[MD] Boromir's pursuit of the Ring, can't let go

[Louise Pryor]

Momentarily slipping on the ring... I'm still here, lurking...
Lu

On Mon, Oct 19, 2009 at 7:27 PM, John Carl <ridgecoyote at gmail.com> wrote:

> Power.  It's all about the power, baby.  How much power can I gain in the
> world by putting on the ring?
> Plato's story about the Ring of Gyges is a good introduction to a social
> morality dilemma:  How moral would you be if you could socially manipulate
> others with no repercussions?
>
> Tolkien's fable explores more deeply.
>
> John's rollercoaster brain is taking up the same song only postulating it
> the Ring of SOM.  An analogy for the power available to the rulers of the
> world.
>
> SOM is Objectivism.
>
> Objectivism is power.
>
> By manipulating others as objects in an equation, I realize a power to take
> away any intrinsic value from them and reassign according to my own.
>
> If I work for the power company and cut off a customer's power and light
> because they don't pay their bill,  it's nothing personal on my part.  It's
> my job, which I'm doing objectively.
>
> I've removed my self from the equation.  My self has become invisible to
> the
> process.  Objectivism confers the power of invisibility.
>
> Objectivism allows me to get rich.  Technology allows me to bomb villages
> with drone smart bombs that aren't smart enough to swerve around children.
>  Objectivism is power, the power of invisiblity. To smite and walk away
> unseen.
>
> There's an interesting link leading away from the Wiki page on the ring of
> Gyges, a link toward a topic that would never have occurred to me without
> the link to name it - the name of the link is "the online disinhibition
> effect".  At first glance, it seems the same invisibility to social
> consequences that grants power in the realms of the outside world, creates
> the same effect in the world of online interaction.  You can do anything,
> say anything and then disappear.  You can slip on the ring and be invisible
> at any time.  But the ring/weapon/tool in this case is, In fact, a positive
> force rather than a negative.   The net exhibits the same powers within a
> mirror world context where the effect of the artifact is that *unless* you
> slip it on, you won't be seen.  And the power that this ring wields isn't
> realized in isolation from others, from the fact that my invisibility is
> relative to other's visibility.  This power stems solely from communal
> co-experience and  shines brightest when everybody uses it and all are
> visible to each other.
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