Why Torture Doesn't Work: The Neuroscience of Interrogation • Hacker News Board

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

#81

Post by varjag » Mon, Nov 09, 2015, 9:08 AM UTC

reacweb wrote: post #69

varjag wrote: post #59

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. 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…

AFAIK, torture does not work for "getting the combination to a safe or finding where a merchant keeps their money stashed". It is still used because it is a very effective way to frighten the opposition. Torture is often shown on TV, where the good guys force the bad ones to tell the truth. It is completely unrealistic.

> It is completely unrealistic.

Back in the 1990s in former USSR bugrlary-torture-murders were daily occurrences. It sure as hell worked, for purposes far more simple than "frightening the opposition". Stuff much too savage for TV shows typically, like soldering iron up one's anus.

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

#82

Post by junto » Mon, Nov 09, 2015, 9:12 AM UTC

LordKano wrote: post #46

The idea that you cede the moral high ground when you use torture seems to have been forgotten. I don't care if it works. I grew up believing that we were "The Good Guys" and under no circumstance is it ever acceptable for the good guys to torture people. What made the Viet Cong so bad? They tortured people. What made the Japanese so bad? They tortured people. What made the Germans so bad? They tortured people. We sh…

Do you really believe that we didn't torture or enemies during WWII. History is written by the victors.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_war_crimes_during_Wor...

Similarly, we often believe that it was only the Soviets that took part in the rape of German women after the third Reich fell in 1945, but there are lots of evidence to suggest that all the allied forces participated.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_during_the_occupation_o...

I'm not trying to take away the fact that the Axis forces were vicious and committed war crimes, but we have to remember that war is horrendous and has unforeseeable and negative long-term human outcomes. I wish our countries thought a bit more about this before they rush us all into such decisions using lies and deceit.

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

#83

Post by jules » Mon, Nov 09, 2015, 9:16 AM UTC

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…

We make cost-benefit analyses all the time. With any military operation the collateral damage has to be weighed against the target. The fact that we freak out over torture yet kill innocent people in collateral damage is completely irrational. On the scale of harm, torture that leaves no physical harm is behind cutting off people's limbs, and that is far behind killing people. Now, torturing innocent people is worse than torturing (most likely) guilty people who (most likely) know something that can save lives. But for some reason mentioning torture reflexively shuts people's brain off yet killing innocent people in collateral damage is fine if subject to a cost-benefit analysis.

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

#84

Post by varjag » Mon, Nov 09, 2015, 9:20 AM UTC

cm2187 wrote: post #73

varjag wrote: post #59

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. 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…

In fact in France, there is a strange concept called "juge d'instruction". Basically a district attorney with the power of a judge. And this power includes sending someone to jail pending a trial. Over time, these judges have been known to send people against who they only have a weak case to jail to make them talk. The state of French jails is appalling, many date from the XIX century, infested with pest, and all ar…

If it's intentional infliction of suffering then it indeed can be argued that way.

This is some other thing though: police/prosecution using torture as coercion into admitting guilt. They don't really care whether it's true or not, their goal is just chalking up some bureaucratic milestone ("case closed").

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

#85

Post by threatofrain » Mon, Nov 09, 2015, 9:22 AM UTC

klibertp wrote: post #76

varjag wrote: post #59

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. 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…

> Trying to frame it in terms of performance is damaging to the moral aspect of it, Well, I prefer performance-based explanation as to why not use torture. The problem with morals is that they change. And they tend to provide a lot of backdoors. Like, it's obviously bad to torture, but what if you could save X lives by torturing one person? With a performance-based explanation it's easy: nothing because torture won't…

But arguing from a performance perspective on torture is often dishonest, because people start from a conclusion they would like to reach, and then work backward in any way possible to make their claim intellectually respectable.

It's dishonest because high-quality research into torture is not really done on a scientifically known level (maybe governments have such knowledge), and it's nigh-impossible for any serious body of scientific evidence and insight to occur. The consequence of this is that people are free to speculate anything at all, insofar as they erect an intellectual barrier capable of thwarting an audience. Like that author did as they appeared deaf to audience questioning.

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

#86

Post by raverbashing » Mon, Nov 09, 2015, 9:23 AM UTC

vacri wrote: post #68

raverbashing wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saying that something is not debatable is exactly the opposite of living in a democracy Excluding hate speech, surely But since you were very fast to call anyone a "crazy idiot" I can see how worried about you are about a "civilised society" instead of your personal opinions

Allowing fringe ideas to dominate discussions so centrally is also exactly the opposite of living in a democracy.

I agree, but who determines what is a fringe idea?

I don't agree with torture, quite the contrary, but the same discussion could have been constructed in the opposite way and the fringe idea could have been that torture doesn't work (which I'm sure happened in a lot of situations)

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

#87

Post by bsder » Mon, Nov 09, 2015, 9:32 AM UTC

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…

> 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 first place.

So, even if I concede that torture works when you know you have the right person (and I do not), the problem is that you can't distinguish whether you have the right person and whether he actually knows the information you want.

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

#88

Post by eloisant » Mon, Nov 09, 2015, 9:34 AM UTC

rdtsc wrote: post #36

Even if it is working, would that make it ok? What about rape? Should it be criminalized? Is that worth a scientific study from nature? Why is torture in a civilized society not considered like rape. Anyone who suggests, does it, debates about its merrits, should be considered a crazy idiot, ostracized and laughed at. But notice how we as a a society are debating its merits. We have already lost so speak. We lost fir…

If it works, some argument can be made about "the suffering of one for the greater good of the many". The common example is the terrorist that knows the location of a bomb that may kill thousands of people. Also torture is made acceptable to some by the idea that only "bad" people are tortured.

If torture doesn't work, the argument is much stronger than the humanist one and can appeal even to "us vs them" people.

Unfortunately I think the reason many governments torture is not to gather information but to frighten and control the population. Many people will refrain to rebel against authority if they fear being arrested and tortured.

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

#89

Post by LoSboccacc » Mon, Nov 09, 2015, 9:36 AM UTC

TheLogothete wrote: post #77

LoSboccacc wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You fire half your detectives fpr incompetence. You know how hard is to procure even rudimentary explosives without leaving a trail?

It's not hard at all. You need a few google searches and household supplies.

Why would you need a whole terrorist cell and a cell leader uf any fuckwit could do it?

Your whole argoment falls apart from whenever direction you look at it.

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

#90

Post by andyjohnson0 » Mon, Nov 09, 2015, 9:42 AM UTC

Leszek wrote: post #18

klausvanvinkle wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point, but it's a matter of extremes: Imprisonment can be undone.

And similarly, torture can be stopped. The time and experience of imprisonment cannot be returned.

The time and experience of torture cannot be returned either.