
We should be talking about torture in VR - crygin
https://versions.killscreen.com/we-should-be-talking-about-torture-in-vr/
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kevinh
I'm not sure how torture in VR would be any worse than torture in real life.
The focus should be on outlawing torture, not slowing down unrelated
technology because it could possibly be used for torture.

Are we going to ban the drill? The hammer? Towels? Those can all be used for
torture, but that's not the use case for 99.999% of all uses.

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kbenson
I think it's less about VR torture as a replacement for torture in general,
and more about VR torture as a more effective replacement for current
_psychological_ torture. There's nothing preventing them from continuing with
physical torture to in addition, or as a supplement to VR torture.

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krapp
Unless we're talking about some sort of implanted brain-machine interface that
directly alters human perception I don't see VR being even an effective
replacement for psychological torture.

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CM30
Yeah, torture in Virtual Reality is definitely something that could become
scary in the future. I mean, there's already talk of using it to give someone
the experience of being in prison for decades while only days have actually
passed.

Now imagine if you could design a prison that mimicked the detainee's worst
nightmares. You've probably seen stuff like A Nightmare on Elm Street or the
Scarecrow from Batman, right? That could potentially become an actual thing if
VR gets really advanced and its used for 'punishment' purposes. It might even
be usable for actual brainwashing, if you design the environment so it
deliberately destroys each and every one of a subject's political opinions or
religious beliefs.

On the bright side, virtual torture could make for some pretty cool horror
games in the future. There have already been tons of stories and creepypastas
about horrifying games like this on the deep web.

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argonaut
1\. Can't you just close your eyes?

2\. The caption for the Guantanamo Bay picture is not accurate. The detainees
are kneeling waiting to be processed. (the picture was taken in the first few
days Guantanamo opened as a detainee prison):
[http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/03/16/gitmo-o...](http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/03/16/gitmo-
outdated-images/24874103/). Certainly bad treatment, but hardly sensory
deprivation.

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SCHiM
1\. They can just sew your eyelids to your forehead. It probably wouldn't
leave much scarring, your muscles are not strong enough to warrant the use of
very thick wires...

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argonaut
Yes, but at that point they should just physically torture you, since they're
already damaging you physically.

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kbenson
Some things just stick with you, and they come back to mind later when you
read something, and the combination is either amazing, or amazingly terrible
to consider.

 _It was bigger than most of the cells he had been in. But he hardly noticed
his surroundings. All he noticed was that there were two small tables straight
in front of him, each covered with green baize. One was only a metre or two
from him, the other was further away, near the door. He was strapped upright
in a chair, so tightly that he could move nothing, not even his head. A sort
of pad gripped his head from behind, forcing him to look straight in front of
him.

For a moment he was alone, then the door opened and O'Brien came in.

'You asked me once,' said O'Brien, 'what was in Room 101. I told you that you
knew the answer already. Everyone knows it. The thing that is in Room 101 is
the worst thing in the world.'

The door opened again. A guard came in, carrying something made of wire, a box
or basket of some kind. He set it down on the further table. Because of the
position in which O'Brien was standing. Winston could not see what the thing
was.

'The worst thing in the world,' said O'Brien, 'varies from individual to
individual. It may be burial alive, or death by fire, or by drowning, or by
impalement, or fifty other deaths. There are cases where it is some quite
trivial thing, not even fatal.'

He had moved a little to one side, so that Winston had a better view of the
thing on the table. It was an oblong wire cage with a handle on top for
carrying it by. Fixed to the front of it was something that looked like a
fencing mask, with the concave side outwards. Although it was three or four
metres away from him, he could see that the cage was divided lengthways into
two compartments, and that there was some kind of creature in each. They were
rats.

'In your case,' said O'Brien, 'the worst thing in the world happens to be
rats.'

A sort of premonitory tremor, a fear of he was not certain what, had passed
through Winston as soon as he caught his first glimpse of the cage. But at
this moment the meaning of the mask-like attachment in front of it suddenly
sank into him. His bowels seemed to turn to water._

\- George Orwell, _1984_

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jsnk
Not exactly the same topic, but I don't know how I would feel about violence
in VR. I don't ever cared about violence in video games, music and movies and
such. I always thought that people arguing that violence in these games should
be censored were just puritans. But with sufficiently advanced VR, I believe
that you can really feel like what it would be like to someone who is
extremely violent. And I wonder if this can desensitize someone to the point
where their propensity to be violent is significantly increased due to VR
usage. We'll need to take ethics in VR more seriously as VR becomes more
mainstream and more powerful.

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sjsjbsnbd
Same as it always was, isn't it?

You get old, the world changes, and you just can't hack it, so you turn to
controlling others through violence and laws.

"Back in my day sonny..."

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hacker_9
Virtual Reality really isn't this immersive yet to be able to used for
psychological torture, in fact the idea is almost laughable. Anyone that has
used a VR headset knows that you don't actually think you are in the game,
though the closeness of the screen and 360 degree freedom does definitely make
it more real than looking at a TV 6 feet away, it is a longshot from actual
reality. Additionally whats to stop the viewer from closing their eyes? Also,
the torture techniques they mention in the article are far worse than wearing
a VR headset...

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kbenson
Sometimes the rational mind takes a back seat to your irrational fears. How
hard is it to cycle through thousands of the most common fears a few seconds
for each, while tracking vitals, and note which ones give an elevated
response? Tell the claustrophobe "it's okay, right past that door it's wide
open!" Tell the arachnophobe "it's okay, it's not a poisonous spider!" Tell
the father "Don't fret, those images of your daughter weren't real. What do
you think we are, monsters?"

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hacker_9
All of this assumes I somehow don't know I have a headset on, feeding me fake
imagery. It only takes the action of the spider to jump at me but me not to
feel anything to remind me that I'm actually in an empty room by myself. All 3
examples would be far more effective if they took place in reality though, and
your last example would give the same response headset or not.

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kbenson
> It only takes the action of the spider to jump at me but me not to feel
> anything to remind me that I'm actually in an empty room by myself.

I suspect you don't have a phobia like this, and have not dealt with people
who do when they are affected by it.

> your last example would give the same response headset or not.

Meaning you view it as effective or ineffective? I used to think things like
that had no effect on me. Absolutely none. Then I had children. Now I cry when
a movie hints at a child losing a parent or parent losing a child. It's an
involuntary reaction to the empathy I have for the situation. I can't control
it at all, and this is in fictional settings with fictional characters.

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andrewfromx
that's crazy. i knew about the adult industry use of VR but this part never
occured to me.

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victorhugo31337
Never occurred to me as well--VR could definitely be used for torture, it
would be very cruel indeed.

