Peterkin

That may happen sometimes, but it can't be the norm, or society would break down and cease to function. More likely, it could never been established in the first place. We do when the other guy shows up an hour late at the wrong meeting-place, or all the walls of a building lean outward. When a bridge or tunnel started at two end fails to match up in the middle as planned, the discrepancy is not due to verbal misunderstanding but mathematical miscalculation. Most of the time, in most transactions and social interactions, people understand one another quite well - in fact, much meaning is communicated indirectly, in oblique or coded language, coupled with intonation, facial expression, gesture and context.

I wasn't entirely convinced about all of them, either. However, as the verdict in those cases came after a trial, not instead of a trial, I'm more inclined to believe it was accurate. In the present example, someone has been picked up that the police are sure is one of the perpetrators, and they need information from him or her very quickly - so there is no time for a thorough investigation, let alone a trial. How often are the police sure they have the right guy and turn out to be wrong - maybe 30 years or a hanging later? No, I didn't consider that a valid option. I can take responsibility for my own actions; not for those of a distraught hulking brute.

Yet again, that came with an IF I simply don't accept as pertaining to real life. Already answered.

Sez who? Anyway, the problems of mistaken identity and misinformation don't just disappear if the father happens to be bigger than the suspect. In fact, the problem may be exacerbated if the father, unversed in the finer points of enhanced interrogation, accidentally kills the suspect or renders him (?her) incapable of speech before they can utter a coherent sentence.

Sure, but not by the police or the law-makers or anyone who enters into a discussion of ethical behaviour. The victims have already been victimized before the question was asked.

Yeah, it's kind of Mickey Mouse. When I was young, this was a thing - I suppose more of a fad. At that time, I encountered nobody as indifferent to colour as you seem to be and find it hard to fathom. I guess I ran with a fairly artsy crowd, so maybe that created a bias. Like the MBTI is now, except that employers didn't make prospective employees take personality tests back then, though they might give a general competence or IQ test, to see if you could handle the job; whether you fit in was your problem.

For you, the colour is associated with an experience. For me, colour is significant in itself. I doubt the Luscher personality test would work for either of us. I just took it and the result is pure BS.

Nobody who hasn't been faced with those circumstances knows what they would do. Nobody who has no killed knows what it would take for them to kill. We can only imagine. I imagine there are situations where someone has to choose between evils - but that doesn't make the lesser evil good. It's the self-deception I'm arguing against. If you have to do a wrong, own it.

Interesting. It's the first and most important thing I notice, right after light or dark. I hate the recent SF movies where all the sets are shades of metallic blue: I can't look at them for more than a few minutes.

Which type is that? Egyptian protesters? Chinese class-aliens? Random guys kidnapped for bounty in Iraq? Torture is not exclusively used to elicit information. It doesn't work on regular cowardly people, because we just say whatever we're expected to say, whether it's true or not, whether we we know anything useful or not; we just babble. Yes, we've seen the war movies, but we're not living in one. Captured spies are the smallest minority of people abused in custody. The most common purpose of torture is to force confessions from suspected criminals, or make an example of political nonconformists and disobedient subjects of dictators large and small; to make dissidents recant and denounce their leaders and their cause. Of course, there is the sadistic element, as in Abu Ghraib.... and many other prisons, where it's not about information, or revenge, or any practical end - just domination. If you authorize your enforcers to torture whom they capture, you allow all of that, because you attract sadists and bullies and emotionally unstable people to your enforcement agencies. This is not good for the unarmed population. There are three questions: Would I do it in some imagined situation? A: Maybe. Would I give my police force blanket permission to do if they thought it's warranted? A: No. and Is it ethical? A: No.

Let's get this straight first: There are no psychologists like Jordan Peterson - he's a one-off, and he's nuts. Real psychologists have little or nothing to say about feminism, since it is a political movement, not a psychological one. Conservatives, OTH, have been drifting rightward for some decades now, are now well into the shadowlands of fascism or feudalism, whichever they can achieve faster. Of course it's different today from what it was in the past - everything changes over time. A political movement has to respond to political events and the changing needs of its membership. Of course the far right says (not what it really thinks, ever) that feminism is evil - I mean, look at all the revolutionary stuff feminism has brought about. Women are getting as much as 80-85% of the pay men get for the same work; they're given as much as six weeks off for maternity leave, and they're allowed to travel to a different state - unless the vigilantes stop them - to get an abortion.

I was reminded today of a book I had in the 60's called The Luscher Colour Test. It came with a set of cards like samples from the paint store. The colours you like and don't like supposed tell a lot about your personality. Only, I find that far too general. Yes, there is something to green being restful and red being exciting, but it's not very informative. I think people have particular, personal associations with some colours to which they respond strongly, while they may be indifferent to or ambivalent about other colours. There is also a great variety in colour perception. Do you find that the colour scheme of a room affects your mood when you're in it? How long does it usually take to have an affect? Do you decorate your home according to an emotional atmosphere you intend to create? Are there colours in your environment that you deliberately avoid or seek out? Do you look for particular colours in different moods or situations? Do some paintings, garments or objects attract or repel you because of their colour?

Thanks! I don't want to do it; just wondered, in case Genady wants to collect more information.

Would you expect a wide, general sample?

I promise not to change a single thing! I'm interested in how it turns out. Some of it is certainly available from profiles. Some, you can collect in a related or unrelated poll. .... maybe.... Can one do polls here? BTW - no fair, changing your avatar. I liked the blue one. I don't like purple.

So do I! Two or three edits it takes just to erase the typos; no telling how much I'll need to add, tweak and polish. Is this a study in statistics? Does it include other factors beyond number of posts over a specified period? (I guess I mean: What for? Can't help that: motivation and utility interest me in all areas of endeavour.)

Excellent! We've just had our third shot, which is making me a bit heavy-headed today.

I usually edit, which requires close attention that I can't sustain as long as I used to. Right now, I'm supposed to be working on novel and it's not..... going..... w aarrggh.....

O. M. G. Some of us really have no life, innit? Actually, it's a question of access: I work at the computer anyway and need frequent times out. Since Flash died, I can't even play Stone Garden.☹️

As with the rep points, I make the occasional exception.

I know. But there are sites where the extravagant use of them, in multiples, is mere display and conveys no information. Also, the sneaky addition of a smiling coin to a personal slur is annoying, no matter who does it to whom. I can live with both - I can bear a level of annoyance with equanimity .

Who ever does it, in the heat of passion or religious zeal or patriotic fervor attempts to justify it with some excuse loftier than their actual motive. It's wrong, and sometimes we do what's wrong, because we feel impelled to do so.

I don't use it anymore, except in the rare instance when I cancel a spiteful down-vote to a reasonable post. Have no real problem with graffiti - it's less intrusive than lavish use of emoticons.

No. They should come from a veil of ignorance. I doubt it, but don't rule it out - I'm sure I would try diplomatic tactics first. It would be an emotional decision, not an ethical one. If I stepped back one pace and asked "How sure are we that this is one of the perpetrators and knows the answer?" 99%? 85%? 60%? What's the cutoff line of probability that makes torture okay or not okay? If I took two steps back and asked: "Who is making the determination of guilt? On what grounds? What's their record of accuracy?" I might begin to doubt more. If I stepped back a little farther and asked, "What if that suspected child-abductor were my son?" I may be convinced of his innocence; the police may be convinced of his guilt; neither I nor nor the police know what lies or truths he might divulge under torture (People notoriously say whatever the torturer wants them to.) and neither of us knows, if they eventually discover his innocence, what lasting effect this experience will have on him (and meanwhile, the child has been killed - no gains, net loss). I might then regret having authorized such methods from the safety of a voting booth. Nobody ever does. Legal codes have to define it, but no definition is ever objective. A system of cultural perceptions and assumptions underlie one's idea of what constitutes torture, just as in what constitutes 'cruel and unusual punishment' or coercion, or extortion, harassment, etc. Just as there is a cultural bias in deciding the limits of enforcement authority. As you say; he ought to try it. Hematology technicians and nurses have to practice injections on one another. Maybe legislators and police should be required to practice the methods of interrogation they put into law. No. The means determine the ends. Ends are imaginary. The outcome you envisage is far from certain. You expect one path to lead to a particular desired destination, and you may be wrong and get lost. Where you actually end up may be quite a different place - and it may have changed by the time you arrive because of your decisions along the way. If you resort to unethical practice, acknowledge it as an emotional decision, rather than painting an ethical face on it. Everyone does, but no two people agree completely on all aspects of any single issue, let alone all issues. The best we can hope for as a society is general consensus on the tenets (hence national and professional constitutions) legislation to draw the broad outlines, and protracted legal wrangling over the details.

Amazing, indeed! But it became a mass market item. Surgery that benefits 0.6% of the people will never be cheap. Whichever technique also benefits accident victims and soldiers injured in combat becomes that much more accessible. Nevertheless, medicine is, to a large extent, monopolistic - somewhat immune to market pressures. I wouldn't put it quite that way. I don't approve of religious conviction driving legislation, but I have to acknowledge its presence - which is likely not only to continue for some time yet, but even to inflict some, or much backlash damage on socially progressive lawmaking and enforcement. Note the steamrolling of reproductive freedoms in the US and elsewhere. As well, there is a retrogressive element that has gained alarming momentum under the Trump regime and I predict a continued rise in violence against minority populations of every kind: the Peterson brigades are loose on all the world. Legislative assemblies quake before them and will certainly cave to some of their demands. Again, that's a topic only tangentially related to this one. No argument from me! Only, medical science is not in a very strong position right now. So much the research talent, facilities, materials and budget have been consumed by Covid. Health-care workers are stressed-out, exhausted, beleaguered and fed up. Many have died, many more have quit. Life-saving, limb-saving surgeries have been delayed or shelved; clearing up the back-log is going to take a long time -- a long time, that is, from whenever it can even start. Plague, pestilence and war make any future progress precarious.