chenGOD

Easy way to find out - just the time he was texting from carrier records.

Back to North Korea. As an FYI Laibach is not the first foreign band to play there. Notable others include: the New York philharmonic (ok, a loose definition of a band), Roger Clinton (brother of Bill, and he performed while Clinton was in office), and Baby VOX (a South Korean girl group).

1) 'm not a strict Kantian/deontologist, and so I agree that the harms might outweigh the benefits in the NK tour guide example, and therefor might not be worth doing. But that is a different matter altogether. But, if "the line" is simply a consequentialist cost/benefit analysis, then you'd have to concede that if the benefits outweighed the harms, then the journalist can/should publish his stuff. Again, that is a different question altogether than whether the journalist is morally culpable for what happens to the tour guides. 2) You are right, torture is not a perfectly reliable means of gaining information. However, if you hang your hat on the fact that it's simply not effective, then if it turned out that torture was effective, you'd have to grant that torture in this case would be morally permissible. (Similarly, I'm not a fan of capital punishment. But some people who claim to be "morally opposed" to capital punishment hang their hat on the fact that it's not an effective deterrent. However, if we looked back over the stats and realized that capital punishment was an effective deterrent, those people would either a) have to change their position on capital punishment, or b) admit that they were being disingenuous about their reasons for being anti-capital punishment.) 3) I disagree that, in this particular case, torturing Peter Scully in order to find 3 or 4 child-snuff producers would make us as bad as him. I find torture disgusting, reprehensible, and generally contrary to my lofty humanist ideals. I think that people tend to be so resistant to the Ticking Time Bomb Scenario is because virtually all decent people are disgusted by torture, and in that scenario, torture is clearly the better option. If you think the Ticking Time Bomb Scenario is stupid because the premise is so highly improbable, then again, that's beside the point. Once you entertain the premise (as unrealistic as it is), then the only real conclusion is that torture is not only the superior option, it's the morally superior option. In moral dilemmas (e.g. Ticking Time Bomb), people seem to have a sort-of status quo bias, whereas they will favor the default choice of inaction (e.g. not to torture). However, if you give someone a choice between two buttons (button A will torture one person; button B will kill 100,000 people), their intuition will shift in favor of torture. Again, it doesn't matter how repulsive you find torture: moral dilemmas are by definition situations where there are no good answers. And calling a thought experiment "unrealistic" is merely dodging difficult questions. 1) And that's precisely why this moral philosophy of either/or is not relevant to the real world. 2) But I'm not hanging my hat solely on that fact. There are other methods of intelligence gathering that are not morally wrong that garner better results, so that's a key factor. But the most important thing, and it's virtually the only time I've agreed with John McCain on anything, is that torture is not about gathering information, but what it says about us. And if we permit torture, we are no better than those we are professing to save ourselves from. See the essay I'm attaching. 3) What if, as a result of torturing Peter Scully, he gives out two names. Both of those names are of people he has some grievance against. When we investigate them, we cannot find any evidence of their participation, but these child-porn producers are clever, they are good at hiding their involvement. Well, we could find out more - by torturing them. And say by torturing one of them, he dies of severe stress related factors. He was the sole bread-winner for his family, and now his wife and two children have their quality of life significantly reduced, and the now widowed mother of this innocent man is so overcome with shame at the accusation of her husband being involved with producing child-porn that she commits suicide. So now the two children are without both their parents. They get placed into a foster home, and are adopted by a family who abuses them. So by torturing the "monster", we have become the very thing we sought to protect ourselves from. Since you refuse to accept consequences of action (torture can create more people who wish to do harm to us) as part of your moral stance, see point 1. Please read this essay on torture and its implications. Ignore the highlighted bits, I couldn't remove them from the word file for some reason, and they were related to something else, not this conversation. Of course torture has terrible consequences. You don't need to convince me of that. Torture really is every bit as heinous as its harshest critics say it is. But the whole point of a 'moral dilemma' is that there are no perfectly-satisfactory solutions. Allowing a handful of child-snuff producers to freely walk the earth has terrible consequences. Allowing a dirty bomb to detonate in New York City has terrible consequences. I don't think I need to post links about pedophilia or radiation poisoning to convince you of this. The whole point of 'thought experiments' and 'intuition pumps' is to challenge one's intuitions. If an alen ship lands and says "torture a 4-year old child for 24 hours or we'll destroy earth," then simply saying "no, because torture is wrong" is not really a reasonable position. And those in favor of torture in that situation aren't being flippant about torture: rather, it's just simply the better option. Except we're not letting those people walk free, we're just not torturing them as an interrogative method. It's not "torture or do nothing". And yes by torturing them we do become them. Thus losing any moral authority.

1) 'm not a strict Kantian/deontologist, and so I agree that the harms might outweigh the benefits in the NK tour guide example, and therefor might not be worth doing. But that is a different matter altogether. But, if "the line" is simply a consequentialist cost/benefit analysis, then you'd have to concede that if the benefits outweighed the harms, then the journalist can/should publish his stuff. Again, that is a different question altogether than whether the journalist is morally culpable for what happens to the tour guides. 2) You are right, torture is not a perfectly reliable means of gaining information. However, if you hang your hat on the fact that it's simply not effective, then if it turned out that torture was effective, you'd have to grant that torture in this case would be morally permissible. (Similarly, I'm not a fan of capital punishment. But some people who claim to be "morally opposed" to capital punishment hang their hat on the fact that it's not an effective deterrent. However, if we looked back over the stats and realized that capital punishment was an effective deterrent, those people would either a) have to change their position on capital punishment, or b) admit that they were being disingenuous about their reasons for being anti-capital punishment.) 3) I disagree that, in this particular case, torturing Peter Scully in order to find 3 or 4 child-snuff producers would make us as bad as him. I find torture disgusting, reprehensible, and generally contrary to my lofty humanist ideals. I think that people tend to be so resistant to the Ticking Time Bomb Scenario is because virtually all decent people are disgusted by torture, and in that scenario, torture is clearly the better option. If you think the Ticking Time Bomb Scenario is stupid because the premise is so highly improbable, then again, that's beside the point. Once you entertain the premise (as unrealistic as it is), then the only real conclusion is that torture is not only the superior option, it's the morally superior option. In moral dilemmas (e.g. Ticking Time Bomb), people seem to have a sort-of status quo bias, whereas they will favor the default choice of inaction (e.g. not to torture). However, if you give someone a choice between two buttons (button A will torture one person; button B will kill 100,000 people), their intuition will shift in favor of torture. Again, it doesn't matter how repulsive you find torture: moral dilemmas are by definition situations where there are no good answers. And calling a thought experiment "unrealistic" is merely dodging difficult questions. 1) And that's precisely why this moral philosophy of either/or is not relevant to the real world. 2) But I'm not hanging my hat solely on that fact. There are other methods of intelligence gathering that are not morally wrong that garner better results, so that's a key factor. But the most important thing, and it's virtually the only time I've agreed with John McCain on anything, is that torture is not about gathering information, but what it says about us. And if we permit torture, we are no better than those we are professing to save ourselves from. See the essay I'm attaching. 3) What if, as a result of torturing Peter Scully, he gives out two names. Both of those names are of people he has some grievance against. When we investigate them, we cannot find any evidence of their participation, but these child-porn producers are clever, they are good at hiding their involvement. Well, we could find out more - by torturing them. And say by torturing one of them, he dies of severe stress related factors. He was the sole bread-winner for his family, and now his wife and two children have their quality of life significantly reduced, and the now widowed mother of this innocent man is so overcome with shame at the accusation of her husband being involved with producing child-porn that she commits suicide. So now the two children are without both their parents. They get placed into a foster home, and are adopted by a family who abuses them. So by torturing the "monster", we have become the very thing we sought to protect ourselves from. Since you refuse to accept consequences of action (torture can create more people who wish to do harm to us) as part of your moral stance, see point 1. Please read this essay on torture and its implications. Ignore the highlighted bits, I couldn't remove them from the word file for some reason, and they were related to something else, not this conversation. Gilmore's essay (original).pdf

The line is what outcome will provide a greater moral good. The world, and morality, does not fit into either/or boxes. Your real world example is a good one, certainly better than the idiotic one about terrorists. The problem is, torture as a means of garnering information has limited reliability. I'm on the ol' mobile browser now, but will upload a couple of things for you to read regarding the issues of using torture as a means of garnering confessions. Beyond the limits of torture as a means of gathering information, by torturing, we become morally no better than the people we are claiming are morally worse than us.

First world achievements thread is thatta way -> Lol congrats though.

Chen, how is that a false equivalency? lol walk me through why that dude is responsible for the fate of the tour guides, but we (de-segregationists) are not responsible for the fate of dead church members? It's a false equivalency in consequential terms. Since you don't believe in that matters, and I don't believe your moral philosophy matters in the real world, this conversation will go nowhere in a hurry. But, in your specific example, white supremacists like that are going to kill black people regardless of de-segregation (plenty of historical examples). The North Korean government is not going to kill those tour guides or their families had Sweeney not deceived them. Further, actors promoting de-segregation are creating on balance, a greater moral "good". Sweeney, by doing some hackneyed journalism that furthers the idea of normal North Koreans as "others", provides no moral good, and in fact causes greater moral harm, even if no one gets killed as a result of his actions. Also the ticking time bomb has to be one of the stupidest thought experiments ever.

Ugh limpy. Give me something besides a false equivalency to argue against. But I'm going to play ultimate and then spend time with family. So don't expect a response any time soon.

They'd have to prove that there was commercial activity. Plus Canadian ISPs are much less likely to hand over your IP address and associated activity. But yeah maybe fewer seeders from canada? I dunno I haven't paid for Internet in years.

Ah got it. Thanks for the protip.

Take her out to dinner.

I don't understand what pressing 1 to speak English has to do with the rest of the points? The list is correct - the US does spend billions on foreign aid (broadly defined (and excluding military foreign aid), the US spends about 35 billion on foreign aid). Of course, those billions equal less than 1% of the federal budget, so I'm not sure that reallocating them to domestic spending will change much....

It's the downloading it in the first place that is the problem you silly egg. They're saying it's on your computer because they would have seen your IP in the torrent swarm, or been providing the seed or your service provider dobbed you in. There are ways of doing things on the net and ways of not, this is an example of not. nwae, immediately change your net behaviour cause you probably know all about what happens to people from slashdot, ars technica, torrentfreak, etcia. Or, since we live in Canada, continue on your merry ways. http://globalnews.ca/news/1752246/new-regulations-about-illegal-downloading-go-into-effect/

There is a huge moral distinction between a tacet ultimatum ("we, the NK gov't, will punish the tour guides if this is shared") and a foreseeable consequence ("if I share this, the tour guides may be punished"). In fact, this distinction--specifically, the fact that no-one saw any distinction--was the cause of my immense frustration in the "should people draw Muhammad?" debate. Let's say someone goes up to you and says "unless you do X, I will do Y"...are you morally obliged to do X? And if you don't do X, are you morally responsible for Y? If someone says "devote your life to Satan or I'll bomb a Starbucks"...are you morally obliged to devote your life to Satan? And if you don't, are you essentially murdering Starbucks patrons? What determines your moral responsibility/accountability? Now instead let's say you wanna chop down a giant tree in front of your house but you know that, in doing so, it's very likely the tree will fall onto a Starbucks. Are you morally responsible if you chop down the tree and it kills a bunch of Starbucks patrons? (hint: yes, yes you are) So like, what's the difference? Well, the huge difference is the person or persons issuing the ultimatum can choose whether to bomb a Starbucks or not. If you say "nah, I'm not gonna devote my life to Satan" then that person can either bomb a Starbucks or not. It's completely up to them. Whereas the falling tree is a perfect causal consequence of your actions. If you want to see the distinction even more clearly, imagine a world where everyone was morally obliged to capitulate to ultimatums or blackmail, and were also morally responsible for the subsequent actions of the ultimatum-given. Not only would this create massive world-changing perverse incentives, but we would be morally responsible every time some monster shot up a church for mixing the races ("we should segregate the races so that no more churches get attacked"). I'm not sure if you're supporting Sweeney or not in your argument, but my position is quite clear: In your analogy, Sweeney is cutting down the tree. Beyond that, his actions caused further distrust of foreign visitors by the North Korean regime and set back efforts of civil society engagement.

Oh yes, forgot to confirm before. But if anyone wants to go - I know who you should contact ;)

naw. 2:55-3:35 is spooge time for me. Starts stiffening at :00. How short is your refractory period? Also 1 Lmt is so fucking good. I should really get around to voting.

Does anyone else cum stupid hard at the last section of 28 Organ?

Wow, that guy is a peach.

Just started watching an English show called "The Fall". Gillian Anderson as a special investigator doing serial killers. Not bad so far.

Yeah this is kind of what i wanted to say. He could be funny as fuck, but his material got tiresome in his later years.

Will do. I don't think it'll be a hard sell, at least on this side of the border.

I'm not sold on NorCal. What do they bring to the table? Wasn't the central valley largely responsible for drought conditions?

We'll take the portland breweries and ummm I guess some of the restaurants from Seattle and Portland. And you guys do grow some fine herb, even though I don't smoke much anymore. Also, I like the rest of Canada - even Quebec. So maybe better for Washington and Oregon to become the 11th and 12th provinces (or combine into one bigger territory - Washegon?).

200 civilians to monitor possible military takeover of texas (They do know Texas is already a part of the US right?)

check the android dream of electric sheep thread? kaini has some beauties