[ikeboy]

>Who are they, and what justifies their torture?

>People being tortured don't tell you valuable information; they tell you whatever they think will make the torture stop.

You're already asserting your position, and disguising it as a question. Virtually everyone seriously condoning torture believe it is effective. If they were to believe it wasn't effective, they wouldn't order it to be done.

You may think it's not effective, but that should be argued on its own merit. You're assuming the conclusion, then pretending that everyone else does and are therefore unjustified.

[evan_]

> Virtually everyone seriously condoning torture believe it is effective.

I think a very high number of "torture proponents" are simply in favor of hurting the "bad guys" and don't even care that there might be information to be had.

Donald Trump said it best, to an arena full of cheering supporters:

"If it doesn’t work, they deserve it anyway, for what they’re doing"

In his mind, and the minds of his constituents, the "information gathering" aspect is a sly wink at the other sadists in the room.

[kobayashi]

Donald Trump and his supporters are not the individuals who ordered the torture/enhanced interrogation (T/EI). If one watches/reads General Hayden's comments on the topic, he's disgusted by any call for punitive T/EI. He begins talking about this at about 34:50. https://youtu.be/GBx-ECt6vUo?t=34m50s

The discussion on the US' RDI program begins at about 30:25.

[cowardlydragon]

T/EI ?

What a cute military acronym.

[kobayashi]

I just made it up.

[ikeboy]

I did include two qualifiers there.

>In his mind, and the minds of his constituents, the "information gathering" aspect is a sly wink at the other sadists in the room.

I'm not so sure. You could have a model where the main purpose of torture is for information, and the value of that information is so much that you don't need a high chance of it being effective, and even if it's not effective there's not too much harm done. Trump has certainly claimed it to be effective.

[zyxley]

> You may think it's not effective

Torture factually isn't effective. https://www.cgu.edu/pdffiles/sbos/costanzo_effects_of_interr...

[blowski]

In a "24" like scenario, if you knew that torturing 100 people, all of whom you believe to be terrorists, was 50% likely to yield useful information would you do it?

For me personally, the effectiveness of torture is irrelevant. Maybe it is for you as well, I don't know from your comment. It's something we should not do, full stop.

[zyxley]

I believe torture is morally wrong, but it's easier to point out the practicalities of coercive interrogation (even of a nontorturous kind) producing useless bullshit most of the time.

Also, your hypothetical is absurdly biased in favor of torture, given that any real information retrieved would be a needle in the haystack of the aforementioned useless bullshit.

[blowski]

The problem with debating it on a practical level is that it sounds like you're haggling over what kind of ends are required to justify the means.

Even if it were 100% effective - every person tortured did exactly what the torturer wanted - it would still be unjustifiable because it is so morally repugnant.

[zyxley]

Part of my point is that there will literally never be an end that justifies the means with torture, because torture factually does not and will never return any kind of reliable information.

Trying to stress the point with weird hypotheticals just emphasizes that the weird hypotheticals don't reflect the facts of what results torture gives.

[blowski]

I imagine that if you torture 1000 of your enemies you will get at least some useful information from them. Sure, they will also give you a lot of rubbish and you'll struggle to know what's true and what's made up. But that 1% nugget of truth is what the Donald Trumps of this world use to justify torture.

I imagine for the head of the CIA or Mossad or MI5, these aren't weird hypotheticals but real decisions. We need to tell them as a society that we do not accept torture, whatever results it would bring.

[rdtsc]

> Virtually everyone seriously condoning torture believe it is effective. If they were to believe it wasn't effective, they wouldn't order it to be done.

Not that simple. They "say" they believe is it is effective. The reason they do it is not necessarily the same.

People have sadistic tendencies and will torture and inflict pain on others just for pleasure and amusement. Bullies do it on playgrounds, people in power do it to their subordinates, others torture animals for pleasure and so on.

I don't buy the idea that just because they ended up as advisory experts to the Pentagon, or they rose into power it somehow means those tendencies are not there.

[soneca]

Here is some research to back up that torture is ineffective: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v527/n7576/full/527035a...

But it is behind a paywall :/

[spangry]

Assuming the conclusion? That would only be true if I also stated that the only possible justification someone might give for torture is intelligence gathering. I was simply addressing what I thought would be the most likely counter-argument, not asserting it's the only possible counter-argument.

By all means, feel free to argue the merits of my 'pre-emptive counter-counter argument' (boy this is getting confusing). Or if you like, feel free to argue the merits of some alternative justification for torturing people. Here, I'll start you off:

- It's a good deterrent to <x> behaviour

- It's fun

- It hurts people we don't like

- The victim is a witch, and we need to find out who the other witches are

[ikeboy]

I think you should have left out the question altogether, or phrased it as an assertion: "nothing justifies torture".

[spangry]

I probably muddled my own point by descending into a rant in the OP.

I just found the unsaid implication, that torture is fine if the person does possess information you want to know, worth examining. Perhaps consider it this way: imagine all of the assertions made by the Bush administration about the victim were correct; he really was the Al-Qaeda 2nd in command, he had smuggled high-ranked Al-Qaeda members out of Afghanistan etc.

Would there be a defensible justification to torture him, and what would that justification be?