Torturing Mega-Hitler

[Not Matt]

i don't know. let's torture him until he gives us the answer. he should know, he's a professional savager.
in all seriousness though. torture is bad but in some of the most extreme cases it's a necessary evil.

 

[Callate]

Just because he's an awful person? No.

If he had harmed people I personally knew and cared about...?

I don't know. Rage and sorrow can make you justify terrible things.

But they remain terrible things.

 

[BathorysGraveland2]

No. That would make me barbaric. I won't deny that torture does have its uses and there are situations where it could be applied both strategically AND morally, in my mind. This however, is the furthest away from that. I don't fall in line with sheep who scream blindly for revenge and justice. So to torture someone for things he did just for sick satisfaction? No man. If he has to die, then just execute him right there and then. Prolonged torture is useless and extremely barbaric in that situation and for that reason.

Torture can be awesome in fiction and sex though, no doubt about it there.

 

[Korolev]

The only possible reason I could think of torturing someone like Hitler is to try to make them understand the pain they inflicted upon others. But the thing is - they won't understand that what they did was wrong. They'll never understand. If you torture a bad man, they'll never, ever have the sudden realization of "Hey, I don't like this, maybe it was wrong to do it to others!". All they'll think of is "It is wrong for you to do this to ME". People like Hitler have no empathy for others, so torturing them isn't going to get them to suddenly empathize with their victims. They'll never be sorry for what they did - they'll only be sorry that they're getting punished.

So what's the point? There is none. If they are that bad and they are a threat, kill them and be done with it. Torture also has an effect on the torturer. Even if they "deserve" it, if you torture people long enough you'll start to become someone you don't want to be.

 

[verdant monkai]

I wouldn't be able to. I'm so nice and loveable that the piss inside his bladder would kill me stone dead.

 

[Griffolion]

-snip-

Torturing this man for any reason, be it for information, or just for personal pleasure, is abhorrent. You will become who you are torturing.

 

[irok]

Nah , if theres nothing to gain just kill him , aren't you all supposed to be better then that, you've got him and with death he will pay for his crimes, anything else at that stage is just petty malice.

 

[nuttshell]

Yeah, lets torture people so they can tell us where his friends are, so that we can torture them too, yay! Yea, we will get reliable information in that way, veeeery quickly! Creepy thread is creepy.

 

[Signa]

If I've witnessed his atrocities first-hand, probably. It's harder to be mad at someone when you just hear about what they've done, and then only see a man in front of you. I'm not interested in torturing a man, but I'd consider doing it for a monster.

 

[Exocet]

I would find a 1000 hour long Youtube poop playlist, sit him down in front of it, and just let him die watching the intellectually worst thing ever made.
That's how far I'm willing to go for torture.

I am a horrible human being.

 

[SinisterGehe]

What would it achieve??? Death is the final punishment anyway, waiting for us all.
Also torture without purpose is just pointless.
So no.

 

[KOMega]

Well, if we are sure that his very existence causes death and kicked puppies, then we bring Mega Hitler behind closed doors and end it with a bullet and little word in or out.

Have him fade out of existence.

 

[MeisterKleister]

If there is no life to be saved, then I do not think that torture is okay.

One thing that some people might forget: a mass-murdering psychopath will still look, sound and suffer exactly like any other human being, and therefore torturing him will likely feel very similar to torturing a normal person - They will bleed, suffer, beg and scream in the same manner.

There is also the identifiable victim effect [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identifiable_victim_effect] to be aware of. We have a tendency to be much more eager to mete out punishments when the perpetrator is one specific, identifiable individual.

 

[Hipster Chick]

The problem with the whole "ticking time-bomb" scenario justifying torture is that it's become such a ubiquitous justification that it makes it literally the worst condition under which to torture someone. It's basically telling them that they have you by the balls and you need to pull out all the stops to prevent whatever it is that's going down, which gives them a reason to hold out just long enough for the bomb to go off.

There are, of course, more efficient ways of torturing someone, but that basically puts you on the same moral ground as Mega-Hitler. So really, just shoot the fuck.

 

[HardkorSB]

His very piss is so malevolent that if anything pure and innocent gets within a thousand miles of it, they instantly die.
...
Does that make it OK to torture him?

That would be somewhat dangerous.
What if he would piss himself during the tortures?

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

I actually am willing to sanction torture when there is purpose to it. But solely for personal satisfaction? never

Well yeah, even though it's an incredibly unreliant and cruel way of extracting information at least if you're cutting off fingers to find a bomb in a school you're at least kind of doing something with it.
But if you're employing it just because someone is a bad person maybe you should strap yourself in with them right away.

There's never a purpose for torture, and you gave it in your first sentence: it's unreliable, incredibly so. After a while, torture victims will admit to or make up absolutely anything, and I mean /anything/ to get the pain to stop. That anything, however, is not the real truth, it's the truth they think the torturer wants to hear. All that torture that was done for the war on terror? None of it ever gave any good results. All of the information taken from captured terrorists was done with the kinder, gentler methods of earning their trust, getting them comfortable, and otherwise waiting for them to slip up.

As far as executing this "Mega-Hitler," I'd only condone it for one reason: the fact that his urine is literally a chemical weapon. At that point you're not talking about killing a human being as punishment, you're talking about killing a literal monster to stop the damage it does simply by existing.

 

[SirPlindington]

... evil incarnate.

Doesn't exist. The concept of "evil" is an invented social construct used to justify one moral standard over another.

That's not the point, though. Believe you me, I don't believe in an objective moral system in any way, shape, or form, but the idea of Mega-Hitler is that he violates most any moral system absolutely and to its fullest extent. Evil Incarnate may not exist, but keep in mind, neither does Mega-Hitler.

Yeah, lets torture people so they can tell us where his friends are, so that we can torture them too, yay! Yea, we will get reliable information in that way, veeeery quickly! Creepy thread is creepy.

Did you... read the thread? I'm sorry, I don't mean to be rude and it's perfectly reasonable to assume going in that this is a thread about the morality of torture, but I thought I made it clear that that isn't the point. Is there something I'm missing here? I'm seriously asking, by the way. Could you elaborate?

 

[Ravage]

I'd feel I'd avenge the lives he has ruined and taken, since you say he has committed nearly all atrocities, etc.

See, if he hadn't done anything, I would be against torturing him.

Say if he killed a close family member recently, or a girlfriend or something. I'd keep him locked up and torture him daily for a while until I run out of steam, that is if I face no criminal charges or whatever. Is torture morally right? Naw, never. Does he have it coming? To me, indeed he does.

 

[Palindromemordnilap_v1legacy]

I'd say no, just because of practical reasons. If his piss is apparently lethal enough to kill at that massive range you mention, what the hell is his blood going to do? ust kill the dude and throw his body into space where he can do no more harm (to us at least)

 

[Alcamonic]

Now I wonder what would happen if we forced Mega-Hitler to drink his own piss (and then upload it on Youtube, internet-fame AHOOOO!)
Or if we just stopped his kidneys from purifying his urine so his cell would eventually flood and dissolve him... in his own piss... what a fate.