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TimS comments on Rationality Quotes January 2013 - Less Wrong
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I don't know why you would think the causation would be only in one direction.
Now I'm confused. What is the topic of discussion? Clarification of Weimar Republic politics is not responsive to the Jedi-moral-philosophy point. Anger causing political action, including extreme political action, is a reasonable point, but I don't actually think anger-at-opponent-unjust-acts was the cause of much Communist or Fascist membership.
You might think anger-at-social-situation vs. anger-at-unjust-acts is excessive hair-splitting. But I interpreted your response as essentially saying "Anger-at-injustice really does lead to fairly directly evil." Your example does not support that assertion. If I've misinterpreted you, please clarify. I often seem to make these interpretative mistakes, and I'd like to do better at avoiding these types of misunderstandings in the future.
It certainly does. In reaction to one evil, Naziism, Germans could go and support a second evil, Communism, which to judge by its global body counts, was many times worse than Naziism, which is exactly the sort of reaction Brin is ridiculing: "oh, how ridiculous, how could getting angry at evil make you evil too?" Well, it could make you support another evil, perhaps even aware of the evil on the theory of 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend'...
I don't know how you could get a better example of 'fighting fire with fire' than that or 'when fighting monsters, beware lest you become one'.
Anger can lead to evil vs. Anger must lead to evil.
And ignoring anger for the moment, Jedi moral philosophy says love leads to evil (that's the Annakin-Padme plot of Attack of the Clones - the romance was explicitly forbidden by Jedi rules).
Not what we're discussing.
Let's stay on topic here.
Let me quote Brin:
How is my example - chosen from the very time period and milieu that Brin himself chose - not a 'single example of that happening ever'?
Exactly what we are discussing. Brin explicitly acknowledges the first point - he's rejecting the second point.
That's not a charitable reading of that point. In the real world, there are lots of different ways to be evil. In Jedi-land, evil = Sith.
Annakin opposes the Sith. Then he feels strong emotions (love of Padme). Then he becomes Sith. Not extremist-opponent-who-is-just-as-bad.
Opposing Nazis does not lead one to becoming a Nazi. Of course, in the real world, Nazi isn't the only way to be evil.
If there is only one way to be evil in Star Wars, then to become an extremist opponent of a different flavor maps back onto becoming a Sith...
Respectfully, I think we have reached the limit of our ability to have productive conversation.
(1) I don't desire to have the "Who is more evil: Nazis or Communists?" fight - I'm not sure that discussion is anything more than Blue vs. Green tu quoque mindkiller-ness. The important lesson is "beware 'do not debate him or set forth your own evidence; do not perform replicable experiments or examine history; but turn him in at once to the secret police.'"
(2) It is possible to piece together acceptable moral lessons from Jedi philosophy, just like it is possible to have an interesting story of political intrigue in the world of Harry Potter. It just isn't very true to the source material - neither original author would endorse the improvements.
In short, I'm tapping out.
In fairness to Lucas, Anakin's love of Padme isn't what converted him; it was Mace Windu's disregard for the morality the Jedi professed to follow.
I regard the Jedi versus Sith as less "Good versus evil" and more "Principle Ethics versus Pragmatist/Utilitarian Ethics" - Anakin reluctantly embraced Principles until he saw that the Principles were ineffectual; even its adherents would ultimately choose pragmatism. It's kind of implied, in-canon within the movies (the books go further in vindicating the SIth still), that Sidious' master might not have been evil, per se; he sought to end death.