Trying to Cure Depression, but Inspiring Torture

Post by getpost » Sat, Jan 21, 2017, 9:20 PM UTC

closeparen wrote: post #9

mjevans wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be a lot more inclined to believe this if when the programs came to light the government de-classified the details that supported the theory you suggest. Since they've said nothing I'm going to continue to use Occam's Razor and believe that they did it either as a form of revenge or because they mistakenly believed in cargo cult of that being how stuff was done (likely thanks to Hollywood).

Hollywood tends to focus on short, intense scenes of pain stimulus such as beating, electrocution, etc. with a tearful confession coming after a few minutes. The torture program had much more to do with long-term engineering of a prisoner's environment with the goal of breaking down his humanity and spirit over a period of months and years: stress positions, sleep deprivation, loud music, extreme temperatures, and re…

Actually, we do get to blame Hollywood (partly). http://www.berkeley.edu/news/berkeleyan/2008/03/05_torture.s...

When I was a child/teen, it was popular to wonder about the effects of TV violence, and now we know. It appears many people are unable to distinguish between TV and reality. Monkey see, monkey do.

Post by mcguire » Mon, Jan 23, 2017, 4:29 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #7

mcguire wrote: post #2

Interesting. Seligman investigated learned helplessness by torturing dogs, and was then surprised to learn that someone else investigated torture by learned helplessness. Psychologists aren't very bright, are they?

This comment breaks the HN guidelines in a somewhat interesting way. Your second paragraph is edgy and glib, but still borderline ok—it's possible to see a substantive point there (one that I'm sure has crossed many minds when reading about this topic), even though you expressed it more rhetorically than thoughtfully. On the other hand, your third paragraph clearly crosses the line and points nowhere good. Please don…

My third paragraph was intended as a rather tongue in cheek way of pointing out that a major point of the article, as expressed by the second paragraph, was incredibly disingenuous. It is as if one were to ask why the scientists of the Manhattan Project didn't consider that their work would leave humanity under threat for decades, if not forever; they did consider that, they simply decided the advantages were worth the consequences.

I'm not sure how you get "glib" out of the second paragraph; it seems to me to be a fair summation of the original experiment coupled with a summary of the post 9/11 use of the results as described in the article.

Anyway, thank you for your consideration, and I will try to adhere to your wishes.

Re: Trying to Cure Depression, but Inspiring Torture

Re: Trying to Cure Depression, but Inspiring Torture