All Things in Moderation

A great deal of the debate about torture focuses, understandably, on whether torture, or enhanced interrogation, or what one will, is legal. Apart questions about legality, the practice of torture raises a number of interesting questions.

Do We Know Very Much About Torture?
As far as I know, we don’t know a great deal about torture. I don’t doubt that there are studies, but I find it hard to believe that there is, at present, good reliable research on torture. Given ethical concerns, I don’t see how experiments could be conducted to try to determine the effectiveness, or lack of effectiveness, of torture.
And that seems to leave us with a host of questions for which we don’t appear to have answers.
Is it reasonable to expect that torture will yield actionable intelligence? Do people often lie under torture? Do people try to mislead interrogators who are torturing them?
Without more information on torture, information which I suspect, we do not have, it’s very difficult to see how a strong case for or against it could be made on the basis of the quality of the information interrogators are likely to extract.

Who Will Torture?
If torture is employed, someone will have to do it. Who? Ethical concerns would, I assume, rule out doctors. Should soldiers do it, CIA employees? Why these persons and not others? How should these people be trained? What kind of programs, if any, need to be set up to produce persons best able to extract information by using torture?

Should Law Enforcement Torture?
Assuming that torture is beneficial, should law enforcement be permitted to use it? If torture is beneficial, then why not allow law enforcement to employ that tool? If law enforcement ought not to be given that tool, then why should others be allowed to employ that tool?

How Should Innocent People Who are Tortured Be Compensated?
If torture is employed, innocent and non-innocent people will be tortured just as innocent and non-innocent people will be put to death if the death penalty is employed. How should the innocent, people who were mistaken for enemy combatants, for example, be compensated?

Does Torture Give the Enemy an Incentive to Fight to the Death?
Traditionally, fear of torture at the hands of the enemy is often a reason to avoid capture at all costs, even at the costs of one’s own life. Fear of torture may give an individual an incentive to fight to the death or to take his or her own life. That is not, arguably, a particularly attractive proposition. Enemy combatants who have a reasonable expectation that they will be treated well if they are taken prisoner may not fight as viciously and may be more willing to surrender. Assuming that an enemy less inclined to fight as viciously as possible and more willing to surrender is desirable would torture be detrimental to that goal?

Would Torture Discourage Enemies?
Would torturing prisoners discourage individuals from taking up arms or cause them to act in a less vicious manner? Would individuals interested in doing harm refrain from doing so, or do less harm, if they knew that upon being captured they could expect to be treated harshly?

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Imagine you find yourself transported back in time to the 1970’s and an appearance on Monty Hall’s Let’s Make a Deal, and Monty has just selected you as a contestant. He shows you three doors and assures you that the day’s grand prize is sitting behind one of those doors. If you pick the correct door, the prize is yours. After you pick door number 1, Monty then opens door number 3 to reveal nothing behind it. He then offers you another choice…stick with your original door or switch choices to door number 2. What should you do?

(from Mike)
I hope Scott doesn’t mind my adding to his post. Here’s a link where you can play the game yourself, with both Scott’s and Mark’s scenarios (whether Monty knows where the prize is or not).

Three Door Monty

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I was just working on a belated post about the killing of al Awlaki. In short, I wanted to add my two cents to any general conversation and say I don’t think the slippery slope argument is really relevant. If a man can be targeted in an area where his activities put him beyond the reach of arrest and legal proceedings, that doesn’t make it automatic that the president can and will start killing people at will on U.S. soil where they actually are subject to arrest. These are wholly different situations. And the second point, one the lawyers here might have something to say about, is that as important as the rule of law and due process are, the law itself is a construct based on our need to have rules that allow us to function together. Judges exist because someone has to say what the law means in a given situation; it’s not transparent. And in situations where there is no legal recourse–including no judges–someone else has to make calls like the one about al Awlaki. We can argue about what the calls should be, but they shouldn’t just be made on an sbsolutist notion of the law itself.

I’m shortening what I meant to say on that because I wanted to put in a note about Steve Jobs and his death. I’ve not heard it mentioned often, if at all, but the technological innovations of the last quarter century, particularly those spearheaded by Jobs, have made the world a far more manageable place for the disabled, the aging, and those with various degrees of infirmity. For people who don’t have what we would consider “normal” access to the world, the virtual world has becomes actual due to these changes. I can think of so many examples, including many quite personal ones, but my favorite concerns my friend Gogi who was born with cerebral palsy and is now in her forties. Two things transformed her life. The first was her electric wheelchair that, combined with ramps and curb cuts, meant she could physically go where she wanted to go on her own. The second was the home computer that meant she could travel the world with a few keystrokes. It was a remarkable change for her. It’s been remarkable for all of us.

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That’s it for now. – KW

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After wading through the 14th A discussion between Scott, QB, and Mark, lms’ comment about common sense coincidentally reflected one of Prof. Volokh’s posts on VC. So, I thought I’d quote it here, not in response to lms, but just because of my own frustrations with the idea of “common sense.”

The comments are somewhat entertaining: Comments

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Yes, people have often said that the moon landing was faked. But now, you can finally learn the truth: not only was the moon landing not faked, but there was evidence of an entire civilization on the moon when we got there, and there are moon bases, whole cities, and more. Alas, it turns out, O.J. Simpson never actually went to Mars. It was all a tissue of lies.

 

Some of you have noticed Nathan Sullivan is following the group. I invited him to take a look around. He’s a good friend of mine, and whip smart. Whether or not he’ll find this conglomeration to his taste, I don’t know, but I thought I’d give it a shot. In any case, in addition to regularly contemplating the conundrums that have long stymied all of mankind (or womankind) in his (or her) search for meaning, he (or she) publishes a wicked-cool graphic novel. 

It’s love the graphic style. Seriously gorgeous. Check it out. 

Since I’m pimping Mr. Sullivan, might as well take a minute to pimp out myself. Here’s a little tune I did a few years ago called Thomas Dolby’s Evil Twin, from my loquaciously titled album, Songs to Listen To While Playing “Downland” on a TRS-80 Color Computer in 1985.

No doubt, all this made you, like me, think of Mike Nesmith’s (formerly of the Monkees) bizarre song and video from 1981 entitled “Cruisin'”, but better known as the Lucy and Ramona and Sunset Sam song.

Went to Apple.com after the iPhone 4S announcement, and this is what I saw:

I bet heads are rolling at Apple right about now.


All right. That’s all for me today. Laterz! — KW

All right. One more. In high school, I loved a set of songs I had taped off the local college radio station from a “group” calling itself The Android Sisters. The problem is, it wasn’t an actual album off a music label, so you couldn’t go to the local record store (remember when they had those?) and buy it. You can now buy it direct from the original publisher, but I thought I’d just share one (make that two–listen to Livin’ in the 50s, too) of the tunes from that fine album. A sly commentary on automation in agriculture? You tell me. Down on the Electronic Farm:

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I’m not sure how science-y we are as a group, though I do know FairlingonBlade is a big science nerd :-). But I thought my first post would be about the Nobel Prizes. A couple of very worthy discoveries regarding our immune systems. Beutler and Hoffman won for describing a new receptor (Toll-like receptor 4) involved in innate immunity, one that is important for our bodies’ initial response to gram-negative bacteria like E. coli. Steinman won for identifying a new type of cell (dendritic cells) that turns out to be the hub for inducing adaptive immunity, which is responsible for getting rid of pathogens and vaccination.

Here’s the Nobel Committee’s summary:

This year’s Nobel Laureates have revolutionized our understanding of the immune system by discovering key principles for its activation.

Scientists have long been searching for the gatekeepers of the immune response by which man and other animals defend themselves against attack by bacteria and other microorganisms. Bruce Beutler and Jules Hoffmann discovered receptor proteins that can recognize such microorganisms and activate innate immunity, the first step in the body’s immune response. Ralph Steinman discovered the dendritic cells of the immune system and their unique capacity to activate and regulate adaptive immunity, the later stage of the immune response during which microorganisms are cleared from the body.

The discoveries of the three Nobel Laureates have revealed how the innate and adaptive phases of the immune response are activated and thereby provided novel insights into disease mechanisms. Their work has opened up new avenues for the development of prevention and therapy against infections, cancer, and inflammatory diseases.

2011 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

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My first question for “E.J.” is, are you asking the left to finance a bogus “astroturfed” TeaBagger movement, since the leftist meme from the get-go is that it is all fake? If so, what’s the value in that? Or, are you arguing for a real, populist lefty TeaBagger movement? If so, how is one created? Our only example out there is the fake kind. Unless you think it was real?

These paragraphs are interesting in that he doesn’t say what prompted the right’s “ferocious backlash.” What motivated the rights ferocious backlash against Clinton in ’94? Or Against Truman in ’46? Or FDR in ’38?

“The administration was complicit in this, viewing the left’s primary role as supporting whatever the president believed needed to be done. Dissent was discouraged as counterproductive.

This was not entirely foolish. Facing ferocious resistance from the right, Obama needed all the friends he could get. He feared that left-wing criticism would meld in the public mind with right-wing criticism and weaken him overall.”

I love “E.J.’s” framing of LBJ’s civil rights victories Of using outside groups to help him. Yes, they did help him, it’s just that “E.J.” can’t quite bring himself to mentioned which party was causing him the problems in regards to civil rights. Anybody remember? Paging Al Gore Sr., please pick up the whites-only courtesy phone.

“What’s been missing in the Obama presidency is the productive interaction with outside groups that Franklin Roosevelt enjoyed with the labor movement and Lyndon B. Johnson with the civil rights movement. Both pushed FDR and LBJ in more progressive directions while also lending them support against their conservative adversaries.”

Anyway, I normally think “E.J.” is silly, this proves he can be funny as well.

E.J. In Full Bloom.

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Hi all,

I’m going to try to make a weekly food post to the group. This one involves, well, raw fish. I remember my first experience with sushi. The only thing that I really liked was the shrimp. I later learned that’s because it was cooked. The first time I really enjoyed sushi was my third crack at it, when I got together with a grad student from an old group and we were at a sushi place in San Francisco. It’s slowly grown on me, but came on with a vengeance.

My first experience with raw oysters was during the week that I interviewed for a job in Boston. The interview had gone well and I was out with my best friend from college. I tried the oysters on a whim and loved them. This is odd as my previous experience with oysters had been negative (oyster stew). As Men on Film would say, Hated It.

Many years later, I was down in Costa Rica at a pricey Italian restaurant. I ordered fish carpaccio and loved it. In essence, very thinly sliced raw fish  that is marinated in olive oil and citrus. Add in some capers, parsley, pepper and such. I loved it on its own, but it was a bit much for my wife. Then inspiration hit.

One can order Chirashi at a sushi place. Literally, it means scattered rice. The dish consists of a bed of sushi rice with pieces of sashimi placed on top. It’s a household staple as one need not do any complicated rolling. In this case, I prepare the carpaccio and then serve it over a bed of rice. The sauce from the carpaccio (olive oil, citrus, and a few flavors) seeps into the rice. The starch of the rice balances out the fish. Japan meets Italy. It’s a good combination.

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