It's Interesting To Me That Torture Just Works To Us, As A Literary Device. It's Everywhere In Movies

it's interesting to me that torture just works to us, as a literary device. It's everywhere in movies and stories and whatnot, from big-budget dramas to little grindhouse short stories. It fits neatly into the requirements of plot: character doesn't want to offer information, Gets Tortured, has to offer information.

the issue with this is that it isn't how it works.

torture is a display of power. It fouls interrogation, this is known; a person being tortured will tell you whatever you want to hear to make it stop, which is more often than not a lie, made up on the spot, or if the truth an incomplete and useless version of it. It isn't generally done for information's sake anyway, but as a form of what the ancient Greeks called hybris, the violent exhibition of your power over another person.

This is, every once in a great while, done right in fiction, but it's a challenge to write vs. the idea that it's a shortcut to one character revealing plot-critical information to another. Pretty much every form of torture works this way, even the ones that are legally permissible. Psychological torment or physical discomfort also produce an animalistic desire to escape harm and foul interrogation. The forms of torture the cops can do? The cops do it not to gain information (or if they think it will, they're lying to themselves) but because it makes them feel powerful.

There's probably a master's thesis in it for somebody studying the rise of torture as a plot device since the beginning of the war on terror and the contemporaneous development of the Broken Windows theory of policing. I'm not really aware of any similar level of disconnect between what Works in fiction and what happens in real life!

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1 year ago

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1 year ago

so judging by how astonished people are by it every time we explain it to anybody, it seems like my wife and I might really be onto something here

during the pandemic, we invented something we call "astronaut time."

when it's astronaut time, it's like we are two astronauts wearing the big helmets, moving around the station on totally separate tasks. one of us is outside the space station and one of us is inside the space station. our radios do not work and we have no way of communicating with each other. we might see each other through the lil porthole windows, but we ignore each other because we both have different things to do.

"astronaut time" is how we get total privacy when we live in the same apartment. I will pretend you don't exist. You will pretend I don't exist. we have a nonverbal, zero-contact signal for when astronaut time is over (usually "I'll draw a smiley-face on the whiteboard in the kitchen when I'm done"). No talking, stay out of each other's line of sight, we are actively avoiding each other, unless you are currently experiencing a medical emergency goodbye.

it has been. a godsend. imagine living with your partner and being able to close every single tab in your brain related to social interaction. no fear of being interrupted by a "hey, quick question--" or "sorry to bother you, but do you know where the scissors are?" or "did you want something to eat, too?" Once or twice a month, we look at each other lovingly, hold hands, and say "baby I think I need some astronaut time tonight," and the other person goes "okay cool. bye! have a nice night!" and nobody's feelings are hurt and we both go and have a lovely evening completely by ourselves.

like idk it's a small thing but it's made our lives so much nicer, so if you and your partner/roommate are both people who sometimes need total privacy in order to recharge, maybe try it

1 year ago

i want casual, everyday autism in shows. i want autistic characters who need sensory symmetry, who casually mimic anyone's touch on one side of their bodies on the other (or who have friends who do it for them). i want a friend with flashcards or signals for when their friend loses speech. i want people on video calls and body doubling when they do jobs. i want people having conversations without eye contact. i want excited stimming. i want to see someone getting really excited about the tiniest thing thats related to a safefood or a special interest. i want casual, everyday autism.

(edit: october 22, 11:04am - "nonverbal" -> "nonspeaking") (edit: october 24, 9:44pm - "nonspeaking" -> "loses speech")

2 months ago

If you think having uncomfortable conversations is hard - wait until you see the result of not having them.

1 year ago

I hate how everything's called devices and apps now. Those are frail words with no weight and show no respect like machine and program do.

1 year ago

perhaps some will disagree, but i think the world got worse when we changed the colour of the night

2 weeks ago

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