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Why Torture Doesn't Work: The Neuroscience of Interrogation

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Re: Why Torture Doesn't Work: The Neuroscience of Interrogation

#141

Post by LordKano »

larrysalibra wrote: post #8

Torture isn't conducted to improve the ability of the victim to recall information but as a negotiating tactic. I'll give you what you want: to stop being tortured, if you tell me what I want to know.

We also understand that people will say anything to get the torture to stop.

When the intelligence community let it be known that Khalid Sheikh Muhammad confessed to planning 9-11, the response from the public was tempered by the almost universal recognition that he had been waterboarded hundreds of times before he "confessed".

At that point, he would have confessed to killing JFK and Lincoln just to stop them from slow-motion drowning him.

Re: Why Torture Doesn't Work: The Neuroscience of Interrogation

#142

Post by vlehto »

arca_vorago wrote: post #113
vlehto wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. If CIA would actually worry about the terrorist, then the terrorists still free would be 1. concern. They are really hard to catch, no matter how you try. Now if you go torture route, you might get some information that is quickly getting dated. But you also validate the terrorist cause. And terrorists in hostage situations don't want to surrender, because they know they will be tortured. If you would treat capt…

I think you unknowingly answered the real question: what is the purpose of torture? Almost everyone here is assuming it is to extract information and save lives with that information, but I would venture to say that is not nearly as often the case as most would like to think. If we look at the other possible reasons, some things make sense. One thing to keep in mind is that torture is rare. The majority who end up at…

I think that's good speculation. But with bit of Hanlons Razor, that seems bit too good picture of CIA. They are not stupid, but they are still a fallible organization.

I think their priorities are: existence of CIA, genuine concern for safety of U.S., geopolitical power of U.S.

Maybe they we're really clueless. And decided to waterboard people so they would be "doing something" so they could try to justify existence of CIA. Or maybe they wanted to show to Mossad that they get to do shit too. As an intelligence saber rattling. We really don't know.

Re: Why Torture Doesn't Work: The Neuroscience of Interrogation

#143

Post by saganus »

I think that sometimes there's another factor that gets overseen when discussing torture.

The "problem" that I believe is also tried to be addressed with torture is the view that the society that "supports torture" (via their government, even if against the opinion of most people) can't let leniency get in the way of righteous retribution against their enemies.

Imagine if someone invents a pill that is literally the "truth serum", and that the subject taking it can't lie for say an hour or so.

Would that end torture? If torture's only objective is to get information then it should.

But what if torture is really filling another role? one that is not satisfiable by information but by inflicting pain on your enemy?

I'm not defending torture by any means, and I do think it should be something that we as humanity should strive to end. But it seems like more often than not you can find people that would not defend torture, "except in cases of extreme need", i.e. when they need retribution.

It would be interesting to do some research on what victims of crime and violence, and their families, think about what it would be "fair" to do to their offenders. Maybe it turns out most won't be willing to inflict pain in others, or maybe it turns out most people are vengeful and would like to see their enemies suffer.

If the case is the latter, then I think the main problem with torture would be not as a tool to obtain information, but as a tool to inflict retribution.

What if a society that is mainly governed by people of the second kind get a hold of the ability to torture? e.g. CIA interrogators, people that sign torture orders, etc? then in their minds it would be justifiable, even if the activity doesn't yield any useful information.

If it does, then they get the information AND retribution. If they don't get truthful information then they still get retribution.

That's why I think torture is a subject so hard for officials to understand the damage it can cause. As long as they think retribution in this form is OK, then it will be very hard to end this practice.

Re: Why Torture Doesn't Work: The Neuroscience of Interrogation

#144

Post by saganus »

bluecalm wrote: post #93
bsder wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> so unless serious brain damage occurred, the subject wasn't going to forget after torture. Really? You have data on this? I'd love to see it. However, there are multiple problems with your scenario. The biggest being: what happens if the individual DOESN'T KNOW ? He's going to tell you anything he can to get you to stop, and, if you could verify the crucial piece of information, you wouldn't be torturing him in the…

>>if you could verify the crucial piece of information, you wouldn't be torturing him in the first place. This is not true. There are many things easy to verify but difficult to discover. For example a place the money is kept in a big house.

Well yes. But I think the parent was framing it with reference to the intelligence world conflicts. At least that's how I Read it.

Imagine you torture a guy to get the name of it's cell leader. You can't verify this easily. You have to capture that other guy, torture him and repeat the process. While in any of those steps you have the chance of getting false information without knowing it.

I would think most intelligence from a war zone would be of this type, i.e. hard to verify, and I think the parent was thinking along those lines as well.

Re: Why Torture Doesn't Work: The Neuroscience of Interrogation

#145

Post by [deleted] »

bluecalm wrote: post #93
bsder wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> so unless serious brain damage occurred, the subject wasn't going to forget after torture. Really? You have data on this? I'd love to see it. However, there are multiple problems with your scenario. The biggest being: what happens if the individual DOESN'T KNOW ? He's going to tell you anything he can to get you to stop, and, if you could verify the crucial piece of information, you wouldn't be torturing him in the…

>>if you could verify the crucial piece of information, you wouldn't be torturing him in the first place. This is not true. There are many things easy to verify but difficult to discover. For example a place the money is kept in a big house.

[deleted]

Re: Why Torture Doesn't Work: The Neuroscience of Interrogation

#146

Post by angelbob »

nickff wrote: post #30
angelbob wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is frequent that it's believed to happen. It's possible, but seems unlikely, that it has literally happened, torture has worked and then the US government has somehow not crowed about it. They are looking very hard for scenarios to justify their use of torture, and the results they have revealed (e.g. from waterboarding Al Qaeda members) aren't inspiring, so far. It appears, for instance, that waterboarding people…

Whether the US government is 'good' at extracting information through torture is irrelevant to any discussion of the efficacy of torture, or its morality. Some might argue that the US was simply too restrained in the pain and suffering it subjected the subjects to; others might argue that the US 'tortured hard enough', but it is not possible to achieve 'better' results. Similarly, there could be a discussion of wheth…

Whether the US gov't is good at it is irrelevant, if we assume somebody else could plausibly be better.

But if they're anywhere near an upper bound, then whether they (a well-informed first-world superpower with a huge budget and a willingness to extradite people to places like Syria where there are effectively no rules) can make torture work is very relevant.

Because if they can't, and torture is useless, then clearly the question is effectively resolved, at least in the real world. If torture is simply ineffective in real-world scenarios then the question goes away.

Re: Why Torture Doesn't Work: The Neuroscience of Interrogation

#147

Post by jules »

scotty79 wrote: post #140
jules wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The intent of e.g. a drone strike is to kill the target. So even in terms of intent that is worse. The thing is that nobody even cares about that: arguments against drone strikes are virtually always about collateral damage of innocent people. Compare and contrast with the discussion about torture where people are not even willing to make a cost benefit analysis.

> The intent of e.g. a drone strike is to kill the target. So even in terms of intent that is worse. For you and me yes. For people who believe targets are "bad people" worth killing it's noble intent.

Well, lets talk about people who are not like that, but people who think drone strikes are might be okay in certain circumstances. My point is that those are the same people who say that torture is not okay under any circumstance. That is the inconsistency I'm pointing out.

Re: Why Torture Doesn't Work: The Neuroscience of Interrogation

#148

Post by PepeGomez »

rjtobin wrote: post #7

About 4 years ago I went to a talk given by the author of the book, the subject was along the same lines as the book: how torture is ineffective because it damages the subject's ability to recall information. Afterwards someone asked a question that a lot of us had been thinking: that in a lot of situations where torture might be used, the information being asked for is very well known to the subject, so unless serio…

You greatly underestimate how much the brain shuts down in stress situations. People may not hear being talked to, recognize familiar people or notice severe wounds. It's the reason behind such rules such as no cleanup during training - it lead to people picking up spent ammunition in real gunfights.

During torture, the stress levels must be high enough so that the subject forgets that they don't want to tell you anything important, and at that point they may not be able to recall their own name. And of course people tell intentionally inaccurate, false or otherwise misleading information to avoid further torture.

So torture may work for those who somehow ended up on the enemy side and don't actually care that much one way or another, but not people who are likely to have valuable information. Even the Nazis knew that and instead tried to convict the interrogated they are civilized, well meaning people.

Re: Why Torture Doesn't Work: The Neuroscience of Interrogation

#149

Post by PepeGomez »

varjag wrote: post #59
XorNot wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue your audience is failing to understand what torture is. Most people are deathly afraid of any pain. But they're also not agents/operatives/soldiers for their government. They're not at war with an enemy they think worth fighting and killing. So they don't have a particular strong desire to conceal information from anyone who threatens them. This means, in an actual scenario of torture interrogation, you…

> I would argue your audience is failing to understand what torture is. Most people are deathly afraid of any pain. But they're also not agents/operatives/soldiers for their government. They're not at war with an enemy they think worth fighting and killing. It almost sounds as if you are trying to define away torture for a fringe case where it's guaranteed to be useless. This is a legalistic approach not anymore conv…

There isn't much evidence for torture being used except as a form of punishment. Even the famous medieval torture was intended as a part of the punishment and to deter crime, rather than finding valuable information. Torture was only used on people convicted by other means, because it was technically illegal to punish anybody who didn't plea guilty.

Re: Why Torture Doesn't Work: The Neuroscience of Interrogation

#150

Post by PepeGomez »

SilasX wrote: post #126
bluecalm wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>if you could verify the crucial piece of information, you wouldn't be torturing him in the first place. This is not true. There are many things easy to verify but difficult to discover. For example a place the money is kept in a big house.

Yeah, I always hoped HN was the last place where you actually had to convince people that NP-complete problems exist...

Real world problems are often NP-hard, not NP-complete.
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