Waterboarding and people justifying it is the Dunning-Kruger effect in action

[ck4829]

Sarah Palin said in a speech over the weekend that the controversial practice of waterboarding should be known as "how we baptize terrorists."

In a speech to the National Rifle Association on Saturday night, Palin said she would reinstitute the practice, which President Obama has labeled a form of torture. Those undergoing waterboarding have water poured over a cloth covering their face to simulate the feeling of drowning.

Palin said it's too valuable a technique.

"Come on! Enemies who would utterly annihilate America!" Palin said. "They who'd obviously have information on plots, say to carry out jihad. Oh, but you can’t offend them, can’t make them feel uncomfortable -- not even a smidgen. Well, if I were in charge, they would know that waterboarding is how we baptize terrorists."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/04/28/palin-waterboarding-is-how-we-baptize-terrorists/

I've said this before, and now I have a thing to connect it to, this whole 'omniscience-minus-one' is really funny.

* You KNOW there is a plot, a ticking time bomb, someone took your kids, jihad, someone drank all your milk, etc.
* You have someone in custody
* This person is guilty and everything he says contrary to what you think is wrong
* We must waterboard him, the very same technique used to get people to confess to being witches. It must work!
* The things he says under your approved torture must be true and infallible, like the words of God
* And as a side note but contributing to this, whenever someone justifies torture, it's always 'someone else', there is NEVER the possibility that your door could be busted down in the middle of the night and the police saying "There's our guy with the ticking time bomb, we better waterboard him to get the TRUTH out of him!"

All of these things where you think you are so right, on a level of almost omniscience without including the possibility that you could be completely wrong is the Dunning-Kruger effect. This is where people who have little to no skill, as little competency as possible, no knowledge of the subjects they are talking about, etc. think they are God's gift to the thing they are talking about or doing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

So, is it any surprise that Sarah Palin, Sean Hannity, George W. Bush, and others think it's best thing ever? Explains a lot.

[jberryhill]

1. The real irony in her statement was universally missed

God forbid we have any restrictions on those to whom guns are sold.

The fact of the matter is that she wants it to be easy for terrorists to GET guns in the first place.

[Supersedeas]

2. and assumes that it is already easy for terrorists to get guns in the first place