All topics unimportant enough to not create a thread for

[creakyAccordion]

Hey, what was the name of that one study where they took a bunch of students and made some of them guards and some of them prisoners and the guards started abusing the prisoners?

[TheStranger]

The Melgram Prison Experiment or something like that, the scientific proof that humans are fucking damaged.

[creakyAccordion]

It ended up being the Stanford Prison Experiment

thanks

[Silver_Wolf]

I remember that from my psychology class.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment

Pretty messed up.

[TheStranger]

Thats the one. Couldve sworn there was some experiment called Melgram or Milgram too. Ah well, yeah, pretty messed up. If you werent convinced that Humans Are Bastards to some degree before, that will.

[creakyAccordion]

yeah the Melgram one is different

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment

[Exeres]

The Milgram one dealt more with distribution of responsibility, showing that humans were capable of doing really shitty things if they believed they weren't responsible.

[Silver_Wolf]

It also dealt largely with the power of authority.

[Mete]

This is why I should rule everything.

[Exeres]

But according to those studies, you would start abusing your power almost immediately and without remorse.

[Reyo]

Basically, it's "absolute power corrupts absolutely" and "responsibility makes guilt". It shows that human beings have the capability of doing really shitty things/being really shitty altogether. Everyone hated it because no one likes to be told of this capability. People just want to exist in their little bubble of "I'm the epitome of human perfection."

[TheStranger]

Pretty much, just like how everyone wants to pretend that evil is some sort of tangible thing rather than just actions any person would do under the right circumstances. If there's one thing Ive learned from studying history, its that there is no such thing as objective morality, one person can escape war crimes charges another would be executed for, as long as they have something to offer in return, or because it wouldnt be politically expedient to charge them.

[General]

Darkin just yelled at me to get Skype. What's the name of the AZ Chatroom? My name's Kumaton98

[Wry Bread]

Well that's why novels like 1984 are so chilling-- they're not as unrealistic as we would like in the ways we're least comfortable with, especially because they have basis in events from the past that people are familiar with, like Nazi Germany and fascist Japan. I read an account once by one of the Japanese generals leading the Rape of Nanking, about how he had to go about psyching his soldiers up into the mindset that would allow them to do what they did to their chinese victims and how the things they did made even the Nazis go "woah, what the fuck? That's just not right."

Then you have the reality of Germany under the Nazi regime-- despite the things that millions of German directly did during the Holocaust, none of them went into anything monsters. None of the Japanese soldiers who did what they did in Nanking and other parts of China were monsters, either. They weren't mentally disturbed, there was nothing wrong with them-- they were completely ordinary, typically healthy people with ordinary perceptions of right and wrong related to acts of barbarism. At first.

Even during what they did they still had senses of humor, the ability for compassion, a full spectrum of ordinary emotions, favorite foods and hobbies, all that. They weren't any more twisted or hideous than any of us except for the actions they allowed themselves to perform in the interest of "well I was told to," "everyone else was doing it," "I didn't think it would be that big of a deal," "well I only installed the gas lines and sold them the chemicals, I didn't push the button." Many people after WWII tried to escape responsibility in a grim parody of more ordinary excuses from regular life, the same stuff you'd say to get out of ordinary trouble. "Well, I didn't know what was REALLY going on."

If lone murderers or small cults are chilling because of the lack of typical human traits, behaviors or thoughts, then the mass acts of history's cruelest empires are chilling because they show that in the right circumstances, humans can and will put their incredible adaptability to use in adapting to horror, and the longer a generation goes without finding the strength to stand up and say "no," even privately, the less likely it is that the generation after will do so simply because it's all they know. That's one of the big things novels like 1984 focus on, too-- the simple horror of not even being able to trust your own family, because who knew whether the next day your wife or children would hand you over for what amounted to thoughtcrime in the home?

I like how I keep disappearing except to jump on the forum and write a tiny, unnecessary essay every other day because I am a fun and casual person.

ALSO I JUST FOUND OUT ABOUT GEN VI SOMEONE HOLD ME BEFORE I GET THE VAPORS AND FALL OVER

[TheStranger]

Ive long since lost the ability to belive that humans are basically good, because its all just semantics. Good, bad, it all boils down to whatever can appease our overclocked monkey brains desire for social acceptance at the moment. There's no justice, there's no righteousness, its all matter of who currently has the biggest gun, and what they feel like prosecuting. As long as you can rationalize it to yourself, there's no end to the atrocities we're all capable of. ANd even if you cant rationalize it, there's always good old fashioned denial.