eminently rational question: why seek to destroy it and not use it? And was answered, essentially, "because that's the way the plot goes, kthxbye".

Offhand, I'm sure I could think of ways to use the Ring safely. The main problem is we're never told what the Ring's powers are; so the problem of using it safely is underspecified. The Council believed that by using the Ring one could win the war by main force. Making one invisible and possibly able to understand different tongues isn't that interesting. It's said to give more power to those who are already more powerful, and to tailor the specific powers to the specific individual, so more experimentation is in order.

Comment author: FiftyTwo 27 November 2012 03:43:33PM 0 points [-]

The main problem is we're never told what the Ring's powers are; so the problem of using it safely is underspecified

According to a discussion on reddit I can't currently find the idea was that the ring inncreased the power of 'will' in Tolkeins semi-mystical sense of exerting your will upon the world.

So in lesswrong terms you have the ability to more effectively fulfill your utility function, but it will be corrupted and drift towards that of the ring.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 17 December 2011 07:19:41AM 4 points [-]

"Every Sauron considers himself a Gandalf".

The problem is that Gandalf explicitly refuses the ring for fear he would find it useful and thus be corrupted by it. Whereas Moldbug's point is about how Sauron would rationalize taking the ring. Perhaps a better phrasing would be, "Every Sauron starts out as a Boromir."

Comment author: Tyrrell_McAllister 17 December 2011 07:44:20AM *  3 points [-]

The problem is that Gandalf explicitly refuses the ring for fear he would find it useful and thus be corrupted by it.

Like Gandalf, then, except smart enough not to pass up such an awesome opportunity to do so much good :D.

Incidentally, there's an essay by Tolkien where he explores the differences between the motivations of Morgoth and Sauron: Notes on motives in the Silmarillion. Some excerpts:

Thus, as "Morgoth", when Melkor was confronted by the existence of other inhabitants of Arda, with other wills and intelligences, he was enraged by the mere fact of their existence, and his only notion of dealing with them was by physical force, or the fear of it. His sole ultimate object was their destruction. [...] This was sheer nihilism, and negation its one ultimate object [...] Melkor could do nothing with Arda, which was not from his own mind and was interwoven with the work and thoughts of others: even left alone he could only have gone raging on till all was levelled again into a formless chaos.

[...]

Sauron had never reached this stage of nihilistic madness. He did not object to the existence of the world, so long as he could do what he liked with it. He still had the relics of positive purposes, that descended from the good of the nature in which he began: it had been his virtue (and therefore also the cause of his fall, and of his relapse) that he loved order and coordination, and disliked all confusion and wasteful friction. [...] Sauron had, in fact, been very like Saruman, and so still understood him quickly and could guess what he would be likely to think and do, even without the aid of the palantíri or of spies; whereas Gandalf eluded and puzzled him. [...] But like all minds of this cast, Sauron's love (originally) or (later) mere understanding of other individual intelligences was correspondingly weaker; and though the only real good in, or rational motive for, all this ordering and planning and organization was the good of all inhabitants of Arda (even admitting Sauron's right to be their supreme lord), his "plans", the idea coming from his own isolated mind, became the sole object of his will, and an end, the End, in itself.

[...]

Morgoth had no "plan"; unless destruction and reduction to nil of a world in which he had only a share can be called a "plan".

Comment author: wedrifid 17 December 2011 09:51:03AM *  0 points [-]

Like Gandalf, then, except smart enough not to pass up such an awesome opportunity to do so much good :D.

Not really. For an ultimate ring of power the ring in question seems rather pissweak. The expected alteration of his own utility function (ie. corruption) more than offsets the lame ass powers that ring gives.

Mind you Gandalf has plenty of his own power that he doesn't seem to make efficient use of. That seems a far bigger deal!

Comment author: Tyrrell_McAllister 17 December 2011 03:00:10PM *  1 point [-]

Like Gandalf, then, except smart enough not to pass up such an awesome opportunity to do so much good :D.

Not really. For an ultimate ring of power the ring in question seems rather pissweak. The expected alteration of his own utility function (ie. corruption) more than offsets the lame ass powers that ring gives.

I was describing how Sauron views himself. He wouldn't think of the ring as corrupting or "pissweak".

Comment author: wedrifid 17 December 2011 03:03:39PM 0 points [-]

I was describing how Sauran views himself. He wouldn't think of the ring as corrupting or "pissweak".

There were two characters to the comparison; I was talking about the other one - Gandalf.

Comment author: Tyrrell_McAllister 17 December 2011 03:22:09PM *  1 point [-]

From your replies and the downvote, it's clear that I failed to make myself clear. Here was the flow of the conversation:

I said "Every Sauron considers himself a Gandalf". Eugine_Nier pointed out that "Gandalf explicitly refuses the ring for fear he would find it useful and thus be corrupted by it." Sauron knew that Gandalf did this (IIRC), so I grant that Sauron wouldn't think that he's like Gandalf in this respect. So, I said, maybe Sauron thinks of himself like Gandalf (ie, working for the greater good), except that he (Sauron) is smart enough not to pass up such a powerful tool (for so he himself thinks it) for doing such good.

So, as you say, Gandalf considers the ring to be corrupting. But that isn't an objection to my point. That is just one of the ways in which I was saying that Sauron considers himself to be smarter.

Comment author: wedrifid 17 December 2011 03:32:54PM 0 points [-]

Even from Sauron's point of view Sauron should not be making that evaluation - at least not about the ring in particular. While for Sauron the ring is particularly powerful and not-values-changing he knows that for Gandalf it is, in fact, corrupting and also that Gandalf doesn't get anywhere near the same power from the ring.

Comment author: Tyrrell_McAllister 17 December 2011 03:50:40PM *  1 point [-]

I think that part of Sauron's character is that he can't understand why Gandalf views the ring as corrupting. Maybe he should be able to figure this out, but I was describing how Sauron might think, not how he should think.

As for whether Gandalf would get power from the ring — It's true that the ring wouldn't give Gandalf as much power as it would give Sauron. But it would still give Gandalf a lot of power.

In some other essay, Tolkien speculates about who would win in a one-on-one fight between Gandalf-with-the-ring and Sauron-without. Unfortunately, I can't remember what Tolkien said the outcome would be, and I can't find a copy online at this moment[*]. However, I do remember that he said that it would be close, a lot closer than if neither had the ring.

Tolkien also says somewhere (in LOTR or in an essay) that the ring would make someone like Gandalf an effectively unstoppable military leader in some unspecified way (IIRC).

* ETA: Here's at least some excerpts from that "essay" (actually a letter): http://www.americanidea.org/handouts/06240110.htm Tolkien doesn't give a final verdict on who would win. The key passage:

Gandalf [with the ring] might be expected to master him [ie, Sauron without the ring].

[...]

One can imagine the scene in which Gandalf, say, was placed in such a position [of possessing the ring and fighting Sauron one-on-one]. It would be a delicate balance. On one side the true allegiance of the Ring to Sauron; on the other superior strength because Sauron was not actually in possession, and perhaps also because he was weakened by long corruption and expenditure of will in dominating inferiors. If Gandalf proved the victor, the result would have been for Sauron the same as the destruction of the Ring; for him it would have been lestroyed, taken from him for ever. But the Ring and all its works would have endured. It would have been the master in the end.

Gandalf as Ring-Lord would have been far worse than Sauron. He would have remained ‘righteous’, but self-righteous. He would have continued to rule and order things for ‘good’, and the benefit of his subjects according to his wisdom (which was and would have remained great).

Comment author: latanius 17 December 2011 11:47:51AM *  0 points [-]

I guess it would have been a much more powerful device in Sauron's hands... but that's the classic "we find some amazing new tech, then declare that it's wrong and the best thing we can do is to stay where we are" story, found in lots of sci-fi stories. (There surely is some tv tropes concept for this...)

By the way, the Ring is even cooler than that... see HPMOR chapter 64 (or is this Reasoning from Non-Canonical Evidence? :P)

(edit: ch. 64 is Omake files 3 with non-HP fanfics, so I really really hope it's free of HPMOR spoilers...)

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