Torture Pr0n

>> Torture also has a systemic effect. You have a government that says it's ok to torture enemies of the state.. well, that's saying it's ok to dehumanise 'certain people' and before long it's 'certain classes of people' and of course they define who's called an enemy of the state and what they have to do to be called that.... and well you know how that ends up. <<

That's the part I worry about, and it's exactly the effect we're seeing. The movies make it seem normal and inevitable, something a few people may grumble about but can't stop. That is dangerously corrosive to a healthy society.

>> Although one of the other problems with the way torture is shown in the media is that it's wrong! It's not realistic, it doesn't work the way they show and it's nowhere nearly as effective as shown... and as the whole CIA torture fiasco shows, the only people who'll go along with it in real life are stupid enough to behave as if they were in a movie... <<

Yes, that's true. A majority of their methods are very crude. You don't get actionable information that way. Torture as interrogation requires a detailed mastery of both human anatomy and psychology -- beyond the average Ph.D. level -- and few people capable of mastering that information are also willing to use it against other human beings. The confluence of required traits is very small. If you just want to masturbate or to terrorize people, well, that's a lot easier and can be done with crude techniques.

>> I mean, I've googled the backgrounds behind the architects of the CIA's torture program, and they are a pair of academic dim bulbs who've B.S'ed everyone so far. Their reverse-engineered 'enhanced interrogation' protocols reads like the notes for a bad movie script. <<

That's one possibility. Another is that somewhere along the line, they talked to one or more survivors of torture ... who deliberately foxed them and gave descriptions of torture that would be plausibly damaging but less effective than some other things. I mean it's not like that information isn't out there. Lots of regimes have had torture programs, some more effective than others, plus all kinds of people who did it for jollies or religious ceremonies or whatnot.

>> So... either they were fed bad data and were incompetent enough to fall for it, or they were sloppy researchers and covered it up with plausible-sounding Hollywood-ish B.s themselves. <<

Or less plausibly in this context, but usable in fiction, they deliberately handed over plans for a torture program that would be ugly and unpleasant but less effective than other versions.

>> Basically... it's like the TSA 'security theatre' which looks good to the uneducated but is completely ineffective and unfit for the stated purpose. [although it does do a nice job of convincing the people in D.C to cough up a load of money to fund it.] <<

It also does an excellent job of reminding profile targets that they are second-class citizens, hindering activist travel, and getting people used to having their rights violated. People who don't want their rights violated have learned to avoid airports altogether.

Some of that is innate. Different people are wired to find different things exciting, the way some people like pistachio ice cream while others prefer honey ice cream and most folks enjoy chocolate.

But when you have vast numbers of people who like watching other people virtually tormented, well, that implies some creechy things about society.

>> I guess this is one aspect of a general issue that you find in modern human culture: Those people who make movies and who create video games, they don't have any technical idea about what they're shooting for their products. <<

Often true.

>> You see that in details of gun violence or physics or car accidents; in reality those things are a lot more fatal and humans literally are as breakable as glass under these conditions. <<

Eh, that does vary. Any health care worker has seen that humans are BOTH incredibly fragile and astoundingly durable. (There was one guy who survived having a large metal pole go completely through his head...) Most car crashes are survivable, although people tend to get banged up. Most gunshot wounds that are not fatal in less than five minutes can be repaired if sufficient care is available. But the way things are portrayed is often wrong -- there are a lot of corkscrew car flips because it looks cool, and in real life if the car flips then the occupants are usually mangled or dead. Moviemakers are far more interested in dramatic effects than accuracy.

>> Neither do movie-makers want to show how powerful physical violence is which they portray in their movies (not talking about missing blood, talking about 10 thousand bashes on the head and the hero still gets up on his feet - and he is no creature with extraordinary powers), nor do they have any kind of idea what that causes in reality and therefore reduce it a bit to get back to some kind of realism. <<

*laugh* Oh yeah. Though again, it varies. Hit someone over the top or back of the head and it's far less damaging than a blow to the base of the skull or the temple.

Several of my settings have less violence precisely because I dislike casually violating established parameters of physics and biology, but don't want the page littered with blood and bodies. On the other hoof, Polychrome Heroics specifically nerfs the violence in a different way -- people will superpowers will fight, but the vast majority of those are dominance fights, not attempts to maim or kill each other. So that changes the tactics.

>>And the problem on that is: The audience which consumes these products also starts to think this way. They take for real what they see!
In other words, they get taught to believe in a reality which doesn't exist.
And this is just a fatal process. Especially if people more hang around in front of their TV anyway.<<

I agree. It can seep into your instincts and cause problems.

>> If I go down on that topic, whether by a fact post or by a story post, I always try to portray it to the best of my knowledge. If I suck at it or I'm on the right track, I don't know. <<

If you are trying to handle it mindfully, then you are on the right track; how far you get toward success is then a matter of skill. This puts you ahead of folks who can't be arsed to do their homework in the first place. I think you're doing a pretty good job.

>> Within the context of a story, where a certain position about violence is aligned right from the start in your thoughts, some things do express better and so you can go down a little harder on it because the scene it is implemented in can already give the indication how the reader is supposed to think of it. <<

Agreed. It is not necessary for the writer to explain everything -- if you're doing a good job, there's always more you know than will fit -- but you do need to know so that all the details will match up. A good example of this is how I tend to write disabled characters; most of the time I pick a specific condition so I can render it accurately. But I usually don't label it as such, unless it's a point of identity for the character.

>> Okay. I take it as a critique...

As I figured, the best method of working against any kind of exaggerated story writing by movies or by video games or anything else is just showing. Letting the thing roll. <<

There are, of course, different ways to challenge a poorly done bit of writing. Yours works too.

>> Just the same way as they tell their stories with the greatest claimed accuracy, you also tell your stories. Only with the slight difference that physics, circumstances and procedures function differently in your stuff. <<

:D True. Sometimes because I did my homework, other times because I'm writing in worlds where the fundamental laws actually differ -- but I try to distinguish between those as well, like The Steamsmith series.