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Re:Two scientists quietly revolutionising the study and prac... by edanm on Friday October 13, 2017 @10:10AM (#15465799)
"In actual reality you will never have any certainty about the outcomes of interactions like these. All you have control over is whether or not you hurt the person in front of you."

Errr I think you're "proving too much" so to speak. Having someone in front of you who you know has details about a terrorist plot that could stop it, and you think finding those details is something you can't reason morally about? By your definition of certainty, you basically can't do anything with any degree of certainty unless its actions are immediate.

Call up an assassin and tell them to murder someone? Well who knows if she'll even go through with it, so that's morally fine.

Re:Two scientists quietly revolutionising the study and prac... by zimpenfish on Friday October 13, 2017 @10:13AM (#15465836)
But it's well known that torture doesn't get people to tell you the actual truth - in which case even if there is a nuclear bomb about to go off, what good does it do to torture the person? Wasn't it the case that there wasn't a single accurate piece of information that came out of the CIA torture regime?

And if you're in the same city as the bomb, whatever you can possibly do to them has a finite timespan and is therefore much more tolerable and resistable.

Re:Two scientists quietly revolutionising the study and prac... by xtian on Friday October 13, 2017 @10:13AM (#15465828)
You can't change the context of a statement without changing its meaning.
Re:Two scientists quietly revolutionising the study and prac... by edanm on Friday October 13, 2017 @10:38AM (#15466062)
Well I didn't mean to do that, I apologize if I'm misunderstanding/mischaracterizing your statement.

(I'd also be grateful if you want to tell me what I'm getting wrong.)