Comment by aychedee | Hacker News Reader

Comment by aychedee | Hacker News Reader

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Urgh. You're making me do homework? Lame. And no. I don't have to show only scenes where the "good guys" are torturing someone. That wasn't my point. I was talking about the normalisation of torture. I wasn't trying to say that all shows had become 24 or something. I never called these shows propaganda (like 24 obviously was). That's HN saying that. I was just saying that they all contribute to the normalisation of torture.

Anyway:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Same_Old_Story - Victims are paralysed with a muscle relaxant and then have their faces peeled off.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Arrival_(Fringe) - Multiple victims are strapped to tables and tortured. Three scenes in all I believe.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cure_(Fringe) - Woman strapped to a table, she's a test patient being tortured with painful drugs, begging them to stop.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bound_(Fringe) - Olivia strapped to a table and tortured.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inner_Child_(Fringe) - Woman are paralysed and then slowly killed.

Well that's the first season. I'm off for dinner now. If you want to try something similar for the first season of the X-Files please do!

(Sorry couldn't reply to your reply, I think it's too deeply nested or something)

A point you repeatedly make in your OP is that everyone uses torture -- not just the bad guys -- and that it's just a tool to extract information. So it seems certainly relevant that your selection of examples are all of bad guys committing torture on the "good guys" or otherwise innocent victims.

Fringe, especially in its earlier "monster of the week" seasons, has a very clear distinction between the "good guys" and the "bad guys". Since only the bad guys are committing torture, it seems more plausible that the writers of Fringe think that the audience will view torture as something bad people do. However, it does not support your point that torture is a tool used by everyone.

There's one plot line in season 5 where Peter tortures an Observer. But it was depicted as a moral failing of Peter to commit torture, opposite what you suggest in your OP ("In fact it’s often portrayed as a moral failing to not do anything it takes to get the results you need.").

The entire plot line is very dark as Peter's grief over his daughter takes him down a bad path. It is supposed to be (and was for me) uncomfortable to watch.

Yes. Everyone does! * Even Peter. You've just said as much. And it is shown as a tool. I just pulled those examples from the first season using the plot synopse to try and trigger my memory. I obviously didn't have time to go and rewatch 130 hours of television to satisfy a HN commenter who was trying to make a rhetorical point. Many of the characters are ambiguous and are eventually revealed to be acting in the best interests of the "their universe". If you really want to disprove this do your own research. Go through and categorise every instance of pain inflicted on a person in a helpless situation. Are there more or less of these scenes than in the X-Files? Are they betrayed as something only a truly evil sadist would perform or are they more of a tool of the trade? Why do you think the sci-fi FBI genre has shifted?

* Apart from dear Astrid of course, statement may contain some hyperbole.

> If you really want to disprove this do your own research.

You're the one that made a claim, it is not unreasonable to expect that you can back this up with examples. So far the examples you've provided don't show that everyone resorts to torture. And instances in your examples come from the bad guys doing something clearly, well, bad. Again, if the image of torture is a bad thing in your mind then all violence should be absent from every media because it normalizes all violence.

> If you really want to disprove this do your own research. Go through and categorise every instance of pain inflicted on a person in a helpless situation. Are there more or less of these scenes than in the X-Files?

And here you're extending the definition of torture to contain every act of violence against a helpless person. Given it's duration, I suspect that X-Files would have more instances of this. Using your model, disprove me.

An argument should be credible by itself, not only in the context of counterarguments. A statement without its own proof is quite useless; it is not unreasonable for someone to ask for the evidence you used to get to your conclusion. If that data is "I have a gut feeling from watching two shows and thinking about it," then so be it. Just say that.

Hand-wavy grandstands are fine, but don't pass something off as deeper than that if it isn't.

I'm currently binge watching Fringe on Netflix; currently in the final season. So it is still fresh in mind; but I have yet to see all of season 5.

In your article you specifically state, "Torture is used by all parties. Everyone resorts to torture, whether they are the good guys or the bad guys."

You then use X-Files and Fringe as the main points of contrast. This is blatantly wrong. All of the examples you have pointed out above, as well as all of the instances of torture I recall from the show, were from the "bad guys".

I would disagree with this being a form of normalization of torture, but rather a statement against torture. The bad guys use torture because they are bad; ergo this is a quiet form of protest from the shows producers against things going on today; Guantanamo, water boarding, etc...

If you're concerned about the normalization of something, wouldn't the numerous murders and killings in self-defense be more troubling than a handful of episodes featuring serial-killers/amoral corporate types/amoral scientists ignoring the plight of their victims?

Murder and killing is pretty good at making people dead. Torture is rather less effective for making them talk (truthfully/usefully).

And the relevance of that? Its presence in the show (by aychedee's logic) is still resulting in its normalization. If it's bad to normalize torture, it's at least as bad to normalize murder and generalized violence.

[meta: I think the nesting is some sort of delay system to prevent a rapid back-and-fore argument. If you click "link" however it appears you can bypass the lack of a reply option.]

Clicking "link" is no faster than reloading, as far as I can tell.

Clicking link is immediate, and the delay for an active "reply" link can be minutes. The longest I've seen (and recall the time on) was at least 5 minutes, possibly pushing 10. In an active conversation that's a long time.

Are you sure "link" is immediate?

So far, though this message isn't deep enough (or the thread isn't active enough?) to have a reply delay. I've replied to "0 minute" messages via link that didn't have the normal reply option.

Yes. But I also found clicking on "link" doesn't always pop up the reply button, either.

Is there a nesting limit too?

That's the only limit I was aware of originally.

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