tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post8413759052864514664..comments2024-03-25T17:38:55.490-07:00Comments on Dar Kush: State of Play (2009), Oldboy (2003)Steven Barneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13630529492355131777noreply@blogger.comBlogger63125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-53077661343313010922010-01-27T05:55:32.355-08:002010-01-27T05:55:32.355-08:00procedureto flies partnersthe afghanistan lorn kin...procedureto flies partnersthe afghanistan lorn king fetch learnedin greatest overweight enthusiastic <br />servimundos melifermulyAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-29987351740772004562010-01-25T22:50:15.181-08:002010-01-25T22:50:15.181-08:00senate awesome kids predictably sucked bcpr shops ...senate awesome kids predictably sucked bcpr shops releases dependency okhala lane <br />servimundos melifermulyAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-51677048069401204662009-04-29T16:28:00.000-07:002009-04-29T16:28:00.000-07:00Shady Grady: Let's try the following scenario. The...Shady Grady: Let's try the following scenario. There is a mine collapse. There are two pockets of breathable air where miners have survived. The equipment available in a meaningful time frame can only excavate and save the miners in one of these pockets. One pocket contains two miners the other contains a dozen miners. If the rescuers chose to rescue the dozen miners instead of the two miners would you castigate them for ignoring the rights of the minority and demand that they flip a coin to decide who is rescued. There are probably exceptions to any rule, but aiming for the greater good seems to me to be a pretty good rule in most cases.Marty Shttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06465745755940914756noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-81953163143370219462009-04-29T12:32:00.000-07:002009-04-29T12:32:00.000-07:00Marty, to me the utilitarian answer would almost c...Marty, to me the utilitarian answer would almost certainly be to kill the baby and ensure the survival of the remainder of the family. <br /><br />I think that the greater good theory has several weaknesses (as do other philosophies of what is "good") which is why utilitarian considerations don't always work for me.<br /><br />The primary issue I have with utilitarianism is that it overlooks the rights/interests of the minority.<br /><br />I don't think that torture can be tolerated in any sort of decent society.Shady_Gradyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00996625985002373392noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-27475337211641927582009-04-28T13:16:00.000-07:002009-04-28T13:16:00.000-07:00Shady Grady: On your hypothetical. First my answer...Shady Grady: On your hypothetical. First my answer is that there has already been a massive failure somewhere to get to this point.Probably by some who proclaimed "Peace in our time." and failed to take what he felt was morally undesirable action early enough to prevent the situation you postulate. With respect to the situation you propose, there is no one correct action. The greater good would depend upon the individuals involved and their particular reaction to the situation. Presumably the way you have set it up the child is going to die anyhow. So the question is do the other people feel it be worse to die or worse to live with the death of the child on their hands.<br />Now the other version of this question is if you knew that the criminals dujour (Nazis/Klan/Stormtroopers/etc) were planning to take families such as this one hostage and kill them and you had captured one of them would you be willing to torture him to prevent these criminals from killing the baby and the rest of the large family.Marty Shttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06465745755940914756noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-84434161271723413692009-04-28T09:45:00.000-07:002009-04-28T09:45:00.000-07:00We're going to go back into the subject of torture...We're going to go back into the subject of torture tomorrow. Today, I want to thank everyone for being polite. Look out across the web, and see if you can find another place where opposite views on this incredibly touchy subject are discussed with minimal rancor. You guys rock.<br /><br />SteveSteven Barneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13630529492355131777noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-79458406582180287482009-04-28T09:32:00.000-07:002009-04-28T09:32:00.000-07:00Ok. From a utilitarian point of view what is the m...Ok. From a utilitarian point of view what is the moral course of action in the following thought experiment (admittedly very old).I think it was shown on MASH once...<br /><br />A large family is hiding in their house from the criminals du jour (Nazis/Klan/Stormtroopers/etc) who have made it perfectly clear that they will painfully kill all of the family members should they find them. The bad guys are however pressed for time and will leave quickly if they can't find anyone. The family baby starts to cry. Should the parents smother the baby and thus prevent detection of the rest of the large family or allow the baby to cry and with a 100% certainty ensure the deaths of everyone else.Shady_Gradyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00996625985002373392noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-19247292458570589602009-04-28T04:36:00.000-07:002009-04-28T04:36:00.000-07:00Shady Grady: Actually utilitarian would probably f...Shady Grady: Actually utilitarian would probably fit me pretty well on most issues. In finance there is something called utility theory. Its main axiom is that a dollar to one person does not represent the same worth as a dollar to the next person. When analyzing a financial opportunity for an individual you would assess the utility of money to that person with a set of questions similar to the one I suggested in my previous post for creating an equivalence between the suffering of victims of crime and innocent people who are convicted. One could argue that our progressive tax system actually taxes utility rather than dollars since a given amount of money is usually more precious to people who have less.<br />My general approach to any problem is to maximize utility. "The greatest good for the greatest number."Marty Shttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06465745755940914756noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-25951784675617202862009-04-28T02:15:00.000-07:002009-04-28T02:15:00.000-07:00Marty, on this issue at least would you describe y...Marty, on this issue at least would you describe yourself as a utilitarian?Shady_Gradyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00996625985002373392noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-42410222889878320302009-04-27T18:51:00.000-07:002009-04-27T18:51:00.000-07:00Robert: Both you and I don't know exactly what the...Robert: Both you and I don't know exactly what the equivalence number is, but the approach some one in my field would use goes something like this. I know I would choose to jail one innocent man to save 100 women from rape. I know I would jail one innocent man to save 50 women, 25, 10 or 5 below five I would begin to have to think about it. Lets say at three I would say okay we have gone to0 far. Think about it yourself if I asked you a series of questions starting at 100 and working my way down would you jail an innocent man to save this many women from rape would you answer yes at at least some of the higher numbers. So now do a large survey of people to determine a consensus level which would become the target. Now we would need to begin to gather data to determine where we are relative to the target. Where we most go wrong and work with experts in law and law enforcement to adjust system to meet or exceed the target.Marty Shttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06465745755940914756noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-81550351354725698002009-04-27T17:45:00.000-07:002009-04-27T17:45:00.000-07:00Marty,
I do agree with your main point about impr...Marty,<br /><br />I do agree with your main point about improving the justice system. I'm not so sure how you'll mathematically go about optimizing justice in the justice system. How do you "mathematize" a human being in a prison-as-industrial-system? Isn't that what privatized prisons are all about -- maximizing the profit-making potential of individual humano-industrial units -- oops, I mean prisoners -- in the prison-industrial system?<br /><br />And you can ask me a zillion times your question about "How many raped woemen & molested children does it take to outweigh one innocent man convicted unjustly, because I don't pretend to have an answer for that one. Don't think anyone does.<br /><br />Well, you might. I'd like to see what kind of scary mathematical formula you might have for that situation.<br /><br />RobertAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-3424110245984660782009-04-27T17:35:00.000-07:002009-04-27T17:35:00.000-07:00Mr. Moran,
"I'd just love it if someone out there...Mr. Moran,<br /><br />"I'd just love it if someone out there could refer me to a well known expert on interrogation who thinks that torture isn't counterproductive".<br /><br />I have just the man for you. He meets your requirements. Much to his regret he is quite well known and he wasn't above a little hard-ball in his interrogation methods and he got results with them, too. All the time? Doubt it, but you can ask him for yourself. Maybe he'll tell you?<br /><br />His name is Keith Hall. His interrogation cum vitae is both extensive and impressive. Among interrogators he'd be something of a valedictorian at Langley High. Sorry, his home address is not for publication, but you can likely get a note to him by writing a letter through and to: <br /><br />Mark Bowden <br />c/o of Vanity Fair<br />Conde Nast Publications<br />4 Times Square Suite 17<br />New York, NY 10036poltergeistnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-75145235661448188262009-04-27T16:56:00.000-07:002009-04-27T16:56:00.000-07:00"...purpose of a justice system is minimize crime,..."...purpose of a justice system is minimize crime, i.e. reduce the number of victims of crime, in the society rather than to merely punish criminals then optimization of the system requires balancing how well it accomplishes its goal of protecting society against its possible failure by convicting the innocent." Doesn't sound like an unreasonable approach as long as you count false convictions as serious criminal acts when they're uncovered and throw the relevant cops, lawyers, judges, DAs in prison, sure. Count the crimes committed inside prisons, too, while you're at it.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-78430088220642268632009-04-27T16:54:00.000-07:002009-04-27T16:54:00.000-07:00The question remains, does torture have ANY useful...The question remains, does torture have ANY usefulness, under any circumstances. From my own knowledge of history, the answer appears to be YES. Voluminous testimony demonstrates its extremely low reliability for extracting useful information. That is, torture is effectively useless compare to more standard and sophisticated (not to mention humane)interrogation methods as employed by Scharf et al. However, circumstances may arise (i.e. the "Smoking Gun" scenario popularized by Dershowitz, Harris et al) where the price of total ignorance is so unacceptably disastrous that ANY scrap of info, however dubious or suspect, that might preserve untold number of innocents, is worth the "price" of inflicting torture. Maybe a straight confession under painful duress is a transparent lie, but a subtle grimace, the odd slip of the tongue, garbled names mumbled during the fleeting semi-consciousness before agony takes all, might, as the Talmud quoted in Schindler's List put it: "Save the World Entire".<br /><br />Ethiopian InfidelAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-31997062392240117582009-04-27T16:38:00.000-07:002009-04-27T16:38:00.000-07:00Robert: You have missed my point,which is to creat...Robert: You have missed my point,which is to create the best justice system possible. Here's where I am coming from in my approach to that aim. I am a industrial mathematician. I spent my career optimizing the performance of industrial systems. To me the justice system is just another system to be optimized. Before you can optimize any system you must determine your optimization criteria. My choice of criteria is to maximize the protection it affords to all members of our society. This is not the same as the criteria minimize the number of innocent men convicted. I choose this criteria, because, the criteria minimize the number of innocent men convicted, ignores the fact that the end result of that optimization is likely to result in more guilty men going free, which is likely to result in more innocent people being the victim of crime. So again ask you how many women have to be raped, how many children have to be molested before their suffering outweighs the suffering of an innocent man convicted of the same crime.Marty Shttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06465745755940914756noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-64515058780743333352009-04-27T15:34:00.000-07:002009-04-27T15:34:00.000-07:00Torture, as an information-gathering tool, is only...Torture, as an information-gathering tool, is only useful under a narrow range of circumstances:<br /><br />1) The information you need is immediately testable. You need to be able to confirm it without stopping the torture for any significant length of time (or at all)<br />2) You have very little time. Any other method is preferrable to get the information in 1) unless you have very little time to get to it.<br /><br />So, for instance, if you need the password to an encrypted file on someone's laptop (which you have) in the next couple hours, torture is the way to go.<br /><br />This effectiveness, however, only serves to support the illegality of torture, rather than justifying it under extreme circumstances. Any situation where torture is effective for extracting information is one where any legal repercussions of doing it won't come until long after the information has proved its use. <br /><br />In other words, you shouldn't be torturing for any reason you wouldn't be willing to go to prison for.<br /><br />Imminent biological attack on major U.S. city? Daughter kidnapped and sold into sex slavery? What kind of coward wouldn't be willing to do ten or twenty years hard time to stop something like that? <br /><br />Making torture illegal doesn't make it impossible; It just sets a very high standard for it's use. In my admittedly anonymous opinion, the only morally acceptable standard.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-29124051193226938672009-04-27T14:34:00.000-07:002009-04-27T14:34:00.000-07:00Re: Crazymakers.
Stay away from them. Cut all c...Re: Crazymakers.<br /><br />Stay away from them. Cut all contact. That's the course of action with the highest chance of success.Mike Rallsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-81143332680323574772009-04-27T14:33:00.000-07:002009-04-27T14:33:00.000-07:00Marty,
Firstly, thank you for rereading my post a...Marty,<br /><br />Firstly, thank you for rereading my post and commenting on what I wrote.<br /><br />I didn't miss your point; to the contrary, I got it. I just don't agree with it.<br /><br />You seem to be saying that we don't dare tamper with our current justice system, with the intent of making it more just for innocent and guilty? Do you really believe that. One major inequity of our current system is that the weatlthier you are, the better the quality of "justice" you can afford. <br /><br />And do you *really* believe that "we never knowingly convict am innocent man"?!? Really? It happens all the time.<br /><br />RobertAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-72715724537821127702009-04-27T13:42:00.000-07:002009-04-27T13:42:00.000-07:00"Does anyone out there know a "crazy maker?"
I've..."Does anyone out there know a "crazy maker?"<br /><br />I've known 2 for sure, a few more potentials I avoided quickly. My definition, or symptoms I look for in a crazy maker: They did it first and better than you and they're ambidextrous; yet everything bad happens to them, it's never their fault, and everyone they interact with is identified as 100% friend or 100% enemy (and that state can turn on a dime)<br /><br />The only solution I know of is to stay as far as possible from them. Don't talk to them, don't talk about them, avoid your common friends. I made the mistake of trying to be socially cordial to one once, still got drawn into the vortex of madness.Audiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12014886402102923551noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-4712220567485434822009-04-27T12:26:00.000-07:002009-04-27T12:26:00.000-07:00Marty, it seems to me that you're putting a heck o...Marty, it seems to me that you're putting a heck of a lot of blind faith in the notion that torture won't cost us anything. That its only possible outcome is a smaller or larger amount of benefit from extracting true information; that we'll never actually lose by believing the false information we get, because we really wanted to be convinced of something (nonexistent WMDs, whatever), that our tortured captives were all too willing to oblige on. That the knowledge that we torture will not <I>at all</I> interfere with using the rapport building methods that professional interrogators report as being more successful, but at the same time <I>will</I> cow non-tortured captives into giving more information (of which we'll prove ever so good at extracting the truth from the lies). I see no evidence of this; all the evidence I see, and all the best accounts of people with direct professional knowledge, seem to me to point otherwise. <br /><br />At the same time, you're setting the burden of proof heavily on the side of presuming that if higher ups are asking for it, torture <I>must</I> actually enhance our intelligence, and unless the negative can be proven, that torture <I>never, ever</I> produces a true and useful lead, all its costs can be ignored. And I don't see any basis for making such assumptions.Lynn Gazis-Saxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16775215056055972392noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-10424824451410595592009-04-27T06:50:00.000-07:002009-04-27T06:50:00.000-07:00Steven - Sorry to post this here but have no other...Steven - Sorry to post this here but have no other way to contact you.....I ordered your LifeWrite course over two weeks ago and have yet to receive it. What is up?? Latanya Westmswest411https://www.blogger.com/profile/03344823507089755164noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-34941082566407629532009-04-27T00:02:00.000-07:002009-04-27T00:02:00.000-07:00As I am given to understand it, Scripture's origin...As I am given to understand it, Scripture's original meaning was closer to "Thou shall not murder." <br /><br />Different beast, innit?Steve Perryhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12079658447270792228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-85106012419602925082009-04-26T20:00:00.000-07:002009-04-26T20:00:00.000-07:00Robert: You are the one completely missing the poi...Robert: You are the one completely missing the point. We don't knowingly convict an innocent man. Being human we accidentally convict an innocent man because the evidence suggests he is guilty. If we change the rules to make it easier to convict we will convict both more guilty individuals and more innocent individuals. If we change the rules to make it harder to convict we will convict fewer innocent men and fewer guilty men. That's the facts of the real world The question we are then arguing is how do we decide what is the proper level of proof of guilt that we should require. There is plenty of evidence that a criminal will repeat his crime when able to, so we can be very sure that innocent members of our society will be the victim of crimes by guilty people who were not convicted, if we set the standard of proof too high. All I have said is that in deciding where to set the standard of proof we must consider the evil of these additional crimes along side of the evil of convicting an innocent man.Marty Shttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06465745755940914756noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-44037455736522001622009-04-26T19:33:00.000-07:002009-04-26T19:33:00.000-07:00I'd just love it if someone out there could refer ...I'd just love it if someone out there could refer me to a well known expert on interrogation who thinks that torture <I>isn't</I> counterproductive.Daniel Keys Moranhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12992599044462413412noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-70379825781857622892009-04-26T19:30:00.000-07:002009-04-26T19:30:00.000-07:00Quiet Men Of Fort HuntWiki entry on Hans Scharff, ...<A HREF="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/05/AR2007100502492.html" REL="nofollow">Quiet Men Of Fort Hunt</A><A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanns_Scharff" REL="nofollow">Wiki entry on Hans Scharff</A>, the greatest German interrogator of WWII.<br /><br /><A HREF="http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200506/budiansky" REL="nofollow">Article on Sherwood Moran</A>, the greatest American interrogator of WWII.<br /><br /><I>Six months before the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison broke into public view, a small and fairly obscure private association of United States Marine Corps members posted on its Web site a document on how to get enemy POWs to talk.<br /><br />The document described a situation very similar to the one the United States faces in the insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan: a fanatical and implacable enemy, intense pressure to achieve quick results, a brutal war in which the old rules no longer seem to apply.<br /><br />Marine Major Sherwood F. Moran, the report's author, noted that despite the complexities and difficulties of dealing with an enemy from such a hostile and alien culture, some American interrogators consistently managed to extract useful information from prisoners. The successful interrogators all had one thing in common in the way they approached their subjects. They were nice to them.<br /><br />Moran was writing in 1943, and he was describing his own, already legendary methods of interrogating Japanese prisoners of war. More than a half century later his report remains something of a cult classic for military interrogators. The Marine Corps Interrogator Translator Teams Association (MCITTA), a group of active-duty and retired Marine intelligence personnel, calls Moran's report one of the "timeless documents" in the field and says it has long been "a standard read" for insiders. (A book about the Luftwaffe interrogator Hans Joachim Scharff, whose charm, easygoing manner, and perfect English beguiled many a captured Allied airman into revealing critical information, is another frequently cited classic in the field.) An MCITTA member says the group decided to post Moran's report online in July of 2003, because "many others wanted to read it" and because the original document, in the Marine Corps archives, was in such poor shape that the photocopies in circulation were difficult to decipher. He denies that current events had anything to do with either the decision to post the document or the increased interest in it.<br /><br />But it is hard to imagine a historical lesson that would constitute a more direct reproach to recent U.S. policies on prisoner interrogation. And there is no doubt that Moran's report owes more than a little of its recent celebrity to the widespread disdain among experienced military interrogators for what took place at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo when ill-trained personnel were ordered to "soften up" prisoners. Since the prison scandals broke, many old hands in the business have pointed out that abusing prisoners is not simply illegal and immoral; it is also remarkably ineffective.<br /><br />"The torture of suspects [at Abu Ghraib] did not lead to any useful intelligence information being extracted," says James Corum, a professor at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College and the author of a forthcoming book on counterinsurgency warfare. "The abusers couldn't even use the old 'ends justify the means' argument, because in the end there was nothing to show but a tremendous propaganda defeat for the United States."<br /><br />Corum, who recently retired as a lieutenant colonel after twenty-eight years in the Army and Reserves, mostly in military intelligence, says that Moran's philosophy has repeatedly been affirmed in subsequent wars large and small. "Know their language, know their culture, and treat the captured enemy as a human being" is how Corum sums up Moran's enduring lesson.</I>Daniel Keys Moranhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12992599044462413412noreply@blogger.com