It may be worse than an alternative of higher pursuits, but can you definitively say that these people are being tortured? Are not most of them willing volunteers?

Any lack of optionality afforded to them is chiefly the result of monopolization of rules governing the job market, which is the result of the existence of government. A more effective swing against degeneracy may be to eliminate barriers to entry that have been in place by the state, something an Austrian or Chicago school economist may elucidate.