Draining Clyntahn's mind

Loren Pechtel wrote:

Bluesqueak wrote:Applying this to Clyntahn, the danger is that he would, to stop the pain, tell the Inner Circle all sbout the Thing In The Basement - even if he hasn't actually got a clue and is just making up some plausible rubbish, based on his knowledge of secret Inquisition files. Just as the Inquisition always found themselves uncovering conspiracies that didn't exist.

But I still stand by my earlier comment. Torture works in a short term, tactical sense. From a strategic point of view, it's frequently a disaster.

They have the verifier. The big problem with torture is knowing when you got the truth (including "I don't know the answer".) They don't have that problem.

Actiually, the big problem with torture is that you don't want to live in a society that uses torture - I generally find that the people enthusiastic about using torture are often the people who never think it will happen to them. RFC uses this trope quite a lot in Safehold. Torture, most Safeholdian's think, is unpleasant but okay because the Archangels ordained that it would only happen to those who deserve it. Then he proceeds to demonstrate just how very, very wrong they were about that.

Yes, they have the verifier. Yes, it would work if Clyntahn was actively lying. No, it wouldn't work if Clyntahn thought what they wanted to hear was true. Verification only works, as I understand it, on belief. If someone believes in the Archangels, the verifier won't tell you they're lying, because they're not. If Clyntahn suddenly 'realises' that An OtherThing In The Basement is what his torturers want, he'll happily tell the Inner Circle about it. Pity that it was really Chihiro's secret plan to blast Safehold back to the Stone Age, and that Chihiro forgot to mention that part...

But basically, the problem is strategic, not tactical. A lot of posters really are fixating on the short term tactical value - Clyntahn tells all- and missing that the Inquisition is the poster child for the long term strategic consequences.

In this instance, the Stone of Schueler would not be a surefire way of telling truth from falsehood. We have textev from book one, in the mini-infodump about the verifier, that mental illnesses and conditions produce contradictory readings. Couple that with the fact that for the whole series (usually in an inner monologue from Duchairn) we've been getting hit with Clinton's increasingly deranged personality, and his tendency to actuallty believe his own lies.

An excellent study case for a Bedardist, indeed.

There wasn't any mention of any interrogation, just Clyntahn griping about the trial. A court trial, whereas Clyntahn complains that he's been captured by people too week-kneed to interrogate/torture him.
As for the "use the brain machine" option, we don't know when (or if) he was injected with it. Still, with three months of sitting on his kiester that would give the nanotech a lot of time to settle into his brain. A lot of time for a passive reading and recording, very different then the "wham bam thank you ma'am" that happened to Nahrman. And when the rope goes twang, still plenty of time to turn on the harsher strip-mine-method and read Clyntahn's brain like Nahrman's was. It's the only reason to wait three months that's actually useful. Sit him in the court and have a lot of people list his actions, hopefully activating memory centers of the brain.
Given the star trek level science that Weber never went deep in the box of tricks of, it's entirely possible for them to decapitate Clyntahn and keep him alive as just a head on a pillar of life support machines. Too bad that Weber's not the type to short-story a properly chaos filled
"They Saved Clyntahn's Brain!"
If you're going to reenact World War Two, you could at least start the pulp fiction, though anyone turning into the radio stories would just get killed by the orbital defense platform.

n7axw wrote:I Know that RFC believes that torture works, although he acknowledges the moral issues with doing it. He is contradicted by others who say that it is unreliable and actually counter-productive since you end up with less useful info than if you had tried another way.

So... go figure.

Don

-

The real world evidence we have, Hollywood movies notwithstanding, is that torture is completely ineffective at getting reliable or actionable information, and has been clearly demonstrated to be counter productive. It is neither effective, moral, nor legal (at least until the Bush administration, and possibly the new Trump administration).

I regard Bush and all those that supported his position and the legal reasoning war criminals that should be prosecuted. Bush is the one that should be locked up, not Clinton.

Hildum wrote:

n7axw wrote:I Know that RFC believes that torture works, although he acknowledges the moral issues with doing it. He is contradicted by others who say that it is unreliable and actually counter-productive since you end up with less useful info than if you had tried another way.

So... go figure.

Don

-

The real world evidence we have, Hollywood movies notwithstanding, is that torture is completely ineffective at getting reliable or actionable information, and has been clearly demonstrated to be counter productive. It is neither effective, moral, nor legal (at least until the Bush administration, and possibly the new Trump administration).

I regard Bush and all those that supported his position and the legal reasoning war criminals that should be prosecuted. Bush is the one that should be locked up, not Clinton.

I am wholehheartedly agreement with your sentiments. But RFC has a lot of credibility with me. So if he says that torture works, I am not ready to completely dismiss his assertion. So my jury is still out. I am not well enough informed on the subject to draw a conclusion myself.

Don

-

Hildum wrote:

n7axw wrote:I Know that RFC believes that torture works, although he acknowledges the moral issues with doing it. He is contradicted by others who say that it is unreliable and actually counter-productive since you end up with less useful info than if you had tried another way.

So... go figure.

Don

-

The real world evidence we have, Hollywood movies notwithstanding, is that torture is completely ineffective at getting reliable or actionable information, and has been clearly demonstrated to be counter productive. It is neither effective, moral, nor legal (at least until the Bush administration, and possibly the new Trump administration).

I regard Bush and all those that supported his position and the legal reasoning war criminals that should be prosecuted. Bush is the one that should be locked up, not Clinton.

Yeah, utter bullshit. The "real world" says that it does work, which is why we are taught to do our best to hold out under torture for 24-48 hours.

Now if it continues, you will friggin say ANYTHING to get it to stop, which is a another problem in and of itself.

n7axw wrote:I am wholehheartedly agreement with your sentiments. But RFC has a lot of credibility with me. So if he says that torture works, I am not ready to completely dismiss his assertion. So my jury is still out. I am not well enough informed on the subject to draw a conclusion myself.

Torture gets information. The problem is that it doesn't get reliable information. You need a low-cost means of verifying the information fairly quickly for torture to actually be useful.

Putting aside the moral arguments against torture mentioned (which are all valid, especially in the context of the Inner Circle's desire to maintain the moral high ground in preparation for whatever is under the Temple), torture as a tactic rarely works. The sort of people who would have any real information are generally the sort who have been trained to resist any sort of "enhanced interrogation techniques" while those who have not been trained rarely possess critical information. Somewhere between these two types you might find the rare individual who possess critical information and who has not been properly trained to resist torture (whether because the enemy is decidedly inept with regards to the sort of people it entrusts with critical information or because some random lowly cat's paw might have been exposed to information he shouldn't have had access to because someone was talking too loudly in the other room) but you can't rely upon it. Moreover, if one is being tortured, they would invent stuff up just to make the pain stop. Or if they are being asked yes or no questions, they'll just confirm whatever the interrogators want confirmed to end the pain.

As a matter of statistics, I would surmise that the times in which torture might effectively reveal critical information in any war effort or investigation are vastly outnumbered by the instances in which nothing of value is discovered. In a system or a society in which the inquisitors can expect no repercussions for torturing suspects, we open the door for the sort of sociopaths who would indulge in their taste for cruelty, using religion or the law as an excuse to justify it (as indeed happened through the Jihad). But if you call such interrogators to account, if you make it clear to them that if their interrogation through torture reveals no relevant or critical information they will be severely punished for their incompetence, then they might hesitate to indulge. Then again, they might become crueler in their techniques, hoping to get something, anything out of their victims to avoid punishment. So really, torture is ultimately ineffectual in most cases.