Acknowledging that torture is not an efficient form of interrogation

[u/Character_Growth_397]

Torture is often shown as an effective way of interrogation, with writers forgetting one key detail: People lie. AAMOF, it's likely that they will lie and give you untrue information to not be tortured

The Last of Us - Joel has an interrogation map where he'd make two different people point to something on a map. If they both pointed the same thing it meant the info was true. Very often this wasn't the case

Mass Effect 2 - Garrus points out that torture is not effective because victims will lie to make the torture stop

[u/spindaz123]

maybe someone breaks first and points at it but the other doesnt break and points elsewhere and a while later the other breaks and also points there but its too late

[u/Alt4thesexy → u/spindaz123]

person 1 breaks and points to the correct location

person 2 doesn't break and points to a wrong location

then after a few tries:

person 1 keeps pointing to the correct location

person 2 eventually breaks and points to that location aswell

why wouldn't it work?

[u/FireballSam → u/Alt4thesexy]

Cause why would person 1 continue pointing to the location that gets them tortured? They’d just start pointing anywhere hoping they land on whichever one they think the torturer thinks is right.

[u/Alt4thesexy → u/FireballSam]

well that depends on if they know about the method of their torture or not, if they are informed that there's another person pointing at locations then they'd have no other choice but to keep pointing at the correct location and wait for the other one to cave aswell

[u/FireballSam → u/Alt4thesexy]

This is still assuming that for whatever reason person 1 believes the other person is going to break. What are the odds they hold out through multiple rounds of torture rather than take their chance pointing to whatever location they think the other person is pointing to? The whole point of this thread is showing that any information derived from torture is impossible to verify unless you already know what the truth is. Doesn’t matter how many people you add into the mix.

[u/Square_Detective_658 → u/FireballSam]

Which begs the question why are they being tortured in the first place?

[u/Alt4thesexy → u/FireballSam]

> This is still assuming that for whatever reason person 1 believes the other person is going to break.

By that logic we can just as easily say that neither of them can break in which case yeah there's no point in torturing them. But assuming they're normal humans that don't have the discipline and heroism to withstand torture without giving up the truth, then both of them will eventually break. Ofc torturing generally is a horrible way of getting information but in this hyper-specific scenario it can work.

And yes person 1 WILL continue pointing to the true place if he's got any sense, unless if he knows beforehand that the other person will 100% not cave in. Idk how many locations there are in this map but im assuming it's a lot and picking the same location as the other person randomly would be highly unlikely. It'd be much more likely for the other person to just break aswell.

[u/spindaz123 → u/Alt4thesexy]

while you are being tortured you are not logical if pointing at that place doesnt work then you are going to point to whatever place in desperation

[u/Butwhatif77 → u/Alt4thesexy]

You have a false assumption here that person one can only point to the correct location because they broke. As you pointed out we have two scenarios.

Scenario one, they don't know there is a second person being tortured. So they have broken but giving correct information isn't getting them a reprieve from being tortured. The incentive to provide useful information is now gone. Thus trying to come up with anything that fits the narrative of the interrogator becomes the primary method of getting it to stop by saying whatever they want to be said true or not. This includes going back on what they said before claiming it was a lie and now they are really telling the truth when they are actually lying to seem more credible to try and get it to stop.

Scenario two, they know about the second person. They are informed the other person told them a different location and they double down by telling the truth. The other person still doesn't break and both continue to be tortured. Now both people have an alternate way to get a reprieve from torture. Telling the truth doesn't work because it requires both people to break, however the person who has already broken can not try to guess/agree with/say similar information at the other person being tortured. Because the fastest way to end their torture is provide corroborating information for the other person in some way.

The inability to quickly validate information under torture is part of the reason why it doesn't work. If you stop the torture every time they talk, then they can say anything to getting it to stop which includes lying because the more you say the less you get tortured and for someone who doesn't know much they have no choice but to lie due to the fact the torture doesn't actually know when the true knowledge runs out. If you don't stop the torture after truthful information is given you remove the incentive to provide truthful information and encourage them to make up a believable narrative that makes the interrogator think they have succeeded to get it to stop.

From an outside perspective torture seems like it should work because the logical response of "I want the pain to stop so I will tell them what I know" seems reasonable. But it ignores all the extra human context around the situation and the fact the people doing the torture are working in the dark without easily verifiable ways to check said information causing torture to end up being counter productive. This has been observed and studied by professional for decades.

The reason torture as a method survives is because it makes the people doing it feel good by providing two satisfying feelings. The first is that they are doing something active to resolve an issue and the second is that the person being tortured is getting what they deserve.