<html><head><style type="text/css"><!-- DIV {margin:0px;} --></style></head><body><div style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:12pt"><DIV>Imri wrote:<BR></DIV>
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<DIV>"It seems obvious that it would be hard for a society to thrive when all its members are thieves/murderers/etc. However, I can imagine a single thief living quite well in a city of non-thieves. This is a bit similar to the doves/hawks example from game theory, where not everyone can be vultures."</DIV>
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<DIV>True enough. And as the point was made to me years ago, how many places are trying desperately to save hawks from extinction? And how many are trying at all to preserve pigeons?</DIV>
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<DIV>Pigeons are a more successful species than hawks, in the sense that there are more of them and they are more resilient to environmental changes.</DIV>
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<DIV>My local environment has one of the most successful species on earth: krill. They may be small and eaten by everything around them, but they are not in any danger of extinction - whereas there are concerns that many of their predators may not be able to adapt to a changing environment.</DIV>
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<DIV>That is not to say that humans should measure success only in numbers and resilience, but it should be taken into account. For a human example we can look at China, where wave after wave of barbarian invaders have been absorbed into the population and have become ethnically Chinese. Though the Chinese have their own problems, they are generally considered to be much more peaceable than any of their invaders.</DIV>
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<DIV><BR>"your point (which was different than what you claimed :) was that unethical behaviors are a negative survivability trait."</DIV>
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<DIV>As you say, there is often room for a few free riders or a few predators - but still, such a population depends on a stable population of producers. The survival of predators is necessarily dependent on the survival of prey, but the reverse is not true. Of course, considering the nature of human societies, and how each society is in proximity to others, there may always be a place for a few murderous and predatory members to prevent predation by other groups - but the overall trend will probably be towards a more peaceable population, because the benefits of cooperation outweigh the benefits of aggression. With increasingly advanced societies, in fact, there will be increasingly sophisticated ways of dealing with agression without using violence, which will more easily allow non-violent populations to outcompete their rivals.</DIV>
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<DIV><BR>"2. A community of only/mostly full-time firemen will probably won't survive as well."</DIV>
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<DIV>Funny you mention this. About 10% of our community is full-time firemen. Probably one of the highest percentages in the world. ;-) But I do take your point. About 5% of us are electricians.</DIV>
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<DIV>"Not to say that torture is good, but it seems to me that gut feeling of many do not remove the need for an independent, valid, argument. :)"</DIV>
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<DIV>True enough, but as I say we should be wary of changing things that have been working well. Of course, torture was common in most of the world up until a few hundred years ago, and is still common in some of the poorer parts - but the very fact that torture has become less desirable in stronger, richer nations should put the burden of proof on the pro-torture side.<BR></DIV>
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<DIV>I don't know, and I don't think anyone knows. This is why I would not change the laws to allow torture in some cases, but would allow a defendant charged with torture to introduce mitigating circumstances.</DIV>
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<DIV> <BR>"I don't think this is a good idea. You set your people (e.g. police, internal security, etc...) up to fail. You put them in situations where the expected behavior might be torture, and then have them stand for trial."<BR></DIV>
<DIV>On the other hand, once we give the police and security forces tools, they tend to use them. In the United States there is now a problem with militarized police forces. SWAT teams started out as special groups designed to take on rare instances of well-armed criminals or hostage situations - but since police departments across the nation have established SWAT units and have all their cool toys, they want to use them . . . and we have warrants for non-violent crimes, including simple possession of marijuana or illegal thoughts, being served by SWAT units who break down the door rather than knock.</DIV>
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<DIV>The impulse of every bureaucracy or institution is to grow and to extend their mandate. Giving police the green light for a little torture tends to lead to more torture, and then more, and more. While I am willing to allow for mitigating circumstances, even to the point of allowing a defendant to walk free if they can prove that they had good reason for torturing a suspect, I am not willing to let that become the default. It used to be a man would have a valid defense if he shot his wife when he found her in bed with another man - but it was never (in the United States) legal for a man to murder his wife for any reason. The law recognized extenuating circumstances, which is quite a different thing from making it legal.<BR></DIV>
<DIV><BR>"1. OTTOMH, does good cop-bad cop work? <BR>2. Even an ideological bomber who wanted to get his message out would not necessarily tell you where the bomb is."</DIV>
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<DIV>1. Sometimes. 2. But torture will probably reduce the chance that they will.</DIV>
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<DIV>Interesting case: the Irish Republican Army ended up warning people about their bombs, because they wanted to make a political point, but didn't want the political fallout (from their own supporters) from unnecessarily killing innocent people.</DIV>
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<DIV>Alan</DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></div><br>
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