
Two scientists quietly revolutionising the study and practice of interrogation - snthd
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/oct/13/the-scientists-persuading-terrorists-to-spill-their-secrets
======
c3534l
> he later became the first military officer to speak out against such
> practices. He did so not just because he thought they were wrong, but
> because he thought they were stupid.

You know, just in case you were tempted to think he was a morally decent human
being. I still can't believe how casually people talk about one of the
shameful human rights abuses in recent history as if torturing a person would
still be okay if worked.

~~~
positr0n
I mean, there can be a valid debate on the moral cost of torturing X people to
to (potentially) save Y lives with the information extracted.

But torturing someone is stupid and doesn't work, so we don't even need to
have that debate. I'd probably be in the same camp. I'm against torture
because it's stupid. I haven't bothered to think through the moral
implications because why bother?

~~~
edanm
Personally, whenever I find that I don't have to solve a moral dilemma (or any
dilemma) because it's clear-cut either way (one way has all upsides), I tend
to be nervous that I'm missing something. Humans are _really really good_ at
cognitive dissonance.

I'm not saying I know whether torture works or not, I'm just saying, it's
awfully convenient that most people harp on the "it doesn't work" idea, and
that means the burden of proof IMO should be _much_ higher to show it doesn't
work (assuming your default belief is that it does work, which is most
people's default prior).

~~~
addicted
Wait, so you think we should be torturing people by default, and that the
burden of proof should lie on the people who think we shouldn't be torturing
people to show it doesn't work?

You don't think that maybe the burden of proof should lie on people to prove
that torture does work before we even have a discussion about whether letting
go of basic human rights is worth it in certain instances?

~~~
edanm
I wasn't talking either way about the morality of torture (in that comment),
or whether we should be torturing anyone.

I was simply saying that I find the "common knowledge" that torture doesn't
work, to be unlikely. It just seems very convenient that things we find
morally wrong end up also being bad for other reasons, making it unnecessary
to deal with the morals. That sounds like motivated reasoning, not actual
truth seeking.

"You don't think that maybe the burden of proof should lie on people to prove
that torture does work before we even have a discussion about whether letting
go of basic human rights is worth it in certain instances?"

That's a complicated question, and to be honest I have no idea. I actually
think that practically speaking, no one should be routinely torturing anyone
else. I just don't think it's a moral (or practical) slam-dunk - I think there
_are_ situations where it is morally justified, and that it would probably
work.

~~~
dragonwriter
> I was simply saying that I find the "common knowledge" that torture doesn't
> work, to be unlikely

Torture works exceptionally well at getting people to say whatever they think
will satisfy the torturer in the short term. Which is actually why it's bad at
getting actionable intelligence, but very good at getting confessions.

> It just seems very convenient that things we find morally wrong end up also
> being bad for other reasons

It's not really “for other reasons”, the morally repugnant thing about torture
(the infliction of severe suffering) is _why_ it doesn't work to get
actionable intelligence.

> That sounds like motivated reasoning, not actual truth seeking

Entities for which torture would be acceptable even if morally repugnant
(including military and Intelligence agencies who practiced it in the belief
that it _was_ effective) are foremost among those that have studied it and
found it ineffective for gathering actionable ibtelkigence, compared to means
which do not involve torture.

> I think there are situations where it is morally justified, and that it
> would probably work.

You are free to provide evidence supporting your conclusions about it's
effectiveness; but without it you seem to just be providing what you'd like to
be true, not what you rationally and justifiably believe to be true. And,
conveniently, it seems to align with your moral preference...

------
theothermkn
If you look at a presidential election as a negotiation between the political
class and the electorate, or at the most recent one as an election that became
a negotiation or interrogation, then the Trump voters who went for him as a
“fuck you” to the system are better understood in this framework. So are the
Clinton voters who reportedly stayed home. They felt victimized by the system,
like their vote was a bargaining chip that the political class wanted to
manipulate them into casting, and not a token to use to communicate their
needs to their supposed representatives.

Clinton’s and her supporters’ hectoring about being the lesser of two evils
(voter-blaming, the Bernie Bro smear, and not-really-a-progressive who gets
things done come to mind) suddenly seem especially inept. The bad news is that
the parties seem to want to continue in their disdain for voters, which will
continue to be reciprocated. The good news is that even Bernie could come up
with a message that resonated enough to get as far as he did with as few
connections as he had. Someone else could do the same.

~~~
TheCowboy
Do we really need to turn this article into a hot take on the 2016 election?
This isn't useful and the responses amount to bickering over talking
points/political messaging and signaling.

Concocting "Us" Vs "the political class wanting to manipulate us"/"the
system"/"Clinton's hectoring"/"the parties and their disdain for voters"
narratives does not advance political discussion in any way.

It may not be easy or convenient, but people need to step up and start
participating in politics (at all levels, not just national) instead of
viewing it this way. Why don't we call out charismatic political figures for
casting politics this way? It advances individual politicians, with their own
flawed views, over democracy as a method of solving problems that everyone
must participate in.

~~~
dmix
The comment wasn't politically charged though, it was a neutral analogy and a
nuanced opinion about the election, not supporting one side. But the risk in
using politics in your analogies is that it triggers tribal instincts:

> If you want to make a point about science, or rationality, then my advice is
> to not choose a domain from contemporary politics if you can possibly avoid
> it. If your point is inherently about politics, then talk about Louis XVI
> during the French Revolution. Politics is an important domain to which we
> should individually apply our rationality—but it's a terrible domain in
> which to learn rationality, or discuss rationality, unless all the
> discussants are already rational.

[http://lesswrong.com/lw/gw/politics_is_the_mindkiller/](http://lesswrong.com/lw/gw/politics_is_the_mindkiller/)

It's makes it more likely replies will overlook the neutral nature of the
comment and petty protectiveness of party or ideology will kick in.

~~~
comex
I don’t think the comment was neutral at all. Especially:

> The bad news is that the parties seem to want to continue in their disdain
> for voters, which will continue to be reciprocated.

The view that both parties (the “political class” mentioned earlier in the
comment, or the “establishment”) disdain voters is popular among Bernie fans
and Trump fans, but not so much Clinton fans, given how much she was
(reasonably) equated with the establishment, despite her being full of policy
ideas meant to benefit the working class. The comment also implies that future
candidates like Bernie would be “good news” who could overcome the
elite/ordinary rift, presumably by blowing up the existing establishment as
Bernie meant to (and to some extent did).

 _And yet._ As a Clinton fan myself, as soon as I started reading the comment
I had a eureka moment. It makes a lot of sense to me to analogous the election
as an interrogation. But I‘d characterize the analogy differently - less
objective, more based in perception and emotion.

For example, take voters who were pre-inclined to empathize with Trump, for
any of a variety of reasons - economic anxiety, racism, a sense that
Washington doesn’t care (-> empathy for the outsider), the natural tendency to
empathize with the underdog, etc. Note that I said empathize, not just
support. I think most voters are drawn to candidates they can empathize and
identify with; by contrast, they’re very reluctant to support a candidate they
dislike even if they think the candidate’s policies would be better for them.
And once a voter is drawn to a candidate, being an “X supporter” starts to
become a part of their own identity - and the larger a part it becomes, the
more they invest their emotions and time in that identity, the more cognitive
dissonance is created by questioning their views (since it would invalidate
that investment), and the more biased and illogical the voter’s reasoning
becomes.

So whenever Clinton attacked or belittled Trump, proto-Trump supporters had a
choice:

\- Feel personally attacked, respond wjth anger, end up hating Clinton more.

...or…

\- Take the criticism in stride, separate the identities and realize they
don’t need to defend Trump on every point, end up cooling on him a little.

Different people will make different choices, but if your goal as Clinton is
to win them over, you really need to go out of your way to portray empathy for
them and sympathy for their previous attraction to Trump. You need to stop it
from being “us versus them”. Which is hard enough to start with; then consider
that if you want to energize people on the _other_ side of the political
spectrum, those who are near you and (especially) those who are even further
left, the best way is with harsh attacks, by making it as “us versus them” as
possible, to strengthen _their_ political identity. There are variations on
the approach but it’s always needed to some extent, and sadly, it’s probably a
better way to increase your vote total, since it’s easier to motivate someone
to (vote, maybe even campaign for you) who already supported you than to get
someone to change their mind.

But wait, you might say, Clinton didn’t just attack Trump himself. What about
the comment where she said half of Trump _supporters_ fit into a basket of
deplorables? Well, I think it was a blunder. But it, along with the many other
claims of Trump being x-ist, presents a similar choice for Trump supporters of
how to react. One option might be “sure there are lots of deplorables but I’m
in the unaffected 50%” - but that’s a fundamentally uncomfortable position,
for many reasons including: how can you be sure you’re unaffected if most of
the other supporters seem to be saying the same things you are? (FWIW, I’m not
saying there aren’t some people who really had zero sympathy for Trump’s
racist proposals but supported him anyway; but those are probably mostly
reluctant supporters who ended up voting more against Clinton than for Trump.
That’s a different case.)

More realistically, I think the choice is:

\- See no evil: decide that you’re not racist, your fellow supporters aren’t
racist, Trump’s not racist, and the whole thing is just “identity politics”
and “political correctness” run amok.

...or…

\- Look inward: realize that just about everyone has implicit biases, even if
they try to avoid it - biases based deeply in the environments they’ve lived
in and the experiences they’ve had. Confront the fact that you are imperfect
and will never truly be rid of them - not to mention the fact that as a Trump
supporter you probably started with more than average. Work towards self-
improvement.

(By the way, the right does not have a monopoly on implicit - or even explicit
- bias. But that’s a long story of its own.)

Anyway, both scenarios are similar to the choice of an interrogatee,
especially a terrorist:

\- View any poor treatment or belittlement during captivity as an extension of
the same evil you were fighting. See no evil on your side, and confirm your
belief that the other side really is just plain evil. Further solidify your
identify as a Member of the Resistance and act as ‘bravely’ and protectively
as possible (i.e. by refusing to divulge information).

...or...

\- Accept that the interrogator thinks they’re doing the right thing in
opposing you and has a reason for thinking that (e.g. from the example in the
article, “we want to prevent killings”). Separate your identity from the
resistance’s; accept that parts of the interrogator’s motivation may be valid,
that even if your cause is just, the resistance has caused a lot of pain to
people. End up cooling on your cause a little (if only due to the instinctual
desire to compromise when in a debate).

Clearly, the more the interrogator respects you, empathizes with you, and
avoids belittling you or your cause, the more you’re probably motivated to
compromise. And politics isn’t so different.

One important difference between an interrogation and politics: For an
interrogator to win, you don’t need to actually be turned to their side; you
only need to cool on your side enough to decide to act in self-interest rather
than in the cause’s interest. And only briefly, long enough to start talking:
once you’ve started talking, you probably won’t suddenly change your mind and
stop, partly due to diminishing returns of not talking, partly because that
would be embarrassing. With politics, self-interest is less of a factor and
the persuasion has to last until Election Day. Also, in an election, no human
witnesses your final choice of candidate: on one hand, that makes it easier to
change your mind without feeling embarrassed; on the other hand, it makes it
easier to change your mind _back_ after being persuaded, and to act selfishly
(which in this case is a bad thing) rather than in the interest of everyone.

There’s also a pride/showing off factor in interrogations, where the
interrogatee wants to talk/brag about what they did. I don’t see as much of a
parallel in politics, since there are fewer secret plans there, but... maybe
just having your would-be persuader praise the success of your old political
organization, and/or get you to recount that success to them.

Anyway, I’m running out of time to write this comment, so I’ll leave it at
that, even though I’d like to expand the analogy and maybe talk about the
primary contest. If there’s a takeaway, though, it’s to reinforce: in
elections, perceptions, emotion, and _narrative_ are supreme. Compared to
that, objective truth matters very little.

~~~
posixplz
There are so many problems with this response. Mostly related to your
inexplicable efforts to ascribe meaning that was not conveyed in the OP
comment. I won't go through your entire wall of text, because it is an
emotional response to a salient and accurate neutral analysis. But I do want
to point out that your post seems to place an inordinate amount of trust in
our current set of elected officials. For example, your assertion that
candidates do not hide behind secret plans. What a silly, and frankly
incorrect, assertion. Many of our current president's policies, foreign and
domestic, were opaque and largely summarized by his now-infamous
regurgitation, "you'll find out - after I'm elected."

~~~
comex
Regarding secret plans, I apologize for writing unclearly. I did not mean to
imply that _candidates_ lack secret plans, but that _voters_ lack them. I was
pointing out that in a criminal interrogation, the interrogatee (if guilty)
likely made secret plans for the crime that they’re now being interrogated
about, and may have some primal urge to show off by explaining how good those
plans were. However, there’s no directly equivalent motivation for a voter to
switch to a different faction, since the voter likely doesn’t have any secrets
to show off to the new group. There may be exceptions.

(There are also other motivations to reveal one’s secrets in an interrogation
besides showing off, and perhaps I should have been more general. In the first
example in the article, for instance, it seems less about showing off and more
about finding a willing recipient for Diola’s political diatribe - premised on
explaining _why_ he did it, but apparently including enough of _what_ he did
and planned to satisfy the interrogator. But anyway.)

Regarding othermkn’s comment, I’m not sure what meaning you think I
incorrectly read into it. The first paragraph is pretty neutral, as it talks
only about what voters perceive - and it’s inarguable that many voters in 2016
felt ignored by the ‘political class’ or elites. However, the second paragraph
states outright that “the parties seem to want to continue in their disdain
for voters”, which implies that the parties objectively did disdain voters,
something I question (at least when it comes to the Democratic Party). I
further stated:

> The comment also implies that future candidates like Bernie would be “good
> news” who could overcome the elite/ordinary rift

The comment makes explicit that continued disdain is “bad news”, implying that
overcoming it would be good. It technically doesn’t state outright that
Bernie’s message itself was “good news”, as opposed to the fact that his
candidacy showed that outsiders can get “as far as he did”. But I thought it
could be reasonably inferred, given the resonance between the rest of the
comment and the message of Bernie and many of his fans.

I went on to be _slightly_ more speculative:

> presumably by blowing up the existing establishment as Bernie meant to (and
> to some extent did).

But I don’t think it’s a reach to say that if (a) you think the elites disdain
voters and (b) you praise outsider candidacies, then your goal is indeed to
get the elites out of power (not just change their minds or something).

------
twoquestions
Horrifyingly enough, extracting the truth isn't always the point of these
interrogations. In conversations with my friends about this (when I can hold
my composure well enough), the main objective of "enhanced interrogation" is
to terrify the target population into compliance, or failing that extract
bloody satisfaction on the victim.

Not like this is without precedent, Vlad the Impaler is named for his
negotiation tactics, and the Roman Empire would on occasion react to a
lawbreaker by murdering the city, crucifying the entire population. Modern
Westerners (to our credit) don't have the stomach for such shocking brutality
anymore, but I don't believe this vicious urge has completely gone away.

~~~
sesqu
Or you know, throwing people into prison for manslaughter or drug possession.
The thing is, that only works in fairly narrow circumstances, but is a common
strategy regardless.

------
e12e
> “The last time the US government invested in studying interrogation was
> 1956,” Steven Kleinman, who works with the HIG, told me. “Great leaps
> forward in behaviour science have just passed us by,” he said. “Imagine
> using 1956 technology for signals intelligence!”

Seems odd the article doesn't mention the nazi interrogator Hanns Scharff[h],
who was invited to talk in the US after ww2, at all - as the scientist seem to
be rediscovering his approach.

Although doing some actual _research_ to document what works is good,
obviously....

[h]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanns_Scharff](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanns_Scharff)

------
tedmc
Before you debate torture, consider what has been done in your name already.
Torture is wrong. We should not do it. If you wouldn't want it done to an
innocent person, because eventually our faulty systems _will_ scoop up an
innocent.

"In November 2002, a detainee who had been held partially nude and chained to
the floor died, apparently from hypothermia."

[https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-most-gruesome-moments-
in-t...](https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-most-gruesome-moments-in-the-cia-
torture-report)

~~~
SilasX
I don't want innocent people to be imprisoned. Should I oppose all
imprisonment, since it will eventually happen?

(I think a better standard for categorically ruling out a
tactic/punishment/procedure is "would I want this on my worst enemy/Adolf
Hitler?")

~~~
michaelmrose
Why would you think a good standard would be a situation which would be the
hardest imaginable for you to make a clear headed rational choice. The
situation where you would be most tempted to choose petty emotions over real
justice.

This is about the worst standard I can imagine.

~~~
SilasX
The standard wasn't "if I would want to do this to Hitler, let's do this in
the general case".

The standard was "If I wouldn't be willing to use it, even against Hitler, it
should be categorically disallowed."[1]

That is, if you consider it so brutal that you'd feel queasy about using it
_even against someone really bad_ , i.e. a case where you would _most_ favor
casting morals aside, then you know it's beyond the pale.

It may not make sense if you've never experienced something so bad that you
said, "wow, I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy", but I'm sure at least
some fraction of the population has had that thought.

[1] If necessary, replace "categorically disallowed" with "off the table".

~~~
michaelmrose
Thanks for the clarification but its still a bad standard. The majority
seemingly don't mind doing terrible things to people just because their skins
the wrong color let alone their worst enemy. It only seems like a decent
standard to you because you are relatively a better person.

------
mistermann
_The interviewer, who has remained heroically calm in the face of Diola’s
verbal barrage, is not able to move the encounter out of stalemate, and
eventually his bosses replace him. When the new interviewer takes a seat,
Diola repeats his promise to talk “openly and honestly” to the right person,
and resumes his inquisitorial stance. “Why are you asking me these questions?”
he says. “Think carefully about your reasons.”_

 _The new interviewer does not answer directly, but something about his
opening speech triggers a change in Diola’s demeanour. “On the day we arrested
you,” he began, “I believe that you had the intention of killing a British
soldier or police officer. I don’t know the details of what happened, why you
may have felt it needed to happen, or what you wanted to achieve by doing
this. Only you know these things Diola. If you are willing, you’ll tell me,
and if you’re not, you won’t. I can’t force you to tell me – I don’t want to
force you. I’d like you to help me understand. Would you tell me about what
happened?” The interviewer opens up his notebook, and shows Diola the empty
pages. “You see? I don’t even have a list of questions.”_

 _“That is beautiful,” Diola says. “Because you have treated me with
consideration and respect, yes I will tell you now. But only to help you
understand what is really happening in this country.”_

This reinforces my belief that there is a sincere, rational (whether you agree
or not) reasoned motivation for terrorist attacks, at least in some cases. We
in the West just aren't interested in listening to those who we don't agree
with.

~~~
mc32
Couldn't the same be said for every mass murderer? Columbine to Vegas. They
all have some grievance, real or made up, I don't think understanding those
grievances get us closer to understanding them on order to head of such
reactions.

Columbine, tons of kids get bullied, very few decide to take maximum revenge.

~~~
mistermann
Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but based on those words I got a distinct
impression that this person was fairly intelligent and well spoken, which
cannot be said about all mass murderers.

~~~
mc32
Not all but some are. Ted Kaczynski, while not a mass murderer, had the
potential to be if his devices had been more powerful, or everyone's favorite
mass murderer, the Che.

They're not usually dumb.

~~~
icebraining
Che is accused of killing dozens. The guy he helped remove from power - and
which was backed by the US - killed _thousands_. Maybe he actually had a
point?

------
andrewl
The Atlantic had a good article on this back in 2003:

 _The Dark Art of Interrogation_

[https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2003/10/the-
dar...](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2003/10/the-dark-art-of-
interrogation/302791/)

------
AlexCoventry
OK... How did they measure "rapport"?

 _The most important relationship he measured was between “yield” –
information elicited from the suspect – and “rapport” – the quality of the
relationship between interviewer and interviewee. For the first time, a
secure, empirical basis was established for what had, until then, been
something between a hypothesis and an insider secret: rapport is the closest
thing interrogators have to a truth serum._

 _Above all, rapport, in the sense used by the Alisons, describes an authentic
human connection. “You’ve got to mean it,” is one of Laurence’s refrains._

------
rlpb
"The interviewer, who has remained heroically calm in the face of Diola’s
verbal barrage, is not able to move the encounter out of stalemate, and
eventually his bosses replace him."

For all we know, the first interviewer was key in setting up Diola's mood such
that the second interviewer would be a relief to him, leading to him opening
up.

~~~
neves
The very old tatic of "good cop"/"bad cop"

------
pavel_lishin
> _The suspect, who had a criminal history, had posted messages on social
> media in support of violent jihad. In a search of his residence, the police
> had found a bag containing a hammer, a kitchen knife and a map with the
> location of a nearby army barracks._

I'll be honest, I kind of wish the police hadn't stopped him, because I would
love to read a report of how this Mister Bean plan would have worked out for
him.

~~~
elorant
You're assuming that he intended to invade the camp. But all he could do was
to wait a safe distant outside and just stab an unsuspected soldier who was
off duty. It's not like every person serving in the army is a special forces
officer who's in alarm 24/7.

~~~
KGIII
It's also important to note that, unlike the movies, most bases don't actually
have a lot of people walking around armed. Combat gear is stowed and firearms
are in the armory under lock and key. Most jobs don't actually require
carrying a weapon while on duty. Even those that do need some sort of weapon
don't require such at all times.

The only time I regularly carried a weapon was when I was a transportation
officer/chaser. I carried a .45 and a 12ga and only when I was performing
duties that required such, namely while actively participating in the transfer
of detainees.

Keep in mind that my first four years was in the infantry and included combat.
I probably carried a weapon a smaller percentage of the time with that MOS
than I did while working at the brig.

------
MaxBarraclough
What a hopelessly uninformative title. It's not even taken from the article,
which has a far better title.

All scientists are in the business of extracting truth, no?

------
Bromskloss
Well, what was Diola's reasons? I would have loved to be his interrogator! I
would have let it take days of him explaining his views to me, if that's what
it would have taken. I want to know!

------
memracom
I have noticed a change in the interview techniques portrayed in some police
shows. Gibb's team in NCIS is one of those but the British TV series Scott and
Bailey really comes closest to what is discussed in this Guardian article.
Sometimes Soren in Law and Order comes close as well.

Any police officer who wants to try this could get started by learning some
basic psychology and watching a few episodes of these TV series. And also, you
need to fix your own psychological issues because these techniques work best
when you are not choked up with hate or other emotions. They require empathy
for the criminal and to do that, you need to have firm control of your psyche
otherwise it will break you to try it.

I am reminded of one of those Sales empowerment books of the 60s and 70s
written by a luxury car salesman. He said that you could not be successful
unless you genuinely liked your customer, and only then could you help him to
spend his money on what you are selling. Part of the book was exercises on how
to turn on that "genuine like" within your own psyche.

Let's face it, it takes years of daily practice to become a skilled musician,
or a skilled skateboarder or a skilled parcour athlete or... Humans can do
amazing things if only they apply themselves with a few years of daily
practice. Stage magic is even more so because those folks never stop
practicing the most impossible actions.

------
21893120975
Actually good article, especially with the disgusting reports about the
torturer pseudoscientists that the CIA contracted for their walling and
sensory deprecation torture techniques

------
mordae
The truly sad thing is that all these interviews actually go to waste. Their
only point is to prove the interviewee guilty, try and then punish them.

I imagine that they have something to tell, time to time, about the reasons
why they did what they did and comment on the state of the society. And I
don't believe that we gather the findings and then communicate them back to
the policy makers so that we are actually able to heal the society.

~~~
ejk314
You mean they might be committing acts of violence in the pursuit of political
aims? You mean 'terrorism'? Should we really validate terrorism as a means of
political protest?

I mean, there is an argument to be made there. If people are lashing out
violently, they've probably run out of non-violent options and that's
something that should be addressed. But I think it sets a horrible precedent
to allow violence to shape political discussion.

~~~
gasbag
Violence always shapes political discussion. When someone commits a terrorist
act, there must always be a decision made on how to respond to it.

Understanding what drives a terrorist does not necessarily negate any
punishment for the act of terror. It does give you the opportunity to decide
whether the grievance that led them to act is one that you agree is
legitimate, or if not, perhaps it is one that you want to address anyway in
the interest of lowering the risk of other terrorist acts. All of this can be
done without excusing in any way the act itself.

------
kelvin0
Oddly enough, while reading this I had a thought about how interrogations are
like poking at non newtonian fluids.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-
Newtonian_fluid](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-Newtonian_fluid)

If you push too hard, too fast the particles resist the most. Pushing slowly
and gently through yields likes hot butter.

------
ilitirit
To me - and this is completely anecdotal - is that there usually seems to be 3
criteria that strangers look for before they open up. They are somewhat
overlapping, at least in the way that you can use these them to your
advantage: Empathy; being impressionable; appearing weak/ignorant in one or
more aspects relating to the topic.

So, you don't ask what they did or why they did it. You ask about topics that
they may have led them to doing something that they did. Better still, don't
ask. Lead the conversation in a way that will make the question will seem more
natural.

Then you respond with something like:

"Wow! How on Earth did you handle that? (Impressionable) If that were me
(Empathy) I would have [something outlandish]!!! (Weakness/Ignorance)". So now
you seem relateable, and somewhat flawed, even moreso than they themselves.
Often, they will try to "teach" you about why your reaction is bad, and what a
better reaction would be - often with a "real life" scenario as an example.

"Aaah! That's pretty smart! (Impressionable) But I'm not sure I'd be able to
handle it as well as that (Weakness)"

From here they feel they are in a position of power. Especially if you seem
more impressed by some more arbitrary aspect, than concerned about the more
obvious implications (Weakness/Ignorance). They often open up more about other
things they've done, which may or not be related to the original question. But
you're still gaining their trust. Eventually you subtly stopped being
impressed by what they are saying. And this is just by body language, not
words. Your eyes don't light up when they are "expected" to (Impressionable).
You don't smile wryly before they end their sentences as if to say you know
you know where it's heading (Empathy).

The other person starts thinking:

"Why is he/she impressed any more? Is it because they're really that ignorant?
Or maybe what I'm saying isn't really that impressive to them? Perhaps I
should fill in more details, and maybe I'll tell about some other thing I did"

Now I'm not saying this will work interviewing terrorists/criminals. But this
has been my own experience for as long as I can remember. People tend to tell
me their darkest secrets (even without me asking) within about 30 minutes of
meeting me for the first time, especially when alcohol is involved. I rarely
ask directly. People just end up telling me things.

------
13of40
There's no mention in the article of how likely or unlikely this technique is
to produce false confessions when innocent people are interviewed. People do
like to talk, and if you make them relaxed an innocent person might be more
apt to say something stupid.

~~~
0xfeba
> and if you make them relaxed an innocent person might be more apt to say
> something stupid.

Huh? That's the exact opposite of what the article was conveying. Trying to
intimidate or force people to talk gets them to just say whatever to make the
intimidation stop.

------
pacaro
The parallels with interviewing engineers are pretty clear to me, there is so
much more information exchanged when interviewer and candidate work together
than when the interviewer is confrontational and has a “prove that you’re good
enough” approach.

------
scardine
My problem with torture is the same I have with death penalty: how would you
live with yourself if you later find you got an innocent by mistake?

I don't think you can just apologize and say you had the best of intentions.

------
woodandsteel
I was very glad to read that has finally been scientifically proven that a
non-coercive style of interviewing that focuses on establishing rapport works
better than a coercive style.

------
petra
It's definetly interesting, but if this was the secret behind something as
important, would it be published ? Why ? '

------
bitL
So a good cop. After this article was published I am sure this is going to
work well in the future...

------
whack
I've heard many times that "torture doesn't work" but I never understood how
or why. In my naive mind, if someone pulls out my fingernail and threatens to
pull out more if I don't talk, I doubt I would have the courage or resilience
to stay silent and take the torture.

~~~
55555
Exactly! If someone pulls off my fingernails one by one, and I know the answer
to the question they are asking, I will absolutely divulge the answer...
Torture obviously works. It just also creates a lot of false information from
people who don't know the answer and will say anything to make the torture
stop. But that's much more nuanced and quite different from the refrain we
constantly hear that "torture doesn't work."

~~~
0xfeba
> Torture obviously works. It just also creates a lot of false information
> from people who don't know the answer and will say anything to make the
> torture stop. But that's much more nuanced and quite different from the
> refrain we constantly hear that "torture doesn't work."

How do you determine, ahead of time, when torture will work and when it will
produced false information?

------
eternalban
Torture is a form of terror and generally used for its side effect on a target
population. Terror as a form of psychological deterrent.

Guardian kindly reframes it as a quest for "truth" complete with cartoon plot
of knife and map in kitchen.

"Extracting truth" ?

[http://images.gawker.com/18k1yee5hy13mjpg/c_scale,fl_progres...](http://images.gawker.com/18k1yee5hy13mjpg/c_scale,fl_progressive,q_80,w_800.jpg)

~~~
scrumper
The article dismisses torture almost immediately, and talks extensively about
how being curious and open produces vastly better results than any other style
of interrogation.

