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Comment by xorcist | Hacker News Reader

How is this not a joke?

I get the comments that it's an "enhanced interrogation technique", but it sounds like it requires the subjects to be at least a bit intimidated by it. If someone pointed a dowsing stick at you, you wouldn't be the slightest bit intimidated by it, no matter how mean looking it was.

What kind of strange culture lets a prop straight out of a 50s sci-fi flick instill respect in people? And how they do it? Surely it can't just be the Hollywood movies?

Sorry for breaking out in a bit of a rant, but I seriously can't wrap my mind around how these things could possibly be useful.

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If you've ever been personally interrogated by someone that knows what they're doing (police detective, etc), it's a pretty intimidating experience by itself - and completely fascinating because you realize it's completely a learned skill to do that! You may call me naive, but it really preys on your desire to tell the truth. I can understand how a "devoted" criminal can easily game the interpersonal exchange, but the average law-abiding person gets confronted with a lot of strange and conflicting emotions - desire to pursue the truth, desire to please, etc. A skilled interrogator is pretty amazing.

Now add biometrics. It's not like the polygraph is separable from the interrogator. It's a question of establishing a baseline and watching for deviations that gain significance based on experience and knowledge. The polygraph enhances the ability of the interrogator in terms of their access to biometric data of the subject, and ancillary to that is the intimidation factor that the subject feels knowing the interrogator may be more aware of your biometrics than the subject themselves.

The reason why we settled on the polygraph and not something else is because of William Marston. He invented the early polygraph after noticing his wife’s blood pressure rose when she was angry. He also created Wonder Woman who carries a whip that makes people tell the truth. In the 1930’s he wrote a book advocating for the use of the polygraph by law enforcement. Gillette hired him for an advertising campaign to “prove” they had better razors. The public started to believe in it’s effectiveness which allowed it to start coercing confessions.

We might as well be determining guilt and innocence with a block of Kryptonite or by flipping a batarang. It’s ridiculous that it is still allowed.

It's not the machine itself that's intimidating, it's the consequence of being caught lying and the accompanying loss of freedom or job opportunity.

Sure, but nobody chose a wizard's hat or a dowsing rod, so there must be some cultural significance to it completely beyond my understanding?

Sadly (and incredibly) this is not always true: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADE_651

"as much as US$60,000 each. The Iraqi government is said to have spent £52 million on the devices" - Wow and no one thought hey let's test this baby out before we buy a thousand of them?

They did test them. Dowsing rods work very well in unblinded tests. That's a big part of why so many people believe in dowsing.

I'm gonna have to call BS on that. Finding water accidentally is astronomically more likely than finding a bomb.

Unblinded tests mean that the tester knows where the bomb is. Imagine you have a bomb on a table. Someone brings a bomb detector over and when they point it at the bomb, it indicates that a bomb is detected. Point it away, and it stops. This is a very convincing demonstration if you don't suspect shenanigans.

Well, if losing the dousing stick test ends your career and sends you through months of more investigation, which may or may not include interrogation, you might take the dousing stick test more seriously.

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