Desrtopa comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 13, chapter 81 - Less Wrong

6 Post author: bogdanb 27 March 2012 06:07PM

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Comment author: Desrtopa 02 April 2012 05:07:21AM * 3 points [-]

This is a legitimate usage of the term, "to lose", and I really don't see why you're so vehemently opposed to it.

Because there is already a contextual definition of "lose" with association to war that is so well established that it's assumed by default.

If Voldemort hadn't started the war, they would almost certainly be better off. We would also be better off if we never got dustspecks in our eyes. Some utility hits are for practical purposes unavoidable. But Dumbledore's faction resisted, and resisted successfully; they were not overcome by their aggressor and did not take the major utility hit of defeat. If they had resisted ineffectually, failed to even delay his conquest, that would have been pointless and futile, but that didn't happen. Nor did they "win" the war in a way that left them at least as badly off as if they had been defeated. The effort they invested into resistance paid utility dividends.

Comment author: Logos01 comment score below threshold [+] (5 children)

Comment author: Desrtopa 02 April 2012 02:53:24PM 1 point [-]

So yes. Please update your modal thinking. Yours is not the only legitimate usage of "to lose" here. After all; they did not lose the war but they sure as hell all lost something/someone. And for no good reason.

If they lost things "for no good reason," every war of defense ever engaged in is pointless and futile. You might be able to define your terms such that this is the case, but it's tremendously misleading. Sometimes we have to expend efforts to stop bad things from happening, not just to cause good things that wouldn't otherwise have happened.

Comment author: Logos01 comment score below threshold [+] (3 children)

Comment author: Desrtopa 02 April 2012 10:52:35PM 1 point [-]

So instead of a war, let's look at a potential asteroid strike. It takes an enormously expensive project to deflect an asteroid which has absolutely no motive to hit the earth, and nothing to gain from it. It's just there, and unless we funnel countless billions of dollars into stopping it, civilization is screwed. Would the project to stop it be pointless and futile? If not, what distinguishes it from the Voldemort scenario?

In any case, Voldemort almost certainly had motives for going to war (MoR Quirrelmort at least is very much not a "for the hell of it" sort of guy,) his motives are simply opaque.

I am trying to understand what you write, but the idea that it's somehow more pointless to resist utility hits from people who're acting for bad reasons than sensible ones doesn't make sense to me, and I don't see how anything you've said so far clarifies why that should be the case.

Comment author: Logos01 comment score below threshold [+] (1 child)

Desrtopa comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 13, chapter 81 - Less Wrong

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