Trump bringing back waterboarding and worse

[Infected Mushroom]

Kind of hard to cite that when its illegal under the current international system; I am sure it has extracted at least one real confession in the medieval ages

I guess the fact that it coerces a lot of false confessions and made up plots just to make the torture stop is irrelevant.

In any case, Congress reviewed the CIA's torture results and concluded there was no credible intelligence obtained via torture.

I especially liked the "plot" to send an operative to Ohio to recruit black people to Islam and mold them into extremists.

It is relevant. Confessions extracted from torture must be verified by independent evidence because there is a realistic concern for reliability.

[Alyakia]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_martyrs

Anyone can be labelled a martyr if that's how the church wants to spin it to try and energise the morale of the faith

are you denying that nobody, from any religion, has died for refusing to renounce their faith? just saying a few words?

you can probably see where i'm going with this

[Infected Mushroom]

I don't need a citation to tell you about basic human behaviour. When you touch fire, you're going to experience pain and withdraw your hand (unless your nerves don't work). Its human nature and a human need to avoid pain at all cost.

Therefore, it follows from common sense that if a suspect has vital information that we want, torture is a reliable way of extracting that.

Did you know that people confess to crimes they haven't actually committed in order to avoid incurring harsher penalties should they attempt to defend themselves and fail? That humans' drive to avoid suffering can result in provision of misinformation for the sake of avoiding greater suffering or forestalling suffering one considers to be inevitable? One would be quite willing indeed to start pointing to locations on a map if the alternative is that in the next few moments they're going to have a power drill driven into their teeth, and if they can manage to find an opportunity to escape capture in the period between pointing to those locations and discovery that one has bullshitted then all the better from the captive's perspective. At the very least one gets to keep their teeth from being drilled a while longer. Humans love to forestall painful things as long as they can, especially if they consider those things to be inevitable. Which if one cannot find a means of escape, they'll consider torture to be.

Suppose the information you're trying to extract from someone is time-sensitive, like the location of a shipment or the current whereabouts of an important figure. Wasting time chasing down false leads you got so you wouldn't torture someone is, under such circumstances, entirely unacceptable. Considering that, and further considering that the number of times torture has produced actionable, accurate information that couldn't have been obtained by alternative means is relatively low (pretty much if not zero if I recall correctly, which Gallo's statement suggests I do), torture is a waste of time and resources. There are better ways to do what it does.

I don't recommend using torture to extract confessions.

If you're trying to extract time-sensitive information, you need to make a cost-benefit calculation and decide who is worth interrogating and who is not. If done economically and strategically, it can be a good tool for getting the information you need (its superior to just randomly sending out your agents on a completely random goose chase in the alternative).

[Galloism]

I guess the fact that it coerces a lot of false confessions and made up plots just to make the torture stop is irrelevant.

In any case, Congress reviewed the CIA's torture results and concluded there was no credible intelligence obtained via torture.

I especially liked the "plot" to send an operative to Ohio to recruit black people to Islam and mold them into extremists.

It is relevant. Confessions extracted from torture must be verified by independent evidence because there is a realistic concern for reliability.

So, if the intelligence obtained is so wildly inaccurate - as congress noted -, what's the point?

It's no better than guessing.

[Infected Mushroom]

Anyone can be labelled a martyr if that's how the church wants to spin it to try and energise the morale of the faith

are you denying that nobody, from any religion, has died for refusing to renounce their faith? just saying a few words?

you can probably see where i'm going with this

So if one person in a religion died rather than renounce their faith, this proves that torture can never work? It logically doesn't follow.

[Infected Mushroom]

It is relevant. Confessions extracted from torture must be verified by independent evidence because there is a realistic concern for reliability.

So, if the intelligence obtained is so wildly inaccurate - as congress noted -, what's the point?

It's no better than guessing.

If someone doesn't have the information, they can't give you the information. No one is saying that torture is going to magically conjure up accurate information, just that if the interrogated party DOES have accurate information, they are going to give it and it will be extracted in almost all cases.

Hence a blanket ''torture doesn't work'' statement is blatantly false.

[Alyakia]

are you denying that nobody, from any religion, has died for refusing to renounce their faith? just saying a few words?

you can probably see where i'm going with this

So if one person in a religion died rather than renounce their faith, this proves that torture can never work? It logically doesn't follow.

it strongly hints that your "well if you're tortured you're gonna give up" is not necessarily true because there are already many many cases of people choosing slow and painful deaths over an easy out in a variety of circumstances

[Outer Sparta]

Of course he'd do that. What's next, oilboarding?

[Alyakia]

So, if the intelligence obtained is so wildly inaccurate - as congress noted -, what's the point?

It's no better than guessing.

If someone doesn't have the information, they can't give you the information. No one is saying that torture is going to magically conjure up accurate information, just that if the interrogated party DOES have accurate information, they are going to give it and it will be extracted in almost all cases.

Hence a blanket ''torture doesn't work'' statement is blatantly false.

according to the senate report, they were getting plenty of info. after they were taken away, put in a camp and ass raped all the information stopped coming. if they still had info, why did they not provide it? why did torture not make them give up info at an equal or better rate than before? how do you explain this?

[Galloism]

are you denying that nobody, from any religion, has died for refusing to renounce their faith? just saying a few words?

you can probably see where i'm going with this

So if one person in a religion died rather than renounce their faith, this proves that torture can never work? It logically doesn't follow.

Of the 10,000 Jehovah's witnesses who were captured and tortured by the Nazis for their faith, somewhere around a dozen actually renounced.

A few hundred were tortured to death.

[Infected Mushroom]

So if one person in a religion died rather than renounce their faith, this proves that torture can never work? It logically doesn't follow.

it strongly hints that your "well if you're tortured you're gonna give up" is not necessarily true because there are already many many cases of people choosing slow and painful deaths over an easy out in a variety of circumstances

So because some people held out to the very end, every single person will? Because that's the only case where you can flat out say ''Torture Doesn't Work.'' Not to mention that most claims of martyrdom are sketchy beyond belief, the Church will say anything to promote their religion's interests and turn casualties into victories.

[Infected Mushroom]

So if one person in a religion died rather than renounce their faith, this proves that torture can never work? It logically doesn't follow.

Of the 10,000 Jehovah's witnesses who were captured and tortured by the Nazis for their faith, somewhere around a dozen actually renounced.

A few hundred were tortured to death.

So it does work sometimes.

[Galloism]

So, if the intelligence obtained is so wildly inaccurate - as congress noted -, what's the point?

It's no better than guessing.

If someone doesn't have the information, they can't give you the information. No one is saying that torture is going to magically conjure up accurate information, just that if the interrogated party DOES have accurate information, they are going to give it and it will be extracted in almost all cases.

Hence a blanket ''torture doesn't work'' statement is blatantly false.

Congress studied it.

Torture led to inaccurate information when traditional interrogation led to good intelligence.

[Galloism]

Of the 10,000 Jehovah's witnesses who were captured and tortured by the Nazis for their faith, somewhere around a dozen actually renounced.

A few hundred were tortured to death.

So it does work sometimes.

As I said:

No better than guessing.

[Infected Mushroom]

If someone doesn't have the information, they can't give you the information. No one is saying that torture is going to magically conjure up accurate information, just that if the interrogated party DOES have accurate information, they are going to give it and it will be extracted in almost all cases.

Hence a blanket ''torture doesn't work'' statement is blatantly false.

Congress studied it.

Torture led to inaccurate information when traditional interrogation led to good intelligence.

Congress proved that torture flat out never worked?

Wow, I never knew we were all martyrs and reincarnations of Jesus Christ in our self-sacrifice and determination to troll interrogators at our own expense. Humanity has truly achieved a new consciousness.

[Infected Mushroom]

So it does work sometimes.

As I said:

No better than guessing.

The information can be verified.

[Alyakia]

it strongly hints that your "well if you're tortured you're gonna give up" is not necessarily true because there are already many many cases of people choosing slow and painful deaths over an easy out in a variety of circumstances

So because some people held out to the very end, every single person will? Because that's the only case where you can flat out say ''Torture Doesn't Work.'' Not to mention that most claims of martyrdom are sketchy beyond belief, the Church will say anything to promote their religion's interests and turn casualties into victories.

if they're wiling to give up they'd probably also be susceptible to the far more effective tactics that would come before it. i guess you might be able to argue yourself into a case where sometimes the least effective option works, but that doesn't cure the problem of "it usually doesn't work and is counter-productive at almost every single level" which is what "torture doesn't work" actually means.

[Galloism]

Congress studied it.

Torture led to inaccurate information when traditional interrogation led to good intelligence.

Congress proved that torture flat out never worked?

Wow, I never knew we were all martyrs and reincarnations of Jesus Christ in our self-sacrifice and determination to troll interrogators at our own expense. Humanity has truly achieved a new consciousness.

No, they proved it never worked for us.

Torture leads to bad intelligence. People give you lots of information under torture. Unfortunately, it's almost universally bullshit.

[Alyakia]

Congress studied it.

Torture led to inaccurate information when traditional interrogation led to good intelligence.

Congress proved that torture flat out never worked?

Wow, I never knew we were all martyrs and reincarnations of Jesus Christ in our self-sacrifice and determination to troll interrogators at our own expense. Humanity has truly achieved a new consciousness.

congress proved that torture gave them no good information and made suspects that once gave good information start giving garbage

[Infected Mushroom]

So because some people held out to the very end, every single person will? Because that's the only case where you can flat out say ''Torture Doesn't Work.'' Not to mention that most claims of martyrdom are sketchy beyond belief, the Church will say anything to promote their religion's interests and turn casualties into victories.

if they're wiling to give up they'd probably also be susceptible to the far more effective tactics that would come before it. i guess you might be able to argue yourself into a case where sometimes the least effective option works, but that doesn't cure the problem of "it usually doesn't work and is counter-productive at almost every single level" which is what "torture doesn't work" actually means.

Not necessarily.

Some people don't fold under traditional interrogation but will crack if subjected to torture.

[Galloism]

if they're wiling to give up they'd probably also be susceptible to the far more effective tactics that would come before it. i guess you might be able to argue yourself into a case where sometimes the least effective option works, but that doesn't cure the problem of "it usually doesn't work and is counter-productive at almost every single level" which is what "torture doesn't work" actually means.

Not necessarily.

Some people don't fold under traditional interrogation but will crack if subjected to torture.

Proof?

[Infected Mushroom]

Congress proved that torture flat out never worked?

Wow, I never knew we were all martyrs and reincarnations of Jesus Christ in our self-sacrifice and determination to troll interrogators at our own expense. Humanity has truly achieved a new consciousness.

congress proved that torture gave them no good information and made suspects that once gave good information start giving garbage

I highly doubt that, but even if we accept that. The fact that the USA's Congress showed that torture has not helped the United States ever means that in the whole history of mankind torture has never even once worked? ''Torture doesn't work''? No it does not prove that.

[Infected Mushroom]

Not necessarily.

Some people don't fold under traditional interrogation but will crack if subjected to torture.

Proof?

There's a world of difference between someone staring you down and asking you firmly for answers... and someone attacking you repeatedly if you don't tell them the answers.

[Alyakia]

congress proved that torture gave them no good information and made suspects that once gave good information start giving garbage

I highly doubt that, but even if we accept that. The fact that the USA's Congress showed that torture has not helped the United States ever means that in the whole history of mankind torture has never even once worked? ''Torture doesn't work''? No it does not.

doubt it all you want, it's there in black and white

"torture does not work" does not mean "torture has never worked once ever". it means "torture rarely if ever works and the cost of using it far outweights its cost, so it is a bad idea to adopt it".

[Infected Mushroom]

I highly doubt that, but even if we accept that. The fact that the USA's Congress showed that torture has not helped the United States ever means that in the whole history of mankind torture has never even once worked? ''Torture doesn't work''? No it does not.

doubt it all you want, it's there in black and white

"torture does not work" does not mean "torture has never worked once ever". it means "torture rarely if ever works and the cost of using it far outweights its cost, so it is a bad idea to adopt it".

''Torture does not work'' means ''Torture does not work.'' If its ever worked even once, you can't say ''Torture does not work,'' you can only say ''Torture doesn't work in some situations.'' I'm not responsible for people's imprecise use of language. If you say X, your argument will be treated as X.