The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power – Teaser Trailer

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3 points·elliotbnvl··5 comments

The comment section is full of one Tolkien quote in different languages:

"Evil is not able to create anything new, it can only distort and destroy what has been invented or made by the forces of good" - J.R.R. Tolkien

I'm not sure if this is bot spam or real people. Either way it's heartening.

If I were a philosopher I might tell you that the idea that evil is the absence of good, not an entity of its own, was an ancient concept going back to Socrates or Plato or Aristotle. C S Lewis, a friend of Tolkien's, certainly said similar things.

From an AI alignment perspective one might add that it's a very dangerous stereotype to assume that perceived moral stance and the efficiency with which a rational agent pursues its goals are in any way intrinsically connected.

I'm not sure how your comment relates to what I said. But what I understand you to be saying is that there is no necessary correlation between the moral validity of a goal and the efficiency with which it is pursued by a rational agent. The efficiency with which the Nazis murdered millions of Jews and other undesirables is certainly empirical support for your assertion.

A very thoughtful high school teacher of mine used to say that democracies are always inefficient in enforcing their laws, and that that was a good thing. For example, to efficiently enforce laws against the abuse of children the authorities would need to place surveillance equipment in everyone's home.

Looks like a genuine reaction to this travesty. Folks don't like being disenfranchised (removal of dislike counts).

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