I’m not sure wtf that has to do with anything other than the fact that you have connected torture with the lottery in your mind. Do you seriously think that analogizing torture to the lottery makes any fucking sense at all?
What research are you talking about? If you are talking about someone’s spin on history annotated with their opinion, then I guess you have cited some research but NONE of it is even remotely scientific.
Here is the only statement I found regarding SERE in your cited article:
"predictability problem can be avoided by
engaging only in objective questioning, something that apparently does not happen in real world
interrogations, given the CIA’s and later the military’s reliance on SERE methods originally used by the
Chinese to extract forced (and false) confessions.63 Thus, interrogational torture is not predictable. "
So it dismisses the fact that SERE exercises ALWAYS result in the prinsoner divulging the required information because the Chinese used it to extract false confessions? I am pretty sure taht everyone willagree that torture can be used to extract false confessions. I don’t see how that fact makes torture so unpredictable as to be ineffective.
Thanks for the cite. Here are a few sentences I think you might have missed:
“Despite the importance of the question, there is little consensus among policy-makers, academics, or even interrogators on whether interrogational torture works”
“Rejali acknowledges that “the empirical material…is…too fragmentary to allow for
precise, validated causal claims.””
The article assumes in its example that the interrogator knows very little about the prisoner. No idea if they know anything and no idea if they are going to put up a fight before revealing information. The interrogator doesn’t know when to stop so they don’t. It also assumes that the prisoner knows nothing about the interrogator. They realize the torture is inevitable and nothing you say can make the interrogator stop so you might as well keep your mouth shut. The article seems to acknowledge the sensitivity to these sort of game scenarios to the underlying assumptions. If I alternatively assume that the interrogator knows that the suspect knows something and the interrogator knows when they have extracted the information, then a prisoner who knows that the interrogator will not stop until they receive the information but will stop when they receive the information has every incentive to provide the information. This is the dynamic we see in SERE training.
As I have mentioned in the past. Torture is not a sonic screwdriver of interrogation. It is not a multi-tool that works in every situation and may not be very useful for fishing expeditions. The closer we can get to the second set of assumptions and away from the first, the more likely torture is to be effective.
The article seems to be saying that in order to be regarded as effective then the method of interrogation but be effective. Effective is defined as reliable and consistent and then proceeds to show why torture is neither reliable nor consistent. What it fails to consider is that no other interrogation technique is likely to meet those standards of reliability or consistency. But this seems justified by the fact that torture is so horrible. The time to weigh the moral implications of torture are not during the stage of judging its efficacy relative to other methods of interrogation. it is after the relative efficacy has been measured.
In summation the article is not saying "torture simply doesn’t work. It is saying “assuming all these things, then torture does not achieve a level of reliability or consistency that no other method of interrogation would meet but I think torture should meet because torture is so fucking horrible”
Politifact? This is what polifact says:
“Wilcox didn’t provide concrete proof and experts say virtually none exists. We rate the statement False.” The experts in this case are avowed opponents of the use of torture. It puts the word of a College professor that is a firm opponent of torture ahead of the word of a CIA operative that claims he used torture to extract information.
The fact that it takes so much effort to describe what you mean by torture works means that saying “torture simply doesn’t work” is bullshit. Its really that simple. The statement "torture simply doesn’t work is not a nuanced, its a blunt instrument trying to convince people that there is no rational basis for torture in any circumstance.
This is not a case of highlighting the exception to undermine a scientific consensus. Even your article agrees that no such consensus exists. This is a rebuttal of an absolutist statement whose purpose is to shut down debate. We have a fairly controlled experiment in the SERE training, your argument seems to be “well the experiment is TOO controlled.”
Sorry but the reality is that this thread has been going pretty strong without much interruption since its inception in march and Trump didn’t enter the thread until several pages later. Inserting trump is simply a form of Gdowinization and might be a good sign that you realize that you have lost the debate and need to resort to smearing people with Trump to get them to shut up.
Spoken like a person who knows that a simple answer to a simple question will destroy 8 pages of argument.
Since the article does deal with what was observed in the past and it is using valid scientific theories you re missing the point that it is telling us that it is describing also the reason why torture fails to be reliable.
Missing the point, again:
In the end the point is that it is the torture proponents the ones that need to demonstrate that it works. Very little has come forth in matter of evidence and then one can put the successes in the same probability area as winning the lottery.
We know already that the one you painted at turned later to say that “torture does not work” I defer to him more than your non-expert opinion.
Again you are just grasping at straws, by the same logic we should tell the CDC that it is bullshitting us for telling us that “vaccines work” (In a reverse example) Or the biologists saying that "Science works, bitches!. 
Since it is clear that you will not do such a thing, nor many of the experts out there, I think one should continue to do what the common meaning tell us, by dismissing such talk that it is bullshit to tell others that “torture does not work” because it is not. The reality is that doing the opposite is being grossly misleading, and indeed more close to what bullshit is.
Point to order, SERE is not a controlled experiment, nor science. The reality is that you have demanded science and none has come from you, at all.
And that is a straw you are grasping, the article’s point is that the torture proponents have not demonstrated that torture works, the published paper (that is based on an accepted scientific tool) points to game theory as giving us even more evidence that torture is not effective and not likely to work under real world conditions.
The “interruption” you are talking about is just you trying to avoid what is going on, you have to realize that the ones that are talking about giving torture a level of effectiveness that it is not there is coming nowadays from many of the followers of Donald Trump. It is important then to realize that discussions like this one are not happening in a vacuum, as much as you would like it.
So if I say that lotteries are a bad idea for retirement planning that somehow means that torture doesn’t work? That’s retarded.
Nope, it is basically the same logic. It is what tell us that the saying of “torture works” is the retarded one. As shown many times already (and even the military experience guy that you pointed early told us) saying that “torture does not work” may have some issues and exceptions to the rule, but it is not bullshit.
OK I agree that game theory exists and is valid. I don’t see any game theory research that shows that torture doesn’t work in your link. I did a word search and the word torture doesn’t pop up.
In some cases that is true, and in other cases that is not true. It is especially not true when compared to the reliability of other methods of interrogation.
[quoteMissing the point, again: [/quote]
So the conclusion is that if a PARTICULAR SET OF ASSUMPTIONS is true then “torture is far more likely to produce no information or false information than it is likely to produce valuable information.”
SERE training record a 100% information retrieval rate. So in situations liek they have in SERE training, its like a lottery where you have to pick a number from one to ten and you get ten guesses. The chances of winning a normal lottery might be one in a million. Are you seriously arguing that torture only produces valuable information one time out of a million or anything approaching that?
You haven’t even proven that torture is less reliable than other means of interrogation. The only thing you have proven is that torture will replace some null sets with false information (IOW, prisoners with no information will fabricate information under torture where they would just say they don’t know anything under conventional means of interrogation). This ignores the fact that the knowledge level of the prisoner is not random. It also ignores any situations where a knowledgable prisoner will divulge valuable information.
Once again, your entire argument seems to rely on opinions rather than facts.
Like I said in the post you are responding to, this is not a case of emphasizing exceptions in order to undermine a scientific consensus so comparing it to vaccines is a particularly inappropriate analogy. There is no scientific consensus on the efficacy of torture, there is only opinion and anecdote. The closest thing we have to a controlled experiment we have results in a 100% success rate for torture. That at leas its an argument that torture works. Now prove that a consitent 100% success rate achieved during SERE training is an aberration and that the REAL efficacy of torture is almost the exact opposite of that?
“Torture simply doesn’t work” is an inaccurate statement and no amount of verbal weaselling is going to change that.
I said its the closest we have. There is no control group and I don’t know what a control group would do to change the significance of a 100% success rate but the experiment is controlled in the sense that we are changing the subject of the experiment and subjecting them to the same form of torture (waterboarding) and getting the same results despite the change in subject. Am I using the concept of controlled experiment incorrectly?
So perhaps the 100% success rate of torture in some circumstances is not science, istm that it is but I don’t want to get into a semantic debate about whether or not a process that leads to a 100% success rate is science or not. I am not the one that has to defend the statement that “torture simply doesn’t work” That is a statement made by YOUR side of the argument. You have the burden of proving that torture simply doesn’t work. I don’t have to produce science that torture works at least sometimes when i can provide anecdotes. Your response to those anecdotes is an analogy with lotteries and broken clock which are clearly silly and inappropriate.
As I have pointed out the game theory presented in the paper relies on the “rules” an assumptions underlying the game. The SERE training seems to reliably and consistently produce the desired result. SERE training simulates real world conditions as closely as it can. The fact that the SERE prisoner KNOWS that he will not be killed doesn’t seem like it would reduce the incentive to keep his mouth shut. The fact that he also know that talking won’t actually result in people dying might but I can’t imagine that the sort of guys that undergo Navy Seal training approach it with the attitude that its all just for funsies so we can go ahead and talk.
The discussion of torture. particularly THIS discussion of torture predates Trump’s involvement. This is just a form of godwiniation and should make you wonder if you have already lost your argument when you have to resort to saying “you know who ELSE supports torture?”
Again, we have posted cite after cite saying torture doesnt work. So, you saying “your entire argument seems to rely on opinions rather than facts” means you are ignoring our cites- even tho you have responded to them. Do you have some sort of short term memory issue?
Yes, the fact that there are no repercussions to spilling your guts, no long term consequences and no chance of being killed afterwards totally invalidates the results. Also, of course since you KNOW the “tirture” will stop, why not just give in? But in the real world, the torture doesnt stop.
I guess DrDeth is right, you forgot right away the professor that used game theory on the torture issue.
A lot of your augments can be dismissed like that as it is clear that what it is inconvenient to you is dismissed in the silliest of ways.
Like this one, once again you are pretending the we should forget that the most experienced person that you pointed out as a supporter of your views turned to look at the evidence and told us in the end that “torture doesn’t work”.
The reality is that the published paper also pointed at the SERE training and noted that your “100%” success is based on a situation where the “torturers” are omniscient. Game theory showed that SERE can not be applied to real life just as the senate report showed later.
And so it follows that “vaccines work” or “science works” are inaccurate. :rolleyes: Good luck in trying to convince the followers of common usage or common sense to follow your dictates. Again the opposite is bullshit, saying that “torture works” is a lot less accurate than the common usage that matches the reality better.
As for relying on SERE again, you are once again conveniently forgetting that those training reports you are using are based on testimonials and not reviewed science or real life. The reality is that the professor that used game theory did take your “trump card” and dismissed it already. The fact is that many even before the professor applied the science of game theory have looked at your old SERE chestnut and just like a poster that early knew as a “fact” that torture worked to get Himmler your reliance on SERE is most likely based on tall tales from the ones that still propose that torture is a good idea. As pointed before even SERE was twisted and failed to be effective when applied to real life.
https://www.aclu.org/blog/speakeasy/origins-sere-and-using-torture-even-when-it-doesnt-work
And of course you only show that you are not even aware of what Godwin was about:
“As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.”
It doe snot refer to winning the argument.
BTW, as I never mentioned Hitler or the nazis, nor Godwin, It follows then that you are the one losing the discussion.
The point here is that your insistence on not dealing with why Trump is mentioned only shows us even more ignorance from your part. Please check the OP, Clinton had her torture comments made when she told in a speech that “torture does not work”. She mentioned Trump in the same speech letting us also know that besides being wrong on torture:
https://www.hillaryclinton.com/speeches/remarks-counterterrorism-stanford-university/
Her speech then had a clear meaning: to show how wrong Trump was regarding this issue and the FactCheck people did agree with her.
And besides not being effective in real life as the proponents claim there is the added reason that when the enemy does know that torture is happening (to even innocent captives) it is an excellent recruiting tool for our enemies.
Sorry “lotteries are a bad idea for retirement” was not the statement. The statement was:
“Spending one’s entire savings on lotto tickets to ensure a happy retirement doesn’t work”
Do you feel this statement is True or False?
True unless…you win.
**Damuri Ajashi **, obviously, is not referring to “Godwin” as in a literal direct reference to Nazis or Hitler. He means 'Godwin" in the sense that saying that invoking Trump is akin to invoking Nazis or Hitler, in the sense that Trump is viewed as a villain and that what Trump does or says is considered to be bad because Trump is Trump, hence why it is used as a rhetorical device.
And you are only showing that you did not read the rest. Clinton was talking about how torture is ineffective as a reply to what Trump and many proponents of torture are going for. And that was what the OP was referring to. What Trump and the proponents of torture are going for is bullshit.
Deal with it.
I would like to challenge one assumption made by many people in this thread - specifically, the notion that torturers wouldn’t enact any sort of “quality control” and that they would have an “anything goes” approach towards what the victim says - that lying won’t face consequences and that saying that Osama bin Laden is located in Peru would be considered just as valid an answer as saying that he is located in a compound in Abbottabad.
I imagine it would go far more like this: The torturers would threaten something to the effect of, “If you think this pain is bad right now, we’ll make it 10 or 100 times worse if you tell us a lie.”
Yes, it is possible that the victim might give out spurious answers long after the truth has already been told. But it is extremely likely also that the truth lies within the first, or first few, responses. The first few responses are more likely to be truthful than the 97th or 99th responses.
Finally, I would like to note the bizarre double-standard logic used by some people in political debates about torture. They talk about how torture would be ineffective if applied to other people, but would be effective if applied to them.
Or, conversely, some talk about how torture would be effective against other people, but would be ineffective against them themselves. Somehow they always consider themselves to be exceptional.
BTW, when one looks at what Godwin refers to, the “law” is also about the dilution of the evil of Hitler when equated with lesser bad guys.
And that straw man is what Damuri Ajashi is attempting to do, trying to put words in our mouth like if the ones talking about how infective torture is are claiming that Trump is as evil as Hitler, once again: that was something that I did not claim, what you should realize is that Trump is indeed the reason for the OP and the current discussion, and Trump is “just” an ignorant and dangerous demagogue that is counting on the ignorance of many that do not know what the the majority of the experts are telling us about torture.
At first glance that makes sense but this also something that has not been mentioned as taking place, lots of the information given to stop the torture coming from people that do not know eventually tell the torturers what they want to hear. In the most damaging recent case the ones that lied about a connection with Al-qeda and Saddam did not face consequences as they gave the Bush administration one of the reasons that they wanted to justify the invasion of Iraq.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed says “hello”.
A man of few words.
Suppose you set up a SERE training scenario where the torturer said they would stop when the subject confessed to killing JFK. Do you suppose with the 100% success rate that many of the subjects would not falsely confess?
If you gave each subject 4 names, 2 which were ‘real’ and 2 which were ‘false’, and the torturer said they would stop once they got 4 names, that they wouldn’t get all 4 names?
Or even if they said they would stop once they got 10 names, they wouldn’t get a bunch of made up names as well?
No one is claiming torture doesn’t get information…