This of course will get little traction on a site where all of the 'thought leaders' are employed or bribed by the same intelligence agencies these people have a problem with.
#edit flag away you echo-chamber loving fools of anti-intellectualism.
I bet more people register to view my flagged comment than do to engage in the farce of a comment board you Marxist fools run.
> on a site where all of the 'thought leaders' are employed or bribed by the same intelligence agencies these people have a problem with.
[Checks leaderboard; I'm still there at #27]
Clearly, there has been an oversight. The intelligence officials responsible for employment and bribes should contact me at their earliest convenience to correct this.
This is how I feel about being Jewish. I’m still waiting for the International Zionist Elders or Cabal or something to give me a shout. But no, nothing after all these years :(
Even evil elites understand the need to be able to have a good-faith conversation. You're too used to addressing the internet karma as opposed to the individual. Yours is a meta-conversation held by meta-people. Unsuitable for anything other than being a tool for the elite. Carry on.
That's real optimistic of the Guardian but somehow I doubt there's all that much grass roots support against rendition flights. We live in an age where "Muslim ban" sounds like appropriate policy to about half the population.
In Democracy the people get the government they deserve. Guess we really don't deserve human rights and habeus corpus.
> We live in an age where "Muslim ban" sounds like appropriate policy to about half the population. In Democracy the people get the government they deserve. Guess we really don't deserve human rights and habeus corpus.
So speak up. Educate your fellow citizens as to why these issues are important. Break through their media bubble/snowglobe and have multiple meaningful conversations that go deeper than the talking points spewed out by media personalities. Much of the country is purple not red and blue - if you can have a respectful conversation with someone you can find common ground on these issues.
And show up on election day.
The First Amendment exists for a reason - "we get the government we deserve" applies to those of us who chose to stay informed as well if we don't respond to the challenges of the day.
>So speak up. Educate your fellow citizens as to why these issues are important. Break through their media bubble/snowglobe and have multiple meaningful conversations that go deeper than the talking points spewed out by media personalities.
Have you ever actually gotten that to work? Have you personally ever changed a single persons mind? Not trying to be facetious, but I'm incredulous.
Yes, very much so with some individuals. I have friends and family across the political spectrum and we regularly talk about the issues of the day (always in person, social media is a horrible platform for this). I've had success educating individuals about issues like net neutrality, gun rights, gay marriage, climate change, and environmental regulation to the point that they completely changed their views to at least neutral. They've changed my views on issues as well.
I've also talked people out of supporting outrageous statements or made them question their own beliefs (rural relatives in South Dakota who loved talking about their lack of income tax now openly question why SD gets so much more government tax money than neighbouring MN etc).
That said, the point isn't to be "win", it's to have a dialogue, share ideas, and break out of the "us vs them" mentality.
> Have you ever actually gotten that to work? Have you personally ever changed a single persons mind?
It is extremely hard and works only with people not entirely webbed into "alternative media". I managed to get only one attendant of a Nazi march to rethink his views. In three years. Conspiracy theories are hard to break out of, especially for those without a job and doing nothing but watch "freemen of the land", "europe will be islamized" or "the hooton plan is real" (hooton plan = nazi nutjob theory that "the elite" wants to extinguish the Germans by having them breed with "weaker races") videos all day.
The rest, well... beating them like Spencer isn't exactly the most moral way either, but forcing them back into their caves at least keeps them off the streets. I don't want Nazis openly marching with torches on the streets.
This, sorry, were different times, however I admire the patience of this man.
Today it is possible for someone to hear, watch and read only fake news all day without having any kind of dissenting viewpoint, compared to prior times where the only exposure was the weekly KKK gathering and maybe some letters. It is way harder (or impossible!) to break through the psychological walls the exposure to this shit creates.
In addition, today's fake news and right wing propaganda is specifically engineered to appeal to the lowest prime instincts only, and Facebook's algorithms only intensify the problem as they keep feeding you more and more poison.
Ten years ago I would still try to engage “TV watching folks” about the things I had read about, for example re: Sept 11. Only later realized I never had a chance, versus the corporate idiot box on in their house 4+ hours a day.
That’s kind of a disrespectful way to deal with someone, going in with the idea their mind needs to be changed. Nothing productive comes from telling someone they’re wrong.
I’ve found the most movement comes with frank and respectful exchange of ideas. I’ve moved a little as a result, and I’ve seen others move a bit too. Sometimes that movement has come simply from recognizing the other party isn’t as insane as common rhetoric would paint them.
I largely share your incredulity, but allow me to make a more optimistic counterpoint.
I frequently change my mind, which is proof that one or more people out there are changing at least one person's mind. And here's the thing: in nearly all cases, the person or, more often, the people who change my mind never know it. I am often stubborn in the moment and unwilling to admit I've been swayed. More often, I don't realize that I have been swayed until I revisit the conversation over the next months, while adding in new information from other conversations or things I'm reading with a developing perspective. Sometimes my mind changes so slowly that I don't even notice it did until someone quotes back to me the now (obviously! objectively!) wrong thing I used to think.
My point is this: you may be changing minds without knowing it. And another point: even if you aren't, you are likely benefitting personally from having meaningful conversations with people.
I'm glad you made this point, because it's a maxim I live by: You can't change people, you can only encourage them to change themselves.
To effect change, people must be open and willing to change themselves. And I don't think most people are, especially the older we get.
If you want to change people's minds on a big scale, it's by educating the young, and creating incentives towards your way of thinking. It requires institutional power, and it takes generations.
I like the first two paragraphs but I'm not sure I can swallow that third one.
As a direct counter-example: I think a lot of older people have given up their previous views on privacy in exchange for using Facebook and doing other commonly-intrusive internet activities.
I think I'd replace the paragraph with "If you want to change someone's mind, try demonstrating an alternative with better trade-offs".
I'm hoping the GDPR will be a demonstration to Canadians & Americans that demanding a right to privacy is a viable alternative to the status quo.
Social networks, advertising, and privacy are able co-exist, just perhaps not with the existing trade-offs allowing free-as-in-beer and know-me-better-than-myself-"features".
One thing that happens is that I'll have a debate with someone, try to refute all their points and kind of end up in a stalemate because I don't want to give in. But when I have another conversation on the same topic with someone else, the points made by the person in the previous discussion become my points.
Don't take this as a personal comment, but the ability to change ones mind based on changing facts is one of the characteristics of liberals. Conservatives, on the other hand, by definition are known for not changing their minds.
Perhaps we have multiple definitions of "conservative" in circulation. The definition with which I'm most familiar does not include a propensity for dogmatism
This is an interesting point, but the accumulation of anecdotal experience in my life suggests it is untrue, at least for the political definitions of "conservative" and "liberal" in the US. I see mind-changers and non-mind-changers on both sides of the political spectrum, and it seems to me that changeability is far more determined by other factors than by predominant political leaning.
From the perspective of someone who has been on both sides of the arguments regarding climate change how is it possible to be intelligent and not believe in climate change. I absolutely don't mean to imply you are stupid.
I had a relative who was extremely intelligent, his career being aurospace engineer who didn't believe in cimate change and another a computer programmer who didn't believe in evolution.
I don't think I understand how people can believe nonsense and yet obviously be capable of learning complex and difficult topics.
The programmer believed that god waved a magic wand to bring into being all present and prior animals. He had thought about this extensively and had done research and still believed the magic wand explanation.
> how is it possible to be intelligent and not believe in climate change.
Ok, let me give it a try. A few years ago I knew nothing about climate science.
My scepticism (not denying) was grounded in the overwhelming focus on feelings, not numbers.
When someone started answer my questions with measurable numbers my scepticism waned.
So I might have been wrong about this but I think it is often a nice heuristic: when people refuse to give you data and insist on either playing your feelings (with pictures of sad animals), appeal to authority (2500 scientists...) or outright calling you a troll then it could be because there was no hard data.
The problem is that plenty of people are being told "Those numbers are Fake!" and believe that with all their heart. You can't fight willful ignorance.
> Have you ever actually gotten that to work? Have you personally ever changed a single persons mind?
I know the question wasn't directed at me, and it's not with respect to the proposed Muslim ban, but I have changed the mind of some of the voters from this general background: specifically, would-be Roy Moore voters. I convinced a good handful of them not to vote for him[1]. And as far as I know, they stayed home.
The key is to be extremely patient, honest, and respectful. You can't use the typical Twitter technique of beating them over the head with opinions, or even the blunt HN technique of overwhelming them with facts. You have to first try to understand their viewpoint, and where they are coming from. Doesn't mean you have to agree with it, just understand it. And the best way to do that is to start asking lots of respectful questions, and depending on the person, sharing your own background. Then, start interspersing harder questions about the subject in question, like Roy Moore in this case. Don't push too hard, but ask hard questions in a respectful way.
Of course, in these situations, you have to be open to having your opinion changed, as well.
It's not a very eloquent summary of what I've done in this situations, but it's the best I've got tonight.
1. Perhaps the hardest part about this is differentiating between propaganda sock puppet accounts, whom you will likely never convince, and actual people who happen to believe some pretty crazy things. Once you've identified real, genuine fellow citizens behind whatever pseudonymous social media account, you're half-way there.
I forgot where I read it, maybe on the Southern Poverty Law Center's site, but I could be wrong, but they were talking about a similar thing -- how to convince people to change their mind. The example was about how to change people's opinion in regard to transgender people. The idea was similar -- beating them on the head with 140-character sarcastic blurbs, showing stats and facts, insulting etc, just doesn't work. What works is to talk to them face to face and to present a case of one particular individual, not a hypothetical one but one whose name is John or Jane and how they are struggling and how they face hate and discrimination and how it makes them feel.
I'm still waiting for a TV commercial to tell me the story of a kid whose parents lost their jobs due to emissions restrictions. Anectodes work perfectly - it's terrifying, because they work in any direction equally well.
Numbers, statistics and well reasoned argument can certainly mold someone's opinion on a subject if it's not one they're passionate about one way or the other.
Most of the pro-gun liberals I know said they didn't have a strong opinion on the subject and they found the pro-gun numbers and stats less filled with dishonest trickery than the anti-gun numbers and stats.
With most issues most people don't care much. These are the people who you can convince to have a baseline opinion that is (for example) against the CIA shipping people off to be tortured with carefully reasoned argument. It's like how most people believe man-made climate change is a thing to some extent. They don't care strongly but a couple decades of numbers and facts have influenced the baseline opinion of those people.
This is very similar to a famous study. Where door-to-door canvassing was shown to be very powerful to change people‘s mind. I believe it was California’s prop 8.
Unfortunately, that study turned out to be completely falsified.
But, in anotothef twist, the underlying hypothesis may indeed appear to have some merit—there are a few studies now underway.
(Sorry for not including links—on mobile right nowk
I just recently watched "City of ghosts"[1], and while there are many strong moments - one that stood out to me, is about in the middle, where these people - heroes in our time - who fled isis/daesh because of being persecuted - because of being citizen journalists - are in Berlin at a counter-demonstration against a neo nazi rally.
And it kind of just slots so many pieces of wrong conclusions and xenophobia and dehumanization of the "other" together in one, painfully clear image...
I'm not sure of that moves the needle on being able to convince anyone.. But if not we might as well all build gas chambers and furnaces and burn vagrants as a source of electricity. Because if we give up fighting for the right for all of being viewed as human - what's left?
[ed: to more directly answer the question - I know I've made people pause - but most recently - a friend really made someone reconsider/reframe their idea of feminism/equality due to an hour or two of discussion and and real-world examples. So it is possible, but it takes patience, emphaty and knowledge.]
Likely because he leads with “Muslim ban,” which sounds ignorant. Most people who agree with the ban realize it is a temporary ban on countries requested by DHS because there currently is no valid process for doing background checks on people from those countries. So yeah I can see why he fails to change minds.
Regardless of what Trump actually implemented. During the campaign he called for a Muslim ban.
"Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what the hell is going on."
>We live in an age where "Muslim ban" sounds like appropriate policy to about half the population.
The OP is saying that close to half the voters voted for Trump, so it's likely they agree that a Muslim ban is appropriate.
Well, it makes a great deal of sense in using "Muslim Ban". You 'otherize' them, you set them up against "You", and then you discriminate against them because they hate and want violence against you.
It's also hard to go against this, as we've been at war with the Middle East since Desert Storm - only a ceasefire was called. And then later add on extremist moslems during September 11 attacks, and yeah.. It's a perfect firestorm of justifiable hatred of a religion by a great many people.
True that, but they're still Christians as far as R's are concerned. Yeah, they do have some weird radical views like the Pope - but those can be fixed.
The people in the middle east worship a "psychotic man with a hairy mole" (aka: Mohamed). I learned that on WIBC, 1070KHz after a multitude of interviews that Mike Pence hosted back in the mid 90's with "religion intellectuals". I was in my mid teens during that.. should have recorded him talking about all this, but I'm sure the radio studio has recordings as well.
And back to the main issue, "Otherization" allows targeting anyone they don't want. And this seems to be drifting hard to neo-nazism. I know the people on Daily Stormer and similar groups are rather happy.
There is Daryl Davis. He's black and personally convinced 200 KKK members into leaving the organization [1].
I'm a better and more mature person at 40 than I was at 20 because people have taken the time to patiently point out flaws in my own thinking. Not every conversation moves the direction of your life, but they do collectively nudge you in the right direction.
> Have you personally ever changed a single persons mind?
Engage them directly, wait until the next conversation on the topic in a group, and hang back. Sometimes you'll be surprised. People don't always change their minds immediately, but this is to be expected -- it is a means to protect the ego.
If you want to know if you've probably changed someone's opinion, look for evidence of confusion. That said, you may not find any obvious tell unless they say something.
That's a strange set of questions to ask. If I take you on good faith that you aren't merely trolling the commenter, it means that an affirmative reply from a pseudonymous respondent on the internet would quell or at least temper your incredulity. That seems like a very brittle and easily gamed way to decide what you do and don't believe.
My own views have evolved based on conversations I’ve read and participated in online. I don't necessarily realize it at the time I’m still participating in the conversation, or stubborness may preclude me from telling the person presenting the opposing viewpoint that I decided to abandon my belief in favor of theirs, but i have been persuaded in the past. I assume this happens to other people as well.
One thing to note is that the beliefs you’re convincing people of don’t have to be top-level shifts like ‘be a communist instead of a libertarian ‘... one can help others see individual issues or political figures in a new light.
With one caveat, though. If you approach it with the mindset that you're out to educate other voters, you're not going to succeed. What you can do is have actual conversations with them. Sometimes those have results.
When one person sets out to educate another, there's a presumption of power, position, and knowledge. Unless the person to be educated has set out specifically to be educated, this is almost certainly going to rub them the wrong way. Instead of being educated on the subject you'd like, you'll educate them that advocates on a given subject are arrogant lecturing asses.
That's honestly the most realistic approach. I make a conscious effort not to follow politics nowadays, too much negativity, but doing so online seems to always cause folks to fly into defensive mode. In person less so. Facial cues, maybe?
Same experience here. I stopped it almost completely a couple of months ago when the authorities from my country (EU and NATO member, mind you) have started fining people for their anti-Government FB posts. The stated reasons were that those posts were inciting people to violence, but the police never revealed the posts' contents so there's no way to actually know when one can become liable for posting an anti-Government message, I mean "lets get the Government down!" can be seen as inciting people (and a new proposed law even mentions potential prison time for the same kind of FB posts). No way I risk going through that hassle for no real benefits, as people have very rarely changed their mind based on others' FB messages.
Do it in person and don't approach it as a conversation specifically about politics - "Did you see x in the news? Crazy huh?" is better than "Here is this hilarious meme about Republicans/Democrats!" etc.
"I'll tell you the whole history of it," Giuliani said, as transcribed by The Washington Post. "So when (Trump) first announced it, he said, 'Muslim ban.' He called me up. He said, 'Put a commission together. Show me the right way to do it legally.'"
While Trump's immigration policy was not actually a Muslim ban and was actually very similar to some of Obama's policies, a quick scan of my Facebook feed indicates that there are plenty of conservatives who actually do want a "Muslim ban" and believe that there's a significant movement to overthrow the government and institute Shariah Law in the U.S.
He called for a "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States." The fact that he didn't actually do that because of its manifest illegality is somewhat beside the point.
In my experience liberals want a Muslim ban too, they just aren't capable of stating it as such. For example, 86% of Egyptian Muslims support the death penalty for homosexuality. It's a simple question, how many of those people do you want voting in your district? How many of them do you want on your school board? Now, I'm fairly liberal leaning as far as immigration is concerned, and I don't support a Muslim ban either. But if you're checking the box that says you think gay people deserve to die, you can kindly turn your ass around and go back to wherever you came from, regardless of your religion. But this "policy" of mine disproportionately impacts Muslims. And by our modern standards of bigotry, that would mean that I support a "Muslim ban."
> When has someone pushed for a "Muslim ban" in the United States?
Right here:
“Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on.”
It's cheap of you to try to conflate the issue of torturing prisoners with the issue of restrictions on immigration. It is not inconsistent to support immigration restrictions on countries with Muslim extremists while simultaneously being against the torture of prisoners. You're tapping into identity politics.
Do you really need an exhaustive list of people not giving a shit about civil liberties, human rights and American values as long as its "terrorism and pedophiles"? "Muslim ban" is just the latest and least subtle. Let's work backwards:
How do you like your second amendment? How do you like due process of law? How about fuck both those things cause we're going to put people on Kafkaesque lists without any day in court and bar them from gun ownership without explanation. Surely such a measure would be massively unpopular with Republicans...
http://time.com/4370009/donald-trump-gun-control-watch-list-...
Its not like the US would actively hack US citizens on US soil in order to suppress a peaceful protest. Oh shit.
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/07/26/standing_rock_prote...
But you know, fuck them hippie protestors and occupy types. Whole lot should go get jobs amirite?
Do I need to continue? Because I can. I've barely even touched upon the Obama era. And obviously the Patriot act and Guantanamo before that.
Let me be clear here. I don't hate America. But when transgressions like this are applauded it becomes clear that a huge fraction of our populace just doesn't stand for our values. Our country is only as good as the people in it.
I dunno, if you look at specifically this kind of intelligence cooperation with "dirty" states' intelligence agencies (Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Pakistan, etc.), I've found people in "conservative" rural areas to be almost uniformly against it, even if you wouldn't be able to tell that from how their political representatives vote. I mean, to be fair, most people I've met in any location of any politics aren't really happy with it, which contrasts with how we seem to have a bipartisan consensus in favor. But the minority of people who will actually argue in favor have almost uniformly been in "liberal", urban areas. I've had a few infuriating arguments with California liberals defending Dianne Feinstein's views on intelligence cooperation, while I've never run into someone in a conservative part of Texas who really wants to convince me that CIA-Saudi connections are Actually Very Good. At most, they might fall back on "well, Clinton is even worse" in defending a GOP politician's votes, but I've never personally met rural conservatives who want to own that position. (Admittedly, I don't know any conservatives from more of a Donald Rumsfeld demographic, who I know exist and I assume are probably also on board with that kind of thing.)
I agree. It looks to me that this is just the case of the CIA operating completely out of control. USA is not to blame, the president is not to blame, and the citizens are not to blame.
This sounds like the "following orders" defense. Can organizations really get away with (in this case literal) murder just by appointing some idiot as director and pushing any liability onto him?
I'm not sure I'd let the presidents off the hook. It's not entirely clear because much information isn't public, but from what is public it appears likely that at least Bill Clinton and George W. Bush authorized at least some cases of 'extraordinary rendition'.
You present this as a dichotomy: Muslim Ban / Rendition flights, but that is a false dichotomy. People outside the country have no implicit right to enter it, but people inside the country have the constitution apply to them, including prohibition against torture and imprisonment without a charge.
We used to live in an age where more than half the population thought that separate bathrooms for Black people was as good idea. It seems bad now, but we're a hell of a lot better off than we were a few generations ago on the human rights front and the only way to make things better is to keep trying.
Well, I'm a North Carolinian and I just heard about this group from the article. I plan to attend the next meeting on the 22nd.
Not all of us out here are hicks, especially when you get to the big cities. Look at the voting trends by county and you'll see that Wake goes blue every year.
If I say my perfect person is Joseph Kony (a North African warlord; who created a religion of a sincretic mix of animism, Christianity, and Islam) and that I'm going to follow his example as closely as I can - please let me in to your country. Why would you ever say yes?
If you were to suggest stopping all people who admitted to idolising Kony from entering the country it would seem reasonable, no?
Arguing from the specific to the generic is an obvious logical fallacy and a darn slippery slope unless you also want to kick all Christians out a country based on the behavior of a small number of infamous ones.
I'm talking about chosen ideological association. Do Christians, as a group, claim an ideology that demands violent oppression? Yes the OT has stories of it, but Jesus - whom Christians claim to follow (cf. Gandhi) stood for equality and peaceful resistance. As far as anyone knows Jesus didn't kill anyone, nor call for violence against anyone; the opposite in fact. Yes, plenty of Christians are murderous and immoral.
If the leader of group A says kill people who won't join our group, or tax them heavily, your choice. And leader of group B says give everyone tea and cake if they want it. You're saying that if an adherent of group B happens to kill someone you should treat group B the same as group A. I say that's wrong.
To be specific again, this works for the KKK to, or people idolising Hitler, or ... if they admit that and want entry it seems good ground on which to refuse; even if that person doesn't ever intend to act on the ideology, or is unlikely too as far as can be established.
(Aside, there's no fallacy in establishing general rules based on specifics, unless scientific method is fallacious; even if it were fallacious the Fallacy Fallacy applies, ie fallacies don't indicate the truth value of any particular proposition).
Around your point of muslim ban and people getting what they deserve in a democracy, interestingly, the Quran (the holy book of God, believed by muslims) declares this:
"Verily, God does not change the state/condition of a People until they change themselves." (Quran 13:11)
> In Democracy the people get the government they deserve.
Small but important nuance: the majority vote gets the government they "deserve" ("voted for"). The rest has to go along with the majority vote. The rest are people as well, but they're marginalised by both your quote as well as by reality. The difference can be small. Case in point: the last US presidential election.
The value systems of the people running this must be severely distorted. Can't torture at home so let's fly people to some dictatorship to get it done there. I guess it's the same mindset that caused a democratically elected president in Iran to be overthrown and replaced by a dictator in order to save freedom and democracy.
I wouldn’t say it’s their value system, rather it’s a result of the enormous pressure they face. Torture should only be used as a last resort, and when there’s no other hope of getting information that is needed ASAP.
Easy to say, but in the real world there is a conflict between values and results. Values don’t need protection, they are intangible. In the end what you are protecting is people.
While utilitarian arguments can be a factor in an ethical framework they are not beneficial in isolation and will lead to grave injustices. If protecting people would be the real goal then many actions that were committed ostensibly for 'the greater good' were in fact ultimately net negatives and effectively harmed far more people than were protected. Part of the problem with utilitarian arguments is that we never have all the variables. It also should be noted that 'people' tends to be silently redefined as 'our people' and that this further skews the outcome towards the horrific.
Before you know it you're torturing people, gassing them or doing other unspeakable things to them because you've worked out some kind of equation where your predicted outcome justifies your horrible actions.
Values only matter when there is a price attached to them, it is very easy to have high standards for morality when they are essentially free.
I think that's a bit extreme and a black and white way of thinking.
For example, suppose you're heading an FBI group, and you've got a suicidal terrorist in custody who is part of a plot to detonate a nuclear bomb in LA. You have excellent evidence this guy is involved, and that the terrorists probably have a nuclear bomb in the country, and, if they realize their coconspirator has been captured, they are likely to detonate immediately.
The terrorist demands to see his lawyer. Your specialists say you should deny that request, because his lawyer may signal, intentionally or otherwise, the other terrorists. Should you allow the terrorist to meet with his lawyer?
Our society's laws say he should be able to see his lawyer. We value that kind of thing. And yet, if you would risk millions of lives to protect this right... Well, that seems perverse to me.
I hope my scenario has never happened, but nothing about it is implausible. The point though is to illustrate that there are moments where pragmatism must trump laws and values. If you look, there are many times throughout history where such tradeoffs have been made.
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy lists a real life example along the lines of my hypothetical one. In this example, a child is stuck in a hot car that is parked in a spot known only to the in custody car thief who is refusing to talk. The police proceed to beat the thief until he talks and save the child's life. This is straightforward example of when pragmatism must overrule idealism.
Then they should be honest, explain the situation and torture people at home with their own specialists immediately and not fly to them to some country with questionable torturing skills.
I think I understand your position. In the scenario you describe any kind of violence/torture needs to be done quickly to avert the situation. Otherwise it's too late. If the CIA renditions were based on something similar they shouldn't fly people to questionable countries but instead interrogate themselves quickly because times is of essence. Everything else would be irresponsible.
The scenario I'm describing doesn't involve any sort of violence or torture, which again, makes me think you're missing my point or conflating my position with something else.
In my original example the dilemma was between denying a suspected terrorist the right to consult with a lawyer and risking a nuclear terrorist attack. I gave this as an example of when idealism and pragmatism are in conflict. When you objected that this was unrealistic, I responded by giving a real life example where idealism and pragmatism were in conflict.
The purpose of my example was to create a situation where it should be obvious the right move is to go against idealism. The reason is, if your starting point is something like "We must never deny people their rights" I'd like to show you an extreme example where, actually, we must. If you can agree on the extreme example, then the discussion becomes a matter of degree - i.e. when is it okay to deny people their rights versus when it is not. This is actually the more nuanced and realistic discussion that has applicability to the real world.
Where do you draw the line? If torture is acceptable in some circumstances, why isn't it in others? If torturing a car thief is ok, why not in a random stop-and-frisk?
Lines have to be drawn frequently. It's okay to use a tazer or even a gun in some circumstances, others, not. With the torture case, we'd have to see that the benefit vastly exceeds the harm, and that reasonable measures were exhausted first. Beating a car thief to save the life of a child strikes me as a case where reasonable measures were exhausted and where the benefit vastly exceeds the harm.
Suppose you have one person in custody that hates another and is totaly up for pointing finger at the other person even though they are innocent. Oh yeah, that guy is planning an attack. Of course, we could both stop making things up...
Torture doesn't provide any valuable intelligence results for those doing the torturing, we're not living in "24", the TV series. I know for sure that if I were to be tortured I'd be ready to recognize even the killing of the biblical character Abel if those doing the torturing would ask that from me, and I guess I'm not the only person so predisposed.
That’s a myth, if you’re looking for objective verifiable facts you can get some useful information.
Also, if you have enough statistical data on torture methods, you can have a probability that a person doesn’t know something based on how long they’ve been actively tortured.
All the scientific evidence disagrees with you and so do many former employees and directors of intelligence agencies, so I'd like to see some citations.
You don't even have to go into physical torture: recent history is filled with cases where people confessed to crimes under police interrogation, only to have iron-clad evidence show up that they couldn't possibly be responsible.
The most effective technique is befriending the suspect, doing nice things for them, then allowing the natural human tendency to reciprocate (and a desire for positive social interactions) work for you. It takes time but gets you much more reliable information - and much more extensive information.
I mean, the APA does promote good research and also supported torture up until recently when it started attracting attention and became politically untenable. To the extent that it is possible to optimize torture, it has probably been optimized by some pretty competent people.
I do not doubt that there is some mathematics behind modern torture, we've come a long way from the days of gruesome medieval torture which was mostly punitive. Given the data we have on what has worked in the past, and cross-referencing it with a person's time under torture, we can reduce or even eliminate the intensity of torture after a certain confidence threshold has been crossed.
Let's be clear, torture is an unpleasant technique and should only be an absolute last resort when everything else has failed, but it's far better to be tortured by people who know what they're doing and are only trying to get information out of you, than by people whose goal is simply to hurt you (often for no reason and with no stopping point).
For how long is that OK? Is it OK to torture someone until you've been able to achieve, let's say, six nines -- 99.9999% probability that they have no information for you?
Is it OK to go for 10+ nines, as long as our goal isn't to inflict pain -- and despite the fact that we are indeed inflicting pain, mentally and/or physically?
Just for the sake of argument, let's say that 99.99% can be accomplished in 24 hours of pain infliction (torture) -- and let's say you'll get to 6 nines in 168 hours (7 days).
Oh come on, who am I kidding -- as much as I appreciate the discourse, I can't even fathom or given consideration to it actually being something that can be realistically reasoned about in this way. =\",
Most people will hand over their wallet, phone, car keys, passwords, and spill their darkest secrets if you just point a toy gun at them and raise your voice.
Some won't, but saying "torture doesn't work" as a blanket statement implies that they all have infinite pain tolerance.
Sure, it doesn't always work. Some people will also withstand torture and take their secrets to the grave. But "torture doesn't always work" is a far cry from "torture doesn't work."
A more believable amoral/utilitarian argument against torture is that there will always be a more effective method than torture available. That's probably also wrong, but at least it's not so obviously wrong on its face.
The problem with the argument is that if a would-be torturer finds evidence that torture is the most effective method in some circumstance, they will feel vindicated in using it. I think a better argument is "regardless of effectiveness, anyone crossing this line is a dangerous and despicable person, and shall be prosecuted."
"Can't torture at home so let's fly people to some dictatorship to get it done there."
People are tortured in the US all the time. All the time.
Ordinary prisons are well-known example, where one can be subject to solitary confinement, denial of medical care, subjection to temperature extremes, beatings, and rape so common that it's the subject of the most common prison-related jokes.
Military recruits are often tortured to "toughen them up", as punishment, or ostensibly to prepare them for possible torture at the hands of "The Enemy".
Hazings at colleges and universities are often effectively torture.
> Military recruits are often tortured to "toughen them up", as punishment, or ostensibly to prepare them for possible torture at the hands of "The Enemy".
That couldn’t be further from the truth. It use to be that drill instructors/MTI can hit you. Not anymore. The worse they can do to you is yell in your face and give you a spit shower. They're even required to give you 8 hours of sleep except in special cases. There are many other rules as well and these rules are a big deal these days.
I suspect "I don't make the rules, I just enforce them" is the general way to get good people to go along with the government's schemes.
One of my passengers got 'ordinarily-renditioned' [0] to the county jail. They let her go after a few hours, when the city cops found someone else who actually matched the description of the petty beer thief they were looking for.
Last month I learned (via facebook) that another of my passengers got arrested (outstanding warrant - he'd missed a court date 2.5 years ago), and is suffering in jail. He's a diabetic, and has to submit to the time-release insulin injection they think he needs or they send him to solitary... I think time-release insulin is probably quite harmful when combined with the jail's starvation diet.
It seems to only take a handful of people to start a government-racket. Thereafter they seem to basically keep themselves going, and it takes acts of heroism to shut them down.
Because Germany was defeated (largely by Russia, who was promptly fitted as "new" enemy).
No one has been convicted for fire bombing dresden, or Hiroshima and Nagasaki - or the fire bombing campaigns in Japan. No one has been convicted over nan king. No one (afaik) have been convicted of us support for the coup in Chile.
There's atrocities to go around, only the weak at the international levek gets prosecuted.
And while it didn't "go well" in neurnberg - it certainly helped nazi Germany meet many milestones.
Yes. People don't want to know how the sausage is made, they don't want to break the law, they want to feel good. Delegating to some place outside the legal jurisdictions and and away from their backyards lets them do that.
You'd be surprised how many people condone and support it. Even people who on the surface would be opposed to it, they'd vote against if presented in elections. If it happened in the next town over, they might call the politicians. But if they have a way of denying that it is happening at all, they'd be happy to not ask questions and turn the other way.
Which is worse: torture or killing? It seems that with all the attention that torture got, the Obama administration basically stopped trying to capture people alive to interrogate them and instead just sent drone based missiles to just kill anyone suspected of terrorism.
Are they though? Sure we say we don't torture people but given a realistic choice between taking someone alive and killing them don't we generally favor capture?
From a practical perspective, if surending means you get tortured then people are more likely to keep fighting which costs both sides significantly. On the other hand taking someone as a prisoner of war and treating them reasonably means denying the enemy soldiers at minimal cost.
If we limit ourselves to those two options, I believe torture is worse. Or can be. There is no end to the horrors when you intentionally keep someone alive to make them suffer at your whim, vs. killing them in one fell swoop.
Torture exposes the blackest parts of our humanity in a way that droning someone never could.
If you have the chance to save the life of a terrorist who is about to detonate a bomb, you should? If that terrorist tells you "my people have set other bombs just like this, your people will die horribly" do you choose to kill them, or torture then to potentially save the many others from death and mutilation? Or do you just say "oh, how naughty" and clean up the blood of the innocent people afterwards.
If we refuse to play at the terrorists game of death then their cause wins at the cost of billions of lives. Then they can continue to kill and maim over ever more nuanced positions.
In part the problem is that a (the, I suspect) major source of terrorists is adherents of Islam who follow Mohammed's example of murder, and his injunctions in the Koran, and hadith, to violently oppress. As long as that book exists to inspire the actions, and that man is treated as a model for others then we'll continue to have such problems.
> Obama administration basically stopped trying to capture people alive to interrogate them and instead just sent drone based missiles to just kill anyone suspected of terrorism.
Not only that but after receiving a Nobel Peace Prize he proceeded to engage in drone warfare. Just in 2016 he dropped more then 20k bombs, in countries which we were not even at war with. Many in Africa. It was surprising how little flak he got for it. Indeed when he was elected in 2008 he got the best marketer of year award http://adage.com/article/moy-2008/obama-wins-ad-age-s-market... and he presented a great image.
> Which is worse: torture or killing?
It is kind of a false choice. But let's go with it, Obama effectively picked both. Anyone remember how he promised to close Guantanamo? Well it is still open. He picked both killing and continued torture. Yet people still idolize him and think he was so great. Again, that's the power of propaganda and marketing at work, AdAge's award was very much on point, better then Coke, Nike and Apple.
I think both of your statements can apply to any President. For instance, Trump has called for "fire and fury" against NK and "bombing the hell" out of our enemies. He's embraced torture as a mechanism for obtaining information and a cursory Google search shows that Gitmo conditions have gotten significantly worse over the past year. Frankly, this seems like a misdirected personal crusade of yours against Obama when virtually every administration has blood on its hands.
> this seems like a misdirected personal crusade of yours against Obama
I took it more as him pointing out that while Trump, right or wrong, is crucified in the press on a daily basis Obama was able to successfully spin a benevolent image to the point that he was absolutely held to a different standard. All presidents have blood on their hands, but there is a certain irony in Obama being the first Nobel peace price winner to bomb another peace prize winner.
That's fairly true, although I suspect the reason for the press' attitude towards Trump lies in the ratings/advertisement-driven nature of media. I don't think they're necessarily being held to different standards. Trump's daily tweets are cannonfodder to any (faux)journalist whereas Obama rarely gave anything for the media to criticize, which is why they harped so much on his birth certificate.
To your second point, I think the sheen of Obama's Presidency is definitely beginning to fade a bit. His failure to truly effect change in the Arab Spring showed amateurism in foreign policy. If there's any irony, it's in the Nobel laureate selection process (at least for the Peace prize); Kissinger won the damn thing in 73, which should tell anyone that the whole award is a farce.
> Just in 2016 he dropped more then 20k bombs, in countries which we were not even at war with. Many in Africa. It was surprising how little flak he got for it
Do you know who he dropped bombs on and why? You make it sound like he dropped bombs for the fun of it.
> Anyone remember how he promised to close Guantanamo?
A European here, I was under the impression he sincerely tried to close Guantanamo but failed because of GOP controlled house and senate. Could he have done more?
If I'm remembering correctly, that was actually the main problem. Most, if not all, are being held based on evidence or intelligence that would not fly in a typical American trial.
If they closed Gitmo and brought the detainees to the US for trial, almost all would have to be released.
I'm not necessarily saying that is a bad things, surely some (or even all) do not deserve to be held and should be released, but all it takes is one coming back and committing a terrorist act (could you even blame them after being illegally held and tortured for years?) for the worst PR nightmare a politician could even imagine rains down on them.
"It was surprising how little flak he got for it."
Indeed. The very same democrats who mock Trump supporters for not denouncing him when he said "Grab them by the pussy" did not denounce Obama when he literally sent automated killer robots to kill people in foreign countries not even at war with the united states.
In a two party system, you ignore bad things and back your guy, because what is the alternative? Backing the other side? Just Look at all the obvious horrors they are willfully ignoring!
> In a two party system, you ignore bad things and back your guy,
True, agreed. They could still stand up for what's right. Criticizing your party doesn't mean automatically endorsing the other party.
But I was also talking about the mainstream media and the coverage it got there as well.
> The very same democrats who mock Trump supporters for not denouncing him when he said "Grab them by the pussy" did not denounce Obama
Or look at the recent "shithole" controversy. Trump said "shithole" (which was terrible, of course) and they talked about it for weeks. Forgot which reporter was even crying on screen about it. That's fine, it's good to be critical and scrutinize those in power. But Obama was dropping bombs on pretty much the same countries and everything was relatively quiet, not many tears from reporters there. Democracy Now was covering and other articles here and there. It's because Obama was polite, composed and projected a professional image.
> The very same democrats who mock Trump supporters for not denouncing him when he said "Grab them by the pussy"
What does that have to do with Obama? Trump wasn't in the picture when Obama did any of this. This whole "what about you?" kind of rhetoric is utterly useless and pointless. All it does is reinforce football team politics.
Look at each case without trying to diminish one case by saying someone else did something worse. Obama messed up or deliberately did awful things and his actions have got nothing to do with anything anyone said or did about Trump later.
I'm not sure how to begin answering the moral question of what bad thing is worse. I do know that the answer is uninteresting to me. We just shouldn't be doing either of those things.
I do not believe the Obama administration used more drones because of public backlash against torture. Correlation does not imply causation and all that.
It could easily be explained that because torture doesn't work there's no reason to risk more lives to capture someone alive. It may be that drone technology just advanced and became an option or an easier option. I can think of a lot of possibilities but I have no reason to believe any of them.
I don't think it's a dichotomy - even if torture were heavily used, I don't that would prevent the drone strikes (and then there's the weird arguments of how many would you kill vs. how many would you torture). Realistically, the answer should be _neither_.
However, if you had to choose, I'd probably say torture is worse. Even a slow death is likely to be quick, and has an end, compared with a torturer who is actively trying to keep you alive so you can endure more.
>“It turned out I knew two of the three Aero principals well,” Caison said during a tour around the airport the day before the commission’s hearings convened. “These were prominent, well-respected business people in our community. Their children and mine were schoolmates. I baked their gingerbread houses for Christmas.”
I had a crazy thought that Caison could have organized an intervention for each. Involve close friends & family & neighbours and sit down with one principal at a time. Encourage them to come face to face with the morality of this.
A small private non-confrontational intervention could perhaps bring about quicker change if the principal's suddenly realize their friends & family & neighbours are aware of the shady aspects of their work.
Yes, "just" to get around constitutional rights. The constitution applies to everyone within the United States, citizen or otherwise. Removing them from US soil simplifies the equation somewhat.
I wonder if it's more logistical than legal - extraordinary rendition, by its nature, already exists outside of the law. It is, however, easier to hide someone outside of the country (from legal representatives etc.) and deny their existence, it's easier to hide the facilities, and it's easier to find skilled and willing practitioners of torture in a country which practices it more widely (boy, that's a fun thought :/).
It's also face-saving to some extent - it lets the leadership say "We do not torture" accurately and with a straight face, and I believe it's _slightly_ less risky legally (knowing torture is likely rather than actively ordering).
That said, I've no doubt some government agency could use torture with impunity on US soil though (especially when you consider local police forces have come somewhat close to doing exactly that. See, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Police_Department#Homa... ).
The whole thing is just so absurd and a little ridiculous. It's like some spy novel narrative where they can just burn money and fly around the world to torture a handful of people for information.
It would be more reasonable if it was done with a roll of duck tape at a random motel-6 in the middle of nowhere.
Honestly I don't know the legalities around the actual act of rendition. But even if it's illegal, it's much easier to hide that one flight than it is to hide someone being tortured within the United States. Plus, if someone is in a basement in Queens and they escape, they're in Queens. If someone escapes a basement in the middle of Poland, who cares?
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 221 ms ] thread#edit flag away you echo-chamber loving fools of anti-intellectualism.
I bet more people register to view my flagged comment than do to engage in the farce of a comment board you Marxist fools run.
I'm sorry? Did you have something to add, or did your frantic mashing of the oversocialized button get in the way of your argument (and grammar)?
[Checks leaderboard; I'm still there at #27]
Clearly, there has been an oversight. The intelligence officials responsible for employment and bribes should contact me at their earliest convenience to correct this.
In Democracy the people get the government they deserve. Guess we really don't deserve human rights and habeus corpus.
So speak up. Educate your fellow citizens as to why these issues are important. Break through their media bubble/snowglobe and have multiple meaningful conversations that go deeper than the talking points spewed out by media personalities. Much of the country is purple not red and blue - if you can have a respectful conversation with someone you can find common ground on these issues.
And show up on election day.
The First Amendment exists for a reason - "we get the government we deserve" applies to those of us who chose to stay informed as well if we don't respond to the challenges of the day.
Have you ever actually gotten that to work? Have you personally ever changed a single persons mind? Not trying to be facetious, but I'm incredulous.
I've also talked people out of supporting outrageous statements or made them question their own beliefs (rural relatives in South Dakota who loved talking about their lack of income tax now openly question why SD gets so much more government tax money than neighbouring MN etc).
That said, the point isn't to be "win", it's to have a dialogue, share ideas, and break out of the "us vs them" mentality.
It is extremely hard and works only with people not entirely webbed into "alternative media". I managed to get only one attendant of a Nazi march to rethink his views. In three years. Conspiracy theories are hard to break out of, especially for those without a job and doing nothing but watch "freemen of the land", "europe will be islamized" or "the hooton plan is real" (hooton plan = nazi nutjob theory that "the elite" wants to extinguish the Germans by having them breed with "weaker races") videos all day.
The rest, well... beating them like Spencer isn't exactly the most moral way either, but forcing them back into their caves at least keeps them off the streets. I don't want Nazis openly marching with torches on the streets.
Today it is possible for someone to hear, watch and read only fake news all day without having any kind of dissenting viewpoint, compared to prior times where the only exposure was the weekly KKK gathering and maybe some letters. It is way harder (or impossible!) to break through the psychological walls the exposure to this shit creates.
In addition, today's fake news and right wing propaganda is specifically engineered to appeal to the lowest prime instincts only, and Facebook's algorithms only intensify the problem as they keep feeding you more and more poison.
I’ve found the most movement comes with frank and respectful exchange of ideas. I’ve moved a little as a result, and I’ve seen others move a bit too. Sometimes that movement has come simply from recognizing the other party isn’t as insane as common rhetoric would paint them.
I frequently change my mind, which is proof that one or more people out there are changing at least one person's mind. And here's the thing: in nearly all cases, the person or, more often, the people who change my mind never know it. I am often stubborn in the moment and unwilling to admit I've been swayed. More often, I don't realize that I have been swayed until I revisit the conversation over the next months, while adding in new information from other conversations or things I'm reading with a developing perspective. Sometimes my mind changes so slowly that I don't even notice it did until someone quotes back to me the now (obviously! objectively!) wrong thing I used to think.
My point is this: you may be changing minds without knowing it. And another point: even if you aren't, you are likely benefitting personally from having meaningful conversations with people.
To effect change, people must be open and willing to change themselves. And I don't think most people are, especially the older we get.
If you want to change people's minds on a big scale, it's by educating the young, and creating incentives towards your way of thinking. It requires institutional power, and it takes generations.
As a direct counter-example: I think a lot of older people have given up their previous views on privacy in exchange for using Facebook and doing other commonly-intrusive internet activities.
I think I'd replace the paragraph with "If you want to change someone's mind, try demonstrating an alternative with better trade-offs".
I'm hoping the GDPR will be a demonstration to Canadians & Americans that demanding a right to privacy is a viable alternative to the status quo.
Social networks, advertising, and privacy are able co-exist, just perhaps not with the existing trade-offs allowing free-as-in-beer and know-me-better-than-myself-"features".
edit: reordering paragraphs edit2: reorganization
Don't take this as a personal comment, but the ability to change ones mind based on changing facts is one of the characteristics of liberals. Conservatives, on the other hand, by definition are known for not changing their minds.
disposed to preserve existing conditions, institutions, etc., or to restore traditional ones, and to limit change.
[1] http://www.dictionary.com/browse/conservative
The definition you posted above cover's the characteristics of a person's actions, strategies, etc.
In contrast, I understood your earlier post to be about conservative's epistemic habits.
Those two things are certainly connected, but aren't identical.
Proof: me.
I've changed my mind on certain topics - esp drugs and to a certain degree AGW based on discussions.
Protip: calling me a troll, paid shill, downvoting honest questions doesn't work on people like me.
I do however listen to reasonable arguments and take pride in being able to change my mind.
It doesn't work on anybody.
I had a relative who was extremely intelligent, his career being aurospace engineer who didn't believe in cimate change and another a computer programmer who didn't believe in evolution.
I don't think I understand how people can believe nonsense and yet obviously be capable of learning complex and difficult topics.
>"I don't think I understand how people can believe nonsense [...]" //
Are these supposed to be related. Not believing in evolution doesn't mean you do believe in nonsense, for example.
Once you've been around the block a few times it's easy to get cynical about scientific claims. Too much scientism.
Ok, let me give it a try. A few years ago I knew nothing about climate science.
My scepticism (not denying) was grounded in the overwhelming focus on feelings, not numbers.
When someone started answer my questions with measurable numbers my scepticism waned.
So I might have been wrong about this but I think it is often a nice heuristic: when people refuse to give you data and insist on either playing your feelings (with pictures of sad animals), appeal to authority (2500 scientists...) or outright calling you a troll then it could be because there was no hard data.
I know the question wasn't directed at me, and it's not with respect to the proposed Muslim ban, but I have changed the mind of some of the voters from this general background: specifically, would-be Roy Moore voters. I convinced a good handful of them not to vote for him[1]. And as far as I know, they stayed home.
The key is to be extremely patient, honest, and respectful. You can't use the typical Twitter technique of beating them over the head with opinions, or even the blunt HN technique of overwhelming them with facts. You have to first try to understand their viewpoint, and where they are coming from. Doesn't mean you have to agree with it, just understand it. And the best way to do that is to start asking lots of respectful questions, and depending on the person, sharing your own background. Then, start interspersing harder questions about the subject in question, like Roy Moore in this case. Don't push too hard, but ask hard questions in a respectful way.
Of course, in these situations, you have to be open to having your opinion changed, as well.
It's not a very eloquent summary of what I've done in this situations, but it's the best I've got tonight.
1. Perhaps the hardest part about this is differentiating between propaganda sock puppet accounts, whom you will likely never convince, and actual people who happen to believe some pretty crazy things. Once you've identified real, genuine fellow citizens behind whatever pseudonymous social media account, you're half-way there.
Most of the pro-gun liberals I know said they didn't have a strong opinion on the subject and they found the pro-gun numbers and stats less filled with dishonest trickery than the anti-gun numbers and stats.
With most issues most people don't care much. These are the people who you can convince to have a baseline opinion that is (for example) against the CIA shipping people off to be tortured with carefully reasoned argument. It's like how most people believe man-made climate change is a thing to some extent. They don't care strongly but a couple decades of numbers and facts have influenced the baseline opinion of those people.
Unfortunately, that study turned out to be completely falsified.
But, in anotothef twist, the underlying hypothesis may indeed appear to have some merit—there are a few studies now underway.
(Sorry for not including links—on mobile right nowk
There is also a transcript available, too: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/584/transcript
And it kind of just slots so many pieces of wrong conclusions and xenophobia and dehumanization of the "other" together in one, painfully clear image...
I'm not sure of that moves the needle on being able to convince anyone.. But if not we might as well all build gas chambers and furnaces and burn vagrants as a source of electricity. Because if we give up fighting for the right for all of being viewed as human - what's left?
[ed: to more directly answer the question - I know I've made people pause - but most recently - a friend really made someone reconsider/reframe their idea of feminism/equality due to an hour or two of discussion and and real-world examples. So it is possible, but it takes patience, emphaty and knowledge.]
[1] https://m.imdb.com/title/tt6333056/
"Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what the hell is going on."
>We live in an age where "Muslim ban" sounds like appropriate policy to about half the population.
The OP is saying that close to half the voters voted for Trump, so it's likely they agree that a Muslim ban is appropriate.
It's also hard to go against this, as we've been at war with the Middle East since Desert Storm - only a ceasefire was called. And then later add on extremist moslems during September 11 attacks, and yeah.. It's a perfect firestorm of justifiable hatred of a religion by a great many people.
The people in the middle east worship a "psychotic man with a hairy mole" (aka: Mohamed). I learned that on WIBC, 1070KHz after a multitude of interviews that Mike Pence hosted back in the mid 90's with "religion intellectuals". I was in my mid teens during that.. should have recorded him talking about all this, but I'm sure the radio studio has recordings as well.
And back to the main issue, "Otherization" allows targeting anyone they don't want. And this seems to be drifting hard to neo-nazism. I know the people on Daily Stormer and similar groups are rather happy.
I'm a better and more mature person at 40 than I was at 20 because people have taken the time to patiently point out flaws in my own thinking. Not every conversation moves the direction of your life, but they do collectively nudge you in the right direction.
1 - https://www.npr.org/2017/08/20/544861933/how-one-man-convinc...
Engage them directly, wait until the next conversation on the topic in a group, and hang back. Sometimes you'll be surprised. People don't always change their minds immediately, but this is to be expected -- it is a means to protect the ego.
One thing to note is that the beliefs you’re convincing people of don’t have to be top-level shifts like ‘be a communist instead of a libertarian ‘... one can help others see individual issues or political figures in a new light.
With one caveat, though. If you approach it with the mindset that you're out to educate other voters, you're not going to succeed. What you can do is have actual conversations with them. Sometimes those have results.
When one person sets out to educate another, there's a presumption of power, position, and knowledge. Unless the person to be educated has set out specifically to be educated, this is almost certainly going to rub them the wrong way. Instead of being educated on the subject you'd like, you'll educate them that advocates on a given subject are arrogant lecturing asses.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsfROmgVN5U
When has someone pushed for a "Muslim ban" in the United States?
"I'll tell you the whole history of it," Giuliani said, as transcribed by The Washington Post. "So when (Trump) first announced it, he said, 'Muslim ban.' He called me up. He said, 'Put a commission together. Show me the right way to do it legally.'"
[1]http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/06/politics/trump-muslim-ban-trav...
Right here:
“Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on.”
Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20161207195544/https://www.donal...
Trump advocated targeting civilians in a war zone as a campaign promise. It was met with thunderous applause. https://www.christianpost.com/news/trump-kill-innocent-famil...
How do you like your second amendment? How do you like due process of law? How about fuck both those things cause we're going to put people on Kafkaesque lists without any day in court and bar them from gun ownership without explanation. Surely such a measure would be massively unpopular with Republicans... http://time.com/4370009/donald-trump-gun-control-watch-list-...
In fairness on that last one it didn't matter who you voted for. Hillary literally said the same thing. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/...
Its not like the US would actively hack US citizens on US soil in order to suppress a peaceful protest. Oh shit. https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/07/26/standing_rock_prote... But you know, fuck them hippie protestors and occupy types. Whole lot should go get jobs amirite?
Do I need to continue? Because I can. I've barely even touched upon the Obama era. And obviously the Patriot act and Guantanamo before that.
Let me be clear here. I don't hate America. But when transgressions like this are applauded it becomes clear that a huge fraction of our populace just doesn't stand for our values. Our country is only as good as the people in it.
It's cheap of you to throw a muslim ban into the immigration bucket and not into the religious freedom bucket.
It’s no surprise to me that the pols I respect, R. Pauls, R. Wyden, and the like come from more rural states (Texas, Kentucky, Oregon) .
The cities are the problem, I fear
Please downvoted away (I've been shadow banned for just this before) but this is a fact.
Not all of us out here are hicks, especially when you get to the big cities. Look at the voting trends by county and you'll see that Wake goes blue every year.
If you were to suggest stopping all people who admitted to idolising Kony from entering the country it would seem reasonable, no?
I'm talking about chosen ideological association. Do Christians, as a group, claim an ideology that demands violent oppression? Yes the OT has stories of it, but Jesus - whom Christians claim to follow (cf. Gandhi) stood for equality and peaceful resistance. As far as anyone knows Jesus didn't kill anyone, nor call for violence against anyone; the opposite in fact. Yes, plenty of Christians are murderous and immoral.
If the leader of group A says kill people who won't join our group, or tax them heavily, your choice. And leader of group B says give everyone tea and cake if they want it. You're saying that if an adherent of group B happens to kill someone you should treat group B the same as group A. I say that's wrong.
To be specific again, this works for the KKK to, or people idolising Hitler, or ... if they admit that and want entry it seems good ground on which to refuse; even if that person doesn't ever intend to act on the ideology, or is unlikely too as far as can be established.
(Aside, there's no fallacy in establishing general rules based on specifics, unless scientific method is fallacious; even if it were fallacious the Fallacy Fallacy applies, ie fallacies don't indicate the truth value of any particular proposition).
"Verily, God does not change the state/condition of a People until they change themselves." (Quran 13:11)
Small but important nuance: the majority vote gets the government they "deserve" ("voted for"). The rest has to go along with the majority vote. The rest are people as well, but they're marginalised by both your quote as well as by reality. The difference can be small. Case in point: the last US presidential election.
Before you know it you're torturing people, gassing them or doing other unspeakable things to them because you've worked out some kind of equation where your predicted outcome justifies your horrible actions.
Values only matter when there is a price attached to them, it is very easy to have high standards for morality when they are essentially free.
For example, suppose you're heading an FBI group, and you've got a suicidal terrorist in custody who is part of a plot to detonate a nuclear bomb in LA. You have excellent evidence this guy is involved, and that the terrorists probably have a nuclear bomb in the country, and, if they realize their coconspirator has been captured, they are likely to detonate immediately.
The terrorist demands to see his lawyer. Your specialists say you should deny that request, because his lawyer may signal, intentionally or otherwise, the other terrorists. Should you allow the terrorist to meet with his lawyer?
Our society's laws say he should be able to see his lawyer. We value that kind of thing. And yet, if you would risk millions of lives to protect this right... Well, that seems perverse to me.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/torture/
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy lists a real life example along the lines of my hypothetical one. In this example, a child is stuck in a hot car that is parked in a spot known only to the in custody car thief who is refusing to talk. The police proceed to beat the thief until he talks and save the child's life. This is straightforward example of when pragmatism must overrule idealism.
The purpose of my example was to create a situation where it should be obvious the right move is to go against idealism. The reason is, if your starting point is something like "We must never deny people their rights" I'd like to show you an extreme example where, actually, we must. If you can agree on the extreme example, then the discussion becomes a matter of degree - i.e. when is it okay to deny people their rights versus when it is not. This is actually the more nuanced and realistic discussion that has applicability to the real world.
(edit: now I notice it was written by an Australian)
Also, if you have enough statistical data on torture methods, you can have a probability that a person doesn’t know something based on how long they’ve been actively tortured.
You don't even have to go into physical torture: recent history is filled with cases where people confessed to crimes under police interrogation, only to have iron-clad evidence show up that they couldn't possibly be responsible.
The most effective technique is befriending the suspect, doing nice things for them, then allowing the natural human tendency to reciprocate (and a desire for positive social interactions) work for you. It takes time but gets you much more reliable information - and much more extensive information.
I, actually, have nothing I can say to that.
Are you listening to yourself?
Let's be clear, torture is an unpleasant technique and should only be an absolute last resort when everything else has failed, but it's far better to be tortured by people who know what they're doing and are only trying to get information out of you, than by people whose goal is simply to hurt you (often for no reason and with no stopping point).
Is it OK to go for 10+ nines, as long as our goal isn't to inflict pain -- and despite the fact that we are indeed inflicting pain, mentally and/or physically?
Just for the sake of argument, let's say that 99.99% can be accomplished in 24 hours of pain infliction (torture) -- and let's say you'll get to 6 nines in 168 hours (7 days).
Oh come on, who am I kidding -- as much as I appreciate the discourse, I can't even fathom or given consideration to it actually being something that can be realistically reasoned about in this way. =\",
What's a myth, that torture doesn't work? Imma need a citation on that one, because I've got stacks of 'em to the contrary.
Some won't, but saying "torture doesn't work" as a blanket statement implies that they all have infinite pain tolerance.
A more believable amoral/utilitarian argument against torture is that there will always be a more effective method than torture available. That's probably also wrong, but at least it's not so obviously wrong on its face.
The problem with the argument is that if a would-be torturer finds evidence that torture is the most effective method in some circumstance, they will feel vindicated in using it. I think a better argument is "regardless of effectiveness, anyone crossing this line is a dangerous and despicable person, and shall be prosecuted."
How many people that get tortured actually know anything?
If you're getting "verifiable" facts, you didn't need to torture him/her in the first place... you were just being lazy in your reconnaissance.
That almost seems worse - torturing someone to make sure they don't know anything is akin to punishing someone to make sure they are innocent.
People are tortured in the US all the time. All the time.
Ordinary prisons are well-known example, where one can be subject to solitary confinement, denial of medical care, subjection to temperature extremes, beatings, and rape so common that it's the subject of the most common prison-related jokes.
Military recruits are often tortured to "toughen them up", as punishment, or ostensibly to prepare them for possible torture at the hands of "The Enemy".
Hazings at colleges and universities are often effectively torture.
That couldn’t be further from the truth. It use to be that drill instructors/MTI can hit you. Not anymore. The worse they can do to you is yell in your face and give you a spit shower. They're even required to give you 8 hours of sleep except in special cases. There are many other rules as well and these rules are a big deal these days.
One of my passengers got 'ordinarily-renditioned' [0] to the county jail. They let her go after a few hours, when the city cops found someone else who actually matched the description of the petty beer thief they were looking for.
[0] http://www.taxiwars.org/2017/10/ordinary-rendition-public-se...
Last month I learned (via facebook) that another of my passengers got arrested (outstanding warrant - he'd missed a court date 2.5 years ago), and is suffering in jail. He's a diabetic, and has to submit to the time-release insulin injection they think he needs or they send him to solitary... I think time-release insulin is probably quite harmful when combined with the jail's starvation diet.
It seems to only take a handful of people to start a government-racket. Thereafter they seem to basically keep themselves going, and it takes acts of heroism to shut them down.
This did not go well in Nurenberg.
No one has been convicted for fire bombing dresden, or Hiroshima and Nagasaki - or the fire bombing campaigns in Japan. No one has been convicted over nan king. No one (afaik) have been convicted of us support for the coup in Chile.
There's atrocities to go around, only the weak at the international levek gets prosecuted.
And while it didn't "go well" in neurnberg - it certainly helped nazi Germany meet many milestones.
You'd be surprised how many people condone and support it. Even people who on the surface would be opposed to it, they'd vote against if presented in elections. If it happened in the next town over, they might call the politicians. But if they have a way of denying that it is happening at all, they'd be happy to not ask questions and turn the other way.
This is especially true at the end of a war.
Torture exposes the blackest parts of our humanity in a way that droning someone never could.
If we refuse to play at the terrorists game of death then their cause wins at the cost of billions of lives. Then they can continue to kill and maim over ever more nuanced positions.
In part the problem is that a (the, I suspect) major source of terrorists is adherents of Islam who follow Mohammed's example of murder, and his injunctions in the Koran, and hadith, to violently oppress. As long as that book exists to inspire the actions, and that man is treated as a model for others then we'll continue to have such problems.
Not only that but after receiving a Nobel Peace Prize he proceeded to engage in drone warfare. Just in 2016 he dropped more then 20k bombs, in countries which we were not even at war with. Many in Africa. It was surprising how little flak he got for it. Indeed when he was elected in 2008 he got the best marketer of year award http://adage.com/article/moy-2008/obama-wins-ad-age-s-market... and he presented a great image.
> Which is worse: torture or killing?
It is kind of a false choice. But let's go with it, Obama effectively picked both. Anyone remember how he promised to close Guantanamo? Well it is still open. He picked both killing and continued torture. Yet people still idolize him and think he was so great. Again, that's the power of propaganda and marketing at work, AdAge's award was very much on point, better then Coke, Nike and Apple.
I took it more as him pointing out that while Trump, right or wrong, is crucified in the press on a daily basis Obama was able to successfully spin a benevolent image to the point that he was absolutely held to a different standard. All presidents have blood on their hands, but there is a certain irony in Obama being the first Nobel peace price winner to bomb another peace prize winner.
To your second point, I think the sheen of Obama's Presidency is definitely beginning to fade a bit. His failure to truly effect change in the Arab Spring showed amateurism in foreign policy. If there's any irony, it's in the Nobel laureate selection process (at least for the Peace prize); Kissinger won the damn thing in 73, which should tell anyone that the whole award is a farce.
Do you know who he dropped bombs on and why? You make it sound like he dropped bombs for the fun of it.
But those who actually got bombs dropped on them... could be literally anyone
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/i-am-on-the-us-kill-list...
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-air-stri...
https://reprieve.org.uk/press/2014_11_25_us_drone_strikes_ki...
Not a good track record no matter how you try to spin it.
A European here, I was under the impression he sincerely tried to close Guantanamo but failed because of GOP controlled house and senate. Could he have done more?
If they closed Gitmo and brought the detainees to the US for trial, almost all would have to be released.
I'm not necessarily saying that is a bad things, surely some (or even all) do not deserve to be held and should be released, but all it takes is one coming back and committing a terrorist act (could you even blame them after being illegally held and tortured for years?) for the worst PR nightmare a politician could even imagine rains down on them.
In a two party system, you ignore bad things and back your guy, because what is the alternative? Backing the other side? Just Look at all the obvious horrors they are willfully ignoring!
True, agreed. They could still stand up for what's right. Criticizing your party doesn't mean automatically endorsing the other party.
But I was also talking about the mainstream media and the coverage it got there as well.
> The very same democrats who mock Trump supporters for not denouncing him when he said "Grab them by the pussy" did not denounce Obama
Or look at the recent "shithole" controversy. Trump said "shithole" (which was terrible, of course) and they talked about it for weeks. Forgot which reporter was even crying on screen about it. That's fine, it's good to be critical and scrutinize those in power. But Obama was dropping bombs on pretty much the same countries and everything was relatively quiet, not many tears from reporters there. Democracy Now was covering and other articles here and there. It's because Obama was polite, composed and projected a professional image.
What does that have to do with Obama? Trump wasn't in the picture when Obama did any of this. This whole "what about you?" kind of rhetoric is utterly useless and pointless. All it does is reinforce football team politics.
Look at each case without trying to diminish one case by saying someone else did something worse. Obama messed up or deliberately did awful things and his actions have got nothing to do with anything anyone said or did about Trump later.
I do not believe the Obama administration used more drones because of public backlash against torture. Correlation does not imply causation and all that.
It could easily be explained that because torture doesn't work there's no reason to risk more lives to capture someone alive. It may be that drone technology just advanced and became an option or an easier option. I can think of a lot of possibilities but I have no reason to believe any of them.
Is there a name for this kind of fallacy?
He created a world in which the children of certain countries are afraid of clear, blue skies, because it means the drones will be operating.
That's sick and totally devoid of humanity.
However, if you had to choose, I'd probably say torture is worse. Even a slow death is likely to be quick, and has an end, compared with a torturer who is actively trying to keep you alive so you can endure more.
https://www.upi.com/Mass-lawfirm-linked-to-extradition-jet/2...
I had a crazy thought that Caison could have organized an intervention for each. Involve close friends & family & neighbours and sit down with one principal at a time. Encourage them to come face to face with the morality of this.
A small private non-confrontational intervention could perhaps bring about quicker change if the principal's suddenly realize their friends & family & neighbours are aware of the shady aspects of their work.
Even if I was totally innocent and this happened to me and was eventually released, the first thing on my mind would be revenge in some form.
Kudos CIA. Creating new enemies wherever none may be found, throughout this last century.
Just to get around constitutional rights? Seems like with all that money and effort you could just do it here.
EDIT: I don't condone torture. I think it's sad the way we treat each other.
This sounds a lot like corporate/beaurocratic cover-your-ass policy that is there so you don't get fired.
It just seems to me that someone like the CIA could torture in some basement in area-51 and they would still be untouchable.
In a weird way this kinda speaks a bit to the power of the constitution or the respect that it holds. Even if you are basically violating it.
It's also face-saving to some extent - it lets the leadership say "We do not torture" accurately and with a straight face, and I believe it's _slightly_ less risky legally (knowing torture is likely rather than actively ordering).
That said, I've no doubt some government agency could use torture with impunity on US soil though (especially when you consider local police forces have come somewhat close to doing exactly that. See, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Police_Department#Homa... ).
It would be more reasonable if it was done with a roll of duck tape at a random motel-6 in the middle of nowhere.