It's the same argument though.

How much money would I have to pay you for you to let me rape you in a way that causes no physical trauma, after dosing you with a drug that prevents you from remembering the hour before or after it?

Would that dollar amount change if I told you I had already given you the drug?

The problem I see is your treatment of this arrangement as a "black box" of you[entering] and you[exiting]. But this is illegitimate. There were ten rounds of you[copy-that-dies] that would also be you[entering].

Have you read EY's writings on timeless decision theory? It seems to me that this is a variation.

but if you're going by a definition by which nearly anyone who has fought in a war on any side has lost, you're being misleading and abusing your words.

The mere fact that you, personally, dislike the contextual definition I am using does not make that context nor the definition illegitimate.

If you suffer far lesser consequences than if your opponent were victorious, you didn't lose.

You didn't lose ... as much as you could have. You still lost. If you do not gain at least as much as is taken from you, that is a loss. If you gamble twenty dollars and win a five dollar pot; you have won your wager but have lost fifteen dollars. Did you lose as much as you could have had you lost the wager altogether? No. But you still are down in real terms; you have still lost compared to before the wager.

There is absolutely nothing misleading about this. There is nothing abusive of the words about this. It's a simple factual and literal use of the term "to lose". It really doesn't matter if you were forced into the wager; you have still lost.

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

Wait -- where does Snape, of all people, come into this discussion?

The mere fact that they defeated their enemy does not mean that they did not lose. A war fought for no greater reason than that your opponent wishes to fight you is a pointless and futile one: you have nothing to gain, and only things to lose.

They were victorious, yes; but they lost. Based on the descriptions of how "everyone" has someone they lost in that war -- they lost greatly. Winning a war doesn't mean you don't lose things during the fight.

I'm not equivocating; I'm equating. Political power is political capital; political capital is political power. If you have one, you have the other.

... who also watched as his friends, loved ones, and family all died in a pointless, futile war against an enemy who is not dead.

Honestly, that doesn't map very well to my model of MoR!Lucius.

It would be an admission of defeat in terms of manipulation; and it would also disrupt his plans/designs to create a worthy successor in Draco.

Correct, but to put one under Veritaserum requires that you have sufficient information as to ask the question. And I don't believe that Veritaserum is described as forcing the volunteering of information which has not been requested of the subject.

... He's The Boy-Who-Lived. EVERYONE knows everything he does is insane.

Also, he already has history giving multiple individuals exactly that order. And one of them made good with it (which is why Dragons also wear green goggles.)

The ban on gold wasn't indefinite, IIRC. It doesn't much matter though.