A moral dilemma..

[Jonathan50]

Your nine year old daughter has gone to spend the night with a good friend of the same age. When you drop her off at the friend's house, they decide to watch a DVD.

The friend has gotten into her daddy's DVD collection and has selected two DVDs they can watch on the TV in her bedroom.

One DVD is "Debbie Does Dallas", the other DVD is "Texas Chainsaw Massacre".

They are going to watch one of these DVDs in the girl's room with no one to interfere.

Which one would you rather they watch?

[bryant69]

1. Debbie Does Dallas I suppose

Now I got a theoretical question for you; you know with certainty that a guy knows there is a bomb somewhere in the civic center. Likewise you know how to torture, and you have a high success rate. The bomb is going off in 5 hours; would you torture the guy to get the information you need to save all those people?

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[fasttense]

9. So who exactly gets high success rates from torture?

Was it useful during the witch trials? They had thousands of women confessing to being witches. Was it reliable information they got when they tortured Khalid Sheikh Mohammed? He confessed to everything. Why wouldn't the supposed bomber do what most people would do and confess to anything? Why wouldn't he send the idiot torturers on a wild goose chase until his bomb explodes? There are no guarantees in torture, not even the most experienced torturers can ensure reliable information. Torture is really only used for revenge and punishment.

[bryant69]

11. Laughs

I was putting up a hypothetical bullshit scenario that proves nothing; same as the OP.

What if Terrorists kidnapped your kids and said they were going to a) show them Debbie Does Dallas, b) show them Texas Chainsaw Massacre, or c) put them in a cage with a million monkeys and a million typewriters.

Bryant

[Jonathan50]

25. Why is the OP scenario "bullshit"?

Do your really think it couldn't happen?

[bryant69]

38. It could happen but my reaction to it proves nothing

Because the honest response is "Well I would do everything in my power not to fact that choice."

Bryant

[Forkboy]

12. I've always hated that question.

The catch to your question is the phrase,"and you have a high success rate".I think it leads the reader to more readily accept the torture choice.

Has the guy we're torturing already been tortured and proven "reliable"? If not than any record of past success is pointless as there's no telling whether this single instance will be reliable at all.

And in the case of a bomb threat wouldn't it just be easiest to evacuate the building anyways? :)

[wuushew]

2. the former

the later may induce nausea and vomiting

[valerief]

3. For many (most?) people, it's no moral dilemma. DDD, of course. nt

[lectrobyte]

4. I'd prefer "none of the above", but I'd have to go with DDD if forced.

[RaleighNCDUer]

5. Trick question --

which would I rather they watch, or which would I rather they choose?

I'd rather they choose 'Chainsaw', because they'll be so scared by the first 20 minutes that they'll turn it off. Thus, they didn't watch either.

but if they were to sit through the whole show, I'd rather they watched 'Debbie'.

Of course, the best option is for Dad to lock up the videos that he doesn't want his daughter to see.

[Forkboy]

6. YAY!!!!!

Of course, the best option is for Dad to lock up the videos that he doesn't want his daughter to see.

:applause:

[Jonathan50]

10. Kids are very good at getting into things they shouldn't

I know I was, my daughter was and my grandchildren are.

By the way, where do atheists fall in your "coexist" sig line?

[Forkboy]

14. Oh I know...I was a crafty kid myself.

But it was still the right answer.

If I can find an atheist logo that would fit into the coexist tag I'd use it.I'm agnostic myself,but only by the thinnest if hairs,so it's not like I'm out to get atheists or anything. :shrug:

[renate]

7. I'd choose the first one

But if this question is posed in reference to the couple who had sex in front of a 9-year-old child, I'd be FURIOUS about the lack of supervision that enabled them to watch either one. Choosing the lesser of two evils doesn't make it a good thing.

[seabeyond]

8. right.... cause much better for our girls to learn at such a young age

how to degrade themselves in efforts to amuse male. seeing how the porn is an affront to the daughter, and female not prone to the violence of csm....... seeing that absolute violence more in tune with male.

ya

[RaleighNCDUer]

17. Have you seen either of those movies?

I suggest the girls hung on meathooks and gutted is a little more degrading than consensual sex.

And in DDD, the men are not using her, she is using them (much to their delight).

Frankly, though, after a few minutes of giggles I suspect most 9 yr old girls would be bored by DDD. And boredom is far better than inculcating fear in children. The primary source of conservativism is fear of the world.

[seabeyond]

20. my children wouldnt watch either and i wouldnt have lack of control over child

to see that they wouldnt watch either. further being a parent of 9 and 12 yr old boys even if either movie was on in some magical way, they would turn both off. i openly talk about sex, respect, nakedness, puberity, and neither boys like violent movies. and no..... i dont think a female being a slut, spreading legs to all and whomever, without any thought or responsibility for the entertainment of male, EMPOWERS the female. i know many porn advocates like to say this is true. i do not believe it is true.

[Blue Diadem]

13. Neither one is appropriate n/t

[Marrah_G]

15. For the record

The OP is trying to say seeing a violent movie is more harmful then a child sitting on a bed watching her mother and her boyfriend have sex so she can "learn".

He also thinks violent movies are worse then a child watching her mothers boyfriend sit on a couch watching porn while masturbating in front of her, again, to "teach her".

This isn't about DDD or TCM, this is about someone trying to justify sexual abuse of a child.

Rather then some bullshit post about some moral dilemma, why not post what you are really trying to say.

[seabeyond]

16. yes. i am aware of it. then simple question this poster asks though

is effidence there is not a lot of in depth thought on children and their development, to suggest a parent has no control over what a child watches at 9 is absurd, to suggest a porn movie degrading female is less harmful to a 9 year old females sexual development is absurd and to suggest a person is a prude if they are opposed to a 9 yr old either gender watching mom and a boyfriend fuck or jack off to a porn flick is not harmful to childs develpoment obviously lacks insight to children.

[kath]

22. I have a polite request - your posts would be ever so much easier to read if

you would use some capital letters and punctuation. I find my eyes glazing over when I come to them, and I suspect others feel the same way (and at times I just skip on past them, since it takes too much extra effort to decipher them).

[seabeyond]

18. this is the adult i would NOT entrust my child with to spend the night

at a friends.

[kath]

19. Debbie Does Dallas.

I have said for a long time that I would MUCH rather my kids see movies that are rated R for sex rather than for graphic violence. (Here we're talking an X-rated movie, and I'd still choose it over the gory violence, although I wouldn't *wnat* them to watch either one at this age)
I just don't get it that so many parents don't bat an eye at their kids seeing all kinds of graphic, gory violence, yet get all freaked out at the idea of them seeing a bare breast.

My 14 1/2 and 16 year old daughters have seen Clerks 2, with me. Yes, it's very, very crude (and funny) and the crudity involves sex. No violence though. I don't think it was at all harmful for them to see this, but I still don't want them seeing movies where peoples' blood is being sprayed all over the screen. IMO the taking of human life, and glorifying it, is much more damaging to young psyches (or ANY psyches, for that matter) than sexuality can be. Now if the sex involves violence, then that's another kettle of fish...
Friends watched Shakespeare in Love (rated R) with their kids when they were pretty young. Yes, the sex scenes in that are pretty graphic (and erotic!), but it is loving sex (except for a brief scene with one of the actors bouncing around with a prostitute), and what is the harm in that? I haven't gotten around to watching it with my daughters yet, but we plan to soon.

[cgrindley]

21. Fallacy of Choice

This question is a pretty basic example of one of the all time dumbest errors in logic--the fallacy of choice, that is, presenting a false dichotomy or a false dilema... basically, the simplest way to put it is that you're the mis-using the word "or".

CF Morton's Fork or Hobson's Choice

Better yet, instead of wasting valuable keystrokes to this spillover issue, read Sophie's Choice.

[donco6]

23. I agree.

Dumb question.

[kiahzero]

26. It's hardly a fallacy.

If two options are comparable based on a certain value, it's not fallacious to ask which is preferable judged by that value.

The framing of the question simply removes extraneous factors, so that the respondent can answer which is preferable, judged by the value in question.

[cgrindley]

28. Of course it is...

there's a gun at your head, you have to choose between eating dog shit or cat barf. Quick! Which one do you eat? Remember, there's a gun at your head...

It's the same question. Just as dumb.

No one has to participate in a false dilema.

a) where is this mythical house where the only films available are Debbie does Dallas and Texas Chainsaw Massacre?

b) how am I directly my child's choice? am I telepathic? because if so, I'd like my child to make me a sandwich right now.

c) where is my child's friend's parents? Are they having an orgy? Can I participate?

[kiahzero]

30. Probably the barf.

I'd think it'd be more sanitary.

It's not a fallacy: it's an attempt to control for extraneous options and make a value judgment between two "bad" things. If two things are comparable by way of some value judgment, it's not fallacious to ask for a comparison and judgment.

No, you don't have to participate - you can refuse to answer the question. However, that doesn't make the question fallacious.

[cgrindley]

34. It's totally fallacious

it's a textbook example of Morton's Fork. If you looked up Morton's Fork in a dictionary of logic, you'd see a printout of this thread.

[Jonathan50]

27. It is a "thought experiment"

Is the scenario really all that unlikely?

Actually I'd be really surprised if something similar hasn't happened already.

The logical fallacy of false dilemma—also known as false choice, false dichotomy, falsified dilemma, fallacy of the excluded middle, black and white thinking, false correlative, either/or fallacy and bifurcation—involves a situation in which two alternative statements are held to be the only options, when in reality there exist one or more other options which have not been considered. The two alternatives presented are often, though not always, the two extreme points on some spectrum. Instead of such extreme simplification and wishful thinking, considering the whole spectrum, as in fuzzy logic, may be more appropriate. A typical false dilemma is the assertion "You are either for us or you are against us." The fallacy of this type of argument is that it tries to eliminate the middle ground.

What is the "middle ground" in the scenario I put forth?

[cgrindley]

29. Ummm, can you read?

There is NO middle ground in your false dilema. That's why it is a false dilema. It lacks middle ground.

If this is supposed to be a "thought experiment" I would recommend to the review board that its funding be immediately terminated. I think that everyone will want to see a pretty complete audit, and I highly doubt we'll fund anymore of these "thought experiments" of yours until you learn a bit more about "thought experiments".

[kiahzero]

31. Where would the potential middle ground be?

"Which is preferable, A or B?"

I'm curious where one would place this hypothetical middle ground.

[cgrindley]

32. Again...

uh any of C,D,E,F,G,H,I,J,K,L,M,N,O,P,Q,S,T,U,V,W,X,Y,Z, all the words they can make and the numbers 1-infinity.

[TahitiNut]

35. (lol!) Good luck!

DU swims in fallacies like fish in water.

"Fish will be the last to discover water." (Einstein)

:rofl: :rofl:

[Lester222]

24. Is the friend a boy or a girl? ....

... if the later, then Debie Does Dallas. If the former, The Chainsaw Massacre ;)

[dysfunctional press]

33. texas chainsaw massacre, of course...(hopefully it's the original)

since i'd already have gotten her a subscription to 'fangoria' magazine, so that she could understand the special effects that go into making a horror movie, and that the violence seen on the screen is all make-believe, and that nobody is really getting hurt or killed- so there's nothing to be scared of...and perhaps it could even get her interested in film-making as a career.

btw- why would this be a "moral" dilema?

[Bronyraurus]

36. What is wrong with fake violence?

I would choose Texas Chainsaw Massacre, in part because it's an amazing movie, but also because I think it would be less damaging to the psyche of little girls. It would scare them, but they've already seen so much violence on TV that it wouldn't shock them. I think that hardcore sex would utterly confuse them and introduce them to an adult world long before they could understand it. Yes, there's sex all over TV, but they aren't lessons in biology or the grosser elements of the human sex instinct as porn movies are.

[RaleighNCDUer]

37. Which would give them nightmares? nt

[Bronyraurus]

39. Who knows?

I think that a child would be likely to have dreams about either.

[porphyrian]

40. Either. If I'm comfortable putting her in that position, I trust her...

...at least enough to make movie-watching decisions of her own and/or to get help from a trusted adult if she makes a bad choice or decision. Today, you could watch either of those movies on a cell phone, downloaded (albeit pirated) for free. Better to equip children with the tools they need to figure things out for themselves than to attempt to micromanage their every move.

[The empressof all]

41. Locking

The premise here is just flamebait...

Ridiculous.....