"Torture Doesn't Work"

[Hydesland]

they tell you whatever they think will make the pain stop, true or otherwise. You get confirmation of whatever you thought before the torture, true or not.

But how many controlled experiments have researchers done to actually verify if this common trope is true? And if the answer is > 0, I assume they were immediately arrested and put on trial after?

Also, how does this parable change if the information can be immediately, or very quickly verified, and there is a non trivial threat of more/worse torture if the info is verified false?

[Vassenor]

I don't get it either, torture is actually very effective at expediting trials.

No. Fake confessions out the nose are the result.

And following Brown v. Mississippi (1936) confessions extracted through torture are not admissible evidence in the US.

[Blaneu]

they tell you whatever they think will make the pain stop, true or otherwise. You get confirmation of whatever you thought before the torture, true or not.

But how many controlled experiments have researchers done to actually verify if this common trope is true? And if the answer is > 0, I assume they were immediately arrested and put on trial after?

Also, how does this parable change if the information can be immediately, or very quickly verified, and there is a non trivial threat of more/worse torture if the info is verified false?

Not entirely sure if I actually read this somewhere or not, but wasn't information extracted through torture by the CIA proven to be effectively useless?

Although, speaking from experience, waterboarding isn't THAT bad if you know they're not actually going to kill you.

[Jebslund]

Huh?

Well if somebody is under torture, he would probably want it to stop, so he will tell everything to stop the pain

Your premise, like IM's, is flawed. You both assume telling the truth is the only way to make the torture stop. It's not. The victim simply needs to tell the torturer what he or she wants to hear. If the torturer knew what the victim knows, he or she wouldn't be torturing them. So the victim spins a tale based on what is being asked. One that won't be easy to debunk. By the time the story is checked out and proven false, either the criminals have changed plans or the attack/crime has already happened.

We like to think of LEOs and the CIA as being infallible lie detectors, but, the truth of the matter is that humans are disgustingly easy to lie to. They believe that anything easy to accept must be true, and anything difficult to accept must be false. After all, if it were true, it would be easy to see it as true, right? And lie detectors are useless during torture, as they rely on measuring stress levels, which would, naturally, already be shooting through the roof during torture. All of that, by the way, doesn't even factor in situations where the truth is hard to believe, leading it to be dismissed as lies, which means even a criminal who has cracked and told everything they know isn't necessarily going to be believed, and the information may never be acted upon. Then there's the possibility that a suspect who cracks too soon may be suspected of applying the above strategy and tortured until they come up with something more believable at a "more appropriate" time.

[The Xenopolis Confederation]

This, pretty much. When a person breaks, they are not guaranteed to be telling the truth as much as saying what they think you want to hear.

they aren't guaranteed to be telling the truth the first time but they will be eventually right?

unless you're saying they can be tortured indefinitely without ever yielding (which again, just seems a bit unrealistic)

You can't be tortured indefinitely, but you won't be tortured indefinitely.

[Vistulange]

Well if somebody is under torture, he would probably want it to stop, so he will tell everything to stop the pain

Your premise, like IM's, is flawed. You both assume telling the truth is the only way to make the torture stop. It's not. The victim simply needs to tell the torturer what he or she wants to hear. If the torturer knew what the victim knows, he or she wouldn't be torturing them. So the victim spins a tale based on what is being asked. One that won't be easy to debunk. By the time the story is checked out and proven false, either the criminals have changed plans or the attack/crime has already happened.

We like to think of LEOs and the CIA as being infallible lie detectors, but, the truth of the matter is that humans are disgustingly easy to lie to. They believe that anything easy to accept must be true, and anything difficult to accept must be false. After all, if it were true, it would be easy to see it as true, right? And lie detectors are useless during torture, as they rely on measuring stress levels, which would, naturally, already be shooting through the roof during torture. All of that, by the way, doesn't even factor in situations where the truth is hard to believe, leading it to be dismissed as lies, which means even a criminal who has cracked and told everything they know isn't necessarily going to be believed, and the information may never be acted upon. Then there's the possibility that a suspect who cracks too soon may be suspected of applying the above strategy and tortured until they come up with something more believable at a "more appropriate" time.

I think Gospel meant "anything" when he said "everything". As in, "every piece of shit the tortured can dream of, just to confirm the torturer's biases, to give him something he wants to hear, so the torture will stop".

So you two are basically saying the same thing.

[The Xenopolis Confederation]

SF Debris had a good bit on torture in his review of that episode of Firefly where the Captain played by Nathan Fillion and the guy who dies abruptly in the movie both get tortured.

[Constitutional Technocracy of Minecraft]

There are many arguments against torture and some of them even make a bit of sense. However, one thing I never understood was the assertion:

"Torture doesn't work."

I don't understand how anyone can say it doesn't work/can't produce results. I have heard many liberal-minded people claim this while I was at university... where they would say something along the lines of "why would any government ever use torture? those tortured would just keep making things up to annoy the authorities/frustrate them. Torture could never work." I have always felt that this was a somewhat delusional position and that people would eat their own words under unfortunate situations.

Its one thing to say that torture is a "human rights abuse" or that its not necessarily always the best go-to method for extracting information... but to say it doesn't work? Seems a bit strong.

Fact of the matter is, threats do produce results. When threats are backed up by the definite use of force and pain inducement... I can't see how someone can hold out. Now of course... if you have NOTHING to tell the government because you in fact know nothing, you're kind of in a doomed position. But if you do have something... I don't see how it won't be extracted (just a question of time frame). A person without any kind of anti-torture training would probably yield in minutes...

Not sure what your thoughts on this subject are.

Now let's discuss a little thought experiment:

You are a criminal and you have some information the government wants from you. You don't want to give it to them. After some back-and-forth, the government decides to resort to torture. They say to you:

"Since you refuse to tell us what we need to know... we will keep hurting you until you do tell us."

They start to torture you and it goes on and on and it doesn't stop until you give them what they want (if you pass out from the pain, you get reset and it continues). Assume that they use a method that is in the style of Ramsay Bolton.

The questions I'd like you to ponder, think about, and then explain are as follows:

1. How long would you be able to hold out? A few minutes? 1 hour? Days? Months? Years? Try to estimate.
2. How do you reconcile the phrase "torture doesn't work" with the fact that 99-100 percent of people in the above situation (including yourself probably) would in a pretty short amount of time, tell the government what they need to know to avoid the torture?
3. What do you think in general about the phrase, "Torture Doesn't Work"... is there a way to re-phrase/clarify it so that its a more defensible position?

1. I'll give myself 10 minutes. And I feel that this is being EXTREMELY generous.

2. There is no need to reconcile it because it can't be reconciled. Its a misleading slogan. Torture does work. Anyone who actually has the information is going to give it up. Its just a problematic method in the sense that if the person was wrongly suspected and in fact knows nothing... they will be tortured ad infinitum. But you can be sure that if anyone knows anything, they will divulge. This is why its historically been used throughout history by the police and military forces.

3.

It doesn't work in getting legal convictions. It doesn't work if there isn't any actual information from the person tortured (they can't gain clairvoyance while being tortured if they are innocent). It doesn't work if you want to stay true to human rights.

However, if someone has got something... they are going to tell you pretty soon if you use a sufficiently painful method. Its just a matter of how far you want to go.

In general I understand other objections to torture but a blanket "torture doesn't work" statement just doesn't hold up.

Torture should not be allowed as it can be used to make an individual falsely admit guilt. Famous cases of this include 17th-century witch trials, where suspected witches falsely confessed as a means to end the torture. There is no scientific evidence supporting the effectiveness of torture.

[Infected Mushroom]

they aren't guaranteed to be telling the truth the first time but they will be eventually right?

unless you're saying they can be tortured indefinitely without ever yielding (which again, just seems a bit unrealistic)

You can't be tortured indefinitely, but you won't be tortured indefinitely.

only because the body can only take so much pain before you decide... "I've had enough. Time to talk"

[Washington Resistance Army]

You can't be tortured indefinitely, but you won't be tortured indefinitely.

only because the body can only take so much pain before you decide... "I've had enough. Time to talk"

And by "time to talk" you mean "lie my ass and tell them whatever they want to want even if I don't know it".

[Eclius]

There are many arguments against torture and some of them even make a bit of sense. However, one thing I never understood was the assertion:

"Torture doesn't work."

I don't understand how anyone can say it doesn't work/can't produce results. I have heard many liberal-minded people claim this while I was at university... where they would say something along the lines of "why would any government ever use torture? those tortured would just keep making things up to annoy the authorities/frustrate them. Torture could never work." I have always felt that this was a somewhat delusional position and that people would eat their own words under unfortunate situations.

Its one thing to say that torture is a "human rights abuse" or that its not necessarily always the best go-to method for extracting information... but to say it doesn't work? Seems a bit strong.

Fact of the matter is, threats do produce results. When threats are backed up by the definite use of force and pain inducement... I can't see how someone can hold out. Now of course... if you have NOTHING to tell the government because you in fact know nothing, you're kind of in a doomed position. But if you do have something... I don't see how it won't be extracted (just a question of time frame). A person without any kind of anti-torture training would probably yield in minutes...

Not sure what your thoughts on this subject are.

Now let's discuss a little thought experiment:

You are a criminal and you have some information the government wants from you. You don't want to give it to them. After some back-and-forth, the government decides to resort to torture. They say to you:

"Since you refuse to tell us what we need to know... we will keep hurting you until you do tell us."

They start to torture you and it goes on and on and it doesn't stop until you give them what they want (if you pass out from the pain, you get reset and it continues). Assume that they use a method that is in the style of Ramsay Bolton.

The questions I'd like you to ponder, think about, and then explain are as follows:

1. How long would you be able to hold out? A few minutes? 1 hour? Days? Months? Years? Try to estimate.
2. How do you reconcile the phrase "torture doesn't work" with the fact that 99-100 percent of people in the above situation (including yourself probably) would in a pretty short amount of time, tell the government what they need to know to avoid the torture?
3. What do you think in general about the phrase, "Torture Doesn't Work"... is there a way to re-phrase/clarify it so that its a more defensible position?

1. I'll give myself 10 minutes. And I feel that this is being EXTREMELY generous.

2. There is no need to reconcile it because it can't be reconciled. Its a misleading slogan. Torture does work. Anyone who actually has the information is going to give it up. Its just a problematic method in the sense that if the person was wrongly suspected and in fact knows nothing... they will be tortured ad infinitum. But you can be sure that if anyone knows anything, they will divulge. This is why its historically been used throughout history by the police and military forces.

3.

It doesn't work in getting legal convictions. It doesn't work if there isn't any actual information from the person tortured (they can't gain clairvoyance while being tortured if they are innocent). It doesn't work if you want to stay true to human rights.

However, if someone has got something... they are going to tell you pretty soon if you use a sufficiently painful method. Its just a matter of how far you want to go.

In general I understand other objections to torture but a blanket "torture doesn't work" statement just doesn't hold up.

Torture should not be allowed as it can be used to make an individual falsely admit guilt. Famous cases of this include 17th-century witch trials, where suspected witches falsely confessed as a means to end the torture. There is no scientific evidence supporting the effectiveness of torture.

True, but think in a slight different view point. Some of the people subjected to enhanced interrogation measures were terrorists, criminals and people who were negligent toward the lives of innocent people. Yes extraordinary rendition and black sites are unethical, but we have to take measures to protect innocent lives

[The New California Republic]

You can't be tortured indefinitely, but you won't be tortured indefinitely.

only because the body can only take so much pain before you decide... "I've had enough. Time to talk complete nonsense just to make the torture stop"

FTFY..

[Eclius]

only because the body can only take so much pain before you decide... "I've had enough. Time to talk"

And by "time to talk" you mean "lie my ass and tell them whatever they want to want even if I don't know it".

Yeah that's the other issue, sometimes the criminals and terrorists will tell you false information just to get away with enhanced interrogation. Like, right away there wouldn't be any ways to know if they told the truth (lie detectors can actually be ineffective)

[The New California Republic]

there wouldn't be any ways to know if they told the truth (lie detectors can actually be ineffective)

Combining lie detectors and torture would make the lie detector totally inaccurate anyway, as the lie detector detects elevated stress when the person is formulating a lie, but it cannot distinguish between that type of stress and elevated stress caused by torture...

[Vassenor]

there wouldn't be any ways to know if they told the truth (lie detectors can actually be ineffective)

Combining lie detectors and torture would make the lie detector totally inaccurate anyway, as the lie detector detects elevated stress when the person is formulating a lie, but it cannot distinguish between that type of stress and elevated stress caused by torture...

Lie Detectors don't work, period. You might as well resort to reading tea leaves.

[Eclius]

there wouldn't be any ways to know if they told the truth (lie detectors can actually be ineffective)

Combining lie detectors and torture would make the lie detector totally inaccurate anyway, as the lie detector detects elevated stress when the person is formulating a lie, but it cannot distinguish between that type of stress and elevated stress caused by torture...

Exactly! I mean, even without the torture, a skilled spy would know how to lie without having it caught on lie detector. It's not even rocket science, just control the heart beat and stuff.

[The New California Republic]

Combining lie detectors and torture would make the lie detector totally inaccurate anyway, as the lie detector detects elevated stress when the person is formulating a lie, but it cannot distinguish between that type of stress and elevated stress caused by torture...

Lie Detectors don't work either.

I mean they do up to a point. But they are notoriously unreliable and can be fooled easily. A classic case was Aldrich Ames, who spied for the Soviet Union but managed to fool two CIA lie detector tests...

[Neu Leonstein]

This was gone over when Gina Haspel was made CIA chief. There are CIA reports on the Black Sites available for public reading. The link goes into the case of Abu Zubaydah, but obviously don't read if you don't like to actually be confronted what torture is.

But regarding its effectiveness, it's worth quoting the relevant section of the declassified report in full (via the WaPo):

“The CIA’s use of its enhanced interrogation techniques was not an effective means of acquiring intelligence or gaining cooperation from detainees.”

The Committee finds, based on a review of CIA interrogation records, that the use of the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques was not an effective means of obtaining accurate information or gaining detainee cooperation.

For example, according to CIA records, seven of the 39 CIA detainees known to have been subjected to the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques produced no intelligence while in CIA custody. CIA detainees who were subjected to the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques were usually subjected to the techniques immediately after being rendered to CIA custody. Other detainees provided significant accurate intelligence prior to, or without having been subjected to these techniques.

While being subjected to the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques and afterwards, multiple CIA detainees fabricated information, resulting in faulty intelligence. Detainees provided fabricated information on critical intelligence issues, including the terrorist threats which the CIA identified as its highest priorities.

At numerous times throughout the CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program, CIA personnel assessed that the most effective method for acquiring intelligence from detainees, including from detainees the CIA considered to be the most "high-value," was to confront the detainees with information already acquired by the Intelligence Community. CIA officers regularly called into question whether the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques were effective, assessing that the use of the techniques failed to elicit detainee cooperation or produce accurate intelligence."

This is, of course, not going to put the question to rest though, because advocacy of torture is never really about a genuine belief in its ability to produce intelligence, but primarily about acting out a feeling of superior power over an enemy.

[Nucego]

Torture doesn't work if you want to extract the truth. Manipulation through feigning benevolence, understanding or being on their side does. Torture only works if you've decided one is already guilty and you just need a confession no matter the price. Anyone will say what you want them to say if you exercise enough cruelty upon them or what they hold dear.

Or if you're just using the noble cause of extracting truth, justice or something else just for a sadistic power trip on the side, in which case torture might work. You might want to try BDSM instead just for the moral and legal concerns surrounding torture, however.

[Canadensia]

The idea that torture doesn't work is laughably arrogant and incorrect, least of all because this isn't the kind of assertion that has a great wealth of peer-reviewed case studies to back it up (for fairly obvious reasons). Torture has been used to extract information in almost every major conflict in human history, often yielding positive results. The problem isn't that torture is categorically incapable of providing accurate intel (this is demonstrably false), or even that it's morally wrong (war is what it is, and those who argue otherwise tend to be pie-in-the-sky idealists with little grasp of reality), it's that torture is incapable of producing consistently accurate intel over multiple cases. Torture does work, it's just not very reliable.

The inherent problem with torture is that in order for it to produce desired results two things need to be true:

a) the tortured needs to actually know the desired information
b) the tortured needs to be pliable (i.e: willing to divulge said information)

While those two criteria seem simple enough at face value, the inherent problem with them is that, first and foremost, most POW's aren't officers (or people within the upper echelons of a terrorist organization, if we're focusing on asymmetrical warfare), so they're unlikely to know much in regards to battle plans or anything that might be useful intel. Secondly, as a result of this, those POW's who know actual useful intel are apt to be officers, and as such typically have a vested interest in keeping their mouths shut (ideological rigidity, basic sense of patriotism, radicalism, etc.), so violence or the threat of violence tends to have minimal effect. In such cases (and most cases where torture/advanced interrogation techniques are typically employed), coercion tends to be more effective (bargaining, bribery, etc.). Torture, frankly, has minimal use, especially in asymmetrical warfare and anti-terrorist operations where most captives are grunts with little workable intel.

[Vistulange]

Torture has been used to extract information in almost every major conflict in human history, often yielding positive results.

Care to provide citations for that claim?

[Eclius]

Torture has been used to extract information in almost every major conflict in human history, often yielding positive results.

Care to provide citations for that claim?

I mean, everyone has a price or a breaking point. Sometimes it may require far less effort to get the information

[Infected Mushroom]

only because the body can only take so much pain before you decide... "I've had enough. Time to talk"

And by "time to talk" you mean "lie my ass and tell them whatever they want to want even if I don't know it".

if you don't know it, then yeah that would be the go to strategy...

but if you do know it, you will definitely share that because you don't want to be tortured anymore and you are told that if you tell the truth it will stop (and at this point, you NEED to believe that)

[Canadensia]

Torture has been used to extract information in almost every major conflict in human history, often yielding positive results.

Care to provide citations for that claim?

Well, off the top of my head, pretty much every effective operation of the Rhodesian Bush War involved torture to acquire information in some way, shape or form.

Also practically every single siege of a major city/castle during the Middle Ages.

[The New California Republic]

And by "time to talk" you mean "lie my ass and tell them whatever they want to want even if I don't know it".

if you don't know it, then yeah that would be the go to strategy...

but if you do know it, you will definitely share that because you don't want to be tortured anymore and you are told that if you tell the truth it will stop (and at this point, you NEED to believe that)

Nonsense. The torturer won't know if you are telling the truth or not. The torturer doesn't have some magic window into the torture victim's soul so they can tell if they are lying or not...