Is Taravangian Right?

[Schizoposting]

Wind and Truth, being a very philosophical book, contains many different philosophical debates, most of them involving the central antagonist—Taravangian. But the debate that I will be covering in this post, is not the one that you're thinking of; in fact, I don't think I've seen anyone cover it. The philosophical debate in question, is the one between Cultivation and Odium in the second interlude of Wind and Truth, which is about to what extent should shards intervene in mortal affairs? 

Taravangian's position is that given his vast divine power, and the amount of suffering in the Cosmere, he should directly intervene:

Quote

“I have infinite capacity,” Odium whispered, his voice ragged. “I can see to the ends of the cosmere. I can see the lives of people great and small. I had thought this wonderful, with so much to experience, but now I find only suffering. Infinite capacity to see. Infinite capacity to feel. Infinite capacity for agony.”

...

“This is a curse,” he said, holding the dying child close. “I should be able to help them. Save them!”

Cultivation, however, is of a different opinion: 

Quote

“You want me to say,” he whispered, “that we create systems— teachings, incentives—that encourage the right decisions. That we prevent war by building up societies where people choose peace. We prevent greed by nurturing governments where the greedy are held accountable. We take time, and we steer, but we do not dominate.”

In other words, instead of directly intervening, the shards should just gently nudge society on to a better path. She believes direct intervention is bad, because it would take away peoples free will. (We should note here that Cultivation is rather biased, given the intent of her shard.) 

Taravangian counters this by saying: 

Quote

“There is a spectrum of choice that can be allowed,” he said. “No society can persist with complete freedom, and growth can happen within limits. I can make it so that free will exists to an acceptable degree, while also preventing famines.”

So, who is right? Should the shards directly intervene like Taravangian wants? To ascertain this, let's do a thought experiment: suppose that you are a benevolent shard, say Devotion, on a planet with that has no other shards on it, and your goal is to create the best possible society/civilization; how should you go about doing it?

Now we already know what a society that is a managed by Cultivation's laissez-faire system looks like: it's Roshar before the true desolation, because Honor was dead, and Odium was imprisoned on Braize, so Cultivation could essentially do whatever she wanted. Now let us compare this to a system where the shard directly rules (like under Singer-controlled territories) but they don't dictate every decision or fact of life.

There is one immediate benefit to this arraignment: peace and security. On Roshar, despite Cultivation tutelage, there were a great many wars and genocides, and presumably famines. Direct shardic intervention could easily solve all of these issues, therefore saving many millions of lives.

Additionally, our benevolent shard ought to be able to accelerate economic growth and development by creating the necessary social structures to incentivize technological innovation and adoption, such as by expanding schools and universities, pouring large amounts of resources into R&D, giving people inspiration in their dreams, etc. Now, given how abysmal Roshar's technological development was in the 2000 years following the Recreance, direct shardic intervention would make it orders of magnitude faster. Over the course of a few centuries (assuming a large enough population), these methods could plausibly take a premodern society to a highly advanced one.

Finally, direct shardic intervention could prevent social problems, such as sexism, racism, or wealth inequality.  

So, what are the drawbacks to such a system? Well, this approach may lead to a retardation in culture, and philosophy, and you could argue that shardic intervention decreases technological advancement relative to other approaches, for... reasons. But this is a small price to pay for the myriad other benefits provided by direct shardic intervention. 

In conclusion, it does seem that, unless if you care about art and culture above all else, it's far better to live under the direct rule of a benevolent shard, then in a system where said shard stays in the background. So, in this debate at least, it seems that Taravangian really is right.

Edited December 26, 2025 by Schizoposting

[CoderDrag0n8 He/They]

2 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

Wind and Truth, being a very philosophical book, contains many different philosophical debates, most of them involving the central antagonist—Taravangian. But the debate that I will be covering in this post, is not the one that you're thinking of; in fact, I don't think I've seen anyone cover it. The philosophical debate in question, is the one between Cultivation and Odium in the second interlude of Wind and Truth, which is about to what extent should shards intervene in mortal affairs? 

Taravangian's position is that given his vast divine power, and the amount of suffering in the Cosmere, he should directly intervene:

Cultivation, however, is of a different opinion: 

In other words, instead of directly intervening, the shards should just gently nudge society on to a better path. She believes direct intervention is bad, because it would take away peoples free will. (We should note here that Cultivation is rather biased, given the intent of her shard.) 

Taravangian counters this by saying: 

So, who is right? Should the shards directly intervene like Taravangian wants? To ascertain this, let's do a thought experiment: suppose that you are a benevolent shard, say Devotion, on a planet with that has no other shards on it, and your goal is to create the best possible society/civilization; how should you go about doing it?

Now we already know what a society that is a managed by Cultivation's laissez-faire system looks like: it's Roshar before the true desolation, because Honor was dead, and Odium was imprisoned on Braize, so Cultivation could essentially do whatever she wanted. Now let us compare this to a system where the shard directly rules (like under Singer-controlled territories) but they don't dictate every decision or fact of life.

There is one immediate benefit to this arraignment: peace and security. On Roshar, despite Cultivation tutelage, there were a great many wars and genocides, and presumably famines. Direct shardic intervention could easily solve all of these issues, therefore saving many millions of lives.

Additionally, our benevolent shard ought to be able to accelerate economic growth and development by creating the necessary social structures to incentivize technological innovation and adoption, such as by expanding schools and universities, pouring large amounts of resources into R&D, giving people inspiration in their dreams, etc. Now, given how abysmal Roshar's technological development was in the 2000 years following the Recreance, direct shardic intervention would make it orders of magnitude faster. Over the course of a few centuries (assuming a large enough population), these methods could plausibly take a premodern society to a highly advanced one.

Finally, direct shardic intervention could prevent social problems, such as sexism, racism, or wealth inequality.  

So, what are the drawbacks to such a system? Well, this approach may lead to a retardation in culture, and philosophy, and you could argue that shardic intervention decreases technological advancement relative to other approaches, for... reasons. But this is a small price to pay for the myriad other benefits provided by direct shardic intervention. 

In conclusion, it does seem that, unless if you care about art and culture above all else, it's far better to live under the direct rule of a benevolent shard, then in a system where said shard stays in the background. So, in this debate at least, it seems that Taravangian really is right.

Technically, the safest world is one where no one has free will and god controls everything. But you are right, no one should be able to do anything but it gets really tricky when you start trying to draw the line somewhere in Free Will. But I do feel if you get to the point where you are controlling peoples minds (because I do not fully understand the extent to which this 'benevolent god' (whose will could change on a whim) can affect the world) then it is too far. I feel like a single person in power is bound to have problems, no matter what.

Edit: Yes, technically, a benevolent god controlling everything is good, but too much control is bad (we still want our free will) and who knows how benevolent or how long they will be benevolent the god will be? There will always be problems in everything, but giving people the choice at the very least insures they (must likely) get what they want.

Edited December 26, 2025 by CoderDrag0n8

[Aliroz-The-Confused]

2 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

So, what are the drawbacks to such a system? Well, this approach may lead to a retardation in culture, and philosophy, and you could argue that shardic intervention decreases technological advancement relative to other approaches, for... reasons.

Man, I was already sold on direct shardic intervention, you didn't have to throw in free gifts like that.

I kid, I kid, but technological advancement is only an inherent good from a Reason point of view, and progress is only an inherent good from a Progress point of view.

Taravangian is right (in this instance).  The problem is that he does evil heinous stuff.

I'd rather be an early Terris just vibing in the mountains than be just about anyone else in the Cosmere.

Edited December 26, 2025 by Aliroz-The-Confused

[Schizoposting]

4 minutes ago, CoderDrag0n8 said:

Technically, the safest world is one where no one has free will and god controls everything. But you are right, no one should be able to do anything but it gets really tricky when you start trying to draw the line somewhere in Free Will. But I do feel if you get to the point where you are controlling peoples minds (because I do not fully understand the extent to which this 'benevolent god' (whose will could change on a whim) can affect the world) then it is too far. I feel like a single person in power is bound to have problems, no matter what.

I am supposing that the shard is essentially a dictator (they can make a religion around themselves so that people follow them), but they delegate tasks to their subordinates. In other words, it's like how Odium or Honor controlled their forces during the desolations. 

5 minutes ago, Aliroz-The-Confused said:

Man, I was already sold on direct shardic intervention, you didn't have to throw in free gifts like that.

I kid, I kid, but technological advancement is only an inherent good from a Reason point of view, and progress is only an inherent good from a Progress point of view.

Taravangian is right (in this instance).  The problem is that he does evil heinous stuff.

Shardic intervention can be used to promote any arbitrary moral viewpoint, so you're right that a shard could prevent technological advancement if it deems it harmful. I am more interested in the "means" (i.e. shardic intervention) than the ends in this case.

[CoderDrag0n8 He/They]

2 minutes ago, Schizoposting said:

I am supposing that the shard is essentially a dictator (they can make a religion around themselves so that people follow them), but they delegate tasks to their subordinates. In other words, it's like how Odium or Honor controlled their forces during the desolations. 

Shardic intervention can be used to promote any arbitrary moral viewpoint, so you're right that a shard could prevent technological advancement if it deems it harmful. I am more interested in the "means" (i.e. shardic intervention) than the ends in this case.

So you are proposing an immortal 'benevolent' dictator. That is also omniscient. And all-powerful. And you dont see any problems with that (cough cough Lord Ruler but more OP and temporarially a good guy).

Ya know that term 'Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely'.

That's why I said "Temporarially" if he ever was a good guy in the first place.

[therunner he/him]

Theoretical perfect immortal benevolent dictator, would in a sense be the best, which support Taravangian. Of course, no such being exists in Cosmere, not even Shards.

While I understand Taravangian's impulse to want to help, I ultimately lean more to Cultivation side of argument. Even IRL, external imposition of standards requires constant upholding of it (or at least on large scales), and so I think guiding people to build those systems themselves is better option long term. 

However, Cultivation is also shaped by her Intent, so she likely would always only nudge and demands things change, even if not for better.

[Schizoposting]

Just now, CoderDrag0n8 said:

So you are proposing an immortal 'benevolent' dictator. That is also omniscient. And all-powerful. And you dont see any problems with that (cough cough Lord Ruler but more OP and temporarially a good guy).

Ya know that term 'Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely'.

That's why I said "Temporarially" if he ever was a good guy in the first place.

Uhh... yes? You realize that God is traditionally described as being all powerful, all knowing, and all loving? And 54% of the world's population believes in such a god one way or another. It's ok if you're personally an atheist, but simply dismissing my proposal out of hand is ridiculous when most people ascribe to it.

3 minutes ago, therunner said:

Theoretical perfect immortal benevolent dictator, would in a sense be the best, which support Taravangian. Of course, no such being exists in Cosmere, not even Shards.

While I understand Taravangian's impulse to want to help, I ultimately lean more to Cultivation side of argument. Even IRL, external imposition of standards requires constant upholding of it (or at least on large scales), and so I think guiding people to build those systems themselves is better option long term. 

However, Cultivation is also shaped by her Intent, so she likely would always only nudge and demands things change, even if not for better.

The shard doesn't have to be perfect; it just has to be better than the alternatives. As long as its intent isn't crazy (e.g. Ruin), a genuinely well-intentioned shard is enough.  

[therunner he/him]

5 minutes ago, Schizoposting said:

The shard doesn't have to be perfect; it just has to be better than the alternatives. As long as its intent isn't crazy (e.g. Ruin), a genuinely well-intentioned shard is enough.  

Question is, can Shard be well-intentioned in the long run? Intent is ultimately overpowering, so even Vessel that means well will ultimately fall prey to the Intent (see Ruin and Ati, once a kind and generous man).

Let's go through Shards (good candidates, don't know enough candidates), though admittedly we have little information on most

• Ambition
  • Bad candidate, as the Intent would likely force them to utilize her subjects in pursuit of whatever their projects would be
• Autonomy
  • ?? Can't really tell, she seems to be quite hands-off, so would likely not even want to interfere like that
• Cultivation
  • Bad candidate, would encourage growth and change for its own sake never ceasing
• Devotion
  • Good candidate, if not the the best candidate, described as 'divine love and compassion', however unless she rules all her subjects would be vulnerable, as her Intent would encourage service of others in name of love
  • Her rule would be basically divinely imposed perfect socialism
• Dominion
  • Bad candidate, as the Intent would force them to assert ever greater control over the behavior of his subjects, as Skaze pursue power over all
• Endowment
  • Semi-Good candidate, seems like they would be mostly hands-off, at most bestowing some positive benefits
• Honor
  • Bad candidate, just rigid adherence to words of oaths and laws, with no room for nuance
• Invention
  • Bad candidate, society under them might be effectively enslaved to creating ever more new inventions
• Mercy
  • ?? Sounds good on paper, but description of mercy in the books make them sound terrifying
• Odium
  • <Points at Ashyn, Roshar and Braize>
• Preservation
  • Bad candidate, The Final Empire was something Preservation liked. It would keep things never changing, eventually likely in perfect stasis
• Reason
  • ?? they seems to want to only hide, so they might conclude that interference is not ideal
• Ruin
  • <Points at Catecedre>
• Valor
  • ?? might be bad, the Intent could drive them to engineer situations where subjects are forced to be valorous
• Virtuosity
  • At first eems to be possibly good candidate, encouraging artistic expression, however no other context might mean e.g. creative serial killer would be appreciated
• Whimsy
  • Bad candidate, just lolz-random type of rulers likely, and would likely not actually rule for long if at all

So seems to me that outside of Devotion and maybe Endowment, there are no good candidates among the Shards for this position, and the best one would hope for is that they just don't interfere at all.

[Frustration]

2 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

Now, given how abysmal Roshar's technological development was in the 2000 years following the Recreance, direct shardic intervention would make it orders of magnitude faster.

I must disagree.

Given that in the Recreance vision Jasnah says that they can't even figure out how to smelt steel and have to soulcast it, to having full on powered flight by RoW. Not to mention the development of vaccines, fabrial pumps, heating systems, and so much more.

Yes they don't have gunpowder or internal combustion engines but that's because the materials needed to make them don't exist on Roshar.

3 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

Finally, direct shardic intervention could prevent social problems, such as sexism, racism, or wealth inequality.

I find such an idea... terrifying.

How do you prevent culture from forming in ways you don't want?

I see two options:

1. Mind control

2. Killing/severely punishing everyone who holds opinions you disagree with.

Let's say we have a light-eyed individual who thinks that her eye color makes her better than others. Let's give her a good light-eyed name like Shallan.

Shallan is wealthier than all darkeyes and also believes herself to be better than them.

How do you change that? Forcibly take her possessions from her? Kill her? Break into her mind and force her to change?

 

 

And now on to the prompt:

The problem with direct shardic intervention are many.

1. What gives a shard the right to make decisions for other people?

If it's the fact that they're the strongest or see the furthest what happens when another shard, let's say Retribution shows up? By that argument you would be bound to follow said stronger shard.

If it's the fact that they made the group of humans that follow them they have a lot more legitimacy.

However it raises another question: What do you do when some people(as they inevitably will) decide they don't want to follow you? This question also applies to less direct forms of management in cases where you didn't create the humans.

Do you destroy them for not following you? Hound them constantly until they agree? Or do you let them go?

When those who rejected your leadership grow and divide and become various other nations and peoples how do you handle them?

You could forcibly counquer them but imagine for a moment what you would do if aliens invaded and took over your government. I for one would be in no hurry to listen to them. And history has shown you generally have to hold conquered territory for extended periods of time before they accept their new leaders. During that time you have brutally supress any uprising freedom fighters or resistance units.

If you decide to leave them be do you ignore them? That seems even worse than Cultivations option.

So with the exception of the people who choose to follow you willingly it would seem that Cultivation is correct.

What about those who do follow you?

Well how do you rule?

As an absolute monarch who makes all the decisions and enforces all outcomes?

That leads straight into making a lazy and incompetent populace who have no idea how to take care of themselves. For examples find the closest people living in their mom's basement.

And what happens when you lose track of time? As WaT showed us Shards can easily lose track of decades, or even millennia. Honor skipped 2.5 thousand years just doing a self reflection, and only got jolted out of it by BAM messing with the souls of the entire planet.

What do your people do when their god-king just vanishes?

Do you act more as a parent encouraging the decisions you want but allowing them to make their own choices? How are these leaders selected?

By how much they obey you?

That doesn't seem to be any different for you just doing everything.

By any of the other random ways that humans decide their leaders?

What do you do when they decide to do something that will end in disaster? They inevitably will do so given enough time.

Do you stop them?

How does that allow them to make their own decisions, to learn to grow to actually be people in their own right?

If you allow the small disasters but prevent the large ones what's the deciding factor? People will suffer even for small mistakes. Suffering that could in theory be avoided.

If it's just based upon your judgment I'll just say that each individual will have their own definition of what counts as too far and must be avoided, and where to intervene.

Now what form should that intervention take?

Do you strike down anyone who tries going through with such a decision? Simply force them to comply? Or do you convince someone else to stop them?

Have someone else use their power to choose, their capacity, strength, and will to make the right decision?

 

The way I see it is to act as a figurehead political symbol of a single country, which given your power and foresight would probably be the largest and most influential, but still you playing favorites. Or else to do what Cultivation did, and what you would be forced to do with everyone else: encourage, inspire, guide and direct, but always leave the ultimate decision in the hands of those who will make mistakes and who will disappoint.

Personally I don't think any of the shards understood the nature and purpose of their power quite like Cultivation, she made the correct choice, and Taravangian was a fool to do otherwise.

 

[Trusk'our he/him]

4 hours ago, Frustration said:

Personally I don't think any of the shards understood the nature and purpose of their power quite like Cultivation, she made the correct choice, and Taravangian was a fool to do otherwise.

What about Sazed? Doesn't he have a very similar policy of non-intervention/gentle guidance that respects individuals' ultimate agency?

[Schizoposting]

@therunner I think that you are being very uncharitable in your interpretation of shardic intent: Honor was pretty decent before Odium showed up, and I don't see why Invention would result in some dystopia where everyone has to constantly innovate—not everyone is as weak willed as Ati (every vessel in the Rosharan system has been in conflict with their shard in one way or another).

@Frustration the shard will rule by getting people to worship them; all they have to do is demonstrate their divine powers, and 99% of people will follow them. 

6 hours ago, Frustration said:

How do you prevent culture from forming in ways you don't want.

It's not like secular leaders have not tried to influence the culture of their people: Peter the Great for instance, forcibly tried to westernize Russian culture, and I have yet to see anyone complain about it. With divine authority, this should be even easier. 

6 hours ago, Frustration said:

Let's say we have a light-eyed individual who thinks that her eye color makes her better than others. Let's give her a good light-eyed name like Shallan.

Shallan is wealthier than all darkeyes and also believes herself to be better than them.

How do you change that? Forcibly take her possessions from her? Kill her? Break into her mind and force her to change?

You can make a divine edict that dark eyes and light eyes are equal. If that's not enough, you can do some redistributive policy, like DEI or an inheritance tax.

6 hours ago, Frustration said:

1. What gives a shard the right to make decisions for other people?

What gives anyone the right to rule? There are many different moral philosophies that can justify any given ruler's right to rule. The shard may make a divine argument (i.e. I'm God so you have to follow me), utilitarian argument, platonic argument, etc.

6 hours ago, Frustration said:

However it raises another question: What do you do when some people(as they inevitably will) decide they don't want to follow you? This question also applies to less direct forms of management in cases where you didn't create the humans.

Do you destroy them for not following you? Hound them constantly until they agree? Or do you let them go?

It would do what any other government would do when its authority is challenged. But again, the shard would rule through religious authority, rather than through brute force.

6 hours ago, Frustration said:

As an absolute monarch who makes all the decisions and enforces all outcomes?

That leads straight into making a lazy and incompetent populace who have no idea how to take care of themselves. For examples find the closest people living in their mom's basement.

That's just empirically untrue, in the real-world, absolute monarchy and dictatorship have not led to this outcome. Now maybe you could argue that a divine monarch would be different, but it's not self-evident why this would be the case, especially if they don't abuse their divine power to just instantly fix all problems and just rule like any other ruler. At the very least, the Singers don't seem to be particularly lazy, despite being directly ruled by Odium.

6 hours ago, Frustration said:

How does that allow them to make their own decisions, to learn to grow to actually be people in their own right?

I suppose that a shard could gradually introduce democracy (Taravangian is also in favor of some sort of a representative government, actually), and only intervene, when necessary, e.g. if Hitler comes to power. But democracy requires a certain amount of socio-economic development to function, so until the people can effectively rule themselves, the shard would be in charge.

6 hours ago, Frustration said:

The way I see it is to act as a figurehead political symbol of a single country, which given your power and foresight would probably be the largest and most influential, but still you playing favorites.

In this case you would still be directly intervening, which Cultivation is opposed to. Your system is workable, as long as that single country at a minimum includes the entire planet, but building the necessary institutions would still require direct shardic rule, at least for a time.

1 hour ago, Trusk&#x27;our said:

What about Sazed? Doesn't he have a very similar policy of non-intervention/gentle guidance that respects individuals' ultimate agency?

He does that because he literally can't do anything. If he could, he might adopt a different system.

[Nitpicking]

6 hours ago, Frustration said:

Yes they don't have gunpowder or internal combustion engines but that's because the materials needed to make them don't exist on Roshar.

This is a minor side point, but why would you say that Roshar doesn't have sulfur? Gunpowder only requires sulfur, charcoal (which they can certainly make) and a source of nitrates. Nitrates can be extracted from pee (and in medieval/Renaissance Europe, that's that they actually did).

What material is missing for internal combustion engines? Not steel, we know they have that. Are you thinking of petroleum for fuel (and Vasher's lecture on fossils)? You can burn any flammable liquid in an IC engine. Notably, biodiesel is literally oil squeezed out of seeds.

Like I say, that doesn't affect your larger point, but I do not understand what you mean.

[CoderDrag0n8 He/They]

10 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

Uhh... yes? You realize that God is traditionally described as being all powerful, all knowing, and all loving? And 54% of the world's population believes in such a god one way or another. It's ok if you're personally an atheist, but simply dismissing my proposal out of hand is ridiculous when most people ascribe to it.

The shard doesn't have to be perfect; it just has to be better than the alternatives. As long as its intent isn't crazy (e.g. Ruin), a genuinely well-intentioned shard is enough.  

Yes, but God isn't a dictator and allows free will (if he even does exist). God doesn't directly control the entire world. And this God we would be talking about would most likely be not a human, where shards have Vessels that have as many problems (maybe more) as your avarage well meaning human dictator that lives indefinetly and has infinite power (wow oh look The Lord Ruler again funny how he keeps coming up).

In theory, the best world is a world where a benevolent and kind god rules over everything and doesn't allow free will, but we do want free will, and the person drawing that line (between free will and rules) will be an all powerful god (with the changing mind of a human) that is very fickle and has no opposition or way to be stopped whatsoever.

Lots of things work in theory, but I am betting to guess that this, like a lot of things, wont work well in practice.

[Returned he/him]

The Cosmere books are too shallow on philosophy and ethics for there to be a really good, in-universe answer to questions like this. Taravangian could be right, if you assume a bunch of other things into the question including the goals held by the Shard, their inherent rightness, and certain relationships between the Shard and the people they dominate. Assuming a benevolent, all-powerful, all-knowing, eternal being who (and this is key) holds exactly the values you think they should hold and no others, obviates the question.

The question as stated is underdefined, having nothing established for means, ends, nor ways to evaluate either. "Would having a perfectly good being, who makes all the best choices for the best reasons, doing all the best things be better than any alternative?" is a good question for examining the means, ends, and evaluations thereof but I don't think that it can lead to a conclusion like "Taravangian is right (or wrong)" by itself.

In the spirit of the question, I would say that Taravangian is not right. It's a very high-stakes decision to put one being in charge of everything, especially without a framework to evaluate what we think that one being would do (and why, if that's a relevant item of your moral assessment). Even if it conceivably could work in an ideal way, the risk that it would work out in any way other than that seems high (especially without the ability to change things after the Shardictator is installed).

Edited December 26, 2025 by Returned

[Schizoposting]

23 minutes ago, CoderDrag0n8 said:

Yes, but God isn't a dictator and allows free will (if he even does exist). God doesn't directly control the entire world. And this God we would be talking about would most likely be not a human, where shards have Vessels that have as many problems (maybe more) as your avarage well meaning human dictator that lives indefinetly and has infinite power (wow oh look The Lord Ruler again funny how he keeps coming up).

Rashek was never well meaning, so I have no clue why you keep bringing him up. There are plenty of dictators in the Cosmere that are portrayed positively, such as Elend, Dalinar, Susebron, Raoden, and so forth. Now, maybe you could argue that that is unrealistic, but at least in the Cosmere, benevolent dictators do exist.

23 minutes ago, CoderDrag0n8 said:

In theory, the best world is a world where a benevolent and kind god rules over everything and doesn't allow free will, but we do want free will, and the person drawing that line (between free will and rules) will be an all powerful god (with the changing mind of a human) that is very fickle and has no opposition or way to be stopped whatsoever.

Free will is fully compatible with determinism. 

23 minutes ago, CoderDrag0n8 said:

Lots of things work in theory, but I am betting to guess that this, like a lot of things, wont work well in practice.

If it works in theory then it works in practice; if it doesn't work in practice, then the theory is wrong.

16 minutes ago, Returned said:

The Cosmere books are too shallow on philosophy and ethics for there to be a really good, in-universe answer to questions like this. Taravangian could be right, if you assume a bunch of other things into the question including the goals held by the Shard, their inherent rightness, and certain relationships between the Shard and the people they dominate. Assuming a benevolent, all-powerful, all-knowing, eternal being who (and this is key) holds exactly the values you think they should hold and no others, obviates the question.

Then why does Cultivation disagree? Does she not believe that she is morally good? If she does, then, according to your logic, why isn't she directly intervening? 

16 minutes ago, Returned said:

The question as stated is underdefined, having nothing established for means, ends, nor ways to evaluate either. "Would having a perfectly good being, who makes all the best choices for the best reasons, doing all the best things be better than any alternative?" is a good question for examining the means, ends, and evaluations thereof but I don't think that it can lead to a conclusion like "Taravangian is right (or wrong)" by itself.

But again, the being doesn't have to perfect—they just have to be better than the alternative. Given, again, how bad the historical alternative is (in our world at least, it has involved billions of deaths from war, famine, and disease, with the constant threat of human extinction), the bar isn't exactly very high. 

17 minutes ago, Returned said:

In the spirit of the question, I would say that Taravangian is not right. It's a very high-stakes decision to put one being in charge of everything, especially without a framework to evaluate what we think that one being would do (and why, if that's a relevant item of your moral assessment). Even if it conceivably could work in an ideal way, the risk that it would work out in any way other than that seems high (especially without the ability to change things after the Shardictator is installed).

There's no democracy here: the shard either decides that it's in charge, or it does not. If they choose to take power, nobody can stop them (except for other shards). The question is from the perspective of the shards: if you consider yourself morally good, why shouldn't you directly intervene in mortal affairs?

Edited December 26, 2025 by Schizoposting

[CoderDrag0n8 He/They]

6 minutes ago, Schizoposting said:

Rashek was never well meaning, so I have no clue why you keep bringing him up. There are plenty of dictators in the Cosmere that are portrayed positively, such as Elend, Dalinar, Susebron, Raoden, and so forth. Now, maybe you could argue that that is unrealistic, but at least in the Cosmere, benevolent dictators do exist.

Free will is fully compatible with determinism. 

If it works in theory then it works in practice; if it doesn't work in practice, then the theory is wrong.

Then why does Cultivation disagree? Does she not believe that she is morally good? If she does, then, according to your logic, why isn't she directly intervening? 

But again, the being doesn't have to perfect—they just have to be better than the alternative. Given, again, how bad the historical alternative is (in our world at least, it has involved billions of deaths from war, famine, and disease, with the constant threat of human extinction), the bar isn't exactly very high.

Rashek was not well meaning, you are right. But the fact is, we have never seen an immortal dictator that did not go wrong. especially one with an intent constantly banging them on the head until they cave.

Sorry, I dont fully understand Compatablism, could you explain it for me? (Wikipedia wasn't that helpful this time)

Not unless something is present in practice that was absent within the theory, like moral corruption that you keep avoiding mentioning.

[Schizoposting]

4 minutes ago, CoderDrag0n8 said:

Rashek was not well meaning, you are right. But the fact is, we have never seen an immortal dictator that did not go wrong. especially one with an intent constantly banging them on the head until they cave.

Both Susebron and Raoden are immortal—unless they decide to commit suicide for whatever reason—and they are portrayed positively. The dragons are also immortal, and at least some of them (like Frost) are also portrayed positively. I don't see why the fact that someone is immortal means that will inevitably become evil if given a position of power.

7 minutes ago, CoderDrag0n8 said:

Sorry, I dont fully understand Compatablism, could you explain it for me? (Wikipedia wasn't that helpful this time)

Determinism means that a given cause must necessarily lead to a given effect, e.g. an increase in the greenhouse effect will lead to global warming, all else equal. Compatibilism just means that you can have free will while your actions are determined by external and internal causes. So, hypothetically, there could exist a world where everyone freely chooses to do good, due to the correct sequence of cause and effect.

14 minutes ago, CoderDrag0n8 said:

Not unless something is present in practice that was absent within the theory, like moral corruption that you keep avoiding mentioning.

Well then, the theory is flawed, because it fails to account for said corruption. 

[Returned he/him]

41 minutes ago, Schizoposting said:

Then why does Cultivation disagree? Does she not believe that she is morally good? If she does, then, according to your logic, why isn't she directly intervening? 

I'm not sure I understand your question to me about Cultivation. If I'm off-target please let me know. As above, the books are too shallow for us to confidently answer these questions. My read on Cultivation is that she does intervene frequently (if indirectly) but doesn't care as much about end states as she does about things developing generally ("all things must be cultivated, even the thorns"). She's not inactive, and also influences the Nightwatcher (who intervenes frequently and directly). Her interventions (direct or by allowing the Nightwatcher's decisions to stand) with individuals seeking the Old Magic have radically shaped Roshar. Certainly that's the case through Taravangian, Lift, and Dalinar. She may also value things like freedom of choice and/or freedom from control, or the importance of sapient beings self-organizing. She may feel that there are risks involved in that type or degree of control, as from other Shards or some downsides to Shardic domination that we aren't aware of. Maybe she's just maximally self-centered and cares primarily about how much effort she has to exert, preferring not to directly micromanage everything to this degree.

Most people imagine themselves to be morally good, an assessment that I think people are generally are far too casual about; maybe Cultivation believes there is a chance of error in her moral determinations and is reticent as a result. I do not presume that I am morally infallible and so do not assume that my assessments, decisions, and actions are always morally good or even acceptable. This would not change if I suddenly gained Shardic power somehow, it would only magnify my reach and influence, for good or ill. I don't think that Cultivation is particularly interested in the day-to-day circumstances of people nor the ends towards which they develop, and so this kind of direct control is not interesting nor meaningful to her. People tend to think that anything they do is morally permissible to do, and with Shardic power the most likely answer to your question is that Cultivation is already doing the things she thinks are best (from an amoral perspective) and are also morally permissible (not necessarily ideal). So, she is directly intervening but is not into total domination for whatever reason. Her moral philosophy may simply preclude domination, or favor other approaches.

41 minutes ago, Schizoposting said:

But again, the being doesn't have to perfect—they just have to be better than the alternative. Given, again, how bad the historical alternative is (in our world at least, it has involved billions of deaths from war, famine, and disease, with the constant threat of human extinction), the bar isn't exactly very high.

"The alternative" is also undefined, unless you are asserting "the best available", which seems to be the case. "Is the best the best?" is a pointless question, except as far as it encourages people to define what "the best" entails and why. If we're comparing body counts and nothing else comparisons are often easy: 1,000,000 dead is worse than 900,000 dead. Unless of course those people are people that the actor's values dictate should be dead, in which case the larger number is better. Comparing 100 dead with 100,000 people in grinding poverty might be harder (again, depending on the framework you use to evaluate). It's not obvious how to compare 100,000 people who live for 60 years each and are happy throughout against 100,000 people who live 100 years each but are utterly miserable and despairing for 40 of those years (or 50, or 60, or all of them).

"Better than the worst" does not necessarily mean "good". In limiting the historical alternative case to deaths from war, famine, and disease as things which, if fixed (however we define "fixed" for them) are acceptable for a permanent Shardic dictator then you've expressed what things you value (or value most) in making these decisions. I doubt that that is a full view: would you accept as good a Shardic dictator who brutally enslaves all the people on their planet, in the manner of all skaa under the Lord Ruler, as long as none of them die to war, hunger, or disease?

Edited December 26, 2025 by Returned

[CoderDrag0n8 He/They]

5 minutes ago, Schizoposting said:

Both Susebron and Raoden are immortal—unless they decide to commit suicide for whatever reason—and they are portrayed positively. The dragons are also immortal, and at least some of them (like Frost) are also portrayed positively. I don't see why the fact that someone is immortal means that will inevitably become evil if given a position of power.

Determinism means that a given cause must necessarily lead to a given effect, e.g. an increase in the greenhouse effect will lead to global warming, all else equal. Compatibilism just means that you can have free will while your actions are determined by external and internal causes. So, hypothetically, there could exist a world where everyone freely chooses to do good, due to the correct sequence of cause and effect.

Well then, the theory is flawed, because it fails to account for said corruption. 

Susebron never actually held power, and we only see the begining of Raoden's reign. They also don't have a corrosive mind virus slowly taking away their sense of self, or complete omniscience or omnipotence.

Ah.

Then yes, your theory would be flawed. Because of the direct nature of shards, the vessel will not be the same after a number of years. This will lead to signifigantly easier corruptability, especially when they have absolute power.

[Schizoposting]

24 minutes ago, Returned said:

I'm not sure I understand your question to me about Cultivation. If I'm off-target please let me know. As above, the books are too shallow for us to confidently answer these questions. My read on Cultivation is that she does intervene frequently (if indirectly) but doesn't care as much about end states as she does about things developing generally ("all things must be cultivated, even the thorns"). She's not inactive, and also influences the Nightwatcher (who intervenes frequently and directly). Her interventions (direct or by allowing the Nightwatcher's decisions to stand) with individuals seeking the Old Magic have radically shaped Roshar. Certainly that's the case through Taravangian, Lift, and Dalinar. She may also value things like freedom of choice and/or freedom from control, or the importance of sapient beings self-organizing. She may feel that there are risks involved in that type or degree of control, as from other Shards or some downsides to Shardic domination that we aren't aware of. Maybe she's just maximally self-centered and cares primarily about how much effort she has to exert, preferring not to directly micromanage everything to this degree.

Well, yes, she does intervene, but she is opposed to the idea of directly ruling. But, if I am understanding you correctly, you said that shardic intervention is effective at advancing an arbitrary moral viewpoint. If that's the case, why isn't she advancing her particular moral viewpoints? It is a contradiction in the Cosmere, that on one hand direct shardic intervention ought to be incredibly effective, and yet, no one (except for Taravangian) does it. It's said in the books that by limiting free will, peoples moral or cultural development is retarded (even this, is not self-evident to me), but this seems to be a rather small cost to pay for the very significant benefits of shardic intervention. Now, maybe, it's as you say, and the Cosmere is too shallow, and/or Brandon is just wrong, but at the very least we should be able to discuss the costs/benefits this approach in a hypothetical manner. 

38 minutes ago, Returned said:

Most people imagine themselves to be morally good, an assessment that I think people are generally are far too casual about; maybe Cultivation believes there is a chance of error in her moral determinations and is reticent as a result. I do not presume that I am morally infallible and so do not assume that my assessments, decisions, and actions are always morally good or even acceptable. This would not change if I suddenly gained Shardic power somehow, it would only magnify my reach and influence, for good or ill. I don't think that Cultivation is particularly interested in the day-to-day circumstances of people nor the ends towards which they develop, and so this kind of direct control is not interesting nor meaningful to her. People tend to think that anything they do is morally permissible to do, and with Shardic power the most likely answer to your question is that Cultivation is already doing the things she thinks are best (from an amoral perspective) and are also morally permissible (not necessarily ideal). So, she is directly intervening but is not into total domination for whatever reason. Her moral philosophy may simply preclude domination, or favor other approaches.

It's certainly possible that Cultivation is simply morally opposed to direct intervention, although that would be pretty tautological. But a broader problem is that her indirect intervention has been very ineffective, and even counterproductive; she had 2000+ years to prepare Roshar for the true desolation, and Odium still won a crushing victory. I understand that on a certain level, we can't have Cultivation solve all the hero's problems for them, but this makes her look pretty moronic. (In fact, basically every shard in the SA, except for Taravangian, is a moron; the Sunmaker's gambit only worked because the other shards were too stupid to take Odium seriously.) Unless she has some deep moral qualms against direct intervention, or unless she's just brain rotted by her shard's intent, it's hard to see why she didn't intervene more to avert the worst outcome.

51 minutes ago, Returned said:

"The alternative" is also undefined, unless you are asserting "the best available", which seems to be the case. "Is the best the best?" is a pointless question, except as far as it encourages people to define what "the best" entails and why. If we're comparing body counts and nothing else comparisons are often easy: 1,000,000 dead is worse than 900,000 dead. Unless of course those people are people that the actor's values dictate should be dead, in which case the larger number is better. Comparing 100 dead with 100,000 people in grinding poverty might be harder (again, depending on the framework you use to evaluate). It's not obvious how to compare 100,000 people who live for 60 years each and are happy throughout against 100,000 people who live 100 years each but are utterly miserable and despairing for 40 of those years (or 50, or 60, or all of them).

"Better than the worst" does not necessarily mean "good". In limiting the historical alternative case to deaths from war, famine, and disease as things which, if fixed (however we define "fixed" for them) are acceptable for a permanent Shardic dictator then you've expressed what things you value (or value most) in making these decisions. I doubt that that is a full view: would you accept as good a Shardic dictator who brutally enslaves all the people on their planet, in the manner of all skaa under the Lord Ruler, as long as none of them die to war, hunger, or disease?

Well, this a question about your given ethical commitments, and what you value. On a certain level, you can't really "disprove" opposing ethical views (so long as they're logically consistent) due to the is–ought problem. But this outside the scope of this thread, which is more so about the efficacy of shardic intervention, rather than the morality of it. I am presuming that the shardic intervention is for a morally good purpose, as is understood by the moral standards of our society today.

1 hour ago, CoderDrag0n8 said:

Susebron never actually held power, and we only see the begining of Raoden's reign. They also don't have a corrosive mind virus slowly taking away their sense of self, or complete omniscience or omnipotence.

Ah.

Then yes, your theory would be flawed. Because of the direct nature of shards, the vessel will not be the same after a number of years. This will lead to signifigantly easier corruptability, especially when they have absolute power.

Ok, so now the issue is that shardic intent can warp the personality of the vessel. This is not as big of an issue as it seems: Tanavast was able to resist Honor's intent for many thousands of years, without going insane. Unless if you're named Ati, shardic intent really isn't the problem people think it is.

[Frustration]

7 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

What about Sazed? Doesn't he have a very similar policy of non-intervention/gentle guidance that respects individuals' ultimate agency?

That is true, he's probably a close second 

5 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

@therunner I think that you are being very uncharitable in your interpretation of shardic intent: Honor was pretty decent before Odium showed up, and I don't see why Invention would result in some dystopia where everyone has to constantly innovate—not everyone is as weak willed as Ati (every vessel in the Rosharan system has been in conflict with their shard in one way or another).

The problem is that Ati wasn't weak willed.

And yes Honor wasn't bad before Odium showed up, but that was also within a very short time span of being a shard.

Once Odium did show up he became such a problem even he had to admit that the people of Roshar were better off without him.

Brandon and Taln both consider Cultivation to be part of the problem as well.

And again I will restate @therunner's point: Preservation LIKED the Final Empire.

Sure some vessels are better at it than others, but Sazed showed us that even 300 years leads to serious warpings of your intent.

5 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

 

@Frustration the shard will rule by getting people to worship them; all they have to do is demonstrate their divine powers, and 99% of people will follow them. 

Would you worship an alien spaceship that showed up and picked up the Whitehouse and held it suspended in the air for a few days before setting it down? Or would you see that as a threat?

There is an uncontacted tribe of people on an island off the coast of India that attack anyone who gets close, even though we are approaching on motorized boats that move faster than they can imagine possible. For all intents and purposes these ships and people are basically divine by comparison, why do the natives not worship them?

The only way possible would be to hijack an existing religion and then adopt changes over the course of centuries. If you try making changes too fast the people will inevitably rebel: see long list of Popes disposed precisely for that reason, or the Pharoah Akenatan. Despite being the highest religious authority change too much too fast and you quickly lose that.

5 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

It's not like secular leaders have not tried to influence the culture of their people: Peter the Great for instance, forcibly tried to westernize Russian culture, and I have yet to see anyone complain about it. With divine authority, this should be even easier. 

You can make a divine edict that dark eyes and light eyes are equal. If that's not enough, you can do some redistributive policy, like DEI or an inheritance tax.

 

 

Peter the Great's reforms were incredibly unpopular. His beard tax in particular was loathed by the people, they even had their beards preserved and kept them with them because they didn't want to give them up, but were obligated to do so or face the consequences.

And you can declare anything you want, but that doesn't make it so, anymore than congress declaring an end to world hunger will feed anyone.

How do you propose that a shard make someone like Shallan abandon her views on darkeyes?

5 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

What gives anyone the right to rule? There are many different moral philosophies that can justify any given ruler's right to rule. The shard may make a divine argument (i.e. I'm God so you have to follow me), utilitarian argument, platonic argument, etc.

And which one you use is very important. If your argument is simply: I'm god. What do you do when Retribution shows up and says: I'm a bigger god?

Anything that applies to one shard applies to them all, if that's your right to rule, what do you do when another shard and potentially a stronger one shows up?

5 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

It would do what any other government would do when its authority is challenged. But again, the shard would rule through religious authority, rather than through brute force.

So you force people to stay inside your country?

What if like the Listeners they simply want to leave and be free of you?

And religious authority and brute force are often closely related when we're talking about theocratic government. See: The Inquisition, the protestant reformation, the thirty years war, and many others.

5 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

That's just empirically untrue, in the real-world, absolute monarchy and dictatorship have not led to this outcome. Now maybe you could argue that a divine monarch would be different, but it's not self-evident why this would be the case, especially if they don't abuse their divine power to just instantly fix all problems and just rule like any other ruler. At the very least, the Singers don't seem to be particularly lazy, despite being directly ruled by Odium.

What happens when an authoritarian despot is deposed? The new government has no idea how to function and often collapses under its own weight almost immediately.

For example see the French, Russian and Haitain revolutions.

Immediately following the establishment of a new government they find out that managing a country is a lot harder than they thought, usually followed by a long hard period of learning in which multiple governments rise and fall as people learn how to actually lead.

And so I'll repeat my question: What does your government do when you as a shard disappear for 30-40 years? Or 1-2 thousand?

5 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

I suppose that a shard could gradually introduce democracy (Taravangian is also in favor of some sort of a representative government, actually), and only intervene, when necessary, e.g. if Hitler comes to power. But democracy requires a certain amount of socio-economic development to function, so until the people can effectively rule themselves, the shard would be in charge.

Yes and during the time that the shard rules directly how do you deal with the problems listed above.

And once a quase-autonomous governing body is created and a catastrophe occurs that requires intervention what form does that intervention take?

5 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

In this case you would still be directly intervening, which Cultivation is opposed to. Your system is workable, as long as that single country at a minimum includes the entire planet, but building the necessary institutions would still require direct shardic rule, at least for a time.

Why does it need to be the entire planet?

And yes they do intervene, my point is that without causing worse problems that is the greatest amount of intervention that a shard can preform.

 

5 hours ago, Nitpicking said:

This is a minor side point, but why would you say that Roshar doesn't have sulfur? Gunpowder only requires sulfur, charcoal (which they can certainly make) and a source of nitrates. Nitrates can be extracted from pee (and in medieval/Renaissance Europe, that's that they actually did).

What material is missing for internal combustion engines? Not steel, we know they have that. Are you thinking of petroleum for fuel (and Vasher's lecture on fossils)? You can burn any flammable liquid in an IC engine. Notably, biodiesel is literally oil squeezed out of seeds.

Like I say, that doesn't affect your larger point, but I do not understand what you mean.

They lack economically significant sources of Sulfur. At least the way that earth got them.

They clearly have trace quantities, but all large deposits of Sulfur on earth come from volcanic activity, which roahar lacking plate tectonics, does not have.

Now I suppose they could make oil from plants, and they do so. But it's the only source of fuel they have unless Adonaliusm made fossilfuels when he made the planet.

But the main issue is actually the amount of oxygen on Roshar. It's enough of a problem they consider candles dangerous and Khriss warns worldhoppers against fire. That's kind of prohibiting when you're trying to have a controlled burn.

2 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

But again, the being doesn't have to perfect—they just have to be better than the alternative. Given, again, how bad the historical alternative is (in our world at least, it has involved billions of deaths from war, famine, and disease, with the constant threat of human extinction), the bar isn't exactly very high.

I think the death count of Ashyn+the desolations easily beats that.

Not to mention the multiple planets that Odium vs. Ambition took out.

Or the Catacendre which almost ended all life on Scadrial.

Or the Evil and whatever happened to Threnody.

I don't think the Shards that intervene have the best track record.

I mean Endowment of all the Shards we have seen appears to have the best system and the most she does is send Returned.

Edited December 26, 2025 by Frustration

[CoderDrag0n8 He/They]

31 minutes ago, Schizoposting said:

Well, yes, she does intervene, but she is opposed to the idea of directly ruling. But, if I am understanding you correctly, you said that shardic intervention is effective at advancing an arbitrary moral viewpoint. If that's the case, why isn't she advancing her particular moral viewpoints? It is a contradiction in the Cosmere, that on one hand direct shardic intervention ought to be incredibly effective, and yet, no one (except for Taravangian) does it. It's said in the books that by limiting free will, peoples moral or cultural development is retarded (even this, is not self-evident to me), but this seems to be a rather small cost to pay for the very significant benefits of shardic intervention. Now, maybe, it's as you say, and the Cosmere is too shallow, and/or Brandon is just wrong, but at the very least we should be able to discuss the costs/benefits this approach in a hypothetical manner. 

It's certainly possible that Cultivation is simply morally opposed to direct intervention, although that would be pretty tautological. But a broader problem is that her indirect intervention has been very ineffective, and even counterproductive; she had 2000+ years to prepare Roshar for the true desolation, and Odium still won a crushing victory. I understand that on a certain level, we can't have Cultivation solve all the hero's problems for them, but this makes her look pretty moronic. (In fact, basically every shard in the SA, except for Taravangian, is a moron; the Sunmaker's gambit only worked because the other shards were too stupid to take Odium seriously.) Unless she has some deep moral qualms against direct intervention, or unless she's just brain rotted by her shard's intent, it's hard to see why she didn't intervene more to avert the worst outcome.

Well, this a question about your given ethical commitments, and what you value. On a certain level, you can't really "disprove" opposing ethical views (so long as they're logically consistent) due to the is–ought problem. But this outside the scope of this thread, which is more so about the efficacy of shardic intervention, rather than the morality of it. I am presuming that the shardic intervention is for a morally good purpose, as is understood by the moral standards of our society today.

Ok, so now the issue is that shardic intent can warp the personality of the vessel. This is not as big of an issue as it seems: Tanavast was able to resist Honor's intent for many thousands of years, without going insane. Unless if you're named Ati, shardic intent really isn't the problem people think it is.

It is there however, and it might eventually come back. Also Taravangian was just evil, and in principal we have no way to know wether or not this god like dictator we are 'electing' (the people dont even get a choice, the god just decides to become one) is good or evil, and in general, I find the gods trying to become a supreme dictator are usually evil or with undesirable intentions.

[ParaTulip fae/faer (declines as she/her)]

13 hours ago, Aliroz-The-Confused said:

Taravangian is right (in this instance).  The problem is that he does evil heinous stuff.

Yeah, he is able to see the broad "Those with power ought to do what they can to improve the lives of others" concept. There is something obviously hideous to being aware of and able to help people who are starving or unclothed or suffering immense deprivation while refusing to render aid because "it would be unnatural". But this is the guy who was willing to run a secret death camp in order to gain bits of information, and I far as I can tell he does not regret that, so he can't really be trusted to not make hell while claiming good intentions.

13 hours ago, CoderDrag0n8 said:

Ya know that term 'Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely'.

This is a bad cliche. Power enables people to do what they want to do. Sure, a lot of people seek power for their own enrichment, and then we see them engaging in the hoarding of wealth and resources. This speaks to the society which produces these people, and not the nature of power as a concept.

2 hours ago, Returned said:

The Cosmere books are too shallow on philosophy and ethics for there to be a really good, in-universe answer to questions like this.

Unfortunately, this seems to be the case. There is just so many hard concepts that need to be developed in order to really get into this. But it seems the drive to be entertaining constrains such a development.

 

Ultimately, the argument in the books is being had between two people who are fundamentally weird in how they are presented. Todium is some kind of fractal of a human with unlimited divine wrath seeping into his soul making the case for intervention while a dragon with a force that thinks the military developments of war is worth it makes the case for non-intervention.

 

[Returned he/him]

1 hour ago, Schizoposting said:

But, if I am understanding you correctly, you said that shardic intervention is effective at advancing an arbitrary moral viewpoint. If that's the case, why isn't she advancing her particular moral viewpoints?

The most direct answer to this is that Cultivation's moral viewpoint may not involve or allow direct control of the sort you describe. Another way of presenting that is that she is advancing her moral viewpoints to the maximum possible degree, and that her viewpoints are simply not the same as yours. She's doing the things that she believes achieve her values in ways she believes are acceptable. Unless I'm missing something your argument seems to be that because she's not achieving your values in ways that you believe are acceptable she must be holding back or failing in some way to accomplish her own values, and I don't see any reason to believe that that is the case.

1 hour ago, Schizoposting said:

Now, maybe, it's as you say, and the Cosmere is too shallow, and/or Brandon is just wrong, but at the very least we should be able to discuss the costs/benefits this approach in a hypothetical manner.

The Cosmere is shallow on moral philosophy because it doesn't do much to establish what is good or bad (and why), either collectively or for individual characters and situations. It reports that characters feel certain ways sometimes but generally does little to explain why those characters believe their conclusions to be correct or how they fit into broader ethical and philosophical systems. It then puts characters into direct conflict with mutually exclusive goals, creating winners and losers while also prompting readers to choose a "side" that they prefer from those limited options.

We can absolutely talk about those things, even when the books do not, but that requires precision in what we discuss. We have to discuss what, specifically, is to be valued, and how we conceive of and measure it, what duties and obligations people have surrounding those values, and why we should value those things both in themselves and among each other.

1 hour ago, Schizoposting said:

It's certainly possible that Cultivation is simply morally opposed to direct intervention, although that would be pretty tautological. But a broader problem is that her indirect intervention has been very ineffective, and even counterproductive; she had 2000+ years to prepare Roshar for the true desolation, and Odium still won a crushing victory. I understand that on a certain level, we can't have Cultivation solve all the hero's problems for them, but this makes her look pretty moronic. (In fact, basically every shard in the SA, except for Taravangian, is a moron; the Sunmaker's gambit only worked because the other shards were too stupid to take Odium seriously.) Unless she has some deep moral qualms against direct intervention, or unless she's just brain rotted by her shard's intent, it's hard to see why she didn't intervene more to avert the worst outcome.

I disagree, though it is difficult to confidently claim that we know enough to evaluate Cultivation's activities versus her goals. A lot of her specific interventions worked well, up to and including eliminating Rayse, though fleeing Roshar afterwards is not a vote of confidence. We also don't know that the outcome is the worst one possible, in her estimation, even though I doubt that the way things ended up in WaT is her ideal situation. As I suggested above, she may not have a consequentialist view of morality at all (what evidence we have supports this at least as a possibility), in which case using the outcome to assess her behavior and activities is a category error. We also know very little about the details surrounding Shardic actions. Rayse intervened personally and directly all over the place, which ultimately led to him being in a position he did not want to be in and then dying. Cultivation preferring to avoid that situation is a possibility-- she may be operating under constraints we're not aware of.

1 hour ago, Schizoposting said:

Well, this a question about your given ethical commitments, and what you value. On a certain level, you can't really "disprove" opposing ethical views (so long as they're logically consistent) due to the is–ought problem. But this outside the scope of this thread, which is more so about the efficacy of shardic intervention, rather than the morality of it. I am presuming that the shardic intervention is for a morally good purpose, as is understood by the moral standards of our society today.

That it's a question of your ethical commitments is exactly my point. Blandly asserting a set of arbitrary ethical commitments and then asking why a totally different person isn't behaving accordingly, without establishing at all that the other person agrees with that set, doesn't make a lot of sense. If you are a hard materialist consequentialist I would expect you to operate very differently from a hardened idealist deontologist, and that should not be surprising (even if you find it surprising that the other person holds the views they do).

The "moral standards of our society today" is neither clearly defined nor necessarily a standard that we can or should hold others (or ourselves) to even if it were. Trying to apply them as the only possible things a Shard could consider or value inherently asserts that other things are "disproven" as morally relevant. It's saying that Cultivation (for example) is failing because she does not act in accordance with your asserted value set A, and disregarding even the possibility that Cultivation might be working towards value set B. I may have missed it if you already did this, but it would help discussion if these moral standards to which you are appealing were clearly and precisely defined.

The presumption that Shardic intervention is inherently for a morally good purpose is the thing that creates this conflict: there isn't any reason to believe that Cultivation (or any of the Shards) isn't (or aren't) already maximally doing this in accordance with their own philosophies, subject to any errors they might make in judging what actions best accomplish what they think is best. It's only in not prioritizing things the same way that you do that any potential conflicts arise-- for example, a consequentialist-aspected goal of "eliminating hunger" might be accomplished by creating sufficient food, or alternatively by killing enough people that existing food becomes sufficient for the survivors. Assuming inherently good moral purposes to any intervention would leave these morally indistinguishable from each other even if we soften the consequentialism. I'm still not seeing the space in the setup for discussion to really happen, it seems that everything except the conclusion you started with is defined out. Unless I'm misunderstanding, which is uncomfortably common.

If we're only talking about efficacy there are a few possibilities that the text suggests to me. There is danger in direct involvement, both in tying a Shard more powerfully to a planet and investing so much of their powers and natures that it leaves them vulnerable to hazards, such as hostile Shards. There are some results of direct intervention which may be counterproductive to other things the Shard values, such as Sazed's concern about having made life in the Elendel Basin too easy for the people that live there. Unintended consequences (or disfavored sets of consequences) seem unavoidable at Shard-level scope, so tightly accomplishing specific goals might not even be realistic in the general case. Even within this we still need to define what goals the Shards have before we can do much to assess their efficacy and means in pursuing those goals.

Edited December 26, 2025 by Returned

[Nitpicking]

3 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

Rashek was never well meaning ...

That's just silly. He sacrificed 1000 years of his life to preserve the world from destruction. You don't like his methods, but his intent was always good.

 

2 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

Both Susebron and Raoden are immortal ...

Except Susebron. The God-Kings have normal human lifespan, apparently. Read the Warbreaker annotations. Raoden isn't necessarily even a dictator.

 

1 hour ago, Frustration said:

They lack economically significant sources of Sulfur. At least the way that earth got them.

They clearly have trace quantities, but all large deposits of Sulfur on earth come from volcanic activity, which roahar lacking plate tectonics, does not have.

Now I suppose they could make oil from plants, and they do so. But it's the only source of fuel they have unless Adonaliusm made fossilfuels when he made the planet.

But the main issue is actually the amount of oxygen on Roshar. It's enough of a problem they consider candles dangerous and Khriss warns worldhoppers against fire. That's kind of prohibiting when you're trying to have a controlled burn.

Even granting the above, which I do not necessarily grant, and forgetting that Soulcasters could just make tons of it out of stone, there are lots of other explosives that don't require sulfur. The cheapest is probably ANFO. Explosives don't care about atmospheric oxygen. The whole point of the nitrates is to supply oxygen for the reaction (technically, to replace it). They don't consume any oxygen from air. Ask chemistry major Brandon if you don't believe me.

Note: I consider candles dangerous here on Earth. Because they are. However, very few Alethi buildings, at least, seem to be very flammable.