My theory is that if I see someone&#x27;s arm being broken as a form of punishment, the pain and suffering is readily visible, which triggers a sort of empathetic reaction.<p>But if I see someone in a windowless room by themselves, it&#x27;s easy to dismiss that as &quot;not so bad&quot;. I could even rationalize is and say &quot;I&#x27;m an introvert and like quiet&quot; or &quot;general population is probably less safe, this would be better for me&quot;. There is no understanding of what it is like to spend weeks (which would do me in, let alone months or years) locked in a cage with no natural light, no calendar, a light that is never turned off and no conversation with anyone else.<p>Similarly, I&#x27;ve heard and read many people claim waterboarding isn&#x27;t torture because &quot;all they need to do is hold their breath, they should rationalize to themselves that the captors aren&#x27;t actually trying to drown them&quot;. I believe solitary confinement is cruel because of the psychological effect and shouldn&#x27;t be used as it is today for the same reasons I think mock executions shouldn&#x27;t be either. (Sure, you don&#x27;t kill the person, but you&#x27;re still psychologically torturing them.)<p>If you don&#x27;t believe that humans are social animals and need to interact with other humans on a regular basis, read about feral children [0].<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Feral_child" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Feral_child</a>