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The palantirs were made by the elf lord prince Fëanor of Valinor, one of the good guys. The one we see in the film was given to the kings of Gondor and then pil

The palantirs were made by the elf lord prince Fëanor of Valinor, one of the good guys. The one we see in the film was given to the kings of Gondor and then pilfered by Saruman. (elvish palan 'far', tir 'watch over')

datsci_est_2015 9mo ago
This almost makes it funnier? As if it’s the folly of creators to believe that their creations are by virtue untethered to morals and ethics, and it’s only through their use by amoral or unethical actors that they become so.
- db48x 9mo ago
  Tools are always neutral. The hammer doesn't become evil merely because you used it to bash someone's brains in. Tools do not make choices; humans do.
  - datsci_est_2015 9mo ago
    This is reductionist. Surely you’ve heard of the Torment Nexus? This is along the lines of “If I don’t do it, someone else will get paid to, so it might as well be me that gets paid to do it” which I personally find morally abhorrent.
    - wahnfrieden 9mo ago
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7DjEsFTlic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7DjEsFTlic it's also settler logic
    - Dracophoenix 9mo ago
      The "torment nexus" is just as reductionist a claim. It is almost always an ad hominem selectively invoked under arbitrary standards. If one consistently follows the argument raised in the meme to its ultimate conclusion, then nothing should ever be invented or accomplished for fear of some speculative harm at some undefined point in the future.
      - datsci_est_2015 9mo ago
        Good thing following memes to their ultimate conclusion is a ridiculous proposition. I also don’t see the connection to its reference being an attack on character.
        Dracophoenix 9mo ago
        > Good thing following memes to their ultimate conclusion is a ridiculous proposition. If the conclusion of a meme is ridiculous, it stands to reason that the claim it makes is similarly so. Memes are not substantial enough to be considered as evidence or proof of moral pronouncements any more than other popularly-invoked and contextless aphorisms are. > I also don’t see the connection to its reference being an attack on character. The character attack comes from the implied framing of the invention of the so-called "torment nexus" as the direct product of a person or people exhibiting moral failure through action or inaction. What that particular moral failure is or whether it is a moral failure one at all isn't even given a cursory examination by those crying torment nexus.
      - salawat 9mo ago
        Reasonably foreseeable is the tonic to cure your attempt at a dilemma. There's a certain beyond which you don't build things because it's evident that society can't be trusted with it. I have unfortunately lived long enough to see my passion cross this line.
        Dracophoenix 9mo ago
        If you don't mind answering, what exactly was this particular passion of yours? > There's a certain beyond which you don't build things because it's evident that society can't be trusted with it. Where does one draw the line and under what conditions? Reasonable minds can differ on the definition of foreseeable. After all, Some of the most beneficial inventions to mankind have also aided its worst tendencies. For instance, the 20th and 21st centuries as we know them wouldn't exist without the combustion engine. Simultaneously, it's this same device that has significantly contributed to the pollution of the air. Secondly, how does one mean to stop society or any individual from learning and building on new ideas in the Information age? Is such a thing even possible?
    - drdaeman 9mo ago
      > Torment Nexus You’re bringing in something that’s (vaguely and poorly, for no one knows what it actually could be) defined as something that fits the narrative and present it: “see, if we think up a tool that’s inherently evil by definition of it, it cannot be neutral”. We might, but could such tool actually exist? (And before we joke about building it, we can think up of its polar opposite too, something unquestionably good that just cannot be evil in the slightest. Again, I suspect, no such thing can exist in reality.)
      - datsci_est_2015 9mo ago
        Isn’t the purpose of all thought experiments to define something that is relevant to what you’re trying to philosophize about? “Fitting a narrative” is a thought-terminating cliché. If we agree that there exists at least one thing theoretically whose invention would be unequivocally evil - without a morsel of moral justification, then surely there exists a moral spectrum on which all inventions lie, and the inventors (and builders) are not absolved of their sins by virtue of not having actually used their inventions. Maybe you disagree that even in the case of the Torment Nexus the inventor has no moral reckoning (yikes). Maybe you disagree that it’s a spectrum, and rather binary: Torment Nexus immoral, everything else moral (weird). That’s why I invoked the Torment Nexus.
        drdaeman 9mo ago
        > If we agree that there exists at least one thing theoretically whose invention would be unequivocally evil My issue is that your use of the phrase "exists ... theoretically" quietly steps across the boundary between ideal (where anything is possible), and real (where only some things are possible). In other words, I think that Torment Nexus doesn't exist. Only its idea does, and I don't see how that's possibly sufficient. Kinda like faster-than-light travel - it would change a lot of things - but only it if would be a real thing. AFAIK to best of our understanding it's not. Even though the idea surely exists. I rather think that it's the meme of Torment Nexus is the actual thought-stopper, because exploring what it could possibly be is what the meme warns one about.
        9mo ago
  - J_McQuade 9mo ago
    This is an incredibly silly thing to say. If someone makes a knife that is terrible at carving wood or cutting food but is the perfect shape for, say, clitorectomies... then maybe that tool is bad and we should probably stop making it. Yes, people choose to make it and people choose to use it. But, like... stop those people, right?
    - db48x 9mo ago
      This hypothetical knife that you've invented still doesn't make any choices. A person still makes the choice of how and when to use it. That's all that matters. Only things that can choose to act can be judged as ethical or unethical.
      - evan_ 9mo ago
        The tool is a lump of metal apart from ethics, but making the cliterectomy-knife was a choice someone made. We can judge that decision.
    - Dracophoenix 9mo ago
      Morality requires agency and conscious agreement. A machine/device doesn't choose to be made or operated nor can it act against its maker/operator any more than rocks can act against the Earth. Regardless of motive, a moral conclusion can't be reached about the object.
  - yndoendo 9mo ago
    Let say someone creates a tool, an android which is designed to kill everyone that believes in a religion the creator does not like. Is that tool neutral? Only way to repurpose that tool is to destroy part if the tool and replace parts. It is now a different tool. I say intention of the tool design dictates if the tool is "neutral". That hammer analogy is tool simplistic to the tools we can now create and are attempting to create.
  - antonvs 9mo ago
    It depends on your moral framework. For example if you believe killing is always wrong, then guns are not neutral - they're a tool designed for evil uses.
immibis 9mo ago
So it's literally the Elvish word for "television"...
- db48x 9mo ago
  Telescope, not television.
  - deleted 9mo ago
    [deleted]
  - Terr_ 9mo ago
    And more particularly, any remaining telescope after an apocalypse which caused all of them to be controlled and by a mind-destroying superhuman force of literal evil incarnate. One can't just ignore that kind of subtext...
    - db48x 9mo ago
      It’s not the palantir’s fault that Sauron exists. You might notice that there are several other psychic tools lying around that nobody is using because Sauron will enslave anyone who does. The Throne of Amon Hen, certain magic rings, etc, etc. The danger is Sauron, not the tools themselves.
      - Terr_ 9mo ago
        So what? This was never about the moral culpability of the inanimate object itself. (Charitably ignoring, for the moment, that the One Ring was instead a part of Sauron, infused with his own life force. ) This is about the morality and judgment of any person who'd consciously choose to found "One-Ring Controls" (ORC inc.) selling the "Ringraith 3000" that spies on employees and punishes them for not working hard enough. "Don't criticize me for my branding because fictional crystal-balls and rings are just objects" is not a credible defense.
        db48x 9mo ago
bennettnate5 9mo ago
> prince Fëanor > one of the good guys Uhhhh... Feanor drew his sword on his half-brother and threatened to kill him because he was paranoid Fingolfin was trying to usurp his power. He compelled all of his sons to swear an oath to slay any man, elf or being in possession of the silmarils (which led to subsequent needless bloodshed). Then he ordered and carried out the mass-murder of relatively unarmed Teleri in order to rob them of their ships. Such actions does not a good guy make.
- db48x 9mo ago
  And yet even Feanor was a “good guy” at one point in time. It wasn’t until many years after the invention of the palantiri that he went off the rails, and that was only after talking to Sauron for a while. But I think that Feanor’s character is irrelevant. An evil person could create a tool that ends up being useful for good purposes. Tools are neutral; they don’t inherit the character of their creator or their user.
GuinansEyebrows 9mo ago
palantíri * (sorry, couldn't resist) that it takes following the... (charitably) uncommon view that Fëanor was a "good guy" in spite of being a psychopathic thieving mass murderer to excuse the actions of Palantir (the company) should be an indicator that they're Bad, Actually.
- lII1lIlI11ll 9mo ago
  > that it takes following the... (charitably) uncommon view that Fëanor was a "good guy" in spite of being a psychopathic thieving mass murderer to excuse the actions of Palantir (the company) should be an indicator that they're Bad, Actually. While I agree with your assessment of Fëanor I don't think anything in Tolkien's texts indicate that there were nefarious intents for palantiri creation.

datsci_est_2015 9mo ago

This almost makes it funnier? As if it’s the folly of creators to believe that their creations are by virtue untethered to morals and ethics, and it’s only through their use by amoral or unethical actors that they become so.

db48x 9mo ago
Tools are always neutral. The hammer doesn't become evil merely because you used it to bash someone's brains in. Tools do not make choices; humans do.
- datsci_est_2015 9mo ago
  This is reductionist. Surely you’ve heard of the Torment Nexus? This is along the lines of “If I don’t do it, someone else will get paid to, so it might as well be me that gets paid to do it” which I personally find morally abhorrent.
  - wahnfrieden 9mo ago
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7DjEsFTlic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7DjEsFTlic it's also settler logic
  - Dracophoenix 9mo ago
    The "torment nexus" is just as reductionist a claim. It is almost always an ad hominem selectively invoked under arbitrary standards. If one consistently follows the argument raised in the meme to its ultimate conclusion, then nothing should ever be invented or accomplished for fear of some speculative harm at some undefined point in the future.
    - datsci_est_2015 9mo ago
      Good thing following memes to their ultimate conclusion is a ridiculous proposition. I also don’t see the connection to its reference being an attack on character.
      - Dracophoenix 9mo ago
        > Good thing following memes to their ultimate conclusion is a ridiculous proposition. If the conclusion of a meme is ridiculous, it stands to reason that the claim it makes is similarly so. Memes are not substantial enough to be considered as evidence or proof of moral pronouncements any more than other popularly-invoked and contextless aphorisms are. > I also don’t see the connection to its reference being an attack on character. The character attack comes from the implied framing of the invention of the so-called "torment nexus" as the direct product of a person or people exhibiting moral failure through action or inaction. What that particular moral failure is or whether it is a moral failure one at all isn't even given a cursory examination by those crying torment nexus.
    - salawat 9mo ago
      Reasonably foreseeable is the tonic to cure your attempt at a dilemma. There's a certain beyond which you don't build things because it's evident that society can't be trusted with it. I have unfortunately lived long enough to see my passion cross this line.
      - Dracophoenix 9mo ago
        If you don't mind answering, what exactly was this particular passion of yours? > There's a certain beyond which you don't build things because it's evident that society can't be trusted with it. Where does one draw the line and under what conditions? Reasonable minds can differ on the definition of foreseeable. After all, Some of the most beneficial inventions to mankind have also aided its worst tendencies. For instance, the 20th and 21st centuries as we know them wouldn't exist without the combustion engine. Simultaneously, it's this same device that has significantly contributed to the pollution of the air. Secondly, how does one mean to stop society or any individual from learning and building on new ideas in the Information age? Is such a thing even possible?
  - drdaeman 9mo ago
    > Torment Nexus You’re bringing in something that’s (vaguely and poorly, for no one knows what it actually could be) defined as something that fits the narrative and present it: “see, if we think up a tool that’s inherently evil by definition of it, it cannot be neutral”. We might, but could such tool actually exist? (And before we joke about building it, we can think up of its polar opposite too, something unquestionably good that just cannot be evil in the slightest. Again, I suspect, no such thing can exist in reality.)
    - datsci_est_2015 9mo ago
      Isn’t the purpose of all thought experiments to define something that is relevant to what you’re trying to philosophize about? “Fitting a narrative” is a thought-terminating cliché. If we agree that there exists at least one thing theoretically whose invention would be unequivocally evil - without a morsel of moral justification, then surely there exists a moral spectrum on which all inventions lie, and the inventors (and builders) are not absolved of their sins by virtue of not having actually used their inventions. Maybe you disagree that even in the case of the Torment Nexus the inventor has no moral reckoning (yikes). Maybe you disagree that it’s a spectrum, and rather binary: Torment Nexus immoral, everything else moral (weird). That’s why I invoked the Torment Nexus.
      - drdaeman 9mo ago
        > If we agree that there exists at least one thing theoretically whose invention would be unequivocally evil My issue is that your use of the phrase "exists ... theoretically" quietly steps across the boundary between ideal (where anything is possible), and real (where only some things are possible). In other words, I think that Torment Nexus doesn't exist. Only its idea does, and I don't see how that's possibly sufficient. Kinda like faster-than-light travel - it would change a lot of things - but only it if would be a real thing. AFAIK to best of our understanding it's not. Even though the idea surely exists. I rather think that it's the meme of Torment Nexus is the actual thought-stopper, because exploring what it could possibly be is what the meme warns one about.
        9mo ago
- J_McQuade 9mo ago
  This is an incredibly silly thing to say. If someone makes a knife that is terrible at carving wood or cutting food but is the perfect shape for, say, clitorectomies... then maybe that tool is bad and we should probably stop making it. Yes, people choose to make it and people choose to use it. But, like... stop those people, right?
  - db48x 9mo ago
    This hypothetical knife that you've invented still doesn't make any choices. A person still makes the choice of how and when to use it. That's all that matters. Only things that can choose to act can be judged as ethical or unethical.
    - evan_ 9mo ago
      The tool is a lump of metal apart from ethics, but making the cliterectomy-knife was a choice someone made. We can judge that decision.
  - Dracophoenix 9mo ago
    Morality requires agency and conscious agreement. A machine/device doesn't choose to be made or operated nor can it act against its maker/operator any more than rocks can act against the Earth. Regardless of motive, a moral conclusion can't be reached about the object.
- yndoendo 9mo ago
  Let say someone creates a tool, an android which is designed to kill everyone that believes in a religion the creator does not like. Is that tool neutral? Only way to repurpose that tool is to destroy part if the tool and replace parts. It is now a different tool. I say intention of the tool design dictates if the tool is "neutral". That hammer analogy is tool simplistic to the tools we can now create and are attempting to create.
- antonvs 9mo ago
  It depends on your moral framework. For example if you believe killing is always wrong, then guns are not neutral - they're a tool designed for evil uses.

immibis 9mo ago

So it's literally the Elvish word for "television"...

db48x 9mo ago
Telescope, not television.
- deleted 9mo ago
  [deleted]
- Terr_ 9mo ago
  And more particularly, any remaining telescope after an apocalypse which caused all of them to be controlled and by a mind-destroying superhuman force of literal evil incarnate. One can't just ignore that kind of subtext...
  - db48x 9mo ago
    It’s not the palantir’s fault that Sauron exists. You might notice that there are several other psychic tools lying around that nobody is using because Sauron will enslave anyone who does. The Throne of Amon Hen, certain magic rings, etc, etc. The danger is Sauron, not the tools themselves.
    - Terr_ 9mo ago
      So what? This was never about the moral culpability of the inanimate object itself. (Charitably ignoring, for the moment, that the One Ring was instead a part of Sauron, infused with his own life force. ) This is about the morality and judgment of any person who'd consciously choose to found "One-Ring Controls" (ORC inc.) selling the "Ringraith 3000" that spies on employees and punishes them for not working hard enough. "Don't criticize me for my branding because fictional crystal-balls and rings are just objects" is not a credible defense.
      - db48x 9mo ago

bennettnate5 9mo ago

> prince Fëanor > one of the good guys Uhhhh... Feanor drew his sword on his half-brother and threatened to kill him because he was paranoid Fingolfin was trying to usurp his power. He compelled all of his sons to swear an oath to slay any man, elf or being in possession of the silmarils (which led to subsequent needless bloodshed). Then he ordered and carried out the mass-murder of relatively unarmed Teleri in order to rob them of their ships. Such actions does not a good guy make.

db48x 9mo ago
And yet even Feanor was a “good guy” at one point in time. It wasn’t until many years after the invention of the palantiri that he went off the rails, and that was only after talking to Sauron for a while. But I think that Feanor’s character is irrelevant. An evil person could create a tool that ends up being useful for good purposes. Tools are neutral; they don’t inherit the character of their creator or their user.

GuinansEyebrows 9mo ago

palantíri * (sorry, couldn't resist) that it takes following the... (charitably) uncommon view that Fëanor was a "good guy" in spite of being a psychopathic thieving mass murderer to excuse the actions of Palantir (the company) should be an indicator that they're Bad, Actually.

lII1lIlI11ll 9mo ago
> that it takes following the... (charitably) uncommon view that Fëanor was a "good guy" in spite of being a psychopathic thieving mass murderer to excuse the actions of Palantir (the company) should be an indicator that they're Bad, Actually. While I agree with your assessment of Fëanor I don't think anything in Tolkien's texts indicate that there were nefarious intents for palantiri creation.