i hate that $5 wrench meme. Randall Monroe of xkcd is ordinarily such a smart guy but he really didn't do his research with his $5 wrench attack idea. Torturers don't hit people in the head with something hard. Not the ones who are any good at their job anyway. Easy way to concuss someone or have them die of shock before they tell you what you need to know.
A sophisticated in-depth treatise on torture wouldn't fit neatly into a 2 panel webcomic. If you email Randall, maybe he'll make a comic just about torture for you, but either way, the $5 wrench gets the meaning across well enough. Personally, I haven't given much thought on how to torture someone into giving me information they don't want to tell but I'm grateful someone's done that work, hopefully on the side of good and not evil.
Have you (the commenter) or all of you (the readers of this comment) ever read "The Mote In God's Eye" by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle? Remember when they realize that the Watchmakers were actually in control of the MacArthur? This reads a little like that.
Reminds me of the plot of "Exit Earth" by Martin Caidin where humanity has to evacuate the planet in an ark to survive passage through an interstellar dust cloud. Martin Caidin is known more for "Cyborg", the book that was used as the basis for the TV show "The Six Million Dollar Man".
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