Rehabilitation 15.1: Sanctioning Starlight
Ordinarily, the Night Court Watcher and/or Recorder is only somewhat interested in any individual Night Court session that is not his own. Which is to say he's more interested in them than the vast majority of other things he could be doing at any given time.
Even still, being only somewhat interested, he only somewhat pays attention. He does not read a book. He does not do anything overly taxing, mentally or physically. But he doesn't just stare at the session either.
Sometimes he practices a wizard spell he'd like to reach the point of reflexive wandlessness. Sometimes he practices a pony spell he desires to reach the point of hornlessness. Sometimes he practices other magics, like Potions or Transfiguration, both of which are doable (and to him preferrable) with background distractions going on.
He sometimes works on mundane problems – relatively simple puzzles, or problems of math. Ideally, these calculations would not require him to learn new rules, nor require him to apply old rules in extremely lateral and creative ways. They did not quite require him to think. They were simple problems that kept and reinforced and refined his existing habits of solving so that on future, more difficult problems, he would not stumble over the basics as he tackled the difficulties.
He does activities that can be done without fully thinking about them, and he can stop most of them at any point if the conversation suddenly grows to be gripping. His full, undivided attention is not required for either task.
Naturally, so as to not distract the petitioners, he does this all out-of-sight and out-of-sound, behind a one-way brick wall.
At the start of tonight's petition, Riddle had already begun the process of settling in for an hour or two or three, setting in front of himself a sheaf of papers in preparation for a long length of half-listening, possibly learning, and definitely reinforcing.
And then Luna's opening sentence snapped him out of that haze of habit.
"Hello, Starlight Glimmer."
A/N: So. The following section, until the next horizontal line, was the roadblock responsible for my gap in uploads. Or rather, deciding what to do with it was the roadblock. It was initially cut from the story, as were many other sections that have remained cut out. But this one in particular I decided to refine and re-include, in an attempt to actually improve. I've made many concessions in the delivery of this content, but I AM still going to deliver it.
This will be mostly Riddle's internal thoughts. It tries to clarify as carefully as possible how he sees the world – in a way that exactly conforms to what we've seen from him in HPMoR, plus six years of living in Equestria. That is highly relevant to his future redemption on the political Dark Lord side of things, which is somewhat distinct from his emotional improvement.
Some readers might, as usual, complain of certain parts 'pushing a worldview'. That said, I genuinely think it's much better than what came before. I'm also aware it's still not the optimal approach, to the point that I would have cut it, to the point that I did cut it, debated with myself about it for a month, and then reincluded it with this warning so fewer readers might have cause to complain. Yes, it could be better, but at this point I've gone a month without uploads, it's time to start moving forward again, even if my approach is still flawed. If at any point you become fed up, you have the option to just skip to the next horizontal line, which gets on with the actual encounter with Starlight Glimmer.
Throughout Twilight's Legilimency sessions and Occlumency lessons, Riddle had seen much of Starlight Glimmer. She was a recent subject of focus in many of Twilight's most recent memories. Those were also memories that Twilight explicitly allowed as 'safe to dig for, if you have to dig for something'.
When he got bored of seeing his iterated past selves, he often searched for memories of Starlight Glimmer. Even before her trial the other day, which she had declined to attend, he had pieced together the full story without ever having inquired about her out loud, and after only meeting her once, on his first official day on Project Panacea.
Starlight Glimmer had been the leader of a village of 'talentless' ponies. All Cutie Marks had been replaced by equals signs to symbolize sameness. 'And look,' she would say, pointing to her own equals sign, 'I was the first. I'm leading by example. I, too, am equal like you.'
Predictably, the truth was that – while everypony beneath her was equal to each other in their wretched misery (well, wretched misery by pony standards) – Ms. Glimmer was more equal than anypony else.
She claimed to be removing their talents through an artifact, but she was actually stealing them with a spell of her own making.
She claimed to be doing it for the sake of the ponies, for the sake of the village, for the sake of equality, for the sake of the entire country and world, once their (read: her) influence spread that far. And perhaps she managed to believe it for as long as it took her to say the words. But in truth, the hoarded marks were making herself more powerful.
While the ponies of her village did indeed have true equals signs on their flanks – for the length of time they were talentless, for the length of time Starlight Glimmer's magic was in effect – Ms. Glimmer's own equals sign was an illusion. During that time, the ponies beneath her truly were 'equal' to each other in their crippled states, 'equal' in their forced mediocrity, 'equal' in their statuses as her willing and faithful followers. As her successfully subjugated servants. As her slaves.
And when the defense barrister in her trial had argued that the word 'slavery' was too harsh, for the ponies of the village had chosen to give up their marks of their own free will, the prosecutor came up with the following counter-arguments:
1. Getting consent based on false pretenses is fraud. While it IS the responsibility of individual ponies to exercise their free will with caution, it is the responsibility of business owners, leaders, and public servants to tell the truth. Everything about Ms. Glimmer's rulership of that village relied on false pretenses to lure ponies in. And ONCE they were lured in, the part that made it truly slavery was…
2. That nopony was allowed to get their Cutie Marks BACK after asking for them. And nopony was allowed to leave, they had to stay and contribute to the village. Is this not slavery?
In the somewhat distant future, Starlight Glimmer would become one of those rare ponies who fully redeems herself after falling very far.
The Mare Who Claimed to Strive for Equality, and Stole Cutie Marks to do it.
The Mare Who Claimed to Serve the Ponies, in order to Rise to the Top of them.
The Mare Who Snuffed Out the Light in others, because She Believed Someone Else had Snuffed Out her Own.
She would take a role as a teacher, honestly describing her own past actions as a warning to others – a former wrongdoer who has achieved better understanding and peace of mind. (This was only after extensive vetting, followed by every teaching session of hers being watched and recorded and scrutinized, just in case she slipped back into old ways. Also, she would have to maintain her Patronus Charm for the extent of every lesson.) She would, at that distant future date, eventually give to the Court Scholar and Princess Celestia – and thus give to Canterlot University – the go-ahead to use her story in the following fashion:
Henceforth, whenever introducing modern ponies to the topic of tyranny in an educational setting, Starlight Glimmer's 'Reign of Equality' would be used as THE modern textbook example of a certain kind of authoritarian tyranny. The kind that leans a certain direction. Opposite the direction that Sombra and Tirek leaned, for instance.
And the reason Starlight's example would be used to introduce modern-day ponies to that style of tyranny is because nopony died, nopony was hurt in the long run, it was a relatively minor and straightforward and uncomplicated and understandable affair, and there was a happy ending. Also it happened recently, with recent names like 'Twilight Sparkle' and 'The Elements of Harmony' involved, so there aren't many compounding historical details that make the story more difficult to relate to, no strange past contexts that must be parsed separately in the minds of the students.
(The true pony historians of Canterlot University, the ones who would go on to study the topic of political tyranny in-depth – those rare individuals who managed to not quit in disgust or fear or seething hatred halfway through, or be dismissed for seeming to admire or respect the ways of the successful tyrants – the truly competent pony historians would often look back on their early days in nostalgia, for how tame Starlight Glimmer's plot was, how tame Blueblood and the Unicorn Clubs were, how tame most of modern Equestria seems to be, even how tame Sombra and Tirek's brief returns had been, in comparison to the ugliness of the past.)
But the wider implications of Starlight Glimmer's redemption would happen later, in the somewhat distant and unseen future.
In the somewhat nearer and clearer present, while watching Twilight Sparkle's recent memories of Starlight Glimmer, Riddle had not been a pony who possessed an Equestrian degree in political education from an institute of higher learning.
And even if he did possess such a qualification, it would have meant little. At that current moment in Equestrian history, Princess Celestia had not yet started – at the future insistence of Prince Excelsior – to allow dangerous subjects like Dark Rituals or political tyranny to be taught openly at the highest graduate levels of CU, so that there might exist Equinoids other than Alicorns who are capable of countering them.
(Although before any dangerous subjects would be taught in the first place, various methods of evaluating the academic, moral, and maturity standards of aspiring students would be developed, and THOSE would always be overseen personally by at least one Alicorn.)
But even still, even without an Equestrian education in politics, even without having sat through any classes on the subject of political tyranny, and without any conscious input or deliberate choice on his part, Riddle's own mind had nevertheless offered the following observation every time there was a memory of Starlight Glimmer acting or speaking in her capacity as the village leader:
He would see her in action, he would hear her words, and he would think to himself, Ambitious, self-serving politician.
Luna would later put Starlight Glimmer's past state more poetically:
"She was a pony whose ambition was drilling in to the part of her being that her soul was supposed to be filling."
But getting back to Riddle, like many other mental models, the general concept of 'ambitious, self-serving political actor' was so ingrained into his thought processes that it had reached the equivalent of wordless, wandless magic in his mind. He does not need to think the full words to himself or go through the full sequence of deliberate and conscious thought to call forth the concept. At least, not when he's witnessing someone who embodies the concept so crystal clearly.
And this automatic mental process happened even BEFORE he eventually saw within Twilight's memories the utterly predictable revelation of Starlight Glimmer's lies. The pattern Ms. Glimmer exploited, the pattern she embodied, is the same one he had exploited himself for almost ten years straight as Voldemort. And that pattern is this:
Back during the war, if it had been raised as a possibility, very few 'traditionalists' in Magical Britain would have entertained a certain fact about Voldemort – in particular, they'd never accept that the Dark Lord was actually a half-blood. Not only would they never predict it in advance, they wouldn't believe it if they were told about it.
Similarly, during her rise, few 'progressive' ponies would entertain the thought that Ms. Glimmer's claims of equality were self-serving falsehoods. The proof of this is in the fact that she took over an entire village with those claims.
Like the traditionalists of Magical Britain who were enraptured by Lord Voldemort's arguments about blood purism – which were far more competently thought through and delivered than the slurred slander spewed by drunks in Nocturn Alley – the progressives of Equestria grew starry-eyed at the surface-appearance of Ms. Glimmer's rhetoric. They were blinded by the seemingly successful manifestation of their deepest desires: the utopian ideal of equality between all.
And so, the entire 'Equality Affair' happened without anyone ever once pointing out to the general population of the village that Starlight Glimmer seemed to be more 'equal' than everypony else. Just as nobody ever once pointed out to the general population of Magical Britain that Voldemort was a half-blood, even to this day.
Not because either claim was untrue, but because the claims would have been scoffed at by the 'very smart' crowd – the (in past Riddle's view) self-flattering morons who would be of better service to humanity as landfill. Those idiots have the crippling attitude of 'You can't fool ME with that obvious lie! Voldemort, a half-blood? Glimmer, a heartless/soulless politician? HAH!' Their stupidity of self assuredness is precisely what makes them the most gullible fools of all. Their retarding confidence – in that their confidence in their beliefs literally retards their thought processes – their retarding confidence in their own infallible intelligence is their downfall.
(Silver Wing would use more temper language than that, even as he describes the same phenomenon. Luna would temper her language, Celestia would temper her language. But Riddle does not.)
Thanks to the existence of the 'very smart' crowd, not even Dumbledore tried to claim the half-blood fact publicly. Dumbledore knew it would not be believed by the blood purist faction or even the general population unless there was completely undeniable and unfalsifiable proof to connect Voldemort to Tom Riddle.
And even then, even with hard proof, it would still go unbelieved by those with motive to disbelieve it. It would only be believed by everyone if Voldemort himself, or perhaps Bellatrix, confirmed it personally and publicly, and that would never happen. Furthermore, if Dumbledore tried to connect Voldemort to Tom Riddle, Voldemort would escalate and make it unpleasant for him. After competently countering the fact with propaganda, as Dumbledore also knew.
Thanks to Lucius Malfoy, the 'Voldemort = half-blood' claim would go unbelieved by those 'very smart people' who unironically read the Daily Prophet to become 'well-informed' (i.e. well-propagandized). It also would go unbelieved by those who are afraid of Lucius Malfoy for any other reason, such as being in debt to him so they could start their prominent Diagon Alley business, or working a cushy Ministry job that Malfoy could arrange to terminate at a moment's notice. And since Ministry workers account for three fourths of the adult population, the overwhelming majority of the apolitical public has motive to disbelieve the fact. And the actual blood purists wouldn't believe it either, of course.
That is one of the major contributing factors to the general population's political incentive structures. Add to that the fact that most people are incredibly politically gullible and blind. Especially the 'proper adults' who consider themselves politically informed and intelligent. The 'very smart people'. The idiots.
Thanks to his most recent Night Court session, Riddle suspected Luna would say it is the same phenomenon of the "I'm not addicted!" addicts having no hope for seeing their own problems and fixing them. "What do you think I am, an IDIOT?" asks the idiot. "I'm NOT an idiot!" say those who have no hope of ever not being idiots, so long as they hold that idiotic attitude.
And it is easier to train a smart dog than a dumb dog. If you want the 'lessons' (read: propaganda) to stick, it is easier to train an intelligent mind than a dumb mind in that propaganda. The actually intelligent 'very smart idiots' are THE MOST hopeless. Just look to Lucius Malfoy. With the right incentive structures in place, you don't even need to do much training yourself, the intelligent human will train their self for you.
In many ways, Lucius Malfoy's ability to engage in intelligent skepticism is precisely the problem, for he uses that skepticism to find all possible ways of dismissing claims like 'the Dark Lord was a half-blood'. It is only thanks to Mr. Potter's efforts that his son became truly cynical enough to see a small amount of improvement.
The more intelligent addicts, as Luna said in a follow-up session, are better than anypony else at rationalizing their addictions to themselves. They quite literally think themselves to death.
Riddle suspected that this applied to politics, that there is something like an addiction to believing 'my side good, other side bad, we're never in the wrong.'
Intelligent minds will use their mental prowess to defend their false beliefs. Intelligent right-leaning minds will rationalize their false political beliefs, and so will intelligent left-leaning minds. And if anybody believes they don't hold false political beliefs, they are the most gullible idiots of all. They are Doomed.
Which is why Riddle always aspired to learn and understand political tactics. He did not aspire to hold beliefs, lest he be gullible. (Luna, at this point, would point out that, ironically enough, this approach was a contributing to factor to how he became more evil than just about anybody else in history.)
And clearly – if Starlight Glimmer's initial success in her village is anything to go by – the problem of political gullibility is still rampant in modern Equestria. To say nothing of wider Equus, to say nothing of Earth.
In Riddle's view, any political cynic who has even the slightest familiarity with the twentieth century of muggle or magical politics would have been able to predict both Glimmer's lies and Voldemort's lies. Lenin was not equal to the starving peasants beneath him, and Hitler did not qualify as 'Aryan'. Glimmer was not equal to the villagers beneath her, Voldemort did not qualify as pure-blood.
Not that the ponies have Hitler or Lenin or Voldemort to use as examples. Still, going by Celestia's words to him a few weeks ago, they definitely have some historical examples.
Even just a few knowledgeable cynics per village might be sufficient to undermine aspiring political would-be tyrants. Even one cynic per village might suffice. But Equestria lacks even that in the same way that it lacks competent fighters. Celestia confines dangerous subjects to her study. She censors them, deems them as 'dangerous', thus dooming history to repeat unless she personally gets involved. Or her apprentice gets involved.
On the one hoof, she has personally implemented something like the Interdict of Merlin, not only with regards to Dark Rituals, but with regards to political action, which perhaps was incredibly wise of her. On the other hoof, she has not done something to fix the widely-acknowledged problems with the Interdict of Merlin during her over a thousand years of rulership. Other than train the occasional apprentice, which is a widely-acknowledged stopgap solution to the Interdict of Merlin. It's woefully insufficient as a true solution, as his other iterated selves proved when they all killed her (with varying degrees of secrecy and openness) and took over her country.
Into this political landscape, Glimmer's plot naturally went un-predicted and un-suspected by anybody who wasn't Celestia's personal apprentice. It also probably didn't help that the political atmosphere of Ms. Glimmer's rise was generally left-leaning, as all of Equestria seems to be.
Voldemort's plot would've been less noticeable if Magical Britain had leaned generally right. But Magical Britain is a firm and complicated mix of left and right – the elites are not shy about the fact that they are elites, even if they don't judge sexual preferences. So it's more difficult to go unnoticed as an aspiring lord unless you are a firm and complicated mix of left and right yourself.
A mix like David Monroe had been.
Starlight Glimmer also kept her plot constrained to a single village. Starting small means she was less likely to encounter a truly competent counter voice. That was especially wise of Ms. Glimmer, as she was accumulating power and resources and experience early on. Her primary mistake was getting greedy and trying to induct Ms. Sparkle, rather than thinking to herself, 'We better find a way to have Ms. Sparkle politely leave as soon as possible, if she stays my whole plot will be blown.'
In Riddle's vision of what a truly competent country would look like – a vision that he dismissed long ago as stupid utopianism – the general population needs not only be able to physically and magically defend themselves on an individual basis, they need to defend themselves politically as well. They need to be intelligent. And wise. A general ethos of cynicism and skepticism towards self-serving claims that SEEM to represent your own personal pet beliefs could have stopped Ms. Glimmer's rise in her political infancy. But there is a great dearth of political cynics in the world. Equestria does not train its general population in that kind of awareness. No country even seems to try.
Instead, in order to unravel the plot, it took Celestia's personal protégé. It took someone as exceptional as Twilight Sparkle, who also leans left. Or at least, leans more left than right, as far as Riddle can tell. So it's clearly not a problem of left being blind to left and right being blind to right. It's a problem of standard idiots being standard idiots. It is a problem of normal minds – even normal intelligent minds – being unable to reach the apparently unreasonable standard of half-decent political cynicism.
(Silver Wing would argue that, with enough background knowledge of true facts, you don't even need the cynicism about motive, you can just see for yourself the individual leaps of logic that don't agree with reality. And of course, everybody believes their own mind is capable of doing exactly that. They believe their mind can see the factual errors, especially if their own mind worships rationality, or the appearance thereof. And perhaps their own mind is capable of seeing the wrong leaps of logic in the belief systems they already disagree with. But seeing the wrong leaps of logic in their OWN false beliefs? Hardly.
And on top of that, they believe that they're already sufficiently skeptical of their own beliefs, which makes it a million times worse. Like Lucius Malfoy, their minds are rationalizing their own false beliefs without their own conscious awareness, as a result of the incentive structures in their life, and the habits of thought that they've previously built in their minds.)
Getting back to the full present, standing behind his one-way brick wall, Riddle had not quite anticipated Starlight Glimmer's appearance before Luna. He had not quite anticipated her being genuinely ashamed or guilty or repentant enough to give such a session a shot. She hadn't even attended her own trial to try to defend herself. Then again, he hadn't attended either, he had just collected gossip after the fact. He had been busy with his own affairs.
But now his own affair was to listen and learn more, so he did.
"Do you know why you are here, Ms. Glimmer?" asked Luna's calm, cool voice.
"Because it's the job of the Day Princess to judge, and it's the job of the Night Princess to punish," said Ms. Glimmer's defeated voice.
Luna's eyebrows rose. "Mm… well, I would be very curious to know what books you have been reading, and you are actually right in this particular case, but in general that custom was disbanded… well, before my banishment. This case is special, as it had the eyes of the nation upon it. It still does, actually. For the record, we are currently being recorded, and this recording will be available to the public for scrutiny. But before we get to punishments, I was trying to ask if you know what particular sanctionable actions landed you here."
Ms. Glimmer's hesitant voice replied with, "Because of what I tried to do to Twilight Sparkle?"
"Mm… no, not quite. Could you try again?" There was no judgement or condemnation in the tone, in the question.
"…Because of what I did at Our- at the town?"
"Again, not quite. Third time's the charm?"
"Because I did something else that was wrong?"
Luna tilted her head. "Well… again, not quite. But before I say why I think you are here… you said 'something else that was wrong' just now. Does this mean you think that what you did at the town, and what you did to Twilight and her friends and the villagers, was wrong?"
Starlight nodded uncertainly.
"Could you tell me why you think it was wrong? Why was the town incident wrong, and why was the Twilight incident wrong?"
"Um…" Starlight said, still extremely uncertain. "I lied at the town. And to Twilight and her friends… and I tried to break up her friendship."
"Well… thank you for saying some of what you did. But that is not the same as saying why it was wrong. Let's start with the easier one. Why was it wrong when you lied?"
"Because… because everypony knows lying is wrong?"
Luna shook her head. "Societal consensus does not make something right or wrong. When I was born, the law considered it illogical that a stallion could 'rape' his wife."
Starlight Glimmer's eyes widened further and further at each example. "WHAT?! That's horrible!"
"History is horrible," said Luna. "But it is also our heritage." She didn't say anything after that, just let the sentence hang.
After it was clear that Starlight was expected to say something, Starlight said, "What are you getting at, Princess?"
"Well… put bluntly, a large portion of your perceptions of right and wrong seemed to be shaped by what 'everypony knows' to be wrong. Your morals seem to rely on outside pressure, not internal passion. Only once I stated something that would offend your modern sensibilities, did you object with seemingly genuine internal standards. And the reason I am saying all this is so that one day-" a Patronus Charm sprung into existence "-you will be capable of casting this, which I suspect will be difficult for you to learn under your current system of morals."
Starlight stared. "What is that?" she asked, her voice containing true wonder and awe.
"This is the Patronus Charm. It is a manifestation of a pony's happiness. It can only be cast using thoughts that are truly happy."
"Can you show me how?" asked Starlight Glimmer. "I'm a great mage! I'm sure I could learn it."
"I can show you the horn motions," said Luna calmly. "The stance, the words to speak. But I cannot make you happy. Evil thoughts, distracting thoughts, self-centered thoughts, thoughts that you think are happy but are actually hedonistic, addictive thoughts – these are all things that get in the way of the spell. This spell, more than anything else, shows whether you are truly happy. Cast this spell, Starlight Glimmer, and you will be released from your debts upon the instant."
Starlight Glimmer's eyes widened. "I… I'll be forgiven?"
"Well… I only said you would be released from your debts. I said nothing of forgiveness. It is not my place to remark on that. Twilight has already forgiven you, but you never did overmuch damage to her. The villagers from your town, however… they all were given the legal right to demand restitution for the many months of damage you did to them. And some of them have made demands. And some of those demands are quite reasonable. Some of those demands are financial."
Starlight looked like she was about to cry. "R-really?"
"Yes, really. You refused to attend your own Day Court trial, which was your right, just as it would have been your right to face your accusers if you chose to do that instead. But even if you can refuse to attend, you cannot refuse the consequences of that trial. And the punishment that will probably matter to you the most is more than financial. It is somewhat unusual, but… completely and utterly fair, by unanimous agreement of the nobles and the jurors, and if I had to guess, by the whole nation, as they read the newspaper articles, or witness the trial's recording."
Starlight looked incredibly uncomfortable at that. "The… the whole nation saw it?"
"Yes," said Luna.
There was a pause.
"W-what was my punishment?" asked Starlight.
"Well… suppose a pony makes a mistake that damages five houses. They might not have meant it, but they are certainly the responsible party. Tell me, Ms. Glimmer. Are they merely responsible for the damage done to one house, does their restitution end once they pay one of the home owners back, or are they responsible for paying back all the home owners for all of the damage?"
"Um… all?" asked Starlight, in a small voice.
"Can you keep that in mind as I speak the punishment that was decided upon by your peers, and witnessed by your country?"
Starlight now looked desperately afraid, but though she trembled, she nodded.
"Then your punishment is this: Sugar Belle did not have her cutie mark, a fundamental part of her being, for a full year, Ms. Glimmer. Party Favor for three quarters of a year. Night Glider for half. They would never wish that fate upon anypony… except the pony who caused them to suffer that fate, so that she might finally know what she did. They, and many others, are all asking quite reasonably that you live without a Cutie Mark for as long as they lived without one. And my sister declared that the years shall be calculated additively, just as a financial punishment would be."
Starlight Glimmer did cry then. For a long while.
And Riddle, who was watching Starlight, thought to himself: Hypocrite. And Riddle's third eye, which was watching himself, thought: A hypocrite like you, who inflicted death upon others and does not want to die yourself.
"P-p-please," begged Starlight Glimmer when she had regained the capacity to speak. "I-i-is th-there a-a-anything e-else I-I can do? P-please, Princess. A-anything b-but that."
"Other than learning the charm I just showed you? All you can do is make it up to them. Like Twilight and all but one of her friends, who did not demand restitution for their suffering at your hooves, any individual villager might choose to forgive the debt you owe them at any time."
"How?!" she begged.
"Well…" said Luna. "Step one is this. Ms. Sparkle?"
In a flash, Twilight Sparkle appeared in the room, to Starlight's startlement.
Sparkle's only word was "I'm sorry," and then the horn of perhaps the world's second or third most powerful Alicorn glowed, and despite Starlight Glimmer's expertise in magic, and in the field of Cutie Mark theft in particular, she was helpless to stop her Cutie Mark from lifting off her flank, from floating towards Twilight, and from being secured in a glass box at her side.
There was more crying, then. Shouts of "DON'T" and "STOP!" and "GIVE IT BACK!" But she wore a horn-suppressing ring, and could do nothing more than bang against the magical barrier stopping her from getting any closer.
"My fool," said Luna's Royal Canterlot Voice, which startled Starlight out of her onslaught. "Would you please come here for a moment?"
Riddle's eyebrows rose, and he apparated to her side, a feat of magic that might remind Starlight Glimmer that he is powerful and esoteric, for he possesses magic she knows not. Ms. Glimmer, upon seeing him, took a scared step back.
"You do not have to do this," said Luna, speaking to Riddle. "I could ask another, or do it myself. But would it at all interest you to hide this Cutie Mark in a place where nopony would ever find it? Where nopony would be able to retrieve it if they did find it?"
Starlight, at this point, began begging for her Cutie Mark back. Twilight Sparkle looked incredibly sad.
Luna was stoic as, still speaking to Riddle, she added, "Except yourself, of course."
Riddle considered the request. "That might interest me. Are you asking me to do this without payment?"
"You may request whatever you think is fair compensation," Luna offered. "I only ask that you not return it until Starlight has served her allotted sentence, or until she can cast the Patronus."
Riddle thought of what he might demand in return, but then he decided to have fun instead. He grinned evilly at Starlight, who took another step back. "No payment is necessary. It sounds like an enjoyable use of my time. Outer space is a vast place that I have begun to explore." He probably wouldn't store it in outer space, but it was a decent thing to say so long as he can casually prove to Ms. Glimmer that he can go there (if she ever asks), and so long as he does not actually store it there.
He took the container and disappeared with it, returning to his place behind the brick wall so he could observe the rest of the interaction.
Starlight Glimmer was no longer begging, she was bawling like a baby. The hopelessness of the situation had set in. Words would not get her out of this one, as words had gotten her out of so many other things in her life. This died down to sniffling after a good, long while.
"Step two, Ms. Glimmer," said Luna, "now that I have arranged for your rights to be violated – for all that it was fair and just restitution for your actions of violating the rights of others – step two is to give you the following choice. Personally, I suspect I am no longer a pony whom you would trust to help you with your mental state. So step two is possibly for you to leave my presence and never return, if that is what you want to do."
"I-I-I'd n-never get m-my C-c-cutie M-mark b-back if I l-l-left," said her sniffling and no-longer-sonorous voice. It was a quite noticeable different from before. Less alive. Less vibrant.
"I can arrange for that to be done outside my presence," said Luna. "If you wait out your sentence, you will get your Cutie Mark back."
What if I decide not to return it? Riddle thought curiously to himself, and his mind produced a curious answer in return: Perhaps Ms. Sparkle can return it at any time, wherever it lies. Perhaps she or Ms. Glimmer can FIND it wherever it lies.
He resolved not to hide it in or near any of his current hideouts, fallback or otherwise.
"I c-c-can l-l-leave?" asked Ms. Glimmer's voice. "I'm… n-not g-going to j-j-jail?"
Luna shook her head. The door opened behind her.
She looked at it. She looked to Luna. "H-how l-l-long is m-my s-s-sentence?"
"My sister decided that if you want to know the answer to that question, you can watch the trial yourself, or you can do the math yourself. Or you could always stop a random pony on the street and ask them. Assuming they are willing to talk with you."
Ms. Glimmer seemed to take an unconscious step away from the open door. "Should… sh-should I g-g-go? Am I to leave?"
Luna shrugged. "Only if you want to."
Ms. Glimmer looked at the open door again. "I… I don't want to leave."
Luna nodded. "You do have the option to stay. But there would be certain conditions."
Ms. Glimmer looked to Luna. "W-what conditions?"
"My fool considers me to be the best dark-lord redeemer in the country, and perhaps the whole universe. He considers you to be a dark-lord wannabe-" Riddle did not think 'how did she know?' to himself, for Luna knew him fairly well by this point "-and I find myself seeing you in a similar light as I now see my past self, as I see Nightmare Moon. I see you as a mare who has made many mistakes, and who is having trouble seeing even a tiny fraction of those mistakes for herself. If you wish to leave and wait out your full sentence, you may. If you wish to stay and suffer the painful process of mental healing, perhaps with the hope of a reduced sentence and a new charm under your belt, you may. From this point forward, your actions are up to you."
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Oh my.
Tom Riddle, would be dark lord? Meet Starlight Glimmer, would-be dark lord.
...
This is one of those "I should have seen this coming". Yes, it's years later. And that's when Starlight comes into the picture.
I do not mind that there was a delay for this. Now to enjoy this.
Can you explain what you mean by "temporize" in this context? How does this refer to time?
Glimglam could always end up pushing paper.
Blank paper with no information on it whatsoever between storage and requested destination, and that only?
All blank pieces of paper are equal, to be used to total a meal or total worlds?
Woah. Definitely worth the wait. I didn't expect this, and I'm very glad to see it. Very cool plot twist. Seeing her lose her mark was terrible, maybe even moreso because she deserved it.
Wow, I don't believe I have read a description of Starlight's past deed as concise and precise as this one before.
And this is one of a few places that I saw her actually getting a trial for what she did. Although having a former, real Dark Lord as her parole officer might be a bit too cruel for her. Wonder what Dumbledore would think of this situation?
That ending felt a little too abrupt
First, nice callback to the prophecy.
Second ... Cutie Mark manipulation *IS* her special talent. It's not something another unicorn could do. That does make a change in things. It implies that *any* sufficiently advanced unicorn can do this -- it implies that *Riddle* can do this.
Which might help explain why, in every other timeline, Riddle is in charge.
Third ... what would Dumbledore say?
"Did you enjoy it?"
"What?
"Did you have a sense of sadness, at the removal of someone's personality? Their destiny? Did you feel sad, seeing that harm to someone? Or ... did you have some inner delight?"
Riddle paused, before answering.
"I did not feel sadness."
"Tell me. If you were the gatekeeper, would you permit someone who had that answer to be released into society? Especially if they either had the magic to do this, or learned how by watching it being done?"
Tom paused. "No, I would not."
"Then, you are closer to being released, but you are not ready yet."
Last: So what about a lawyer? Who represented Starlight at her trial?
These are supposed to be enlightened descendents of ancient Atlanteans. With 1000+ years of Celestia's improvements. The idea of being your own representative, in an emotional moment where you cannot properly think or reason, is a really good reason to have an independent, less emotional person who can still reason rationally there as your stand in. And that is double, or triple, when the potential penalty is so severe.
But even at that -- *sequentially*? If she stripped ponies of their cutie marks for a year, why not a single year of punishment? If the idea is to be *punitive*, not just equal measure, why not just 2x or 3x max?
We have already found that this society does not permit suing for more than actual damages, to avoid the whole "sue to get rich" problem, at the expense of saying "we will probably under-punish". Here? The penalty of many, many years is *MORE* than the crime done to any pony.
The worst time infraction? Sure.
A small multiple? Maybe.
Cumulative for all of them? Goes against everything we've seen in this society so far.
11793470
I meant to say "temper" instead of "temporize". They would all "temper" their language. Thank you for pointing that out, I'll go change it.
11793550
As far as I'm aware, it's never stated outright in the show that her special talent is Cutie-Mark theft, only that it's a signature spell of hers. My own presumption was that her special talent is magic, given that, at least in the show, she's depicted as an intelligent unicorn who is genuinely almost on par with Twilight Sparkle. Also, her Cutie Mark is a magical wand, not a burglar mask. Remember that in this story, the magic system is based off of HPMoR, where most magic, where pretty much all spells, are learnable by anyone with a horn/wand who is willing to sit down and study. No spell is literally exclusive to a single individual, although obviously there are some spells that some people would have difficulty learning, like the Patronus and the Killing Curse. Powerful Rituals are never said to be particularly difficult to learn or cast, IF YOU KNOW HOW, and if you are willing to make the sacrifice. It's the "if you know how" part, combined with the Interdict of Merlin, that's the problem. So IF there's any spell in existence, Twilight can learn it IF SHE KNOWS HOW. Finally, in this story, Twilight already knows the Cutie Mark SWAP spell. It's not implausible that she was able to figure out or re-invent, on her own, the Cutie Mark theft spell, after seeing and personally experiencing Starlight Glimmer do it to herself.
This lawyer:
I would recommend using the control + f function if you missed that the first time.
No, the idea IS to be equal measure. That is, in fact, precisely why I went to the extra lengths, in advance of posting the chapter, to include this exact quote:
As applied to Ms. Glimmer's situation, it goes like this: In the same way that a pony who steals from five other ponies cannot simply repay the cost of the most valuable stolen property and split that payment among all damaged parties, and now the theif's required restitution ends - that's not how restitution for violation of property rights works in Equestria - she can't just go however long the MOST hurt pony went without THEIR Cutie Mark and now HER restitution for Cutie Mark theft ends. She has to make it up to everypony individually, one pony at a time. Once her restitution for the theft of Sugar Belle's Cutie Mark ends, now her restitution for the theft of Night Glider's Cutie Mark begins. And that's before we address how much money she would have siphoned away from her villagers to fund her efforts, herself, her home, that kind of thing, when her villagers couldn't leave, so it was slavery, so she owes restitution on that too. Not to mention the fact that, I'll go into this later, Starlight used the single greatest form of purely psychosocial torture devised by pony kind (read: humankind) on her villagers, not that Celestia has allowed that torture to be known to pony kind: struggle sessions. All cult leaders do this to some degree, and Starlight clearly tried to do it to the Elements of Harmony in the show. Presumably she did it multiple times on her villagers prior to that point. And so, where other ponies might be able to get away with lighter sentences, precise fairness and equity of restitution WILL be enforced upon Starlight Glimmer, of all ponies.
I don't quite understand this argument. At all. She isn't being punished for more than the actual damages. She's being punished for the exact sum total of damages, given that the sum-total was simple to calculate in this case, and given that she was solely and personally responsible for all of those damages. In modern America, where corporations and big business and group responsibility and wealthy people and politicians trying to avoid responsibility have muddied and corrupted the concept of property rights so thoroughly, it can be hard to remember the basic principles of restitution and fairness. If I steal from ten people, it doesn't make sense that my restitution ends when I have repayed only the most egregious instance of theft. My restitution ends when I have paid back everyone for all the thefts. This is especially true when my thefts were premeditated, conscious, deliberate, planned, orchestrated, and I had multiple chances to return the property I stole, but I continued keeping it from the owners. (Edit: Would you let Voldemort just go 'Welp, I offered restitution for the single worst murder I ever committed. Obviously that means I'm off the hook for all murders of a similar nature that I ever committed'?)
As a general response to your criticism, perhaps I should have shown the full trial. Perhaps I should have gone more into Equestrian legal theory and restitution. I spent a few days wondering if I should write it out. But my muse didn't want to, it would've been a pain to write that and have it be both realistic and interesting, my muse just wanted to get on with things, so here we are, giving the spark-notes summary after the fact. The audience, like Starlight Glimmer herself, did not attend her trial, we are only experiencing the aftermath.
Tom's internal rant sure was repetitive
11793757
I'd call it an iterative rant, but yes. That is a common problem among the content I write that comes close to or crosses the line of preaching, and it's just one more factor that helps me recognize when I'm doing it, nowadays. Again, the ideal method of delivery is not internal monologue, it's action-packed, realistic and interesting plot.
That said, I notice you didn't criticize the content itself, just the efficacy of delivery. Which is perfectly fair, but it's not the same AS criticizing the content, let us be clear.
You: "It's repetitive." Me: "Sure is." You: "It's an internal monologue." Me: "Yep." You: "It's a rant." Me: "Indeed." Me: "That said, a benefit of repetitive, long rants is plenty of arguments for you to argue against. Would you care to levy any counter-arguments?"
11793632
You are entirely correct, and I retract my earlier statement.
I made the comment before going to bed, and my brain had at the time completely forgotten those versions.
Granted I have only seen bits of those, but I know they exist.
"Where there's a whip, there's a way"
Oh My i like this chapter.
this is a bit harsh but at the same time it fits with this story perfectly.
to bad we can't do this or something like this over the hole world today.
It's not if she didn't say explicitly that she removed her own cutie mark. That's why you usually leave publicly committing heinous shit to your henchmen. Least loyal preferably if possible (under supervision, of course). How's Double Diamond doing by the way?
Or perhaps because that information isn't particularly actionable.
He totally was. For a certain notion of 'equal'.
He totally did. It's even easier this time, since nazi's 'Aryan' is completely made up.
So, she's Starlight Glimmer, but slower?
Umm... It does. The only thing that does.
Which brings question of why the heck did she allow that.
That would be 'retribution' here
One of the things I find weird is that the only thing Riddle notes on finding out about Starlight is the 'self-serving politician' part.
Sure, that does apply to some degree in this case, but that's not the most pertinent thing in this case. More importantly, and something that should be quite obvious to Riddle, is all the signals that she's a cult leader. He makes zero note of this anywhere in the chapter, despite it being more obvious (given a human perspective, especially his, I'd think), and having way more predictive power.
11793670
Just to say... Starlight goes toes to toes [or is it hoof to hoof] with ALICORN Twilight and comes out on top most of the time... she is probably the MOST powerful unicorn around in Equestria.
11794233
...This doesn't refute anything that I wrote. If that was your intention, thank you for the supporting voice/argument. If we're talking about the show, getting in a contest of magical might with Twilight and winning only bolsters the argument that her canon talent is probably magic, not Cutie Mark theft.
11794191
All cult leaders are self-serving politicians. "Self-serving politician" is the genus, "cult leader" is a species within that genus. Cult leaders are the most extreme manifestation of the 'self-serving politician' mental conception. Hitler, Lenin, Mao, Stalin, the Kim Dynasty of North Korea, Xi Jinping, all of these are cult leaders of extreme heights, and extreme consequences. They are all also self-serving politicians. Cult leaders are self-serving politicians gone wild with power and ego and validation.
11794252
Ah yes I was merely pointing out that she is not JUST " an intelligent unicorn" and yes I do agree that her special talent is magic at large and not that specific spell.
11794190
Yeah, the "it's not fraud if I technically didn't defraud you because of exact wording or because I got my minions to do it" crap doesn't fly in Equestria when the eyes of the nation is upon your court trial.
And whose fault is that? It would have been actionable if Dumbledore had a Daily Prophet equivalent under his influence, that's for sure. Also, even under his existing constraints, it was actionable. "I am making an anouncement as Chief Warlock. The identity of Lord Voldemort is Tom Riddle. Aurors, please refer to him as Tom Riddle henceforth, in all official documentation and communication." After that, make a few speeches to the Hogwarts students, things like "allow me to tell you the story of a former student of mine, a parseltongue whose father was a muggle and mother was a witch, raised in a muggle orphanage, so that you do not become a dark lord like him." But again, the point is that Voldemort would have retaliated if Dumbledore had TRIED any of these actionable steps, and the BIGGER point is that the 'very smart' crowd would have scoffed in disbelief at the claim.
...
...
...
Well. Frankly I'm a bit disturbed by your belief system. Your moral compass seems as though it can be made to point anywhere, so long as societal consensus believes it should be pointed that way. The logical end-point of your belief system is that if the consensus among a country's political class is to kill the jews, and all the media is saying we should kill the jews, and your average person believes the jews should be killed, then it's right to kill the jews, because that's the societal consensus, and societal consensus according to you is the only thing that makes something right or wrong. Societies throughout history have had moral compasses that pointed in all sorts of ugly directions. Societal consensus can be directly and overtly manipulated to be counter-factual and evil. And that doesn't even touch on the mammalian default.
-Slavery.
-Raping of enemy woman.
-Pillaging and plundering and killing enemy non-combatants.
-Torture as a means of information extraction (doesn't work reliably, btw, it's just sadism).
-The earth is at the center of the universe, with the sun and everything else revolving around it.
If you believe that societal consensus is, as you put it, the ONLY thing that makes something right or wrong, then you would be exactly the sort of person who doesn't object when society is doing evil and stupid crap, and you would have no right to complain if societal consensus resulted in evil or stupid crap happening to you. Your belief system cannot be used to cast the True Patronus Charm. Not that magic is real of course, but that's the best way I can put it.
I'm going to stop trying to argue with you at this point.
11794281
Why bother with trial in that case? Rhetorical question, of course.
Apologies, I wasn't clear before. Actionable for intended recipients of that information.
Well, fine, almost anywhere. A bit of genetics, otogenesis, and this dude
comptox.epa.gov/dashboard-api/ccdapp1/chemical-files/image/by-dtxsid/DTXSID7023801
were involved too. Good (for me, now) that all this is counterfactual, I guess?
I don't understand what's the question here. There's actual pretty recent historical examples of societies for which killing Jews were right.
You mean directions you as a consequence of your genetics, upbringing and social environment consider to be ugly?
Rights are socially constructed. Generally there aren't many in dictatorship actively engaged in first 4 things from your list in neighboring country (not sure about 5th one).
11794401
You used the same 'societal consensus' argument to dismiss my criticisms of addictive behaviors. When Luna in story asked 'what all these have in common', you wrote a comment quoting that and answered 'they are frowned upon' as if it was your knee-jerk reaction, as if that was the ONLY thing wrong with them, and as if your observation overrode her description of the pattern of addictive behavior that was provided immediately afterwards. I don't trust your motives. You are torturing the words 'wrong' and 'right', trying to shoehorn your narrow definition of 'societal consensus' to the exclusion of everything else, and brute force the debate forward from there.
Eliezer's blog alias, the name under which HPMoR was authored on fanfiction dot net, was 'Less Wrong'. Do you REALLY think that he meant 'less frowned upon by the consensus of society' when he chose that name? Or do you think that, perhaps, he meant things like 'less factually wrong, less biased, less logically fallacious in reasoning'?
You know what, I said I'm not arguing with you, and I meant it. If for no other reason than you made it crystal clear how you like to argue with this little gem:
I don't understand what's the question here. There's actual pretty recent historical examples of societies for which killing Jews were right.
^Yes, take out literally everything else I said, take the quote out of context, make it sound like I literally said it's right to kill the Jews when my argument was quite literally the exact opposite of that. Maybe that wasn't your intention, but my good faith in this exchange has been blown. Bye.
11793790
I don't particularly care about the content, it's just tedious and annoying to read
11794459
I literally said _myself_ that it's right to kill Jews (for some actually existing societies). I quoted that specific piece to empathise that I won't shy away from repeating and confirming it. Probably looked bad doing that in public. Full text is 2 comments below.
Yudkowsky also spent considerable amount of time making argument that human preferences are but a tiny particularity shaped by phylogenetic/ontogenetic/social history among whole space of possible agent preferences, and randomly sampled AI is extremely likely to significantly disagree with all humans on morality. And no, sufficiently smart AI won't auto-agree with human because it won't commit factual errors or logical fallacies or something. That even has special name. He seems to have believed that all set of human preferences has some kind of single self-consistent attractor around "Coherent Extrapolated Volition" paper, but that was almost 20 years ago --- I don't know if he believes that now.
Well, I somewhat expressed my reaction to presenting philosophy as an answer to something suffocatingly dominated by social factors (which we know since Asch and suspected since, like, Rousseau, definitely since Marx) in annoying school teacher's "guess what I want to hear" manner by a character who's supposed to be moral authority to a character who's supposed to be cynical
Although things half a page lower about operant avoidance have a merit, yes.
11794701
Which is one of the reasons I gave that A/N disclaimer. I recognize the section as something I would have removed from a story I was trying to monetize, if I ever start trying to monetize stories. Your attitude towards it is one of those reasons.
The section exists for those readers who are interested in politics, who are frustrated by modern day politics, and who are not already indoctrinated by political tribalism.
11794908
Maybe. Which is why my own remark was that my good faith was blown. I didn't claim of certainty about your intentions, but stated my own lack of trust going forward. And for the sake of prudence and caution, I'm maintaining that position, at least where this debate topic is concerned.
As someone currently working on a college degrees in Political Science and Psychology I feel compelled to point out that just because someone is using left leaning rhetoric that does not make them left leaning the Nazi's called themselves socialist (National Socialist German Workers' Party) after all. Starlight both in the show and this fic is right wing in how acts and exercises her power. Otherwise I don't disagree with the rest of this chapter.
11795530
This is entirely unspecific. And it's also the entire reason I wrote that part of the chapter. If you mean to say that all unjust/authoritarian exercising of power over others is inherently right wing... no. Just, no.
Yeah, check out this link to see why you're not making the point that you think you're making.
All I hear, when you say you're in college and majoring in political science and psychology, is that you have a bunch of left-leaning professors that are accomplishing what they set out to do: Make sure none of their students vote Republican, typically by pathologizing all authoritarian behavior as right wing and by claiming that all (or the overwhelming vast majority of) bad political action comes out of the right, and not the left.
11795843
Yeah, I figured that would be the reaction to me stating my education given this fics previous writing. I would argue that the lack of right wing professors is not because of a leftist plot to brainwash collage students and more because right wing fascism in America is inherently anti education, but that's beside the point.
I said that Starlight's use of power leaned right wing because she used her power to uphold and strengthen social hierarchy and that is what makes it right wing, just because Starlight's talking points were dressed up in left wing speech does not change the fact that what her actions where were right wing, I probably should have stated this in my original comment but alas I did not.
In any case I don't want to argue about politics, I get enough of that in class, and for the most part I do like your writing I just find the politics expressed within it lacking given where my education lies. I wish you the best and that you continue to write more compelling stories, and hope to see more in the future.
tl:dr - I just wanted to throw in my two cents. Keep up the mostly good work.
11796419
I see you automatically label the opposing political side as fascism (note that I resisted the urge to automatically label your professors as socialist, or even leftist, because I recognize that not all of them are extreme). The right wing in America isn't inherently anti education, they just perceive the current educational systems in America, especially colleges, as being captured and controlled by people who don't at all agree with their values, which is objectively true by the statistics. And I don't mean values like 'racism and bigotry' which are probably jumping to your mind, but hopefully not. I mean that they value education in math, reading, science, but they perceive standards and quality of education in those fields to be dropping off a cliff. They value good products for good prices, but costs of college are soaring into the stratosphere, and business owners are no longer necessarily regarding college degrees as positives in the hiring process, because college degrees might only indicate that they're about to hire somebody who resents 'capitalism' and who'll be a political activist instead of an employee, i.e. a pain in the *ss.
*Pinches bridge of nose*. Again, this is not very specific. Again, I don't understand what makes this right wing IN THE SLIGHTEST. Unless you mean to say all social hierarchy and the maintenance thereof - you know, that thing that all living social creatures, even chickens, naturally do in the presence of each other - is right wing.
There's a social hierarchy in BLM. There's a social hierarchy in the Democratic Party and all the Democrat Clubs in every college campus in this country. There is a social hierarchy in every group of human beings in which those human beings recognized themselves as a group, even if those humans try to convince themselves that 'oh we don't have a hierarchy'. Yes, they do. It might not be explicit and structured, but there are members that are better perceived and worse perceived by the group's standards, and this alone is enough for a hierarchy. This is not right wing. This is human. And the people who are better perceived trying to maintain their status is also human, not right wing. People using whatever means they can to maintain their status and power is also human, not right wing.
The only groups of humans I can think of that don't have hierarchies are literal mobs. And mob rule has been denounced by just about every competent political thinker ever, because mobs are not rational, it's very hard to stop them after they start, and they leave death and destruction in their wake. The only thinkers that don't denounce mobs are the aspiring tyrants, as long as those mobs are beneficial TO the tyrants. Look to Mao's red guard, look to Mussolini endorsing mob violence against his political enemies.
11796666
Okay one last comment.
Yeah I messed up in this by labeling all conservatives as fascist in my previous comment, I will say that right wing politics in America is increasingly growing fascistic and that the conservatives I personally know are self proclaimed Nazi's. I was just tired mentally exhausted when writing that part, not an excuse but an explanation. I can't really speak for outside the USA but as an area becomes more right wing the level of education drops not just for collage degrees but all levels of education.
I never claimed that the presence of a hierarchy was right wing, only that the use of power to maintain and enforce one is. Hierarchies are found in most if not all animals yes, and while humans are animals too, human hierarchies are fluid and everchanging. Right wing policy is inherently conservative when it comes to hierarchy and wishes to uphold and enforce them, it does not mater how much you dress up your speech with left wing talking points if you use your power and influence to uphold and enforce hierarchy you are engaging in right wing politics. Left wing politics however is that hierarchy should not have to be upheld or enforced and that any system that requires such is immoral (This of course is massively dumbed down and simplified for sake of brevity and I doubt anyone aside from us reading this comment actual cares). Starlight used her power to uphold and enforce a social and political hierarchy for social and political gain that is what makes it right wing, not the presence of a hierarchy but the use of power to enforce it.
Again while I disagree with the politics within this fic it really is a minor point and doesn't really affect my enjoyment of it. The writing is good, the characters enjoyable and consistent, overall it IS good work. I just wanted to point out something I noticed and didn't expect to get to this point, feel free to respond to this comment (or not idc).
11796901
Well if that's your last comment, this'll be my last one too.
I addressed this later down in the you responded to:
Chickens enforce their own hierarchies, their literal pecking order, with physical strength, the strength of their pecks. All social animals do this. If your conception of right is: "All exercising of power to maintain/enforce the current hierarchy", for one you have to concede that it is entirely natural behavior for those with any amount of power or position in the hierarchy to do that, and for two, does that mean "Left = Any exercising of power to overthrow or change the current hierarchy"? Because if that's your conception, I can work with that.
Namely: Positive change is INCREDIBLY DIFFICULT. Also: Often, the existing system is quite good, and while there is always room for improvement, and there may be injustices occurring, it's not anywhere CLOSE to 'easy' to overhaul that system with a replacement that's equally good, let alone better. And people who genuinely lean left don't realize this, because their skill is words and numbers and theory, not infrastructure, farming, hard labor, and property management. They're good at the 'overthrow' part, but not the 'build a competent replacement that doesn't immediately devolve into tyranny controlled by the most competent psychopath' part. Look at any socialist revolution anywhere, ever. And this is why, in the face of socialist revolutionaries, maintaining the existing hierarchy, even through force - or rather, through the forceful protection of what already exists - can be the path that leads to the least amount of injustice, bloodhsed, and violation of rights. Not that I advocate for maintenance of hierarchies without exception, I advocate for maintenance of individual rights.
So in other words, left wing politics is a utopia. And I mean that literally. All rules aside from the literal laws of the universe, all hierarchies, all systems, require someone or something to uphold or enforce it. Even if you have a system that relies on good semaritans and generous people and the kindness and competence of strangers, that system is still ultimately being upheld and enforced by people. In a decentralized manner, yes, but it's still being enforced. The only systems that do NOT need to be upheld or enforced by deliberate effort are the ones that are upheld and enforced by the literal laws of the universe. The solar system is one such system. Everything else, especially anything involving life, ESPECIALLY especially anything involving HUMANS, requires an enforcement mechanism to upohold and maintain. Even if that mechanism is random people in the street, that's still a mechanism. And people are an INCREDIBLY corruptible mechanism. And people will always be self-interested. And people will always be somewhat (or heavily) irrational. And facts on the ground will always be not-as-clear-as-they-could-be. And there will always be clever liars who exploit and abuse the system. And you need a system capable of DEALING with all of that, and much, much more. Believing you can develop a system to handle all that without exercising force/power of some kind is literally impossible utopianism.
No, the dumbed down version suffices. In other words, under tht conception, all political systems everywhere are immoral. All political systems that ever WILL BE are immoral. This is why I talk about this stuff, this is why I try to dig deep into what others believe. Because your standards are impossible. As in, you're doing the political equivalent of hoping that 2 + 2 will someday be able to equal 5. Because ALL unnatural systems, i.e. all HUMAN systems, require an enforcement mechanism, require the exercise of some kind of power to maintain.
Personal anecdote combined with yet another insult is not overly convincing to me. When your first instinct is to label your opponents as fascist, as evidenced by your earlier comment, my first instinct is to disregard your every use of the term 'fascist', let alone 'Nazi'.
The wider trend of the dumbing down of society is manifold and complicated, but in general, it tends to come from attempts by the rich and powerful to turn the average person into their serving or consuming livestock. And you don't want smart livestock. And in the past century, this was largely done through the education system, at least in America. There are of course many other factors, but that's the MOST fundamental problem.
Regarding recent standards, there are a few things that account for this. First and foremost, at least recently, is schools shutting down during Covid, and masks interfering with the mental development of children. Regarding the vax mandates, the mask mandates, and the covid lockdowns (of schools, but also of other things), there were plenty of political voices on the left and the right who were in favor of all of that, but the only ones SPEAKING OUT against this authoritarian exercise of state power that literally dumbed down the population were individualists on the hard right. I saw no left-leaning voices that were against it at the time, and no left-leaning voices that will retroactively say 'yeah, masks and lockdowns were wrong, full-stop, and so were all the media campaigns and cancellings - the exercising of power in maintaining existing hierarchies - to enforce those mandates.' You, I suspect, will not be the first to buck this anectodal evidence I've gathered regarding the average opinion of left-leaning people by providing a counterexample, despite what you claim to believe in.
Trying to extract as much profit as possible, focusing on student retention by any means instead of educational quality, is the general problem with universities (other than political takeover of the left in the staff and the HR departments, of course). A quote I once heard about the Blizzard company's game-making philosophy put it best. Once upon a time, they were a bunch of nerds who made games they wanted to play the games that they made, and their philosophy was "If we make great games, we'll make good money." Now, Blizzard's game design philosophy is "We'll make lots of money by making captivating games." Same thing with universities, basically.
My other instinct is to bring up social media companies, which are responsible for dumbing down the population by hiring the best scientists and developing the best algorithms to get as many people as addicted to their content as possible. Fast food companies do the exact same thing, hiring flavor scientists. Which results in a race to the bottom, appealing to the lowest common denominator, low-effort and mindless, vapid, flashy, and unhealthy content, all so that people will develop stupid spending habits at the expense of their long-term goals, their future. Just look to Tik Tok and Instagram. At this point you would probably call those companies right-wing because it's obviously greedy exploitative capitalist. Every major right-wing political voice ever, especially the ones that have been shadow-banned or cancelled, would beg to differ with that claim. The people hired by those companies would beg to differ that they are right wing. The HIRERS would beg to differ. Silicon Valley overwhelmingly donates to the Democratic Party. The staff of those companies is woke or woke-apologist through and through. And if you say 'yeah, but the CEO is right wing!', one I would EXTREMELY disagree except where Tesla is concerned, but two, even if I DID concede all the tech CEO's were right-leaning, isn't that the PROBLEM? Holding left-leaning politics EVIDENTLY leads to becoming a slave to the most competent social and/or economic manipulator around, no matter whether you call those manipulators left or right. It's why Hillary Clinton owns multiple mansions, it's why Bernie Sanders is now a millionaire and owns a mansion, it's why Lenin was a wealthy monster, Stalin was a wealthy monster, Mao was a wealthy monster. That's where left-leaning politics ends. The most competent manipulator who is good at speaking left-leaning talking points rises to the top and takes everything over.
And if the right notices and counters the takeover in time, whoo boy, that might not be a good thing, and in fact that can ALSO lead to tragedy. Hitler and Mussolini, when you read what they wrote, began their rise by reacting against and promising to stamp out or otherwise quell GENUINE socialist political agitation in Germany and Italy, respectively.
So be incredibly wary of left-leaning talking points, and people who espouse them. Be incredibly wary of YOURSELF when you speak left-leaning talking points, for our own selves are never as virtuous as we believe we are. If the left ever manages to be actually effective at making change, 99% of the time it's being led by someone who's just in it for themselves, and a scary amount of the time that leads to literal starvation and more authoritarianism than you could possibly imagine. And if they DON'T succeed, it might be because their agitations successfully provoked the right to react, which can get real ugly, real quick.
Edit: Oh, and thank you for the kind words regarding the story. They don't go unnoticed or unappreciated. When it comes to responding to comments, I habitually tend to focus on the parts that I disagree with, which often leads to the rest going unaddressed in my replies.
11793670
Hmm. ... Being really good at magic, all around, check.
Being a signature spell ...
Other than Discord and Starlight, possibly Sombra (but he used helmets), no one else ever changes pony's marks or destinies. So, ok, maybe not her cutie mark talent, but a unique-to-her spell ability.
Remember, even the Alicorns cannot undo what she did out of anger; heck, she can't undo it when her anger is out. So, besides proof of emotion-powered spells (kinda like A.K. 1.0), ... I guess it reads either way.
And you are right -- in this story, at least, it's established that other unicorns like Twilight can do it.
I did miss the defense lawyer at the trial. Was there one at the sentencing? Is there any appeal to the sentence?
Keep in mind, I come from a culture that says "victims do not get a say in increasing sentencing, because they will be emotional" -- so instead, we have emotional angry judges, applying standards unfairly in some cases, even more than any so-called "victim" wanted in some cases. (USA has some really wacked judicial behavior.)
For the rest of the comment ... I basically am used to, and consider it normal, for some sentences to be served simultaneously, rather than sequentially. When there is a definite, physical thing to do for restitution, you do all of them; when it is not physical, when the same act can "restitute for" multiple things, it is considered to be "one and done". Of course, "you hurt me, so I hurt you" is hardly restitution. It's payback. Well-deserved in this case, possibly nothing else would do the job here.
Consider: What was her "restitution"/"punishment" in show? Learn friendship. Here? ... It feels like "Forced" to learn happiness. Nothing about friendship.
11796666
I *strongly* disagree that the right wing *politicians/leaders/people in charge* in the USA regard math, reading, or science as valuable.
I think that most right-wing *people* regard "This is what I was taught, so teach my children as I was taught" / "If this was good enough for my parents to teach me, then it's good enough for the next gen". I disagree with this -- I feel this ultimately becomes "I was taught X as a child, and never questioned this as an adult, so I will teach X to my children because I refuse to question what my grandparents believe". This is my complaint against most right-wing people -- the lack of willingness to admit the past was wrong, and that they personally were taught wrong.
I am of the firm belief that "conservatism" meaning "change should be slow, careful, and gradual, because a fast, rapid change can cause massive unexpected problems" is a good view.
I am of the firm belief that "conservatism" meaning "don't change, go back to a past generation, that was better/smarter than us", to be bad.
Let me point out a right-wing plot to brainwash students. Look at how the teaching of law has been altered over some 30+ years such that we are now graduating lawyers who not only believe things that would have been unthinkable for most of our history, we have judges in power that agree with them and follow their arguments in making rulings.
The group that controls the students controls the future. This is the core truth of "No free thinking, believe what we teach", and that is the core (As I see it) of authoritarianism -- from churches, to dictatorships, to politicians that just want to be re-elected no matter what, etc. And while there is a strong correlation with right-wing, it is not 100%.
Yes, the "how do we go from here to there" is painful. It took me a while (couple of decades) to understand that you don't fix 200+ years of abuse in only 3-8 years without massive pain and reprisal against you; you fix it over about 100 years. And most people really don't want to go through slow, gradual change.
How do you go from "2/3rds of the work force is not paid" to "All the workers are paid"? You need a lot more money in the money supply. Your cost of production goes up, your cost of goods go up.
Inflation is not (solely) caused by a change in the money supply. When you are forced to add in previously hidden costs (unpaid labor; unpaid costs of cleaning up messes; etc), prices go up. Sometimes this results in new industry (new cleanup technologies); sometimes expansion of other industries (more workers getting paid = more goods to sell). All of this is major change -- if you try to do this in a short (10 years or less) period, you'll get massive backlash -- so 150 years later, it still is not fixed and is getting worse.
So when you do start a 100 year "fix it" program? Ideally, decades ago, otherwise, tomorrow.
What really stops a major change like that? It's not from understanding what economics is, and how money supply really works.
Let's assume that grad school econ actually teaches that it's a multi-way interaction between:
- availability of workers (NB: Includes population growth with about a 10-20 year lag time)
- demand for goods (NB: includes population growth without that lag time)
- demand for the money itself (go from 10 million people, to 350 million people, you need more money in circulation; go from 350 million in your own country, to 2 billion people world-wide wanting to use your money, and you need even more),
- production/undersupply of goods (by now, ever major producer of anything has learned that a slight under production is far more profitable than the risk of over production, so *All* production of everything, everywhere, is below the ideal point -- which mimics the profit/demand curves of monopolies, not "free market" or "invisible hand of the market"),
- compensation based on work rather than "who you work for" (you are paid, less based on what you do/how well you do it, and more based on how much the person you are working for can afford to pay),
- productivity of labor (if someone with the right tools/education/etc can do ten times as much for an hour of labor, how much more in wages do you give them? For a long time, wages grew with productivity, *until the supply of money ran out and this suddenly broke*).
- all that in addition to "is there enough money in circulation to let everything happen, or is there a shortage of funds such that productive work that could happen is strangled/stopped?".
- all that in addition to "How do we handle the problem of the commons by government spending?"
- all that in addition to "How do we fund the government spending / how do we take money out of, and put money back into, the market behavior?"
I can assure you, this is NOT taught at the undergrad level. At least, not in the first year, and not when I went to UCLA decades ago. I do not know if it is taught at the graduate level.
If you understand all that about how economics really works, how the money system really works, how do you make a better system? Given that the first thing you need is for people to throw away 200+ years of misinformation and teachings and social beliefs and everything, to understand that prices will go up, along with the typical wages, *even as their own wage does not go up as fast*, how do you deal with all this?
I said, "It's not from understanding what economics is, and how money supply really works". What it is is getting people to understand what the change is, and will be, over decades. Managing the expectations of normal people requires a massive re-education of normal people. (Language chosen deliberately -- what was your reaction to that?)
(And note I have not even addressed the so-called "natural rate of inflation" or other issues. There is no "natural rate of inflation", and any historical pretense is hiding both the historic (low but consistent) population growth and the inherent manipulation of "wealth" by declaring things like "this painting has massive value" and banks historically creating money out of nothing, claiming "We have goods like this painting as collateral/effective money".)
The point here is: You are right in saying that it is hard to go from "This is a system that sorta, kinda, maybe works if we cover up the worst bits", to "This is a system that works better". This does not mean we should not try to make improvements, slowly because rapid change causes other problems.
(Side note: Unless there's no more time for a slow change; see the climate problem.)
Hmm. Let's get back to the story for a bit.
So, Celestia basically has the view of "Since I'm immortal, I'll put in a change over 100+ years by very slow, generation by generation change, as I don't have to worry about someone coming along after 2 or 3 generations and corrupting what I'm doing". And this works until she runs into her own blind spots.
11793670
False analogy detected.
Restitution is basically a transfer of value. If you're guilty of damaging five houses, then you pay for repairs (or rebuilding if necessary) of all five houses, so that all five ponies wronged by you can live in houses again. Devoiding SG of her cutie mark and forcing her to live without does not transfer any value to any of her victims, it does not help them to rebuild their lives in any other way than satisfying their vengeful emotions. It's *punishment* (ain't saying it's not necessary, for the record), but it has nothing to do with *restitution*. Does it still have to abide by the addition principle? Maybe. As the Judge, Jury, and Princess you certainly can *decree* that it has to, and it will be in your right to produce such a law. To *argue* that it is a correct and fair way to deal punishment, though, better avoid flawed arguments. :D
11858376
This is unspecific. Theft is also basically a transfer of value. Restitution is a VERY SPECIFIC type of value transfer, one that deliberately and carefully takes into account the concepts of fairness, fault, property rights, and responsibility for damages.
In a truly moral society, you wouldn't just pay for the repairs, you'd pay for the time that the ponies spent homeless, or were otherwise inconvenienced by your actions. Just paying for the repairs isn't enough, especially if the repairs take forever. If I were a victim of a home-destroying accident directly caused by someone else, I wouldn't be satisfied by JUST having my home repaired. I MIGHT be satisfied by my / my family's relocation costs being covered while the repairs are being done, and compensation for all other hidden costs caused by the accident. Oh, and it's important that this money doesn't come from just anyone - the taxpayer, for instance - it must come from the party(s) responsible for the damage, or the insurance of the party(s), et cetera.
And this right here is why it's important to be specific. Again, restitution isn't JUST about the transfer of value. It's about the concept of fairness, of the damaged parties being compensated for their damages, and about the one doing the damaging being the one who pays those costs, as calculated by the degree to which they were responsible for the damage. I believe I included that Starlight owes financial damages due to depriving her villagers of autonomy and prosperity. But she owes emotional damages as well, BIG emotional damages, which COULD have been added on as additional financial damages (that's how the USA does it, that or jail time), but in the court case which I didn't show, the argument was made by Celestia that perhaps the emotional damages should be paid by this method instead, if the damaged parties would prefer that, and each damaged party could make the choice individually - money or symmetry of circumstance. With Celestia making the recommendation and the argument, symmetry is the way every harmed pony went. Emotional damage is abstract and hard to put a number to, so it's hard to calculate restitution. Thus, it's easy for ponies to get greedy. Unless you allow symmetrical punishment to apply, in which case it's easy. "You suffer exactly what you inflicted upon others, for exactly the same severity and length of time." That's the alternative option to restitution, and I'm not sure if there even IS a technical term for it other than 'ironic punishment'. Vengeance isn't specific enough, and it doesn't quite fit this circumstance, IMO. (Edit: Just realized the technical term is 'retribution'. Still not as narrow as I'd like it to be, since retribution can look a lot of different ways to a lot of different people, but it's better than vengeance.)
All analogies are objectively false. It's a question of the degree to which they match.