This keeps popping up and *cannot* be dismissed in ie11 -- please get rid of it.

Some people say the same about IE11!

I agree with that. I am using Chrome more and more, but in the mean time ...

Only a tiny fraction of our members use IE, and the survey will be down in a couple of days, so if you could just bear with us and use Chrome for now!

This keeps popping up and *cannot* be dismissed in ie11 -- please get rid of it.

yeah, I got that as well. There should be 4 questions
a. yes
b no 
c ask me later.
d depends

A few months ago we had a similar quiz with the same {0,1} choice, which was modified later. Maybe the Helpdek remembers.

Why/who. posed this question? There's enough hysteria as it is.
In bad taste.

After the upgrade I stopped using IE 11.

If you answer the question then the reason is given afterwards.

If you answer the question then the reason is given afterwards.

ah, we don't know a priori!

BTW how many times can we answer the question?

it's a standard sort of question in that it personalizes an issue and shows that there are not always black and white answers to difficult questions

absolute statements ("I would never use torture") can be tested by extreme cases, so that "I would never use torture" becomes "sometimes I would use torture"

e.g. your wife has been raped and murdered, do you support the death penalty?

e.g. your  wife has been raped by her troglodyte half-brother and is carrying his demon seed, should abortion be illegal?

If a terrorist were in custody who had planted a suitcase nuke somewhere on the eastern seaboard but we didn't know where, yes I would torture him (or her) to try to find out where it was

it's a standard sort of question in that it personalizes an issue and shows that there are not always black and white answers to difficult questions

absolute statements ("I would never use torture") can be tested by extreme cases, so that "I would never use torture" becomes "sometimes I would use torture"

e.g. your wife has been raped and murdered, do you support the death penalty?

e.g. your  wife has been raped by her troglodyte half-brother and is carrying his demon seed, should abortion be illegal?

If a terrorist were in custody who had planted a suitcase nuke somewhere on the eastern seaboard but we didn't know where, yes I would torture him (or her) to try to find out where it was

Yes, but the suitcase nuke story is a strawman scenario. In real life, you don't know there's really a suitcase nuke (as opposed to some fools talking as if the device exists), you don't know it's on the Eastcoast (it may still be back in the home country), you don't know if this guy planted it (he may be some minion who bought an empty suitcase at Sears on behalf of someone else), you don't even really know the guy's a terrorist (you might be torturing some innocent person who's only crime is the color of his skin or the spelling of his name).

as others have said elsewhere, those who accept that torture is an unfortunate necessity on occasion will answer the question as asked, while those who claim that torture should never be used will start ranting about strawmen
absolute statements ("I would never use torture") can be tested by extreme cases, so that "I would never use torture" becomes "sometimes I would use torture"
When you make an absolute statement, we only need to find one counterexample

One could always ask "Make up your own scenario, as unrealistic as necessary, in which you would torture someone, or say you would never use torture."

Do we have a common consensus on what 'torture' is?

Par exemple, the five techniques

prolonged wall-standing, hooding, subjection to noise, deprivation of sleep, and deprivation of food and drink.

Those are all wussy techniques that leave no physical damage. You could add to those examples having to teach maths to list1. That's worse than all of those.

Since he just passed, this would seem appropriate ...