MSC
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Posts posted by MSC
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1 minute ago, beecee said:
Russian forces on Thursday confiscated 14 tons of humanitarian aid from buses bound for Melitopol in southern Ukraine. What a bunch of complete arseholes they be! Worthwhile noting that it is always legal to refuse to carry out a warcrime.
The aid was being transported on 12 buses bound for Melitopol in southern Ukraine, said Vereshchuk.
Fucking hell! That's a new low. Although now that I think about it, I do remember reading a prediction that this would come down to attrition. Russians are falling back on the age old strategy of punishing civilians with starvation in the hopes of forcing the leadership to surrender. 😕 or even forcing the civilians to usurp the leadership and surrendering just for food.
A small silver lining, although I'm not sure if it has been confirmed, is that a number of the soldiers in the Russian Army are sabotaging their own equipment and vehicles in an attempt to stay out of the fighting.
I'm beginning to wonder if the Ukrainians ought to set up loudspeakers and broadcasting systems to blast the Russian army with the facts of the situation across the entire warfront and on Putins regime. Taking advantage of their distance from the propaganda bubble back in Russia could cause desertion and disobedience among their ranks to increase. I can't really say how effective it would be but might be worth a shot.
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Quote
The report also cited the federal statute governing federal judicial recusals, 42 U.S.C. § 455. It still provides: “Any justice, judge or magistrate of the United States shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality may reasonably be questioned.” By its terms, then, this law applies to Supreme Court justices, though there exists no means of enforcing it short of impeachment. (Those who claim the Supreme Court has no code of conduct may be overlooking this.) The statute goes on to state that a justice should recuse himself “[w]here he has a personal bias or prejudice concerning a party, or personal knowledge of disputed evidentiary facts concerning the proceeding” or “[h]e knows that he ... or his spouse has [an] interest that could substantially be affected by the outcome of the proceeding.” (Emphasis added.)
6 hours ago, iNow said:All lower federal courts have these types of ethics rules and mechanisms for their enforcement. The SCOTUS is the only exception in terms of this recusal issue where each justice can decide for themselves.
I highly recommend reading the rest of the text in the link. I highlighted and shared the portion that shares the statute related to the topic. I find it an enjoyable read, even if it was just an opinion piece. I'm just glad it referenced the statute tbh.
I find it fascinating. If Thomas were a judge on any other court and something in regards to his wife came onto his docket, he would probably recuse himself. After reading this, even on the Supreme Court he would have an impossible task of convincing any but the most deluded that he would not need to recuse himself for that. I just don't see how you could argue away reasonable suspicions of impropriety there.
The chief justice role is more so meant for an office of a senate court judge and for leading and presiding over hearings in the SC itself. That's why he presided over both of Trumps impeachment. Obviously I know you already know that Inow, I'm just trying to be thorough and descript for the sake of others reading who might be thinking the chief justice doesn't seem to have much of a real difference in roles than the other judges. After reading what we wrote.
Why 18 year term limits though? Not disagreeing just wondered what the reasoning is on the number. All that drives my 10 year ideal is the uniformity of a new court for every decade.
SC judge: "I'm so impartial that I can decide on whether or not I can be impartial in a given case... because I'm impartial."
😆
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12 minutes ago, TheVat said:
These are some very optimistic Belarusians. It's worth asking if Putin would do something that we all regret if faced with any chance of losing Belarus.
It is worth asking. I don't think he would fall back on a nuclear option or escalate conflicts if he lost the support of Belarus. Ultimately putin wants to desperately cling to power in Russia. He does not want to lose it. So long as his life and power in Russia are not in the crosshairs, he'll practice tactical self restraint. He will still draw up plans to undo or mitigate the loss for sure. But losing Belarus will not be the backed into a corner moment for Putin that we all fear. It will stress him out and make him sweat and that could be dangerous for a whole lot of reasons.
I don't even think he'd do it if NATO did directly intervene in Ukraine either. I think he's bluffing. He's not stupid. He knows using the nuclear option is also a threat to his life and power. I don't think he'll use it until he is convinced that he is imminently about to lose his grip on Russia and all of the protection from his enemies that gives him. Most leaders know that using nuclear weapons is only ever going to invite those same weapons being used in retribution. No winners, just losers. This mentality is what makes Putin so dangerous. If he starts to lose a game, he'll freak out and flip the table over so nobody gets to play, win or punish him for losing.
The nuclear option is not about winning. It is about mutually assured destruction. If I go, you go.
However, if Russia has the technology to effectively defend itself from multiple nuclear attacks, then I'm really not sure of anything I have just said.
1 hour ago, SergUpstart said:Putin also banned casinos and slot machines. So he has serious successes in the fight against gambling addiction.
Not really. Now those industries will have just went underground and are no longer paying any taxes and cannot be regulated at all. Taxes that could have funded addiction therapy programs.
Would have just been better to pass more regulations for those businesses to have maximum loss limits and other methods of protecting addicts.
There may be less drunks or gambling addicts in public, but behind closed doors, who can say? More alcohol is being bought per capita today than during the Soviet era. If I assume that you are correct, and that there are less drunks in public spaces, then I can only conclude that more alcohol is being either consumed at home or stockpiled. I lean more towards the former rather than the latter.
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3 hours ago, iNow said:
Please help make that happen by sharing evidence of it.
A copy is in your war games thread, but I have it downloaded so can put a copy here too.
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On 2/28/2022 at 10:27 AM, MigL said:
I wonder if that spike in popular support for Russia in 93, corresponds with B Yeltsin standing on top of a tank, holing the Russian flag, in defiance of the hard-liner Generals who wanted a return to Cold War ways.
I guess those Generals finally won when V Putin took office.
Man wait until you see the spikes in their alcohol consumption per capita under Yeltsin and Putin..
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On 3/10/2022 at 6:47 AM, Orion1 said:
Partisan] said he initially got the idea to run the bill because he had "seen stories" of "groups of people" going around "filming police". (ref. 1)
My God! You mean to say that he saw people going around exercising their rights? Well they had some nerve! Better put a stop to these rights by making them illegal!
Let's just be honest, if you can't be a good cop on camera, why the fuck would anyone trust you to be a good cop off camera? I've literally heard of cops speaking in favour of ending internet anonymity using the whole "but if you've got nothing to hide." argument. Why doesn't the same apply here. If you are a cop with nothing to hide, why would you care? Most of them have their own body and dash cameras now, and CCTV is everywhere and our phones are listening to everything we say. You take that shit away now, where is the law and order?
I can't decide which is worse; that this is so unconstitutional or just so stupid and idiotic!
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On 3/30/2022 at 6:14 AM, StringJunky said:
can't quite compute that he's black and yet holds this ideological position. Did he see a novel and fast track way to get where he is today in a Republican-leaning field not well-represented by minorities i.e. it's not about principles, but about personal advancement?
He also used to be a left leaning black nationalist. Not once in the 30+ years he has been an SC Judge, has he recused himself. Not a once. He won't anytime soon either.
Thomas's story is a very confusing one. He'll make a bit more sense to you after I explain... but despite knowing his history, I still find who he is today perplexing and at times, positively aggravating to say the least.
He was born in the 40s in Georgia. I forget the name of his birth town, I only know he loved it there. While he was still young, his family moved to Savannah Georgia. This was while things were still segregated. His first experience of racism, according to his own words, actually came from other black people. One of the things said of him by people there "he's so dark, if he was any blacker, he'd be blue.". Prior to the end of segregation, class divides in black communities was much more of a factor than it tends to be today. Within his all black community there, the darkness of his skin in comparison to others was a sign of being lower class within the black community while having a lighter skin color was usually perceived as being upper class.
Thomas fundamentally believes that white people are incapable of not being racist. He has often espoused support for racial separatist ideology. Believing that black people must be the leaders of their own communities.
As a judge, he is a strict originalist when it comes to constitutional interpretation. In stark contrast to myself as a pragmatist and instrumentalist.
It must be said, understanding Clarence Thomas is something that I don't think many people, including myself, are very good at. I'm only familiar with his upbringing and how influential that was in the formation of his belief system. However what I think influences him most today, is his relationship with his wife. Of which, I know little.
I often wonder how we would answer the question were it put to him "How have black people benefitted from having you on the Supreme Court for 30 years?"
I'll probably need to do more research now because this thread has repiqued my curiosity on this subject. I suppose I'll start with his wife's upbringing first.
On 3/29/2022 at 8:09 PM, Phi for All said:What do you think about this? The justice has a voting record of weakening voting rights, and a slavish devotion to Republican agendas aimed at reducing the chances of fair elections. His wife is a conservative activist who sounds like she's gone down the QAnon rabbit hole, and doesn't care who the majority voted for.
I think he should recuse himself. I don't believe he will though. Unfortunately the Supreme Court justices have sole discretion in deciding whether or not they can remain impartial and they customarily close ranks when it comes to that. It's an extremely difficult area of law to make the SC judicial guidelines legal requirements. If you or I were a lawyer, even the appearance of impropriety could have us disbarred.
Unfortunately as it stands, failure to recuse yourself from cases where you may have a personal inability to remain impartial, is not a crime, the appearance of impropriety, is not a crime. Therefore you can't really impeach a SCOTUS judge for not recusing yourself.
It's a tremendous oversight in the separation of powers and the system of checks and balances in the USA. I don't really know how it can be remedied without enough support in the legislative and executive branches to make changes to how a Supreme Court Judge can behave on the bench.
Sometimes to me, it feels like the checks and balances system can sometimes lead to situations where the other branches cannot check and balance the other, without doing so in a way that may also require a check and balance on that.
In my opinion, the least that could be done is the ending of lifetime appointments for SC judges. I feel that there has got to be a more democratic way and more public inclusion on who gets to wield so much power for such a long time. Thomas has been on the court for 30+ years, a lot of changes have taken place in that time. The voters who picked George Bush, who nominated Thomas, are not all the same voters today.
Is there a good reason why the voters of today should not have any say in who sits in each of those SC seats presently? Not just for Thomas but for all the rest too? Even a public vote once a decade is better than someone having that much power well into senility.
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For no other reason than to destroy the OP with witty retorts. You guys got to have all the fun!
QuoteOpinions aren’t necessarily supported by evidence. I think chocolate is better than vanilla. Am I a cult?
I don't know why but this had me in stitches, really! Also if believing chocolate is better than vanilla, makes you a cult, that's fine. More chocolate for the cult!
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21 minutes ago, swansont said:
Is that actually true, or something that Russia claims to be true?
(i.e. is there an independent, credible source of this information?)
From what I can gather, it is not true. In fact, per capita consumption has risen under both Yeltsin and Putin and is much higher than it was during the Soviet Era. While Putin is responsible for more aggressive policies in tackling alcoholism, the increase suggests it has only sent drinking culture underground and out of sight.
It's lower than what it was between 2000-2005 but still higher than it's lowest point between 1980-1990. Putin has been in power since the year 2000 and was in power when alcohol consumption was at its highest.
I think the perception that it has gotten lower, can be explained by the fact that it's not happening in public spaces as much.
At least, that's what my interpretation of the attachment is. I may have misread it, so you can check for yourself and correct me where I'm wrong.
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5 hours ago, Kittenpuncher said:
It is a common phrase, I wonder what sort of life you must lead, perhaps very different from my own?
I was being sarcastic tbh. Different now yes, but once similar. The biggest differences I'm picking up on are cultural. No Scottish person would have missed my sarcasm. In all seriousness though; you have my sympathies for your current lot in life.
5 hours ago, Kittenpuncher said:Ah well that is appropriate considering how I was lied to, what I thought was the big bang is taught to be so to many others, not just myself
I don't think it is that anyone was lied to, just given the truth at varying levels of complexity. If I had a dime for everytime I heard a teacher say "forgot what I said about that last year" because this year I was ready for a more detailed account of the subject... it's annoying but it's how education works.
5 hours ago, Kittenpuncher said:didn't mean to start off on the wrong foot with you guys, I want to apologize
No need. You held your own respectfully. I owe you the apology for doing a little temperament testing. Good news; you're not as hot headed as I am 😆
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3 hours ago, Kittenpuncher said:
Other than that my mind is disturbingly led to suspect that the winner is simply whoever launches a decisive nuclear first strike
I very much doubt that is a course of action which will allow for any sort of "winner". Nobody will win a nuclear war. We'll all lose.
2 hours ago, Kittenpuncher said:Now there's a neat conspiracy theory, both comforting and disturbing
Since I was born the president's have been progressively worse, judging by what the polls seem to say (and the statistics too, for the most part)
I agree to some extent; although worsening conditions and the presidential job having become much more difficult and complex within the last century definitely adds to the perception they have been getting worse.
I kind of feel bad for Biden. He inherited governance over a very chaotic geopolitical landscape, domestically and on the international front. The one thing I really don't like about opinion polls, is a tendency to blame the executive branch for things largely beyond its control. If that tendency didn't exist, I think opinion polls would be a little bit kinder and fairer.
Now, getting back to Russia and the Ukraine. I see some historical similarities in the Kremlins motivations in attacking Ukraine, to the Soviet unions attitudes toward west Berlin before the wall came down.
In East Berlin you had rampant poverty and hardship for its citizens while the people of West Berlin seemed to be enjoying the fruits of democracy and capitalism. It's kind of difficult to convince your people that the grass is not greener on the otherside, when they can take a peak over a wall and see that it is not true. In my opinion, and just my opinion, Putins Oligarchy sees western democracy as a threat, not to Russia directly, but to the minds of the Russian people. It has been said before, Russia is a sleeping bear, slow to rouse but strong and ferocious when awake. This is why in the past, many rulers have done their best to keep an iron grip on their power and their illusion of power over the people of Russia. I think it can probably be said of most countries, that the biggest threat to their governments, comes from within the borders, not beyond them.
Ukraine is on the brink of joining the EU, if it were to somehow defy the odds and force the Russians to give up their "special military operation" coughinvasioncough... it will attempt to either join or make treaties with NATO to secure promises of more direct help in the event of another Russian offensive.
This is why, I believe, the war in the Ukraine has not even gotten close to an end yet, it may very well have some cold periods, but it could be months to years before the conflict is truly over. From Putins perspective, any border Russia shares with western democracy is a threat. Mostly for the reasons stated above, however in the case of conventional warfare, Putins Oligarchy wants as much distance as it can get, between Moscow and it's enemies to the West. Russias disruptive foreign policy, is born of its recognition of its geographical weaknesses in fending off a military invasion from its enemies. As it stands, a strong force setting off from the Scandinavian territories, could theoretically make to and take Moscow and the Kremlin, long before reinforcements are roused, readied, and sent from Eastern Russia.
Putin is an extremely dangerous man. His advisors are too afraid to tell him the truth about how the conflict in the Ukraine is really going. Which he is now aware of and this makes him even more mistrustful. I don't really know what to make of his implicit nuclear threats, but I don't take them lightly. I think in a direct confrontation with NATO, if he felt his power was truly threatened and on the brink of being lost, I think he would genuinely fall back on the nuclear option, and release Armageddon.
Ultimately, I think the people with the most power to stop Putin, while keeping the world away from midnight, are the people of Russia.
Медведи, просыпайтесь и деритесь*
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On 3/28/2022 at 11:01 AM, MigL said:
The only serious part of my post was the 'grow up' part.
I should always include laughing emojis when I attempt humor.
( like bad TV comedies that need a laugh track )On 3/29/2022 at 2:22 PM, Phi for All said:Me too, I guess.
Depends on the joke. It's hard to find a good balance between no emojis and too much of them. The people of my generation use them far too much for my liking. If I wanted to learn how to read pictures, I'd take up ancient Egyptian. (A good example of a joke that requires no emojis.) Jokes born of a dark sense of humour require a lot.
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7 hours ago, dimreepr said:
but it wouldn't really be me, rationally deciding the moral value of my action's.
Although as reasons go, being psychologically bound to do whatever your parental instincts tell you to do to protect your young, is a pretty good one and is bound to provoke the most sympathy from those that still can rationally decide/discuss the moral value of your actions.
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On 3/28/2022 at 8:44 PM, Kittenpuncher said:
Anyway mind fuck is a slang term for like... Making your head explode trying to comprehend shit. That's kind of what i like scientific discussion for. Not that I got to explain this very thoroughly, I got into a flame war. But I'm glad I noticed your post
Oh really? Is that what mind fuck means? Wow! Well, the more you know 🤣
On 3/28/2022 at 7:55 PM, Kittenpuncher said:The way I'm looking at this is either I'm right or they're just trying to come up with an idea worse than like, the security holograms from dead money, or a touhou yokai, or thunder kiss '65
No offense
Who is they?
On 3/28/2022 at 8:44 PM, Kittenpuncher said:Did you not read what I just said
Enjoy
Trust me, we all have read what you have said. I may joke, but only to hide the amount of weeping for humanity this post has me doing.
On 3/29/2022 at 7:30 AM, iNow said:What are the key differences you see between these two?
That I face palmed harder when I read the latter? Or about as much difference between oatmeal and porridge.
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My mind remains thoroughly unpenetrated. False advertisement!
8 hours ago, Kittenpuncher said:Now, you may have reached the conclusion that the universe will eventually contract itself, in, say, 10 trillion years or whatever.
I thought the big freeze was the current best estimation, based on the evidence, of how the universe will end?
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33 minutes ago, Kittenpuncher said:
Hello! My name is Kittenpuncher, although my old forum buddies liked to call me KP for short.
I'm interested in many of the sciences, such as biology and space physics. I like to think that if I snorted a fuckton of hot rails with Albert Einstein, we'd perfect some sort of faster than light travel, crash into a small speck of dirt somewhere around the planet Venus, and destroy the entire universe in a missingno-meets-suicidemouse-esque nightmare trip.
Thanks for having me!
P.S. Would someone be so kind as to teach me how to change my avatar? I have a ton of great ideas for avatars since I like to listen to that doomy stoner metal type goth dude music.Thanks for telling. Adieu
Note to self: Never ask you to babysit my cat 🤣
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4 minutes ago, dimreepr said:
I'd never judge someone who doesn't know, but I would challenge someone who thinks they do...
Same! I think I had been studying philosophy for about 8 months before I just started to hate the phrase "I know..."
Now I do just take it as a challenge, because it just sounds so arrogant to say to me now. "We know" is worse though I think. Hate it when people assume I know shit 😆
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5 minutes ago, dimreepr said:
If you say yes, you have to accept that you and your loved one's might be the victim.
A reality we live in each and every day, whether we answer yes or no. Being alive risks becoming a victim of something. I could go out and be mugged and shot, my home could be invaded by criminals, an asteroid might kill us all tomorrow.
While I don't think there is much room for maybe, and sitting on the fence, I'd not judge someone for saying they don't know what the best answer is.
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3 minutes ago, Peterkin said:
I seem to be the only one who presented a list for criticism.
I didn't pretend it would be objective, any more than the decision itself could be disinterested; I didn't pretend that I had fewer unknown factors to start with than I would have in real life. Indeed, I was basing my list on a possible situation, rather than a scripted formula.
Thank you for that btw! Although I do only see cons 😆
My list will be up tomorrow. For me it requires going back and rereading everything so far, in order to build a fairly comprehensive list and it is still a work in progress. Making a rough paper copy with notes first which I'll just copy here when I'm ready.
To be clear, I won't think anything about how long it takes you to reply or post. We all have real lives and I don't want you to feel rushed my friend.
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13 hours ago, TheVat said:
The focus here, seems to me, has been on consequentialism - right actions are ones that we understand by their resulting in certain consequences. We are somewhat less concerned with being virtuous beings than with having results that are deemed the best for everyone. So some of the thought experiments here have been directed towards a utilitarian view. This value system seems implicit in some posts here. Better to hook jumper cables to one demonstrably horrible person than have great harm come to many other innocent persons. As I hinted earlier with my truth serum suggestion, a commitment to pragmatism might lead us to assert that mental violation is better than physical torture, and would lead to a better outcome for both interrogator, and criminal, and others involved.
Here here! It also seems to be short view utilitarianism too. For some, the notion of long-term, unseen and unpredictable negative consequences that can arise out of the act of torture doesn't seem to hold much weight, for me it does. Especially in the terrorist scenarios. A terrorist organizations rhetoric of fighting against an evil tyrannical force, holds more weight if you torture them. Which can erode public support and stir up more sympathy for them in the long-run. Recruitment would be easier and some of the public may even blame the next attack on the torturers, saying they provoked it by behaving as savagely as the terrorists claim they are. That doesn't make it right; terrorists are far more guilty of using tactics and strategies that damage any moral justification their original cause may or may not have had. It may be unfair for the public to develop more sympathy for terrorists because desperate people did a desperate thing in desperate circumstances, but it does not change the fact that this is a potential long-term consequence of the torture.
I feel as if the whole "Try everything possible" argument implies that the ends always justifies the means. Which is not something I believe to be true. I mean, we could have this same discussion where the only difference is we all agree on the physical torture aspect but disagree on how far we should go.
"Well, I did the finger stuff and smacked him around for awhile but it didn't work."
"Did you try threatening his genitals or mutilating them? What about taking one of his eyes and starving him? You need to try everything possible or you will have completely failed the victims and I will hold you personally responsible for their deaths!"
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5 hours ago, Intoscience said:
when all else fails - So when the clock is ticking and the situation is desperate, innocent lives on the line, their death imminent, all known methods and resources available within the time frame window of opportunity have been exhausted and there is an option to gain information that might save the victims then I feel that option should be considered and used.
I think that is fair to say, but a bit unrealistic. Earlier, I made the point; that if you have enough time to try everything else first, chances are the situation is not as time sensitive as we make out.
There is one other factor here that we are not mentioning; Individual skill and competency. One individual may just not be skilled or experienced enough to get the information humanely,while another person is. In the scenarios involving law enforcement being the ones to decide on torture, chances are that if the current team or individual is not getting results with the humane methods in a timely enough manner, the task will be reassigned to someone else before anyone ever brings up torture.
So when all else fails, do we think about moving onto torture first or move onto someone else trying everything else first? From interrogation, profiling and investigation there is a lot of different methods, strategies and tactics that are involved. How long roughly do you think it would take 2-3 different individuals or teams to go through trying all of it? Hours? Days? Weeks?
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5 hours ago, Peterkin said:
In what frame of reference, with what value system, according to what basic assumptions? As per the OP, I think they have already been exhausted. In several alternative scenarios, they have already been outlined
Your value system of course.
I don't think they have been exhausted and I don't think it hurts to explicitly lay it out in a clearly formatted pro's and cons list, to sum up what has been covered so far. I'm waiting until the weekend when I have the time to do my part. My daughter is a toddler now so I'm drowning in real life atm 😆
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9 hours ago, Intoscience said:
I've tried not to invoke feelings into the discussion as they can blur the situation.
However,
I share your sympathy and empathy, but this is my point. You are focussing too much on feelings rather than logical justification.
I think that our emotional sentiments influence our moral reasoning more than logic does. I also believe it is impossible to separate the two. Ultimately logic is a tool that we use for justification, no matter which view we are trying to justify. There is an emotional root that motivates us to logically justify our views.
We are fortunate enough to be able to have this discussion from a place of emotional calm. For the people within these actual situations, emotions are going to play a strong part. There is no emotional state of pure reason and rationality we can go to, because we are emotional animals. Everything we say or do, is motivated by emotion. Ethics is my vocation, and I love it and worry about it. I am motivated to try my best to remain as objective as is humanly possible, because that is what it takes to do ethics well. I want to do ethics well, because I love it.
This is why I mentioned David Hume before;
Hume’s position in ethics, which is based on his empiricist theory of the mind, is best known for asserting four theses: (1) Reason alone cannot be a motive to the will, but rather is the “slave of the passions” (see Section 3) (2) Moral distinctions are not derived from reason (see Section 4). (3) Moral distinctions are derived from the moral sentiments: feelings of approval (esteem, praise) and disapproval (blame) felt by spectators who contemplate a character trait or action (see Section 7).https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hume-moral/
9 hours ago, Intoscience said:Again you assume that you are making the decision/doing the torturing. If you were unaware that torture was used as a method to attempt and/or save your child how would you feel about that?
You're asking how I would feel, about something which I do not know has happened. Well they say ignorance is bliss and my child is now out of danger so I'd probably just be feeling relieved and thankful. If I was then told that torture was used... probably would still just be feeling relief. What's done is done and it isn't my place to judge the person who performed the torture. Even if it was, like I was a judge or a jury member for this, I'd have to recuse my self because of my involvement with the case itself as one of the victims of the motivating crime that apparently required torture. There would be no doubt in my mind that the torturer is causally responsible for both the perps pain and suffering, and my relief and gratitude. Whether or not they are morally responsible, hard to say. In this situation I'd be biased toward answering no, they are not morally responsible. The perp is.
if we were to argue that the perp knew he would invoke desperation by kidnapping and hiding away my child, then in some ways his actions were what brought on the torturing. He is morally responsible for enabling the torture, by doing something so heinous that torture crossed others minds. If the perp had any true regard for themselves and their security, they ought not to have engaged in the crime in the first place.
in this way, I suppose I am still saying the torture is wrong, but that the moral blame for it happening, lies with the person being tortured. They are also the ones putting the torturer through the ordeal of having to hurt them in the first place. In most cases, the torturer will still have done something illegal, but depending on the circumstances they may not be morally responsible for it, even if they end up going to jail. As the father of the person they saved, I'd want to support them through whatever happens. I'd visit them in prison, help pay legal fees or find some pro-bono institution for them. Even if we say the person was morally responsible, that does not mean they cannot be forgiven. Choosing whether or not to forgive is also a moral decision I feel. The torturer is probably more deserving of forgiveness than the tortured, in this position. I feel empathy for the pain the tortured is in, mentally and physically, because we are both human and don't like pain. Kind of like how if you see someone get hit square in the balls, as a man, nomatter how you may feel about the person, you'll wince as a nearly automatic response. This is actually what we call deep empathy, which is where you feel the emotion of the person you're empathising with, vs cognitive empathy which is your conscious efforts to think about their position rather than feeling it.
You have given me a lot to think about. Your comment inspired me to say a lot that I hadn't considered before and caused me to remember concepts from moral philosophy in general that I'd nearly forgotten about. 😅
What did you think of Vats mental only interrogation through drugs idea?
2 hours ago, Intoscience said:Why should it? many people have been tortured and survived. No one ever said that the torture should last until the perp dies.
That's just it, you cannot guarantee, even as an experienced torturer that you won't accidentally kill the perp. For example; the method I referenced earlier Involving nails, finger tips and a defibrillator, would likely kill a person very quickly if they have some kind of heart condition I don't know about.
Ultimately my decision to not physically torture (in the improbable scenarios where I'm expected to do it) is that I don't believe it is an effective enough method with too much risk to the Intel. Pragmatic ethics dictates you do what is most likely to work based on the scientific literature/studies. As it currently stands, a mix of investigation, psychological profiling and humane interrogation techniques has the most efficacy. Even if we include torture into the mix, you can't win em all. There will always be situations where despite the best efforts of people, we will fail to save the innocent/innocents. It sucks, I wish there was an option which had a 100% success rate, but there is not.
Physical torture to me just seems more reckless than it is worth.
Maybe we should all start just listing the pros and cons of the choices here? Anyone else want to start?
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1 hour ago, MigL said:
and sometimes, people can't live with themselves, or look in the mirror, when they do nothing to retaliate against the person who did harm to their loved ones.
Both can leave emotional scars.Some deny this, and claim to be virtuous, while others know themselves, and that we are all animals
True. I suppose it is up to the individual on which scars to bare. I don't think anyone can really come out of this sort of situation smelling like roses... The smell of roses is overrated anyway!
2 hours ago, dimreepr said:One day I'll sparkle, and then I'll make the bugger's eye's water...
Baaaa! 😆
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A pro Putin section in the US?
in Politics
Posted
No need! I can screen shot to save you opening the file.