5 ms·

"Justified" is the word you're looking for. We want it to be justified, not honorable. Nobody gives two shits about honor as soon as it is about "them" (whoeve

"Justified" is the word you're looking for. We want it to be justified, not honorable. Nobody gives two shits about honor as soon as it is about "them" (whoever fits that definition currently).

GordonS 10y ago
I'm not sure this kind of disgusting behaviour can ever be justified.
- 7952 10y ago
  It is coneviable that circumstances could exist where the use of torture would prevent some greater evil. But the only proper place to make such an argument is in court as a defense against prosecution. The act would still be illegal and should still be illegal. The disgusting thing is trying to pre-approve illegal acts ahead of time and using that as a defence.
  - Natanael_L 10y ago
    Problem is that it doesn't even give all that much actionable information in the first place.
    - ramblerman 10y ago
      Yes and no. In the case of somebody who has information waterboarding is generally an 'efficient' strategy. i.e. you have the guy you know hid the bomb somewhere in manhattan. It's just very hard to tell when somebody doesn't know anything. And they will start making up information to make it stop. i.e. 10 guys and you have reason to believe one of them may have hidden a bomb somewhere.
      - 7952 10y ago
        Although that guy has a massive incentive to not tell you anything. They just have to hold out for a few hours.
      - hnhg 10y ago
        An example of when the information is fabricated: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/11283951/CIA-detainee-invented-Heathrow-bomb-plot-under-torture-to-stop-waterboarding.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1...
  - gerbilly 10y ago
    > It is coneviable that circumstances could exist where the use of torture would prevent some greater evil. Sure, but this is just a thought experiment. In real life, these kind of tactics simply don't work.
  - brlewis 10y ago
    Such circumstances exist in three places: movies, TV shows, and fiction books. In non-fiction contexts the victim simply makes an answer up to get the pain to stop. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effectiveness_of_torture_for_interrogation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effectiveness_of_torture_for_i...
- Maxious 10y ago
  "Nearly two-thirds of Americans believe torture can be justified to extract information from suspected terrorists, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll ... Only 15 percent said torture should never be used ... The Reuters/Ipsos poll included 1,976 people. It has a credibility interval, a measure of accuracy, of 2.5 percentage points for the entire group" http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-torture-exclusive-idUSKCN0WW0Y3 http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-torture-exclu...
  - PerryCox 10y ago
    I wonder if that had been worded as American citizen, instead of suspected terrorist, if the results would have been any different. Even so that is still too high of a number of people who are ok with torture.
  - reacweb 10y ago
    We can see physical or psychological torture used effectively in many TV series. I have read that in real life, torture was very ineffective to make people tell something they want to hide. Generally people die without speaking or do not know any valuable secret. Remember at school. When one child get punished, all the other childs of the class become quiet. The main desired effect of torture is manipulation of population. They do not care if the tortured guy speaks or dies, they want to inspire fear. I think it is the only way to understand how something so barbare and so ineffective (in its direct purpose) is still used. TV series should stop disinformation (pretending torture works and presenting torture as acceptable). Torture is unacceptable.
    - RodericDay 10y ago
      Zizek on Zero Dark Thirty was a pretty good take along these lines (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jan/25/zero-dark-thirty-normalises-torture-unjustifiable http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jan/25/zero-da...)
    - pessimizer 10y ago
      > We can see physical or psychological torture used effectively in many TV series. Almost exclusively by the heroes, and it always works almost instantly. It says something about the people writing them. I can't wait for the episode of Daredevil where he spends a month and a half torturing someone for information. Remember all of those scenes in movies from the 70s and earlier when halfway through the rape, the woman starts to get into it, and when we cut to the morning after she's like "never leave me," and now the viewer is expected to sympathise with the rapist and his victim against the world? It's a snapshot of the mindset of elites. > Remember at school. When one child get punished, all the other childs of the class become quiet. The main desired effect of torture is manipulation of population. They do not care if the tortured guy speaks or dies, they want to inspire fear. This is only way torture is effective. Except, in this context, the more accurate term for it is terrorism.
- booleandilemma 10y ago
  I'm alright with it, as long as we know the person is a threat to our national security. The people who commit acts like the Boston Marathon Bombings, the Brussels Bombings, 9/11, etc. - these people are not our friends. If given the opportunity, they would kill every single one of us. So if the people who are on our side feel they need to use torture on these people to keep us safe, I'm not going to argue with them.
  - booleandilemma 10y ago
    Ah I see how this site works
    - RobertoG 10y ago
      It's something that also bother me about HN. People downvote when disagree. I think that downvoting should be used for uncivil comments, not related comments, spam.. Otherwise we will finish in an echo-chamber. When we disagree we should answer. This is what I'm going try to do. First, you say "If given the opportunity, they would kill every single one of us". That's not true. Those terrorist acts have politic goals. Then, you say "So if the people who are on our side feel they need.." Here you assume that those people is in your side, and that they shouldn't be under control. Two assumptions that I recommend you to give more consideration.
      - Gracana 10y ago
        > People downvote when they disagree. And of course they do, because the implementation encourages it. Downvoting has no consequence, it allows people to express disagreement with zero effort, and they even get a chance to hide posts they don't like. If I were designing a site to be an echo chamber, reddit-style voting is the killer feature I'd want to have.
      - ufmace 10y ago
        I don't entirely agree with either side, but I will say that: > First, you say "If given the opportunity, they would kill every single one of us". That's not true. Those terrorist acts have politic goals. Certain segments of the western Political scene very much want to believe this, but I'm skeptical. They said that Hitler wasn't serious about his rhetoric either, that it was all politics. In fact, he meant it all, and indeed went on to start the biggest war in history and slaughter millions. They downplayed the extremism of the ISIS types, and look what we have there. Just what we've seen so far is quite bad enough, and we haven't even gotten a full look at the situation. Do we not at least owe the enemy the respect of believing they really intend to do exactly what they say they want to do? And they most certainly are the enemy of everything that we in the West hold dear.

"Justified" is the word you're looking for. We want it to be justified, not honorable. Nobody gives two shits about honor as soon as it is about "them" (whoever fits that definition currently).

GordonS 10y ago

I'm not sure this kind of disgusting behaviour can ever be justified.

7952 10y ago
It is coneviable that circumstances could exist where the use of torture would prevent some greater evil. But the only proper place to make such an argument is in court as a defense against prosecution. The act would still be illegal and should still be illegal. The disgusting thing is trying to pre-approve illegal acts ahead of time and using that as a defence.
- Natanael_L 10y ago
  Problem is that it doesn't even give all that much actionable information in the first place.
  - ramblerman 10y ago
    Yes and no. In the case of somebody who has information waterboarding is generally an 'efficient' strategy. i.e. you have the guy you know hid the bomb somewhere in manhattan. It's just very hard to tell when somebody doesn't know anything. And they will start making up information to make it stop. i.e. 10 guys and you have reason to believe one of them may have hidden a bomb somewhere.
    - 7952 10y ago
      Although that guy has a massive incentive to not tell you anything. They just have to hold out for a few hours.
    - hnhg 10y ago
      An example of when the information is fabricated: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/11283951/CIA-detainee-invented-Heathrow-bomb-plot-under-torture-to-stop-waterboarding.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1...
- gerbilly 10y ago
  > It is coneviable that circumstances could exist where the use of torture would prevent some greater evil. Sure, but this is just a thought experiment. In real life, these kind of tactics simply don't work.
- brlewis 10y ago
  Such circumstances exist in three places: movies, TV shows, and fiction books. In non-fiction contexts the victim simply makes an answer up to get the pain to stop. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effectiveness_of_torture_for_interrogation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effectiveness_of_torture_for_i...
Maxious 10y ago
"Nearly two-thirds of Americans believe torture can be justified to extract information from suspected terrorists, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll ... Only 15 percent said torture should never be used ... The Reuters/Ipsos poll included 1,976 people. It has a credibility interval, a measure of accuracy, of 2.5 percentage points for the entire group" http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-torture-exclusive-idUSKCN0WW0Y3 http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-torture-exclu...
- PerryCox 10y ago
  I wonder if that had been worded as American citizen, instead of suspected terrorist, if the results would have been any different. Even so that is still too high of a number of people who are ok with torture.
- reacweb 10y ago
  We can see physical or psychological torture used effectively in many TV series. I have read that in real life, torture was very ineffective to make people tell something they want to hide. Generally people die without speaking or do not know any valuable secret. Remember at school. When one child get punished, all the other childs of the class become quiet. The main desired effect of torture is manipulation of population. They do not care if the tortured guy speaks or dies, they want to inspire fear. I think it is the only way to understand how something so barbare and so ineffective (in its direct purpose) is still used. TV series should stop disinformation (pretending torture works and presenting torture as acceptable). Torture is unacceptable.
  - RodericDay 10y ago
    Zizek on Zero Dark Thirty was a pretty good take along these lines (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jan/25/zero-dark-thirty-normalises-torture-unjustifiable http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jan/25/zero-da...)
  - pessimizer 10y ago
    > We can see physical or psychological torture used effectively in many TV series. Almost exclusively by the heroes, and it always works almost instantly. It says something about the people writing them. I can't wait for the episode of Daredevil where he spends a month and a half torturing someone for information. Remember all of those scenes in movies from the 70s and earlier when halfway through the rape, the woman starts to get into it, and when we cut to the morning after she's like "never leave me," and now the viewer is expected to sympathise with the rapist and his victim against the world? It's a snapshot of the mindset of elites. > Remember at school. When one child get punished, all the other childs of the class become quiet. The main desired effect of torture is manipulation of population. They do not care if the tortured guy speaks or dies, they want to inspire fear. This is only way torture is effective. Except, in this context, the more accurate term for it is terrorism.
booleandilemma 10y ago
I'm alright with it, as long as we know the person is a threat to our national security. The people who commit acts like the Boston Marathon Bombings, the Brussels Bombings, 9/11, etc. - these people are not our friends. If given the opportunity, they would kill every single one of us. So if the people who are on our side feel they need to use torture on these people to keep us safe, I'm not going to argue with them.
- booleandilemma 10y ago
  Ah I see how this site works
  - RobertoG 10y ago
    It's something that also bother me about HN. People downvote when disagree. I think that downvoting should be used for uncivil comments, not related comments, spam.. Otherwise we will finish in an echo-chamber. When we disagree we should answer. This is what I'm going try to do. First, you say "If given the opportunity, they would kill every single one of us". That's not true. Those terrorist acts have politic goals. Then, you say "So if the people who are on our side feel they need.." Here you assume that those people is in your side, and that they shouldn't be under control. Two assumptions that I recommend you to give more consideration.
    - Gracana 10y ago
      > People downvote when they disagree. And of course they do, because the implementation encourages it. Downvoting has no consequence, it allows people to express disagreement with zero effort, and they even get a chance to hide posts they don't like. If I were designing a site to be an echo chamber, reddit-style voting is the killer feature I'd want to have.
    - ufmace 10y ago
      I don't entirely agree with either side, but I will say that: > First, you say "If given the opportunity, they would kill every single one of us". That's not true. Those terrorist acts have politic goals. Certain segments of the western Political scene very much want to believe this, but I'm skeptical. They said that Hitler wasn't serious about his rhetoric either, that it was all politics. In fact, he meant it all, and indeed went on to start the biggest war in history and slaughter millions. They downplayed the extremism of the ISIS types, and look what we have there. Just what we've seen so far is quite bad enough, and we haven't even gotten a full look at the situation. Do we not at least owe the enemy the respect of believing they really intend to do exactly what they say they want to do? And they most certainly are the enemy of everything that we in the West hold dear.