"Torture Doesn't Work"

[Erythrean Thebes]

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?

You obviously have to give evidence for this since you as an anonymous internet user are not an authority on anything

[Infected Mushroom]

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?

You obviously have to give evidence for this since you as an anonymous internet user are not an authority on anything

are you saying that you could hold out indefinitely against torture?

[Erythrean Thebes]

You obviously have to give evidence for this since you as an anonymous internet user are not an authority on anything

are you saying that you could hold out indefinitely against torture?

I can't tell, I don't think I can guess accurately. In my opinion it likely comes down to personality types, some which are better are confronting animosity than others. You don't also think so, then how can your second point be taken for granted since we don't agree?

[Genivaria]

You obviously have to give evidence for this since you as an anonymous internet user are not an authority on anything

are you saying that you could hold out indefinitely against torture?

You made the claim, provide evidence.

[Vistulange]

The problem is the volume of useless information compared to the volume of useful information.

Other methods which beget less useless information are actually used. Torture isn't, mostly, because it is useless.

How much volume of useless information do you expect to get?

How long are you expecting the person to hold out? And again, they have no incentive to lie. They have every incentive to just tell the truth and out of hope of ending the torture permanently.

*Facepalm* How *facepalm* many *facepalm* times *facepalm* do *facepalm* we *facepalm* have *facepalm* to *facepalm* explain *facepalm* to *facepalm* you?

they don't have to trust you, not necessarily... maybe they don't trust you, but the way things are going, its their only perceived slim chance of making it stop

Good God, IM.

Look, you're torturing me. After a certain point, which is when I break under the duress, my priorities change. I'm not concerned about "preserving my nation", or whatever noble cause I'm after, but instead solely focused on "make the pain stop", or "make the abuse stop", or "make the humiliation stop" - you (I hope) get the idea.

Now, even if I do know the truth, there's no guarantee I'll tell you the truth, because in my mind, I will think that a) you will not believe that the truth is the truth and b) I don't believe that the truth will satisfy you. So, I make up stuff that I think - with my tortured and exhausted mind - will satisfy you more than the truth.

I literally have no idea how else to explain this to you.

[The New California Republic]

Exactly. The OP has no counter to this. It really exposes the ridiculousness of torture for extracting information, as it can give rise to unverifiable information.

it can give rise to unverifiable information, but only in the sense that any other method can give rise to unverifiable information

the fact that it can be used to get verifiable information shows that it can work from time to time, that the threshold has been met

If the information can be verified, then what the hell is the point in the torture in the first place? If the information can be verified, then the torturer clearly already has access to all the information they need...

OK. Second round of the game. The torturer wants to know the phone number of my contact. I give them a phone number. The torturer or one of his cronies calls the number. It is a real phone number, someone answers it! The torturer and his cronies find the poor sod that answered the phone and bring him in for some torturings too. How will they verify that he is my contact?

Sorry OP, but your window of truth is shrinking with every passing minute...

[Galloism]

The problem is the volume of useless information compared to the volume of useful information.

Other methods which beget less useless information are actually used. Torture isn't, mostly, because it is useless.

How much volume of useless information do you expect to get?

How long are you expecting the person to hold out? And again, they have no incentive to lie. They have every incentive to just tell the truth and out of hope of ending the torture permanently.

This really isn’t true. The way torture is usually done, they always expect the person to know more, so any information - true or not - results in an equal break in the torture. There’s no incentive to give truth over bullshit.

In fact, if you can devise complicated bullshit that sounds good, you might get a longer break, as the investigation into bullshit typically takes longer to disprove than to prove the true stuff.

Like the Black Muslim extremists in Montana we were looking for for... months I think?

[Jebslund]

Okay. But the bomb is set to go off in 24 hours. The closest location is an hour away, the furthest is 13, and there are ten at each distance. You torture the guy. He tells you the bomb is in one of the locations that are 12 hours away. You check. It's not there. We'll be generous and say the guy you send calls back. it's not there. You torture him some more. this time one 6 hours away. You check. It's <u>not there</u>. Rinse and repeat. 4 hours. Not there. 2 hours. *was* there, but not anymore. Boom. The bomb goes off in a location 3 hours away from you and 1 hour from the last location given. Congratulations. You got 4 locations, and NONE of them were even remotely useful. Out of a possible 130.

then tough luck?

I mean, that sounds like my last League of Legends match...

I mean, bad things happen?

The point being that, as you pointed out, it was impossible, or, at the very least, time consuming to verify the information. You have a limited window to find the bomb/grab the terrorist(s)/stop the attack/whatever. And your victim KNOWS. THIS. If he delays you long enough, he has won, and you no longer need to torture him. If you were honestly just trying to get info, the torture stops. If you were dishonest, the torture wouldn't have stopped anyway. Basic game theory states that even a pyrrhic victory is better than an outright defeat. Economic theory states that the vast majority of people are willing to spend a dollar to gain a dollar. Torture puts the victim in the position of having nothing to lose.

[The New California Republic]

How much volume of useless information do you expect to get?

How long are you expecting the person to hold out? And again, they have no incentive to lie. They have every incentive to just tell the truth and out of hope of ending the torture permanently.

This really isn’t true. The way torture is usually done, they always expect the person to know more, so any information - true or not - results in an equal break in the torture. There’s no incentive to give truth over bullshit.

In fact, if you can devise complicated bullshit that sounds good, you might get a longer break, as the investigation into bullshit typically takes longer to disprove than to prove the true stuff.

Sorry OP, it seems that opinion is against you, overwhelmingly so in fact...

[Estanglia]

IM, Here's a hypothetical: you know of a valuable document that could win the war on either side, and your side has it. You are captured and told that, if you give them the location of this document, they will release you. If you don't, they will torture you until you tell them the location (they will check each time). Whilst checking, they won't torture you. There are three scenarios, one where you know where it is [a)], one where you don't[b)] and one where you are a completely innocent person who knows of nothing of value[C)].
In scenario a) where you know its whereabouts, you don't have an incentive to tell the truth, because the prospect of freedom is outweighed by the prospect of your side winning. Even if you get to the point where you no longer care about anything but ending the pain, you have an incentive to tell them as many locations as possible with the actual one as well as it will give you the longest respite, and could lead to your freedom or provide time for the document to be moved.
In scenarios b) and c), you are doomed to lie as you don't know where the document is and "I don't know" isn't satisfactory. The only way to get a respite from the torture is to tell them somewhere to check.

Therefore, in all scenarios, there is an incentive to lie that counters the incentive to tell the truth.

[Estanglia]

Tired watching Knightfall, couldn’t. Anyway, getting off track.

For IM, nothing’s stopping the victim from just feeding the torturer false information.

except that the torturer has an interest in making the torture stop and feeding false information is known to not result in that

No he doesn't. If you have information, and give it up, he has an incentive to carry on to try to get more info out of you.

[Estanglia]

The problem is the volume of useless information compared to the volume of useful information.

Other methods which beget less useless information are actually used. Torture isn't, mostly, because it is useless.

How much volume of useless information do you expect to get?

How long are you expecting the person to hold out? And again, they have no incentive to lie. They have every incentive to just tell the truth and out of hope of ending the torture permanently.

Again, How do you know he has ANY information? Every post you've simply assumed he has info.

[Genivaria]

The problem is the volume of useless information compared to the volume of useful information.

Other methods which beget less useless information are actually used. Torture isn't, mostly, because it is useless.

How much volume of useless information do you expect to get?

How long are you expecting the person to hold out? And again, they have no incentive to lie. They have every incentive to just tell the truth and out of hope of ending the torture permanently.

And again, they have no incentive to lie.

To...make ...the...pain...stop. As you've been told twenty times now.

They have every incentive to just tell the truth

No they don't, especially if they actually DON'T know what the torturer wants to know. OOPS.

and out of hope of ending the torture permanently

Yeah no the torture would continue for more information.

[Ostroeuropa]

People who snap under torture will say anything to make it stop and that's the problem. Their testimony will be shaped by terror into being what they think you want to hear. This may or may not align with the truth, but almost certainly it doesn't align with it well.

[The South Falls]

People who snap under torture will say anything to make it stop and that's the problem. Their testimony will be shaped by terror into being what they think you want to hear. This may or may not align with the truth, but almost certainly it doesn't align with it well.

It'll just be what they want to hear.

[The Xenopolis Confederation]

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"

No, because they're eventually going to stop torturing you.

[Seangoli]

The problem is the volume of useless information compared to the volume of useful information.

Other methods which beget less useless information are actually used. Torture isn't, mostly, because it is useless.

How much volume of useless information do you expect to get?

How long are you expecting the person to hold out? And again, they have no incentive to lie. They have every incentive to just tell the truth and out of hope of ending the torture permanently.

Yet that has been shown to not be the case. What is the case is that the person being tortured tells the torturer whatever they hell they want to hear in hopes of ending the torture.

[Thermodolia]

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

???

Those who are special forces, intelligence agents, and others all go through torture resistance training

[Thermodolia]

And even then the "right" information will be impossible to differentiate from the "wrong" information...

I didn't know we lived in a world where it was impossible to distinguish between things that exist and things that don't, between false evidence and true evidence... I guess there is absolutely no way to confirm any evidence then (or they magically disappear when we enter a discussion about torture and we want to make torture look bad)

Have you never heard of coded information?

[Thermodolia]

In order to verify the evidence, you need to know what it is, making the torture pointless. We've constantly pointed that out.

you find out what it is based on information you extract from the interrogation

then you verify as a form of confirmation

Which takes time

[Thermodolia]

The problem with verifying a story is that, if you have the means to immediately do so, you'd already be doing it. Otherwise, you're looking at hours, possibly even days, of wasted manpower barking up the wrong tree in a situation where your prisoner is only useful for a limited amount of time, a problem the CIA frequently ran into. It's not a matter of the leads being impossible to track down. It's a matter of the leads needing to be believed first, then needing to be tracked down, the latter part of which takes far more time than Hollywood lets on. During that time, if the victim of torture lied, you're wasting valuable time tracking down a false lead, even more because the lie was something you wanted to believe, while the other side adjusts plans based on that guy with important info who hasn't checked in in a while, or even carried out the attack you were hoping to stop.

you're verifying based on the information that has been extracted

for instance, if there are 130 possible bomb locations... you can get a specific location from the person and then go from there; much more feasible than just sending people to 130 locations assuming you don't have the resources

You’re operating from the assumption that the tortured individual would give up the correct answer. Which is unlikely and unrealistic

[Thermodolia]

How can you trust that? Another thing we've pointed out: people will say anything to escape torture, even lies.

because they won't escape the torture if they tell a lie so it makes more sense for them to tell the truth... they know that you'd come back to torture them again if they try to feed lies, hence there's no incentive to lie when they could tell the truth (they might do it once or twice to spite you if they are really brave but there's a general disincentive against doing so)... when people are tortured, they need to believe that telling the truth will make it stop (they're being conditioned to think that)

No people are not conditioned to think that. It’s actually quite the opposite, more people are conditioned to lie. I myself know that if im captured I’m going to end up dead eventually, unlike the movies I’m not going to be rescued alive, so I might as well feed them bullshit and taunt them.

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EXACTLY. This is what we're saying, and you didn't seem to accept it.

its in the OP dude

No you, yet again, can’t accept reality

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I don't think that's realistic since if you say that... you KNOW that you will be tortured past the "certain day" when it turns out to be a falsehood, so you really have no self-interest in doing that

Lol, just answer the question, instead of fallaciously dismissing it as unrealistic.

Also, I don't need "self-interest", it is irrelevant in this scenario, I don't want my contact to be caught so I am willing to lie to protect them. So answer the question please.

Funny that. With how much IM talks about loyalty he expects people to have no loyalty to any cause.

I guess that means we are more loyal

[Thermodolia]

Wrong. Telling the truth just results in more torture as well. They don't believe you when you tell the truth. Hence the problem. The tortured spout off hundreds of names, dates, locations, anything to try to get it to stop. 99% of it is bullshit because the 1% that isn't wasn't believed.

It could be that telling the truth actually results in further torture.

You can’t immediately fact check that shit. If you could you wouldn’t be using torture

However, when you are tortured continuously and then told that only by telling the truth will you permanently put a stop to it... you will end up believing it because its your only hope

Or you don’t. And you start spewing bullshit because you don’t have any information.

you have no other hope... and when you are being tortured, you need the hope that it can stop; you know that telling lies or refusing to talk will make things worse. So your only chance is to buy what the torturer is saying, that it ends when you tell the truth and hope it is the case.

What hope? I’m not going to make it out of there alive. So what do I have to lose? Absolutely nothing I’m not going to be rescued and even in the extremely slim chance that I am rescued I’d rather have not told them anything of value.

Unlike you I’m actually loyal to my cause and nation. And I’d rather not be labeled a collaborator.

[Genivaria]

because they won't escape the torture if they tell a lie so it makes more sense for them to tell the truth... they know that you'd come back to torture them again if they try to feed lies, hence there's no incentive to lie when they could tell the truth (they might do it once or twice to spite you if they are really brave but there's a general disincentive against doing so)... when people are tortured, they need to believe that telling the truth will make it stop (they're being conditioned to think that)

No people are not conditioned to think that. It’s actually quite the opposite, more people are conditioned to lie. I myself know that if im captured I’m going to end up dead eventually, unlike the movies I’m not going to be rescued alive, so I might as well feed them bullshit and taunt them.

---

its in the OP dude

No you, yet again, can’t accept reality

---

Lol, just answer the question, instead of fallaciously dismissing it as unrealistic.

Also, I don't need "self-interest", it is irrelevant in this scenario, I don't want my contact to be caught so I am willing to lie to protect them. So answer the question please.

Funny that. With how much IM talks about loyalty he expects people to have no loyalty to any cause.

I guess that means we are more loyal

Considering that IM supports giving your children to Donald Trump I think that's obvious.

[Caracasus]

Just because torture works on Game of Thrones does not mean it works in real life.

The CIA admits it doesn't work, and they were one of the biggest proponents of it in the early 2000s.

So are you saying that if you were in the situation described in the OP that you would be able to take infinite torture without ever yielding the information?

it just sounds a bit unbelievable

In that one very specific instance, valuable info may be obtained.

However the intelligence services now have the unenviable job of going through all the other confessions as well to try and figure out who is actually telling the truth and who made up a load of stuff in the hope of retaining the use of their hands.

That valuable info is now diluted in a massive amount of info that is less... reliable.

Torture may produce results but it is impossible to tell if these are real or not.

There are far better - though admittedly more lengthy - ways of getting information and interrogating suspects.