On 21-Apr-2009, at 22:40, David P. Henderson wrote: > On 21 Apr 2009, at 20:57, Chris Gehlker wrote: >> On Apr 21, 2009, at 7:59 PM, Roger Howard wrote: >>> But the reality is that interrogation has its place; the question is >>> about the extent to which it can be useful. >> >> I think the question has been answered and the answer is that it is >> never useful. > > Bull, you are both talking about interrogation and torture as if they > are one and the same. They are not. Interrogation is necessary and > does produce positive results. Torture on the other hand has been > scientifically demonstrated to be unreliable. The US Military has > very specific interrogation techniques that take time but produce > generally reliable results and they do not as a rule rely on > stressing the subject but involve introducing positive feedback from > the subject by finding points of commonality from which to build > empathy. I'm sure there a better more detailed explanations than mine.
They are much the same techniques used by the police. The phrase 'good cop/bad cop' is used a lot, and is depicted, almost always badly, all the time, but it is an effective technique. Basically, the 'bad' cop is insensitive (not violent or angry) and just wants the person to confess. The 'good' cop wants to know why the crime was committed and presents himself as a sympathetic ear. Essentially, if you want to get right down to it, one is being the stern father figure and the other the comforting mother. And it is not, just like with kids, necessarily the 'mother' that gets the confession. This is an interrogation technique that works very well, assuming the suspect is at least mostly rational and sane. It is not at all effective on sociopaths, for example. But then again, they don't generally have any shame about what they did, so confessions are not hard to come by there. Torture does not work. Never has, regardless of what "24" would want you to believe. -- Otto: Apes don't read philosophy. Wanda: Yes, they do Otto, they just don't understand it. _______________________________________________ OSX-Nutters mailing list | [email protected] http://lists.tit-wank.com/mailman/listinfo/osx-nutters List hosted at http://cat5.org/
