Lumifer comments on Rationality Quotes December 2014 - Less Wrong

8 Post author: Salemicus 03 December 2014 10:33PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (440)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: Lumifer 10 December 2014 06:58:23PM 4 points [-]

and giving historical credit to the good guys

Why is Publius Scipio Nasica a "good guy"? His opposition to Carthage's destruction was based on his idea that without a strong external enemy Rome will descend into decadence. (see Plutarch). That, to me, tentatively places him into the "pain builds character so I will make sure you will have lots of pain" camp which is not quite the good guys camp.

Comment author: alienist 11 December 2014 04:05:50AM 19 points [-]

Why is Publius Scipio Nasica a "good guy"? His opposition to Carthage's destruction was based on his idea that without a strong external enemy Rome will descend into decadence.

Well, it did.

Comment author: WalterL 17 December 2014 08:35:01PM 1 point [-]

That's an awesome response.

Comment author: James_Miller 10 December 2014 07:04:31PM 2 points [-]

Forgive my fulfilling of Godwin's Law, but if a Nazi leader repeatedly told Hitler "Don't kill the Jews because struggling against them in the economic marketplace will make Germans stronger" would you consider this leader a "good guy"?

Comment author: Lumifer 10 December 2014 07:15:15PM *  2 points [-]

No, I would not.

And the equivalent position, actually, would be "Do not kill all the Jews at once, keep on killing them for a long time because the struggle will keep the Germans morally pure".

The intent matters.