I'm not linking directly, because the content is too vile. But if you really want to, click TED 2008: How Good People Turn Evil, From Stanford to Abu Ghraib then the link marked "previously unseen photographs from the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq"
This sorta ties into the death penalty thread, really. Is systematic torture and abuse of "bad people" okay? Especially if they'd get the death penalty anyway under one set of arbitrary rules? Be sure to check the images out before replying, btw.
I'll ... check this after work I think. Not sure it's the kind of thing I might want someone catch me checking during business hours.
I really think this is not justified,no matter how bad someone is. I think life imprisonment is better than any other option, let the person be, let him ponder and suffer, if he doesn't ponder he'll rot in there anyways.
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that's true - very nsfwOriginally Posted by Splash
Of course not. The point of the article is more to do with how 'bad people' are defined. The very famous stanford study shows that we all have the capacity for evil things, given the right situation.
should we give in to that, as a society?
As a society, we don't have a choice. As individuals we do.
And that is what scares me...the dark sideNot meant to be funny though..
Check out my Tech Blogs: Budget Gaming Rigs and The Droid ReviewHomer Simpson: "It takes two to lie Marge. One to lie, and one to listen"
The article makes a good point, that "bad" and "good" are a judgement of the society that you are in, though of course an individual is free to decide their own values. The guards in the prison were doing a "good" act as defined by their limited society, and it only became "bad" when the larger global community judged it.
Of course, this all relies on moral relitivism, the concept that actions are good or bad depending on the community. Personally I believe in moral absolutism, that acts are good or bad as decided by an independant, outside standard (God if you will).
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This is bunny and friends. He is fed up waiting for everyone to help him out, and decided to help himself instead!
This is something I find objectionable. The concept that moral absolutism involves a mythical being.
It's an imperfect way of defining things, but unfortunately I don't know another word to describe it. There's definately an inherant moral guiding force present in everyone, just we each choose to percieve it in a different way.
However, in my definition, I use the label "God" because it's what I imagine a God to be, a being with a perfect sense of right and wrong.
It's definately not the right word to use, but at the same time, I don't know how else to label it.
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This is bunny and friends. He is fed up waiting for everyone to help him out, and decided to help himself instead!
Label it 'morality'. Label it a knowledge of right and wrong. But don't suggest that morality is the product of a supernatural entity.
Ah well, if it was the other way around i guess the Iraq's wouldn't torture anyone would they?! Or they wouldn't cut their heads off!!
This goes on all round the world, not just in Iraq.
How about the scenes of carnage when a Iraqi suicide bomber decides to explode in a market place? Which is worse?
I suppose these guys (Troops) see a lot of bad things out there and thats where anger swells inside and they do the things that they do. This has happenend in all conflicts just that we have it on the Headline news this time around.
got to agree with TeePee on this
look at it this way. most of the people in those pictures would claim to be religious - the prisoners and the soldiers (most americans claim to be christian, after all)
how's THEIR moral compass?
does that make it right? either you approve of suicide bombings, or you don't lower yourself to their level
I don't approve of the bombings but what gets me is when an Iraqi gets a beating and it is photographed all hell breaks out. What about all the people these guys have maimed / killed with their suicide bombings? You don't see those in print!!
My dad was in the 2nd world war and you can bet your life that beatings used to go on there too, all the time!! That is war.
You got to remember that after 9/11 most americans were itching to get their hands on the perpatrators of the crime. Lots had relatives who died in that act of terrorism. When they got to Iraq all their anger turned on anything Iraqi. This is life.
We may live a modern age where people should be more humane etc etc but really that is a load of bullmanure. It has and always will be an eye for an eye.
Look how they used to hang draw and quarter people in the middle ages etc? We are just as cruel now as then, but in different ways.
I think we should bring back al lot of punishments as the law these days is pathetic. If someone is 100% guilty, without any doubt, then they should be punished in a suitably harsh way, even by the death penalty.
In this day and age, where criminals are treated better than the person who has been attacked, raped, burgled etc etc then sometimes taking the law into your own hands is always going to be on the menu.
I see it like that in Iraq. These soldiers had all this anger built up inside them and it had to be realeased somehow. It may not be right, it might be very in-humane and cruel what they did to those Iraqs but what would we do in their shoes? How would we react in war?
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