4 ms·

Bonkers reading through this thread and seeing people discuss torture as casually and unemotionally as if it were just a regular ol' anyday thing. Like wow folk

Bonkers reading through this thread and seeing people discuss torture as casually and unemotionally as if it were just a regular ol' anyday thing. Like wow folks, this is not academic!

gerbilly 5y ago
That's HN for you. I honestly don't know why I keep coming here. This is a safe space for rationalisation, we can't let 'the feels' creep in and threaten that. Also it would be way too 'political' if we assigned a moral valence to torture, and political discussions are discouraged here.
- worik 5y ago
  Weighing torture, in light of "if it is effective it is OK" is not "rationalisation". It is loosing the civilisation plot.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- cheeze 5y ago
  But it's totally okay to get political about COVID and deny, deny, deny here. Such an odd cross section of libertarian "freedom above all else" people and legitimately smart technical folks. I like the technical part, the "this is binary and I believe in freedom above all else" cohort turns me off pretty hard though.
  - gerbilly 5y ago
    > "this is binary and I believe in freedom above all else" cohort turns me off pretty hard though. Randroids probably. Ayn Rand is piss poor literature, and even worse as philosophy or life advice.
  - dc-programmer 5y ago
    Anything short of libertarian anarchy is a dystopia to these folks. You would actually think that people with a “rationalist” bias would care more about outcomes than elevating deontological ideals above all else but I guess not
    - CyanBird 5y ago
      "Outcomes"? I am sorry, what "outcomes"? Only outcome I see here is the hegemony of the planet abusing brown people simply because it suspected that they could have been dangerous at some point in the past so it tortures them to try and prove how "dangerous" they truly where, but ofc bc torture doesn't even work these poor sods end up with all sorts of health problems or brain damage in this case, and the cia ends up with a notebook full of lies, extracted under torture with which they will use to bomb the shit outta more poor brown people elsewhere Yeah... "outcomes" > “Ammar fabricated the information he provided when undergoing EITs,” it said. “He later admitted to his interrogators/debriefers that he was terrified and lied to get agency officers to stop the measures … Ammar also explained that he was afraid to tell a lie and was afraid to tell the truth because he did not know how either would be received.”
      - dc-programmer 5y ago
        I wasn’t talking about the contents of this article, just taking the opportunity to pile in on the libertarians. Their should absolutely be consequences for this
Zerverus 5y ago
Same people causally rationalizing the environmental costs of Bitcoin, nothing new here.
beeboop 5y ago
Not sure what this looked like when you posted two hours ago, but all the top posts now are calling this evil, disgusting, awful, and all the bad things. Glancing through the comments now, I see only maybe one or two that don't overtly and somewhat emotionally condemn this. And those one or two that don't aren't praising it by any means either.
- pandemicsoul 5y ago
  That's great. I don't know if they hid the comments I was referring to or what, but all the top comments at first were these really disgusting academic takes on torture and debating its value. Even for HN – which I often find to be pretty skewed toward the libertarian like others mentioned – it was appalling.

Bonkers reading through this thread and seeing people discuss torture as casually and unemotionally as if it were just a regular ol' anyday thing. Like wow folks, this is not academic!

gerbilly 5y ago

That's HN for you. I honestly don't know why I keep coming here. This is a safe space for rationalisation, we can't let 'the feels' creep in and threaten that. Also it would be way too 'political' if we assigned a moral valence to torture, and political discussions are discouraged here.

worik 5y ago
Weighing torture, in light of "if it is effective it is OK" is not "rationalisation". It is loosing the civilisation plot.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
cheeze 5y ago
But it's totally okay to get political about COVID and deny, deny, deny here. Such an odd cross section of libertarian "freedom above all else" people and legitimately smart technical folks. I like the technical part, the "this is binary and I believe in freedom above all else" cohort turns me off pretty hard though.
- gerbilly 5y ago
  > "this is binary and I believe in freedom above all else" cohort turns me off pretty hard though. Randroids probably. Ayn Rand is piss poor literature, and even worse as philosophy or life advice.
- dc-programmer 5y ago
  Anything short of libertarian anarchy is a dystopia to these folks. You would actually think that people with a “rationalist” bias would care more about outcomes than elevating deontological ideals above all else but I guess not
  - CyanBird 5y ago
    "Outcomes"? I am sorry, what "outcomes"? Only outcome I see here is the hegemony of the planet abusing brown people simply because it suspected that they could have been dangerous at some point in the past so it tortures them to try and prove how "dangerous" they truly where, but ofc bc torture doesn't even work these poor sods end up with all sorts of health problems or brain damage in this case, and the cia ends up with a notebook full of lies, extracted under torture with which they will use to bomb the shit outta more poor brown people elsewhere Yeah... "outcomes" > “Ammar fabricated the information he provided when undergoing EITs,” it said. “He later admitted to his interrogators/debriefers that he was terrified and lied to get agency officers to stop the measures … Ammar also explained that he was afraid to tell a lie and was afraid to tell the truth because he did not know how either would be received.”
    - dc-programmer 5y ago
      I wasn’t talking about the contents of this article, just taking the opportunity to pile in on the libertarians. Their should absolutely be consequences for this

Zerverus 5y ago

Same people causally rationalizing the environmental costs of Bitcoin, nothing new here.

beeboop 5y ago

Not sure what this looked like when you posted two hours ago, but all the top posts now are calling this evil, disgusting, awful, and all the bad things. Glancing through the comments now, I see only maybe one or two that don't overtly and somewhat emotionally condemn this. And those one or two that don't aren't praising it by any means either.

pandemicsoul 5y ago
That's great. I don't know if they hid the comments I was referring to or what, but all the top comments at first were these really disgusting academic takes on torture and debating its value. Even for HN – which I often find to be pretty skewed toward the libertarian like others mentioned – it was appalling.