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I think you're arguing at cross-purposes, slightly. RcouF1uZ4gsC said torture works in cases where you want to extract information that you can immediately ver

by kemayo 9y ago

I think you're arguing at cross-purposes, slightly. RcouF1uZ4gsC said torture works in cases where you want to extract information that you can immediately verify, like a password. This seems... plausible, insofar as you can know whether you have obtained true information. Your arguments seem more focused on complex intelligence. If you want to know things like "what's a list of people involved in terrorist-organization-X?" then that's a lot harder to verify immediately, so lying to make the torture stop becomes far more viable as a counter-tactic. I would imagine that the latter case represents far more actual interrogation scenarios. The contrived "I want to know X and immediately verify it" is a very unlikely 24-ish scenario... but it's also the one where the moral argument against it is the better one.

QAPereo 9y ago
I understand what you’re saying, however the only justification that is used for torture in modern Weatern states, is the procurement of time sensitive information. The prime example which comes up over and over is the Gestapo interrogating French resistance. The Gestapo realized that they had 24 to 48 hours to get information worth acting on. After that the organization would restructure to accommodate the loss of the member and their information. It does not work. Over and over again people were willing to hold out for as long as it took, or they gave bad information, or they broke but had been given bad information themselves just in case. The result is that the Nazis had to continually treat every break in intelligence as suspect, run down every suspect, and of course that took too much time. You also can’t torture people in some kind of magical and unlimited way, torture takes time too. The result is the torture just doesn’t work as well as the alternatives, some of which can work very quickly. Worst torture makes people lazy and unprofessional that laziness and unprofessional conduct spreads to the organization. The kind of people who could be skilled and practiced torturers make poor policemen, intelligence officers, and soldiers. This argument is much more fully and cogently made in the book Torture and Democracy, and there has the benefit of being fully cited. The bottom line however is that for whatever use you could think to put torture to, they would be another tool with a better success rate. Torture is not a science, and the results are predictably poor compared to scientific approaches to interrogation.
- EGreg 9y ago
  My example is Batman And he uses fear, not torture
  - lordfoom 9y ago
    Seriously?
    - EGreg 9y ago
      Nope
eru 9y ago
There's a practical/moral argument: having the moral high ground gives you soft power to wield. And that's probably worth more than any benefit torture would give. (As an example, in WWII the Brits managed to turn every single last spy the Germans sent. Torture was not necessary, and would have even had the opposite effect.) (Of course, you could try to only torture in secret to protect your reputation. But that's a very fragile state of affairs, and even more damaging when uncovered.)

by kemayo 9y ago

QAPereo 9y ago

I understand what you’re saying, however the only justification that is used for torture in modern Weatern states, is the procurement of time sensitive information. The prime example which comes up over and over is the Gestapo interrogating French resistance. The Gestapo realized that they had 24 to 48 hours to get information worth acting on. After that the organization would restructure to accommodate the loss of the member and their information. It does not work. Over and over again people were willing to hold out for as long as it took, or they gave bad information, or they broke but had been given bad information themselves just in case. The result is that the Nazis had to continually treat every break in intelligence as suspect, run down every suspect, and of course that took too much time. You also can’t torture people in some kind of magical and unlimited way, torture takes time too. The result is the torture just doesn’t work as well as the alternatives, some of which can work very quickly. Worst torture makes people lazy and unprofessional that laziness and unprofessional conduct spreads to the organization. The kind of people who could be skilled and practiced torturers make poor policemen, intelligence officers, and soldiers. This argument is much more fully and cogently made in the book Torture and Democracy, and there has the benefit of being fully cited. The bottom line however is that for whatever use you could think to put torture to, they would be another tool with a better success rate. Torture is not a science, and the results are predictably poor compared to scientific approaches to interrogation.

EGreg 9y ago
My example is Batman And he uses fear, not torture
- lordfoom 9y ago
  Seriously?
  - EGreg 9y ago
    Nope

eru 9y ago

There's a practical/moral argument: having the moral high ground gives you soft power to wield. And that's probably worth more than any benefit torture would give. (As an example, in WWII the Brits managed to turn every single last spy the Germans sent. Torture was not necessary, and would have even had the opposite effect.) (Of course, you could try to only torture in secret to protect your reputation. But that's a very fragile state of affairs, and even more damaging when uncovered.)