[General Battuta]

No, please let threads go where they will unless they bifurcate.

[Nuclear1]

Or just split everything about IQ into a separate thread and leave this one.

because dammit you damn kids are ruining my threads

[Mustang19]

Well Batutta didn't respond to

Now an interesting question is if the recent (past 2-3 decades) decline in measured intelligence and reversal of the Flynn effect is due to natural selection or environmental factors, or if it's just a problem with test validity and means nothing. In any case I decree the dumbing down of the world to be the Mustang effect since no one has jumped on the opportunity to name it after themselves yet.

so I guess that's dead.

Back on about Gitmo I guess we can pick up from the thread I got banned for. In the absence of a single example of someone who joined Al Qaeda to fight for human rights solely because something in the US constitution (habeas corpus) wasn't applied to foreign captives, I bet that a Gitmo type fiasco would never have happened if the US outsourced detention to other countries from the start to clear itself of blame. Gitmo is in the news all the time but you almost never hear news about the probably even greater number of people shipped to Saudi Arabia or Egypt instead for worse treatment.

[General Battuta]

I didn't think the possible Flynn decline had kicked in until more recently than that.

[Nuclear1]

Gitmo is in the news all the time but you almost never hear news about the probably even greater number of people shipped to Saudi Arabia or Egypt instead for worse treatment.

It's not an either-or situation.  Detain insurgents if you want, but detain them as you would detain, you know, a human being charged with a crime.  I don't disagree with holding people that are dangerous, but Gitmo was such a horrible thing.

[Mustang19]

I guess it depends on who you ask and what locality. But it was measured by 1999 in Denmark.

If pollution levels are falling- dioxins among other things at least have been- I wouldn't blame pollution for this reversal. Lifestyle changes might be a factor considering things like the effect of the American diet on development (not just obesity). Another explanation is the weak but measured negative correlation between IQ and number of children. This guy thinks genotypic IQ will fall by .8 every generation. It's interesting to consider if IQ reaches equilibrium over time and genotypic intelligence will fall back to the same point every time it finishes going up. People will be just as dumb in 2900 as they were in 1900 if evolution takes it's course.

It's not an either-or situation.  Detain insurgents if you want, but detain them as you would detain, you know, a human being charged with a crime.  I don't disagree with holding people that are dangerous, but Gitmo was such a horrible thing.

It's not just that; the abuse scandals created a lot of unrest when they were found out. But what we were talking about in the previous thread (before it got locked) was mainly whether terror suspects should be put on trial.

[Nuclear1]

It's not just that; the abuse scandals created a lot of unrest when they were found out. But what we were talking about in the previous thread (before it got locked) was mainly whether terror suspects should be put on trial.

As they should have.  If we were detaining Americans in prisons and abusing them without giving them a trial, they're be a huge stink about that as well.  Most of the controversy could have been avoided if the people detained there were at least given civilian trials.

[Mustang19]

Most of the controversy could have been avoided if the people detained there were at least given civilian trials.

Virtually all of the attention in the Arab world at least centered around the humiliation of prisoners and the abuse of the Koran. Sure, westerners cared a lot about the legality of the detentions but it wasn't something people were shooting each other over.

Well you've got your wish and Obama is putting the inmates on trial, but even if one or two of the acquitted end up returning to terrorism they'll do a lot of damage.

[General Battuta]

Well you've got your wish and Obama is putting the inmates on trial, but even if one or two of the acquitted end up returning to terrorism they'll do a lot of damage.

Since when have terrorists ever managed to do a lot of damage in the grand scheme of things?

It's somewhat poetic that our spasmic responses have done so much more. You put in so little and you get out so much!

Being a terrorist is such a deal.

[Nuclear1]

Virtually all of the attention in the Arab world at least centered around the humiliation of prisoners and the abuse of the Koran. Sure, westerners cared a lot about the legality of the detentions but it wasn't something people were shooting each other over.

True, I won't argue that.

Well you've got your wish and Obama is putting the inmates on trial, but even if one or two of the acquitted end up returning to terrorism they'll do a lot of damage.

Did I miss something?  I don't recall him doing any such thing.

Like Battuta said, one or two individual foot soldiers don't really mean anything in the long run.  Excluding all of the innocent people held at Gitmo, the majority of prisoners are just that--foot soldiers.  There are very few high-level people detained there. 

[Mustang19]

Obama restarts gitmo trials

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama reversed course Monday and ordered a resumption of military trials for terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, making his once ironclad promise to close the isolated prison look even more distant.

Actually most of the people at Gitmo are innocent, at least before the recent releases. That doesn't mean it's possible to tell the difference with certainty.

[Nuclear1]

I meant civilian trials.  Military commissions are sham trials at best.

[Mustang19]

Well, that doesn't look like it's going to happen. Presenting classified evidence would probably burn a lot of CIA contacts and wrongly acquitting a few people before interrogation will deny the military some intel. Even if every detainee received a civilian trial it wouldn't prevent the military from "outsourcing" detention.

[Mustang19]

Since when have terrorists ever managed to do a lot of damage in the grand scheme of things?

It's somewhat poetic that our spasmic responses have done so much more. You put in so little and you get out so much!

Being a terrorist is such a deal.

Um, every time a suicide bomb blows up a marketplace or police station. The political effects are bigger than the immediate ones. Yes, terrorism is a pinprick on the whole but it does get kind of annoying when you're trying to prevent civil war or maintain confidence in institutions.

[Nuclear1]

We get more and better intel through plenty of other methods.  We don't need to result to torture and abuse to get our information.

Even if every detainee received a civilian trial it wouldn't prevent the military from "outsourcing" detention.

Yeah, but putting certain members of the previous administration and the military leadership on trial for war crimes would help in deterring it.

There are so many assholes that need to be rotting in prison that aren't alleged Islamic extremists...

[Mustang19]

Yeah, but putting certain members of the previous administration and the military leadership on trial for war crimes would help in deterring it.

I'm really surprised that this isn't talked about more; the Hague could easily send out warrants. That would put Obama in an interesting position.

edit: why not lol the us doesnt give the icc a cent

[Nuclear1]

As it stands, neither Bush nor Cheney can set foot in any country that's a signatory to the ICC. 

[Kosh]

We get more and better intel through plenty of other methods.  We don't need to result to torture and abuse to get our information.

Even if every detainee received a civilian trial it wouldn't prevent the military from "outsourcing" detention.

Yeah, but putting certain members of the previous administration and the military leadership on trial for war crimes would help in deterring it.

There are so many assholes that need to be rotting in prison that aren't alleged Islamic extremists...

As I recall there was a push by a couple of democrats to investigate the bush administration's various wrong doings but the rest of the party and obama deep sixed it.

[Bobboau]

Since when have terrorists ever managed to do a lot of damage in the grand scheme of things?

well if it weren't for 9/11 the Iraq war would never have happened.

[General Battuta]

Um, every time a suicide bomb blows up a marketplace or police station. The political effects are bigger than the immediate ones. Yes, terrorism is a pinprick on the whole but it does get kind of annoying when you're trying to prevent civil war or maintain confidence in institutions.

I doubt the consequences of one measly car bomb killing a few dozen people will ever be more harmful than the consequences of the whole world seeing those pictures from Abu Ghraib or hearing stories from Gitmo.

ed: Actually, it strikes me that Gitmo is a good example of the famous pregnancy detector principle. If we have a terrorist detector which is 95% accurate, but only some small portion (<1%) of the population is a terrorist, most of the people we incarcerate will still be false positives. Throw in a further coefficient for rate of terrorist generation per false positive and if you had any kind of good data you could figure out whether Gitmo generates more terrorists than it incarcerates.

Since when have terrorists ever managed to do a lot of damage in the grand scheme of things?

well if it weren't for 9/11 the Iraq war would never have happened.

That was kind of the point of the rest of my post, yeah.