[HN Gopher] The Delusion of the Polygraph
___________________________________________________________________
The Delusion of the Polygraph
Author : bookofjoe
Score : 235 points
Date : 2024-07-15 23:39 UTC (23 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (lithub.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (lithub.com)
| dboreham wrote:
| Lots of these. E.g. changing car engine oil every 20 minutes.
| Although this doesn't extend to the US government -- the army
| periodically samples oil and changes when it actually needs to be
| changed.
| amtamt wrote:
| Situations like these https://www.thehulltruth.com/boating-
| forum/183583-fuel-tank-... could be the reason to test oil
| frequently.
| rascul wrote:
| The US Army changes oil in their trucks based on the schedule
| in the Technical Manual, not based on sample analysis.
| Timothee wrote:
| I discovered the engine oil thing in the past two years.
|
| In the US, I've always heard something like every 3 months or
| 3,000 to 5,000 miles. The cars even warn you in that timeframe.
|
| In Europe, a mechanic was very confused when I talked about an
| oil change when one was done the prior year. He said it's more
| every 2 years or 20,000 to 25,000 kilometers. Once again the
| cars were set up to warn at that distance.
|
| I'd love to get to the bottom of it. Why such a difference? I
| can understand the garages wanting the extra business, but why
| would the car manufacturers go with it?
| vundercind wrote:
| Free oil changes from dealers are often offered on new cars.
| Getting you in to the dealer more often may benefit them in
| some ways:
|
| 1) Opportunity to upsell other services,
|
| 2) Some people (quite a lot, actually) have alien-to-me car
| buying habits and might be convinced to trade in their new
| car after only a year or two and buy another new one if you
| can just get them into the dealer at the right time.
|
| No clue if that's why they do it, but maybe.
| karaterobot wrote:
| FWIW, every time I've had my oil changed at the dealership
| (dozens of times, but only 3 different dealers, so take it
| with a grain of salt) it's always been done by the service
| department, with no interaction from sales at all, and
| therefore no upselling or discussion about trading.
| kevstev wrote:
| In this case I think the times have changed but old advice
| has stuck. From my understanding, cars until the 80s or so
| did need their oil changed this often, but newer cars with
| EFI and especially if you use synthetic, its no longer
| necessary to do so. Its been many years since I bought a new
| car, but IIRC even the mid 2000s you were supposed to get an
| oil change relatively soon after getting a car as fine
| particles that weren't entirely machined off should have been
| worked off in the first thousand miles or so and you were
| told to get an oil change then.
|
| There is also the case of changing oil for hot and cold
| seasons- getting thinner oil in the winter and thicker in
| warmer weather to adjust. I think thats more or less a thing
| of the past as well, my Honda does not specify/recommend this
| in the owners manual but perhaps some cars do?
|
| Old adages sometimes stick around forever though- especially
| when there is money to be made in keeping them alive.
| jtriangle wrote:
| Remember that the manufacturers recommendations are
| designed around keeping the car operational through
| whatever warranty period they sell the car with. It's not
| some sort of ideal program and some benefit exists from
| changing fluids more often than specified.
|
| Specifically, transmission fluid is often considered
| 'lifetime' fluid that doesn't need to be changed, and, if
| you follow that advice, you end up replacing the
| transmission, an expensive endeavor, whereas if you don't,
| you can typically double its usable lifetime.
|
| You also have to be careful about engine oil, because the
| margin of error is very small. Most modern cars have an oil
| minder, and those work well provided the oil itself is in
| spec.
| imp0cat wrote:
| Oh if only it was that easy.
|
| Those extremely long intervals will only work for cars that
| travel long distances, where the engine has a chance to warm-
| up and burn off any residual gasoline that gets in the oil
| during cold starts. If said car spends most of its life in a
| city, doing short trips, the oil gets rapidly dilluted and
| loses the ability to lubricate the engine properly.
|
| Most modern cars will take all this into account when trying
| to determine when the next oil change is due. Also,
| manufacturers nowadays usually specify shorter intervals (6
| months or 7500km) for modern direct injection engines that
| only drive in a city.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| Modern Toyota engines require regular oil changes because
| their tolerances and oil are very thin. You certainly can run
| them with far less but they won't last nearly as long
| Terr_ wrote:
| > But the machine remains useful for extracting confessions.
| [...] Despite a growing body of evidence, including hundreds of
| exonerations based on DNA evidence, most people don't believe in
| false confessions.
|
| Arguably the bigger/worse false belief right there.
|
| > First the exam makes you doubt or forget your memories. Then,
| by forcing you to re-access them again and again under stress, it
| literally rewrites them.
|
| To some extent this happens naturally, so if the questioner
| _really_ wants accuracy, you won 't force people to re-access the
| memory for no good reason.
| Netcob wrote:
| There is an entire little ecosystem/subculture around
| "repressed memories" doing a lot of harm to vulnerable people.
| Basically you go to a "therapist", they do some sort of
| hypnosis/interview session where they ask you a lot of very
| leading questions, and then you leave having been convinced
| that your family or a satanic cult abused you as a kid (or in
| some cases that you have been abducted by aliens). The person
| performing this interview might not even be aware they are
| doing anything wrong, to them those leading questions ("Do you
| see anyone else in the room with you? Look closer, are you
| sure?") may just be how you get to the truth.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| > (or in some cases that you have been abducted by aliens)
|
| Really? There are therapists who will try to convince you
| that you were abducted by aliens?
| nemomarx wrote:
| I don't think anymore, but in the last century there were
| several cases of therapists using hypnosis to unlock
| "repressed memories" of alien abductions. They usually
| wrote up books about it for profit.
| RIMR wrote:
| Not specifically, but they will follow the absurd path of
| asking you leading questions until you convince yourself
| that you were abducted by aliens, and then being quacks
| will decide that their methodology couldn't be wrong, and
| so they validate your own invented beliefs no matter how
| stupid.
|
| If it keeps you coming back for another session, they'll
| keep doing it, even if they know the whole process is
| bullshit.
| dvh wrote:
| First sentence on Wikipedia:
|
| >A polygraph, often incorrectly referred to as a lie detector
| test, is a junk science device or procedure that measures and
| records several physiological indicators such as blood pressure,
| pulse, respiration, and skin conductivity while a person is asked
| and answers a series of questions.
| crystal_revenge wrote:
| I awhile back I used to do work with a major DARPA contractor. If
| you're familiar with security clearance for these roles, you know
| that at the higher levels of clearance you eventually need to
| take a polygraph exam.
|
| I was never interested in going the clearance route, but got into
| a conversation with a grizzled industry vet that seemed like a
| character torn from a hard-boiled detective novel.
|
| At the time I had recently learned that polygraph exams were
| "fake" and when the topic of the exam came up I was quick to
| point this out. His comment surprised me, and, in a sense,
| demonstrated to me that saying a polygraph is "fake" is akin to
| saying WWE wrestling is "fake". Of course it _is_ , but that is a
| misunderstanding that what you're watching is a _real_
| performance.
|
| He said the polygraph itself is just a tool for the interviewer.
| The real value was in someone who knew how to use the machine to
| convince the subject that _they_ knew the truth. He continue that
| in his time he knew some mighty good interviewers who could
| easily extract anything they needed from you.
|
| My father did go the clearance route, and when I asked him about
| the polygraph he told me he confessed things to the interviewers
| he would never have told my mother. "Fake" or "real" the
| polygraph _does_ work in this sense.
| keiferski wrote:
| Yeah, polygraphs remind me of those TV shows where the
| investigator pretends to use magic, voodoo, astral signs, etc.
| to solve the crime, but is really just using them to manipulate
| the psychology of the subject and see their reaction.
|
| Put simply, the polygraph is a powerful tool if the subject
| _believes_ it is a powerful tool.
| Terr_ wrote:
| That's incomplete. As the article points out:
|
| > Even the United States government isn't dumb enough to
| believe the polygraph works. The machine's real purpose is
| symbolic, as an icon of the power of the state. Law
| enforcement agencies don't use the machine to detect lies.
| They use it to coerce confessions. [...] It's a fact, part of
| a story power tells itself to justify its power. Maybe you
| can beat the machine-- they don't detect lies, so it's not
| that hard--but you can't beat an entire country that believes
| in it.
|
| Even if you _know_ its nonsense, there 's still something
| coercive of any system where it can be used as a pretext to
| punish you, or where you are punished for not pretending to
| believe in it.
| Joker_vD wrote:
| > They use it to coerce confessions.
|
| It boggles my mind than confession even counts as evidence
| but then again, so does any other testimony. Sure, it made
| sense when we had almost no forensics (and that's the times
| that shaped our legal systems) but today we do, don't we?
| Ekaros wrote:
| Living in civilised country I find whole confession,
| anything you say, can't lie in your own defence thing so
| absolutely abhorrent. To me it seems absolutely sensible
| that you should be able to decide what is your statement
| as answer to any question by state. And if you are on
| stand in trial as defendant you should be able to lie
| however much you want. The prosecution must prove you
| were lying, but the act itself cannot be illegal.
| 542354234235 wrote:
| >Sure, it made sense when we had almost no forensics (and
| that's the times that shaped our legal systems) but today
| we do, don't we?
|
| The CSI effect. The amount of forensics that people think
| will be presented in an average case is so much more than
| actually are. Finding and collecting usable fingerprints,
| DNA, shoe imprints, etc. does not happen in every case.
| Most cases are a lot of circumstantial evidence all
| pointing to the same person.
| SAI_Peregrinus wrote:
| Fingerprints, DNA, shoe imprints, & other forensic
| evidence _are_ circumstantial. Evidence is legally either
| circumstantial or testimonial, there 's no other
| category. Most cases are a lot of testimonial evidence
| all pointing to the same person!
| lazide wrote:
| Even if CSI was real (which it isn't even close), the
| vast majority of actions anyone takes leave no
| discernible evidence that isn't immediately made useless
| through entropy.
|
| And the most important element in almost every crime
| (intent) almost never leaves any evidence at all.
|
| IMO the biggest subtle lie that CSI convinces people of
| is not that facts can be determined so easily and
| unambiguously - though that is a lie - but that the
| evidence found and any conclusions from it will
| fundamentally _matter_. Each piece of evidence is always
| some turn of the plot.
|
| In real life, it usually doesn't. Too much ambiguity, or
| inconclusive or inconsistent results. Or false
| positive/negatives. Or data which is useless in the
| vacuum of other missing information.
|
| In real life, it's a frustrated and depressing slog -
| punctuated by occasional moments of elation and/or terror
| - being a detective.
|
| So what could be more compelling than someone telling
| everyone in their own words their intent and their
| actions, so everyone can stop guessing and 'know for
| sure'? That's what a confession is.
|
| Which conveniently at the end of nearly every crime show
| the suspect actually does.
|
| In real life, some do that - but many lawyer up, and you
| spend years dealing with every kind of bullshit and
| confusion game a professional can throw at you, instead
| of closure and a clear answer.
|
| The polygraph is an attempt at bluffing folks into 'we
| got you' moments. Which does sometimes work! But the
| pressure and techniques applied can also result in people
| falsely confessing to things that never happened, or
| getting confused themselves and 'failing/lying' when they
| were actually relaying the truth.
| ezoe wrote:
| A dangerous thought. There is no proof the interviewee tell the
| truth. It's easy to plant a fake memory to humans and make them
| believe it's "real".
|
| Oh what am I thinking? The important thing is, the interviewer
| can produce a lot of "confessions" and "revealing of truth".
| They will be evaluated a good interviewer. Secure their job
| position. Sounds good. /s
| quadhome wrote:
| Except there is _no evidence_ it helps even "good" interviewers
| "extract" anything resembling truth. And there is lots of
| evidence it does not.
|
| This comment is a perfect study of this almost uniquely
| American insane phenomenon.
|
| But then I don't question Koreans about fan death.
| vasco wrote:
| What do you make of the placebo effect?
|
| The polygraph obviously has no basis for working, but while a
| sugar pill doesn't make a tumor disappear, it can be very
| good at pain management.
|
| I still wouldn't use it in the context of the justice system,
| though.
| codr7 wrote:
| So you mind can fix pain, but not tumors?
|
| Where do you draw the line?
| tsimionescu wrote:
| At things that only exist in the mind, like, say, pain.
| knallfrosch wrote:
| The problem is that the polygraph doesn't work on both
| levels. Obviously, it doesn't detect lies. But more to the
| point, it also doesn't extract useful information from most
| liars, and leads to fake confessions.
|
| To stay in your metaphor:
|
| - Not only do sugar pills not cure tumors, but imagine -
| 60% of recipients don't report decreased pain levels (no
| placebo effect) - 20% of recipients feel more pain
| ADeerAppeared wrote:
| > What do you make of the placebo effect?
|
| The placebo effect is _measurable_. If there is no
| measurable improvement, there 's no placebo effect either.
|
| Bear in mind that what most claims in favour of the
| polygraph measure is not _truth_ but _potentially-false
| confession_. Extracting false confessions is relatively
| easy, it 's also completely f-ing useless to wider society
| and massively harmful to the victim.
| meowface wrote:
| I see no issues with using polygraphs for hiring at
| intelligence agencies (I defer back to the comment about
| people missing the point of it), but as an investigative
| tool it's definitely a net negative.
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| You're assuming truth is the goal, which isn't correct.
| The goal of police is to close cases, and in this goal,
| polygraphs are quite effective.
|
| They don't care if you actually did the crime, they care
| that they can extract a confession, or provide damning
| evidence to a prosecutor that lets them throw you in
| prison, so they can put a nice big checkmark on that
| case. Did they actually jail who was responsible? Maybe
| not, but who cares about that, apart from you?
|
| Same reason for Forensics to exist. Don't misunderstand,
| _some_ Forensic science has validity in many cases, but a
| lot of it is just straight up nonsense that isn 't proven
| or peer-reviewed in the slightest, in fact many Forensic
| sciences that appear in modern court cases are
| completely, 100% debunked.
|
| And like, why should they care? Even if you hire a crack
| lawyer team that gets you out of the court case, it's not
| like anyone involved in the investigation that almost
| threw an innocent man in jail is going to suffer an ounce
| of consequences. Or hell, even if you're wrongly
| convicted, worst case scenario you get a financial
| judgement after years of litigation, that's paid for by
| the taxpayers.
| Sesse__ wrote:
| A sugar pill does not make tumors disappear. That's not
| what the placebo effect does; it changes your perception of
| pain and well-being, but not much else. (Of course, that
| can have a value in itself, but it's nothing like the
| magical healing effects found in urban legends.)
| em-bee wrote:
| the healing effect comes from the fact that your
| perception of pain and well-being actually contribute to
| the healing process.
| vasco wrote:
| You must've misread what I wrote, since we both said the
| same thing.
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| I think OP is trying to say exactly what you're arguing
| voxic11 wrote:
| The placebo effect itself isn't real (at least in the vast
| majority of cases where it has been claimed to exist), when
| people measure a "placebo effect" what they are actually
| measuring is simply a regression toward the mean, not a
| causal effect.
|
| https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/01/31/powerless-placebos/
|
| https://www.dcscience.net/2015/12/11/placebo-effects-are-
| wea...
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6369471/
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6707261/
| krferriter wrote:
| I don't think this is right. Placebo effect definitely
| exists for conditions that are largely influenced by
| mental perception. The common example is pain. You can
| reduce people's perception of pain by deploying the
| placebo effect, e.g. giving them sugar pills that you
| convince them will reduce their pain. It extends to other
| similar conditions which are not generally (or possible
| to be) measured directly, but rather based on a patient's
| self-reported scoring. Like "on on a scale of 1-10 how
| would you rate your experience of this condition".
| Placebo effect can work for that. But not for other more
| tangible conditions.
| voxic11 wrote:
| Did you read any of the articles I linked?
|
| > The most important study on the placebo effect is
| Hrobjartsson and Gotzsche's Is The Placebo Powerless?,
| updated three years later by a systematic review and
| seven years later with a Cochrane review. All three
| looked at studies comparing a real drug, a placebo drug,
| and no drug (by the third, over 200 such studies) - and,
| in general, found little benefit of the placebo drug over
| no drug at all. There were some possible minor placebo
| effects in a few isolated conditions - mostly pain - but
| overall H&G concluded that the placebo effect was
| clinically insignificant. Despite a few half-hearted
| tries, no one has been able to produce much evidence
| they're wrong. This is kind of surprising, since everyone
| has been obsessing over placebos and saying they're
| super-important for the past fifty years.
| joquarky wrote:
| Using science to attempt to measure qualia sounds like a
| good way to produce whatever results you want.
| gosub100 wrote:
| The words "clinically significant" and "benefit" are not
| the same thing as the effect being real. To me it reads
| as if they are testing the hypothesis that a patient
| comes into ER with a sprained ankle and the doctor gives
| them this "new powerful prescription pain pill that just
| came out" and instead tricks them with a sugar pill. If
| this worked, I'm sure it would be used as much as
| possible. And the study you linked is simply confirming
| that PE is not an effective treatment for anything.
|
| That's not the topic at hand here, which is "is the PE
| real?". For me it absolutely is.
| gosub100 wrote:
| In my mid 20s I tried antidepressants for the first time.
| To me it was a big step because like many, I had a false
| perception of it having an unnatural effect on my
| personality, but I was finally ready to try them. The
| doctor said they will take at least 2 weeks to have any
| effect, and despite knowing that AND knowing about the
| placebo effect, I still "felt better" for several days
| after I started the regimen. To me, that was absolutely
| proof of the placebo effect, especially because after the
| 2 week window the effect was a backfire where I was in
| bed for a day and couldn't do anything. The pills
| backfired on me.
| swores wrote:
| A single data point like that should never be considered
| anything close to "absolute proof" of anything - because
| you have absolutely no way of knowing that, for whatever
| reason (random chance, or the food you were eating at the
| time, or a compliment somebody paid you on the day you
| started taking them, or....), you might have felt better
| on those first days even if you hadn't started taking
| antidepressants at all.
|
| Correlation is not causation, as they say.
|
| (Hope your depression is gone or at least not too bad now
| days, regardless of what drugs or placebos may have
| played a part!)
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| Not only does a placebo reduce pain, naloxone will
| reverse the pain reduction just like it would if you'd
| given them morphone instead. Placebo effect isn't simple
| psychosomatic, rather something real and physical is
| going on inside the human body.
| lazide wrote:
| In a small but measurable percent of cases, the sugar pill
| _does_ actually make tumors disappear though.
| [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12509397/], and helps with
| almost every other factor of care in much larger
| percentages of the time.
| jayrot wrote:
| Literally from your link :
|
| > Conclusion: In randomized double-blinded, placebo-
| controlled trials, presumably with minimum sources of
| bias, placebos are sometimes associated with improved
| control of symptoms such as pain and appetite but rarely
| with positive tumor response. Substantial improvements in
| symptoms and quality of life are unlikely to be due to
| placebo effects.
| 1992spacemovie wrote:
| My dude you are way over-thinking the polygraph. This is the
| more-usual setting it is applied in:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgrO_rAaiq0
| User23 wrote:
| > no evidence
|
| Saying "there is no evidence" is sloppy cable political TV
| tier rhetoric. There is absolutely evidence[1]. You and
| others may not find that evidence convincing, or otherwise
| think polygraphs shouldn't be used, but nevertheless it
| exists. A brief survey of the evidence suggests that the
| polygraph is probably slightly better than chance, but with
| high enough error bars that we should be very cautious about
| its use.
|
| [1] https://nap.nationalacademies.org/read/10420/chapter/7
| darby_nine wrote:
| The point is not to extract truth, it's to extract behavior.
| It's the fact you can convince a judge or jury to take the
| evidence as evidence of truth that's a problem.
| Clubber wrote:
| Polygraphs are usually inadmissible in court. It's
| unfortunate that "usually" applies.
|
| https://www.hg.org/legal-articles/is-a-polygraph-test-
| admiss...
| krferriter wrote:
| If the interviewee's behavior is not indicative of truth
| then the test serves no purpose other than allowing the
| interviewer or whoever commissioned the test (like a
| prosecutor or employer) to invalidly convince other people
| that the interviewee was lying
| SAI_Peregrinus wrote:
| That's exactly the point.
| bangaladore wrote:
| That and to convince the interviewee that the interviewer
| _knows_ they are lying.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| It's not about extracting facts, it's about establishing
| justification for the decision made by the interviewer. Sorry
| you "failed your poly".
|
| Here's a good example: https://www.salon.com/2013/11/03/lies_
| i_told_to_become_a_spy...
| mistermann wrote:
| What evidence do you have that there is no evidence?
|
| For sure, you have:
|
| - your opinion
|
| - your knowledge (which is a subset of all that is
| known/"known", which is a subset of all that exists...though,
| it all typically seems other than this, such is culturally
| conditioned consciousness), have you something over and above
| this?
|
| Just in case, please do not do this:
|
| https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Shiftin.
| ..
| powersnail wrote:
| I can see how pressure would be applied when seeing the machine
| is leaning towards "lying", possibly breaking the subject's
| effort to lie.
|
| But what would be the interviewer's strategy, if the subjects
| insist that they are telling the truth regardless of how the
| interviewer manipulates the machine? Wouldn't it immediately
| start discrediting the whole process if the subject is in fact
| telling the truth? I'm telling the truth here, and yet your
| machine says I'm not, hence it's broken, and hence I'll happily
| lie in the subsequent questions when it actually matters.
| vasco wrote:
| Most innocent people doubt their innocence when strongly
| accused even when they know they are right. Just a tiny bit,
| but in the right setting and with enough wearing you down,
| you can make innocent people believe they did it. I've seen
| it happen right in front of me.
| willis936 wrote:
| That's why you don't talk to cops. Have a lawyer present
| and use the courts that us taxpayers pay for.
| lazide wrote:
| Also why narcissistic and psychopathic manipulators are
| so dangerous.
|
| They don't have to be cops. Most aren't.
| Aerroon wrote:
| I wonder if this is related to people adding ambiguity to
| what they're saying.
|
| Eg instead of saying "it's 20 degrees outside" they will
| say "last I checked it was about 20 degrees".
|
| They change their phrasing because they want others to not
| think that they are wrong. By doing this they undermine
| their own credibility though.
| BenjiWiebe wrote:
| Hmmm. People who make absolute statements like that
| generally* undermine their own credibility in my mind.
|
| *I do it lots. Partly because the way my mind runs, I can
| nearly always (lol, can't help it) come up with possible
| conditions where I'd be wrong.
| powersnail wrote:
| But what's the point of making innocent confess to false
| crimes in this setting? (i.e. requiring polygraph for job
| application)
|
| I would imagine the entire point of doing a test would be
| to find out who is innocent and who is lying about being
| innocent. If you pressure the innocent into false
| confession, wouldn't it just make everything even more
| difficult?
| josefx wrote:
| In the context of a job application? Making up excuses to
| hide discrimination, maybe artificially limit the pool of
| applications to get around other hiring restrictions? Put
| the applicant on the back foot or make them share
| information they normally wouldn't? There are probably
| many ways to abuse it.
| 542354234235 wrote:
| The polygraph would be used as the "bad cop" in the good cop,
| bad cop routine. After a line of questioning where the
| interrogator/polygrapher suspects lying, or is fishing for
| more information, they might say something like "everything
| sounded good but the machine is showing some deception. Is
| there anything you can think of that might be causing these
| readings? Anything you didn't tell me? I want to get you out
| of here, but we need to resolve these results." If the
| machine does show spikes during certain lines of questioning
| but not others, for instance about someone's timeline on the
| day of a murder vs their relationship to the victim, it can
| be a reason to pursue further questioning in that area.
|
| Given all the ways polygraphs can be misused or abused, the
| only real use I see is as in interrogation tool. But given
| the issues with false confessions in general, I think the
| interrogation should hold less weight, but that is a whole
| other issue.
| callalex wrote:
| That just means the interview process is selecting for only
| completely uninformed idiots. What does that say about the
| resulting organization?
| boffinAudio wrote:
| That its a cult.
| hunter-gatherer wrote:
| Commenter subjectsigma understands this. In a former life I
| had jobs that required a polygraph, and I was not in a
| cult, nor does the interview process select for uniformed
| idiots. Both of you are reacting to commentary that the
| author barely understands and that neither of you clearly
| understand.
|
| Nobody in my circles seemed to think the polygraph was
| anything but a tool. In fact, the sibject is sometimes
| gossiped about in thise circles about the "relevancy" of
| the polygragh today anyways. The thing about buearacracy
| though is that change happens incredibly slow. If everyone
| decided to get rid of the polygraph alltogether today, it
| would still take some years to actually happen.
| subjectsigma wrote:
| You don't understand what you're talking about. It's an open
| secret in CDC circles that the polygraph is not effective at
| catching trained liars, more of a ritual than anything. The
| polygraph is not a test for how gullible or misinformed you
| are. It is mostly a test for two things:
|
| 1) are you willing to play by the rules and follow orders,
| even if sometimes they don't make sense?
|
| 2) if you are being lightly interrogated, do you immediately
| freak out and tell the interrogator everything? Do you have a
| really bad reaction to pressure?
|
| If you don't match these criteria then you probably aren't
| fit to know extremely sensitive government secrets. But like
| I said, it's more of a ritual than anything, the value for
| even those two tests is unproven.
|
| Even smart and informed people who know exactly what a poly
| does can say and do things they wouldn't normally when
| they're strapped to a chair, hooked up to machines, and being
| yelled at for hours
| 542354234235 wrote:
| I think that is true, but not the whole truth (staying on
| theme). It is an interrogation, but it isn't meant, or
| likely, to catch a trained, hardened spy or someone that
| can stand up to interrogations. It is to attempt to find if
| there is information that would make someone a bad
| candidate for a clearance, the same as the general
| background check is doing. If you are in massive debt, you
| are at much higher risk of being bribed. If you are
| cheating on your wife, and attempt to hide it during your
| polygraph, you are at much higher risk of being
| blackmailed.
|
| It isn't going to "catch" everyone but it is another way to
| reveal people with vulnerabilities that could be exploited.
| I think the real issue is people that "fail" the polygraph,
| since it isn't actually a lie detector in any sense. It
| would be better if they just considered it a polygraph
| assisted interrogation.
| subjectsigma wrote:
| Yep, IIUC blackmail or coercion is one of the primary
| concerns. Looking at people who sold out to foreign
| actors I think financial troubles are the #1 reason
| snakeyjake wrote:
| >strapped to a chair, hooked up to machines, and being
| yelled at for hours
|
| I've done periodic polygraphs, both lifestyle and full-
| scope, every 5 or so years since 1997. None of mine have
| ever lasted longer than 30 minutes.
|
| You just sit in a chair while wearing some straps and
| there's never been any yelling involved.
|
| It's all quite prosaic and relaxing actually.
|
| It has been my experience that the clearance investigation
| process is quite simple, although I lead a very boring and
| law-abiding life.
|
| I know of some people who have had quite long polygraphs
| and failed them repeatedly but my hunch is that the
| examiner has the findings of the background investigation
| in-hand and is trying to clarify some findings.
|
| Many people with past financial, drug, or legal problems
| have gotten through the process with no issues just by
| being open and honest with the investigators and
| polygraphers.
|
| So yeah, if the background investigator interviewed a
| friend of a friend of a friend and was told that 20 years
| ago you used to get stoned in college and whip your dick
| out but when asked during the polygraph about past drug use
| you go "I've been a squeaky clean boy my whole life" you're
| gonna have issues.
|
| The annual financial disclosure is much more stressful just
| because of all of the damned paperwork.
| subjectsigma wrote:
| That's a little comforting at least... only met one guy
| IRL who ever said "Yeah the polygraph was fine." Everyone
| else said it was a miserable experience for one reason or
| another, even people who were very straight laced
| tommiegannert wrote:
| I have watched quite a few (American) police interview videos
| lately, and regardless of tools (polygraph or Reid(tm),) I
| wonder how many interviews start with the perpetrator really
| having no rationale, and ending in them simply back-
| rationalizing their emotions. A fit of rage might not have a
| rationale, if you're that predisposed. But being pushed to
| explain yourself will make the brain do what it's constantly
| doing: retroactively explaining your emotions. Especially if
| you've been promised a reduction in stress if you do.
|
| And then there's the opposite, when the subject continuously
| makes no sense, because they have brain damage:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_c_lmx4LdNw
| flir wrote:
| > I wonder how many interviews start with the perpetrator
| really having no rationale, and ending in them simply back-
| rationalizing their emotions
|
| That's the core of the Reid technique, isn't it? Here's two
| rationales, one socially acceptable and one socially
| unacceptable. Pick one.
|
| We don't actually care which one you pick, because a
| confession is still a confession, but we're handing you a
| convenient narrative you can use to justify your actions (a
| carrot), and an alternative people might believe about you if
| you don't pick Box A (a stick).
|
| Something similar happens in high-pressure sales. I bet those
| guys would make great interrogators.
| jayrot wrote:
| Wasn't familar with the "Reid Technique" so I had to look
| it up. One of the opening wikipedia paragraphs is just
| perfect.
|
| >In 1955 in Lincoln, Nebraska, John E. Reid helped gain a
| confession from a suspect, Darrel Parker, for Parker's
| wife's murder. This case established Reid's reputation and
| popularized his technique.[3] Parker recanted his
| confession the next day, but it was admitted to evidence at
| his trial. He was convicted by a jury and sentenced to life
| in prison. He was later determined to be innocent, after
| another man confessed and was found to have been the
| perpetrator. Parker sued the state for wrongful conviction;
| it paid him $500,000 in compensation.[4]
| bagels wrote:
| It's the same story with: bite mark analysis, police
| dogs, hair comparison analysis, firearm toolmark
| analysis, many arson analysis techniques, bloodstain
| patterns. Discredited or unproven, yet still used in
| court.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| Having served on a jury I implore you: Stay as far away
| from the criminal justice system as you can. Once you're
| in that courtroom your life is a coin toss away from
| effectively ending.
|
| footnote: and regardless of innocence, you will be
| running from the arrest the rest of your life.
| mindcrime wrote:
| I will add this: serving on a jury is - IMO - a very
| valuable experience. Or, that is, IF you think you might
| ever find yourself on trial, I think it would be very
| valuable to have served on a jury yourself. You'll
| understand a lot about jury dynamics, and how juries make
| decisions (hint: it's not always as cut and dried as the
| facts and evidence presented). You may have insights that
| even your lawyer won't have, depending on whether of not
| they themselves have ever served on a live jury.
|
| Will this information be useful to you? I believe it well
| could be. It's hard to explain exactly how/why without
| actually going through the experience though. And the
| verdict will still depend on many factors, many of which
| will be out of your control. But a few insights into the
| deep inner details of the process might be enough to tip
| the odds in your favor if things are close to begin with.
|
| Another thing I'll add: a good lawyer _really_ helps. The
| case I was on, the defense attorney was just totally on-
| point and absolutely "nailed it". Every single time -
| EVERY time - a witness for the prosecution said something
| questionable, or contradictory, or that in any way
| exposed a possible hole in the prosecution's story, he
| was all over it. By halfway through the trial I was
| rooting for the guy because watching him work was like
| watching a maestro in action. Hell, in the jury room
| during deliberations, we were all joking about how "If
| I'm ever on trial for a serious crime, I want this guy
| defending me."
|
| That said, there's always an element of luck involved. In
| this case, I'm pretty sure the defendant was guilty. But
| I mean "pretty sure" in the sense that my subjective
| Bayesian posterior for "guilty" would be more than 50%...
| but the prosecution definitely did not _prove_ he was
| guilty "beyond a reasonable doubt". And aside from the
| skillful performance of the defense attorney pointing out
| holes in the story being told by the prosecution, was the
| simple fact that there _were_ holes. And part of that was
| because the investigators were bumbling and incompetent,
| borderline "Barney Fife" or "Officer Barbrady" types. To
| the point that in the jury room during deliberations, we
| were joking about how "If I'm ever under investigation
| for a serious crime, I hope this guy is leading the
| investigation." A better investigation might well has
| resulted in a guilty verdict, but as it was we acquitted
| the guy.
|
| Another observation: the defendant took the stand to
| testify. Usually not recommended for criminal defendants,
| but it worked for him. Why? Well, not so much because of
| what he said or didn't say, but because the prosecutor
| acted like a dick towards the guy, belittling him and
| demeaning him, talking down to him, and just generally
| being a prick. Now strictly speaking, none of that had
| anything to do with whether the defendant was guilty or
| not. But it created sympathy for the defendant, and the
| prosecutor basically turned himself into the villain. Did
| if affect the outcome? TBH, yeah, I think it kinda did.
| Things were close as it was, and that little bit of extra
| sympathy might easily have been the deciding factor. But
| the thing is, this is one of those "things that are
| outside of your control" if you're ever on trial. Maybe
| your prosecutor will be more professional and under
| control. Not much you can do about that. But just seeing
| how emotional aspects like "sympathy for the defendant"
| CAN play into a decision can be valuable, I believe.
|
| Anyway... sorry for the long rant. I'll just say that if
| you ever get invited to jury selection, I'd encourage you
| to NOT try to "get out of it".
| pessimizer wrote:
| > We don't actually care which one you pick, because a
| confession is still a confession
|
| Yes, but as you note, the point is to make it sound like
| _barely_ a confession, the minimum possible confession.
| This makes it just as attractive to the innocent as for the
| guilty. It 's offering a minimally painful way out of a
| deeply stressful situation.
|
| And as you say, the punchline is that not confessing would
| lead to minimal or no pain, and every level of confession
| will equally turn out much worse. An innocent person is
| just trying to escape from that room, and is being conned
| into agreeing to a long prison sentence in order to do it.
| flir wrote:
| Totally. I remembered the phrase I should have used: a
| false dichotomy (https://xkcd.com/2592/)
|
| If you were going to buy a car today sir, would your
| budget be above or below $40k?
| marcosdumay wrote:
| > I bet those guys would make great interrogators.
|
| Maybe on the context of US criminal interrogators, where
| discovering what actually happened isn't one of the goals.
| JohnFen wrote:
| > Something similar happens in high-pressure sales. I bet
| those guys would make great interrogators.
|
| Without question. The best, most accurate, and most
| comprehensive texts I ever read about how to go about
| manipulating people was a series of books aimed at car
| salesmen. To the degree that "mind control" is a thing,
| these books were clear how-to guides.
|
| And they convinced me to never talk to a car salesman.
| cruffle_duffle wrote:
| I've watched police interrogations too and they are both
| fascinating and horrifying. Those interrogators have a lot in
| common with shady used car salesmen. They twist and contort
| the truth to get whoever they want out of the person being
| interviewed. Except unlike the car salesmen the good
| interviewers really know their shit and can "corner" a person
| in their own lies. (I suppose a good salesman is just the
| same though)
|
| It's a weird place to be when you are rooting for the child
| molester/arsonist/muderer hoping they'd come to their sense
| and fucking CALL A LAWER YOU FUCKING IDIOT and SHUT YOUR PIE
| HOLE!!!
|
| But oddly, I guess maybe it's a good thing "rape the kids and
| wife, shoot them point blank and burn the house down"
| criminals are too stupid to exercise such a basic right. Even
| the scummiest of police investigators give these people the
| option to shut the fuck up and call the lawyer. Sure the
| person might have to wait an obscenely long time before the
| lawyer shows up but they still are given the out yet these
| moron criminals think they can outsmart a highly trained
| police interrogator and choose to dig their holes.
|
| Usually these people already dug their hole well before they
| are drug into the police station though. The on the ground
| evidence usually pretty much points to them already. All the
| confession does is save the state millions of dollars
| taxpayer money with courtroom proceedings.
|
| So yeah... really mixed on the whole topic. Of course these
| videos on YouTube are selected to be the most interesting of
| the bunch. There are probably a hundred more mundane
| interrogations that go unseen for every one that makes it to
| a widely subscribed YouTube channel.
| bityard wrote:
| > They twist and contort the truth to get whoever they want
| out of the person being interviewed.
|
| It's possible I just haven't watched enough of them, but
| I've never seen that. Usually the interviewer is a calm and
| dispassionate Columbo type who asks clarifying questions
| and then lets the suspects slowly trap themselves in their
| own web of lies. It is fascinating to watch.
|
| That said, even though I have a healthy respect for the
| criminal justice system, I will still NEVER talk to the
| police without a lawyer. (Whether or not I've committed a
| crime.)
| p_j_w wrote:
| >Usually the interviewer is a calm and dispassionate
| Columbo type who asks clarifying questions and then lets
| the suspects slowly trap themselves in their own web of
| lies.
|
| This loses its ability to inspire awe when you watch a
| video of one of these where you know the subject is
| actually innocent and the interviewer manages to also
| catch them in their own web of lies and make them look
| and sound guilty.
| bityard wrote:
| I have seen these too and although I'm certain there are bad
| interviewers out there, I have to say I gained a lot of
| respect for the detectives who conduct those interviews. They
| are much better than I could ever be at remaining
| dispassionate, curious, and above all, extremely patient.
|
| The bottom line is that these interviews are all recorded and
| the police are well aware that if they make a misstep and if
| the defense has a competent lawyer, they may inadvertently
| set a thief, killer, or rapist free if they are not extremely
| careful in their questioning and processes.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Everybody always thinks this about stuff that doesn't work. It
| turns out it's total bullshit.
|
| There was someone I knew who claimed that dowsing rods worked a
| similar way. A good practitioner of the dowsing rod was really
| using the information from his audience and was Hans the
| Mathematical Horsing his way to water. The audience of course
| had this information from the subtle way they picked up on cues
| of water, ways even they didn't recognize until the dowsing rod
| was in action.
|
| They all think this. Some can even bend spoons.
| lupusreal wrote:
| Dowsing rods are an excuse to trust common sense; that dip in
| the land where plants are greener is probably a good place
| for a well. But digging wells is expensive so people want
| something more than a guess, but also something cheap.
|
| When I was a kid, a new house was being built downhill from
| my parents and they dowsed out a "good" place for a well.
| They were all set to drill before my dad went out and told
| them they were directly downhill from our septic tank.
| lucianbr wrote:
| What's "downhill from a septic tank"? Isn't a septic tank a
| container that slowly fills up and is periodically emptied
| by a truck or something? There is no "flow downhill", is
| there? I thought the whole reason to have a septic tank is
| that you have no place for the stuff to go.
| jerf wrote:
| Septic systems are more interesting than that:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Septic_drain_field
|
| A straight tank would fill up in no time.
| mauvehaus wrote:
| Unless you're in a location where you absolutely can't
| leach the liquid waste out into a leach field (like right
| on a lake), the tank usually just settles the solids and
| give the liquid some time to mingle with whatever
| biological processes are happening in the tank.
|
| When the ground doesn't perk naturally, it's common up
| here to build a mound system where you have a mound of
| soil that does perk and vegetation (grass) on it to take
| up the liquid.
|
| A fully closed tank is basically the last resort. We have
| friends with a house right on a lake, and their tank had
| to be pumped every three weeks before they had a kid. I
| can't imagine what the interval is now.
| lucianbr wrote:
| Thanks for explaining, I had no idea.
| georgeecollins wrote:
| The best brain power a human possess is subconscious-- its
| all the perception that allows you to run fast around
| moving people and catch a ball. You can do it but you can't
| explain how. You can probably train yourself to be good at
| finding water or reading people but you might be bad at
| explaining why. Worse-- trying to explain yourself might be
| forcing you to use the feeble symbol processing power of
| your brain. So a prop helps you feel your way.
|
| Still-- total bs.
| drew870mitchell wrote:
| A friend bought land to build a house on where dowsing was
| culturally pervasive. He knew it was bogus but it was cheap
| compared to the land price and everybody around was heavily
| pushing it. An old guy came out and, during the performance,
| told him the total history of the land parcel, including
| stuff that would be inappropriate in formal disclosures
| ("those neighbors are assholes" etc). They did hit water, but
| the whole area is pretty verdant.
| crimsoneer wrote:
| As someone who used to be a cop, this is absolute _peak_ cops
| justifying the evidence not supporting their intuition by just
| making bullshit up.
|
| If it actually worked, they'd have data and results. But,
| spoilers, they don't.
| BeFlatXIII wrote:
| What's your opinion of the copy machine polygraph scene from
| the opening of The Wire's final season?
| krferriter wrote:
| That was a pretty accurate presentation of how polygraph
| machine testing works. The machine isn't doing anything
| useful in terms of determining if what is being said is
| true or not.
| ghostpepper wrote:
| Doesn't the polygraph machine just play a role similar to
| "the manager" in a used car negotiation? Just like the
| salesman can leave the room, get a coffee, never actually
| talk to anyone, and come back in and say "Sorry the manager
| says I can't go that low" and lots of people will buy it -
| the polygraph interviewer is "saying" to the interviewee (in
| not so many words) "sorry pal, I'd love to believe you, but
| the machine says you're lying - my hands are tied"
|
| Seems like it's a useful prop for manipulating people, and in
| that role it really is effective.
| huppeldepup wrote:
| I'd compare it to the sobriety test of being asked to walk in a
| straight line. someone who's drunk will put a lot of effort in
| it, which is the giveaway.
| kcb wrote:
| Or someone who's nervous because the police are accusing them
| of a serious crime...
| ryandrake wrote:
| Or... it doesn't really matter.
|
| By the time the police are commanding you to do a field
| sobriety test, they have already decided to charge you with
| DUI. There is literally nothing you can do during the test
| to change their mind. It's a formality, and the "test" is
| vague enough that the officer can cite any little twitch or
| misstep as "evidence" that you failed the test.
|
| If you pass a breathalyzer test (blow under the limit), and
| they still want to charge you with DUI, they will likely do
| a field sobriety test because the results are non-numeric
| and are subjective. Heck, you can blow 0.0 and still get
| arrested for DUI[1][2], and if you tell the world about it,
| the police will sue you for defamation[3].
|
| 1: https://reason.com/2024/02/14/iowa-cops-arrested-a-
| sober-col...
|
| 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGWSbAHaHUw
|
| 3: https://iowacapitaldispatch.com/2023/10/02/after-
| traffic-sto...
| bongodongobob wrote:
| Complete nonsense. They need evidence. If you blow 0s,
| you're not getting a DUI. Just because you have an
| example or two doesn't mean it's common. I've been pulled
| over, blew 0s, passed the tests and let go.
| kkielhofner wrote:
| With the wide availability of countless drugs that impair
| driving (that may not even be detectable on a urine/blood
| panel) and obviously don't register on a breathalyzer you
| absolutely can be charged with and convicted of DUI based
| on behavior, FST performance, officer observations,
| driving pattern, etc alone. Stumbling over a word or two
| like I do on conference calls everyday could be
| considered "evidence".
|
| Just like you can also be charged and convicted of DUI
| even with zeros or being under the legal limit. If you're
| traveling to/from/around a bar area at 2:30 AM your
| driving pattern and behavior is going to be heavily
| scrutinized.
|
| Just because you have an anecdotal example or two doesn't
| mean it's common either. The FSTs are also completely
| stacked against you. Take a high-pressure scenario, less
| than ideal conditions (side of the road with passing
| cars, dark, cold/hot, precipitation, flashing lights,
| etc), and ridiculous/conflicting/confusing instructions
| and even people who are completely sober end up providing
| what could appear as damning evidence.
|
| Even professional athletes have bad days where they just
| can't land a shot they've nailed thousands of times.
|
| I know at least a few cops who openly admit they struggle
| with the tests (to the point of "failure" in some cases)
| in no-pressure ideal classroom training environments.
|
| Of particular curiosity is a lot of police body/dash cam
| footage where the officer struggles to
| demonstrate/explain the tests, stumbles over reading
| Miranda cards, etc. Evidence where if the same
| observations were applied to them they could be
| scrutinized as being "impaired".
|
| Of course I'm not advocating for impaired driving, just
| highlighting that it's a tricky situation overall.
| callalex wrote:
| Are you white?
| bongodongobob wrote:
| Yeah... Cause it's hard to do when you're drunk.
| krferriter wrote:
| Sobriety tests are notorious for being very subjective and
| not having well defined criteria and cops failing people even
| if they aren't drunk. The subjectivity in the test is a
| feature that allows cops to justify their arrests or uses of
| force.
|
| Obviously once you hit a certain point of drunkness obviously
| maybe a test like walking in a line can demonstrate something
| useful. But so would a breathalyzer. The false positives is
| the problem because they're being used to illegitimately
| subject innocent people to criminal charges.
| bitwize wrote:
| I'm reminded of the story about the cops who constructed a
| "polygraph" by attaching wires to a colander that ran to a
| photocopier in which a piece of paper that had "You're Lying"
| written on it was placed. It was enough to intimidate the
| suspect into singing like a bird.
| jrm4 wrote:
| Great point, it reminds me of when I read about how "trials by
| ordeal" sometimes worked.
|
| Consider the boiling water/oil thing: If you're innocent, you
| can "stick your hand in and not get burned."
|
| What they did was, they _faked_ the water being hot by blowing
| bubbles in it. All then that was needed was for everyone to
| "believe it worked," The innocent sticks in, and then the
| guilty confesses.
| digging wrote:
| A perfect description of how "trials by ordeal" _don 't
| work_. This phrase is doing some HEAVY lifting:
|
| > All then that was needed was for everyone to "believe it
| worked,"
| krferriter wrote:
| In an era where mass media basically didn't exist, most
| people couldn't read, and information about how these
| things work could not easily spread, it might have been
| easier to convince people that a fake test was really what
| you were claiming it was. If people could google it they
| would instantly find out it was fake.
| jrm4 wrote:
| Oh, correct. I think by "work" I merely meant "here is the
| mechanism," not "this is why they are successful."
| JohnFen wrote:
| I knew a professional polygraph examiner who told me the exact
| same thing.
|
| It means that the polygraph works as well, and in the same way,
| as the ancient Roman(?) method of having a tent sealed off from
| light, with a donkey in it. The examinee is told that he is to
| hold the tail of the donkey and if the donkey brays while he
| says the thing he's being tested for, then they know for a fact
| that he's lying.
|
| The actual test, though, was that the donkey's tail was covered
| in soot. If the examinee comes out of the tent with clean
| hands, they know that he didn't hold the tail and so is deemed
| to be untruthful.
| dudeinjapan wrote:
| What if the donkey kicks you?
| tlamarre wrote:
| Means you were about to say something the donkey didn't
| want to be made public.
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| It means you stood in the wrong place. Don't stand behind,
| stand next to the donkey.
| Xortl wrote:
| There's a similar "actual test" scene in By The Great Horn
| Spoon!, a fun kid's book about the California Gold Rush we
| read in elementary school.
| Zigurd wrote:
| This is a bit like saying good witch doctors can diagnose you
| without the voodoo accoutrements, which are just there to get
| you to open up about how you are feeling. It's still voodoo,
| and still produces garbage conclusions much of the time.
|
| Thing is, there isn't an academic journal for voodoo. There is
| at least one for polygraphy.
| efitz wrote:
| Wait, what, Voodoo doesn't work? Has this been studied?
| JohnFen wrote:
| This reminds me of a study I read decades ago that showed
| patients have better outcomes from medical care if the doctor
| has credentials prominently displayed on the office wall.
| bbatha wrote:
| > My father did go the clearance route, and when I asked him
| about the polygraph he told me he confessed things to the
| interviewers he would never have told my mother.
|
| And this is exactly the problem, people make stuff up all of
| the time under stress.
|
| > Of course it is, but that is a misunderstanding that what
| you're watching is a real performance.
|
| This is not the value. The value is that the polygraph is that
| its an end-run around employment law. You can't use a polygraph
| on a general employee to fire them nor can you fire them for
| many of things that they ask in a polygraph interview. However
| you can revoke their clearance and fire them for not having a
| clearance.
| RajT88 wrote:
| I know some govvies who have been through the polygraph circus.
|
| One guy knew it was BS and could not get worried enough for
| them to come up with a baseline - he was too calm. So they took
| the tack of rescheduling it a bunch of times, making him go
| home after showing up so he would be good and pissed off when
| they actually did the test. He passed.
|
| Another lady I know had the interviewer go so hard on her she
| was crying through half of it. Afterward, the interviewer told
| her the goal was to make every interviewee break down so they
| would reveal stuff.
| lordnacho wrote:
| Don't scientology go around with a similarly fake device?
| UncleSlacky wrote:
| Yes, the "E-meter" is a primitive form of lie-detector
| equipment:
|
| https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Dianetics#E-Meter
|
| "Basically it is a simple ohmmeter that measures galvanic
| skin response (electronic resistance of the skin), somewhat
| similar to a polygraph; the user (the "preclear") provides
| one of the elements in a Wheatstone bridge."
| jvanderbot wrote:
| Yep - this is like field sobriety testing, in my mind. Everyone
| will display some level of nervousness and inability to perform
| all the tests, and the officer thus has a baseline level of
| "cause". They can therefore do all kinds of tests or hold you
| until you do those tests. B/c "He failed his FST"
|
| Same with poly. If they don't like something, they can just say
| "He failed his poly"
| serial_dev wrote:
| Someone knows how to keep their job!
| torginus wrote:
| It's (unfortunately) not an American problem. I have firsthand
| experience that courts are highly prestige-driven and the best
| way to make your case is have a ton of expensive-looking and
| official-sounding documents written by 'experts' that support
| your argument.
|
| Judges are like every high-level decisionmaker ever - the thing
| they fear the most is publicly being proven wrong so they always
| go for the safe option where they can share the responsibility of
| their decisions with 'experts'.
| snowpid wrote:
| To which countries and which cases are you referring to?
| rdtsc wrote:
| With the polygraph used as a universal filtering device for
| hundreds of thousands of employees in powerful agencies, we end
| up with a mix of either super honest ones who reveal everything
| to the polygrapher (i.e. interrogator), or psychopaths who lie
| through their teeth without showing any physiological signs and
| passing with flying color.
|
| Next time when you deal with these agencies, as a fun mental
| exercise, try to figure out which one of the two types you've got
| in front of you. When it comes to climbing to the top through the
| ranks, which ones will get there more effectively?
| analog31 wrote:
| I wonder if it's simpler than that: The examiner is just
| choosing whether they like you or not.
| rdtsc wrote:
| Officially they have to follow their training, so to speak,
| and I am sure that's all about how polygraphs are 100%
| reliable and it's scientific and all that. I wonder if any
| instructors at some point close the door and tell them
| "listen, students, yeah, it's all bunk, but we just have to
| pretend, ok?".
| analog31 wrote:
| They're apparently allowed to manipulate the subject ad
| lib.
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| > I wonder if any instructors at some point close the door
| and tell them "listen, students, yeah, it's all bunk, but
| we just have to pretend, ok?".
|
| If online stories are to trusted, this has occurred in a
| lot of government clearance related situations.
| rightbyte wrote:
| Watching Dexter this 'blood splatter anaysis' seemed beyond
| ridculous to me. I thought there were no way it would be a thing
| in the US in the way portrayed.
|
| But then I learn truth detectors are? What more movie tropes are
| not tropes?
| Hikikomori wrote:
| Plenty of techniques are based on junk science, much more in
| the past than now. Police/FBI don't actively try to find out if
| techniques are based on real science or not as they are useful
| in securing convictions. So called experts in these fields
| testify in trials and are paid quite a bit, it is in their
| interest to continue being paid so the fraud perpetuates.
| Unless you have money you have no way to put up a defense that
| can discredit expert witness testimony.
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/apr/28/forensics-bi...
| duped wrote:
| Man it's shocking how bad forensic "science" is. If you watch
| Law & Order you may be convinced that police can detect gun
| shot residue on a suspects hands/clothing or match shell
| casings to a specific gun.
|
| It turns out just throwing handcuffs on someone is enough to
| get a false positive GSR test. And matching a shell casing to
| a specific gun is essentially impossible.
|
| The false positive rates on forensic "tests" are hard to
| study because no one has an incentive to, and if you go
| digging you'll find how bad they can be. Like for example K9
| units have about a 50% false detection rate (dog indicated
| but no drugs/weapons/bombs found). If a cop told you they
| flipped a coin to decide whether to search a car then the
| search would be tossed out of evidence immediately!
| mrguyorama wrote:
| The vast majority of "Forensic Techniques" used by cops are
| literally things an ex-cop made up / """observed""" and are
| now charging insane prices to go across the US, giving
| presentations to other cops or giving testimony in trials.
|
| It's a factless and truthless system.
| NeoTar wrote:
| Fingerprints are less accurate and reliable than often
| portrayed in the media.
| MikePlacid wrote:
| When we presented our pediatrician with our third child who could
| urinate in a sink on verbal command at just six months old, she
| remarked, "We should write an article for a medical journal!" We
| explained that such an article would never get published because
| it's not new information; most of Europe begins potty-training at
| around six months. Delaying this valuable skill until the age of
| 3-4 years is an enormous waste of resources - but still the whole
| country was insisting on doing it, don't know about now.
| n4r9 wrote:
| > most of Europe begins potty-training at around six months
|
| Where did you hear that? Admittedly here in the UK we've been
| doing our level best to extricate ourselves from the continent,
| but I've only ever heard of one mum even thinking about it
| before 18 months. Ours is just over a year and we haven't
| thought about it at all yet, same with our ante-natal group and
| friends with slightly older babies.
|
| I googled around a bit and this reddit thread has a lot of
| Europeans with similar experience to me:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/Mommit/comments/tdb1f2/what_are_non...
| knallfrosch wrote:
| The German term is "Abhalten" (from "halten = to carry") or
| ("windelfrei = diaper free") and you'll find quite a lot:
|
| https://www.google.com/search?q=baby+abhalten+*.de
|
| Our baby was born potty-trained (which actually means the
| term is misleading in our case) and a relative started at
| their childrens' birth.
| n4r9 wrote:
| This sounds different to potty-training, which is where the
| child knows that they need to wee or poo and tells you or
| goes straight to the potty to do it. "Abhalten" sounds like
| the parent training to know rather than the child.
| tetromino_ wrote:
| In English this is called "elimination communication" or
| EC. The parent subconsciously figures out when the baby
| needs to go based on schedule, observation of milk/water
| intake, and subtle behavioral cues (facial expression
| change, posture, etc).
|
| It's a system that works quite well if the baby is
| exclusively cared for by a stay-at-home parent or a long-
| term nanny (and no other babies or toddlers in the house to
| distract the parent/nanny). But try to leave the baby with
| a new sitter or at a daycare - they have no idea what your
| baby's cues are and cannot be bothered to learn them; so
| back in diapers the baby goes.
| lqet wrote:
| > most of Europe begins potty-training at around six months
|
| Not sure how this relates to the article, but this is news to
| me (European). We slowly began potty training somewhere between
| 1 and 2 years. I have never heard of anyone doing potty
| training at six months. Babies are just barely able to sit
| upright at that age.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _most of Europe begins potty-training at around six months._
|
| Hailing from Poland; first I hear of this. I know of total of
| _two_ people who said something like this before - one person
| is saying a lot of other borderline insane things about
| parenting, and the other has a business selling webinars around
| the idea of potty-training kids less than a year old.
| apexalpha wrote:
| >We explained that such an article would never get published
| because it's not new information; most of Europe begins potty-
| training at around six months.
|
| Funny. I am European and we have this myth about Asia.
| Avshalom wrote:
| >>urinate [on] command
|
| Wait, what do you think potty training is?
| Okx wrote:
| No wonder he heard from his brother that the Border Patrol were
| always hiring; they seemingly make it impossible to get hired.
| DoItToMe81 wrote:
| Sadly, not All-American anymore. The US police force doesn't
| exist in a vacuum. There is a whole industry of pseudoscientific
| interrogation techniques that has set itself up in other nations
| and regressed their policing by decades. Several states in
| Australia, and I believe parts of the UK, removed the polygraph
| as a discredited technique and now accept it as evidence once
| more.
| n4r9 wrote:
| UK here, just looked it up and although it's not admissible as
| evidence in court, since 2021 it can be used as a requirement
| for release from prison for domestic abusers.
|
| Bloody hell, that is _scary_.
| xnorswap wrote:
| That is scary! Well, we've recently got a new prisons
| minister, this might actually motivate me to write to them
| about this.
| n4r9 wrote:
| I looked them up:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Timpson
|
| Woah. It's actually the MD of Timpson, whom Starmer has
| parachuted into the role along with a peerage. So an
| unelected Minister, but apparently he's very into prison
| reform, so there's that.
| xnorswap wrote:
| Indeed, Timpson's are a leading employer of people who
| have served their sentence:
|
| > The company is well known for its policy of employing
| ex-convicts, who make up over 10% of its workforce
| Quarrel wrote:
| Where in Australia?
|
| I've been out of Aus for a few years, but in NSW I understand
| they're still largely banned (Lie Detectors Act) for
| employment, courts / evidence, insurance etc (and if they
| weren't by legislation, they would be for evidence by
| precedent, which is how the Act came about). As I understood
| it, this and the Canadian precedent that NSW relied upon, have
| basically made them a non-starter for courts in Australia ever
| since.
|
| It's a bit horrifying if they're making a comeback, but then
| our politicians have always been a bit prone to right wing
| shock jock rhethoric around election time.
| bell-cot wrote:
| I'd describe American (govt. agency) polygraphy as a
| psychological hazing ritual, run by a pretty machismo crowd. Who
| don't like their beliefs and rituals questioned.
| nelox wrote:
| You can add dissociative identity disorder, a.k.a. multiple
| personality disorder, to the list of All-American delusions.
| graemep wrote:
| It reminds me of the GK Chesterton short story "The Mistake of
| the Machine" which suggests it was a very American idea even back
| then.
|
| https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Wisdom_of_Father_Brown/Th...
|
| The evidence it "works" reminds me of alternative medicine.
| motohagiography wrote:
| my experience with the polygraph was it detects your ability to
| submit. it's less a delusion than a ritual. as a filter, it
| produces a completely polarized bimodal distribution of banal
| followers vs. the basest human malevolence and contempt, while
| disqualifying relfection or doubt. if the purpose of a system is
| what it does the polygraph is perfect. it finds expendable souls.
| mbg721 wrote:
| This is in line with the joke, "How do get the NYPD to catch a
| rabbit?"
|
| You ask them, and a week later they bring in a badly beaten bear,
| who shouts "Okay, I'm a rabbit! I'm a rabbit!!"
| kzrdude wrote:
| That used to be a joke about KGB, or so I thought.
| lstodd wrote:
| It was
|
| https://imgur.com/fbi-cia-kgb-5koAv3H
| RIMR wrote:
| It has a bear in it, so probably.
| bloomingeek wrote:
| Many years ago, at the age of nineteen, I was forced to take a
| polygraph if I wanted to keep my job. Someone was stealing
| products from the store, we heard out the back door, and they
| required everyone to be tested.
|
| Naturally, my co-workers and I discussed this among ourselves and
| we all agreed to test, we knew we were innocent. One of the men
| said all they're trying to do is see if anyone cracks under the
| pressure of the test. Being kind of a nervous type of person, I
| was concerned they might misread my domineer. I talked to my
| sister and she told me to try my best to control my breathing
| during the test.
|
| For me the problem wasn't that I was guilty, it was they would
| _think_ I was guilty. We all passed the test and went back to
| work, later it was revealed the thief was someone on another
| shift. Or were they just nervous?
| dfxm12 wrote:
| This might have been illegal, depending on how many years ago
| this was:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employee_Polygraph_Protection_...
|
| In either case it was complete BS and just shows the sorry
| state of labor in the past few decades.
| MathMonkeyMan wrote:
| Confess! Confess!
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| A LOT of businesses break labor laws on a regular basis,
| especially smaller businesses without a legal department
| telling managers "You can't do that".
|
| You'd be alarmed to know how many restaurant owners tell the
| staff to clock out when the store closes and then finish
| closing duties off the clock, among other types of wage
| theft.
| GrantMoyer wrote:
| domineer - demeanor
|
| I only post the correction because it took me a couple of
| minutes to figure out. Domineer is an uncommon word, so
| initially I thought I had a gap in my vocabulary, but couldn't
| find any definitions that made sense in this context.
| nortlov wrote:
| Wish I had seen your post before I resorted to ChatGPT.
|
| https://chatgpt.com/share/2400c631-fc68-4f95-b4e7-861324a3dc.
| ..
| dullcrisp wrote:
| That's neat
| bloomingeek wrote:
| Oops, thanks for the correction.
| JohnFen wrote:
| When I was in high school, I had a similar experience at the
| place I worked. The manager had money missing from her purse,
| and someone (the actual thief, I assume) said they saw me take
| it.
|
| On my own volition and expense, I took a polygraph test about
| it. On one of the control questions, I kept reacting in a
| manner the examiner said indicated untruthfulness. I was
| certainly being truthful, though. No matter how he reworded the
| question, I failed it.
|
| Fortunately, it wasn't the "payload" questions. He swapped that
| control question out for a different one and declared me
| truthful. I presented the results to my manager at the same
| time as I quit.
|
| That experience, though, got me very interested in polygraph
| examinations and started a hobbyist interest in the entire
| field and history of lie detection.
|
| That led to me understanding that it's not a thing that is
| (currently, anyway) actually possible. What is done instead are
| psychological tricks that very much depend on the examinee
| believing that the whole thing is legitimate.
| withinrafael wrote:
| Hey quackery or not, the Polygraph saved my heart. (Disclosure: A
| bit of an exaggeration.)
|
| After hours of uncomfortable prodding, an interviewer came into
| the room and suggested I see a doctor for what looked like heart
| arrhythmia. I did shortly after and they were right! (It was
| deemed nothing too serious though.)
| bityard wrote:
| Yeah, the instruments work fine, but the interpretation of the
| readings is just modern day tea leaves.
| jmyeet wrote:
| Alternative take: lack of accessible, affordable and
| comprehensive healthcare almost cost me my life.
|
| I'm actually curious. Do you get an annual physical? Does your
| PCP give you an EKG? That would be the appropriate way to catch
| this.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| Are annual physicals provably worth doing? Or are they the
| medical profession's version of the polygraph?
| withinrafael wrote:
| I was young back then and was not getting annual physicals.
| That has changed, along with regular exercise!
| JohnMakin wrote:
| This article touches on it but to me the most offensive part of a
| polygraph is the presumption of guilt if you refuse to take one.
| This is very much on purpose, of course, given as the author
| accurately states, its purpose isn't to detect lies, it's a tool
| used for coercion.
|
| There was a big robbery at a place I worked, luckily I was not a
| suspect but the FBI came and administered polygraphs to anyone
| who could have done it. I asked what happens if someone refuses,
| and the answer was basically "they won't."
|
| Of course it ended up being someone that didn't even work there.
| The test was clearly for intimidation purposes, at least from the
| view I had.
| mmmlinux wrote:
| Aren't polygraphs not acceptable evidence in the US courts?
| bityard wrote:
| Polygraph tests are not usually acceptable as evidence in
| court.
|
| HOWEVER. Law enforcement can still use them as another tool
| in their questioning process to produce a confession when
| there is other evidence pointing to the guilt of the suspect.
| But of course is only effective against defendants who
| represent themselves, don't seek their lawyer's advice, or
| ignore their lawyer's advice.
| RIMR wrote:
| Polygraphs can be used as evidence, but you would have to be
| a moron to submit to one, and refusing one cannot be used as
| evidence of guilt.
| singleshot_ wrote:
| I'm very curious about your last sentence. Are you basing
| this on the fifth amendment, or something else.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| FWIW, in PA, it can't be brought up in court as evidence
| that you refused to take a polygraph. Nationally, we have
| a right to remain silent, so I imagine it's not much
| different elsewhere, but IANAL, so there could be some
| tricks cops/prosecutors can play in other states. There's
| no connection to the fifth amendment.
| OsrsNeedsf2P wrote:
| The author is uncooperative throughout the whole test, fails it,
| then claims the polygraph is quackery.
| thornewolf wrote:
| the only lack of cooperation communicated in this article is
| the account on drug use. that said, the claims on quackery are
| unrelated to the author's specific set of behaviors during the
| test. i reckon that i, knowing the complete lack of scientific
| backing, would also be uncooperative to some degree.
| jrgaston wrote:
| A wonderfully written piece.
|
| It's not a lie if you believe it. - George Costanza
| diogenes_atx wrote:
| The writer is obviously an intelligent person with good critical
| perspective, so it is surprising that he missed some important
| material about known countermeasures that can be effectively used
| to defeat the polygraph. A quick HN search with keywords "lie
| detector" offers a number of excellent articles on the subject,
| including discussion of the book "Lie Behind the Lie Detector"
| (available for free online) which provides detailed information
| on polygraphs and techniques to subvert the tests.
| jmyeet wrote:
| There is a long history of junk science in forensics [1]. Often
| this junk science is used to reinforce established biases and
| give bloodthirsty juries a hook to hang a conviction hat on. Now
| polygraphs now generally aren't admissible in court. This wasn't
| always the case [2]. Still, law enforcement does use them to
| eliminate or confirm suspects outside of a court environment.
| This can just confirming existing biases.
|
| And that's the deeper issue here: the American criminal justice
| system is mainly retributive or punitive. Long setnences for
| minor crimes. High conviction rates. Abuse of the power imbalance
| between prosecutors and defendants. Judges that essentially work
| for the prosecution (eg [3]). Juries that just want to convict.
| Of anything.
|
| Yet there's ample evidence none of this is effective whereas
| something as simple as giving inmates cats to look after is
| extremely effective at reducing recidivism [4].
|
| My point is that technology can be (and has been) used as a
| crutch to confirm biases and that criminals are still people and
| we should treat them as people.
|
| [1]: https://www.propublica.org/article/understanding-junk-
| scienc...
|
| [2]: https://axeligence.com/polygraph-admissibility-in-united-
| sta...
|
| [3]: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/young-thug-
| ric...
|
| [4]:
| https://www.indystar.com/story/news/local/indianapolis/2020/...
| lesuorac wrote:
| > Why should I be banned from a job for being a small-time
| delinquent twenty years ago?
|
| Fair question. I'm not sure that's 1) been shown to be true 2)
| the fault of a polygraph; it's a policy decision not a mechanical
| one.
|
| > As he pumped up the cuff, Kevin asked if I was comfortable. He
| didn't seem to be joking.
|
| Yeah, he probably was serious. Kevin has a job to do and it's to
| ask you questions and record your responses; not to torture you.
| Sometimes people really forget that not every examiner thinks
| you're the next Aldrich Ames.
|
| But I mean also if you're in a very uncomfortable situation and
| somebody asks you how you are, maybe being honest will help
| resolve that situation? Like clearly you can't resolve it on your
| own otherwise you wouldn't be in such a panic.
|
| > Except for the last two, all of them seemed open to
| interpretation. For instance, I absolutely had misrepresented my
| past drug use, but only the number of times, not the drugs or the
| fact of doing them.
|
| If only there was somebody that could've helped you determine
| what the answer should be. Maybe Kevin?
|
| ---
|
| I mean yeah, if you go into a polygraph expecting a fight I don't
| think it's fairly surprising you don't get the job. Who wants to
| hire somebody combative to your employees? Sure, it's unfair but
| you're taking it out on Kevin who didn't come up with it.
| ewy1 wrote:
| Maybe you misinterpreted the intent of the article - isn't the
| purpose of it to point out absurdities and fundamental flaws in
| the uniquely American polygraph obsession?
| newzisforsukas wrote:
| Who wants to work for or with someone who pretends they can
| read your mind?
| TomMasz wrote:
| I watch a lot of true crime programs and the polygraph is mostly
| used as justification to harass innocent people. The police
| consider the refusal to take it as a tacit admittance of guilt,
| despite the fact it can't be used in court. It's all shit.
| javier_e06 wrote:
| No Polygraph discussion is complete without Moe being subjected
| to the Polygraph...
|
| Eddie: Checks out. OK, sir, you're free to go.
| Moe: Good, 'cause I got a hot date tonight. [buzz]
| _A_ date. [buzz] Dinner with friends. [buzz]
| Dinner alone. [buzz] Watching TV alone. [buzz]
| All right! I'm going to sit at home and ogle the ladies in the
| Victoria's Secret catalog. [buzz] [weakly]
| Sears catalog. [ding] [angry] Now would you
| unhook this already, please? I don't deserve this
| kind of shabby treatment! [buzz]
| macrael wrote:
| So good, and I love this SMBC take on it:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJS76Bf-ZYo
| [deleted]
| dang wrote:
| Related:
|
| _UK police increasingly using polygraph tests_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39161771 - Jan 2024 (5
| comments)
|
| _Spanish police plans to extend use of its lie-detector while
| efficacy is unclear_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24905780 - Oct 2020 (38
| comments)
|
| _Accused spy Alexander Yuk Ching Ma evidently beat the
| polygraph_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24197310 - Aug
| 2020 (186 comments)
|
| _We tested Europe's new lie detector for travelers and triggered
| a false positive_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21358288
| - Oct 2019 (114 comments)
|
| _Why Lie Detector Tests Can't Be Trusted_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20556201 - July 2019 (190
| comments)
|
| _Attempts to Censor AntiPolygraph.org_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20311040 - June 2019 (45
| comments)
|
| _The Lie Behind the Lie Detector_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18431683 - Nov 2018 (96
| comments)
|
| _An AI Lie Detector Is Going to Start Questioning Travelers in
| the EU_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18351733 - Nov
| 2018 (202 comments)
|
| _Personal Statement of a CIA Analyst_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18155548 - Oct 2018 (104
| comments)
|
| _The Lie Generator: Inside the Black Mirror World of Polygraph
| Job Screenings_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18120270 -
| Oct 2018 (95 comments)
|
| _NCCA Polygraph Countermeasure Course Files Leaked_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17277049 - June 2018 (4
| comments)
|
| _Do Polygraphs Actually Work?_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12951926 - Nov 2016 (4
| comments)
|
| _An Ex-Cop 's War on Lie Detectors_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10002889 - Aug 2015 (64
| comments)
|
| _How to Beat a Polygraph Test_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9481385 - May 2015 (92
| comments)
|
| _Man accused of teaching people to beat lie detector tests faces
| prison_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6308878 - Sept
| 2013 (152 comments)
|
| _The Lie Behind the Lie Detector [pdf]_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6307479 - Aug 2013 (22
| comments)
|
| _Seeing threats, feds target instructors of polygraph-beating
| methods_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6229185 - Aug
| 2013 (4 comments)
|
| _All lies? Scientists threatened with legal action over lie
| detector article_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=457996 -
| Jan 2009 (1 comment)
|
| _My NSA polygraph experiences_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=428489 - Jan 2009 (46
| comments)
|
| also https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=giles_corey
| michaelteter wrote:
| Writing mostly for the sake of writing.
|
| That's not to say it wasn't interesting; but it could have been
| 1/3 the length and provided the same information value. It's as
| if the author wanted us to experience our own suffering,
| wondering when "the rest of the story" would finally be
| delivered.
| phibz wrote:
| I never understood why people believed this BS. The process of
| administering an exam requires direct interpretation from another
| human. They are just as fallible as I.
| JackFr wrote:
| I took a polygraph about 30 years ago a Ft. Meade during a
| background check for NSA. Honestly it took like 45 minutes, guy
| was totally pleasant and he treated it seriously, but it seemed
| mechanical, strictly scripted, and more like a box checking
| exercise.
|
| However, I also had an interview with a psychologist which was
| very intense and manipulative, but effective, in eliciting true
| information about how much I was drinking at the time (too much,
| quite frankly). It was only years later that I realized that was
| the information they really wanted and all the other embarrassing
| sex questions were just to set me up.
| Covzire wrote:
| One of my college professors was adamantly against Polygraphs, he
| made the case that over time it causes sociopaths to collect at
| whatever work address requires them because they can pass
| effortlessly and normal people on average get stung by false
| positives.
| farceSpherule wrote:
| Polygraphs are b.s. pseudoscience, unreliable, and subjective.
|
| Polygraph "examiners" are like drug dogs who always fail to find
| drugs because, since they do not find the drugs, they receive no
| praise and they do not receive their "toy."
| shove wrote:
| Not a single comment in here connecting the fake bullshit
| detection technology of the previous generation to the present
| bullshit generation technology ("AI")? I'm disappointed, y'all.
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