Historically, torture seems to have been used in many judicial systems to get confessions from suspected criminals. I wonder why this is? Sure, many in a position of power might have just done it because they are sadistic, but traveling through Europe and learning about it’s history I’ve found that pretty much all of the countries used torture to get confessions in criminal cases, so there must have been more behind it?
Apparently, people were so convinced that this “tactic” was reliable that it was institutionalized. How the hell could they think that torture would bring out reliable confessions, as the tortured subject would say they did it just to make the torture stop? What kind of mental gymnastics did they do to delude themselves into thinking they care about finding out the truth and employ this completely unreliable tactic at the same time?