Torture for fun and academia

[dirque]

Just thought I'd bring attention to this as I didn't see it in anyone else's blog...

I Never Thought I Would Grow Up to Be the Kind of Crank Who Wrote Letters to the Chancellor Trying to Get My Colleagues Fired...

Comments

[dirque]

Haven't you ever seen the Next generation Episode? Even Jean-luc saw 3 lights in the end!

There have been multiple studies on why waterboarding is so effective. I believe the average time for a CIA trained operative is 14 seconds.

No doubt the victim will tell the interrogators anything they want to hear when broken, the psychological trick is to make a broken person think you already know the truth and the truth is all you want to hear. Further torture can only be alleviated with their cooperation.

[wtimmins]

I've always been torn on the subject of whether torture is effective. Saying it's ineffective has often struck me as wishful thinking.

What I suspect (with no evidence, but why let that bother me... ;) is that torture is effective only on certain people in certain situations, and that the trick, for someone who is interested purely in results, is determining when it will be effective.

Of course, that's assuming the goal of torture is getting information. Torture is plenty effective as a way to feel powerful and spread terror.

From my cold secular humanist perspective, I disapprove of torture mainly because it's a really evil slippery slope. Even assuming it works, it's a corrupting instrument that perverts the user, and I don't want to be at the hands of a government that has grown eager to use such a tool.