Uncooperative Crickets

Behaviorism Strikes Again!

A student came to me with an awesome math problem. He is applying for summer research, and I hope to advise him on it (and his thesis).

An interesting thing: I fake-interviewed a professor for a position at Gonzaga in Mechanical Engineering. It is interesting to figure out how to interview people, but it is more interesting to figure out how to interview a person in a field you don't know for a college you don't work for.

I hired him on the spot.

Skye and I watched Taxi to the Dark Side last night. Essentially, it is a documentary on U.S. torture policies over the past eight years. Here are the depressing things about the movie:

1. Afghanis and Iraqis (and at least one British subject) went through hell. I cannot imagine what it is like to be tortured, and I would not wish it on my worst enemy. I also acknowledge that some (some) of the people who were torture may have actually been my worst enemy. I still don't wish it on them.
   
2. We got bad intelligence out of it. So they went through hell, and in some cases for absolutely nothing.
   
3. The U.S. soldiers' lives were severely hurt. They interviewed a lot of soldiers who tortured, and they seem to be damaged from the experience. At the very least, many of them were charged with crimes (although I have to imagine that they are emotionally damaged, too).
   

I am not judging the soliders. I know enough about Milgram's experiments that I am unable to honestly answer: "Well, I would have acted differently in that situation - I wouldn't have tortured them."

Here are the good things that came out of the U.S. torture program:

1. Maybe, MAYBE, we got some good intelligence out it.
   

This is the best case scenario, but it is unlikely. Several studies show that torture is not effective at gathering information (nor is it moral or legal).

I am very, very happy that Obama is president now.

posted by Dirk Awesome @ 4:51 PM