# Torture & confession **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 22, 2012, 11:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-confession/629034 "2012-07-22T11:09:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2012, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-confession/629034/41 "2012-07-24T17:03:06Z")
From the authorities’ point of view, sometimes it’s more important to be seen to be doing something about the problem of crime, heresy, or what have you, than it is to actually catch the guilty party. Torturing somebody, especially in public, is going to be seen as doing something, even if they’ve got the wrong person. There might be an additional bonus, from the authorities’ point of view, of making life difficult for an “undesirable” in the bargain. That punishes someone who is not popular, and intimidates other unpopular people and people who are opposed to the authorities. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2012, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-confession/629034/42 "2012-07-25T03:09:07Z")
> [@dracoi](#): > > I don’t think this is backed up by modern research, including [Stanley Milgram’s experiments](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment) and the [Stanford prison experiment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment). Everyone is capable of being a torturer and we’re deluding ourselves if we think otherwise. Bah. In one case it’s “psychological torture” in another it’s mild pain, and in all case,\* both sides know that the “victim” can say “Enough of this shit” at any time\*. Just like if Bob the masochist hire Mistress Vicky to paddle his ass- he’s not being “tortured” at all. This is the problem with allowing just about anything to be defined as 'torture"- playing your old classic rock in the cars, making your kids listen to it is 'torture". Both those cases prove nothing about whether or not your average dude would torture another for real. Many years ago I had a GF with bad back acne. She’d ask me to clean her back and pop her back zits. This hurt like a MoFo. She even screamed a few times. Was I torturing her? No- because at any time she could say “Stop” and I would, she wanted to have me do it. Those dudes in the study were being recompensed, and both sides knew the other could say “enough” at any time. Sorry, I call bullshit. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2012, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-confession/629034/43 "2012-07-25T03:14:43Z")
> [@Quercus](#): > > Well, one way is that this guy could not give up valuable information is by lying. After all, being the kind of guy who’s happy to murder someone, he might also be the kind of guy who thinks its fun leading the police on wild-goose chases, and who thinks it’s macho to resist pain. > > So he lets himself get beat up for a little bit, pretends to crack and gives the police some inconveniently out-of-the-way and hard-to-narrow-down location. Two days later, when the cops have finished digging up every inch of the large field several hours away and come back to him, he giggles and says "Oh, sorry. I guess I was just having fun then. But this time, I really have been broken. Just stop torturing me, and I I’ll tell you where she really is buried ". > > If you were the cops, how many times would you go through this before giving up? > [Of course, this is a pretty bad hypothetical, since it’s pretty clear the woman is dead anyway, so there’s no real rush to find the body. But then, if there is a rush to find her, lying is even more effective, right?] Right he starts by lying. Then after a while, he tells the truth, sure. But- what happens if by then he;s so delirious or stressed he gets details wrong or forgets things? Next step is he starts making shit up- saying _ANYTHING_ to please the torturer. “Aliens!” “J. Edgar Hoover!” “I killed Kennedy!” And you dont know exactly when he has gone from lying to babbling to making shit up- well, until he starts saying total fantasies. So no, torture doesnt work for getting reliable info- ever. Well, I suppose if the safe is right there, but when do you finally give up and decide he really doesnt know the combo or the stress has driven it from his mind? ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2012, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-confession/629034/44 "2012-07-25T03:18:25Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Bah. In one case it’s “psychological torture” in another it’s mild pain, and in all case,\* both sides know that the “victim” can say “Enough of this shit” at any time\*. Just like if Bob the masochist hire Mistress Vicky to paddle his ass- he’s not being “tortured” at all. > > … > > Sorry, I call bullshit. Perhaps you should scan this article, [THE TORTURER’S MIND: COMPLEX VIEW EMERGES By DANIEL GOLEMAN Published: May 14, 1985](http://www.nytimes.com/1985/05/14/science/the-torturer-s-mind-complex-view-emerges.html?pagewanted=all) ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2012, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-confession/629034/45 "2012-07-25T03:23:02Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > Perhaps you should scan this article, > > [THE TORTURER’S MIND: COMPLEX VIEW EMERGES > By DANIEL GOLEMAN > Published: May 14, 1985](http://www.nytimes.com/1985/05/14/science/the-torturer-s-mind-complex-view-emerges.html?pagewanted=all) Sure, and see this line "_According to experts, the preconditions that can lead someone to become a torturer include a fervently held ideology that attributes great evil to some other group and defines the believer as a guardian of the social good, an attitude of unquestioning obedience to authority, and the open or tacit support of the torturer by his peers. More immediately the torturer seems to cope with his cruelty by means of a psychological split in his personality."_ This doesnt mean sicko sadist that gets sexual pleasure from pain, true. But it’s also not “Joe Average” either. ---
**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:** [July 25, 2012, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-confession/629034/46 "2012-07-25T03:49:08Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Sure, and see this line "_According to experts, the preconditions that can lead someone to become a torturer include a fervently held ideology that attributes great evil to some other group and defines the believer as a guardian of the social good, an attitude of unquestioning obedience to authority, and the open or tacit support of the torturer by his peers. More immediately the torturer seems to cope with his cruelty by means of a psychological split in his personality."_ > > This doesnt mean sicko sadist that gets sexual pleasure from pain, true. But it’s also not “Joe Average” either. Yes, it pretty much describes an average loyal American. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2012, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-confession/629034/47 "2012-07-25T04:02:17Z")
Moved from General Questions to Great Debates. **samclem**. MOderator ---
**Author:** ![kob09](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ebca7d/32.png) [@kob09](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kob09)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2012, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-confession/629034/48 "2012-07-25T05:20:24Z")
I have seen a german film about a prison experiment not long ago… interesting how the characters are adapting to the one or the other role [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das\_Experiment](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_Experiment) I think people are easily accepting power given to them, next step is abuse of that same power. the extreme is torture. Depending on the school system , the educational frame a person has grown up in it’s more or less easy for him/her to step over the line. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2012, 7:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-confession/629034/49 "2012-07-25T07:36:17Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Dershowitz is a civil rights lawyer? I’ll admit I known little about the man except that he is a noted Torture Advocate as you point out. I shudder to think of him as a civil rights supporter. His claim to fame prior to advocating torture was getting Claus von Bülow’s attempted murder conviction for putting his wife in a coma overturned (and made into a [film](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reversal_of_Fortune), which he even did a cameo in) and as part of OJ Simpson’s [dream team](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O.J._Simpson_murder_case#Defense_attorneys)of lawyers that got him a not guilty verdict for double homicide and writing a book about it. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2012, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-confession/629034/50 "2012-07-25T12:47:59Z")
> [@Dissonance](#): > > His claim to fame prior to advocating torture was getting Claus von Bülow’s attempted murder conviction for putting his wife in a coma overturned (and made into a [film](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reversal_of_Fortune), which he even did a cameo in) and as part of OJ Simpson’s [dream team](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O.J._Simpson_murder_case#Defense_attorneys)of lawyers that got him a not guilty verdict for double homicide and writing a book about it. Scuze me!?!? His claim to fame was defending Harry Reems et al against a pornography charge, thus making him an American hero. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2012, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-confession/629034/51 "2012-07-25T13:58:20Z")
In China’s case, I read once – no cite – that there was an emperor far back in Chinese history who, for humanitarian reasons, decreed that no suspect ever should be convicted of a crime save on his own confession. The punishments for crimes were so harsh, after all – they must not be visited on the wrong man, and how else to make absolutely certain the suspect is guilty, unless he confesses? Of course, the punishments being so harsh, a guilty man is not always eager to confess, so . . . ---
**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:** [July 25, 2012, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-confession/629034/52 "2012-07-25T14:10:19Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > Scuze me!?!? His claim to fame was defending Harry Reems et al against a pornography charge, thus making him an American hero. “Claim to fame” implies that he was famous for it, which as far as I can tell he wasn’t. And even if he was at the time, I see that was in [1976](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dershowitz,_Alan#Pornography_.281976.29); plenty of time for fame to fade. He _was_ famous for the much more recent Simpson case; I’d heard of his name in connection with that. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2012, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-confession/629034/53 "2012-07-25T14:18:18Z")
Dershowitz was famous for his civil rights work. And defending freedom of speech is the pinnacle of success in that field. Later he gained infamy by defending murderers, probably to make some money. That doesn’t change the fact that his views on torture are absurd, and don’t even make sense. His concept of obtaining a warrant in the non-existent ticking time bomb case makes no sense, if you can wait to get a warrant, you could use a reliable method of obtaining information. He also has made the mistake of justifying torture by saying it could be used where people might have information that could be used to save lives. Since he might have information that could be used to save lives, I hope he’s williing to be tortured to resolve that question. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2012, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-confession/629034/54 "2012-07-25T14:35:47Z")
> [@s0meguy](#): > > 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? I think the other posters are right that torture was generally used as a means of punishing people or getting them to do whatever the torturers wanted rather than providing information. But I think it works pretty much the same way regardless: they had a bad person. He wasn’t doing what they wanted. After torture, he probably agreed to do what they said or told them what they wanted to know - or else he died, proving he was really bad. That was all they needed. Torture was satisfying to the torturers because it reinforced their beliefs and made them feel like they were getting something done. And yes, it also sent a serious warning. ---
**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:** [July 25, 2012, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-confession/629034/55 "2012-07-25T14:45:36Z")
> [@s0meguy](#): > > …How the hell could they think that torture would bring out reliable confessions… Here’s the thing. Torture does in fact produce confessions reliably, which is a completely different thing than producing reliable confessions. So maybe all this history has just been a tragic mistake of sentence parsing. ---
**Author:** ![Strassia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e8c25b/32.png) [@Strassia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Strassia)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2012, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-confession/629034/56 "2012-07-25T22:55:05Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Bah. In one case it’s “psychological torture” in another it’s mild pain, and in all case,\* both sides know that the “victim” can say “Enough of this shit” at any time\*. Just like if Bob the masochist hire Mistress Vicky to paddle his ass- he’s not being “tortured” at all. > > This is the problem with allowing just about anything to be defined as 'torture"- playing your old classic rock in the cars, making your kids listen to it is 'torture". > > Both those cases prove nothing about whether or not your average dude would torture another for real. > > Many years ago I had a GF with bad back acne. She’d ask me to clean her back and pop her back zits. This hurt like a MoFo. She even screamed a few times. Was I torturing her? No- because at any time she could say “Stop” and I would, she wanted to have me do it. > > Those dudes in the study were being recompensed, and both sides knew the other could say “enough” at any time. > > Sorry, I call bullshit. Have you ever read the Milgram papers? They were not about mild pain. They were about escalating pain. The “victims” (who were actually researchers pretending to be hooked up to the learning machine) begged the subjects to stop, faked extreme agony and even death: [ [QUOTE=http://www.simplypsychology.org] The learner (a confederate called Mr. Wallace) was taken into a room and had electrodes attached to his arms, and the teacher and researcher went into a room next door that contained an electric shock generator and a row of switches marked from 15 volts (Slight Shock) to 375 volts (Danger: Severe Shock) to 450 volts (XXX). [/QUOTE] ](http://www.simplypsychology.org/milgram.html) > [@](#): > > Results: 65% (two-thirds) of participants (i.e. teachers) continued to the highest level of 450 volts. All the participants continued to 300 volts. That means every person who participate was willing to cause severe pain, and 65% were willing to kill. Just because someone in authority told them it was ok. The video was taken down from Youtube, but that site has audio clips if you want to judge for yourself: > [@](#): > > Clip 1: This is a long audio clip of the 3rd participant administering shocks to the confederate. You can hear the confederate’s pleas to be released and the experimenter’s instructions to continue. > > Clip 2: A short clip of the confederate refusing to continue with the experiment. > > Clip 3: The confederate begins to complain of heart trouble. > > Clip 4: Listen to the confederate get a shock: “Let me out of here. Let me out, let me out, let me out” And so on! > > Clip 5: The experimenter tells the participant that they must continue. ---
**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:** [July 26, 2012, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-confession/629034/57 "2012-07-26T03:48:55Z")
This again? Torture is utterly unreliable as a means to glean reliable information. This has been known for a long, long time. > [@](#): > > “The barbarous custom of having men beaten who are suspected of having important secrets to reveal must be abolished. It has always been recognized that this way of interrogating men, by putting them to torture, produces nothing worthwhile. The poor wretches say anything that comes into their mind and what they think the interrogator wishes to know.” > > SOURCE: [Napoleon Bonaparte](http://simple.wikiquote.org/wiki/Napoleon_Bonaparte) > [@](#): > > I personally conducted more than 300 interrogations, and I supervised more than 1,000. The methods my team used are not classified (they’re listed in the unclassified Field Manual), but the way we used them was, I like to think, unique. We got to know our enemies, we learned to negotiate with them, and we adapted criminal investigative techniques to our work (something that the Field Manual permits, under the concept of “ruses and trickery”). It worked. Our efforts started a chain of successes that ultimately led to Zarqawi. > > \ > > I know the counter-argument well – that we need the rough stuff for the truly hard cases, such as battle-hardened core leaders of al-Qaeda, not just run-of-the-mill Iraqi insurgents. But that’s not always true: We turned several hard cases, including some foreign fighters, by using our new techniques. A few of them never abandoned the jihadist cause but still gave up critical information. One actually told me, “I thought you would torture me, and when you didn’t, I decided that everything I was told about Americans was wrong. That’s why I decided to cooperate.” > > \ > > We’re told that our only options are to persist in carrying out torture or to face another terrorist attack. But there truly is a better way to carry out interrogations – and a way to get out of this false choice between torture and terror. > > SOURCE: [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/28/AR2008112802242\_pf.html](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/28/AR2008112802242_pf.html) > [@](#): > > But does torture work? The question has been asked many times since Sept. 11, 2001. I’m repeating it, however, because the Gonzales hearings inspired more articles about our lax methods (“Too Nice for Our Own Good” was one headline), because similar comments may follow this week’s trial of Spec. Charles Graner, the alleged Abu Ghraib ringleader, and because I still cannot find a positive answer. I’ve heard it said that the Syrians and the Egyptians “really know how to get these things done.” I’ve heard the Israelis mentioned, without proof. I’ve heard Algeria mentioned, too, but Darius Rejali, an academic who recently trolled through French archives, found no clear examples of how torture helped the French in Algeria – and they lost that war anyway. “Liberals,” argued an article in the liberal online magazine Slate a few months ago, “have a tendency to accept, all too eagerly, the argument that torture is ineffective.” But it’s also true that “realists,” whether liberal or conservative, have a tendency to accept, all too eagerly, fictitious accounts of effective torture carried out by someone else. > > 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) > [@](#): > > “At the end of the day, it’s very easy to distinguish between the right thing and the wrong thing to do. If you do the wrong thing, you’re not going to get any positive payoff from it and it’s going to be of at some great cost,” Jacobs said. “We get much more information if we treat people properly.” > > \ > > “You need to be aggressive to get the information you want, but if you treat people inhumanely, they’re just going to tell you what they think you want to hear,” he said. “They’ll do anything just to get the mistreatment to stop, so you get nothing from mistreatment.” > > Speaking of his experiences, Jacobs said he has had the best success by being decent to people. > > \ > > “When I was in Vietnam, we were given the most intelligence, the best intelligence and had the most success with captors if we gave them cigarettes, medical care, food (and) water. Almost always, you get the best success from treating people properly,” Jacobs said. > > SOURCE: [Jack Jacobs, Retired Army Colonel, Medal of Honor Recipient for actions in Vietnam plus 2 Silver Stars, 3 Bronze Stars and 2 Purple Hearts](http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9958544/) (speaking to MSNBC) > [@](#): > > In 2006, a group of scientists and retired intelligence officers set out to settle the matter. They sought to find the most effective interrogation tactics and advise the U.S. government on their use. Their conclusions, laid out in a 372-page report for the director of national intelligence, argued against harsh interrogation. > > “The scientific community has never established that coercive interrogation methods are an effective means of obtaining reliable intelligence information,” retired Air Force Col. Steven M. Kleinman, a former military-interrogation instructor, wrote in the Intelligence Science Board report. “In essence, there seems to be an unsubstantiated assumption that ‘compliance’ carries the same connotation as ‘meaningful cooperation.”‘ > > In short: Slam someone up against the wall, keep him awake for days, lock him naked in a cell and slap his face enough, and he will probably say something. That doesn’t necessarily make it true. > > SOURCE: [http://www2.journalnow.com/news/2009/apr/22/how-effective-is-harsh-torture-no-definitive-answe-ar-146654/](http://www2.journalnow.com/news/2009/apr/22/how-effective-is-harsh-torture-no-definitive-answe-ar-146654/) I’ve got more. I hope the evidence is pretty clear on this though. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2012, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-confession/629034/58 "2012-07-26T03:55:27Z")
> [@Strassia](#): > > Have you ever read the Milgram papers? They were not about mild pain. They were about escalating pain. The “victims” (who were actually researchers pretending to be hooked up to the learning machine) begged the subjects to stop, faked extreme agony and even death: > > [URL=“[Milgram Shock Experiment | Summary | Results | Ethics](http://www.simplypsychology.org/milgram.html)”] > > That means every person who participate was willing to cause severe pain, and 65% were willing to kill. Just because someone in authority told them it was ok. The video was taken down from Youtube, but that site has audio clips if you want to judge for yourself: No, they werent. Come on, this is America. All the dudes in that study knew full well that you cant really kill people or torture them. They were acting. ---
**Author:** ![Strassia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e8c25b/32.png) [@Strassia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Strassia)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2012, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-confession/629034/59 "2012-07-26T04:24:24Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > No, they werent. Come on, this is America. All the dudes in that study knew full well that you cant really kill people or torture them. They were acting. What are you basing that on? I have never heard that. From what I have read, some of the test subjects cried and begged not to have to continue. What makes you think they knew it was fake? ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2012, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-confession/629034/60 "2012-07-26T04:55:01Z")
> [@Strassia](#): > > What are you basing that on? I have never heard that. From what I have read, some of the test subjects cried and begged not to have to continue. What makes you think they knew it was fake? The whole “this is America” thing? Come on, you and I KNOW no one can torture people and not end up in handcuffs. I’d be going along with the joke, mugging for the cameras and waving to Alan Funt. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-confession/629034.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-confession/629034.md?page=4)