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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
 Posted - 03/01/2009 : 01:04:17
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Kil's Pick this week was pretty good.
Kil's Evil Pick:
The Top Twenty Most Bizarre Experiments Of All Time - Well, what can I say about this pick? Truth is stranger than fiction? I dunno. A few of these experiments really did add to our knowledge base in a positive way. Like the The Stanford Prison Experiment, for example. Still, there is much here that is simply inexplicable, such as the Elephants on Acid experiment which also happens to be the first experiment listed. |
I bring it up because I have heard of one of the experiments listed, Stanley Milgram's famous obedience experiment, and know that it is no longer performed today due to ethical concerns. It's the one where people were tested to see if they would administer a painful electric shock to another person if they were told to. At the time, psychologists were still struggling to understand how so many German people could have participated in the Holocaust without refusing to follow such heinous orders. But much to Milgram's surprise, he found that most students obediently delivered the shock, even after the receiver howled in pain. He concluded: "I would say, on the basis of having observed a thousand people in the experiment and having my own intuition shaped and informed by these experiments, that if a system of death camps were set up in the United States of the sort we had seen in Nazi Germany, one would be able to find sufficient personnel for those camps in any medium-sized American town."
I found it interesting that in the comments, a man left a post who claims to have actually participated in one of these experiments, about the 10th comment down.
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
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chaloobi
SFN Regular
1620 Posts |
Posted - 03/02/2009 : 06:18:40 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by H. Humbert
if a system of death camps were set up in the United States of the sort we had seen in Nazi Germany, one would be able to find sufficient personnel for those camps in any medium-sized American town."
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I don't doubt it one bit. I think the US could descend into a house of horrors with barely a hiccup given the right leadership. People are followers, its in our nature. Civilization depends on it. |
-Chaloobi
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 03/02/2009 : 07:27:00 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by chaloobi
Originally posted by H. Humbert
if a system of death camps were set up in the United States of the sort we had seen in Nazi Germany, one would be able to find sufficient personnel for those camps in any medium-sized American town."
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I don't doubt it one bit. I think the US could descend into a house of horrors with barely a hiccup given the right leadership. People are followers, its in our nature. Civilization depends on it.
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Our former, alledged president gave it his best shot and we only dodged the bullet due to his staggering incompetence and lack of imagination.
I read/heard about this and several other examples, some almost at the time they were happening. They have restored my lack of faith in humanity. I mean, of what use is an acid-dropping elephant except as a symbol for a political party?
Anyhow, it was a very good Evil Pick!
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 03/02/2009 : 09:50:12 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by H. Humbert
I bring it up because I have heard of one of the experiments listed, Stanley Milgram's famous obedience experiment, and know that it is no longer performed today due to ethical concerns. |
Oddly enough, variations on it made the news back in January.
See Cognitive Daily and Dispatches from the Culture Wars, and the sources they cite. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 03/02/2009 : 11:31:09 [Permalink]
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The most chilling thing about Milgram's experiment is that the person receiving the shock was anonymous. No government sponsored propaganda campaign targeting hate at a certain race or ethnicity was required to get people to deliver potentially fatal electric shocks, just an authority figure.
1984 is not some unimaginable alternate reality, it is something we have to constantly guard against.
Try to tell that to most people and the best reaction you get is laughter. Don't be ridiculous! etc.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 03/02/2009 : 12:16:28 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dude
The most chilling thing about Milgram's experiment is that the person receiving the shock was anonymous. No government sponsored propaganda campaign targeting hate at a certain race or ethnicity was required to get people to deliver potentially fatal electric shocks, just an authority figure.
1984 is not some unimaginable alternate reality, it is something we have to constantly guard against.
Try to tell that to most people and the best reaction you get is laughter. Don't be ridiculous! etc. |
There's no doubt you're right, Dude.
I will point out that the situation of the experiments seems to have differed from most real-life scenarios in that there was no real opportunity for group discussion.
I think that if a dozen or so prospective shock-givers were told of what they were (supposedly) going to be doing to subjects, likely one or more would voice reservations, and others would likely pick up upon those and expand the objections. My wild guess is that a majority of the prospects would not agree to continue.
So the social context is very important. If people have a chance to remind one another about ethics, it makes a big difference, I suspect.
To get the torturers to do their work, they either need to be kept from free discussion, or carefully selected for their inherent cruelty (or their indifference to inflicting pain and injury). This highlights how important is our national debate over the tortures committed by the military and the CIA under Bush administration guidelines.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
| Edited by - HalfMooner on 03/02/2009 12:18:30 |
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chaloobi
SFN Regular
1620 Posts |
Posted - 03/02/2009 : 13:14:34 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by HalfMooner
Originally posted by Dude
The most chilling thing about Milgram's experiment is that the person receiving the shock was anonymous. No government sponsored propaganda campaign targeting hate at a certain race or ethnicity was required to get people to deliver potentially fatal electric shocks, just an authority figure.
1984 is not some unimaginable alternate reality, it is something we have to constantly guard against.
Try to tell that to most people and the best reaction you get is laughter. Don't be ridiculous! etc. |
There's no doubt you're right, Dude.
I will point out that the situation of the experiments seems to have differed from most real-life scenarios in that there was no real opportunity for group discussion.
I think that if a dozen or so prospective shock-givers were told of what they were (supposedly) going to be doing to subjects, likely one or more would voice reservations, and others would likely pick up upon those and expand the objections. My wild guess is that a majority of the prospects would not agree to continue.
So the social context is very important. If people have a chance to remind one another about ethics, it makes a big difference, I suspect.
To get the torturers to do their work, they either need to be kept from free discussion, or carefully selected for their inherent cruelty (or their indifference to inflicting pain and injury). This highlights how important is our national debate over the tortures committed by the military and the CIA under Bush administration guidelines.
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That's an interesting hypothesis. It would be intersting to see the results if it were tested. It would say something about how civilization ought to be structured. |
-Chaloobi
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| Edited by - chaloobi on 03/02/2009 13:15:32 |
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chaloobi
SFN Regular
1620 Posts |
Posted - 03/02/2009 : 13:17:08 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dude
The most chilling thing about Milgram's experiment is that the person receiving the shock was anonymous.
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I would guess the anonymity made it easier to shock them. For example, if you knew it was your brother or room-mate getting shocked, you'd probably be less likely to do it. (assuming you were on good terms with them) |
-Chaloobi
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 03/03/2009 : 01:56:33 [Permalink]
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Sure, shocking an anon person would be easier that shocking a person you know and care for. But what about shocking a stranger who the only thing you knew was that they were a member of a hated race or ethnicity (because your government said so, repeatedly), AND the authority figure from your government was telling you to do it.
I'm thinking that shocking random anonymous people would be a good deal more difficult than shocking a "hated stranger" in those circumstances. So if people would do it to an anonymous person, it is almost assured they would do it to a person from the "hated" group.
As with the Milgram experiment there will be some who refuse to push the button, and maybe Halfmooner is correct that those few could sway others to not participate. My suspucion is that they could sway some, but it would depend on the degree of governmental authority exerted.
How many people in the US do you think would NOT push the button if instructed to do so by a person in uniform or government authority if they were told the person was a terrorist?
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
Posted - 03/03/2009 : 08:51:56 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by HalfMooner
Originally posted by Dude
The most chilling thing about Milgram's experiment is that the person receiving the shock was anonymous. No government sponsored propaganda campaign targeting hate at a certain race or ethnicity was required to get people to deliver potentially fatal electric shocks, just an authority figure.
1984 is not some unimaginable alternate reality, it is something we have to constantly guard against.
Try to tell that to most people and the best reaction you get is laughter. Don't be ridiculous! etc. |
There's no doubt you're right, Dude.
I will point out that the situation of the experiments seems to have differed from most real-life scenarios in that there was no real opportunity for group discussion.
I think that if a dozen or so prospective shock-givers were told of what they were (supposedly) going to be doing to subjects, likely one or more would voice reservations, and others would likely pick up upon those and expand the objections. My wild guess is that a majority of the prospects would not agree to continue.
So the social context is very important. If people have a chance to remind one another about ethics, it makes a big difference, I suspect.
To get the torturers to do their work, they either need to be kept from free discussion, or carefully selected for their inherent cruelty (or their indifference to inflicting pain and injury). This highlights how important is our national debate over the tortures committed by the military and the CIA under Bush administration guidelines. |
Actually, there are some evidence that the opposite is taking place.
If you are alone, the decision of shocking rests squarely on your own shoulders.
If you are in a group, you might wait for somebody else to voice objections before joining in. The problem is that, if everybody does the same, no objections will be voiced, and yet, it is already not your fault, it is the other guys' for not objecting. You divided the weight of guilt and are only sharing a small part of it now. |
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 03/03/2009 : 10:18:19 [Permalink]
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I see the Milgram obedience experiment and The Stanford Prison Experiment as related. One shows our ability to become obedient to an authority figure, with little regard for the ethical and moral consequences of our actions as we see them as at least somewhat civilized people, and the other demonstrates how easy it is to become a sadistic figure of authority.
Social conditions in the mock prison deteriorated with stunning rapidity. On the first night the prisoners staged a revolt, and the guards, feeling threatened by the insubordination of the prisoners, cracked down hard. They began devising creative ways to discipline the prisoners, using methods such as random strip-searches, curtailed bathroom privileges, verbal abuse, sleep deprivation, and the withholding of food.
Under this pressure, prisoners began to crack. The first one left after only thirty-six hours, screaming that he felt like he was "burning up inside." Within six days, four more prisoners had followed his lead, one of whom had broken out in a full-body stress-related rash. It was clear that for everyone involved the new roles had quickly become more than just a game.
Even Zimbardo himself felt seduced by the corrosive psychology of the situation. He began entertaining paranoid fears that his prisoners were planning a break-out, and he tried to contact the real police for help. Luckily, at this point Zimbardo realized things had gone too far. Only six days had passed, but already the happy college kids who had begun the experiment had transformed into sullen prisoners and sadistic guards.
Zimbardo called a meeting the next morning and told everyone they could go home. The remaining prisoners were relieved, but tellingly, the guards were upset. They had been quite enjoying their new-found power and had no desire to give it up. |
Bolding is mine.
Given what we know from these experiments, it's a wonder that what we think of as civilized behavior is so widespread. It's also not surprising that what we find appalling is also widespread.
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 03/09/2009 : 00:00:03 [Permalink]
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Indeed.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Kil’s Evil Pick
