[thatguy0900]

I mean you can say stuff like that but the reality is they purposefully named themselves after a super villains magical spy apparatus so I'm not inclined to take his word about them being ethically neutral. Like I'm not really sure what they could name themselves after that would be more ominous

[ahazred8ta]

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]

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]

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]

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.

[Dracophoenix]

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]

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.

[salawat]

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.

[drdaeman]

> 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]

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.

[wahnfrieden]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7DjEsFTlic it's also settler logic

[yndoendo]

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.

[J_McQuade]

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]

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_]

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]

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.

[antonvs]

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.

[bennettnate5]

> 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]

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]

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]

> 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.

[immibis]

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

[db48x]

Telescope, not television.

[Terr_]

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]

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_]

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.

[ceejayoz]

> they purposefully named themselves after a super villains magical spy apparatus…

Worse, that spy apparatus inherently corrupts its users.

[db48x]

That's a common misunderstanding. The Palantir never corrupted anyone. They only became dangerous to use once Sauron got his hands on one. You know, that immortal demon god who always uses mind control to get what he wants? If you use a Palantir he’ll notice and start working you over. If he is stronger than you are then he can force your Palantir to show you things of his choosing.

When Denethor used Gondor’s Palantir he saw orc armies marching and pillaging, foundaries forging weapons, Southrons marching north with Oliphants, corsairs raiding the coast, wildmen pillaging Rohan, etc, etc. Sauron never let him see allies coming to his aid, or his own troops winning battles.

[ceejayoz]

> If he is stronger than you are then he can force your Palantir to show you things of his choosing.

I mean, that's worse.

[db48x]

No, that’s normal. See also newspapers, radio news, television news, cable news, Facebook, Twitter, The Algorithm, etc, etc. It’s not like Tolkien invented a new thing here; the wicked Vizier who tells the King selective truths is a trope practically as old as time.

[tokioyoyo]

Even if they’re the most evil corpo ever, the buyer is still the government. If a democratically elected government buys this products, I would assume, in large scale of things, the general population wants the most evil corpo.

[wombatpm]

It’s not like they are overthrowing South American countries for favorable terms in pineapple and banana trade *cough*Dole*cough*Chiquita*cough*

Yet.

[foobarchu]

This works is if-and-only-if you assume everyone involved is a good actor. In fact, many if not most in politics are bad actors, and voters largely believe said bad actors.