Let's talk torture - TTLG Forums

DDL on 18/10/2012 at 11:19

I now have this image of a man in a dingy basement, holding a pair of pliers and a car battery, looking at a spreadsheet: "ok, so 85.4% chance of saving 4 lives within 12-16 hours....so multiply by the morality coefficient, divide by media blackout, carry the one and....yes! NOW we're talking."

EDIT: you can always let the person out if you subsequently turn out to be in error. You can't untorture someone. (though life imprisonment isn't ideal anyway, it is at least semi-reversible, and life sentences are not exactly doled out like candy. At least, not in the UK)

Actually, further to that: I'd never say they "deserve it" anyway. I'm not a big believer in punishment because it's largely pointless. Education and deterrents, yes. Punishments no. Different titles for the exact same thing? Well, yes. :p

Vasquez on 18/10/2012 at 11:30

Quote Posted by DDL

you can always let the person out if you subsequently turn out to be in error. You can't untorture someone.

But even in imprisonment the victim might suffer from the experience the rest of his/her life. Getting wrongly accused and sentenced, being in jail, maybe being tortured there by other inmates... Not to mention if the truth never comes out and it's literally a lifetime in prison.

DDL on 18/10/2012 at 11:37

So because that's a horrible scenario, we might as well endorse other horrible scenarios?

:p

Vasquez on 18/10/2012 at 11:47

I rather meant it like this: if one horrible thing is banned, why the other is legal?

I still don't have a solid opinion of this, I'm just trying to look at it from many different povs.

Vivian on 18/10/2012 at 11:50

As well as being a punishment, long-term imprisonment prevents re-offending in quite a practical way (at least while they are imprisoned) and should allow for personal improvement (either self or externally applied). Torturing someone just leaves them a bit fucked up and leaves you a torturer. These statements have been and will be repeated in this thread I imagine.

DDL on 18/10/2012 at 12:36

Plus one of the horrible scenarios (wrongful life imprisonment) is a hypothetical worst case scenario that would occur in hopefully a very small number of cases, while the other (legalised torture) is a horrible scenario where the horror is the default outcome.

Vasquez on 18/10/2012 at 13:44

Quote Posted by DDL

But this brings us back to the question: what if each case of torturing - and with the strict legislation they would be very rare - would also save those innocent lives?

Ok I'll stop now ;)

(In fact I think I'll go and kill a torturer now.)

SubJeff on 18/10/2012 at 13:53

Quote Posted by Kolya

Why would you make such an argument, SE? Just for argument's sake I hope, in which case you got what you wanted and might as well acknowledge now that legalising torture would be very dumb.

Welcome to discussion 101. Give yourself a gold.

Please re-read the NB in my second post and then punish yourself as you deem fit.

Thirith on 18/10/2012 at 14:16

Quote Posted by Vasquez

But this brings us back to the question: what if each case of torturing - and with the strict legislation they would be very rare - would also save those innocent lives?

I'm not sure how relevant this question is, because 100% efficacy is something that could never be guaranteed, unless we're talking about Magically Effective Torture - and at that point we might as well talk about the efficacy of torturing psychics to get them to reveal where the endangered people are and how they can be saved.

DDL on 18/10/2012 at 15:18

Also, Vas: by "horror being the default outcome", I meant that (regardless of whether you find out anything or save any lives) you have still tortured someone. Which is horrible. One would be effectively endorsing a system whereby horrible things are deliberately done to people, and those horrible things are done not by accident, but essentially BECAUSE they are horrible.