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I mean, there can be a valid debate on the moral cost of torturing X people to to (potentially) save Y lives with the information extracted. But torturing some

I mean, there can be a valid debate on the moral cost of torturing X people to to (potentially) save Y lives with the information extracted. But torturing someone is stupid and doesn't work, so we don't even need to have that debate. I'd probably be in the same camp. I'm against torture because it's stupid. I haven't bothered to think through the moral implications because why bother?

edanm 9y ago
Personally, whenever I find that I don't have to solve a moral dilemma (or any dilemma) because it's clear-cut either way (one way has all upsides), I tend to be nervous that I'm missing something. Humans are really really good at cognitive dissonance. I'm not saying I know whether torture works or not, I'm just saying, it's awfully convenient that most people harp on the "it doesn't work" idea, and that means the burden of proof IMO should be much higher to show it doesn't work (assuming your default belief is that it does work, which is most people's default prior).
- ChrisSD 9y ago
  If we're thinking about this purely scientifically (ignoring the ethics for a moment) then you're asking the wrong question. The question is not "does torture work". The question is "which techniques get the interviewee to honestly reveal what they do (or don't) know". Or to put it another way, the relative results should be your focus.
  - edanm 9y ago
    That's a good point. One of the reasons that I semi-assume that torture works, is that there are security agencies that continue to use it. That also means they choose to use torture versus other means, although there, you could argue that they're doing it as a time/cost-saving measure, and that you could theoretically get similar results with more work. That's actually a pretty strong argument against my "I assume it works because it's used" argument.
    - c22 9y ago
      Maybe it "works" on some other metric that is being selected for. Masturbation "works", but not if you're trying to have a kid.
      - LanceH 9y ago
        Generally the people saying it doesn't work all claim that a person will say anything under duress. While this is true, interrogation is generally not done in a complete vacuum. The interrogator will know things that can help determine whether the target is lying or not. If he confirms things you know but he doesn't know you know, you're probably on the right track. It's never like in the movies where they just ask, "Who's in charge?" and ratchet up the torture until the guy answers. That would have near zero intel value. We also talk about torture as a binary. There is really a whole range from mild discomfort to extreme pain, injury and threat of death. There is a whole range of activities to debate whether they are torture. Is threat alone torture? Some have committed suicide while facing legal threats alone. Others shrug off mere threats as just talk -- demonstrative torture could make those threats real to some and thus work. On the flip side, the consensus (30 years ago anyway) was that if you're captured, you're going to give up everything when faced with torture, so go ahead and do so, just try to hold on for 24 hours before you do.
        michaelmrose 9y ago
        If a reasonably person has to ask is this torture its probably torture.
        f137 9y ago
        What is a reasonably person?
        michaelmrose 9y ago
        A common ethical standard.
        9y ago
- addicted 9y ago
  Wait, so you think we should be torturing people by default, and that the burden of proof should lie on the people who think we shouldn't be torturing people to show it doesn't work? You don't think that maybe the burden of proof should lie on people to prove that torture does work before we even have a discussion about whether letting go of basic human rights is worth it in certain instances?
  - dmix 9y ago
    He was just using that as an example where we should question our assumptions. Particularly when the subject comes with many 'common sense' automatic assumptions it's good to give extra scrutiny to the subject. You don't have to be doing something "by default" in order to prove or disprove an hypothesis. There is more the enough historical evidence that any type of violence or extreme pressure creates false confessions. Nor do you have to rip off someone's fingernails to find out humans will tell you anything to make it stop. You can always extrapolate from more humane experiments, if data from a previous era is not available.
  - edanm 9y ago
    I wasn't talking either way about the morality of torture (in that comment), or whether we should be torturing anyone. I was simply saying that I find the "common knowledge" that torture doesn't work, to be unlikely. It just seems very convenient that things we find morally wrong end up also being bad for other reasons, making it unnecessary to deal with the morals. That sounds like motivated reasoning, not actual truth seeking. "You don't think that maybe the burden of proof should lie on people to prove that torture does work before we even have a discussion about whether letting go of basic human rights is worth it in certain instances?" That's a complicated question, and to be honest I have no idea. I actually think that practically speaking, no one should be routinely torturing anyone else. I just don't think it's a moral (or practical) slam-dunk - I think there are situations where it is morally justified, and that it would probably work.
    - thaumasiotes 9y ago
      > It just seems very convenient that things we find morally wrong end up also being bad for other reasons An evolutionary argument can explain this, and is the standard way to explain large chunks of traditional morality. (e.g. incest taboos.) As applied to the modern torture debate, I agree with you that this is more of a case of "when neither the law nor the facts are on your side, pound the table".
- michaelmrose 9y ago
  I don't believe the burden of proof shifts based on what you personally think or what you suppose most people think. In fact the burden of proof ought to lie with those who suppose we commit egregious acts of immorality in the name of a nebulous greater good to prove that this is morally acceptable and that said greater good actually exists. Back on the topic of if torture works. Nobody is arguing that you can't coerce someone into giving true testimony if you know you have a bad party and you can verify what he tells you immediately but in such cases you almost wouldn't have to anyway. The problem is the world is rarely cut and dry and we are all much much safer if the powers that be aren't allowed to pull out our fingernails. Terrorism kills less people than bathtubs and far less than cars imagining that we ought to eliminate basic protections to keep a relative handful from dying is insane.
  - thaumasiotes 9y ago
    > Nobody is arguing that you can't coerce someone into giving true testimony if you know you have a bad party and you can verify what he tells you immediately That's not accurate; that argument is very common. You can see someone making this exact stupid argument here in this very thread at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15465836 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15465836 .
- Nomentatus 9y ago
  Agreed. We have a good historical example. Torture worked wonderfully well for the Gestapo in France and nearby countries (they actually rolled up and crushed the whole resistance network) until something like 1942 but after that point it didn't work and was pointless. A new resistance movement grew and remained strong. Torture couldn't dent it. The reason for the change was that the Allies (British spymasters really) responded by adopting "cell networks" and properly limited information to a need-to-know basis - something pioneered by the Soviets. Torture works vs a naive opponent network. It doesn't work vs a sophisticated opponent.
- memracom 9y ago
  Most interviewers who use torture do that because the believe that the evil criminal deserves a punishment, and the interviewer derives great satisfaction from doing the torture. But you have to admit that criminals are not normal people. They are in fact, insane, in a specific way that our laws will not give them diminished responsibility. It is dangerous to think that the criminal is not a sadist. You have to maintain control over the criminal and over the interview. And you must maintain full control over your own psyche and emotions. Never be bored or frustrated. Have infinite patience. Map out the criminal's psyche to learn what makes them tick. Listen to your own intuitions because as you learn more about criminal psychology, your subconcious becomes a more powerful tool.
thriftwy 9y ago
You never know X and Y and there's no known physical process which you can use to determine Y (and, often, X) before you start torture. However, there's definitely a legal process in place once you accept the possibility of torture.
- pathseeker 9y ago
  > You never know X and Y and there's no known physical process which you can use to determine Y (and, often, X) before you start torture. This isn't true for all cases. It can be pretty cut and dry if a single person knows the location of a bomb set to go off on a plane or something. X is 1 and Y is the number of passengers.
  - thriftwy 9y ago
    How would you know that the person knows about the bomb? How would you know they'll not bullshit you while letting the real bomb detonate? I second that life is not TV show.
  - beepboopbeep 9y ago
    Sure, if life is a TV show. Which it isn't.
ythn 9y ago
> But torturing someone is stupid and doesn't work, I'm pretty sure if someone waterboarded me to get my phone password I would eventually lose the mental will necessary to keep getting waterboarded and give up the password. But I'm just one point of data. However, torturing me for information I don't have... now that's stupid and won't work.
- jmcqk6 9y ago
  If you had something on your phone that you would die for, would that change the equation at all?
- wfo 9y ago
  What if revealing that information would ensure your permanent imprisonment and the immediate death of your family and friends? Because this is almost always the case. Interrogators are not trying to find things out because they are curious, they are looking for your allies in order to kill them or capture and torture them.
brighteyes 9y ago
I do think we need to think through the moral implications of torture, because it's not as simple as "torture doesn't work." Yes, torture might not work on average. And not even in the great majority of police and anti-terror investigations. But that doesn't mean it never does. We know torture can work in very specific circumstances. If you have a person's phone that you want them to unlock, torture can get them to do it. It works because you can verify what the person tells you immediately, so there is a direct link between them telling you the truth and the torture stopping. If you are willing to go to any length to get them to unlock the phone, eventually almost anyone would break. Of course the issue is that such situations are rare - usually you don't have such a direct link. The person will say anything to get the torture to stop, true or false - more likely false. It may be impossible to verify what they say, or it may take months or years. So it's pointless, and much more productive to use a non-torture approach in those cases.
- memracom 9y ago
  It is possible to train people to provide misleading information under torture. What if that phone has two passwords, one which unlocks secrets and one which leads you on a wild goose chase. Which one will you get by torture?
SilasX 9y ago
That's like an extreme anti-tax person saying they haven't thought through the moral implications of (not) preventing an asteroid strike with a tax-funded program, "since an asteroid strike is never going to happen, so why bother?"
- knieveltech 9y ago
  It really isn't like the thing you've mentioned at all. Perhaps a different analogy?
  - SilasX 9y ago
    It very much is, and I'd be happy to spell out the analogy. "It will never be necessary to torture for life-saving information, because I have perfect certainty that no information can be obtained that way, so I don't need a moral philosophy that appropriately weighs torture against loss of life." "It will never be necessary to levy taxes to pay for public goods, because I have perfect certainty that no asteroid will ever head toward the earth, so I don't need a moral philosophy that weights taxation against unprotected asteroid strikes."
    - random023987 9y ago
      I think you meant: > It will never be necessary to levy taxes to pay for asteroid defense, because I have perfect certainty that no asteroid will ever head toward the earth, so I don't need a moral philosophy that weights taxation against unprotected asteroid strikes. You can't generalize to an argument against all public spending.
      - SilasX 9y ago
        That's the point: the anti-taxer's error is to so tenuously double down on believing they can explain away any public goods problem by saying it doesn't happen in practice. Asteroid defense is just the most extreme example. It is a similar error to double down so hard on torture never being able to elicit truthful, reliable information.
vkou 9y ago
Should we have a valid debate on the moral cost of enslaving X people to serve Y people? Would this be moral if the gain to Y is greater then the suffering inflicted upon X? If this is debatable, I've, ah, got lists for X and Y.
beepboopbeep 9y ago
There's something to be said to applying a formula to a torture debate.
trhway 9y ago
>I mean, there can be a valid debate on the moral cost of torturing X people to to (potentially) save Y lives with the information extracted. Germans tortured USSR guerillas (who Germans technically pretty rightfully - from their point of view - classified as terrorists) during WWII, and that saved some German lives. So are you saying there can be a valid debate about that torture? Or closer to home - say Taliban would torture a US soldier and get info which would save some Taliban lives - valid debate here? Or do you mean that the debate is valid only when "good" guys (USSR and US) would do the torture? >But torturing someone ... doesn't work. Sometimes works, sometimes doesn't. So people get tortured as it always can happen to be the case when it works. When politicians/society talk about torture efficiency or lack of it to me it sounds just like a shop talk of professional torturers, i.e. people lacking any empathy and morals.

edanm 9y ago

Personally, whenever I find that I don't have to solve a moral dilemma (or any dilemma) because it's clear-cut either way (one way has all upsides), I tend to be nervous that I'm missing something. Humans are really really good at cognitive dissonance. I'm not saying I know whether torture works or not, I'm just saying, it's awfully convenient that most people harp on the "it doesn't work" idea, and that means the burden of proof IMO should be much higher to show it doesn't work (assuming your default belief is that it does work, which is most people's default prior).

ChrisSD 9y ago
If we're thinking about this purely scientifically (ignoring the ethics for a moment) then you're asking the wrong question. The question is not "does torture work". The question is "which techniques get the interviewee to honestly reveal what they do (or don't) know". Or to put it another way, the relative results should be your focus.
- edanm 9y ago
  That's a good point. One of the reasons that I semi-assume that torture works, is that there are security agencies that continue to use it. That also means they choose to use torture versus other means, although there, you could argue that they're doing it as a time/cost-saving measure, and that you could theoretically get similar results with more work. That's actually a pretty strong argument against my "I assume it works because it's used" argument.
  - c22 9y ago
    Maybe it "works" on some other metric that is being selected for. Masturbation "works", but not if you're trying to have a kid.
    - LanceH 9y ago
      Generally the people saying it doesn't work all claim that a person will say anything under duress. While this is true, interrogation is generally not done in a complete vacuum. The interrogator will know things that can help determine whether the target is lying or not. If he confirms things you know but he doesn't know you know, you're probably on the right track. It's never like in the movies where they just ask, "Who's in charge?" and ratchet up the torture until the guy answers. That would have near zero intel value. We also talk about torture as a binary. There is really a whole range from mild discomfort to extreme pain, injury and threat of death. There is a whole range of activities to debate whether they are torture. Is threat alone torture? Some have committed suicide while facing legal threats alone. Others shrug off mere threats as just talk -- demonstrative torture could make those threats real to some and thus work. On the flip side, the consensus (30 years ago anyway) was that if you're captured, you're going to give up everything when faced with torture, so go ahead and do so, just try to hold on for 24 hours before you do.
      - michaelmrose 9y ago
        If a reasonably person has to ask is this torture its probably torture.
        f137 9y ago
        What is a reasonably person?
        michaelmrose 9y ago
        A common ethical standard.
        9y ago
addicted 9y ago
Wait, so you think we should be torturing people by default, and that the burden of proof should lie on the people who think we shouldn't be torturing people to show it doesn't work? You don't think that maybe the burden of proof should lie on people to prove that torture does work before we even have a discussion about whether letting go of basic human rights is worth it in certain instances?
- dmix 9y ago
  He was just using that as an example where we should question our assumptions. Particularly when the subject comes with many 'common sense' automatic assumptions it's good to give extra scrutiny to the subject. You don't have to be doing something "by default" in order to prove or disprove an hypothesis. There is more the enough historical evidence that any type of violence or extreme pressure creates false confessions. Nor do you have to rip off someone's fingernails to find out humans will tell you anything to make it stop. You can always extrapolate from more humane experiments, if data from a previous era is not available.
- edanm 9y ago
  I wasn't talking either way about the morality of torture (in that comment), or whether we should be torturing anyone. I was simply saying that I find the "common knowledge" that torture doesn't work, to be unlikely. It just seems very convenient that things we find morally wrong end up also being bad for other reasons, making it unnecessary to deal with the morals. That sounds like motivated reasoning, not actual truth seeking. "You don't think that maybe the burden of proof should lie on people to prove that torture does work before we even have a discussion about whether letting go of basic human rights is worth it in certain instances?" That's a complicated question, and to be honest I have no idea. I actually think that practically speaking, no one should be routinely torturing anyone else. I just don't think it's a moral (or practical) slam-dunk - I think there are situations where it is morally justified, and that it would probably work.
  - thaumasiotes 9y ago
    > It just seems very convenient that things we find morally wrong end up also being bad for other reasons An evolutionary argument can explain this, and is the standard way to explain large chunks of traditional morality. (e.g. incest taboos.) As applied to the modern torture debate, I agree with you that this is more of a case of "when neither the law nor the facts are on your side, pound the table".
michaelmrose 9y ago
I don't believe the burden of proof shifts based on what you personally think or what you suppose most people think. In fact the burden of proof ought to lie with those who suppose we commit egregious acts of immorality in the name of a nebulous greater good to prove that this is morally acceptable and that said greater good actually exists. Back on the topic of if torture works. Nobody is arguing that you can't coerce someone into giving true testimony if you know you have a bad party and you can verify what he tells you immediately but in such cases you almost wouldn't have to anyway. The problem is the world is rarely cut and dry and we are all much much safer if the powers that be aren't allowed to pull out our fingernails. Terrorism kills less people than bathtubs and far less than cars imagining that we ought to eliminate basic protections to keep a relative handful from dying is insane.
- thaumasiotes 9y ago
  > Nobody is arguing that you can't coerce someone into giving true testimony if you know you have a bad party and you can verify what he tells you immediately That's not accurate; that argument is very common. You can see someone making this exact stupid argument here in this very thread at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15465836 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15465836 .
Nomentatus 9y ago
Agreed. We have a good historical example. Torture worked wonderfully well for the Gestapo in France and nearby countries (they actually rolled up and crushed the whole resistance network) until something like 1942 but after that point it didn't work and was pointless. A new resistance movement grew and remained strong. Torture couldn't dent it. The reason for the change was that the Allies (British spymasters really) responded by adopting "cell networks" and properly limited information to a need-to-know basis - something pioneered by the Soviets. Torture works vs a naive opponent network. It doesn't work vs a sophisticated opponent.
memracom 9y ago
Most interviewers who use torture do that because the believe that the evil criminal deserves a punishment, and the interviewer derives great satisfaction from doing the torture. But you have to admit that criminals are not normal people. They are in fact, insane, in a specific way that our laws will not give them diminished responsibility. It is dangerous to think that the criminal is not a sadist. You have to maintain control over the criminal and over the interview. And you must maintain full control over your own psyche and emotions. Never be bored or frustrated. Have infinite patience. Map out the criminal's psyche to learn what makes them tick. Listen to your own intuitions because as you learn more about criminal psychology, your subconcious becomes a more powerful tool.

thriftwy 9y ago

You never know X and Y and there's no known physical process which you can use to determine Y (and, often, X) before you start torture. However, there's definitely a legal process in place once you accept the possibility of torture.

pathseeker 9y ago
> You never know X and Y and there's no known physical process which you can use to determine Y (and, often, X) before you start torture. This isn't true for all cases. It can be pretty cut and dry if a single person knows the location of a bomb set to go off on a plane or something. X is 1 and Y is the number of passengers.
- thriftwy 9y ago
  How would you know that the person knows about the bomb? How would you know they'll not bullshit you while letting the real bomb detonate? I second that life is not TV show.
- beepboopbeep 9y ago
  Sure, if life is a TV show. Which it isn't.

ythn 9y ago

> But torturing someone is stupid and doesn't work, I'm pretty sure if someone waterboarded me to get my phone password I would eventually lose the mental will necessary to keep getting waterboarded and give up the password. But I'm just one point of data. However, torturing me for information I don't have... now that's stupid and won't work.

jmcqk6 9y ago
If you had something on your phone that you would die for, would that change the equation at all?
wfo 9y ago
What if revealing that information would ensure your permanent imprisonment and the immediate death of your family and friends? Because this is almost always the case. Interrogators are not trying to find things out because they are curious, they are looking for your allies in order to kill them or capture and torture them.

brighteyes 9y ago

I do think we need to think through the moral implications of torture, because it's not as simple as "torture doesn't work." Yes, torture might not work on average. And not even in the great majority of police and anti-terror investigations. But that doesn't mean it never does. We know torture can work in very specific circumstances. If you have a person's phone that you want them to unlock, torture can get them to do it. It works because you can verify what the person tells you immediately, so there is a direct link between them telling you the truth and the torture stopping. If you are willing to go to any length to get them to unlock the phone, eventually almost anyone would break. Of course the issue is that such situations are rare - usually you don't have such a direct link. The person will say anything to get the torture to stop, true or false - more likely false. It may be impossible to verify what they say, or it may take months or years. So it's pointless, and much more productive to use a non-torture approach in those cases.

memracom 9y ago
It is possible to train people to provide misleading information under torture. What if that phone has two passwords, one which unlocks secrets and one which leads you on a wild goose chase. Which one will you get by torture?

SilasX 9y ago

That's like an extreme anti-tax person saying they haven't thought through the moral implications of (not) preventing an asteroid strike with a tax-funded program, "since an asteroid strike is never going to happen, so why bother?"

knieveltech 9y ago
It really isn't like the thing you've mentioned at all. Perhaps a different analogy?
- SilasX 9y ago
  It very much is, and I'd be happy to spell out the analogy. "It will never be necessary to torture for life-saving information, because I have perfect certainty that no information can be obtained that way, so I don't need a moral philosophy that appropriately weighs torture against loss of life." "It will never be necessary to levy taxes to pay for public goods, because I have perfect certainty that no asteroid will ever head toward the earth, so I don't need a moral philosophy that weights taxation against unprotected asteroid strikes."
  - random023987 9y ago
    I think you meant: > It will never be necessary to levy taxes to pay for asteroid defense, because I have perfect certainty that no asteroid will ever head toward the earth, so I don't need a moral philosophy that weights taxation against unprotected asteroid strikes. You can't generalize to an argument against all public spending.
    - SilasX 9y ago
      That's the point: the anti-taxer's error is to so tenuously double down on believing they can explain away any public goods problem by saying it doesn't happen in practice. Asteroid defense is just the most extreme example. It is a similar error to double down so hard on torture never being able to elicit truthful, reliable information.

vkou 9y ago

Should we have a valid debate on the moral cost of enslaving X people to serve Y people? Would this be moral if the gain to Y is greater then the suffering inflicted upon X? If this is debatable, I've, ah, got lists for X and Y.

beepboopbeep 9y ago

There's something to be said to applying a formula to a torture debate.

trhway 9y ago

>I mean, there can be a valid debate on the moral cost of torturing X people to to (potentially) save Y lives with the information extracted. Germans tortured USSR guerillas (who Germans technically pretty rightfully - from their point of view - classified as terrorists) during WWII, and that saved some German lives. So are you saying there can be a valid debate about that torture? Or closer to home - say Taliban would torture a US soldier and get info which would save some Taliban lives - valid debate here? Or do you mean that the debate is valid only when "good" guys (USSR and US) would do the torture? >But torturing someone ... doesn't work. Sometimes works, sometimes doesn't. So people get tortured as it always can happen to be the case when it works. When politicians/society talk about torture efficiency or lack of it to me it sounds just like a shop talk of professional torturers, i.e. people lacking any empathy and morals.