Torture Techniques from CIA Black Sites Were Used at Alligator Alcatraz • Hacker News Board

Re: Torture Techniques from CIA Black Sites Were Used at Alligator Alcatraz

#61

Post by HuariHuari1 » Tue, Dec 09, 2025, 10:33 PM UTC

DyslexicAtheist wrote: post #54

phantasmish wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To make this point crystal clear, “correcting” someone with “ackshually the US isn’t a democracy” is something poli sci departments break their freshmen of every single year. The colloquial, broad sense of “democracy” is also how political scientists employ the term in most contexts. That is: the people who study this for a living are entirely OK with that usage. If they didn’t use that sense of the word they’d need…

> To make this point crystal clear, “correcting” someone with “ackshually the US isn’t a democracy” is ... it's not a democracy, when a large part of the population is barred from voting, and / or if your idea of a vote is giving power to legal persons more than to natural persons during the voting process. but fine, let me rephrase, the US is not more a democracy than China, North Korea, Russia, or any other clown s…

I'll do you one better, it's always been a bureaucracy, but even moreso following the end of the 1960s, after the beginning of the "meritocracy" myth within academia. In reality, the incoming well educated migrants (usually European) in the mid 1950s were extremely nepotistic to their own groups, such as the Irish entering Wall street, and hiring only other Irish stockbrokers, or Italian small business owners in New York. They essentially replaced or married the old money and became a noveau riche that's still in the American status quo to this day. There is a new clique of sorts acting as a nepotistic noveau riche, mostly stemming from South or East Asia. Nepotism affects everyone and everywhere, but it's especially prevalent in the United States.

Also the great entertainment has been declining in quality, and it was always funded directly by the U.S. Government and Military to support their ideologies and agendas abroad. The Koreans are recently doing this to great success, and possibly China as well.

Re: Torture Techniques from CIA Black Sites Were Used at Alligator Alcatraz

#62

Post by dragonwriter » Tue, Dec 09, 2025, 10:38 PM UTC

IAmBroom wrote: post #52

salawat wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yepper. Trail of Tears, German/Japanese internment are all primary education topics. Now interestingly, I don't think Bush has made it into the history books yet, but I don't have kids, so can't verify current day education materials. What I find interesting is the bits we leave out. Like we touch on the Banana Republics, but the annex of Hawaii and how that was skulduggerously done is completely skimmed over.

> German/Japanese internment are all primary education topics. There wasn't any German internment. White people got a pass.

> There wasn't any German internment

There was, in fact, but the proportion of German (and Italian, also) nationals and citizens of German (and Italian) descent interned was far lower compared to the population of such foreign nationals and citizens than was the case for Japanese nationals and citizens of Japanese descent.

> White people got a pass.

Relatively speaking, yes, but there still were internments, including of US citizens based on German and Italian descent. (But with more individualized review before internment or eviction from coastal areas than was true of citizens of Japanese descent.)

Re: Torture Techniques from CIA Black Sites Were Used at Alligator Alcatraz

#63

Post by woleium » Tue, Dec 09, 2025, 11:37 PM UTC

Xmd5a wrote: post #37

shevy-java wrote: post #6

This kind of seems to be a combined strategy. I mean this is not old; many of us may still remember Abu Ghraib and so forth. We now have a somewhat comparable situation: build up of enemies. See ICE raids and videos manhunting people. There always are people susceptible to do so (e. g. inflict pain onto others). The strange thing is how some "democracies" do that. Where is the net difference to a dictatorship? This i…

Waterboarders follow a mind-breaking formation in a dedicated military base where they are desensitized to torture by subjugating themselves to it first! Anyway I don't like the article's take. It seems to blame this on an institutional drift into sadism. I don't think it's the full story, there must be a strategy behind it. Inducing trauma so that migrants don't ever think about coming back? Maybe coupled with Palan…

Maybe this is just a predictable outcome to encouraging the belief that some people are subhuman.

Re: Torture Techniques from CIA Black Sites Were Used at Alligator Alcatraz

#64

Post by onewheeltom » Sun, Dec 14, 2025, 4:43 PM UTC

Xmd5a wrote: post #37

shevy-java wrote: post #6

This kind of seems to be a combined strategy. I mean this is not old; many of us may still remember Abu Ghraib and so forth. We now have a somewhat comparable situation: build up of enemies. See ICE raids and videos manhunting people. There always are people susceptible to do so (e. g. inflict pain onto others). The strange thing is how some "democracies" do that. Where is the net difference to a dictatorship? This i…

Waterboarders follow a mind-breaking formation in a dedicated military base where they are desensitized to torture by subjugating themselves to it first! Anyway I don't like the article's take. It seems to blame this on an institutional drift into sadism. I don't think it's the full story, there must be a strategy behind it. Inducing trauma so that migrants don't ever think about coming back? Maybe coupled with Palan…

Looks like sadism is the strategy in operation.