I think there was a study that shows torture doesn't really work.
Perhaps it works as a warning to others :D
I suspect that torture likely works well enough to keep doing it. Inhumane or not, those in control want to stay in control. A lot of government practices are inhumane too, but just at a different scale and applied en masse.
I am frugal and stingy, so even if my assets appreciate astronomically, I would probably reinvest a lot of them to gain passive income.
One or two cycles of this and everything looks different, right?