# Ticking Time Bomb **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 6, 2009, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ticking-time-bomb/495567 "2009-05-06T18:18:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Delayed\_Reflex](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/delayed_reflex/32/3172_2.png) [@Delayed\_Reflex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Delayed_Reflex)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2009, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ticking-time-bomb/495567/61 "2009-05-07T04:59:43Z")
> [@Squink](#): > > Because any lesser standard would result in the criminal prosecution of members of the Bush administration. There’s no need for a fancier hypothesis here, this one is simple and covers the facts. I’m not sure if I’m reading this right… are you saying that if torture is considered totally ineffective, we wouldn’t prosecute members of the Bush administration, but if it is at least somewhat effective, we would prosecute them? This seems to be the opposite of what I would think - the one possible reason to excuse people for performing torture would be if it was effective. I am suggesting that we should condemn torture EVEN IF IT IS EFFECTIVE. I see no reason to argue for the rather speculative position that torture is never effective in any circumstance; just because it might be effective in certain scenarios hardly means that it need be supported in general. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2009, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ticking-time-bomb/495567/62 "2009-05-07T05:00:34Z")
> [@Delayed\_Reflex](#): > > I’ve always thought that torture could be _effective_ theoretically, as I could see myself cracking under torture. Are all criminals so strong-willed that they can hold out and tell lies convincingly while under such duress? EVERYONE cracks under torture. It’s just that you are unlikely to get the truth from them, since they are telling you what you want to hear. The first time you make a wrong guess about whether they are telling the truth, you will immediately head into fantasy land, because you’ll be torturing them into recanting their “lies”. The “criminals” - if they are criminals - are going to lie because you’ll at some point be torturing them into it. And it poisons the well for any further interrogations as well, even if torture isn’t being used anymore. > [@Delayed\_Reflex](#): > > Is it totally impossible to sort through the various statements that a person being tortured will say and figure out which ones have the highest probability of being true? That’s not the question; the question is, is doing so more efficient than getting the right information the first time with more effective and moral methods ? There’s also an excellent chance that NONE of the answers you got were true, because you tortured them into telling you the lies you wanted to hear. You are also going to be under the handicap that your other sources of information will dry up; people don’t willingly talk to torturers. AND, as was pointed out in another thread, you aren’t going to get such cold, professional, logical tactics out of a torturer in the first place. It’s only monsters and incompetents who torture in the first place, so you are going to get the results of monstrous and incompetent behavior. As we have. > [@Delayed\_Reflex](#): > > I would think the primary argument against torture is that there are MORE effective techniques that are less morally wrong than torture. Why must torture be considered TOTALLY ineffective for us to condemn it? I condemn it regardless of effectiveness. The effectiveness of torture for interrogation is a side issue anyway; the primary reasons for torture in the real world are cruelty, terror, and the production of convenient lies. The reasons we have indulged in it. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2009, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ticking-time-bomb/495567/63 "2009-05-07T05:17:52Z")
> [@Delayed\_Reflex](#): > > I’m not sure if I’m reading this right… are you saying that if torture is considered totally ineffective, we wouldn’t prosecute members of the Bush administration, but if it is at least somewhat effective, we would prosecute them? Nope, I’m saying that some set the moral standard as low as possible, simply in order justify not prosecuting anyone. ---
**Author:** ![Harborwolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@Harborwolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harborwolf)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2009, 10:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ticking-time-bomb/495567/64 "2009-05-07T10:03:05Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > I fail to see the contradiction. If you do it often enough, anything will “work” by luck. Quite simple really. You ask for evidence of success then attribute any success to luck making it all but impossible for torture to succeed on it’s own. > [@](#): > > Don’t be silly. First, it’s completely rational to expect people to lie to save their own skin. Second, these are people who already have a history of lying and destroying records; trusting them is the act of a fool. And third, torture is the act of a monster; of someone utterly morally corrupt. I wouldn’t trust their word, trust them with a loan, or trust them in any other fashion. And again, you can’t take their word for anything because they are all liars. Not really much point in engaging you on this issue, is there. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2009, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ticking-time-bomb/495567/65 "2009-05-07T12:19:09Z")
> [@Harborwolf](#): > > Quite simple really. You ask for evidence of success then attribute any success to luck making it all but impossible for torture to succeed on it’s own. No, I’m pointing out that anything will “succeed” if you do it often enough. That’s a standard trick frauds use, after all; make enough guesses, and you’ll be right sooner or later. > [@Harborwolf](#): > > And again, you can’t take their word for anything because they are all liars. Not really much point in engaging you on this issue, is there. Don’t be silly. Liars or not, they could always come up with hard evidence. Too bad they destroyed all those interrogation tapes; no doubt those had gobs of evidence for the effectiveness of torture. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2009, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ticking-time-bomb/495567/66 "2009-05-07T13:32:05Z")
It certainly would be helpful if the terrorist was running around setting his bombs with his kids in tow. If there were two, you could start by shooting one in the head, which should be pretty impressive. Open with a bang, I always say. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2009, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ticking-time-bomb/495567/67 "2009-05-07T14:28:40Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > That the OP has put a one hour time constraint on the scenario and my understanding is that non-torture methods take days or weeks to be effective. If you have evidence to the contrary I’m all ears. Show me the money…or even give me a plausible and logical scenario where you could have any kind of chance at all to find the bomb given the time constraints. The time constraint in the OP is absurdly narrow. Consider it will take some time to setup the torture, ask some questions then get people to the designated location and defuse a nuke all in under one hour. Even if the captive told you the real location after the first jolt of electricity and you had police spread around the city to respond you have maybe one shot at this. If the captive lies to you just once it’s almost certainly game over. Bye-bye New York. Anyone willing to knowingly set off a nuke in New York City is, by definition I’d say, a fanatic. Such a person is exceptionally unlikely to tell the torturer the actual location in this scenario. Worse, the bomber knows that he can lead his captors astray. It behooves him to lie and waste what precious little time there is available. He need not hold out long, just a few tens of minutes will do. That said we do have evidence that in a “ticking time bomb” scenario trained interrogators do not use torture. Granted their time constraints are not a mere hour but more likely a day or two (at a guess). In WWII we know that the British eschewed torture of captured German spies in favor of other methods. I think it likely there were times when the information they wanted was time sensitive yet they didn’t torture. Then we have the guy below who I cited in another thread on torture: > [@](#): > > By contrast, it is easy to find experienced U.S. officers who argue precisely the opposite. Meet, for example, retired Air Force Col. John Rothrock, who, as a young captain, headed a combat interrogation team in Vietnam. More than once he was faced with a ticking time-bomb scenario: a captured Vietcong guerrilla who knew of plans to kill Americans. What was done in such cases was “not nice,” he says. “But we did not physically abuse them.” Rothrock used psychology, the shock of capture and of the unexpected. Once, he let a prisoner see a wounded comrade die. Yet – as he remembers saying to the “desperate and honorable officers” who wanted him to move faster – “if I take a Bunsen burner to the guy’s genitals, he’s going to tell you just about anything,” which would be pointless. Rothrock, who is no squishy liberal, says that he doesn’t know “any professional intelligence officers of my generation who would think this is a good idea.” > > SOURCE: [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2302-2005Jan11.html](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2302-2005Jan11.html) If it were you or me, people who are not trained interrogators we are probably totally fucked having no skill in this area. A trained interrogator however does know how to glean information without torture. Likely it will not be anything direct such as, “The bomb is in the train station!” What they are more likely to get is indirect evidence. Maybe ask him how his last meal was. What did he have? Yummy burrito? Wow…where did you find a yummy burrito in New York? Pedro’s? The one by the train station? Ok…overly simplified but I think you get the idea. And there is some evidence that even in time critical situations interrogators do not use torture. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2009, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ticking-time-bomb/495567/68 "2009-05-07T15:26:40Z")
> [@Harborwolf](#): > > Here’s a [cite](http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103627997)for you to ignore at your leisure. The information that claimed that the tough techniques were effective in that case is turning out to be, un, inaccurate. See here: [http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/23/opinion/23soufan.html?scp=2&sq=fbi&st=Search](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/23/opinion/23soufan.html?scp=2&sq=fbi&st=Search) From the article: [Quote=NY Times Op-Ed Piece] It is inaccurate, however, to say that Abu Zubaydah had been uncooperative. Along with another F.B.I. agent, and with several C.I.A. officers present, I questioned him from March to June 2002, before the harsh techniques were introduced later in August. Under traditional interrogation methods, he provided us with important actionable intelligence. We discovered, for example, that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. Abu Zubaydah also told us about Jose Padilla, the so-called dirty bomber. This experience fit what I had found throughout my counterterrorism career: traditional interrogation techniques are successful in identifying operatives, uncovering plots and saving lives. [/Quote] ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2009, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ticking-time-bomb/495567/69 "2009-05-07T17:18:42Z")
Quoth **xtisme** : > [@](#): > > Sure it is. There are no interrogation techniques I’m aware of that would have even a slight chance of working in an hour. I’m not a professional interrogator, either, but I know of at least two. 1: Please tell us. If you don’t, you’ll have the deaths of millions of people on your conscience. Yeah, you think your cause is right, but how certain are you? Are you certain enough to risk millions of lives on it? 2: Listen, if you don’t tell us, you’ll end up in jail or worse. But we’re willing to make a deal. If you tell us where it is in time for us to defuse it, we’ll grant you prosecutorial immunity, and let you start a new life in the Witness Protection Program. None of the people above you in your organization will ever find out where you are, and you and your family will be safe from them. OK, neither of these techniques is guaranteed to work, but they’re both more likely to work than torture. Best of all, you can combine them with each other or with other methods, while torture pretty much removes all other options (no prisoner is going to believe “we’ll let you go free”, if you’ve spent the last fifteen minutes clamping his nuts with jumper cables). ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2009, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ticking-time-bomb/495567/70 "2009-05-07T17:38:39Z")
[QUOTE=Chronos] OK, neither of these techniques is guaranteed to work, but they’re both more likely to work than torture [/QUOTE] I disagree that either would be as effective in the time allotted. Just one of those MMV type things I guess. Myself, I don’t think either of the techniques you describe (even combined) would work even if you had a lot more time. The guilt angle would only work if the guy was already feeling guilty about blowing away millions…after all, he set the bomb to do just that. Hearing some unbeliever tell him that his motives are really wrong and repugnant to god, etc etc, would have no effect at all…at least not in the hour granted. AFTER the bomb blows up the guy might start to have second thoughts or remorse, when the reality of millions of men, women and children dying starts to sink in…but by then it would be a bit late. As for immunity…I doubt you COULD (in good faith) offer such a guy such a deal, or that he would believe you even if you could (what would stop you from canceling it once you have the bomb safely in hand? What would convince such a guy that you wouldn’t cancel it once you had the bomb in hand?). This MIGHT work if you had several weeks to wear the guy down, the play good cop bad cop with him, to play on his fears and perhaps his latent guilt…but the OP doesn’t give us weeks. Nor days. Nor even hours. Just one hour. Contrast that to the direct method. Since a lot of the uncertainty has been conveniently taken out of the equation (like whether the guy actually has the knowledge be sought), it’s pretty straightforward. He will either not talk, will talk and give deliberately invalid information, or will be made to talk and give the correct data. This will probably be done by applying a significant amount of pain to the guy and threatening him with even more pain for long periods of time if the information turns out to be false (i.e. ‘If this lead turns out to be false and that bomb goes off we promise this…you will live for years. And the pain you have suffered thus far is only a taste of what you will suffer in those years’). Would it be effective? Maybe…probably not though. But instead of a certainty of the bomb going off with nothing done at all you would have the chance that it might be prevented. When gambling with millions of peoples lives a small chance is better than none at all. Anyway, I don’t want to go around and around with this. I think it’s really a silly argument that brings nothing to the actual debate about the use of torture. -XT ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2009, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ticking-time-bomb/495567/71 "2009-05-07T17:58:49Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > Anyway, I don’t want to go around and around with this. I think it’s really a silly argument that brings nothing to the actual debate about the use of torture. In Post #67 I provided you with cites (that you repeatedly asked for) to actual interrogators who were under time pressure that opined that torture is worthless. If you torture our nuke guy do you think there is any chance he will reform his opinion in favor of saving his torturers and the city? I think once you start shocking his nuts he’ll erect a big old, “Fuck you all” flag in his head and gleefully wait for the bomb to go off. With that in mind and the knowledge that he can actively hinder your search by giving false information I think the notion that torture might, just possibly, work here goes right out the window. Working on latent guilt probably has a better, albeit small, chance of working. Not to mention, as I noted in my previous post, a good interrogator will be unlikely to just ask for the location of the bomb but will come at the individual with seemingly inconsequential questions that may yield useful information. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2009, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ticking-time-bomb/495567/72 "2009-05-07T19:04:29Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > Yet where is your proof? You and others have asserted so, but I’m not seeing anything remotely like proof or even logic here from your side. Just a lot of hot air and hand waving. Lets see a reasonable or logical argument on how, given the constraints of the OP how other methods COULD work…said argument doesn’t even get to the cursory scrutiny stage. Alcohol? How would that EVER work? How could you get someone drunk enough in an hour to make them tell such a secret? It would take hours…or the guy would pass out. As anyone knows who has actually ever gotten drunk should know. Drugs…well, perhaps (curious no one mentioned this before), but again I know of no ‘truth serium’ that works given the time constraints…all of the one’s I’ve heard about take days, as the person being questioned is worn down. Bribes? Get real…we have had a $25 million dollar reward for information leading to the capture of Bin Laden for like 6 years with no takers. What other methods? You and others have asserted non-torture type methods but thus far I haven’t even seen speculation on a method that would work in an hour. Feel free to actually provide one any time…thus far those exploding noises you are hearing are coming from your own side. > > Would torture work in this situation? Probably not. But that reads PROBABLY not…which is better than NOT. Unless one of you guys can come up with SOME kind of plausible method to extract the info in the ridiculous time constraints given in the OP then it’s YOUR arguments that don’t pass the smell test here. We know for a fact that torture CAN work after all (there are documented instances of torture getting information from people…few and far between and unreliable as the cases may be)…it is just not reliable and thus in general is not a useful device when other, more time consuming but more reliable methods are available. > > Why anyone against torture would actually engage in this silly debate is beyond me. The reason pro-torture folks use this argument is that it stacks the deck so that torture is acceptable and is probably the ONLY thing that would have even a small chance of working. It also frees all of the moral constraints as the guy who is trying to kill millions is in the hands of the authorities and there is no time for any other realistic alternatives…with only an hour there would be no time for searches, no time to prep the terrorist or wear him down, no time for psychological pressure…no time for anything except direct physical distress and hope it gets the information. > > -XT You handwave away alternate options because of the limited time and the stalwarness of the interrogatee and ignore the fact that if you have such a limited time and so stalwart an interrogatee who needs only to stick it out _one hour_ - and knows it. I think this is in the dictionary under “special pleading.” Here’s a similar argument: When roll a hundred-sided dice, you can be quite sure it’ll land on 13. You know this because the odds of another number coming up is really low, almost zero really (give or take) - but 13, now, you can bet on that. Sure, it’s probably not going to happen. But that reads PROBABLY not…which is better than NOT. So, 13 it is! ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2009, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ticking-time-bomb/495567/73 "2009-05-07T22:20:00Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > Anyone willing to knowingly set off a nuke in New York City is, by definition I’d say, a fanatic. Such a person is exceptionally unlikely to tell the torturer the actual location in this scenario. Worse, the bomber knows that he can lead his captors astray. It behooves him to lie and waste what precious little time there is available. He need not hold out long, just a few tens of minutes will do. Waterboarding can break someone in just a few minutes. Thing is, he doesn’t need to “hold out” at all - he just needs to lie, which will set the torturers wasting time on a false trail. Torture makes people talk, not tell the truth. A lie will stop the torture as fast or faster than the truth; and no, the solution isn’t to keep torturing because then they have even less reason to tell the truth - you won’t stop when you hear it. You’ll be unlikely to even recognize it. That’s a major flaw with the whole “ticking time bomb” excuse for torture; you don’t need to make them talk fast; you need accurate information fast. And torture is bad for getting accurate information at all, much less fast. > [@xtisme](#): > > Contrast that to the direct method. What makes you think torture is “direct” ? You torture someone, you’ll get a huge amount of garbage you have to sort though using methods that are actually effective. > [@xtisme](#): > > This will probably be done by applying a significant amount of pain to the guy and threatening him with even more pain for long periods of time if the information turns out to be false (i.e. ‘If this lead turns out to be false and that bomb goes off we promise this…you will live for years. And the pain you have suffered thus far is only a taste of what you will suffer in those years’). That won’t work because he’ll know that you’ll do that even if he tells the truth. By torturing him, you’ve _ **proven** _ that you are monster, and he’ll expect monstrous behavior from you. ---
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2009, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ticking-time-bomb/495567/74 "2009-05-07T22:25:42Z")
What if the bomb was on a treadmill? ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2009, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ticking-time-bomb/495567/75 "2009-05-07T23:05:14Z")
> [@Gangster\_Octopus](#): > > What if the bomb was on a treadmill? Depends - is the treadmill velocity constantly increasing sufficiently to cause enough reverse drag on the bomb’s wheels to constantly counteract it’s forward propulsion? ---
**Author:** ![bengangmo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@bengangmo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bengangmo)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2009, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ticking-time-bomb/495567/76 "2009-05-08T01:22:48Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Quoth **xtisme** :I’m not a professional interrogator, either, but I know of at least two. > > 1: Please tell us. If you don’t, you’ll have the deaths of millions of people on your conscience. Yeah, you think your cause is right, but how certain are you? Are you certain enough to risk millions of lives on it? > > 2: Listen, if you don’t tell us, you’ll end up in jail or worse. But we’re willing to make a deal. If you tell us where it is in time for us to defuse it, we’ll grant you prosecutorial immunity, and let you start a new life in the Witness Protection Program. None of the people above you in your organization will ever find out where you are, and you and your family will be safe from them. > > OK, neither of these techniques is guaranteed to work, but they’re both more likely to work than torture. Best of all, you can combine them with each other or with other methods, while torture pretty much removes all other options (no prisoner is going to believe “we’ll let you go free”, if you’ve spent the last fifteen minutes clamping his nuts with jumper cables). Both of these work (I think) better than torture. But I would go one step further for (1) - if the guy is a Islamic terrorist, have him visit with a local Imam or similair to talk about Islam in America. This is working under the assumption that he has probably been mis-informed about just what America is really like, and may be able to be educated. Sure, one hour is a short time frame but (IMHO) not impossible For (2) - you just need to be trusted to deliver on your word. Something that reguires that you behave impeccably in other avenues of public life. Somehting that America (or an AMerica that tortures) has not been doing. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2009, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ticking-time-bomb/495567/77 "2009-05-08T03:11:19Z")
Wait, so “the direct method” for getting information is to torture people? I’ll keep that in mind the next time I want to know what time it is, or need directions to a professor’s office. Here, all this time I thought that “the direct method” for gaining information was just to ask someone. ---
**Author:** ![ivan\_astikov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/58f4c7/32.png) [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2009, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ticking-time-bomb/495567/78 "2009-05-09T19:52:16Z")
Couldn’t the CIA just hire Derren Brown? I’m sure that crafty bastard could get information out of anyone, or at least more reliable info than a bunch of ham-handed torturers. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2009, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ticking-time-bomb/495567/79 "2009-05-11T13:42:35Z")
There was a line in the movie Reservoir Dogs (paraphrasing) “If you beat this guy long enough, he will tell you who started the great Chicago fire, but that don’t necessarily make it so!” But, I think that in a situation where you have a verifiable goal you are looking for, torture would be very effective. And while I might have qualms about it in a general sense, in a doomsday scenario like the OP, I wouldn’t hesitate for a second. But, it is a strawman to use that outrageous scenario to justify waterboarding in a normal interrogation. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2009, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ticking-time-bomb/495567/80 "2009-05-11T14:37:27Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > But, I think that in a situation where you have a verifiable goal you are looking for, torture would be very effective. You’ve watched too many episodes of “24”. The evidence does not support this assertion. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ticking-time-bomb/495567.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ticking-time-bomb/495567.md?page=5)