Talk politics.

With you entirely here inasmuch as torture is completely unacceptable. In some respects our culture has tried to normalise it in the media when done by good guys, like Jack Bauer, in narratives which seem almost explicitly to be about constructing situations where torture is the only way of obtaining the information needed.

After all, we teach our moral codes through our TV programmes, don't we? Or at least we can blur the boundaries of the acceptable with skilful use of narrative. (OK, I will admit this analysis is exaggerated to describe the shape of the idea rather than the limitations of its reach.)

Whether we like it or not some components of our beliefs are dependent upon the stories we are told, and tell ourselves. Do you really find it surprising that during the reign of 24 over the TV networks torture was normalised enough so that we'd allow ourselves to do it?

In days gone by it was opined that men would grow to resemble their dogs. I'd suggest in the early digital era we came to resemble our TV. And as the digital era continues and TV wanes the abstracts which we resemble may be beyond present guessing.

People's virtual lives and real lives are becoming merged to the point where they have become almost undifferentiated. I learned what an InCel is last month. I no longer know what to think of my gender, or humans in general. Individually they seem all right, but in groups they are damn dodgy.

Alas, I know of no way of actually opting out of being human for something better. So I'd say we have to stand our ground and fight the monsters; and the ordinary folk who have been persuaded to do monstrous things. But it's the latter part of that statement which I worry about. Because, as we have seen, it is all too easy to take a whole nation and culture and turn it into a very specific sort of machine, if ordinary people are persuaded that not only what you are doing is right and proper, but to even think otherwise is a thoughtcrime.

Torture is always justified by appealing to some short time frame and the need for quick answers. False positives never occur; and in the narrative, the torture is always justified by the saving of lives of loved ones with as much sentimentality as possible, obvs. Helps if the folk saved-from-terrorists include good-looking children and maybe a disabled person. Always makes a nice juxtaposition with the near drowning experience, or the constant beatings, or rape, those three categories all of which were provably used in Abu Grahib; and this must be said - to no good effect.

Apart from the moral question, there is also a practical one. Torture doesn't work very well as a way of extracting information. That's what all the Intel agencies actually say.