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Comment by GuerraEarth | Hacker News Reader

"Medical professionals were in effect told that their ethical mantra "first do no harm" did not apply, because they were not treating people who were ill."

Who among adult reasoning men or women would believe this premise? Are we all turned to geese?

Snowden for President would be a fine thing.

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>Are we all turned to geese?

no, unfortunately we're humans:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment

I don't buy that the Milgram experiment can be used to explain everything. A better explanation is probably that there is a lot of implied "or else..." when you're being asked to follow orders in a national security context.

Milgram experiment clearly shows relative weights with which we perceive two alternatives : 1. a negative effect on ourselves vs. 2. a negative effect on somebody else.

In the experiment the 1. was practically non-existent, zero - some researcher telling you what to do, no real authority, no any chance of bad consequences, while 2. - electric shock, heart attack - hard to beat, yet people still chosen 2.

Now, in the torture situation we have the alternative 1. with reasonable perception of potential bad consequnces much higher than in the experiment, ie. pretty seriously sounding very plausible "or else..." from real authority while 2. is significantly lower because it is just terrorist, bad guy, and who will be tortured anyway. People making choice 2. when difference was higher (in the experiment) necessarily and obviously means that they would make such choice when difference is less, like in this case of torture.

I don't know the full details, but what if these doctors were presented with the following:

> We're going to torture these suspects with or without you. However, with your assistance, we can 'maximize' the effectiveness of the interrogation while 'minimizing' actual physical damage.

The purpose of involving doctors would be to ease the consciences of the other torturers, and to extend the amount that anyone could be tortured to the medical limit. Those doctors should have refused, and run straight to the media.

Yes, running to the media would have no doubt been in violation of their orders, but following those orders is a far greater offense. They get absolutely no sympathy from me, they should be tried for their crimes.

Snowden is not old enough to be a US President.

Also, he's not a US citizen.

(Edit: error on my part. His passport was revoked, which is what I was citing, but apparently he remains a citizen.)

... what?

Born in North Carolina. His passport has been revoked, but he is still a citizen.

Oh, I thought his citizenship was revoked, not just his passport.

That cannot happen.

Oh baddox, you are right, (I forgot) and alas, it is young idealists whom we so often need to lead us into the future. Those Revolutionary lads founding our country were below presidential age bar and that is why they were so mighty--they were still idealists full of passion.

Revolutionary lads founding our country were below presidential age bar

Uh... no they weren't.

Excuse me, dear Locke1689, but the lads were. Young. My gx5 grandfather was 16 or 17 and fought and Alexander Hamilton and a bunch of college boys left Columbia (then King's College) to fight under Washington. And some chap who signed the Constitution named Dayton was age 26. A whole bunch of them were young.

> Excuse me, dear Locke1689, but the lads were. Young.

If you're setting the benchmark as the signers of the US Constitution, I disagree with this assertion. For the sake of argument, let's also include the signing of the Declaration of Independence, which is IMO a much more idealistic--and traitorous thing from the perspective of the crown.

Of the 40 signers of the constitution about 8 were below the minimum age requirements of US President (35) [1] with an average age of about 44. Of the 66 signers of the Declaration of Independence, about 7 were below the minimum age requirements [2]. The rest were at or above 35, and there were many men in their 60s and 70s. These numbers are not exact as I'm going off quick calculations and a spreadsheet drafted in a couple minutes.

[1] http://hercules.gcsu.edu/~hedmonds/U.S.%20Constitution/Const...

[2] http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_signer...

Edit: Missed one and bumped the signer count.

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