Vrede wrote:Three places, off the top of my head:
When the victim of torture has already decided he will die a martyr and thus doesn't have the same motivations as the kidnap victim.
When the victim of torture will say anything s/he thinks the perp wants to hear and truth then has to be sorted out from garbage.
When being a torturer hurts one's other interests among friends and enemies, which is not a concern for the kidnapper.
Yes, I addressed the problem of the willingness to say anything, some or all of which may be true or false and you don't really know at the time.
But with regard to the wannabe martyr, being willing, even happy, to die is one thing, but is he equally willing and able to put up with the blowtorch on the soles of his feet? My original conundrum remains - it is well-evidenced that at some point, fear and pain - or fear of pain - can compel someone to do or say something they wouldn't otherwise do. At some other point, it is apparently ineffective because of the unreliability of the information gained. Seems to me that if one knew the exact point at which a certain type of misery applied would result in truthful disclosure, that you could publicize that widely and turn it into something like the filibuster turned to. You don't do anything to the captured guy, you just say, OK, next comes the (whatever). And knowing the (whatever) will work, he just comes clean.
Nobody was harmed in the making of this scenario.
