[extropy-chat] On difficult choices (was: Books: Harris; Religion and Reason)

[Russell Wallace]

On 1/12/06, Eliezer S. Yudkowsky <sentience at pobox.com> wrote:
>
> Elrond was so focused on the obvious wrong way to solve the problem that
> he didn't see the creative right ways.  His great failure wasn't that he
> lacked ethics, it was that he didn't know how to use them.  He thought
> his ethics were supposed to be heroic disadvantages.  If Elrond had just
> taken for *granted* that he couldn't push Isildur off the edge, instead
> of agonizing, he would have seen easier and better solutions.
>
> It won't always be that way.  We don't live in so kind a universe.  But
> for Elrond it was so, even without Tolkien intending it.
>
> Did anyone else notice this, when they read the book, or watched the
> movie?


(Minor nitpick: the impression I had from the book was that the conversation
happened on the battlefield, not at the Crack of Doom, though it doesn't
explicitly say.)

But yes, I did, and your point is a good one - well put!

I was impressed by the following article:
http://features.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=99/12/23/083256&mod%20e=thread
Which gives a very nice positive example from real history.

- Russell
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