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Yeah, polygraphs remind me of those TV shows where the investigator pretends to use magic, voodoo, astral signs, etc. to solve the crime, but is really just usi

Yeah, polygraphs remind me of those TV shows where the investigator pretends to use magic, voodoo, astral signs, etc. to solve the crime, but is really just using them to manipulate the psychology of the subject and see their reaction. Put simply, the polygraph is a powerful tool if the subject believes it is a powerful tool.

Terr_ 2y ago
That's incomplete. As the article points out: > Even the United States government isn’t dumb enough to believe the polygraph works. The machine’s real purpose is symbolic, as an icon of the power of the state. Law enforcement agencies don’t use the machine to detect lies. They use it to coerce confessions. [...] It’s a fact, part of a story power tells itself to justify its power. Maybe you can beat the machine— they don’t detect lies, so it’s not that hard—but you can’t beat an entire country that believes in it. Even if you know its nonsense, there's still something coercive of any system where it can be used as a pretext to punish you, or where you are punished for not pretending to believe in it.
- Joker_vD 2y ago
  > They use it to coerce confessions. It boggles my mind than confession even counts as evidence but then again, so does any other testimony. Sure, it made sense when we had almost no forensics (and that's the times that shaped our legal systems) but today we do, don't we?
  - Ekaros 2y ago
    Living in civilised country I find whole confession, anything you say, can't lie in your own defence thing so absolutely abhorrent. To me it seems absolutely sensible that you should be able to decide what is your statement as answer to any question by state. And if you are on stand in trial as defendant you should be able to lie however much you want. The prosecution must prove you were lying, but the act itself cannot be illegal.
  - 542354234235 2y ago
    >Sure, it made sense when we had almost no forensics (and that's the times that shaped our legal systems) but today we do, don't we? The CSI effect. The amount of forensics that people think will be presented in an average case is so much more than actually are. Finding and collecting usable fingerprints, DNA, shoe imprints, etc. does not happen in every case. Most cases are a lot of circumstantial evidence all pointing to the same person.
    - SAI_Peregrinus 2y ago
      Fingerprints, DNA, shoe imprints, & other forensic evidence are circumstantial. Evidence is legally either circumstantial or testimonial, there's no other category. Most cases are a lot of testimonial evidence all pointing to the same person!
  - lazide 2y ago
    Even if CSI was real (which it isn’t even close), the vast majority of actions anyone takes leave no discernible evidence that isn’t immediately made useless through entropy. And the most important element in almost every crime (intent) almost never leaves any evidence at all. IMO the biggest subtle lie that CSI convinces people of is not that facts can be determined so easily and unambiguously - though that is a lie - but that the evidence found and any conclusions from it will fundamentally matter. Each piece of evidence is always some turn of the plot. In real life, it usually doesn’t. Too much ambiguity, or inconclusive or inconsistent results. Or false positive/negatives. Or data which is useless in the vacuum of other missing information. In real life, it’s a frustrated and depressing slog - punctuated by occasional moments of elation and/or terror - being a detective. So what could be more compelling than someone telling everyone in their own words their intent and their actions, so everyone can stop guessing and ‘know for sure’? That’s what a confession is. Which conveniently at the end of nearly every crime show the suspect actually does. In real life, some do that - but many lawyer up, and you spend years dealing with every kind of bullshit and confusion game a professional can throw at you, instead of closure and a clear answer. The polygraph is an attempt at bluffing folks into ‘we got you’ moments. Which does sometimes work! But the pressure and techniques applied can also result in people falsely confessing to things that never happened, or getting confused themselves and ‘failing/lying’ when they were actually relaying the truth.

Terr_ 2y ago

That's incomplete. As the article points out: > Even the United States government isn’t dumb enough to believe the polygraph works. The machine’s real purpose is symbolic, as an icon of the power of the state. Law enforcement agencies don’t use the machine to detect lies. They use it to coerce confessions. [...] It’s a fact, part of a story power tells itself to justify its power. Maybe you can beat the machine— they don’t detect lies, so it’s not that hard—but you can’t beat an entire country that believes in it. Even if you know its nonsense, there's still something coercive of any system where it can be used as a pretext to punish you, or where you are punished for not pretending to believe in it.

Joker_vD 2y ago
> They use it to coerce confessions. It boggles my mind than confession even counts as evidence but then again, so does any other testimony. Sure, it made sense when we had almost no forensics (and that's the times that shaped our legal systems) but today we do, don't we?
- Ekaros 2y ago
  Living in civilised country I find whole confession, anything you say, can't lie in your own defence thing so absolutely abhorrent. To me it seems absolutely sensible that you should be able to decide what is your statement as answer to any question by state. And if you are on stand in trial as defendant you should be able to lie however much you want. The prosecution must prove you were lying, but the act itself cannot be illegal.
- 542354234235 2y ago
  >Sure, it made sense when we had almost no forensics (and that's the times that shaped our legal systems) but today we do, don't we? The CSI effect. The amount of forensics that people think will be presented in an average case is so much more than actually are. Finding and collecting usable fingerprints, DNA, shoe imprints, etc. does not happen in every case. Most cases are a lot of circumstantial evidence all pointing to the same person.
  - SAI_Peregrinus 2y ago
    Fingerprints, DNA, shoe imprints, & other forensic evidence are circumstantial. Evidence is legally either circumstantial or testimonial, there's no other category. Most cases are a lot of testimonial evidence all pointing to the same person!
- lazide 2y ago
  Even if CSI was real (which it isn’t even close), the vast majority of actions anyone takes leave no discernible evidence that isn’t immediately made useless through entropy. And the most important element in almost every crime (intent) almost never leaves any evidence at all. IMO the biggest subtle lie that CSI convinces people of is not that facts can be determined so easily and unambiguously - though that is a lie - but that the evidence found and any conclusions from it will fundamentally matter. Each piece of evidence is always some turn of the plot. In real life, it usually doesn’t. Too much ambiguity, or inconclusive or inconsistent results. Or false positive/negatives. Or data which is useless in the vacuum of other missing information. In real life, it’s a frustrated and depressing slog - punctuated by occasional moments of elation and/or terror - being a detective. So what could be more compelling than someone telling everyone in their own words their intent and their actions, so everyone can stop guessing and ‘know for sure’? That’s what a confession is. Which conveniently at the end of nearly every crime show the suspect actually does. In real life, some do that - but many lawyer up, and you spend years dealing with every kind of bullshit and confusion game a professional can throw at you, instead of closure and a clear answer. The polygraph is an attempt at bluffing folks into ‘we got you’ moments. Which does sometimes work! But the pressure and techniques applied can also result in people falsely confessing to things that never happened, or getting confused themselves and ‘failing/lying’ when they were actually relaying the truth.