Rationality Quotes January 2013

katydee

Happy New Year! Here's the latest and greatest installment of rationality quotes. Remember:

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Do not quote yourself
Do not quote comments/posts on LessWrong or Overcoming Bias
No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please

Happy New Year! Here's the latest and greatest installment of rationality quotes. Remember:

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Do not quote yourself
Do not quote comments/posts on LessWrong or Overcoming Bias
No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please

Let’s see if I get this right. Fear makes you angry and anger makes you evil, right?

Now I’ll concede at once that fear has been a major motivator of intolerance in human history. I can picture knightly adepts being taught to control fear and anger, as we saw credibly in “The Empire Strikes Back.” Calmness makes you a better warrior and prevents mistakes. Persistent wrath can cloud judgment. That part is completely believable.

But then, in “Return of the Jedi,” Lucas takes this basic wisdom and perverts it, saying — “If you get angry — even at injustice and murder — it will automatically and immediately transform you into an unalloyedly evil person! All of your opinions and political beliefs will suddenly and magically reverse. Every loyalty will be forsaken and your friends won’t be able to draw you back. You will instantly join your sworn enemy as his close pal or apprentice. All because you let yourself get angry at his crimes.”

Uh, say what? Could you repeat that again, slowly?

In other words, getting angry at Adolf Hitler will cause you to rush right out and join the Nazi Party? Excuse me, George. Could you come up with a single example of that happening? Ever?

David Brin

People in Star Wars don't really have political beliefs in any meaningful sense. The Star Wars universe is actual about a struggle between Good and Evil instead of being a struggle between two political factions.

Citizens of the US got angry after 2001. The US became a lot more evil in response to torturing people and commits war crimes such as attacking people who try to rescue injured people with drones.

10wedrifid13y

If the memories of my youth serve me anger 'leads to the dark side of the force' via the intermediary 'hate'. That is, it leads you to go around frying things with lightening and choking people with a force grip. This is only 'evil' when you do the killing in cases where killing is not an entirely appropriate response. Unfortunately humans (and furry green muppet 'Lannik') are notoriously bad at judging when drastic violation of inhibitions is appropriate. Power---likely including the power to kill people with your brain---will almost always corrupt. [...] Not nearly as much as David Brin perverts the message that Lucas's message. I in fact do reject the instructions of Yoda but I reject what he actually says. I don't need to reject a straw caricature thereof. [...] Automatically. Immediately. Where did this come from? Yoda is 900 years old, wizened and gives clear indications that he thinks of long term consequences rather than being caught up in the moment. We also know he's seen at least one such Jedi to Sith transition with his own eyes (after first predicting it). Anakin took years to grow from a whiny little brat into an awesome badass (I mean... "turn evil"). That is the kind of change that Yoda (and Lucas) clearly have in mind. [...] That seems unlikely. It also wasn't claimed by the Furry Master. Instead what can be expected is that that opinions and political beliefs will change in predictable ways---most notably in the direction of endorsing the acquisition and use of power in ways that happen to benefit the self. Maybe the corrupted will change from a Blue to a Green but more likely they'll change into a NavyBlue and consider it Right to kill Greens with their brain, take all their stuff and ravage their womenfolk (or menfolk, or asexual alien humanoids, depending on generalized sexual orientation). [...] Except that Lucas in the very same movie has Darth Vader turn back to the Light and throw Palpatine down some shaft due to loyalty to his son.

20gwern13y

Lots of people in Weimar Germany got angry at the emerging fascists - and went out and joined the Communist Party. It was tough to be merely a liberal democrat.