Rationality Quotes August 2012

Alejandro1

Here's the new thread for posting quotes, with the usual rules:

Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be voted up/down separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
Do not quote yourself
Do not quote comments/posts on LW/OB
No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.

Here's the new thread for posting quotes, with the usual rules:

Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be voted up/down separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
Do not quote yourself
Do not quote comments/posts on LW/OB
No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.

Presumably that's the first thing dark lords (and their real-life equivalents) convince themselves of, that there is no inherent good and evil. Once that part is over with, anything you do can be classified as good.

Presumably that's the first thing dark lords (and their real-life equivalents) convince themselves of, that there is no inherent good and evil.

The hell is the real-life equivalent of a dark lord? Can that even be addressed without getting into discouraged topics?

Also, "convince" implies not only intent but that the individual started with a different belief, maybe even that it is universal to start with a belief in good as evil. That sounds like a couple of unwarranted assumptions.

On a personal note, I once expressed the belief that there w... (read more)

17Nornagest14y

Can't speak to any fictional dark lords, but the real-life equivalent seems more prone to deciding that there is an evil, which is true evil, and which is manifest upon the world in the person of those guys over there. At least, that's what the rhetoric pretty consistently says. Either a given dark-lordish individual is a very good liar or actually believes it, and knowing what we do about ideology and the prevalence of sociopathy I'm inclined to default to the latter. (I wouldn't say that Oscar Wilde and others with his interaction style particularly resemble dark lords, though.)

-1wedrifid14y

That seems true... Interesting.

9

Rationality Quotes August 2012

9

9

9

Rationality Quotes August 2012

9

9