# Torture doesn't work **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 30, 2016, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-doesnt-work/750656 "2016-03-30T17:53:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 17
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2016, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-doesnt-work/750656/321 "2016-04-25T15:00:14Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > The point has been made many times: (and even by the people that were pointed by supporters of torture in the past) **torture does not work** when one looks at the overall picture. The few times it can (and one has to point still at the doubtful nature of the cases mentioned in favor of it) are really in the terrain of lottery winners and broken clocks. No, it is not in the terrain of lottery winners and broken clocks. That implies blind luck and pure chance. Torture can be predictably effective (at least as predictably effective as other methods) when used in appropriate circumstances. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2016, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-doesnt-work/750656/322 "2016-04-25T15:18:05Z")
I read that a better trick is to get someone to make friends with the bad guy. Learn their motives and get them to come over. Maybe make a deal to help them out. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2016, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-doesnt-work/750656/323 "2016-04-25T16:06:25Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I guess its a matter of framing the debate. We have seen claim that torture doesn’t work. That it is the equivalent of a lottery ticket or broken clock. Something that only works by happenstance. I am saying that this is bullshit. The fact that torture doesn’t work in every situation is no more meaningful than the fact that a mitre saw is not useful for screwing in a toggle bolt. But pretending that torture is about as effective as trying to hammer in nails by throwing rocks at them blindfolded just undermines credibility. > > If you agree that torture can be used to effectively extract information in some cases but we shouldn’t use it because there are knock on effects that make their use counterproductive or even that the moral issues overshadow any marginal increase in intelligence we might get from the use of torture, then that is a different debate in my mind. Again, it was the very experienced guy in your cite that told everyone that torture does not work, it is then that seeing you tossing him under the bus what it is bullshit, it is like admitting that you did not pay attention to who you are citing, meaning that the other places were you get your spin are not reliable either. The evidence still shows that Torture is indeed much closer to “trying to hammer in nails by throwing rocks at them blindfolded” It is your say so against the very same guy that you cited and the vast majority of experts. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2016, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-doesnt-work/750656/324 "2016-04-25T16:16:30Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > No, it is not in the terrain of lottery winners and broken clocks. That implies blind luck and pure chance. As one that applied game theory to the issue can tell you, it is. > **[The Social Scientist Who Knew Torture Wasn’t Worth the Game - Social Science...](https://www.socialsciencespace.com/2014/12/the-social-scientist-who-knew-torture-wasnt-worth-the-game/)** > > Game theory neatly -- and sadly -- predicted the futility of using torture to extract meaning information from terror suspects, neatly predicting the results of the recent U.S. Senate report years before its release. > [@](#): > > Even as the program of enhanced interrogation conducted by Americans at their Guantanamo Bay lockup for purported terrorists was being dismantled, John Schiemann had been applying game theory to model the interaction between a detainee and an interrogator. Game theory, as it is generally defined, creates mathematical models to describe decisions made by rational actors in various scenarios. And despite the sometime unfortunate connotation of that first word, “game,” the technique has proven both flexible and powerful. Some 11 Nobel in economics have been given to game theorists, for example. > > Schiemann’s own work – published in 2012 — demonstrated that, by logic alone, we can know that torture is not going to be effective means to routinely elicit useful intelligence. The information will not only be unreliable, the associate professor of political science at New Jersey’s Farleigh Dickinson University found, but that torture will be increasingly brutal and even more frequent than its proponents imagined. > > That’s what he predicted. > > This month’s Senate report found him correct in every particular. (Well, almost. “My model may have predicted more valuable information would result than actually resulted.”) > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Torture can be predictably effective (at least as predictably effective as other methods) when used in appropriate circumstances. No. And again you are relying on wishful thinking and that the ones applying the torture were experienced, that the anti vaccine people can be right on some items does not mean that the CDC is bullshitting us when they tell the people that using natural remedies does not work to prevent disease when viruses are the issue. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2016, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-doesnt-work/750656/325 "2016-04-25T17:13:03Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > No, it is not in the terrain of lottery winners and broken clocks. That implies blind luck and pure chance. Torture can be predictably effective (at least as predictably effective as other methods) when used in appropriate circumstances. It\* never \*has been “predictably effective”. ---
**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:** [April 25, 2016, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-doesnt-work/750656/326 "2016-04-25T19:34:15Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > An ad hominem attack of this sort is perfectly acceptable when attacking an OPINION PEICE. > > It is no more relevant than Jenny McCarthy’s opinion on vaccines. The opinion piece was citing the work of [professor Darius Rejali](http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8490.html) who has made it a centerpiece of his career to study this stuff and has written books on it. So no, not opinion. ---
**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:** [April 25, 2016, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-doesnt-work/750656/327 "2016-04-25T19:40:54Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > I read that a better trick is to get someone to make friends with the bad guy. Learn their motives and get them to come over. Maybe make a deal to help them out. Indeed. The best interrogator the Germans had in WWII never used violence and instead was rather nice to his captives: > [@](#): > > [Hanns] Scharff’s unparalleled success did not come from confrontation or threats, but from simply being nice. > > \ > > The bulk of the research on Scharff’s strategies comes from the lab of Pär Anders Granhag, a psychology professor at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. In a new study led by Simon Oleszkiewicz, a former student in Granhag’s lab, the “Scharff Technique” was compared with a method know as the “Direct Approach.” > > \ > > The results, which will be published in Law and Human Behavior, revealed that, relative to the Direct Approach, the Scharff Technique elicited more new information and information that was more precise. But given that the Scharff Technique seems better than simple direct questioning, the findings above may not be all that interesting. > > What is interesting about Oleszkiewicz’s study is that participants interrogated using the Scharff Technique tended to underestimate how much they divulged, while participants interrogated using the Direct Approach overestimated how much they divulged. > > \ > > In a new study led by the University of Albany’s Allison Redlich, 152 interrogators, largely drawn from the FBI, U.S. military, state or local police, and the Department of Homeland Security, reported on the techniques they most frequently used as well as they techniques they believed were most effective. Redlich divided 67 different techniques into six domains: rapport and relationship building, context manipulation, emotion provocation, confrontation/competition, collaboration, and presentation of evidence. She found that, compared to confrontational techniques, rapport and relationship building were used more frequently and believed to be more effective. Overall, Redlich’s findings highlight the success of interrogators who understand the importance of friendliness. > > SOURCE: [https://psmag.com/the-nazi-interrogator-who-revealed-the-value-of-kindness-752bc7850f5b#.tv3aw8ufj](https://psmag.com/the-nazi-interrogator-who-revealed-the-value-of-kindness-752bc7850f5b#.tv3aw8ufj) ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2016, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-doesnt-work/750656/328 "2016-04-25T19:53:52Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > Indeed. The best interrogator the Germans had in WWII never used violence and instead was rather nice to his captives: (Johnny Carson voice)" _I did not know that!"_ ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2016, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-doesnt-work/750656/329 "2016-04-26T13:36:41Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Again, it was the very experienced guy in your cite that told everyone that torture does not work, it is then that seeing you tossing him under the bus what it is bullshit, it is like admitting that you did not pay attention to who you are citing, meaning that the other places were you get your spin are not reliable either. The evidence still shows that Torture is indeed much closer to “trying to hammer in nails by throwing rocks at them blindfolded” It is your say so against the very same guy that you cited and the vast majority of experts. All I need is ONE case where torture extracted useful information to support the argument that torture works. Now you say "well that’s just coincidence but we have reliably gotten information from elite special forces in minutes using torture… consistently. You need a study but the closest thing we get to a study is the results of SERE training where Navy SEALS give up the secret password within 2 minutes of being waterboarded. Anecdote and the opinions of people who write books about how horrible torture is just opinion. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2016, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-doesnt-work/750656/330 "2016-04-26T13:58:03Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > As one that applied game theory to the issue can tell you, it is. > > [http://www.socialsciencespace.com/2014/12/the-social-scientist-who-knew-torture-wasnt-worth-the-game/](http://www.socialsciencespace.com/2014/12/the-social-scientist-who-knew-torture-wasnt-worth-the-game/) I don’t know this John Schiemann and I don’t see a link to his peer reviewed study but there is a lot of daylight between lottery ticket and what John Schiemann is describing. A FUCKLOAD of daylight. ISTM that now that the “torture simply doesn’t work” crowd can’t really stand by that statement without adding all sorts of conditions that amount to “well torture doesn’t work well enough to really justify its use” which is really just a matter of opinion; they have retreated to “well sure torture works sometimes in the same way that a lottery ticket works sometimes or a clock is right twice a day” implying that torture only works by coincidence. This is clearly not the case. Is there ANYTHING that will disprove their theory? Of course not. Every instance where information as gathered using torture was a coincidence and every case where it yielded bad information is proof positive that torture only sends us on wild goose chases. Is there anything that will disprove mine? Sure, just prove that the Navy SEALS that give up their secret password within minutes of being waterboarded aren’t taking their SERE training seriously or that they are pussies compared to the average jihadist. > [@](#): > > No. And again you are relying on wishful thinking and that the ones applying the torture were experienced, that the anti vaccine people can be right on some items does not mean that the CDC is bullshitting us when they tell the people that using natural remedies does not work to prevent disease when viruses are the issue. So now torture isn’t like a lottery ticket. Now people who think torture works are like people who think that vaccines don’t work. The efficacy of vaccines are science. Where is your science on the inefficacy of torture? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2016, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-doesnt-work/750656/331 "2016-04-26T13:59:13Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > It\* never \*has been “predictably effective”. You have any proof of that? We know that Navy SEAL candidates seem to give up secrets when waterboarded for less than 2 minutes. Predictably. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2016, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-doesnt-work/750656/332 "2016-04-26T14:23:33Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > The opinion piece was citing the work of [professor Darius Rejali](http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8490.html) who has made it a centerpiece of his career to study this stuff and has written books on it. > > So no, not opinion. Yes. I know. I even mentioned that this opinion piece was citing the author of “torture and democracy”. This guy isn’t trying to take an objective look at the efficacy of torture, he is trying to build a case against it ever being used under any circumstances anywhere. This isn’t science, its an argument. There are no facts there, just anecdote. I have anecdotes too. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2016, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-doesnt-work/750656/333 "2016-04-26T14:26:53Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > Indeed. The best interrogator the Germans had in WWII never used violence and instead was rather nice to his captives: That’s probably right. Torture should not be your go to move. You can attract more flies with honey than a blowtorch to the testicles. But what do you do when friendly doesn’t work? Just go with what you have and hope for the best? ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2016, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-doesnt-work/750656/334 "2016-04-26T15:14:42Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I don’t know this John Schiemann and I don’t see a link to his peer reviewed study but there is a lot of daylight between lottery ticket and what John Schiemann is describing. A FUCKLOAD of daylight. And that is an argument from ignorance, a lot of it has been made by you. Your remedy is to disparage people “that write books” in the hope that others will ignore the fact that the writers are experts in the matter and many other experts agree with them, what you need to do is to find evidence that contradicts the research that they and many others did. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > ISTM that now that the “torture simply doesn’t work” crowd can’t really stand by that statement without adding all sorts of conditions that amount to “well torture doesn’t work well enough to really justify its use” which is really just a matter of opinion; they have retreated to “well sure torture works sometimes in the same way that a lottery ticket works sometimes or a clock is right twice a day” implying that torture only works by coincidence. This is clearly not the case. > > Is there ANYTHING that will disprove their theory? Of course not. Every instance where information as gathered using torture was a coincidence and every case where it yielded bad information is proof positive that torture only sends us on wild goose chases. Nope, the one that is not letting go of ignorance is you, again your “theory” is only to declare that what experts and even the ones you cite are spewing bullshit. But what is happening is that you are only wrong by the degree that you think that torture is effective. One has to note here that you are admitting then that your position is absolute, but on the other direction: as a torture apologist; because you are indeed not accepting that in real life a subject can indeed have exceptions but no one is bullshitting when saying that in general torture does not work, just like in general the experts can say also that natural remedies are crappy against viruses, that nature is not driving the current global warming, that the stars are guiding our destiny, etc. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Is there anything that will disprove mine? And so we come to what it is really going on, what me and others like DrDeth are pointing at is that there are indeed exceptions, just like in virtually all of science. What one has to do is to not deny the preponderance of the evidence and what the experts are reporting. Again, historians have to look at the evidence and also point that: > **[Answering Torture's Apologists: Recent Work on Torture, Democracy and French...](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/fp.2008.14)** > > Two new books by Darius Rejali (Torture and Democracy, PUP, 2007) and Marnia Lazreg (Torture and the Twilight of Empire: From Algiers to Baghdad, PUP, 2008) explore the relationship between torture and democratic regimes in the 20th century, with... > [@](#): > > Rejali’s international history refutes contemporary apologists for torture by demonstrating both its historical ineffectiveness while also seeking to explain its proliferation among democratic and repressive regimes alike. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Sure, just prove that the Navy SEALS that give up their secret password within minutes of being waterboarded aren’t taking their SERE training seriously or that they are pussies compared to the average jihadist. again, what you only demonstrated is what happens when you have omniscience, not a real life situation indeed. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > So now torture isn’t like a lottery ticket. Now people who think torture works are like people who think that vaccines don’t work. > > The efficacy of vaccines are science. Where is your science on the inefficacy of torture? Again, posted before, but you are left by resorting that just because you do not access it it can be dismissed, others that look at the evidence report just what I said and link to the published science. One has to pay for access, but others already reported on the content and interviewed the author: [http://www.worldsciencefestival.com/2014/12/torture/](http://www.worldsciencefestival.com/2014/12/torture/) > [@](#): > > Fairleigh Dickinson University political scientist John Schiemann was not surprised by the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on the torture techniques used in the CIA’s ‘enhanced interrogation’ program. Schiemann had already run the numbers on torture back in 2012, when he published a paper outlining his model of interrogator and detainee interactions based on game theory—a framework that, besides being one of the few mathematical models to share screen time with Russell Crowe, is a hybrid of math and psychology that looks at how people strategize. Schiemann was looking to see if the utilitarian argument for torture—that it is a reliable and useful last-resort tool to extract valuable information—would play out in his model. > [@](#): > > “The question as to whether—in reality—interrogational torture actually provides us with vital information we otherwise would not get—and at what human cost—is one of the pressing moral questions of our time,” Schiemann wrote in his 2012 paper. “The debate over this question suggests that this reality needs probing, and the probing offered here suggests that torture games have no winners.” This has to be mentioned: You actually came from the side that claims that you are not pro torture, but anyone that has been involved dealing with pseudo science does know the tune: > **[Raging Bullsh\*t: Robert De Niro is the latest celebrity antivaccinationist to...](https://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2016/04/14/raging-bullsht-robert-de-niro-is-the-latest-celebrity-antivaccinationist-to-spew-pseudoscientific-nonsense-to-the-world)** > > Celebrities who support pseudoscience and quackery are worse than regular, run-of-the-mill believers because they have a much larger soapbox than any of us do. I have a pretty healthy blog traffic for a medical blog, but even I don’t reach more than... > [@](#): > > De Niro also notes that there was a “backlash that I haven’t fully explored,” noting “but I will.” So why did he yank the film? He explains: > > > [@](#): > > > > ``` > > I didn’t want it to start affecting festival in ways that that I couldn’t see. But definitely there’s something to that movie and there’s another movie called Trace Amounts. And these movies have a lot of information about things that are happening with the CDC, the pharmaceutical companies, there’s a lot of things that are not said. I as a parent of a child who has autism am concerned. I want to know the truth, and I want to know the truth, and I’m not antivaccine. I want safe vaccines > > > > ``` > > Whoa. Stop right there. If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the many years that I’ve been countering antivaccine pseudoscience, it’s this. Whenever someone feels the need to assert that he’s “not antivaccine” and claims he is “pro-safe vaccine,” that person is antivaccine—or at least antivaccine-sympathetic. If he were not, he wouldn’t feel the the need to pre-emptively assert his purity, his state of not being “antivaccine.” All antivaccinationists seem to sense intuitively that it is not a good thing to be antivaccine, that the rest of society quite rightly views being antivaccine as a threat to public health. That’s why they are so quick to proclaim that they are “not antivaccine” and that they are only advocating “vaccine safety.” They might not realize that that’s what they’re doing, declaring their antivaccine views, but that’s what they are doing. **Indeed, over the years, I’ve found that one of the most reliable indicators of antivaccine views is the denial that one is “antivaccine” followed by the assertion that one is only promoting “vaccine safety.” Thus it has ever been.** And that is what is happening here IMHO. The anti vaccine metaphor is valid because the anti vaccine people can also point at very good examples of their natural solutions “working”; people that behave like this can be sincere, but nevertheless wrong. The preponderance of the evidence in the torture case, is coming from several lines of inquiry (history, game theory, review of the recent torture apparatus, etc) and they do point to the conclusion that “torture does not work”, even if one does acknowledge that there are omniscient cases like the NAVY seals revealing a number, because we are dealing here with the real world. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2016, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-doesnt-work/750656/335 "2016-04-26T15:38:58Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Yes. I know. I even mentioned that this opinion piece was citing the author of “torture and democracy”. This guy isn’t trying to take an objective look at the efficacy of torture, he is trying to build a case against it ever being used under any circumstances anywhere. This isn’t science, its an argument. There are no facts there, just anecdote. I have anecdotes too. Again, “that guy” is this: [Darius Rejali, Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Reed College](http://www.reed.edu/poli_sci/faculty/rejali/) > [@](#): > > Darius Rejali, professor of political science at Reed College, is a nationally recognized expert on government torture and interrogation. As pointed before his approach to the issue is mostly coming from history, the task of the one trying to make what he said as “just an argument” is to demonstrate that the historical record that he uses is a false one. He is using more than just anecdotes. > **[Why torture doesn't work: A definitive guide](https://theweek.com/articles/441396/why-torture-doesnt-work-definitive-guide)** > > Dick Cheney says torture is effective. But the Nazis (and the Soviets and the Viet Cong and the Stasi) would disagree. > [@](#): > > I have referenced the work Torture and Democracy, by Darius Rejali of Reed College, many times in the past. It is widely agreed to be a benchmark work on torture — perhaps the most thorough investigation and analysis of the subject available. Here’s what Rejali says, to put this question to rest for all time. > > Over 12 years of research, Rejali examined the use of torture in the U.S., Great Britain, Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, South Vietnam, and Korea. He looked at torture inflicted during the French-Algerian War, as well as at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and at Guantánamo Bay. His research found that there is no record of any successful use of torture to gather intelligence, not even in totalitarian states. > > The reasons for this are more complex than is popularly supposed. > > The first has to do with the nature of pain itself. Causing someone pain is not like turning a dial on a stove. Greater damage to the body often translates as less pain, since the body, in shock, shuts down the pain system (as victims of car accidents or shootings can often attest). Going too far, too fast with torture can simply desensitize people or cause them to black out. Furthermore, different people have different thresholds for pain, and they use certain types of pain to mask other ones. As a result, even with technological assistance, it is simply impossible to torture in any scientific, reproducible way. > > Torturers understand this, and so are drawn to two blunt techniques: (1) apply maximum allowable pain, so as to push past all limits and (2) vary the torture methods widely to exploit as many phobias and specific weaknesses as possible. One perverse result of this is that there will be constant pressure to ignore limits set by the law in favor of a maximum diversity of pain. > > Second, torture badly corrodes organizations that practice it. One of the most striking aspects revealed by the Senate report is the incompetence of the CIA, the kind of stuff that would bankrupt a lemonade stand, like losing track of who it had in custody. This is not a coincidence. As Rejali writes, in agencies that torture, “behavioral and organizational indicators show a rapid decay in professionalism.” So besides getting recognition, anyone trying to discredit Darius Rejali also needs more than just anecdotes. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2016, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-doesnt-work/750656/336 "2016-04-26T15:57:54Z")
Correction: 2 post before I meant to say that: “that the stars are \*\*\*not \*\*\*guiding our destiny, etc.” One more comment to this: [QUOTE=Damuri Ajashi] All I need is ONE case where torture extracted useful information to support the argument that torture works. [/QUOTE] That demonstrates that you are only reaching for the peculiar idea that something “works” when it is in the same level as declaring that the lottery “works”. Again it does not deny that experts in finance can tell you ( **and it is not bullshit at all** ) that it is not a productive system to gain riches; while at the same time they can acknowledge that there are lottery winners out there. ---
**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:** [April 26, 2016, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-doesnt-work/750656/337 "2016-04-26T17:06:45Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > That’s probably right. > > Torture should not be your go to move. > > You can attract more flies with honey than a blowtorch to the testicles. > > But what do you do when friendly doesn’t work? Just go with what you have and hope for the best? You don’t torture them because torture does not provide reliable results unless verification can be done immediately (e.g. the combo to the safe that is in the same room). The tortured victim will say anything to make the torture stop making their info near worthless. It takes time and effort for you, the torturer, to go out and see if what they told you is true. Wasting time and resources. By the time you hit on the right answer it is probably far too late to do you much good. I provided you quotes of Napoleon and a colonel in Vietnam saying exactly this earlier. Here is another: > [@](#): > > “In Iraq, I never saw pain produce intelligence,” Lagouranis told me. “I worked with someone who used waterboarding”—an interrogation method involving the repeated near-drowning of a suspect. “I used severe hypothermia, dogs, and sleep deprivation. I saw suspects after soldiers had gone into their homes and broken their bones, or made them sit on a Humvee’s hot exhaust pipes until they got third-degree burns. Nothing happened.” Some people, he said, “gave confessions. But they just told us what we already knew. It never opened up a stream of new information.” If anything, he said, “physical pain can strengthen the resolve to clam up.” > SOURCE: [The Politics of “24” | The New Yorker](http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/02/19/070219fa_fact_mayer?currentPage=all) ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2016, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-doesnt-work/750656/338 "2016-04-27T01:21:43Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > And how is the reliability of information gathered from terrorist prisoners any more reliable when torture ISN’T used? Is there a reliable way of identifying which items of information gathered WITHTOUT torture are good? Gosh, yes. You get much better quality of intelligence out of surveillance than you do out of torture, because practising surveillance doesn’t introduce distortions into your enquiry which give your subject a strong incentive to make stuff up. Generally you’d have a lot more confidence - like, orders of magnitude more - in the info you get from surveillance than in the info you get from torture. That’s not to say that you know with absolute certainty than any particular datum is correct. But it’s generally much more reliably useful than what you get from torture. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > So, can you say “torture simply doesn’t work” when you have so many additional qualifiers and conditions? Or do you have to say that torture is usually counterproductive and leave yourself open to the argument that sometimes it is not? I don’t think you can say either “torture works” or “torture doesn’t work” unless you start by defining what you mean by “work”. I think you also have to distinguish between a particular instance of torture, and the practice of torture as a policy. Torture may “work” in the sense that when we tortured X we got reliable datum Y, and yet not work in the sense that the programme of which the torture of X was one instance was, on the whole, much more damaging to our interests than useful to them, or in the sense that reliable datum Y was buried useless data A, B, C, D . . . and by the time we discovered that Y was reliable it has ceased to be of much value to us. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2016, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-doesnt-work/750656/339 "2016-04-27T01:23:06Z")
There is this tendency in the West to think that if something bad can be described by one negative adjective, it can be described by other unrelated negative adjectives as well. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2016, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-doesnt-work/750656/340 "2016-04-27T02:00:12Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > And how is the reliability of information gathered from terrorist prisoners any more reliable when torture ISN’T used? Is there a reliable way of identifying which items of information gathered WITHTOUT torture are good? And - missed the edit window on my earlier post - it’s probably also worth point out that, long before enlightenment notions of “human rights” became current, common law courts excluded evidence obtained by torture _because it had such low probative value_. So we have known for centuries that information obtained by torturing people is generally of very poor quality. So, is there a reliable way of identifying which items of information gathered without torture are good? Well, the fact that it wasn’t obtained by torture already increases our confidence in it, when compared with information that was obtained by torture. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-doesnt-work/750656.md?page=16) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/torture-doesnt-work/750656.md?page=18)