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> What matters is if this person can produce evidence of novel knowledge. Except that in most cases you can't distinguish novel knowledge from made-up bullshit
by brazzy 12y ago
> What matters is if this person can produce evidence of novel knowledge.
Except that in most cases you can't distinguish novel knowledge from made-up bullshit with real certainty. If you could, you wouldn't have to torture them. And don't bother dredging up contrived ticking-bomb scenarios where it's different - yes, they exist, but they are anything but common and even then often not clear cut.
And that's not even touching on the fact that you almost never have 100% certainty that the suspect actually knows what you want them to tell you at all.
> And of course even if someone delivered information in a non-tortuous interrogation, any government would fact-check.
No. Most of them wouldn't, when they've just been told what they wanted to hear. Or (worst but common case) they'll fact-check by arresting the people the victim just named and torturing them as well.
> I also don't believe it's very easy to confuse someone's existing memories.
Your belief is utterly wrong. Read the goddamn article. And that wasn't even using physical torture. Heck, people's memory often enough get confused all of their own. People suck at remembering events clearly.
> These world governments no doubt have data on varying techniques of torture, and I have no doubt there has been a very long race, begun awhile ago, to map out the theory of torture, and I think it is a bit preliminary to say that torture doesn't work until we get a hold of some systematically collected data.
Hopefully that will never happen (it pretty definitely hasn't happend so far; some of the Nazi medical experiments may have come close but had a different focus), the consensus among people with actual experience seems to be clear: intel gained through torture is of worse quality than that gained through other interrogation techniques, and employing torture has many negative effects on your own side.
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2011/05/interrogation-experts-from-every-branch-of-the-military-and-intelligence-agree-torture-doesnt-produce-useful-information/ http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2011/05/interrogation-experts-f...
- threatofrain 12y agoWhat I had in mind when I was thinking of novel data, would be someone who can authenticate the value of their potentially false claims by stating something that nobody else could know. Like the serial killer who states special information. An alternative situation could be those who are looking for cryptography keys. I still believe that the presence of novel data could help a torturous interrogator sieve desperate lies from actionable data. Confirmation of novel data that nobody else could've known authenticates the value of your knowledge. Government may have been reckless before by acting before confirming, but if they just include a confirmation step, then they could have a means of differentiating actionable data from junk. After looking over the site, and doing some Wikipedia searching, it does appear that there are ways to reliably damage or confuse memory, even in innocuous settings. Such as ads meant to manipulate memory. The last point is the one I wanted to make, because I felt that arguments about the efficacy of torture is similar to arguments about the financial costs of the death penalty -- it's a highly ephemeral and gambling argument that hinges on the state of science or technology. So I was wondering what happens to the discussion on ethics once we begin to accept the efficacy of torture?