• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

YouGov: 27% of Brits think torture should be allowed (UKIP 56%)

Status
Not open for further replies.
Hrrmmm, where are Greens on there?

Personally, I think that even if one can make an argument for the use of torture in specific instances, the impact of using torture on a wider scale is corrupting and surely negative. I would probably advocate execution before torture...While the former has the ultimate finality, which is more terrifying in many ways, the latter cannot avoid wanton cruelty. Torture is by nature perverse and cruel.
 

ruttyboy

Member
They have to believe what you are saying though. Where does the torture stop? how long do they have to torture someone to be absolutely sure they have everything they need? You might well give them the password after they break one of your fingers but they will probably break the other 9 just to be sure.

Why would they break my other 9 fingers to be sure if they take the password after the fist one and use it sucessfully?

I think rather than people saying 'torture doesn't work!' they should say, 'torture is not the most effective method of extracting some types of information'.
 

gun_haver

Member
27% overall ain't too bad at all really.

The crazy thing would be if you believed torture didn't work, but still thought it was permissible - and looking at that chart the only group that has any contingent of that opinion is UKIP. 56% think it's permissible but only 53% think it works. So 3% think it doesn't work but just do it anyway - I guess because some people just deserved to be tortured?

The SNP thing is kinda funny where 10% of them think 'eh, probably does work' but are against it anyway. Lib Dems have a 9% slice of that as well. That's an opinion I can understand, cos then you're saying 'even if it works there are some things we shouldn't do'.

But for SNP I think also you get a wide net of political positions in their supporters since it's basically the party of Scotland right now, so when you ask questions like this you are going to get a lower degree of predictability in the responses.
 

Morat

Banned
Why would they break my other 9 fingers to be sure if they take the password after the fist one and use it sucessfully?

I think rather than people saying 'torture doesn't work!' they should say, 'torture is not the most effective method of extracting some types of information'.

Again, the main purpose of torture is to brutalize. Extracting information is usually just an excuse.
 

ruttyboy

Member
Again, the main purpose of torture is to brutalize. Extracting information is usually just an excuse.

But that's a totally different issue to whether it works or not. I feel I should make it clear that I'm 100% against torture, I just find it such an odd blanket claim to make that it 'doesn't work'.
 

Hagi

Member
Why would they break my other 9 fingers to be sure if they take the password after the fist one and use it sucessfully?

I think rather than people saying 'torture doesn't work!' they should say, 'torture is not the most effective method of extracting some types of information'.

Probably to see what else they can get out of you.

If they say that though it implies they think it's the most effective method used in certain situations. Do you think that? What situation should torture be the go to option an interrogator uses?

But that's a totally different issue to whether it works or not. I feel I should make it clear that I'm 100% against torture, I just find it such an odd blanket claim to make that it 'doesn't work'.

More often than not I see claims that you could have got the same information without water boarding the person first.
 

ruttyboy

Member
Probably to see what else they can get out of you.

If they say that though it implies they think it's the most effective method used in certain situations. Do you think that? What situation should torture be the go to option an interrogator uses?

So then, it does work?

If they say what?

I don't think torture should ever be used, but I can't think of a more effective method of getting my gmail password out of me. Certainly, being nice to me and giving me some food and drink isn't going to work (unless I have been previously starved ie. tortured).
 

Moosichu

Member
So then, it does work?

If they say what?

I don't think torture should ever be used, but I can't think of a more effective method of getting my gmail password out of me. Certainly, being nice to me and giving me some food and drink isn't going to work (unless I have been previously starved ie. tortured).

Yeah, but you won't be the one being tortured. It's more likely to be very organised and trained individuals. They will mostly likely have a password which opens there emails and another which destroys them all pernemantly. Once they give the second password (Which they will), torture becomes ineffective as they don't even have the information you want.

(Basically, you can anticipate circumstances in which torture could be used against you, and create failsafe to prevent yourself from giving up that information once you are desperate.)
 

Pinkuss

Member
I voted it doesn't work and against torture.

I suspect there are some facts you can get by torture, offset by potential lies, admitting things under duress which may not be true and inciting further hate and probably other consequences.

Does not shock me though, especially the UKIP vote.
 
Torture doesn't sound like a reliable way to extract information to me but the biggest negative is that ethically it's sure as hell fucking unacceptable.
 

Hagi

Member
So then, it does work?

If they say what?

I don't think torture should ever be used, but I can't think of a more effective method of getting my gmail password out of me. Certainly, being nice to me and giving me some food and drink isn't going to work (unless I have been previously starved ie. tortured).

I'm just going to point you back to Limes post if you want actual reasons it doesn't work.

 

Parch

Member
TBF about the same 10 years ago

CIR052.gif
Seems like there are going to be a lot more countries pro torture than the UK.
 
So then, it does work?

If they say what?

I don't think torture should ever be used, but I can't think of a more effective method of getting my gmail password out of me. Certainly, being nice to me and giving me some food and drink isn't going to work (unless I have been previously starved ie. tortured).

Funny you say that, studies have actually shown that asking nicely is far more effective than torture.
 

ruttyboy

Member
Funny you say that, studies have actually shown that asking nicely is far more effective than torture.
That's why I mentioned it. You can ask me nicely forever and I wouldn't tell you my password, but start hurting me and I'd hand it over instantly. It all seems so counter intuitive. Guess I'll read up on some of these studies.
 

Cocaloch

Member
27% overall ain't too bad at all really.

The crazy thing would be if you believed torture didn't work, but still thought it was permissible - and looking at that chart the only group that has any contingent of that opinion is UKIP. 56% think it's permissible but only 53% think it works. So 3% think it doesn't work but just do it anyway - I guess because some people just deserved to be tortured?

The SNP thing is kinda funny where 10% of them think 'eh, probably does work' but are against it anyway. Lib Dems have a 9% slice of that as well. That's an opinion I can understand, cos then you're saying 'even if it works there are some things we shouldn't do'.

But for SNP I think also you get a wide net of political positions in their supporters since it's basically the party of Scotland right now, so when you ask questions like this you are going to get a lower degree of predictability in the responses.

Scotland was also the nation most against torture. The other nations just had a much higher percent of don't know.

It's pretty dumb that people are trying to spin this to make SNPers look bad.
 
That's why I mentioned it. You can ask me nicely forever and I wouldn't tell you my password, but start hurting me and I'd hand it over instantly. It all seems so counter intuitive. Guess I'll read up on some of these studies.

https://digest.bps.org.uk/2014/12/11/rapport-building-interrogation-is-more-effective-than-torture/

The research involved 34 interrogators (1 woman) from several international jurisdictions including Australia, Indonesia and Norway. And there were 30 international detainees (1 woman), most of whom had been held on suspicion of terrorism, including people suspected of involvement with the Tamil Tigers or the Islamist group Ansar al Ismal based in Norway. One in five of the detainees reported being subjected to practices that constitute torture. Note, these were separate groups – the interrogators had not dealt professionally with the participating detainees.

The research team led by Jane Goodman-Delahunty asked the interrogators and detainees to recall a specific interrogation session, to describe the interrogation practices used, and the outcomes in terms of information shared, cooperation and confessions. The results were striking – disclosure was 14 times more likely to occur early in an interrogation when a rapport-building approach was used. Confessions were four times more likely when interrogators struck a neutral and respectful stance. Rates of detainee disclosure were also higher when they were interrogated in comfortable physical settings.

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/...e-that-works-much-better-than-torture/383698/

This isn't just theoretical, either. One former U.S. Army interrogator told PRI this week that he was able to break through to an Iraqi insurgent over a shared love of watching the TV show 24 on bootleg DVDs.

"He acknowledged that he was a big fan of Jack Bauer," he told PRI. "We made a connection there that ultimately resulted in him recanting a bunch of information that he had said in the past and actually giving us the accurate information because we had made that connection."
 
Jack Bauer got a stiffy
giphy.gif


Sometimes the general public needs a good reminder that torture never works and confessions out of them are untrustworthy. Media certainly doesn't help by showing it does work, like 24 and movies.
 

Mr Git

Member
Fairly dismal, but expected from our largely cretinous population. You'd only have to add 'foreign' to those questions to make the UKIP percentages surge even higher, mind.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom