Right and wrong are subjective, social constructions that have no real meaning. If torture wasnt an effective means of extracting information then it wouldnt have been used as such for thousands of years.
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At least a sizable fraction of American conservatives agree with you.
Those same conservatives will then turn around and accuse atheists and liberals of having no morals.
Also, torture is a piss-poor means of extracting information, because there is such a high noise-to=-signal ratio. It's effective primarily at making both your enemies and your own citizens and subjects terrified of you.
Well, you won't mind if you're tortured, then.
It serves more than just information 'extraction' purposes. Is having Fun wrong...?!
From your subjective point of view, just your 'argument' alone has been tortured to death.
Right and wrong are subjective, social constructions that have no real meaning
Uh...what? So why should we care that the people we're torturing are doing anything wrong, therefore why should we torture them in the first place? Good ol' moral relativism at it again!
If torture wasnt an effective means of extracting information then it wouldnt have been used as such for thousands of years.
Do you not realise how stupid this sounds? Yeah, fuck science, right?
Torture is an effective means of extracting answers. It's probably not the information you need, more often than not it's gibberish or previously prepared lies.
The left hand has been used for cleaning the behind after doing "number two" for thousands of years, too.
Lots of things have been used for thousands of years, for example, human sacrifice, slavery and eating olives. Their still all disgusting things that you should not be doing.
"Do you not realise how stupid this sounds? Yeah, fuck science, right?"
Do you realize how blatantly you assume that anything that contradicts the idea of science must be wrong automatically?
Yeah, fuck common sense, right?
That last sentence, the one about common sense, was sarcasm.
Torture is a wonderful method for extracting information...
Just not accurate, or in any way truthful, information
"it wouldnt have been used as such for thousands of years."
Leeches were used for thousands of years. and they believed they were effective at curing things despite mostly either having no effect or making shit worse.
appealing to the wisdom of antiquety is all very well except they got so much shit provably wrong.
Torture has, indeed, been used as a method of extracting information for hundreds or thousands of years. Not necessarily correct or accurate information, but information nonetheless.
Torture was never used to extract information. It was used to intimidate, dominate, or suppress and control the locals.
This macho bullshit is really getting old.
Yeah, because history has no records of governments that rule by fear. It's not like the Romans devised several public methods of torturing someone to death to keep the populace in line.
Torture isn't a reliable method of getting information. In modern context, it's only there for sadists to get their jollies off.
"...the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short." - Thomas Hobbes
Hobbes died in 1679
Ummm... torture wasn't used for extracting information most of the time. Pope Alexander would have 'criminals' tied to a raised platform in a public square where they would be slowly tortured to death over the course of weeks. They would peel off sections of skin or remove digits by twisting until the last bit of skin holding broke away and then they would bandage you and feed you until you recovered enough to continue. It wasn't about information. It was about entertainment, displaying power, and creating fear in the population.
The only information you will extract from anyone is whatever they think will get you to stop hurting them. In other words, the information you want, not the information you need. They may very well be completely innocent and ignorant. Repeating that is what got you to start tormenting them in the first place. Their continued pleas of ignorance are only greeted with more suffering. So they tell you want you want to hear. It's complete bullshit, but it confirms your notion of the facts. Torture doesn't work.
@Bill
I don't believe in an objective morality either, but this has a couple problems:
1. Appeal to tradition is fucking stupid. The ancients didn't have vaccinations or Netflix, and they drilled holes in sick people's heads to let the demons out.
2. Torture is not an effective way to get information. At all. Seriously, why the hell would anybody believe this crap?
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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