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Speaker 1: You see it all the time in film and fiction.

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Speaker 1: There is a ticking clock and a hard nosed law

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Speaker 1: enforcement investigator has to bend the rules, break the lines,

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Speaker 1: perhaps engage in torture for the greater good. That's what

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Speaker 1: Tonight's classic episode is about.

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Speaker 2: That's what the series twenty four is all about.

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Speaker 1: It really is, Matt, It really is. The question though,

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Speaker 1: is in real life does torture actually work? Do all

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Speaker 1: these arguments we hear or heard about places like Guantanamo

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Speaker 1: Bay do they bear results?

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Speaker 3: But hey, listen to the episode. Isn't torture at all.

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Speaker 3: It's quite pleasant. So let's jump right in.

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Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is

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Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or

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Speaker 1: learn the stuff they don't want you to know.

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Speaker 2: H Hello, welcome back to the show.

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Speaker 3: My name is Matt, my name is Noel the Iron

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Speaker 3: Maiden Brown.

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Speaker 1: They called me Ben. We are joined with our returning

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Speaker 1: super producer Paul Decant and most importantly, you are here.

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Speaker 1: You are you that makes this stuff they don't want

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Speaker 1: you to know. By the self described moniker, one of

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Speaker 1: our co hosts just added you you may sense a

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Speaker 1: bit of foreshadowing in today's episode. Today's episode is a

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Speaker 1: little dark, but let's get into it with an anecdote.

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Speaker 3: I in the time, I get adequate fool and adequate

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Speaker 3: clothing and medical care when I require.

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Speaker 2: Voice you just heard was Admiral Jeremiah Denton of the

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Speaker 2: United States Navy. On July eighteenth, nineteen sixty five, his

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Speaker 2: US Navy jet was shot down while leading an air

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Speaker 2: attack over North Vietnam. He was captured, and he remained

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Speaker 2: in the country as a prisoner of war until nineteen

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Speaker 2: seventy three. It's quite a long time now after Like

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Speaker 2: during that first full year that he was a prisoner

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Speaker 2: of war, he was interviewed for this propaganda piece essentially

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Speaker 2: from the North viet Vietnamese He was filmed being interviewed

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Speaker 2: by a member of the Japanese press, and during this

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Speaker 2: interview he states several things that you heard. He's getting

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Speaker 2: adequate food and clothing and medical care, and also that

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Speaker 2: he supports the United States government and all of its actions.

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Speaker 2: And that's probably not something that his captors wanted him

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Speaker 2: to say, if it truly was a propaganda piece, which

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Speaker 2: it appears to be. But here's the thing. What you

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Speaker 2: can't see because you're not watching the film, is that

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Speaker 2: he is blinking all the while that he's talking, and

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Speaker 2: what he is spelling out is actually Morse code, and

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Speaker 2: he's spelling out the word torture. And we actually have

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Speaker 2: a quick clip here of what that would sound like.

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Speaker 1: And this stuck out to the analyst on Uncle Sam's

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Speaker 1: side because they knew that Denton did not have some

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Speaker 1: sort of medical condition that would cause him to blink radically.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely, And when the US Naval Intelligence got ahold of this,

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Speaker 2: this was the first time they had had any kind

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Speaker 2: of communication from one of these prison camps that was

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Speaker 2: existing in North Vietnam that actually stated in any way

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Speaker 2: that they were being tortured, that the American POWs were

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Speaker 2: being tortured.

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Speaker 3: And he's doing this repeatedly in different interviews or is

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Speaker 3: this all in one sit down?

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Speaker 2: This is one sit down, but he is just continually

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Speaker 2: spelling the word torture.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And these propaganda videos were relativetively common in this age

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Speaker 1: from different governments, where you would have someone say, yes,

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Speaker 1: we are being treated well, we are being taken care of,

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Speaker 1: when multiple outside sources suspected that this was not the case.

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Speaker 1: Today's episode is diving into dark and grisly territory, and

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Speaker 1: we would like all of you friends, neighbors, conspiracy realists,

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Speaker 1: and skeptics alike to know upfront that this show is

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Speaker 1: going to contain graphic descriptions of horrific physical and mental

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Speaker 1: abuse you see. Today we are exploring the past, the present,

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Speaker 1: and the future of torture, given the ubiquitous nature of

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Speaker 1: torture throughout human history, even before recorded human history, because

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Speaker 1: we were as a species torturing each other before we

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Speaker 1: were writing things down. We won't be delving into too

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Speaker 1: many specific cases, but we will inevitably run into several

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Speaker 1: strange examples of this practice. So here are the facts.

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Speaker 1: First things first, what's the operative definition of torture?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, torture is the deliberate infliction of physical and or

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Speaker 3: I mean, I guess it could be one of the

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Speaker 3: other psychological pain with the purpose of obtaining information or

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Speaker 3: extorting a confession from the victim and thus enabling a conviction.

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Speaker 3: It can also be the penalty itself, and I get that.

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Speaker 3: That's like a good, cut and dry definition of it.

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Speaker 3: Don't Some people torture just for the sheer thrill of

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Speaker 3: doing it, with no end game in mind.

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Speaker 2: Well, a lot of this comes from the un outlining

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Speaker 2: exactly what torture is in nineteen eighty four, I believe.

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Speaker 1: Right right, the acronym uncat, which might be the only

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Speaker 1: funny thing about this episode which we will dive into.

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Speaker 1: And that's a great point because this sounds on the

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Speaker 1: surface like a pretty solid definition, but of course not

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Speaker 1: everyone agrees with it, because there is torture simply for

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Speaker 1: sadistic purposes, typically not from a state level actor. It

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Speaker 1: would be someone who wants to torture someone, and maybe

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Speaker 1: they're doing it while employed by the state, but they're

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Speaker 1: getting their own dark giggles in the process.

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Speaker 2: And then what about the difference between state sponsored torture

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Speaker 2: and enhanced interrogation? Right right?

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Speaker 1: Is this a brand name difference is there? Is it

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Speaker 1: a matter of degree, or are they fundamentally different things.

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Speaker 1: Experts like gr Scott, who in the late nineteenth century

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Speaker 1: wrote a book about torture, says that it's devilishly easy

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Speaker 1: to make a definition of torture that's either too narrow

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Speaker 1: only a specific kind of thing can be considered torture,

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Speaker 1: or it's too wide in scope, you know, like I

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Speaker 1: was tortured because I had to listen to someone tell

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Speaker 1: me yet again the plot of Looper, that's not quite torture.

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Speaker 3: I mean, maybe it is.

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Speaker 1: If they just do it forever for a year. But

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Speaker 1: for today's purposes, we're going to go with the definition

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Speaker 1: that Nol just mentioned earlier. The systematic use of torture

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Speaker 1: in criminal procedures or criminal proceedings dates back to some

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Speaker 1: of our earliest civilizations. And it's creepy when you think

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Speaker 1: about it. Scenes depicting torture can be found on different monuments, right.

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, in everywhere, in these ancient areas from Mesopotamia, Egypt,

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Speaker 2: all over.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And the first records of a legal application of torture

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Speaker 1: to prove something, to prove guilt or innocence, we're found

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Speaker 1: in the Sumerian Code of ur Nimu. It's around the

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Speaker 1: twenty first century BCE, and then the Babylonian Code of

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Speaker 1: Hamarabi in the eighteenth century BCE again, and the procedure

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Speaker 1: describe the divine judgment of the water ordeal, which is

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Speaker 1: what it's torture. As this practice became increasingly codified because

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Speaker 1: it was already common, right, and different raiding parties from

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Speaker 1: tribes and so on. As it became part of the

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Speaker 1: rule of law. The administration of torture took different directions

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Speaker 1: depending on the civilization. So ancient Greeks and Romans used

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Speaker 1: it for interrogation. And this is really interesting because this

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Speaker 1: is something that haunts us. I would argue in the

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Speaker 1: current age. Until the second century AD, torture was only

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Speaker 1: supposed to be used on slaves, with some notable exceptions.

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Speaker 1: In fact, a slave's testimony in any sort of legal

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Speaker 1: proceeding was only admissible if they had been tortured first.

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Speaker 3: That's insane.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the assumption, is that you couldn't trust slaves

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Speaker 1: to reveal the truth of their own accord.

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Speaker 3: That has messed up up on so many levels.

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Speaker 1: It is because can you imagine being a slave and saying, yes,

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Speaker 1: I know, I saw you, know, Sabat or whatever take

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Speaker 1: the water jug And I'm like, look, we believe you,

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Speaker 1: but I unfortunately, I am going to have to break

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Speaker 1: like one of your hands.

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Speaker 2: Well, and then are you sure you saw him take it?

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Speaker 2: Are you sure? And continue breaking until the person says no.

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Speaker 3: Well, and I'm sure we're gonna get into this later.

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Speaker 3: But it's like now, we know that torture typically renders

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Speaker 3: accounts unreliable, right because you're going to say whatever it

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Speaker 3: takes to make them stop.

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Speaker 2: Oh, we're going to get into that on exactly how

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Speaker 2: reliable or not torture techniques are.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean this idea, though, this fundamental assumption

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Speaker 1: about the efficacy of torture is like a concept that

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Speaker 1: haunts humanity like a ghost, and the consequences of this

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Speaker 1: philosophy remain with us day and have been here for millennia.

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Speaker 1: In some areas of the world, acts of torture were

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Speaker 1: grouped into different categories. You would have something like first, second,

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Speaker 1: or third degree, and they were they were rated in

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Speaker 1: terms of pain, and unlike the modern way that degrees

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Speaker 1: are interpreted in the legal system of the US today,

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Speaker 1: like first degree murder is worse than second degree murder. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: just flip that, Just flip it, flip it. So first

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Speaker 1: degree torture in this kind of system would be something

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Speaker 1: that causes pain but does not permanently mutilate the body,

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Speaker 1: such as whipping or the many variations thereof, or just

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Speaker 1: you know, beating the ever loving snot out of someone.

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Speaker 1: One variation of whipping would be something called bastinado or

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Speaker 1: phallic of foot whipping. So it sounds silly at first

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Speaker 1: when when you're thinking and you're just slapping someone's feet. No,

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Speaker 1: if you were rip to shreds and they needed these

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Speaker 1: to walk. So that's the first degree.

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Speaker 2: And the second degree ups the ante quite a bit,

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Speaker 2: I would say, And this is where you'll find things

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Speaker 2: like vices or racks, things that either crush or you know,

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Speaker 2: like stretch to the point of not killing but pretty

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Speaker 2: much mutilating someone. These are like screw presses, yeah, where

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Speaker 2: where your thumbs would be crushed, or toes or really

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Speaker 2: any knees, feet, teeth, any kind of way. Basically, that's

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Speaker 2: where you get to second degree, where you're not going

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Speaker 2: to look and function the same after you've been tortured.

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Speaker 1: And you may well die, but they're not purposely they're not.

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Speaker 3: And that's like when where they would put you on

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Speaker 3: the rack and like stretch you to the point where

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Speaker 3: your bones would break, and things like that.

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Speaker 1: Right as a second or what yeah, or what would

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Speaker 1: be called maybe a restraint position like the so called

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Speaker 1: Palestinian hanging there. But these both well horrific pale in

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Speaker 1: comparison to the third degree.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, the third degree is where it really starts to

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Speaker 3: make your skin crawl. This is the kind of torture

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Speaker 3: that was the most insidious and dangerous of all, utterly

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Speaker 3: nightmare fuel, the kind of stuff that you hear in

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Speaker 3: fiction that you're you would almost question who would come

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Speaker 3: up with this idea. It's all very creative stuff too,

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Speaker 3: So we're talking spikes and blades and boiling oil and

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Speaker 3: fire and things with names of that alone will just

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Speaker 3: send shivers up your spine, like the serrated iron tongue.

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Speaker 1: Shredder not an ironic name.

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Speaker 3: Oh, the hot copper basin for abascination.

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Speaker 1: That's the word of the day, destroying someone's eyesight, that's right.

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Speaker 3: And oh and the stocks that forcably held the victim's

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Speaker 3: feet over red hot coals and then yeah, until the

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Speaker 3: skin and the foot muscles were burnt black and the

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Speaker 3: bones completely turned to powder.

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Speaker 1: Wow, the feet were the skin of the few were

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Speaker 1: also coated and lard beforehand, which is an extra gruesome detail.

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Speaker 1: And what we just described on that third degree, it's

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Speaker 1: very clear that, especially before the advent of modern medicine,

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Speaker 1: someone's chances of surviving any of those was remarkably slim,

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Speaker 1: just the infection. Can you imagine the infection, the bleeding

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Speaker 1: out from these various wounds.

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Speaker 3: And it's one of those things too, where unless they

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Speaker 3: needed to keep you alive because they really wanted to

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Speaker 3: continue to extract information from you, it's not like they

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Speaker 3: were going to give you any kind of medical attention

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Speaker 3: right away unless it was, you know, worth their while

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Speaker 3: to do so.

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Speaker 1: Right they might have someone pray for you, but that

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Speaker 1: person might be praying while they're doing that thing.

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Speaker 2: The worst thing is that it's not for me. The

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Speaker 2: worst thing is that it's not just for interrogation purposes.

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Speaker 2: Sometimes the whole reason that a human being would have

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Speaker 2: to go through this is so that whatever group is

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Speaker 2: doing the torturing can set an example for what happens

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Speaker 2: if you either defy the group in power, or even

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Speaker 2: just some kind of dissenter from the group in power,

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Speaker 2: that bothers me to no end.

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Speaker 1: The people are starving and there's a widespread theft of grain,

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Speaker 1: and someone says, well, we need the bulk of these

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Speaker 1: serfs or peasants or whatever to survive and to farm land,

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Speaker 1: so let's just publicly eviscerate one of.

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Speaker 3: Them, just so they know literally not just give them

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Speaker 3: a good talking to, vesceerate their.

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Speaker 1: Flesh, leave the head somewhere visible, a pike perhaps, And.

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Speaker 2: You know, you can get into arguments about controlling a

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Speaker 2: population through fear or through you know, the various ways

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Speaker 2: that you can do that from a high level, but man,

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Speaker 2: it just seems too brutal to make much sense.

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Speaker 1: And the type of abuse administered here would typically depend

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Speaker 1: on the setting, the transgression, the social status of the victim. So,

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Speaker 1: for example, in Europe, Elizabeth Bathory or is Bet Bathory,

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Speaker 1: because of her high station, was not murdered or burned

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Speaker 1: at a stake or impaled. She was walled into a

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Speaker 1: room where she didn't start to death, she was fed

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Speaker 1: until she died. She was put on, not to be

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Speaker 1: too glib about it, permanent time out or solitary confinement.

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Speaker 1: And people would argue that that sort of injustice or

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Speaker 1: inequality of consequence occurs today. I think that the four

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Speaker 1: of us would largely agree that is the case, at

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Speaker 1: least here in the States, and for centuries and entries

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Speaker 1: various civilizations across the globe, we all just sort of

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Speaker 1: took it for granted that horrific physical degradations mutilations and

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Speaker 1: abuses were par for the course when it came to

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Speaker 1: dissent a crime or even rubbing the wrong important person

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Speaker 1: the wrong way. And if we fast forward to the

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Speaker 1: modern day, humanity started to realize this is a problem.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. Where did he get clicked for humanity, Ben in

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Speaker 3: the World Wars?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, in the World Wars. That's I believe when

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Speaker 1: the public around the world said, what Charnel houses? What

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Speaker 1: avatoirs are we building? You know, and that was a

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Speaker 1: primary impetus for the United Nations to codify protections against torture.

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Speaker 1: And as you had said, Matt, this didn't happen, actually

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Speaker 1: happen or get adopted into law until the nineteen eighties.

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Speaker 3: Okay, So it took a long time for it to

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Speaker 3: click for humanity.

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Speaker 1: Right, Well, it took a long time for them to

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Speaker 1: make it official.

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Speaker 3: There.

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Speaker 1: You know, there are things before. There are rules of

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Speaker 1: Engagement for war treatment a POW's But the Convention against

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Speaker 1: Torture another cruel in human or degrading treatment or punishment,

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Speaker 1: commonly known as UNCAT or the United Nations Convention against

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Speaker 1: Torture wasn't adopted until nineteen eighty four. It was ratified

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Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty seven, and so they used a definition

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Speaker 1: that's a little bit different from the one we used

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Speaker 1: at the top.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, this comes from Article one of the Convention. Quote

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Speaker 3: for the purpose of this Convention, the term torture means

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Speaker 3: any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical

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Speaker 3: or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such

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Speaker 3: purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information

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Speaker 3: or a confession, punishing him for an act he or

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Speaker 3: a third person has committed, or is suspected of having committed,

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Speaker 3: or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or

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Speaker 3: for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when

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Speaker 3: such pain or suff is inflicted by, or at the

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Speaker 3: instigation of, or with the consent or acquiescence of, a

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Speaker 3: public official, for other person acting in an official capacity.

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Speaker 3: It does not include pain or suffering arising only from

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Speaker 3: inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.

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Speaker 1: Tut Tut, tut.

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Speaker 3: Can you unpack that for a s ben. I read it,

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Speaker 3: but I don't think I took it in.

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Speaker 2: Well, one of the big things there is that right

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Speaker 2: at the end, putting in lawful sanctions. So if it's

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Speaker 2: if it's part of the law in the country where

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Speaker 2: this is occurring. As this is the type of punishment,

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Speaker 2: it feels like there's a lot of wiggle room there.

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Speaker 1: Right, we can see the problems with this. So three

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Speaker 1: of the big things that happened, Noel, you point. You

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Speaker 1: made the excellent point about a third person that shows up,

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Speaker 1: because there are people who will gladly die for a cause,

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Speaker 1: but they don't want their children or their spouse to.

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Speaker 1: And then the second huge about this is the involvement

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Speaker 1: of a public official or someone acting in an official capacity.

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Speaker 1: So this is banning state sponsored acts of this sort

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Speaker 1: of violence. This is not banning, Uh, this is not

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Speaker 1: specifically meant to target you know, the day Matt snaps

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Speaker 1: and abducts someone, Okay, getting the getting the crazy eyes,

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Speaker 1: Sorry Matt. Moving on, What would it take?

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Speaker 3: What would it take for a Matt snap, a Matte snap? Yeah, hmm,

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Speaker 3: you don't know, Maybe that's it you did, you don't know?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, probably someone harming my family. Yeah, but I don't

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Speaker 2: I don't know that I would abduct anybody.

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Speaker 1: I I feel like you, I feel like you know

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Speaker 1: exactly what the line on Matt step is. And God

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Speaker 1: hope we never cross it. We wouldn't be absolutely clear,

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Speaker 1: of course, Noel, I think you can agree with me

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Speaker 1: here that of the three of us, Matt is probably

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Speaker 1: the nicest legitimately and not not prone to abducting people.

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Speaker 3: Well, of course he's not prone, But when the snap happens, man, stand.

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Speaker 2: Back, I guess you never know when when a snap occurs.

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Speaker 2: That's the nature of it.

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Speaker 3: It's very much the nature of it. But it could

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Speaker 3: happen any of us, and we all have our limits.

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Speaker 3: And that's why I think it's interesting you brought up

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Speaker 3: the third party situation, because that is a it's it's

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Speaker 3: dirty pool, my man. You know, taking someone's loved ones

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Speaker 3: and you know, using them as a as a tool

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Speaker 3: to extract information out of someone. That is just like

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Speaker 3: the most horrific thing that you could possibly do, I think,

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Speaker 3: you know.

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Speaker 2: Or even just like a co pilot or a partner

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Speaker 2: or someone who's in the same squad as you were, you.

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Speaker 1: Know, because now you're responsible for the life of another.

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Speaker 1: So ethically, it puts someone in the position where they

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Speaker 1: have to ask, am I committing.

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Speaker 3: Murder by in action?

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Speaker 1: But the third the third point, so the first point

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Speaker 1: is the thing about a third party. The second point

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Speaker 1: is the state action. And to follow up, the third

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Speaker 1: point here, and one of the most dangerous ones, is

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Speaker 1: the idea of lawful sanctions. What they're saying then is

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Speaker 1: that if there is a sanctioned action, anything from depriving

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Speaker 1: the civilians of a country of food due to an

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Speaker 1: economic sanction or a military incursion that results in the

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Speaker 1: death or mutilation of civilians, that does not count as torture.

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Speaker 1: And this debate continues in the international sphere today. Regrettably,

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Speaker 1: we can probably already get a good spider sense of

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Speaker 1: which countries have what positions, you know, well.

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Speaker 2: Especially if we go back to the top with that

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Speaker 2: example of the Navy airman, who is you know, telling

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Speaker 2: people that he's been tortured and this is part of

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Speaker 2: the Vietnam call. And then you imagine historically what we

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Speaker 2: know the US military was doing to civilians in places

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Speaker 2: all over North Vietnam. Sure, and you know, since it's

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Speaker 2: state sanctioned, you know, we're talking about the sixties and

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Speaker 2: seventies then during the Vietnam conflict. But so it's well

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Speaker 2: before a decade before the UN says this is what

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Speaker 2: torture is. But at the same time, both sides are

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Speaker 2: doing one form of torture or another.

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Speaker 1: That's a great point, and we should also note that

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Speaker 1: in many cases it's not as if the president or

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Speaker 1: the ruling party or the monarch of a country said you, soldiers,

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Speaker 1: go out torture people. Often this fog of war mission

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Speaker 1: creep would set in, and there would be factions of

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Speaker 1: people or officials acting relatively of their own accord, thinking

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Speaker 1: that the ends justify the means. And so we can

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Speaker 1: already see the problems with this definition, as lengthy as

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Speaker 1: it is and as specific as it attempts to be.

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Speaker 1: But regardless of the imperfections, the concept itself seems noble, right,

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Speaker 1: stop torturing people, especially when there's not a lot of

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Speaker 1: evidence that it works as intended. So case closed, Right,

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Speaker 1: not so much, and we'll get into why after a

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Speaker 1: quick sponsor break. Here's where it gets crazy. The idea

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Speaker 1: that everybody can agree to stop torturing people is the

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Speaker 1: idea that this worked is wrong. Unfortunately, it is so

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Speaker 1: so so cartoonishly incorrect. According to the scholar Irvand Abramayan,

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Speaker 1: although there were several decades of prohibition against torture, generally

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Speaker 1: agreed that spread from Europe to most parts of the

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Speaker 1: world by the nineteen eighties that that ban was functionally off.

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Speaker 1: The taboo against torture had been broken.

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Speaker 2: Yes, he argued that torture quote returned with a vengeance,

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Speaker 2: and a lot of this had to do with the

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Speaker 2: advent of television or the way television was kind of changing,

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Speaker 2: and it presented an opportunity to break political prisoners and

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Speaker 2: then broadcast the results the public recantations kind of like

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Speaker 2: we're mentioning at the top of the show. They wanted

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Speaker 2: that airmen to say, I don't believe in the ideologies

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Speaker 2: of the United States government. They are wrong. That's what

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Speaker 2: they want to be able to broadcast to everyone. And

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Speaker 2: the idea is that if you torture someone enough, you

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Speaker 2: can change, you know, you can make them say what

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Speaker 2: you want for your ideological means and just recanting yeah,

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Speaker 2: political beliefs. Using this ideological warfare and political mobilization and

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Speaker 2: the need to win the hearts and minds of people

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Speaker 2: who exist in a country where war is being waged.

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Speaker 1: Very it's Orwellian when you think about it, you know,

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Speaker 1: and if anything, then, according to this expert, in the

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Speaker 1: wake of the world wars, torture as a widespread practice

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Speaker 1: momentarily maybe sort of kind of a little bit paused

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Speaker 1: for a second. But now if we fast forward a

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Speaker 1: little closer to the modern age, we find that that

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Speaker 1: is not the case. According to Human Rights Watch, between

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Speaker 1: two thousand and four and two thousand and five, over

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Speaker 1: sixteen countries were documented using torture, state sponsored torture.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and then you go to the war on terror,

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Speaker 2: the global war on terror, right, where we know black sites.

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Speaker 2: We've covered this before on an episode. Black sites have

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Speaker 2: been used where torture occurs. And it's not just the

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Speaker 2: United States.

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Speaker 1: Right, it is not just This is not just an

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Speaker 1: episode picking on the United States. And often these things

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Speaker 1: are occurring through a second or third hand thing. There's

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Speaker 1: a proxy. So despite being banned, torture continues in countries

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Speaker 1: around the globe. And this ancient practice shows no signs

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Speaker 1: of abating. In fact, our species has effectively leveraged technology

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Speaker 1: to arrive at new forms of physical and psychological abuse.

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Speaker 1: One thing we learned about in the course of our research,

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Speaker 1: which initially didn't sound that bad, was the so called

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Speaker 1: cold cell treatment. And this this is an Uncle Sam.

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Speaker 1: Original prisoners are placed in front of a large air

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Speaker 1: conditioner unit running on full blast. That doesn't sound bad

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Speaker 1: right at first.

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Speaker 2: Probably it's kind of nice, depending on where you are.

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Speaker 1: I mean for the first day, or for maybe even

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Speaker 1: for the first week.

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Speaker 2: But what about a month, what.

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Speaker 1: About a year? That is the so called cold cell treatment,

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Speaker 1: And we should make we should make a point that

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Speaker 1: it's allegedly happened for years, but we're required technically to

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Speaker 1: say allegedly.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I wonder what that does to the human body.

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Speaker 2: And we don't have a lot of information about exactly

437
00:27:13,640 --> 00:27:17,399
Speaker 2: how cold the air conditioner unit gets too, but we're

438
00:27:17,680 --> 00:27:21,640
Speaker 2: I'm assuming if it's an air conditioner rather than some

439
00:27:21,760 --> 00:27:26,240
Speaker 2: kind of like refrigeration device, it's probably in the lower

440
00:27:26,480 --> 00:27:27,400
Speaker 2: to mid sixties.

441
00:27:27,800 --> 00:27:31,600
Speaker 1: So it's probably it's not fatal. It's probably more psychological.

442
00:27:31,800 --> 00:27:33,239
Speaker 2: That's exactly what it is.

443
00:27:33,800 --> 00:27:36,919
Speaker 1: So what else have we found? What other technology have

444
00:27:36,920 --> 00:27:38,560
Speaker 1: we turned to? Torturous ends?

445
00:27:39,040 --> 00:27:42,800
Speaker 2: Electricity? That's one of the major things that's been used

446
00:27:42,880 --> 00:27:47,840
Speaker 2: in modern times, everything from cattle prods to stun guns

447
00:27:47,880 --> 00:27:53,679
Speaker 2: to lasers being used by mostly mostly security forces like

448
00:27:53,720 --> 00:27:59,840
Speaker 2: police forces and militaries. And it's strange to imagine, especially

449
00:27:59,880 --> 00:28:05,040
Speaker 2: in the United States, the modern stun gun did not

450
00:28:05,240 --> 00:28:09,800
Speaker 2: originate as a less than lethal weapon for police officers

451
00:28:09,840 --> 00:28:11,840
Speaker 2: the way we you know, nowadays see it a lot

452
00:28:11,880 --> 00:28:15,359
Speaker 2: of the times a taser, you know, it was it

453
00:28:15,400 --> 00:28:17,400
Speaker 2: was a cattle prod and then it became a way

454
00:28:17,440 --> 00:28:24,040
Speaker 2: to control prisoners specifically, and then it kind of evolved. Wow.

455
00:28:24,480 --> 00:28:28,040
Speaker 1: And then also this would be good going to the

456
00:28:28,080 --> 00:28:31,520
Speaker 1: earlier point you made know all about torture and fiction.

457
00:28:32,160 --> 00:28:35,159
Speaker 1: This would be where a car battery is hooked up

458
00:28:35,200 --> 00:28:39,120
Speaker 1: to something and then they shock the person.

459
00:28:38,760 --> 00:28:40,520
Speaker 2: With the car battery, which is a very real thing.

460
00:28:40,640 --> 00:28:45,840
Speaker 1: Oh absolutely, here's a weird one, the so called white torture.

461
00:28:46,640 --> 00:28:48,000
Speaker 2: What is this? I don't know this.

462
00:28:48,000 --> 00:28:52,080
Speaker 1: This sounds this is psychological, but it sounds very strange.

463
00:28:53,320 --> 00:28:59,960
Speaker 1: A prisoner is in solitary confinement and everything in their world,

464
00:29:00,320 --> 00:29:02,560
Speaker 1: everything they encounter, including the food they eat and the

465
00:29:02,600 --> 00:29:05,560
Speaker 1: plate seat from white blank white.

466
00:29:05,640 --> 00:29:08,760
Speaker 3: Dude, you know that's in Jlo's rider that like everything

467
00:29:08,800 --> 00:29:10,360
Speaker 3: in her dressing room has to be white.

468
00:29:10,840 --> 00:29:12,920
Speaker 1: Do you what do you think she originated?

469
00:29:13,520 --> 00:29:15,800
Speaker 3: Maybe I should call it the j Lo torture.

470
00:29:16,160 --> 00:29:19,480
Speaker 2: This is real. That's that's real. That's a thing. That's

471
00:29:19,520 --> 00:29:23,920
Speaker 2: not some interior designer being like playful. No, I can

472
00:29:24,000 --> 00:29:29,200
Speaker 2: imagine that being another psychological torture device that just I

473
00:29:29,200 --> 00:29:34,680
Speaker 2: don't know somehow, Yeah, especially like can you imagine combining

474
00:29:35,160 --> 00:29:38,000
Speaker 2: the cold cell the white cold cell is what they

475
00:29:38,000 --> 00:29:38,560
Speaker 2: would call.

476
00:29:38,400 --> 00:29:41,920
Speaker 1: It, ugh with lights on all the time, also no

477
00:29:42,040 --> 00:29:43,440
Speaker 1: human contact.

478
00:29:43,080 --> 00:29:44,920
Speaker 2: Playing the same song over and over.

479
00:29:46,240 --> 00:29:48,440
Speaker 1: And you know that's that might sound like that's a

480
00:29:48,440 --> 00:29:51,920
Speaker 1: lot for us to put on Jennifer Lopez, but it

481
00:29:52,000 --> 00:29:55,080
Speaker 1: is in her rider that everything has to be.

482
00:29:55,040 --> 00:29:58,200
Speaker 3: White, and she has been responsible for some atrocities though

483
00:29:58,320 --> 00:30:01,680
Speaker 3: that's true. Have you seen Gilie Uh?

484
00:30:03,120 --> 00:30:03,760
Speaker 1: I have not.

485
00:30:04,040 --> 00:30:07,000
Speaker 3: I haven't either heard it was really bad atrocity. Maybe

486
00:30:07,000 --> 00:30:09,880
Speaker 3: that's a little over overstated in the case, I did

487
00:30:09,960 --> 00:30:10,960
Speaker 3: like to sell though.

488
00:30:10,920 --> 00:30:12,960
Speaker 1: I did like the cell as well. I enjoyed it.

489
00:30:13,000 --> 00:30:17,640
Speaker 1: I felt from from the perspective cinematography, it was just stunning.

490
00:30:17,800 --> 00:30:20,440
Speaker 3: The guy that directed that, Tarsim Singh, did those early

491
00:30:20,560 --> 00:30:24,400
Speaker 3: RAM videos, very nineties kind of tableaus with like the

492
00:30:24,520 --> 00:30:27,880
Speaker 3: rotating the platform and he's on with the anyway, that

493
00:30:28,720 --> 00:30:31,480
Speaker 3: guy basically invented the look of like the Pearl Jam

494
00:30:31,560 --> 00:30:32,720
Speaker 3: video from the nineties.

495
00:30:32,720 --> 00:30:35,680
Speaker 2: And anyway, he's got some amazing other movies, huh.

496
00:30:35,360 --> 00:30:36,880
Speaker 3: With a fall. The Fall is a good one.

497
00:30:36,960 --> 00:30:40,440
Speaker 1: Oh, and speaking of music, this brings us to another

498
00:30:40,560 --> 00:30:47,520
Speaker 1: form of technologically advanced torture that longtime listeners are familiar with.

499
00:30:48,920 --> 00:30:51,720
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's just music torture, right like, and I think

500
00:30:51,760 --> 00:30:54,840
Speaker 3: a part of it doesn't necessarily have to be incredibly loud.

501
00:30:55,000 --> 00:30:59,120
Speaker 3: But whenever you see it done and you dramatized in film,

502
00:30:59,360 --> 00:31:03,560
Speaker 3: it's usually some absurd stack of you know, bass in

503
00:31:03,640 --> 00:31:06,440
Speaker 3: the trunk kind of car stereo speakers. They're just blasting

504
00:31:06,480 --> 00:31:09,760
Speaker 3: the stuff at really high decibel levels. We're talking about,

505
00:31:10,240 --> 00:31:12,560
Speaker 3: you know, the idea I think is repetition, right, so

506
00:31:12,560 --> 00:31:14,600
Speaker 3: it would be the same song over and over and

507
00:31:14,640 --> 00:31:17,760
Speaker 3: over and over again, whether it's Metallica or Britney Spears

508
00:31:17,840 --> 00:31:19,880
Speaker 3: or even a very popular one Ben I think you

509
00:31:19,960 --> 00:31:24,400
Speaker 3: mentioned before on another episode is the Barney song. Yep?

510
00:31:24,600 --> 00:31:26,960
Speaker 3: Did you know that guy's a tantric sex guru? Now,

511
00:31:27,640 --> 00:31:29,040
Speaker 3: the guy that played Barney.

512
00:31:28,720 --> 00:31:29,960
Speaker 1: Does he still wear the costume?

513
00:31:30,000 --> 00:31:30,040
Speaker 3: No?

514
00:31:30,120 --> 00:31:34,160
Speaker 2: I think, Oh, I need to get that out of

515
00:31:34,200 --> 00:31:34,440
Speaker 2: my head.

516
00:31:34,440 --> 00:31:37,880
Speaker 3: And already he mainly just wears scented oils and lotions

517
00:31:39,040 --> 00:31:39,840
Speaker 3: and nothing else.

518
00:31:41,840 --> 00:31:48,160
Speaker 1: A fine musk. The other practice that we found was

519
00:31:48,640 --> 00:31:56,440
Speaker 1: force feeding, including using some medical advances to feed people rectally,

520
00:31:57,120 --> 00:32:03,240
Speaker 1: similar to real life version of that South Park trope.

521
00:32:03,840 --> 00:32:07,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, and a lot of this you'll see in the news.

522
00:32:08,320 --> 00:32:10,600
Speaker 2: And it's not necessarily used as a torture, but as

523
00:32:10,600 --> 00:32:13,560
Speaker 2: a way to keep people who are prisoners alive if

524
00:32:13,600 --> 00:32:17,720
Speaker 2: they're having some kind of protest where they're doing self

525
00:32:17,720 --> 00:32:23,600
Speaker 2: starvation in protest of their captivity. And so again, it's

526
00:32:23,760 --> 00:32:27,640
Speaker 2: crazy to think that the method to preserve someone's life

527
00:32:27,680 --> 00:32:29,640
Speaker 2: can also be used to torture them.

528
00:32:30,320 --> 00:32:34,880
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, and that goes into an ethical question as well.

529
00:32:35,040 --> 00:32:38,920
Speaker 1: You know, this is something that we didn't discuss off air,

530
00:32:39,000 --> 00:32:43,000
Speaker 1: but it just occurred to me. Now, if somebody wants

531
00:32:43,120 --> 00:32:47,440
Speaker 1: to die, right, if they want to commit medically assisted

532
00:32:47,920 --> 00:32:52,160
Speaker 1: suicide their own accord, and they are legally required to

533
00:32:52,320 --> 00:32:55,880
Speaker 1: stay alive, is that this in a state of pain,

534
00:32:56,000 --> 00:32:59,920
Speaker 1: perhaps from a chronic condition. Is that the state eighty

535
00:33:00,040 --> 00:33:03,440
Speaker 1: Indian torture? Or is you know what's the line there?

536
00:33:03,640 --> 00:33:06,120
Speaker 2: That's a tough ethical question we should.

537
00:33:06,200 --> 00:33:08,080
Speaker 1: Is there an ethicist in the house, Paul or you

538
00:33:08,120 --> 00:33:10,120
Speaker 1: an ethicist?

539
00:33:10,680 --> 00:33:17,960
Speaker 2: Okay, but you know that's in that's something we I

540
00:33:18,040 --> 00:33:20,400
Speaker 2: wonder if the UN has pondered that. I haven't seen

541
00:33:20,440 --> 00:33:23,400
Speaker 2: anything anything recently at least.

542
00:33:23,280 --> 00:33:26,040
Speaker 3: Well, and let's just I don't know, I'm gonna talk

543
00:33:26,080 --> 00:33:28,280
Speaker 3: about the elephant in the room, or at least my elephant.

544
00:33:28,920 --> 00:33:30,600
Speaker 3: You know, the UN kind of gets a lot of

545
00:33:30,640 --> 00:33:34,240
Speaker 3: flak as being a somewhat toothless organization, like you can

546
00:33:34,280 --> 00:33:37,720
Speaker 3: make these resolutions, but at the end of the day,

547
00:33:37,760 --> 00:33:40,720
Speaker 3: it's just kind of, you know, words on paper, and

548
00:33:40,760 --> 00:33:44,880
Speaker 3: there's very little enforcement ability that the u N has.

549
00:33:45,200 --> 00:33:46,480
Speaker 3: Correct me if I'm wrong.

550
00:33:46,760 --> 00:33:52,600
Speaker 1: You are correct. The the primary power structure of the

551
00:33:52,720 --> 00:33:57,400
Speaker 1: United Nations is the u N Security Council, and they

552
00:33:57,720 --> 00:34:01,560
Speaker 1: can each member of the UN Security Council can veto

553
00:34:02,120 --> 00:34:06,480
Speaker 1: an entire concept. So it has to things have to

554
00:34:06,520 --> 00:34:09,840
Speaker 1: pass unanimously. So it is very very, very very difficult.

555
00:34:09,840 --> 00:34:14,000
Speaker 1: It's not as bad and ineffectual as the predecessor, the

556
00:34:14,040 --> 00:34:17,680
Speaker 1: League of Nations. But yeah, you're you're spot on. When

557
00:34:17,880 --> 00:34:21,160
Speaker 1: do words on paper translate to substantive change?

558
00:34:21,560 --> 00:34:23,560
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, that that that kind of is the question,

559
00:34:23,680 --> 00:34:25,600
Speaker 3: And that's sort of you know, when we're talking about

560
00:34:25,640 --> 00:34:30,080
Speaker 3: the shift of consciousness as a country, when we decide

561
00:34:30,120 --> 00:34:33,600
Speaker 3: as a people that torture is not okay. But yet

562
00:34:33,680 --> 00:34:36,520
Speaker 3: if it still is thought by some as being an

563
00:34:36,520 --> 00:34:40,080
Speaker 3: effective tool, whether or not there are resolutions on the

564
00:34:40,120 --> 00:34:42,600
Speaker 3: books or not. At the end of the day, if

565
00:34:42,640 --> 00:34:44,759
Speaker 3: you think it's going to get the job done, you're

566
00:34:44,800 --> 00:34:46,680
Speaker 3: probably going to figure out a way to get around

567
00:34:46,760 --> 00:34:48,880
Speaker 3: it and do it, you know, especially when we have

568
00:34:48,960 --> 00:34:51,480
Speaker 3: things like black sites and you know, stuff where there's

569
00:34:51,600 --> 00:34:56,279
Speaker 3: very little oversights and you have heads of these divisions

570
00:34:56,280 --> 00:34:59,359
Speaker 3: that essentially act as gods of their little fiefdoms, you know.

571
00:34:59,560 --> 00:35:04,920
Speaker 1: So it's tough, like secret Police, for instance, throughout a

572
00:35:04,960 --> 00:35:09,200
Speaker 1: lot of throughout a lot of recent history. And that's

573
00:35:09,239 --> 00:35:13,279
Speaker 1: the point that is the stuff they don't want you

574
00:35:13,320 --> 00:35:17,200
Speaker 1: to know here in this episode. It's the fact that

575
00:35:17,200 --> 00:35:22,360
Speaker 1: there are numerous active conspiracies as we speak. We're not

576
00:35:22,440 --> 00:35:25,680
Speaker 1: talking about nineteen ninety three. We're not talking about nineteen

577
00:35:25,680 --> 00:35:28,040
Speaker 1: seventy four, we're not talking about two thousand and seven.

578
00:35:28,320 --> 00:35:32,480
Speaker 1: We're talking about twenty eighteen. As we are recording this,

579
00:35:33,080 --> 00:35:36,960
Speaker 1: there are numerous active cover ups and conspiracies allowing various

580
00:35:37,040 --> 00:35:40,480
Speaker 1: governments around the world, including the United States, but not

581
00:35:40,600 --> 00:35:45,080
Speaker 1: limited to Uncle Sam, to commit torture, either through proxies

582
00:35:45,320 --> 00:35:50,880
Speaker 1: or euphemisms like enhanced interrogation or good old fashioned secret police.

583
00:35:51,520 --> 00:35:55,360
Speaker 1: As you guys pointed out black sites off the line

584
00:35:55,360 --> 00:35:58,920
Speaker 1: item budgets written out of your history books, and we

585
00:35:59,000 --> 00:36:01,280
Speaker 1: might never know what happens with it. And this forces

586
00:36:01,360 --> 00:36:04,400
Speaker 1: us to ask about the future of torture.

587
00:36:04,600 --> 00:36:06,600
Speaker 2: And we'll get into that right after a quick word

588
00:36:06,600 --> 00:36:07,400
Speaker 2: from our sponsor.

589
00:36:14,080 --> 00:36:19,800
Speaker 1: So we're back, and Noel, you brought up this excellent point,

590
00:36:20,680 --> 00:36:24,040
Speaker 1: Especially in the case of US intelligence services, military arms.

591
00:36:24,280 --> 00:36:27,800
Speaker 1: The primary argument for these techniques is that is something

592
00:36:27,800 --> 00:36:30,799
Speaker 1: along the lines of, well, they might be deplorable, but

593
00:36:30,920 --> 00:36:34,399
Speaker 1: they do result invaluable or what they would call actionable

594
00:36:34,800 --> 00:36:39,680
Speaker 1: intelligence that can ultimately save lives. And the scenario you'll

595
00:36:39,719 --> 00:36:44,800
Speaker 1: often hear described by people supporting these programs is the following.

596
00:36:44,840 --> 00:36:47,280
Speaker 1: It's something called the ticking time bomb scenario.

597
00:36:47,680 --> 00:36:51,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, imagine that you're an authority figure, right, whether this

598
00:36:51,120 --> 00:36:55,200
Speaker 2: is law enforcement, military, maybe an intelligence officer working for

599
00:36:55,239 --> 00:36:58,239
Speaker 2: the CIA, whatever it is. You have absolute certainty that

600
00:36:58,280 --> 00:37:01,320
Speaker 2: there will be some form of a a terrorist attack,

601
00:37:01,440 --> 00:37:04,239
Speaker 2: probably and it's going to happen in the near to

602
00:37:04,360 --> 00:37:08,640
Speaker 2: immediate future, but you don't know exactly where, you don't

603
00:37:08,640 --> 00:37:12,440
Speaker 2: know exactly when. How do you find out this is

604
00:37:12,760 --> 00:37:16,160
Speaker 2: the big quandary. How do you gain that information without

605
00:37:16,440 --> 00:37:18,799
Speaker 2: you know, stumbling upon a piece of paper that has

606
00:37:18,840 --> 00:37:19,560
Speaker 2: it written out.

607
00:37:19,960 --> 00:37:23,160
Speaker 1: So let's take it a step further and say that

608
00:37:23,320 --> 00:37:28,320
Speaker 1: maybe maybe we are those investigators, and we have one

609
00:37:28,520 --> 00:37:32,040
Speaker 1: or more suspects and custody, and with the same amount

610
00:37:32,040 --> 00:37:35,520
Speaker 1: of certitude, we know that they know where the attack

611
00:37:35,560 --> 00:37:38,600
Speaker 1: will be. Maybe we have it narrowed down to three cities,

612
00:37:39,800 --> 00:37:41,440
Speaker 1: but they know which city and which.

613
00:37:41,320 --> 00:37:45,240
Speaker 3: Day, and we know that, you know, torture is banned,

614
00:37:46,800 --> 00:37:49,360
Speaker 3: it may still be one of the only ways to

615
00:37:49,440 --> 00:37:52,480
Speaker 3: extract information, this kind of information before one hundreds and

616
00:37:52,520 --> 00:37:57,160
Speaker 3: thousands of innocent people die, or at least that's the justification, right.

617
00:37:57,080 --> 00:38:01,600
Speaker 2: M Yeah, And this this is often depicted the ultimate dilemma,

618
00:38:01,800 --> 00:38:06,000
Speaker 2: at least for modern times regarding torture, and experts continue

619
00:38:06,080 --> 00:38:08,800
Speaker 2: to debate it today whether or not it's a good

620
00:38:08,880 --> 00:38:12,560
Speaker 2: idea to save all of these lives by torturing this person.

621
00:38:12,680 --> 00:38:16,040
Speaker 2: Can you even get information that would be reliable enough

622
00:38:16,520 --> 00:38:19,160
Speaker 2: to save people if you did indeed torture one of

623
00:38:19,200 --> 00:38:23,360
Speaker 2: these suspects. There's a lot to unpact there, right, Like,

624
00:38:23,520 --> 00:38:24,240
Speaker 2: do you.

625
00:38:25,840 --> 00:38:30,600
Speaker 1: Or do we in this scenario want to be responsible

626
00:38:30,840 --> 00:38:35,080
Speaker 1: for thousands of venison people dying because we refuse to

627
00:38:35,120 --> 00:38:36,279
Speaker 1: bend or break the law.

628
00:38:36,520 --> 00:38:39,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, and international law that's set forth by you know,

629
00:38:39,719 --> 00:38:43,520
Speaker 2: the United Nations. And look, it's just one of those things,

630
00:38:43,560 --> 00:38:49,080
Speaker 2: like it's a big moral quandary that seems to have

631
00:38:49,360 --> 00:38:51,960
Speaker 2: probably the most weight behind it in our modern times.

632
00:38:52,560 --> 00:38:55,440
Speaker 1: So now our question becomes if we want to be

633
00:38:55,440 --> 00:38:58,200
Speaker 1: a Machavelli and if we want to cast morals aside.

634
00:38:59,000 --> 00:39:02,880
Speaker 1: Now our question shifts a little, and it's the ultimate

635
00:39:02,920 --> 00:39:06,960
Speaker 1: question here. Does it work? As we alluded to earlier

636
00:39:06,960 --> 00:39:11,680
Speaker 1: in the show, does physically or psychologically torturing someone compel

637
00:39:11,760 --> 00:39:16,040
Speaker 1: them to provide truthful, useful information. The answer is no.

638
00:39:16,680 --> 00:39:19,560
Speaker 1: Torture does not work, at least in the way that

639
00:39:19,640 --> 00:39:26,000
Speaker 1: the tormentors might publicly intend. Again, that's publicly. So there's

640
00:39:26,160 --> 00:39:31,680
Speaker 1: an article from Scientific American by a guy named Michael Schrmer,

641
00:39:31,880 --> 00:39:34,600
Speaker 1: and it's called We've known for four hundred years that

642
00:39:34,680 --> 00:39:42,239
Speaker 1: torture doesn't work. In this article, there is a fascinating

643
00:39:42,320 --> 00:39:45,440
Speaker 1: anecdote about the Duke of Brunswick in Germany during the

644
00:39:45,480 --> 00:39:50,160
Speaker 1: time of the Inquisition. He goes to visit the inquisitors

645
00:39:50,560 --> 00:39:53,880
Speaker 1: and he wants to oversee their use of torture to

646
00:39:54,000 --> 00:39:57,800
Speaker 1: extract information from people accused of witchcraft, right the majority

647
00:39:57,800 --> 00:40:01,719
Speaker 1: of whom we're women. The Jesuits told the Duke that

648
00:40:01,760 --> 00:40:04,840
Speaker 1: the inquisitors are doing their duty. They're only arresting people

649
00:40:04,880 --> 00:40:07,960
Speaker 1: who have been implicated in the confessions of other witches.

650
00:40:08,000 --> 00:40:09,880
Speaker 1: When they were put to the question which was the

651
00:40:10,000 --> 00:40:12,600
Speaker 1: term for torture? And so the Duke's so a little

652
00:40:12,640 --> 00:40:16,040
Speaker 1: bit skeptical, and he thinks, well, maybe people just say

653
00:40:16,200 --> 00:40:19,480
Speaker 1: anything to get this to stop. So he invited the

654
00:40:19,560 --> 00:40:23,560
Speaker 1: Jesuits to come visit him and go with him to

655
00:40:23,600 --> 00:40:27,440
Speaker 1: a dungeon to witness a woman being stretched on the

656
00:40:27,520 --> 00:40:31,160
Speaker 1: rack second degree of torture, like we have mentioned earlier.

657
00:40:31,760 --> 00:40:36,280
Speaker 1: And the Duke said to this lady, while she's mid torture,

658
00:40:36,440 --> 00:40:39,440
Speaker 1: by the way, he says, now, women, you are a

659
00:40:39,480 --> 00:40:43,480
Speaker 1: confessed witch. I suspect these two men of being warlocks.

660
00:40:43,719 --> 00:40:44,480
Speaker 3: What do you say?

661
00:40:44,840 --> 00:40:47,160
Speaker 1: And he looks at the executioners and he says another

662
00:40:47,239 --> 00:40:52,160
Speaker 1: turn of the rack executioners, And the woman immediately said, no, no, no,

663
00:40:52,320 --> 00:40:54,520
Speaker 1: you are quite right. I have often seen them at

664
00:40:54,560 --> 00:40:57,520
Speaker 1: the sabbot. They can turn themselves into goats, wolves and

665
00:40:57,560 --> 00:41:00,560
Speaker 1: other animals. Several witches have had children and buy them

666
00:41:00,680 --> 00:41:03,520
Speaker 1: One woman even had eight children whom these men fathered.

667
00:41:03,640 --> 00:41:06,520
Speaker 1: The children had heads like toads and legs like spiders.

668
00:41:06,920 --> 00:41:10,840
Speaker 1: And the Duke turned to the Jesuits and said, should

669
00:41:10,840 --> 00:41:12,480
Speaker 1: I torture you until you confess?

670
00:41:13,640 --> 00:41:17,280
Speaker 3: Geez? You get real creative when you put to the question.

671
00:41:18,719 --> 00:41:22,400
Speaker 1: And that's how we know. Like, the problem with torture

672
00:41:22,440 --> 00:41:26,480
Speaker 1: is if the primary goal is to receive truthful information again,

673
00:41:26,600 --> 00:41:29,720
Speaker 1: morals aside, then we have to think of the primary

674
00:41:29,760 --> 00:41:33,960
Speaker 1: goal of the victim, which is just to stop this immense,

675
00:41:34,120 --> 00:41:35,000
Speaker 1: unending pain.

676
00:41:35,160 --> 00:41:38,359
Speaker 2: Well, and also mentioned in that article is something that

677
00:41:38,400 --> 00:41:41,000
Speaker 2: has really shaped the way I viewed torture over the years.

678
00:41:41,480 --> 00:41:45,960
Speaker 2: Christopher Hitchens, a writer that I very much admired to

679
00:41:46,000 --> 00:41:50,400
Speaker 2: a certain extent. Several years ago, while he was still living,

680
00:41:50,520 --> 00:41:53,040
Speaker 2: he was working, he was writing for Vanity Fair still

681
00:41:53,120 --> 00:41:57,560
Speaker 2: and he went and he was himself waterboarded. And you know,

682
00:41:57,640 --> 00:42:03,640
Speaker 2: he was famously hawkish about war, believing that there were

683
00:42:03,719 --> 00:42:06,440
Speaker 2: good reasons to go to war and to eliminate terrorism.

684
00:42:06,480 --> 00:42:09,960
Speaker 2: And you know, you can look at his views, but

685
00:42:10,120 --> 00:42:13,919
Speaker 2: he didn't believe that waterboarding was that big of a deal.

686
00:42:14,280 --> 00:42:18,040
Speaker 2: But he went. It occurred to him, and his quote

687
00:42:18,040 --> 00:42:22,520
Speaker 2: from the article was if waterboarding does not constitute torture,

688
00:42:22,840 --> 00:42:25,680
Speaker 2: then there is no such thing as torture, because he

689
00:42:25,719 --> 00:42:30,600
Speaker 2: had a terrible experience. He almost immediately after being subjected

690
00:42:30,640 --> 00:42:33,560
Speaker 2: to the water pouring on his head, he said, no,

691
00:42:33,719 --> 00:42:36,319
Speaker 2: that felt like I was drowning. That is the worst

692
00:42:36,320 --> 00:42:37,359
Speaker 2: thing that's ever happened to me.

693
00:42:37,400 --> 00:42:39,520
Speaker 3: And I'm sure most listeners know what waterboarding is, but

694
00:42:39,560 --> 00:42:41,239
Speaker 3: i mean, just to set the scene, it's like you've

695
00:42:41,239 --> 00:42:43,960
Speaker 3: got a rag over your face. There isn't you know,

696
00:42:44,120 --> 00:42:48,319
Speaker 3: a torrent of water being poured over your mouth and

697
00:42:48,440 --> 00:42:51,880
Speaker 3: nose to the point where it's constant enough that you

698
00:42:51,960 --> 00:42:55,080
Speaker 3: just can't catch your breath. And I'm imagining that the

699
00:42:55,200 --> 00:42:57,960
Speaker 3: rag is creating almost a suction against your face where

700
00:42:58,000 --> 00:43:01,600
Speaker 3: you just like are totally incapable of drawing breath. And

701
00:43:01,640 --> 00:43:03,680
Speaker 3: so I would argue that this is not only a

702
00:43:03,680 --> 00:43:07,000
Speaker 3: physical torture, because we know it's very unpleasant physically when

703
00:43:07,040 --> 00:43:10,160
Speaker 3: you can't breathe, it's also a psychological torture because it's

704
00:43:10,200 --> 00:43:13,360
Speaker 3: the sensation that it's creating of not being able to

705
00:43:13,400 --> 00:43:17,560
Speaker 3: catch your breath and of dying, of drowning, which sounds terrifying.

706
00:43:17,600 --> 00:43:20,799
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, and the whole point of this whole thing, though,

707
00:43:20,960 --> 00:43:23,880
Speaker 2: is that Christopher Hitchins was alluding to the fact that

708
00:43:23,920 --> 00:43:26,359
Speaker 2: he would have said anything to make that stop, and

709
00:43:26,400 --> 00:43:31,680
Speaker 2: he can't imagine He couldn't imagine experiencing that as someone

710
00:43:31,800 --> 00:43:36,000
Speaker 2: like being told, you know where X is, you know

711
00:43:36,320 --> 00:43:38,359
Speaker 2: what time it's going to happen, Tell me where it is,

712
00:43:38,440 --> 00:43:41,200
Speaker 2: and then proceed with the torture over and over and over.

713
00:43:41,280 --> 00:43:44,120
Speaker 3: It just seems so counterintuitive to me that people would

714
00:43:44,400 --> 00:43:47,200
Speaker 3: think that this is a smart way to get people

715
00:43:47,239 --> 00:43:49,279
Speaker 3: to tell them the truth. It just seems to me

716
00:43:49,360 --> 00:43:51,719
Speaker 3: that it's obvious that it would be the opposite.

717
00:43:51,920 --> 00:43:54,799
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a smart way to get people to tell

718
00:43:54,840 --> 00:43:57,959
Speaker 1: you whatever you want them to say, right, But whether

719
00:43:58,040 --> 00:44:01,040
Speaker 1: or not it's true is very, very different. And this

720
00:44:01,120 --> 00:44:05,160
Speaker 1: ticking time bomb thought experiment, let's be honest, it's way

721
00:44:05,200 --> 00:44:09,799
Speaker 1: too cut and dry in reality. If there's someone in captivity,

722
00:44:10,239 --> 00:44:14,399
Speaker 1: they may or may not be responsible for this thing, right,

723
00:44:14,760 --> 00:44:17,520
Speaker 1: They may or may not have accurate information. Even if

724
00:44:17,560 --> 00:44:20,320
Speaker 1: they are responsible, maybe they're not on the inner circle

725
00:44:20,400 --> 00:44:25,480
Speaker 1: for some specific operation, then they might not know anything useful.

726
00:44:25,920 --> 00:44:28,320
Speaker 1: They might just make stuff up out of whole.

727
00:44:28,120 --> 00:44:31,160
Speaker 3: Cloth, like the toadheads. So as I'm saying, like, that's

728
00:44:31,200 --> 00:44:34,120
Speaker 3: like creative writing type stuff, like you know, you are

729
00:44:34,200 --> 00:44:37,840
Speaker 3: going to dig deep into your imagination for you know,

730
00:44:38,000 --> 00:44:40,600
Speaker 3: to make that rack tightening cease.

731
00:44:40,960 --> 00:44:44,040
Speaker 1: Absolutely, and despite the continued practices of what we could

732
00:44:44,080 --> 00:44:49,160
Speaker 1: call gray area interrogation and or torture, the US government

733
00:44:49,280 --> 00:44:54,080
Speaker 1: itself publicly agrees that torture is not really effective. There

734
00:44:54,160 --> 00:44:57,200
Speaker 1: was a twenty fourteen report by the Senate Select Committee

735
00:44:57,239 --> 00:45:02,920
Speaker 1: on Intelligence. They analyzed millions of internal CIA documents related

736
00:45:03,040 --> 00:45:06,920
Speaker 1: to the torture of people's suspected of terrorism, and the

737
00:45:07,040 --> 00:45:11,560
Speaker 1: Senate concluded the CIA's use of its enhanced interrogation techniques

738
00:45:11,960 --> 00:45:15,440
Speaker 1: was not an effective means of acquiring intelligence or gaining

739
00:45:15,520 --> 00:45:20,719
Speaker 1: cooperation from detainees. It also adds that multiple CIA detainees

740
00:45:21,000 --> 00:45:25,480
Speaker 1: fabricated information, resulting in faulty intelligence, and that leads us

741
00:45:25,520 --> 00:45:28,920
Speaker 1: to ask, if torture doesn't work, what does Is there

742
00:45:29,000 --> 00:45:30,320
Speaker 1: something better than torture?

743
00:45:30,600 --> 00:45:35,840
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, pretty much the opposite of torture. There are

744
00:45:35,960 --> 00:45:39,080
Speaker 2: multiple studies that show that this might be the thing,

745
00:45:39,360 --> 00:45:44,640
Speaker 2: the way to get information from people building rapport. It works, wonders,

746
00:45:44,680 --> 00:45:47,360
Speaker 2: and it has a significantly higher chance of creating a

747
00:45:47,480 --> 00:45:55,120
Speaker 2: successful relationship between interrogator and interrogate by actually being like

748
00:45:55,280 --> 00:45:58,960
Speaker 2: showing empathy and I understand your situation. I mean, there's

749
00:45:58,960 --> 00:46:01,600
Speaker 2: a whole host of lines you can go down, for sure.

750
00:46:01,960 --> 00:46:03,560
Speaker 3: I guess the problem there is, though, if you have

751
00:46:03,680 --> 00:46:07,200
Speaker 3: people that are trained, they are hardened to the point

752
00:46:07,200 --> 00:46:11,040
Speaker 3: where they they're just not They're not gonna play nice

753
00:46:11,120 --> 00:46:13,400
Speaker 3: with you at all, you know. I Mean. It's one

754
00:46:13,440 --> 00:46:15,959
Speaker 3: thing if you're like a scared kid, or like someone

755
00:46:16,000 --> 00:46:18,680
Speaker 3: who's been accused of a crime and you're just all,

756
00:46:19,320 --> 00:46:21,400
Speaker 3: you know, you don't know which way is up. You

757
00:46:21,440 --> 00:46:24,400
Speaker 3: could probably coerce someone into telling you some stuff and

758
00:46:24,520 --> 00:46:26,840
Speaker 3: getting them to cry and talk about their mommy or

759
00:46:26,880 --> 00:46:28,920
Speaker 3: something like. I'm being a jerk, but you know what

760
00:46:29,000 --> 00:46:32,520
Speaker 3: I'm saying. But if someone is like a trained a

761
00:46:32,680 --> 00:46:35,400
Speaker 3: terrorist or an operative of some kind, I don't I

762
00:46:35,400 --> 00:46:36,439
Speaker 3: don't think that's gonna work.

763
00:46:36,840 --> 00:46:39,839
Speaker 2: I don't know. You might find that there's really I'm

764
00:46:39,880 --> 00:46:41,840
Speaker 2: just saying there. You might find that there is a

765
00:46:42,000 --> 00:46:44,200
Speaker 2: vulnerable human inside each and every one of us.

766
00:46:44,360 --> 00:46:48,160
Speaker 1: It also depends on the X axis of time.

767
00:46:49,000 --> 00:46:50,000
Speaker 3: That's fair.

768
00:46:50,280 --> 00:46:54,960
Speaker 1: So if someone is detained for life with no human contact.

769
00:46:54,800 --> 00:46:56,239
Speaker 3: Isn't that torture? Except for you.

770
00:46:56,520 --> 00:46:56,759
Speaker 2: It is.

771
00:46:57,280 --> 00:47:01,480
Speaker 1: It is, but it's it's a chess level torture. Yeah,

772
00:47:01,840 --> 00:47:06,640
Speaker 1: And the thing is that it appears to it appears

773
00:47:06,680 --> 00:47:09,960
Speaker 1: to work. There are different studies that confirm. There's one

774
00:47:10,080 --> 00:47:13,560
Speaker 1: called the Who, What and Why Human Intelligence Gathering from

775
00:47:13,600 --> 00:47:17,480
Speaker 1: this journal Apply Cognitive Psychology. They surveyed one hundred and

776
00:47:17,480 --> 00:47:21,120
Speaker 1: fifty two interrogators and they found that rapport and relationship

777
00:47:21,160 --> 00:47:24,400
Speaker 1: building techniques were employed most often and perceived to be

778
00:47:24,480 --> 00:47:29,279
Speaker 1: the most effective, regardless of context and intended outcome. Particularly

779
00:47:29,440 --> 00:47:32,920
Speaker 1: they found in comparison to confrontational techniques. And that's from

780
00:47:33,000 --> 00:47:34,440
Speaker 1: the interrogators themselves.

781
00:47:34,600 --> 00:47:34,799
Speaker 3: Wow.

782
00:47:35,360 --> 00:47:39,800
Speaker 2: Yeah. There's another study called Interviewing High Value Detainees. It

783
00:47:39,920 --> 00:47:43,560
Speaker 2: sampled sixty four practitioners and detainees and it found that quote,

784
00:47:43,800 --> 00:47:48,000
Speaker 2: detainees were more likely to disclose meaningful information and earlier

785
00:47:48,239 --> 00:47:51,040
Speaker 2: in the interview when rapport building techniques were used.

786
00:47:51,719 --> 00:47:55,239
Speaker 1: So those are two examples of studies that find this

787
00:47:56,200 --> 00:48:02,440
Speaker 1: approach superior to confrontational or abusive behavior. Although I do

788
00:48:02,560 --> 00:48:08,560
Speaker 1: appreciate the point of rapport building and solitary confinement being

789
00:48:08,920 --> 00:48:12,640
Speaker 1: just another form of torture, art arguably, with these stories

790
00:48:12,680 --> 00:48:16,560
Speaker 1: we hear from various global conflicts in the study of torture,

791
00:48:17,000 --> 00:48:20,920
Speaker 1: they indicate the same conclusions, not just from academics and historians,

792
00:48:21,200 --> 00:48:25,320
Speaker 1: but from the first hand accounts of other interrogators. And

793
00:48:25,520 --> 00:48:28,320
Speaker 1: so we have to ask ourselves. If torture does not

794
00:48:28,640 --> 00:48:32,440
Speaker 1: work at least in terms of providing truthful information or

795
00:48:32,480 --> 00:48:36,080
Speaker 1: eliciting it, if it only blinds someone to the point

796
00:48:36,160 --> 00:48:39,759
Speaker 1: that they will say anything to prevent further abuse, then

797
00:48:39,840 --> 00:48:43,240
Speaker 1: why do we as a species persist. There's several reasons,

798
00:48:43,760 --> 00:48:47,560
Speaker 1: and absolutely none of them are appealing. First, in some

799
00:48:47,760 --> 00:48:51,719
Speaker 1: belief systems, certain methods of punishment may be prescribed for

800
00:48:51,800 --> 00:48:54,759
Speaker 1: certain types of transgressions. This is where you hear about

801
00:48:54,840 --> 00:48:59,640
Speaker 1: traditional methods of punishment, right or execution for the violation

802
00:48:59,800 --> 00:49:03,000
Speaker 1: of socio spiritual moras. That's just that's a word I

803
00:49:03,080 --> 00:49:07,440
Speaker 1: made up. I'm gonna stick with mores word socio spiritual.

804
00:49:10,000 --> 00:49:12,959
Speaker 1: And then there's the other one. Second, torture is also

805
00:49:13,160 --> 00:49:17,600
Speaker 1: used successfully to some degree to send a message.

806
00:49:17,800 --> 00:49:19,239
Speaker 3: And this goes to.

807
00:49:20,920 --> 00:49:25,120
Speaker 1: An anecdote. Now, I know there's a touchy geopolitical situation

808
00:49:25,640 --> 00:49:28,880
Speaker 1: with Russia right now, but there's a short there's a

809
00:49:28,960 --> 00:49:31,480
Speaker 1: short story or an account of what happened in the

810
00:49:31,560 --> 00:49:35,400
Speaker 1: Soviet Union at the time had four Soviet diplomats kidnapped

811
00:49:35,840 --> 00:49:38,200
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty five. Did you'll hear about this?

812
00:49:38,560 --> 00:49:38,920
Speaker 2: I have no.

813
00:49:40,520 --> 00:49:45,399
Speaker 1: So in nineteen eighty five, these four Soviet diplomats were

814
00:49:45,840 --> 00:49:50,839
Speaker 1: kidnapped by a fundamentalist group called the Islamic Liberation Organization.

815
00:49:51,520 --> 00:49:54,960
Speaker 1: They dispatched Russia dispatched something called it's Alpha Group. They

816
00:49:55,000 --> 00:50:01,200
Speaker 1: were tasked with counter terrorism hostage rescue situations. They learned

817
00:50:01,440 --> 00:50:05,560
Speaker 1: that one of the hostages had been killed, a guy

818
00:50:05,680 --> 00:50:10,200
Speaker 1: named Arkadi Katkov. And so what they did is they

819
00:50:10,440 --> 00:50:14,759
Speaker 1: tracked down and located one of the leaders of the kidnappers,

820
00:50:14,800 --> 00:50:19,360
Speaker 1: are possibly a relative, and they wanted to send a

821
00:50:19,719 --> 00:50:26,000
Speaker 1: message to the terrorist. They tortured this person that they

822
00:50:26,120 --> 00:50:31,080
Speaker 1: captured with absolutely no intention of gaining information, absolutely no

823
00:50:31,239 --> 00:50:35,240
Speaker 1: intention of letting them survive. Alpha Group castrated the hostage,

824
00:50:35,600 --> 00:50:38,840
Speaker 1: cut him into pieces, and sent pieces of him to

825
00:50:39,040 --> 00:50:42,560
Speaker 1: the hostage takers. And they also said, we know who

826
00:50:42,600 --> 00:50:45,480
Speaker 1: your other relatives are, and we know where they live,

827
00:50:45,880 --> 00:50:49,240
Speaker 1: and we know their routines. The three hostages were released

828
00:50:49,280 --> 00:50:52,160
Speaker 1: and dropped off near the Soviet embassy, and there were

829
00:50:52,239 --> 00:50:56,560
Speaker 1: no other There haven't been Russian officials taken captive since then,

830
00:50:58,040 --> 00:51:02,520
Speaker 1: and then people argue back and forth this scary story.

831
00:51:03,239 --> 00:51:07,400
Speaker 1: But what it shows is that their goal in torture

832
00:51:07,520 --> 00:51:11,200
Speaker 1: then was not to learn anything new. Their goal was

833
00:51:11,239 --> 00:51:14,359
Speaker 1: to send a signal, just like in the early days

834
00:51:14,360 --> 00:51:19,600
Speaker 1: of civilization, where someone said, let us make an example, disgusting,

835
00:51:21,000 --> 00:51:22,000
Speaker 1: repugnant example.

836
00:51:22,080 --> 00:51:25,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, rather than flaming some prisoners and putting them on

837
00:51:26,120 --> 00:51:30,360
Speaker 2: spikes throughout your whole kingdom, you'd just cut one person

838
00:51:30,480 --> 00:51:32,480
Speaker 2: up to take this one group out.

839
00:51:33,080 --> 00:51:37,560
Speaker 1: And you could argue again, morals aside that that was

840
00:51:37,600 --> 00:51:40,440
Speaker 1: a short term solution, that the signaling did result in

841
00:51:40,480 --> 00:51:43,759
Speaker 1: the release of those other hostages. But over the long

842
00:51:43,920 --> 00:51:49,200
Speaker 1: term is that a solution, I don't know. But for now,

843
00:51:49,960 --> 00:51:53,920
Speaker 1: the practice of torture continues. We had talked before about

844
00:51:54,040 --> 00:51:58,160
Speaker 1: several like we've mentioned several forms of torture that seem

845
00:51:58,600 --> 00:52:03,160
Speaker 1: our cane but are still around. Right, Like nol you

846
00:52:03,239 --> 00:52:07,440
Speaker 1: mentioned when we're talking about foot whipping. You had told

847
00:52:07,520 --> 00:52:11,400
Speaker 1: me before that that's not an ancient practice, right right.

848
00:52:11,440 --> 00:52:13,400
Speaker 3: Well, I mean maybe the origins of it are, but

849
00:52:13,760 --> 00:52:17,360
Speaker 3: I know there was an incident with I believe it

850
00:52:17,440 --> 00:52:22,480
Speaker 3: was kuse Hussein who participated in whipping the feet of

851
00:52:23,280 --> 00:52:26,200
Speaker 3: I believe it was an Iraqi soccer team. You know

852
00:52:26,239 --> 00:52:29,080
Speaker 3: about this, the whole team? I think so. Yeah, apparently

853
00:52:29,239 --> 00:52:33,640
Speaker 3: Ude Hussein was a pretty sore loser when the group

854
00:52:33,680 --> 00:52:38,919
Speaker 3: of Iraqi soccer stars did not win the Asian Cup

855
00:52:39,920 --> 00:52:44,040
Speaker 3: and he had them tortured by having the soles of

856
00:52:44,080 --> 00:52:48,040
Speaker 3: their feet whipped after losing the World Cup qualifying match.

857
00:52:49,480 --> 00:52:52,680
Speaker 3: So yeah, it's definitely something that's still around.

858
00:52:53,000 --> 00:52:55,400
Speaker 1: And that's technically that's going to be state sponsored then

859
00:52:55,440 --> 00:52:56,480
Speaker 1: because he was a Hussain.

860
00:52:56,760 --> 00:52:56,960
Speaker 3: Yeah.

861
00:52:58,520 --> 00:53:01,320
Speaker 2: Wow, well, boys, I feel awful.

862
00:53:03,400 --> 00:53:06,640
Speaker 3: Well there's a silver lining, right what? I don't know

863
00:53:07,480 --> 00:53:09,120
Speaker 3: when we're just talking off air about you know, the

864
00:53:09,200 --> 00:53:12,520
Speaker 3: future of torture. Maybe there's a kind of torture that

865
00:53:12,600 --> 00:53:14,080
Speaker 3: doesn't really hurt you physically.

866
00:53:14,600 --> 00:53:17,280
Speaker 2: Oh okay, some sort of virtual torture.

867
00:53:17,440 --> 00:53:21,839
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, you guys see an Altered Carbon the Netflix show. Yeah,

868
00:53:22,000 --> 00:53:24,880
Speaker 3: I think it's a lot of fun. It's got problems,

869
00:53:24,920 --> 00:53:28,760
Speaker 3: But there's a particular scenario where there's this like shop

870
00:53:28,960 --> 00:53:32,200
Speaker 3: or it looks like a medical facility where a somebody

871
00:53:32,200 --> 00:53:36,600
Speaker 3: who wants to extract information can pay these texts to

872
00:53:37,239 --> 00:53:39,959
Speaker 3: put somebody under you kind of have to abduct them first,

873
00:53:40,080 --> 00:53:41,960
Speaker 3: So if that shoot them up in the neck with

874
00:53:42,040 --> 00:53:45,160
Speaker 3: some kind of you know, sleepy meds, and then you

875
00:53:45,239 --> 00:53:47,360
Speaker 3: put them on this table and put all these electrodes

876
00:53:47,360 --> 00:53:49,200
Speaker 3: attached to their brain, and they end up in a

877
00:53:49,320 --> 00:53:53,640
Speaker 3: virtual room where somebody can go in there and reak

878
00:53:53,719 --> 00:53:56,680
Speaker 3: all kinds of virtual havoc on them, and apparently, you know,

879
00:53:56,760 --> 00:53:59,880
Speaker 3: there's like a readout of the way their body's reacting.

880
00:54:00,960 --> 00:54:04,480
Speaker 3: And while it's all psychological, they apparently feel it in

881
00:54:04,680 --> 00:54:05,720
Speaker 3: the virtual world.

882
00:54:05,880 --> 00:54:12,280
Speaker 2: Right. Yeah, it's a terrifying extrapolation of both virtual reality

883
00:54:12,360 --> 00:54:17,440
Speaker 2: and torture, certainly. And I can imagine a world, this

884
00:54:17,640 --> 00:54:21,600
Speaker 2: world where there is some type of interface that makes

885
00:54:21,719 --> 00:54:26,279
Speaker 2: it it blurs the line between real and virtual, like

886
00:54:26,440 --> 00:54:31,440
Speaker 2: the ar stuff that we are seeing right now, augmented

887
00:54:31,520 --> 00:54:34,680
Speaker 2: reality and virtual reality. I can totally imagine that occurring.

888
00:54:35,520 --> 00:54:38,200
Speaker 2: I wonder how effective it would be or could be

889
00:54:38,239 --> 00:54:38,759
Speaker 2: the same thing.

890
00:54:38,880 --> 00:54:41,640
Speaker 3: Man, do you not still think the ethical quandaries still

891
00:54:41,680 --> 00:54:43,560
Speaker 3: apply and also the efficacy?

892
00:54:43,920 --> 00:54:46,759
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, it would still apply, at least in the

893
00:54:47,080 --> 00:54:52,080
Speaker 1: psychological sense, because unless the person's mind was also erased,

894
00:54:52,360 --> 00:54:55,640
Speaker 1: they were their experience was also erased. They would still

895
00:54:55,760 --> 00:55:00,760
Speaker 1: remember this and bear the psychological burden of what occurred.

896
00:55:01,239 --> 00:55:04,120
Speaker 1: It sort of like you can wake up from a nightmare,

897
00:55:05,120 --> 00:55:07,560
Speaker 1: but you still remember it and you're still going to

898
00:55:07,600 --> 00:55:13,239
Speaker 1: affect your behavior. Sure, so perhaps it's still better than

899
00:55:13,840 --> 00:55:19,440
Speaker 1: the alternative of shredding people's tongues or flaming them, But

900
00:55:19,600 --> 00:55:22,640
Speaker 1: it's a difference of degree on.

901
00:55:22,719 --> 00:55:25,279
Speaker 2: I m'd say, Man, I watched the video on the

902
00:55:25,360 --> 00:55:29,800
Speaker 2: Brazen Bull to get ready for this, and I almost

903
00:55:29,840 --> 00:55:31,000
Speaker 2: didn't even want to bring it up.

904
00:55:31,120 --> 00:55:34,000
Speaker 3: But the thing where they put them inside of a thing, it's.

905
00:55:33,920 --> 00:55:38,120
Speaker 2: A statue made out of bronze, or at least theoretically

906
00:55:38,200 --> 00:55:40,920
Speaker 2: there is. There has not one been found, Like they've

907
00:55:40,960 --> 00:55:43,120
Speaker 2: never actually seen a full brazen.

908
00:55:42,760 --> 00:55:44,239
Speaker 1: Bull, which just read accounts of it.

909
00:55:44,560 --> 00:55:46,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it was a statue of a bowl that

910
00:55:47,960 --> 00:55:49,880
Speaker 2: was large enough for a human to fit inside, and

911
00:55:49,920 --> 00:55:51,800
Speaker 2: they would put a fire on the bottom of it,

912
00:55:51,920 --> 00:55:54,120
Speaker 2: and the entire thing would heat up because of the

913
00:55:54,160 --> 00:55:57,080
Speaker 2: substance it's made of, all of the metal, it quickly

914
00:55:57,200 --> 00:55:59,880
Speaker 2: heats up to the same temperature the person inside is

915
00:56:00,000 --> 00:56:04,080
Speaker 2: pretty much cooked. And it was Oh, there was also

916
00:56:04,200 --> 00:56:07,680
Speaker 2: this whole thing where their stories or at least accounts

917
00:56:08,160 --> 00:56:12,040
Speaker 2: of the bull makes an actual bull sound when the

918
00:56:12,080 --> 00:56:15,200
Speaker 2: person is being cooked, and it's based on the idea

919
00:56:15,480 --> 00:56:20,000
Speaker 2: of the single air hole that goes into the bowl

920
00:56:20,320 --> 00:56:23,760
Speaker 2: is actually from the mouth of this brazen bull statue,

921
00:56:24,280 --> 00:56:27,719
Speaker 2: and the only way to get oxygen as smoke is

922
00:56:27,800 --> 00:56:30,520
Speaker 2: filling up the bull, and you're in there being cooked

923
00:56:30,560 --> 00:56:33,840
Speaker 2: and dying is to breathe through that hole, and it

924
00:56:34,080 --> 00:56:37,279
Speaker 2: makes like a cow sound when you're breathing through it.

925
00:56:37,560 --> 00:56:41,040
Speaker 2: It was the most horrifying thing. I mean, there are gross,

926
00:56:41,520 --> 00:56:44,440
Speaker 2: terrible things of cutting up and all this, but the

927
00:56:44,640 --> 00:56:49,439
Speaker 2: concept of being locked into an oven in that way

928
00:56:49,920 --> 00:56:54,200
Speaker 2: while you can hear whoever is in charge like laughing.

929
00:56:54,280 --> 00:56:57,320
Speaker 2: Because it's supposedly done as like a form of entertainment,

930
00:56:58,880 --> 00:57:00,480
Speaker 2: not only punishment, but attainment.

931
00:57:00,960 --> 00:57:02,840
Speaker 3: Well, that goes into when we're talking about some of

932
00:57:02,920 --> 00:57:10,319
Speaker 3: these older civilizations where the torture was kind of entertainment.

933
00:57:10,480 --> 00:57:13,200
Speaker 3: Like even you know, being a gladiator for example, that

934
00:57:13,400 --> 00:57:16,600
Speaker 3: was a punishment that was a form of torture. I mean,

935
00:57:16,640 --> 00:57:18,440
Speaker 3: you had a fighting chance, I guess, but it was

936
00:57:18,480 --> 00:57:21,600
Speaker 3: also done for you know, the amusement of the government

937
00:57:21,720 --> 00:57:24,200
Speaker 3: and then they keep the people happy with the bread

938
00:57:24,240 --> 00:57:25,600
Speaker 3: and circuses and all that stuff.

939
00:57:26,520 --> 00:57:29,880
Speaker 1: And religion was also functioning as government too for much

940
00:57:29,920 --> 00:57:32,760
Speaker 1: of the time. So if it was a religious practice,

941
00:57:33,200 --> 00:57:36,280
Speaker 1: if we must, you know, rip the hearts out of

942
00:57:36,400 --> 00:57:41,120
Speaker 1: the living so that the sun continues to rise or

943
00:57:41,200 --> 00:57:45,520
Speaker 1: that the eclipse ends, then it's still still a state

944
00:57:45,600 --> 00:57:49,440
Speaker 1: sponsored action. And this brings us to questions for you, folks.

945
00:57:49,960 --> 00:57:55,280
Speaker 1: Do you believe that torture does produce results?

946
00:57:55,680 --> 00:57:56,680
Speaker 2: Do you believe that the.

947
00:57:58,360 --> 00:58:06,320
Speaker 1: Ends justify the macabre means? And if so or if not,

948
00:58:06,720 --> 00:58:11,440
Speaker 1: why we would like to hear from you. We also,

949
00:58:11,960 --> 00:58:14,080
Speaker 1: this is the part of the show where Matt, Noel

950
00:58:14,240 --> 00:58:17,800
Speaker 1: and I let you know that we are on the internet.

951
00:58:18,120 --> 00:58:21,640
Speaker 1: That's all true. We are on Instagram, We're on Facebook.

952
00:58:22,000 --> 00:58:25,080
Speaker 1: Join our discussion page here's where it gets crazy, where

953
00:58:25,120 --> 00:58:28,440
Speaker 1: you can find us interacting from time to time. You

954
00:58:28,520 --> 00:58:30,640
Speaker 1: can also find us on Twitter. But we're not just

955
00:58:30,760 --> 00:58:33,960
Speaker 1: on the internet anymore, folks. The rumors are true. We've

956
00:58:34,080 --> 00:58:37,320
Speaker 1: branched out to another platform, the good old telephone.

957
00:58:37,920 --> 00:58:41,320
Speaker 2: Yes, we now have a toll free number that you

958
00:58:41,440 --> 00:58:46,600
Speaker 2: can call and leave us a voice message and spoiler alert,

959
00:58:46,800 --> 00:58:49,840
Speaker 2: we might make a couple episodes where we feature you

960
00:58:50,480 --> 00:58:53,960
Speaker 2: on the show. Okay, it's gonna happen, but we just

961
00:58:54,120 --> 00:58:57,200
Speaker 2: need you to leave the messages. So here it is,

962
00:58:57,400 --> 00:58:59,200
Speaker 2: write this down, put it in your phone, do what

963
00:58:59,280 --> 00:59:03,880
Speaker 2: you gotta do. Eight three three st d w y

964
00:59:04,040 --> 00:59:07,600
Speaker 2: t K. Let's do that again with numbers eight three

965
00:59:07,760 --> 00:59:12,160
Speaker 2: three seven, eight three nine nine eight five. If you

966
00:59:12,240 --> 00:59:14,680
Speaker 2: call that number right now, you will hear Ben's voice

967
00:59:15,200 --> 00:59:17,960
Speaker 2: and then leave a message. That's all. It's super simple.

968
00:59:18,320 --> 00:59:18,440
Speaker 1: Hey.

969
00:59:18,520 --> 00:59:21,200
Speaker 3: And if you, you know, have some sort of phone aversion,

970
00:59:21,960 --> 00:59:25,960
Speaker 3: you know, like touching plastic buttons, I guess I could

971
00:59:25,960 --> 00:59:27,840
Speaker 3: apply to a keyboard, dude. It doesn't matter if it's

972
00:59:27,840 --> 00:59:30,040
Speaker 3: a specific phone a version. You can reach us on

973
00:59:30,120 --> 00:59:32,840
Speaker 3: the internet. Like Ben said, we are there at a

974
00:59:33,000 --> 00:59:37,960
Speaker 3: conspiracy stuff show on Instagram and just conspiracy stuff on

975
00:59:38,320 --> 00:59:41,480
Speaker 3: Twitter and Facebook. And if you don't want to do

976
00:59:41,560 --> 00:59:45,840
Speaker 3: any of that stuff phone Internet facts. Yeah, we don't

977
00:59:45,840 --> 00:59:47,480
Speaker 3: have facts, but we should. We should. That should be

978
00:59:47,520 --> 00:59:50,840
Speaker 3: our next antiquated communication means that we come up with.

979
00:59:51,200 --> 00:59:54,120
Speaker 2: That would actually be amazing. We had a fax machine

980
00:59:54,200 --> 00:59:55,240
Speaker 2: that just sat next.

981
00:59:55,320 --> 00:59:57,760
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, okay, yeah, it makes a cool sound, that's for.

982
00:59:57,800 --> 01:00:00,040
Speaker 2: Sure, all right, And that's the end of the this

983
01:00:00,280 --> 01:00:04,440
Speaker 2: classic episode. If you have any thoughts or questions about

984
01:00:04,640 --> 01:00:07,400
Speaker 2: this episode, you can get into contact with us in

985
01:00:07,480 --> 01:00:09,600
Speaker 2: a number of different ways. One of the best is

986
01:00:09,640 --> 01:00:11,640
Speaker 2: to give us a call. Our number is one eight

987
01:00:11,880 --> 01:00:15,920
Speaker 2: three three STDWYTK. If you don't want to do that,

988
01:00:16,280 --> 01:00:18,280
Speaker 2: you can send us a good old fashioned email.

989
01:00:18,560 --> 01:00:21,720
Speaker 1: We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.

990
01:00:22,840 --> 01:00:24,880
Speaker 2: Stuff they don't want you to know is a production

991
01:00:25,040 --> 01:00:29,520
Speaker 2: of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

992
01:00:29,640 --> 01:00:32,480
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.