BruceVC

A change in your current lifestyle sounds like an excellent idea, its always good to shake things up in a life. We tend to become complacent in a routine, so keep us updated around the dance lessons

This is really good news as it means that EA and therefore Bioware will continue to be committed to the DA franchise Any development of the fantasy RPG genre I fervently support

I am really surprised no one seems to singing the praises of Banshee? Its on season 3 and episode 3 and its absolutely gripping but I warn you its for adults only, this last episode was probably one of the most violent shows I have ever seen in my life

Thats very cute You can almost see what the puppy is thinking " I really want this bed but I'm not sure if I can really deal with this cat quite yet, but I'll make a lot of noise anyway " That reminds me, I had a dream last night where I was stroking a really cute kitten. Funny how we tend to forget our dreams unless something triggers them

I think much of those books was lost on you if you think 1984 is 'a false prediction that never occurred', and 'The West isn't like the pigs, you can't seriously compare Western actions to the horrific deeds of Al-Qaeda? ' As for how would I get vital information? Well, that really depends on the situation, the information that needs to be acquired, and who has it (do they even have it?). About the absolute last thing I'd do is put a person I want information from in a situation where they have nothing left to lose, like most of those who have been kept at Guantanamo Bay. The books were probably lost on me, as far as I know they symbolise life under Communism? They definitely don't reflect life under a Capitalist\Western society? Why else are they suppose to mean or tell ?

The something else being Enhanced Interrogation Techniques, not Advanced. I suspect that Bruce is getting a kick out of everyone parroting his (no doubt deliberate) mislabelling as if it were accurate. My bad, yes I meant enhanced Not sure how I got that wrong

Well, the basic mistake you're committing here is a/ assuming that most people who were interrogated were "religious zealots who truly believe that killing innocent Muslims and Westerners is going to guarantee them a place in heaven", which is far from the truth - 26 of the 119 people (over 20%!) detained did not meet the most basic standards for detention, and this is "a conservative calculation [that] does not include individuals about whom there was internal disagreement within the CIA over whether the detainee met the standard or not, or the numerous detainees who, following their detention and interrogation, were found not to 'pose a continuing threat of violence or death to U.S. persons and interests' or to be 'planning terrorist activities'", according to the report we got, and b/ thinking of them as this terrifying other who became irrevocably corrupted, instead of being... y'know, regular people who had such a shortage of opportunities that signing up with terrorists sounded like their best option. Hate groups tend to attract desperate people, and - while I'm by no means an expert on the subject - I'm fairly sure that treating that underlying problem also severs many of the ties responsible for the person's loyalty to the organization. Its an interesting perspective to suggest that the AIT EIT were done to people who weren't actively involved in Al-Qaeda or had a direct relationship to Bin Laden The usage of AIT under these conditions would have made it even more unpalatable. But I would need to read some credible links to believe this, if you can post some I would find it pertinent ?

Oh I have read 1984, it was a false prediction that never occurred. And Animal Farm is relevant, but the message from that book is also not relevant. The West isn't like the pigs, you can't seriously compare Western actions to the horrific deeds of Al-Qaeda? But Vals I would love you to answer my question " how would you as an interrogator who needs to get vital confirmation around information get this confirmation "

Well, that's your problem then. I highly doubt any moderators are cool with torture (seriously though, name them if you're going to throw a dart like that), some may argue that it's justified as a means to get intelligence and that is their hill to fight on. And even if they are, they may very well do their "job" regardless. You honestly don't see how "thinking torture is a justified means to get intelligence" logically leads to "being cool with torturing people as long as it yields intelligence"? And the thing is, being okay with torture speaks of a lack of empathy on the most basic level. If a person is willing to trivialize the torture of a mentally handicapped person - a person who is not only innocent, but isn't even capable of understanding why is this happening to them - to use the footage of them crying as "leverage"*, just because the CIA pinky-swore** that torture sometimes yielded useful information, how the hell am I supposed to assume that they'll take seriously my much less grievous beef with someone who was mean to me on the Internet? *Page 16, footnote 32. ** because they'd totally admit if they had violated all international human rights treaties for no particular gain, right? Just to give another view about how the advanced interrogation techniques- AIT ( torture as you like to call it ) were used. I watched an interview around how it was implemented, the CIA didn't use AIT and then ask questions expecting it to yield the only answer, it was used to gain confirmation around information already gathered. So for example if the CIA was told that person X was a courier of Bin Laden they would use AIT just to confirm this This is important because there is a valid view that says torture doesn't provide really accurate information because people will end up telling the interrogator anything they want to hear, the way AIT was used it did reveal information And I'm not suggesting this is something that made it okay but its not correct to say it wasn't effective How about having this conversation here? Thing is, if you try to argue for the effectiveness of torture, your job isn't to prove that torture was "useful". Of course it was "useful"; that's why people have been using it for millennia! Question is, a/ was it more useful than using interrogation methods not involving lasting psychological damage and risk of immediate death, and b/ was it useful enough to outweigh the completely unjustifiable additional torture and, in some cases, killing of innocent people the program also entailed? I do understand your point, you are saying can you gain pertinent information without using AIT. So my first point would be you are dealing with people who are religious zealots and many of them are not highly educated, thats why terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda are so appealing to them. They truly believe that killing innocent Muslims and Westerners is going to guarantee them a place in heaven But if you read that Speigel link he talks about using the the "rapport building technique" . In the article he says "By engaging in a mental poker game with them, but consistently presenting them with facts and evidence of their guilt, by speaking their language -- both figuratively and literally -- which is something none of these private contractors for the CIA could do. For example, I questioned Salim Ahmed Hamdan, bin Laden's driver, in Guantanamo. I offered him tea, made it possible for him to call his wife -- those are things that had been promised to him, but the promises weren't kept. During the interrogations, I lay down next to him on the floor, and then we talked. That's classic "rapport building" But I question how effective this is really to gain the information you need? And this applies to anyone who is prepared to kill for a cause. Suddenly relating to them and being friendly is going to make them betray their religion? I'm sure this works for some but not the majority So the question I would ask you is how would you as an interrogator who needs to get vital confirmation around information get this confirmation?

Well, that's your problem then. I highly doubt any moderators are cool with torture (seriously though, name them if you're going to throw a dart like that), some may argue that it's justified as a means to get intelligence and that is their hill to fight on. And even if they are, they may very well do their "job" regardless. You honestly don't see how "thinking torture is a justified means to get intelligence" logically leads to "being cool with torturing people as long as it yields intelligence"? And the thing is, being okay with torture speaks of a lack of empathy on the most basic level. If a person is willing to trivialize the torture of a mentally handicapped person - a person who is not only innocent, but isn't even capable of understanding why is this happening to them - to use the footage of them crying as "leverage"*, just because the CIA pinky-swore** that torture sometimes yielded useful information, how the hell am I supposed to assume that they'll take seriously my much less grievous beef with someone who was mean to me on the Internet? *Page 16, footnote 32. ** because they'd totally admit if they had violated all international human rights treaties for no particular gain, right? Just to give another view about how the advanced interrogation techniques- AIT ( torture as you like to call it ) were used. I watched an interview around how it was implemented, the CIA didn't use AIT and then ask questions expecting it to yield the only answer, it was used to gain confirmation around information already gathered. So for example if the CIA was told that person X was a courier of Bin Laden they would use AIT just to confirm this This is important because there is a valid view that says torture doesn't provide really accurate information because people will end up telling the interrogator anything they want to hear, the way AIT was used it did reveal information And I'm not suggesting this is something that made it okay but its not correct to say it wasn't effective

...Not sure if dense or arguing in bad faith... Migration from the forum, not the company. Oooooh, the forum, not the company. Got it. Still dunno, don't read that forum. Phewww....you off the hook Gfted1...no need to feel guilty about the Obsidian Mods being responsible for developers leaving Obsidian

. Even if we let promancers stay here. " Even if we let promancers stay here" you funny

Yeah, saw that. Her problem to deal with, at least with her examples - threads you find irritating you don't have to read (promancers have said this in the past). I guess those two threads qualify as a 'microagression' ? Heh. Thing is Obsidian gets flak and heat in the 'outside world' anyway, some of it may be deserved and some of it not. Sounds like her idea of 'welcoming' is just to be praising. Needs a bit more than that if you want to condemn this forum as a place that 'needs to change', though I'd be amused to hear what you would say does. I don't know Malc but your post just seems to me like an excuse to justify offensive or rude posting etiquette And I find it strange because you don't really make rude posts or seem to get that worked up in debates so why you would try to defend bad behavior is beyond me But yes I agree with you, a person could just ignore posts they don't want to participate in, like the important Romance thread but end of the day what you find is a certain perspective starts to permeate other threads and discussions and the overall tone of a forum gets dragged down. Now you may not believe this but I can guarantee you others have experienced it. So I think a certain level of blocking or closing down toxic threads is needed. And I may be overly critical because of my SJ stance but the reality is many other people obviously agree with my view ?

Yay a Romance discussion, I am a big supporter of Romance in RPG in case anyone didn't know

I don't really believe people are inherently incapable of voicing criticism without descending into a frothing frenzy of sh*t-flinging and verbal abuse. I really agree with this sentiment Personally I don't believe the argument " its the Internet, thats how it is, " A level of decorum can and should be generally respected on forums

Sorry Malc, I'm not going anywhere. You will continue to be subjected to my wise and pithy posts for years to come And if I did decide to leave I would make a decent post full of grandstanding explaining my reasons and why I did decide to leave

Your opinion. Stun is probably one of the most levelled headed, informed and reasoned persons on this forum who takes the time to present his arguments in a lucid well thought out way, backing up his posts with a wealth of experience, knowledge, facts, and any other relevant information that's relevant to the topic. I do find it Interesting that you admit you find the trolls entertaining. Perhaps instead of encouraging the trolls who are the ones who derail threads that it's better to encourage those who are actively engaged in discussion and debate. Yeah I like Stun, I can have a heated debate with him without it getting personal But Hiro the whole idea about people not wanting to apologize for anything is something worth considering, I really admire Indiras post. Huge kudos When was the last time you ever apologized for anything on these forums for example, food for thought ? Sometimes I think people think an apology or admitting you are wrong will be seen as a sign of weakness. But its not, its a sign of strength as it shows we are prepared to accept that we aren't and can't be perfect

based on the theory that almost anything is improved via deep-frying? Gromnir is an advocate. heck, you can improve twinkies and ice cream with deep frying. HA! Good Fun! Gromnir I hope you realize how unhealthy deep-frying anything in oil is for you, especially vegetable oil? If you are going to fry try to use Olive oil You should only occasionally deep-fry food, its much better to steam or bake food. So now I'm back on my diet because my training session is over in the UK where I couldn't eat healthily. So what that really means is salad for dinner with fish or a meat and no junk food during the day but I normally take breakfast and lunch to work so thats easy to stick to

We got hit with about 22-24" 3 years ago, and had back to back storms that put down 16" then 12-14" within a week 2 years ago, so unless this storm winds up being in the extreme upper end of the estimation (30") it won't be worse than what we've gotten recently. Fair enough, also I suppose there may be a tendency from CNN to embellish the impact a little so hopefully it won't be as severe as they are predicting

As I mentioned this storm is considered to be one of the worst storms the USA east coast has ever seen. So its not " just a normal storm "...its severe and has only just started so we will still have to comment on the impact in a few days

Glad you are okay, keep us updated on developments Do you have a generator ?

Oh, my bad. I thought Gromnir lived in NY?

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/01/26/us/weather-storm/index.html New York city has been effectively shut down by this massive snow storm and a state of emergency has been declared in the states of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Massachusetts How are forum friends who live in NY doing...Vals and Gromnir spring to mind ? They say this storm is in the worst 5 storms the east coast has ever seen

I'm at Heathrow waiting for the 9 pm flight back to South Africa I had an amazing time in London as usual, of course the cold weather created a marginal damper when walking around...compared to my summer trip last year. But thats the UK, you can't always have good weather. But I did buy some nice chocolates at the airport, like a HUGE box of Daims which are my favorite chocolates of all time

When you say things like " very highly trained in the psychological methods of extracting information and getting people to become cooperative", I mean, that's like saying "yes but it sounded like he was very well trained at whatever you need to be trained in, you know". What exactly are the qualifications for torture, and do you get one by being a psychologist, or by being a certain type of psychologist? It's hard to say whether you could label psychologists like Mitchell 'amateurs' who shouldn't have any say, or 'expert consultants'. But I know what people learn in psychology PhDs. His dissertation had nothing to do with learned helplessness or interrogation situations, etc. He did work for the military, which included some scenario training re. interrogations. Whether that means it's reasonable that he comes up with this new Total Torture setup and it gets approved, you'll have to decide. Some interesting points raised, but would it be possible for you to not use the word " torture". Usage of that word immediately sets an uncomfortable precedent when we talk about the advanced interrogation techniques that were used. And as the article mentions the CIA still maintains that very pertinent information was gained through these techniques You read the article in the Spiegel and juxtaposed to that are the Japanese hostages about to be beheaded and yet the CIA have somehow become the " bad guys " in this narrative, food for thought perhaps about how we sometimes pass judgement about institutions tasked to protect us? You think 'advanced interrogation techniques' are a neutral term and 'torture' is a biased one? You don't think the choice of AIT is equally a choice to constantly imply to people that it is not torture? You are free to continue to refer to it as AIT, just as I may refer to it as torture - the word that most people would use if confronted with such a scene without other context. I do not think a conversation about who is 'more' biased or not is productive; we should be able to discuss this knowing that both of us can be biased in various ways. 'Very pertinent information was gathered through techniques' is one of those claims that become particularly meaningless in the current set of wars. Notwithstanding the guy they interviewed for this article, you would have to have data about what kind of information was gathered from suspects throughout a given period; which was gathered through torture, which was not; a judgment on whether torture-gathered data could not have been gained any other way; how valuable that information was; etc. Now, I know you do not have access to sufficient information to make a judgment about whether these techniques produced 'very pertinent information' at a sufficient rate to make this 'worth it' by whatever metric. I know this because most of us do not have access to that information. This is exactly the same as the Snowden problem: quote Dianne Feinstein, "I wish we could tell you all the good this program has done, if only that wasn't classified." (paraphrased) In fact, it is so classified (and voluminous) that even the FISA Court, the court charged with judging the legitimacy of at least some of these activities, has confessed that it has to go by the word of the NSA sometimes. It is the same here. You have to go by the word of the CIA. So, do you trust the CIA to assess its own torture or AIT and then tell you 'it was / was not worth it, now move on'? I would have reasonable expectation that the CIA is probably competent most of the time; that most of its personnel are highly patriotic to the United States; and so on and so forth. I would not have the expectation that the CIA can be trusted to assess the morality of its own operations without any proper external audit. Why? Not because it's the CIA in particular, but because independent, external audit is one of the few things that - despite its problems - works to stop institutions from living in their own bubble and getting carried away with things. It is also, I should mention, a founding principle in how American government is designed. You can't just not trust anybody and assume the worst in everybody, because then your own ability to say you know anything or do anything becomes critically undermined. That's what we call the tin foil man who raves in the street; he might be the wisest of us all, but he certainly doesn't have much of a life. Fine. But you have to have certain standards about what you decide to trust, and also occasionally question those standards. So what standards leads you to trust that the CIA was doing something right with torture? You don't seem to need the pertinent data in front of you, or a proper independent audit. Sure, I agree with some of the points you making. What I think is in times of war certain lines get blurred and years later we tend to look back and scrutinize with a much more critical eye what a particular government did. I do trust the CIA in the sense I firmly believe there intention is to keep the USA safe. Does that mean I deny they used questionable techniques to gain information, no I'm sure they did. Like waterboarding, its irrefutable this was used. But I ask people to remember context, 9/11 had just happened and the Western was angry and scared Now The Spiegel writes these articles and there is a tendency from people to pass judgement and make comments like "typical Western governments, they lecture us on morality and yet they tortured captives....what hypocrites " ( I'm not saying you are saying this but I have had these debates many times ) I find it a little exasperating to be honest, The Spiegel should be exposing and updating us on the real and actual horrors being perpetuated by ISIS for example instead of promoting an almost anti-Western sentiment. The West really aren't the "bad guys " after all but when you read these articles you could almost believe that the USA has no interest in adhering to international laws and that there country is some super police state where people are indiscriminately tortured to gain information. Despite the fact these AIT are now completely outlawed and considered anathema by the current US government For me these types of articles are not new, we know most of this, yet they become talking points and have a tendency to confuse people around who the real threat to global stability is