CIA black site detainee served as training prop to teach torture techniques • Hacker News Board

Re: CIA black site detainee served as training prop to teach torture techniques

#91

Post by shkkmo » Tue, Mar 15, 2022, 4:42 PM UTC

torturedreading wrote: post #70

Sharlin wrote: post #23

> “Ammar fabricated the information he provided when undergoing EITs,” it said. “He later admitted to his interrogators/debriefers that he was terrified and lied to get agency officers to stop the measures … Ammar also explained that he was afraid to tell a lie and was afraid to tell the truth because he did not know how either would be received.” Which is pretty much all you need to know about torture.

> Which is pretty much all you need to know about torture. When torture or "EIT" is used for a source of intelligence, using that sole point of data as proof is fraught with peril. Dropping JDAMs on a building fingered solely by a detainee is sure to get random bystanders killed. Running a raid, similarly, might well be a trap. However, when one corroborates this with other sources of data, it is a "valid" technique.…

My understanding is that rapport building techniques have a much better success rate.

Re: CIA black site detainee served as training prop to teach torture techniques

#92

Post by chiefalchemist » Tue, Mar 15, 2022, 4:43 PM UTC

throwaway894345 wrote: post #81

14 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only that but it is considered a war crime to torture from my understanding. So how can we look at Russia and say they are committing war crimes if the US blatantly does things like this. We need to lead on a moral high ground.

I absolutely agree about leading from the moral high ground. It's been frustrating talking with ordinary Russians who are reluctant to condemn (even anonymously) that their invasion of Ukraine (including the targeted murder of civilians) is an atrocity because the US invaded Iraq under false pretenses and without UN approval. Of course, it's a significant error of degree to conflate these anomalies in US behavior wit…

> Of course, it's a significant error of degree to conflate these anomalies in US behavior with the standard behavior of Russia or China or whomever,

Why so? Perhaps for Iraq you've forgot about the fact that VP Cheney's former company made significant gains from that lie?

The idea that one side's lies and unjustified violence are better than the other side's is why the wars and hypocrisy continue.

Either we - the ones being served cake - call all BS or we don't. But ongoing mediocre excuses for mediocrity aren't working.

/rant

Re: CIA black site detainee served as training prop to teach torture techniques

#93

Post by adamsmith143 » Tue, Mar 15, 2022, 4:43 PM UTC

sdoering wrote: post #22

adamsmith143 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it possible for you to construct a scenario where torture is morally acceptable? E.g. you have a virtual certainty that a dirty bomb is going to be detonated in NYC and will kill 1M+ and potentially irradiate the city for decades. Is torturing one person who you know with certainty knows the location of the bomb defensible? Basically, how many lives would you be willing to sacrifice to prevent the suffering of a s…

In the end, what you are asking comes down to some form of the "Trolley Problem" [0]. The critique towards the Trolley Problem can be directed towards your (very) hypothetical scenario as well: > In a 2014 paper published in the Social and Personality Psychology Compass, researchers criticized the use of the trolley problem, arguing, among other things, that the scenario it presents is too extreme and unconnected to…

> From a strictly utilitarian point of view killing one person to secure the survival of two others is a net positive outcome. But it feels morally more than wrong.

Well of course all sorts of definitive truths feel unintuitive or wrong to humans, perhaps that's just a limitation of our brains. From this utilitarian pov the net positive outcome is the morally correct one.

Re: CIA black site detainee served as training prop to teach torture techniques

#94

Post by adamsmith143 » Tue, Mar 15, 2022, 4:44 PM UTC

tryitnow wrote: post #41

adamsmith143 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it possible for you to construct a scenario where torture is morally acceptable? E.g. you have a virtual certainty that a dirty bomb is going to be detonated in NYC and will kill 1M+ and potentially irradiate the city for decades. Is torturing one person who you know with certainty knows the location of the bomb defensible? Basically, how many lives would you be willing to sacrifice to prevent the suffering of a s…

Yes, of course, anyone with a decent imagination can do so. Unfortunately, that has little practical impact. I can construct a lot of scenarios where I build an amazing startup and become a billionaire seemingly overnight. Tragically, my bank account balance always seems to ignore the brilliant scenarios my mind comes up with. Honestly, outside of philosophy departments questions like this aren't terribly useful. The…

>Honestly, outside of philosophy departments questions like this aren't terribly useful.

I disagree completely. The fact that you can construct such a scenario says something very important about it. That it is not totally morally indefensible and the discussion is not one about a binary choice but one about degree.

Re: CIA black site detainee served as training prop to teach torture techniques

#95

Post by belorn » Tue, Mar 15, 2022, 4:44 PM UTC

adamsmith143 wrote: post #16

mrtksn wrote: post #11

This is the kind of stuff that probably makes some people’s job down the pipe easier and at the same time undermines the Western civilization. Make no mistake, no US citizen outside of the political class benefits from this or other atrocities. The exact same goes for the surveillance programs. Losing the moral high ground degrades the whole society. The whole anti establishment movement rallies around stuff like thi…

Is it possible for you to construct a scenario where torture is morally acceptable? E.g. you have a virtual certainty that a dirty bomb is going to be detonated in NYC and will kill 1M+ and potentially irradiate the city for decades. Is torturing one person who you know with certainty knows the location of the bomb defensible? Basically, how many lives would you be willing to sacrifice to prevent the suffering of a s…

If you know with certainty that the person knows the location of the bomb then you also know where the bomb is located.

It the same issue when the police and prosecutor know all facts with certainty. At this point you don't need a court, a judge or a jury. In an artificial system where everything is know with perfect certainty you don't even need police and prosecutors, just a method to punish the guilty. A legal system is only needed in order to determine who is guilty and who isn't, and this is unnecessary if we know already who is guilty.

Re: CIA black site detainee served as training prop to teach torture techniques

#96

Post by ALittleLight » Tue, Mar 15, 2022, 4:45 PM UTC

rendall wrote: post #39

adamsmith143 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it possible for you to construct a scenario where torture is morally acceptable? E.g. you have a virtual certainty that a dirty bomb is going to be detonated in NYC and will kill 1M+ and potentially irradiate the city for decades. Is torturing one person who you know with certainty knows the location of the bomb defensible? Basically, how many lives would you be willing to sacrifice to prevent the suffering of a s…

> Is it possible for you to construct a scenario where torture is morally acceptable? Yes, it's possible to concoct a fictional scenario whereby torturing one person saves millions of lives. Heck, why not a more plausible scenario where torturing someone saves 2 lives. But it's a non-sequitur: a true statement that is irrelevant. I won't argue this well, especially not well enough to convince someone for whom "tortur…

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy discusses a real case where a car thief stole a car with a child in the backseat. The car thief had abandoned the car somewhere, and, as it was summer and daytime, the child was going to cook to death in the car. The police detain the thief and ask him where the car and child is, they offer to reduce his charges, and he denies it was him though they have him on video stealing the car. The police decide to beat the guy until he reveals where the car is. They do and he does. Would you say the police did anything wrong?

Re: CIA black site detainee served as training prop to teach torture techniques

#97

Post by adamsmith143 » Tue, Mar 15, 2022, 4:45 PM UTC

defen wrote: post #27

adamsmith143 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it possible for you to construct a scenario where torture is morally acceptable? E.g. you have a virtual certainty that a dirty bomb is going to be detonated in NYC and will kill 1M+ and potentially irradiate the city for decades. Is torturing one person who you know with certainty knows the location of the bomb defensible? Basically, how many lives would you be willing to sacrifice to prevent the suffering of a s…

Do we have any evidence that torture actually works ? That the person being tortured will tell accurate information? Basically do we have any examples of this sort of situation, where there was an imminent threat to life and people were saved due to torture?

>Basically do we have any examples of this sort of situation, where there was an imminent threat to life and people were saved due to torture?

In the made up scenario you could make a case that even if there is a low probability of torture working, the scale of lives saved would make it worth it. A 20% chance of saving 1M people is still net +200k lives.

Re: CIA black site detainee served as training prop to teach torture techniques

#98

Post by deutschew » Tue, Mar 15, 2022, 4:46 PM UTC

mrtksn wrote: post #11

This is the kind of stuff that probably makes some people’s job down the pipe easier and at the same time undermines the Western civilization. Make no mistake, no US citizen outside of the political class benefits from this or other atrocities. The exact same goes for the surveillance programs. Losing the moral high ground degrades the whole society. The whole anti establishment movement rallies around stuff like thi…

> Losing the moral high ground degrades the whole society.

There never was any moral high ground, the establishment were successful at making people FEEL as such. We are quick to point fingers at Nazis, Terrorists, Enemies yet the Western perspective is always 'we can do know wrong, if we did, its justified' which is exactly what the opposing side does.

Once a subtle reminder that many supported Nazi ideals early in America, even as Jews were being sent to gas chambers, companies like IBM were happy to do business with the regime, very much like they do with CCP companies as well as Putin.

There really is no way to change this without outside intervention, I will leave that to your imagination.

Re: CIA black site detainee served as training prop to teach torture techniques

#99

Post by ALittleLight » Tue, Mar 15, 2022, 4:46 PM UTC

belorn wrote: post #95

adamsmith143 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it possible for you to construct a scenario where torture is morally acceptable? E.g. you have a virtual certainty that a dirty bomb is going to be detonated in NYC and will kill 1M+ and potentially irradiate the city for decades. Is torturing one person who you know with certainty knows the location of the bomb defensible? Basically, how many lives would you be willing to sacrifice to prevent the suffering of a s…

If you know with certainty that the person knows the location of the bomb then you also know where the bomb is located. It the same issue when the police and prosecutor know all facts with certainty. At this point you don't need a court, a judge or a jury. In an artificial system where everything is know with perfect certainty you don't even need police and prosecutors, just a method to punish the guilty. A legal sys…

Would you torture a person if you were 90% sure they knew about the dirty bomb?

Re: CIA black site detainee served as training prop to teach torture techniques

#100

Post by adamsmith143 » Tue, Mar 15, 2022, 4:46 PM UTC

car_analogy wrote: post #31

adamsmith143 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it possible for you to construct a scenario where torture is morally acceptable? E.g. you have a virtual certainty that a dirty bomb is going to be detonated in NYC and will kill 1M+ and potentially irradiate the city for decades. Is torturing one person who you know with certainty knows the location of the bomb defensible? Basically, how many lives would you be willing to sacrifice to prevent the suffering of a s…

> Is it possible for you to construct a scenario where torture is morally acceptable? Sure it is. But if torture was limited to only cases as clear-cut as the one you propose, it would be virtually non-existent. For such rare, extreme cases, it's better to keep it illegal, and hope an interrogator will risk jail to save the million people (and possibly be freed by jury nullification), than (effectively) legalizing it…

> it's better to keep it illegal, and hope an interrogator will risk jail to save the million people (and possibly be freed by jury nullification), than (effectively) legalizing it, and have its use creep to anyone merely suspected of terrorism (as defined by, from the point of view of the torture victims, an invading force), by an organization unaccountable even to citizens of its own country.

Well I believe this is technically still the case in the US.