The long tail is that if they prefer executions eventually they lower their mean IQ. By 'rehabilitating' the 'thought criminals' genetically what they are preserving is the tendency of a population for self reflection. Serves two purposes 1. these, if they can be cowed by fear, become party members, which increases control long term. The most reliable and predictable member is not a fanatical ally, its a motivated would-be enemy or the subset of the population that tends to produce such. The state, and party, which is their prison, has guards and enforcers who are also the prisoners. 2. The act of torture is often more horrifying than the act of execution, the idea of 'wiping someones personality' is an existential form of threat to many people. The result is that this serves to keep the party members in line in case any of them were starting to question. The 'northwest front novels' predicted winning a war against the u.s. government because it had become non-meritocratic or too 'diverse', however the aim of any sufficiently advanced state must always be to preserve meritocracy *internally* even if its outward face is made of fools and charlatans who can't tie their own shoes. They then serve only as cans on wires to alert the state of any armed insurrection--because the dumber they are, the more easily captured and destroyed they are, and conversely, the less their individual destruction matters to the state, like ablative shielding which serves also to gauge the 'temperature' of the public. Thus it is not the vote that matters, but the radicals who get the vote. And it is not the ballot that counts as vote, but the extremist and their campaign. The state then offers temporary concessions to would be revolutionaries (not to those who carry out attacks, no, they must always be hunted and destroyed, but to the causes and people who sympathize with them). This is because concessions are, on average, as long as they aren't gained by an *organized* opponent, the cheapest means of pacifying a disaffected populace *before* they organize and realize they should *always push for more* and *never be satisfied with just enough*. There is no compromise with the state, compromise is defeat. Only one side, the state, realizes this though. And now you know why the state tortures people. *Control and fear* are less risky, more profitable, and more effective means to war, *than war itself*. I say means *to* war as opposed means *of* war, because war is the health of the state.