Call me Spire, Spiral, Twistings, KiY, or Carcosa
He/they/it, I am quite the creature, and fond of spirals.
Also Lab whump, Pet whump, and anything that falls under fantasy or magic or supernatural creature whump.
I have broader horizons than that but these are the things I tend to gravitate towards.
Maybe going to post writing snippets or just reblog whatever catches this entity's eye.
I am the deity of my OCs and they will suffer for my entertainment!
Welcome to my blog.
Masterlist Link:
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
â Live Streamingâ Interactive Chatâ Private Showsâ HD Quality
Anya is LIVE right now
FREE
Free to watch ⢠No registration required ⢠HD streaming
that person who drew the whitest patroculus ever is actually pissing me off for the whole 'the greeks weren't Black take'. there is are WHOLE-ASS GREEK MYTHS ABOUT KING MEMNON WHO WAS A BLACK DEMIGOD KING DATING BACK MILLENIA!!!! there are greek art pieces displaying figures with explicitly Black features (attic white-ground alabastron, janiform kantharos cups, water jar with herakles and bousiris) the greeks even had a full-on word for Black people in ancient greek, Aithiopian!!
Memnon wasn't from Greece, but the fact that his existence was noted in a core story by Greeks... or Andromeda, wife of Perseus of whose bloodline would produce Heracles, whose bloodline would produce.. wait for it.... TYNDAREUS OF SPARTA, father of Clytemnestra... was also Aethiopian... They're the important ones that got mentioned. What makes everyone think that there were no regular Black people just walking around?
No one's going to remember the vast majority of humanity; no one's going to remember that all these bigot Tumblr assholes existed either- does that mean they didn't exist in the space? That they weren't real? Didn't matter?
At this point, there's no point in continuing to argue lmao, these people don't read and they have no desire to acknowledge history or culture or the ability of people that aren't white to move around the world. They don't want to hear that their understanding of the Ancient World has been biased by a forced white western perspective, which means a hyperfocus on what became the White identity (that they simultaneously share while claiming it's a threat).
Racism isn't logical or intelligent- it's just really violent and determined to speak louder than everyone else. That's who we're dealing with, here. Willfully racist idiots.
For anyone looking an explanation of the historical and contemporary tensions between the Black and Asian American community, and how that, too, is structural and fueled to benefit white supremacy. Proximity to Whiteness will never be Whiteness!
.ăăăăăâăăăăăăăăăăăăăă.ăăăăăăăăăă ⌠ăăăă ă ăËăă . ⌠ăăăă.ăăăăăăăă.ăăăăăăăďžăăăăă.ăăăăăăăâ˘ăăăăăăăă.âă ,ă ăăăăăăăăăăăăăăââăăăăăăâ âăăăăăă.ăăăăăăăăă.ăăăăăăăăăăăăăă ⌠.ăăăâ˘ăăăăăăă ⌠ăăăăââ ă⢠ăăăËăăăăăăăăăăăăăăăăăăăăâ âăăăăăă.ăăâăă . ăăăăăă ăăă. ăă.âă ăăâ˘ăăăă ⌠. ă.ăăăăăă.ăăă ă ăăăă ăăăăăăăăăăăă.ăăâââă .ăăă.ăăăăăăăăăă.ăăăďžăââăăă.ăăăăăăăăăăăăă ⌠ăăăăăă,ăăăăăăă.ăăăăăăââââăăăă ăăăăă.ă ăă ăâŚăăăăă.ăăăăâ . âď¸ ăăăăăăăăăâ˘ăăăăăăăăăââââ.ăââââââăăă.ăăââââââââăăăăăăăă.ăăăăă. ⢠ăăăăăăăă.ăăăăăă.           .          .
âŚăăăă.ăăăăăăââââââââŚăâââăăăă   .ăăăăăăăăăăăăăăăăâââââââăâââăă ăăăăăăăăăăăăăăâââââââăâââ ⌠. ⢠.
ăăăăăăăâ˘ăăă.ăăăăă.âă đă ăăăăăăăăăăăăăăââăăăăăăâ âăăăăăă.ăăăăăăăăă.ăăăăăăăăăăăăăă ⌠.ăăăâ˘ăăăăăăă ⌠ăăăăââ ă⢠ăăăËăăăăăăăăăăăăăăăăăăăăâ âăăăăăă.ăăâăă . ăăăăăă. ăăă. ăă.âă ăăâ˘ăăăă.    . ⌠.ăăăăăăă.ăăă ă ăăăă. ăăăă.ăăăăăăăă.ăăâââă .ăăă.ăăăăă.ăăăăă.ăăăďžă .ââă
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
â Live Streamingâ Interactive Chatâ Private Showsâ HD Quality
Anya is LIVE right now
FREE
Free to watch ⢠No registration required ⢠HD streaming
Drugs are morally neutral. Doing or not doing drugs is not an indicator of how good a person is. There are addicts whoâd give you the shirt off their back, and sober people who poison the homeless for fun.
There needs to be shorthand for "I agree with the basic good that you are defending, but your obsession with winning arguments online has caused you to warp your whole worldview and deny the complexity of reality just to make sure every aspect of the world supports the basic argument that you are defending and you need to stop."
Sometimes it sucks being a ( relatively)well passing trans person in groups of cis ( and tbh it has happened with some non cis) queer people because SOME of them think you donât mind/ notice the transphobic bullshit they say about enbys, non passing trans people, etc; but I do and that has just lowered you in the rankings in my brain on how safe I feel around you. Fucking assholes.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
â Live Streamingâ Interactive Chatâ Private Showsâ HD Quality
Anya is LIVE right now
FREE
Free to watch ⢠No registration required ⢠HD streaming
Living weapon (slave in a gladiator ring trained at a young age to serve for entertainement) vs living weapon (child assassin prodigy in a secret, special military unit that deals with the goverment's dirty laundry)
#there aren't even words for how much i want a book tv show movie anything where this is the cast#the performative fighter molded to make everything a spectacle#flashy attacks and dramatic banter#silence meant punishment#living off the excitement and entertainment of the crowds#the moment they stop being popular is the moment they die#and the secret assassin is the opposite#being noticed could be deadly#firm stares and gritted teeth but never a word spoken and never a sound made#killing quickly and efficiently with a single strike and of course cleaning up after#that's their job after all#to clean up for the higher ups' mistakes#and the sapient sword oh boy#when did they become sapient? do they remember being made?#the others were born human and turned into weapons but they were created to do nothing but destroy#is being used for violence against their will or do they crave it#then there's the lab creature#lots of ways that one could fall#it might be as quiet as the assassin or it could lack volume control completely#âsuffering for its creators' hubrisâ#it was meant to be different than it is somehow#so much could've gone wrong#imagine you're born and you've already proven worthy to be discarded#imagine you're subject to torturous experiments and tests because they're trying to figure out what went wrong with you#man#and the ways they'd interact.....#the similarities and differences............#augh via prev
It goes a little something like this: Youâre a member of an intelligence agency, and youâve caught one of the bad guys. You know this guy has planted a bomb somewhere in a crowded civilian area, and the bomb is fitted with a timer that will eventually lead to its detonation. You donât know where the bomb is, but the guy isnât talking, and time is quickly running out. If torturing the would-be terrorist will reveal the location of the bomb, in turn giving your agency time to diffuse it, saving the lives of countless innocent civilians⌠well, should you do it?
This essay isnât going to argue as to whether or not torture works as a method of obtaining reliable information from an unwilling subject (it doesnât). Instead Iâm going to criticize the rhetorical, ethical, and political underpinnings of the ticking time bomb thought experiment and its derivatives, and on that basis, spoiler alert, eventually conclude that it has a whole lot of flaws that might be relevant to the debate on torture.
On a Surface Level
The ticking time bomb scenario, as Alex Adams points out in their 2016 book How To Justify Torture, might be posed as an open-ended question, but the conclusion which respondents are expected to reach is never really up for debate. To boil it down to its roots: if you can stop something very bad from happening by doing something that is less bad, you should do it. This thought experiment is designed, through the use of various forms of appeal, to guide participants to a predetermined conclusion, being that while torture is normally reprehensible, it can in certain special emergencies be morally justified. In effect, this makes the ticking time bomb less of a genuine thought experiment in ethics, and more of a rhetorical argument.
Because the average person typically views torture as morally repugnant, proponents of the ticking time bomb scenario need to quickly establish torture as a rational and reliable option within this pre-supposed emergency. Analyzing the ticking time bomb at a superficial, pragmatic level will quickly reveal a set of presumptions which are made to solidify this rational framing of torture.
The investigation preceding the scenario has been reliable: We definitely do have the right guy, the bomb threat is real, not acting will lead to dire consequences, etc.
No other forms of interrogation or negotiation will be effective, and neither will other forms of non-physical coercion, such as blackmail, threats, or intimidation.
Torture will not only be effective at reliably extracting the right information, but it will also achieve this in a way that is swift. Torture will save the day here.
The act of torture is assumed to have negative consequences only for the person being tortured.
None of these presumptions are particularly realistic, and in real life, scenarios like this are pretty much unheard of. Contentions about realism would significantly muddy the water as to what rational utilitarian value you can derive from the use of torture, but because youâre not actually supposed to engage critically with the ethics here, realism can be ignored. The framer might also comment that you must be fun at parties, just to drive that point home.
Letâs talk appeal
You can glean quite a bit about where an argument comes from by dissecting what itâs trying to appeal to. This essay, for example, largely appeals to reason (logos) through the use of logical arguments. It also implicitly appeals tothe character and credibility (ethos) of me as the mediator of these arguments, through the use of tone, structure, the fact that I tell you about theory, etc. Later on, I will tell you loosely about certain real-life uses of torture, which, along with tone and word choice, are both an appeal to emotion and imagination (pathos). Using appeal isnât inherently a sign of dishonesty â in fact, itâs impossible not to use any form of appeal â but analyzing it will give you a good idea of what a the author of a text wants you to take away from it.
Which types of appeal are present within the ticking time bomb scenario? Well, letâs break it down.
The appeal to common sense and intuition, made evident in that the answer to this thought experiment seems clear-cut and obvious to participants, is one of those appeals that doesnât take long to disentangle. A feminist finds it intuitively obvious that men and women are equal. A homophobe finds it intuitively obvious that gay people are degenerates. That should show you the inherent meaninglessness of this type of appeal.
Appeal to rationality, in that torture itself is portrayed as the rational tool for purpose. The implicit premise behind this thought experiment is that when torture is used, the result is swift, predictable, and reliable. (It is none of those things.)
Thereâs an appeal to fear in that this particular thought experiment deals with the threat of terrorism. Furthermore, the fear of terrorism specifically is common in right-wing political thought. Although it is never explicitly mentioned, itâs not hard to imagine that your average conservative probably pictures the terrorist in this scenario as brown-skinned. For a good chunk of participants, therefore, this thought experiment will specifically be an implicit appeal to tribalism and out-group bias.
Appeal to consequences, as inaction in this scenario will lead to the loss of innocent lives.
Appeal to urgency though the use of the âtime bombâ itself â itâs ticking, remember? You have to make a quick decision. The appeal to urgency is notably quite common within reactionary thinking.
Appeal to heroism, or a savior complex in that your ultimate goal is to save the day. Torturers are made tough through this thought experiment. It is argued implicitly that they are willing to make a difficult decision for the sake of the greater good. You can go so far as to imply an appeal to the hypermasculine ideal of protecting the weak from harm.
The appeal to authority, in the ticking time bombâs use of police/military organizations. As mentioned, the investigation preceding the thought experiment is presumed to have led to the right suspect, something that realistically wouldnât be as clear-cut.
There is an implicit appeal to righteousness in that the person you are torturing planted a bomb with the intent to kill civilians. You might even go as far as to call it justice. This can also be interpreted as an appeal to the hypermasculine ideal of establishing dominance over others, in this case, specifically a bad guy. This is a rabbit hole of its own within torture justifications.
In fictional derivatives of the ticking time bomb scenario, the emotional appeal is often made even more personal. Now, the terrorist has specifically planted the bomb in the school of your child, or in the shopping mall where your wife works. This is another powerful appeal to emotion and urgency; the question is no longer Is torture sometimes justified?, but instead, Do you love your family?
You might notice that these appeals seem to snugly align with certain spheres of political thought. And make no mistake â this is more often than not by design. The purpose here is not to get you to think seriously about the ethics of torture; it is to lead you to a specific conclusion about torture through reactionary aesthetics.
As a participant, you are being asked to accept the use of torture in certain cases. If youâve done some research on the topic, youâll notice that the CIA seems to be convinced that torture works for interrogation (it doesnât). So, regardless of the reactionary aesthetic, what if the CIA is correct? Shouldnât we at least take this thought experiment seriously?
WellâŚ
Utilitarianism 101
As previously mentioned, we can boil the ticking time bomb argument down to its ethical root, which is: if you can stop something very bad from happening to lots of people, by doing something that is less bad to one person, you should do it.
This in and of itself appears straightforward, but as people much smarter than me have pointed out, âthe lesser of two evilsâ-type arguments invariably lead to the acceptance of some capacity of evil, which is why they should be approached very carefully. The ticking time bomb specifically makes use of utilitarian ethics â torture is given utility â and for that reason, I think itâs important to consider some basics of utilitarian ethics that the scenario and its proponents are suspiciously quiet about.
Utilitarianism is an other-focused ethical framework that states that our behavior should be aligned with the facilitation of the greatest amount of good for the greatest number of people.Here, the word good refers to predetermined axiomatic values, which are obviously highly subjective, and thatâs a deep dive in and of itself. For the sake of brevity, Iâm going to shorten the debate down to its most agreed-upon conclusion: it is bad when humans suffer: therefore, it is good to minimize human suffering.
Letâs have another classic thought experiment, the basic premise of which should sound familiar. You have a neighbor who kind of sucks. He sits around on his couch all day playing video games and drinking, he doesnât produce anything of value to other people, heâs just kind of a bum. Coincidentally, down at the local hospital, five people are waiting for an organ transplant. If these five people donât receive an organ transplant, they will die. Is it justifiable, in this scenario, for you to murder your neighbor so his organs can be harvested and used to save the life of the five transplant patients? Â
Act utilitarianism posits that any act is moral if the end result leads to the greatest good for the greatest number of people. Here, it would conclude that murdering one person to save the lives of five others would be morally good, because one person dying is less badthan five people dying. Overall bad, it would argue, has been reduced in this scenario.
Rule utilitarianism is a direct response to act utilitarianism, and posits that you can justify most acts through edge-case exceptions, precisely like the organ murder thought experiment does (or indeed like the ticking bomb does). It posits that instead of judging each act independently, we ought to live by rules that overall lead to the greatest good for the greatest number of people. This version of the theory is much more focused on long-term consequences of our rule of behavior, as opposed to the here-and-now short-term utility of any particular act itself. Rule utilitarianism, in this regard, is capable of acknowledging that while certain acts can have a positive outcome in the short-term, they might also have a negative outcomes in the long-term, and vice-versa. (There is an argument to be made here that rule utilitarianism eventually loops back around to just becoming act utilitarianism, but because Iâm appealing to people who arenât in the deep end, I wonât get into that in this essay.) In the case of killing your neighbor, rule utilitarianism would acknowledge that while it is true that the immediate consequence of one death for the sake of preventing five other deaths is good, the act of murder as a rule leads to much more bad than good, and should therefore not be something we accept or facilitate within our moral framework. Rule utilitarianism would argue that even if murder has utilitarian value in exceptional cases, facilitating a rule of behavior in which murder is âsometimes permissibleâ is in and of itself counter to our axiomatic values.
This might all sound abstract and inconsequential to you, but in praxis, itâs the difference between a government committing a war crime and not committing a war crime. Itâs why I think itâs so important for people to be familiar with the basics of ethics.
According to rule utilitarianism, the ticking time bomb scenario deals with the short-term and implies that torture in this scenario is good, but it fails to consider the possible long-term consequences of permitting the use of torture into our prescriptive framework of ethics â the rules we ought to live by.
How might the use of torture on this terrorist be viewed by other like-minded people? Is it possible it might lead to further radicalization â potentially leading to even more terrorists planting even more ticking time bombs in the future?
Torture polarizes people. How will the use of torture be perceived within the state that allows it? Is it worth the further polarization of our internal political climate? This polarization has the potential in and of itself to lead to politically motivated violence, after all. Â
Straight tribalism appeal: if we use torture against them â wouldnât it also be acceptable, then, for them to use torture against us? Are we willing to accept that?
Is it possible that allowing police or other government bodies to engage in torture might have a negative impact on these organizationsâ interrogative efficacy down the line? Might knowledge of an organizationâs use of torture discourage people from volunteering information, or make suspects less likely to cooperate in the first place? Joe Navarro, who is an expert within the FBI in regards to questioning techniques, has stated: âOnly a psychopath can torture and be unaffected. You don't want people like that in your organization. They are untrustworthy, and tend to have grotesque other problems.â Following this line of reasoning, is the use of torture in exception cases worth the possible risks of employing torturers?
Allowing for a government-sanctioned use of torture in and of itself has massive connotations. Is the use of torture compatible with a society that strives to uphold human dignity? Is our willingness to disregard this human dignity in âedge casesâ worth the utility we could get from torture?
Even presupposing that torture works as an interrogation method (which it doesnât), proponents the ticking time bomb scenario need to actually demonstrate that the potential short-term positive outcome of using torture outweighs the long-term negative outcomes of accepting torture into our prescriptive ethical framework. This thought experiment and its derivatives within fiction, through the use of emotional, reactionary appeal, actively seeks to discourage participants from engaging with this aspect of the discourse. The rule that might reduce overall long-term suffering is disregarded in favor of the short-term good of the act.
If you take a look at ethical committees across the world, youâll notice they donât engage a whole lot with the ticking time bomb thought experiment. This is because at best, itâs incredibly vapid in terms of base-level ethics â and at worst, itâs a deliberate ethical fallacy.
Hang on⌠if itâs an ethical fallacy, then why are we still talking about it?
Running a pedo sex trafficking island in the Caribbean is usually considered morally wrong, yes. But letâs say aliens came to earth and told you they were gonna vaporize the whole planet, unless you ran a pedo sex trafficking island in the Caribbean and then invited all your buddies, allegedly including Donald Trump, Prince Andrew, and Bill Clinton? In this hypothetical scenario, would it not be morally justifiable to do so? Well, maybe the best response to a thought experiment like this isnât an immediate acceptance of the âlesser evilâ, but instead posing a question back to the framer: why the fuck, exactly, are you asking me to accept a moral justification for pedo sex trafficking?
It's about politics. Duh.
And now that weâve finally established that, we can criticize this âthought experimentâ within its historical, material context. Because hereâs the thing: governments and state leaders regularly frame the use of torture, following the ticking time bomb philosophy, as a necessary, justifiable evil in certain edge-case exceptions, which implicitly denies atrocity as a way to avoid accountability. Torture, you know â that thing that is internationally recognized as a war crime. In this way, the ticking time bomb scenario isnât just a political argument â it is a legal argument.
Researchers will tell you that the public discourse around torture seemed to shift after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, and that this shift was spearheaded by the Bush Administrationâs âWar on Terror.â The war on terror notably included actual on-the-ground military invasions throughout the middle east, like the invasion of Iraq and the war in Afghanistan, the effectiveness of which are highly disputed by experts, to say the least. And a notable project to go along with these actual, literal wars, were the systematic propaganda campaigns that the United States government propagated alongside. Youâve probably already read about the US militaryâs funding of action movies, books, and video games, and probably (rightly) assume that these in part served to influence the public perception of the USâ participation in foreign invasions. And given what was brought into public awareness by the leak of a classified Red Cross inspection report from the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in November 2004, itâs not so surprising that the US government would want its citizens to be more, ahem, openminded about the use of torture on enemy combatants. They did this by appealing to reactionary thinking. They turned torture into a terrible, but under certain exceptions, intuitively righteous act. And through the use of euphemisms â âenhanced interrogation methodsâ â the United Statesâ use of torture was even distinguished from the torture used by other (browner) nations, as a rational, even civilized act.
And this framing can still be seen in US politics to this day, most commonly along the republican party line. I donât want to talk about Donald Trump for longer than I need to here. Letâs just say heâs been very outspoken about his support for the use of waterboarding â âor worseâ â as an interrogation method, both before, during and after his presidency. This is one of the most powerful men in the world, who has a real chance of being re-elected this year, telling you explicitly that he intends to commit war crimes.
In reality though, justifications for the use of torture as morally permissible in edge-cases arenât a new phenomenon, and it wasnât invented by the United States. The reason the 9/11 shift comes up so often in research is that the US, as much as I hate to admit it, is the cultural epicenter of the world, and these ideas have gained global mainstream traction through Hollywood specifically. But you donât need to look hard to find examples that predate the war on terror.
The ticking time bomb â not just the argument behind it, but that specific thought experiment â was actually popularized by French writer and former soldier Jean LartĂŠguy in his 1960 novel Les Centurions, which was set during the 1954-1962 French-Algerian war. Later on, General Marcel Bigeard claimed that the use of torture by the French military was a ânecessary evil.â Another French general, Paul Aussaresses, wrote in 2001: âtorture became necessary when emergency imposed itself.â The French army used a wide variety of torture against Algerians, including beatings, burning, electroshock, waterboarding, mutilation, and rape. Funny how bad ideas always trace back to colonialism.
Who else? The Nazis, the British in Kenya (at least theyâve finally officially admitted it was torture, I guess), South African Apartheid forces, Russian military in Ukraine⌠I feel like Iâm missing someone relevantâŚ
Oh.
The use of coercive interrogation, another euphemism for torture, was reviewed by the Israeli Supreme Court in 1999 and deemed âunlawful, though permissible in certain cases.â Sound familiar? Torture is practiced by Israeli forces both in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and the use isnât always limited to adult detainees. Torture techniques include beatings, sleep deprivation, stress positions, breaking limbs with clubs, and non-physical torture, such as endless lectures along the lines of, quote: âAll Arabs are Bedouin, and Bedouin are Saudis, so Palestinians should go back to Saudi Arabia where they came from. You donât belong here.â The fog of war sure make things foggy, but Iâd imagine torture isnât above the IDFâs paygrade in the current Israeli attempt at a Palestinian genocide. Considering that allegations of torture have been coming out steadily for months now, I feel like Iâm not off base here.
Do you see how the âclear-cutâ argument presented within this innocent hypothetical is used by governments to shrug off accountability? Torture is described as necessary in the case of emergency â the words necessary and emergency sure do shift quite a lot depending on whoâs talking, but the basic arguments are all based on the same ethical fallacy, one that conflates useful with sometimes justified. I would argue, based on actual utilitarian ethics, that when you accept torture as sometimes justified into your ethical framework, bad shit tends to happen.
Ah, and then thereâs Hollywood. Popular culture is a part of public discourse, and all art, as you might know, is inherently political. Fictional portrayals of torture in western movies and literature before 9/11 tend to come away with the conclusion that torture is unjustifiable under any circumstances, and torturers are almost always portrayed as being in the wrong. Since then, portrayals have shifted to favor various derivatives of the ticking time bomb scenario. One of the most famous examples of this is Jack Bauer from the TV-series 24, who frequently makes use of torture as an interrogation method â in fact, he uses the same techniques that the United States used during the war on terror â and the show, in turn, treats him as heroic for being willing to do this. Other examples of ticking time bomb derivatives can be found in The Dark Night trilogy, Supernatural, Stranger Things, Daredevil, Taken, Fast and the Furious, Dirty Harry⌠Zootopia? Yeah, um, sorry, mr. Pixar, was the torture apologia scene perhaps really necessary to include in this childrenâs movie?
Along with the discourse seen by lawmakers and political figures, fiction influences the opinions of regular people all the time â it all adds up, you know? And I havenât been able to find more contemporary sources on this, but according to a poll from the Pew Research Institute from 2016, 48% of Americans believed that torture is acceptable âin some cases.â According to a 2019 poll from the nonprofit Freedom From Torture, 43% of Britons are âunsureâ if torture is always wrong â 29% believe that there are âsome circumstancesâ in which torture is acceptable. In a global survey from 2014 by Amnesty International, 74% of Chinese respondents said that torture is a ânecessary and acceptableâ way of gaining information. Conversely, Brazilian respondents, who scored highest in regards to the fear of being tortured, scored among the lowest favorability in the world, with only 19% saying that torture can be justified âin some cases.â
Globally, over a third (36%) of respondents said that torture can be justified âin some cases.â
Iâve said it before and Iâll say it again â the debate around torture isnât whether or not itâs good or bad - the vast majority of people will agree itâs bad, weâre all on the same page there. The really insidious idea is that torture is useful (which it isnât), mixed with the fact that your average person doesnât know the first thing about basic utilitarian ethics. Useful, to them, is tantamount to justifiable in some cases. As I hope to have shown you, this in and of itself is an ethical fallacy, and it is inherently reactionary.
Conclusion
I guess I wouldnât mind if you were a bit concerned.
But my greater point, perhaps, is that you should take âthought experimentsâ like the ticking time bomb with a tub of salt, especially if you know your grasp of ethics isnât particularly strong. If I want you to learn anything from this essay, itâs that reactionaries will sometimes make use of arguments that seem very convincing at first glance. They mostly do this purely on accident, to be sure, but appeals to intuition often require 4100 words at least to fully break down, and since nobody likes to read, a good chunk of people are going to take the ticking time bomb scenario at face value, and then go on to believe their opinions on torture stem from actual critical thought. Maybe donât be like them, is my point.
And if youâre a writer, I guess Iâd also like to ask you to be extremely careful of using ticking bomb derivatives in your stories. Ask yourself if your story might accidentally justify the use of torture, explicitly or implicitly. Ask yourself how the torturer and victim are portrayed â how the act itself is portrayed. Ask yourself what the scene is supposed to convey, and who you might be appealing to. Think about it, actually.
Because if you donât, thereâs a good chance that a third of your audience will walk away from your writing having learned precisely the wrong lesson from it.
Fiction makes, implicitly or explicitly, some kind of argument. A fictional portrayal of a guy simply going for a walk might make the argument that walking is a nice activity to do. This might not be a particularly earth-shattering message, but messages like this are implicit within the literary tools we use in how we portray characters, behavior, settings, and relationships. This underlying argument â a theme â is present in all of fiction. Itâs why youâll often see people make the statement that âall art is politicalâ. And when it comes to torture â a subject which in and of itself has been the topic of political debate for millenia â how we approach the ideas and arguments made within fictional depictions of torture warrant, in my opinion, a degree of care. Torture isnât just something that happens in movies. It is something that happens today, to real people, on a global scale. Itâs not even particularly rare.
The difficulty with the subject of torture specifically is that for the past two decades, the public perception of torture has shifted on a global scale, seen most clearly in how torture is presented in contemporary media, fiction or otherwise. Everybody believes these myths. And getting indoctrinated into having reactionary takes on a topic is nobodyâs fault, considering that almost every source outside of academia feeds you misinformation. But thatâs, yâknow, kinda why I made this blog: in the hopes that I might be able to get people to consider what ideas theyâre presenting in their writing.
I want to start out by briefly reitorating some basics of how torture apologia typically works within political discussions, because this very much is relevant to how you can avoid accidentally sending the wrong message.
The first thing you need to understand is that the real-life debate surrounding torture isnât framed in terms of whether or not torture is good or bad â everybody, including torturers themselves, will concede that it is bad. The more insidious argument is that torture is useful for achieving certain goals, and that it is therefore justified in extreme emergencies. Not only does this argument try to soften the usually rigid negative framing of torture in moral discussions, but it also seeks to poke holes in the international laws which ban the use of torture outright. Itâs a moral, political and legal argument all wrapped up in one reactionary package. For this reason, having the theme of âtorture is badâ doesnât always mean a piece of writing isnât making use of torture apologia. âTorture is usefulâ serves that goal just fine.
Torture is also often discussed in terms of civility â not the civility of the torturers, but the civility of the victims. Itâs the argument that the people who are being tortured are bad people, and therefore donât warrant the respect and dignity we usually offer to other human beings; they are so bad, essentially, that itâs fine for us civilized people to war crime them. Whenever Iâve encountered this argument, it has usually been presented in a way that was, shall we say, sussy as fuck â some even give up the pretense and straight up call their victims âsavagesâ or âdegeneratesâ. I hope I donât need to explain why this line of thinking is insane, but in any case, itâs just my way of getting you to consider that a lot of the myths surrounding torture are rooted in broader sociopolitical issues, often racism and religious discrimination, and historically, most often within the context of colonialism.
With that in mind, letâs get into the myths, starting with the most obvious one.
"Torture for information works."
Every study Iâve read has concluded that torture is counterproductive when it comes to gathering intel from reluctant sources. Under severe pain or distress, victims are more focused on saying whatever they think the torturer wants to hear to make the torture stop, as opposed to providing accurate information. On a neurophysiological level, severe pain or distress actually interferes with the pathways of the brain relating to long- and short-term memory; this means that torture in and of itself is likely to destroy the very evidence it sets out to gather. Furthermore, victims are less likely to cooperate if subjected to physical abuse, including torture, and nothing in the infliction of pain itself works as some kind of truth serum. Lying and defiance are more likely under torture.
To a large minority of people, portraying torture as a reliable tool for gathering accurate information will make the implicit argument that torture, although usually bad, can hold utilitarian value in certain exceptional cases. Iâve written about this more in depth here.
"Under torture, everyone cooperates sooner or later."
French prosecutors used torture in the events leading up to the French revolution, as a way to gain forced confessions from suspects. Their failures and successes were jotted down, leading us with a pretty revealing insight â the highest success rate for gathering forced confessions was in Toulouse, an exceptionally high 14%. In Paris, only 3% of suspects cooperated long enough to sign their name â the rest did not. This is one of the primary reasons that the French criminal justice system eventually dropped using torture for intelligentsia. To quote Darius Rejali, who wrote The Book on torture: âTorture the clumsiest method available to organizations.â
So no, not everybody talks â in fact, rough estimate, 90% of torture victims never do. Defiance is by far the norm with torture.
"When the bad guy does it, itâs torture â when the good guy does it, itâs a tough, but morally justifiable decision."
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Heroes of stories, especially in the action genre, often engage in the use of torture for information, usually following the framework of the ticking bomb scenario, a thought experiment based on the false notion that torture works as an interrogation method. Here, torture is turned into a heroicact, one that speaks to the toughness of the person who uses it. Ask yourself if you want to frame torturers though this lens â because if you do, you are literally justifying the act torture, and, yâknow, you do you, but I am gonna call you stupid and reactionary. Torture done by a âgoodâ person is just as abhorrent as torture done by anybody else.
"Some methods of torture are less severe than others."
This myth stems from governments trying to downplay the use of certain methods of torture, and usually goes hand in hand with euphemistic redefinitions of the concept, such as the CIAâs âenhanced interrogation methods,â also known as âtorture lite,â or the Israeli âcoercive interrogation.â The methods that have been proposed in this supposed less severe category of torture includes stimulated drowning, also known as waterboarding, as well as caning, beatings, limbs being broken with clubs, sleep deprivation, stress positions (ex. forcing a person to crouch against a wall for extended periods of time,) mock executions, sexual assault, and more. If these things all just sound like torture to you, itâs because they are. There is zero evidence to suggest that any torture methods, including those that leave no physical mark on the body, have less severe outcomes than those that do not â on the contrary, non-physical torture methods, including mock executions, or witnessing the torture of a loved one, have been ranked by victims as causing equal amounts of psychological distress as physical torture.
"Torture only causes harm to the person who is being tortured."
This is incredibly unrealistic. Torture is an act that is destructive in all directions, causing trauma to victims, their family, witnesses, and even torturers themselves. It disintegrates the structure of the organizations that use it, it breeds resentment and hatred in the communities around it, and it radicalizes people into extremism. Pretending that consequences like this donât exist isnât torture apologia per se, but if your aim is to show the realistic outcomes of torture, these are some of the things you need to consider.
Torture is portrayed as âscientificâ; torturers are âskilledâ in the âartâ of torture.
The most common methods of torture in use today are: hitting people, sleep deprivation, and starvation. These donât require a whole lot of brain power to conjure up, in fact the infliction of intense suffering is very straightforward. Human beings are full of nerves. Stick a knife anywhere, and Iâd be more impressed if it didnât cause pain.
Not to mention, portraying torture as âscientificâ or something that ârequires technical skillâ makes the implicit argument that torture works for its intended use, here under the condition that you should at least do it right â which brings us right back to that utilitarian fallacy.
"Torturers are expert interrogators, and possess an extraordinary ability to detect lies in their victims."
Studies have been done on the ability of police officers to detect lies for about four decades now. The average person will have a 57% accuracy rate, meaning theyâre barely better at spotting deception than a coin toss. For police officers, the highest estimate is around 65% - but it might also be as low as 45%, meaning they might be less accurate than a coin toss â even though police officers tend to think of themselves as exceptional at spotting deception. The same trend is seen in torturers.
In fact, this myth in particular originated from torturersâ accounts of how they conceptualize themselves, which is not only false, but also cringe. When an interrogator starts making use of torture, their focus tends to shift away from gathering reliable information, and more towards âperfectingâ the infliction of pain, which means that over time, those interrogative skills are substantially degraded â they are terrible interrogators. So torturers are no better at spotting lies than your average person; they might actually be worse. They canât read minds, and they donât possess some secret mystical knowledge about the psychology of their victims.
"You can train someone to resist torture."
Loads of intelligence agencies and revolutionary groups around the world have published material that supposedly serves as manuals for resisting torture, but the truth is, torture is so extreme, there really is no way to prepare or train someone to âresistâ it; this is something that even the CIA has acknowledged. Everybodyâs reaction to pain will be different. There is no way to predict how torture will affect anyone, much less give them instructions beforehand that will somehow magically negate those effects.
"Brainwashing through torture works."
Torturers canât change the emotional framework of a person through the infliction of pain. They cannot change the strongly held beliefs and opinions held by their victims through the infliction of pain. They canât erase someoneâs entire personality or make them a âblank slateâ through the infliction of pain. They canât predict how a victim responds to torture, much less direct that response to their own benefit. This is not how pain works.
This is not only an implicit argument for the usefulness of torture to change someoneâs behavior or force religious conversions, but the myth that torturers have some form of control of their victims even after the torture has ended is also used in real life to paint survivors as dangerous or unstable, and thereby bar them from treatment and aid, and even to allow access into countries to escape the circumstances that facilitated their torture in the first place. That last point is why you often see the advocacy of refugee rights in organizations that work to prevent torture; these two branches of activism have a huge overlap.
Torture victims cannot be controlled by their torturers. Brainwashing isnât real.
"Stockholm syndrome is real."
This is a derivative of the brainwashing myth, which means all the connotations previously mentioned remain, but as a cherry on top, Stockholm syndrome as a trope can also serve as an implicit argument for the utility of domestic abuse. So thatâs cool.
If you deliberately inflict suffering on someone, that is guaranteed to make that person dislike you. In real life, torture survivors not only tend to be extremely resentful of their torturers, but they also tend to be resentful of anyone belonging to the same demographic as their torturers, whether that be ethnicity, nationality, or even gender or general appearance. Like I said, torture radicalizes people.
"Torture makes people obedient."
Any physical abuse or neglect, including bad cell conditions, access to medical aid, decent food and clean water, is likely to breed resentment in victims and makes them far more reluctant to cooperate with their aggressors. With torture, defiance is the norm, by far. You saw this on a larger scale in the war on terror, for example â turns out that carpet bombing a country to deter terrorism only radicalizes the civilian population, producing more terrorists. No form of violence exists that will make a person particularly eager to shut up and do what you want them to do. It will just make them hate you.
The notion that torture makes people obedient is also an implicit argument for the use of corporal punishment or as crime deterrence, something that along with capital punishment has repeatedly been proven false by sociological studies. People just do not function like this. If you want to create obedience in your story â violence is the last thing you should use.
"People âbreakâ under torture."
Victims of torture sometimes make the conscious decision to do what their torturer wants them to do, and this often serves as a means to buy enough time to plan an escape, or mount up whatever act of defiance they can manage. Sometimes they simply do it to get the torture to stop â this, too, is a tough, conscious decision. If you want to consider this a form of âbreakingâ, by all means go ahead, but implying personal weakness or lack of willpower in torture victims rubs me the wrong way. I personally see it as a rational choice made by a person who is in an otherwise impossible situation.
"Torture survivors are âbrokenâ."
Torture certainly can lead to extreme psychological distress, but again, the term âbrokenâ here implicitly makes the argument that torture victims simply lacked the mental fortitude to withstand their trauma. In my opinion, thereâs a certain degree of victim blaming involved with framing torture survivors in this way, and certainly, itâs a framing that inherently strips away their agency.
Another thing that rubs me the wrong way is the fact âbrokennessâ implies a degree of permanence and rigidity to human beings that simply isnât there, as if we are solid objects that, once shattered, can never regain the function we once had. Itâs a nitpick, but I view people as organic things, capable of healing and growth â not as glassware.
Conclusion
Iâd wager that while reading this, a good portion of you recognized some of these myths from depictions of torture in fiction; thatâs not particularly surprising to me. These myths arenât just widespread, theyâve been engrained in the global public perception of torture by decades of political debate and government propaganda, and as a result, have seeped into popular culture.
Torture isnât rare, and neither is torture apologia. According to Amnesty International, 31% of the global population believes that torture is justified âin some casesâ; as of 2014, AI had also reported on torture or other ill treatment in 141 different countries, despite the fact that torture is internationally recognized as a war crime.
In an ideal world, the subject of torture in fiction is treated with the same due diligence with which we have learned to portray subjects like homophobia, sexual assault, and racism; because, to be fair, all of these things have the capacity to intersect, and very often do. The first step in that regard is to spread awareness about how torture actually functions, which is what I hope to slowly start doing on this blog. At the very least, I hope I can make people more aware of how they choose to portray torture in their writing.
"what does hyperwhump even mean" term i made up that means a normal character would fucking die but i pick the best blorbos ever so i get to do whatever i want lalalalalala
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
â Live Streamingâ Interactive Chatâ Private Showsâ HD Quality
Anya is LIVE right now
FREE
Free to watch ⢠No registration required ⢠HD streaming
- publish or perish leads to large ammount of garbage publications no one uses
- no time or funding for projects that take a decade or longer to produce excelent work
- distrubution of funds is based in large parts on personal connections and prestige, scientists belonging to minorities have significantly worse funding
- course structure is often extremely rigid, leaving many disabled students unable to complete their studies
- funding is too often alloated to prestigious new hype topics and "technology investments" instead of maintaining existing projects/infrastructure/equipment. This leads to many groups from past hypes now working with minimal funds in run down buildings on decrepit hardware.
TwistingWhumps @twistingwhumps - Tumblr Blog | Tumlook