Saturday, June 24, 2006
Odds and ends
A few days ago, I stumbled upon an eBay auction for address labels that had a bunch of images you could choose from... including one by an artist whose work I'm familiar with, and it was NOT his auction. I contacted him via his website (having first verified in his online gallery that I was correct about that exact image being his), and in a couple of days I got an email back from him thanking me; I checked, and the auction was still there, but minus his image... clearly, he'd decided to be nicer than *I* would've been about it and just asked the seller to pull his artwork, because had he reported it to eBay the seller would've been suspended (or booted) for copyright infringement. It's too bad the artist didn't make a fuss, because I'm willing to bet that that seller doesn't have the right to use ANY of those images, none of which he claimed to have created himself; yes, it's possible that some or even all of them have been put into the public domain by their rightful owners, but it's unlikely, which means that he's still profiting from images owned by other people without their permission.
But wait a minute-aren't any images the seller found online automatically in the public domain? HELL NO. People claim that all the time, but they're flat-out WRONG. Copyright law is very simple and clear; you can read all about it here
http://www.copyright.gov/faq.html
Here are the relevant highlights:
"Copyright covers both published and unpublished works."
"Copyright, a form of intellectual property law, protects original works of authorship including literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works, such as poetry, novels, movies, songs, computer software, and architecture."
"Your work is under copyright protection the moment it is created and fixed in a tangible form that it is perceptible either directly or with the aid of a machine or device."
"Do I have to register with your office to be protected?
No. In general, registration is voluntary. Copyright exists from the moment the work is created. You will have to register, however, if you wish to bring a lawsuit for infringement of a U.S. work."
Surprised? You read correctly; you do NOT have to register your work for it to be protected under copyright law... another thing about this issue that few people seem to realize.
"Is my copyright good in other countries?
The United States has copyright relations with most countries throughout the world, and as a result of these agreements, we honor each other's citizens' copyrights."
I'll say it again: Just because a photo, artwork, or piece of writing is online does NOT mean it's in the public domain, not even if it's in a bunch of places; unless the owner has officially offered their work for everyone's use, you can NOT legally use it without crediting them, and you can NOT make $ from your use of it without their permission... and don't count on the owner not having registered to allow you to make $ from their stuff, because they can register AFTER discovering your theft and get all the $ from you:
http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html#cr
And finally, something *I* learned from visiting that site today:
"I've heard about a 'poor man's copyright.' What is it?
The practice of sending a copy of your own work to yourself is sometimes called a 'poor man’s copyright.' There is no provision in the copyright law regarding any such type of protection, and it is not a substitute for registration."
I've been hearing about how you should mail stuff to yourself as a substitute for registering for copyright my entire life, from countless sources; it's good to have this reminder that what everyone believes to be true is often wrong.
I read something fascinating on the LA Times site
http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-he-joints5jun05,0,7360911.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions
"The new hip trend
Fitness-crazy boomers are paying a price -- replacement joints at a younger age."
That title and sub-title caught my eye; after all, humans weren't designed to run miles a day, ride a bicycle, use a Stairmaster, or any of the other kinds of activities that exercise buffs spend alot of time on, so it's no surprise that doing a great deal of unnatural motion would eventually cause problems.
"'We are seeing an increasing patient base of younger adults whose extremely active lifestyles put high demands on their joints,' said Dr. Joseph C. McCarthy, a clinical professor of orthopedic surgery at New England Baptist Hospital in Boston and past president of the American Assn. of Hip and Knee Surgeons. These active baby boomers may forestall heart disease, stroke and the other plagues of the unfit, but in the process, their joints will take a pounding."
"'Running and other demanding sports don't cause arthritis, but they're accelerators,' says Lawrence D. Dorr, an orthopedic surgeon and medical director of the Arthritis Institute at Centinela Hospital in Inglewood"
There's lots more to the article, if you're interested; I wanted to bring it up because if you're a hard-core workout nut, and you've either got arthritis anywhere or it's in your family, you might want to talk to your doctor about how to best modify your routine so as to not need to get your hips or knees replaced.
My husband and I saw a wild-looking customized car that he told me would be able to shoot FLAMES out of the exhaust pipes; I was all hot to have this feature on my eventual muscle car, but then I read this:
http://www.hackaday.com/entry/1234000680073567/
"Car exhaust flame throwers work by interrupting the spark to the engine. This dumps raw fuel into the exhaust system. The fuel is ignited by a coil and spark plug placed right before the exhaust tip. Doing this will shorten the life of your engine (and pedestrians). The raw fuel strips the oil off the cylinder walls and contaminates the oil causing more wear and tear."
There's a photo of a car in mid-flame at that URL; just looking at it makes me drool. My husband claims that if you changed the oil right after flaming that'd solve the problem, and that gives me hope; I'll do some research when the time comes, and if he's right (it happens so rarely that I can't count on it, lol)... I'll be setting the road on fire one day.
And last but far from least, the story of a wonderful dog who saved her owner's life:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5099190.stm
"Belle the beagle triggered a call to an ambulance crew by biting on her owner, Kevin Weaver's, mobile phone.
The dog was trained to detect potential diabetic attacks by licking and sniffing Mr Weaver's nose to check his blood sugar levels and pawing him.
Belle resorted to dialling for help when Mr Weaver fell unconscious.
The dog used her teeth to press the number nine key, which the phone was programmed to interpret as a '911' call to emergency services.
Ambulance workers answered the phone and, hearing nothing but barking at the end of the line, rushed to the caller's house in the city of Ocoee in Florida state."
I hadn't even known that they were training dogs to help diabetics, had you? This is more proof, should any be necessary, that the dog is truly man's best friend... take THAT, cat lovers!! ;-)
But wait a minute-aren't any images the seller found online automatically in the public domain? HELL NO. People claim that all the time, but they're flat-out WRONG. Copyright law is very simple and clear; you can read all about it here
http://www.copyright.gov/faq.html
Here are the relevant highlights:
"Copyright covers both published and unpublished works."
"Copyright, a form of intellectual property law, protects original works of authorship including literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works, such as poetry, novels, movies, songs, computer software, and architecture."
"Your work is under copyright protection the moment it is created and fixed in a tangible form that it is perceptible either directly or with the aid of a machine or device."
"Do I have to register with your office to be protected?
No. In general, registration is voluntary. Copyright exists from the moment the work is created. You will have to register, however, if you wish to bring a lawsuit for infringement of a U.S. work."
Surprised? You read correctly; you do NOT have to register your work for it to be protected under copyright law... another thing about this issue that few people seem to realize.
"Is my copyright good in other countries?
The United States has copyright relations with most countries throughout the world, and as a result of these agreements, we honor each other's citizens' copyrights."
I'll say it again: Just because a photo, artwork, or piece of writing is online does NOT mean it's in the public domain, not even if it's in a bunch of places; unless the owner has officially offered their work for everyone's use, you can NOT legally use it without crediting them, and you can NOT make $ from your use of it without their permission... and don't count on the owner not having registered to allow you to make $ from their stuff, because they can register AFTER discovering your theft and get all the $ from you:
http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html#cr
And finally, something *I* learned from visiting that site today:
"I've heard about a 'poor man's copyright.' What is it?
The practice of sending a copy of your own work to yourself is sometimes called a 'poor man’s copyright.' There is no provision in the copyright law regarding any such type of protection, and it is not a substitute for registration."
I've been hearing about how you should mail stuff to yourself as a substitute for registering for copyright my entire life, from countless sources; it's good to have this reminder that what everyone believes to be true is often wrong.
I read something fascinating on the LA Times site
http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-he-joints5jun05,0,7360911.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions
"The new hip trend
Fitness-crazy boomers are paying a price -- replacement joints at a younger age."
That title and sub-title caught my eye; after all, humans weren't designed to run miles a day, ride a bicycle, use a Stairmaster, or any of the other kinds of activities that exercise buffs spend alot of time on, so it's no surprise that doing a great deal of unnatural motion would eventually cause problems.
"'We are seeing an increasing patient base of younger adults whose extremely active lifestyles put high demands on their joints,' said Dr. Joseph C. McCarthy, a clinical professor of orthopedic surgery at New England Baptist Hospital in Boston and past president of the American Assn. of Hip and Knee Surgeons. These active baby boomers may forestall heart disease, stroke and the other plagues of the unfit, but in the process, their joints will take a pounding."
"'Running and other demanding sports don't cause arthritis, but they're accelerators,' says Lawrence D. Dorr, an orthopedic surgeon and medical director of the Arthritis Institute at Centinela Hospital in Inglewood"
There's lots more to the article, if you're interested; I wanted to bring it up because if you're a hard-core workout nut, and you've either got arthritis anywhere or it's in your family, you might want to talk to your doctor about how to best modify your routine so as to not need to get your hips or knees replaced.
My husband and I saw a wild-looking customized car that he told me would be able to shoot FLAMES out of the exhaust pipes; I was all hot to have this feature on my eventual muscle car, but then I read this:
http://www.hackaday.com/entry/1234000680073567/
"Car exhaust flame throwers work by interrupting the spark to the engine. This dumps raw fuel into the exhaust system. The fuel is ignited by a coil and spark plug placed right before the exhaust tip. Doing this will shorten the life of your engine (and pedestrians). The raw fuel strips the oil off the cylinder walls and contaminates the oil causing more wear and tear."
There's a photo of a car in mid-flame at that URL; just looking at it makes me drool. My husband claims that if you changed the oil right after flaming that'd solve the problem, and that gives me hope; I'll do some research when the time comes, and if he's right (it happens so rarely that I can't count on it, lol)... I'll be setting the road on fire one day.
And last but far from least, the story of a wonderful dog who saved her owner's life:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5099190.stm
"Belle the beagle triggered a call to an ambulance crew by biting on her owner, Kevin Weaver's, mobile phone.
The dog was trained to detect potential diabetic attacks by licking and sniffing Mr Weaver's nose to check his blood sugar levels and pawing him.
Belle resorted to dialling for help when Mr Weaver fell unconscious.
The dog used her teeth to press the number nine key, which the phone was programmed to interpret as a '911' call to emergency services.
Ambulance workers answered the phone and, hearing nothing but barking at the end of the line, rushed to the caller's house in the city of Ocoee in Florida state."
I hadn't even known that they were training dogs to help diabetics, had you? This is more proof, should any be necessary, that the dog is truly man's best friend... take THAT, cat lovers!! ;-)
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
"The Human Behavior Experiments"
Watch this show if you get the chance (I saw it on the Sundance channel, but other stations might be showing it too); it's an excellent crash course in how despicable the human species can be. Here are the highlights:
1) The Milgram Experiment; this is one of the 2 classics of this genre, and demonstrates our willingness to harm others if an authority figure tells us we have to... which is just as topical today as it ever was (asterisks are mine):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment
"The participant and a confederate of the experimenter, who was an actor pretending to be another participant, were told by the experimenter that they would be participating in an experiment to test the effects of punishment on learning.
A slip of paper was then given to the participant and another to the confederate. The participant was led to believe that one of the slips said 'learner' and the other said 'teacher,' and that the participants had been given the slips randomly. In fact, both slips said 'teacher,' but the actor claimed to have the slip that read 'learner,' thus guaranteeing that the participant was always the 'teacher.' At this point, the 'teacher' and 'learner' were separated into different rooms where they could communicate but not see each other. In one version of the experiment, the confederate was sure to mention to the participant that he had a heart condition.
The 'teacher' was given a 45-volt electric shock from the electro-shock generator as a sample of the shock that the 'learner' would supposedly receive during the experiment. The 'teacher' was then given a list of word pairs which he was to teach the learner. The teacher began by reading the list of word pairs to the learner. The teacher would then read the first word of each pair and read 4 possible answers. The learner would press a button to indicate his response. If the answer was incorrect, the learner would receive a shock, with the voltage increasing with each wrong answer. If correct, the teacher read the next word pair.
The subjects believed that for each wrong answer, the learner was receiving actual shocks. In reality, there were no shocks. After the confederate was separated from the subject, the confederate set up a tape recorder integrated with the electro-shock generator, which played pre-recorded sounds for each shock level. After a number of voltage level increases, the actor started to bang on the wall that separated him from the subject. After several times banging on the wall and complaining about his heart condition, the learner gave no further responses to questions and no further complaints.
At this point, many people indicated their desire to stop the experiment and check on the learner. Some test subjects paused at 135 volts and began to question the purpose of the experiment. Most continued after being assured that they would not be held responsible. A few subjects began to laugh nervously or exhibit other signs of extreme stress once they heard the ***screams of pain coming from the learner.***
If at any time the subject indicated his desire to halt the experiment, he was given a succession of verbal prods by the experimenter, in this order:
Please continue.
The experiment requires you to continue, please go on.
It is essential that you continue.
You have no choice, you must continue.
If the subject still wished to stop after all four successive verbal prods, the experiment was halted. Otherwise, it was halted after the subject had given the maximum 450-volt shock three times in succession."
At this juncture, stop and ask yourself; based on your opinion of your fellow man, what % of people do you think would give the maximum level of shock, which was clearly labeled as being DANGEROUS? The test subjects were regular men, NOT death row inmates or psych ward patients; think of the men you know, all the men you've ever known, and ask yourself what the result of the experiment was.
"Before the experiment was conducted Milgram polled fellow psychologists as to what the results would be. They unanimously believed that only a sadistic few (0.1%), would be prepared to give the maximum voltage.
In Milgram's first set of experiments, ***67.5 percent (27 out of 40) of experimental participants administered the experiment's final 450-volt shock***, though many were quite uncomfortable in doing so; everyone paused at some point and questioned the experiment, some even saying they would return the check for the money they were paid. ***No participant steadfastly refused to give further shocks before the 300-volt level.*** Variants of the experiment were later performed by Milgram himself and other psychologists around the world with similar results."
Remember that the next time you hear war criminals say they were "just following orders"; it's not the cop-out it seems to be. Imagine what % of people would be compelled to obey authority during WARTIME, with their lives and freedom at stake rather than nothing at stake, and with the authorities being part of an established hierarchy of command over them, with actual power and control over them, rather than scientists with no ability to punish disobedience. What % of people would be unable to resist "immoral" orders given to them under THOSE circumstances, do you suppose? 80%? 90%? 99.99%? What does that tell us about how we should focus our prosecution of war criminals, or how we should even define what a war criminal IS? There are those that use being given less than pleasant orders as an excuse to indulge evil desires, and they should be treated like the scum they are, but what about ordinary folks who obeyed orders that were later judged to be immoral; what's the reasonable and fair way to treat them, given what Milgram showed us?
2) Some sick pup was calling McDonald's restaurants, pretending to be a cop, and getting managers to strip-search employees, make them do ridiculous things like jumping jacks while nude, and even perform sexual acts; you heard right, all this ugliness was done at the request of a voice over the phone that none of the participants had any proof belonged to a cop but complied with out of fear of "getting in trouble." The specific incident focused on had as the victim a minor girl (15 or 16), who'll be suffering for the rest of her life from the degradation she was subjected to; if you're the parent of a working teen, you might want to have a little chat with them about what they can and can NOT legally be made to do in the workplace, and about their right to contact an adult family member if there seems to be trouble.
3) Scary examples of how people don't speak up or take action when they witness something bad happening if there are other witnesses who aren't speaking up or taking action, known as the bystander effect:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect
a) The Kitty Genovese story:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitty_Genovese
She was murdered in front of 38 witnesses, and no one helped her, or even called the police until the end of the protracted assault when it was too late.
b) There was a drunk pilot staggering around a commercial airline; none of the passengers spoke up.
c) A series of experiments demonstrates that people will report smoke coming in under a door if no one else is in the room with them but not if there are others there who don't seem concerned.
d) They showed that if there's a lost kid asking for help in a public place, or even if someone COLLAPSES in a public place, no one will help.
e) And the biggie; as part of fraternity hazing, a boy was made to drink so much water that he fell prey to water intoxication (I'd never heard of it before either), and this group of boys who KNEW him, not total strangers at a distance but friends right up close and personal, let him DIE because none of them were willing to be the one to break ranks and call for help... one of the boys had actually dialed 911 on his cell phone but didn't press "send" because another boy showed up and announced that the victim was fine.
4) The other giant amongst psychological experiments, the Zimbardo Experiment, aka "the Stanford Prison Experiment":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment
What would you expect to happen if you took 24 undergraduate men, mostly from middle-class backgrounds, divided them up into "guards" and "prisoners" and put them in a setup that they were supposed to pretend was a prison? Think about that for a few minutes... and then read what actually happened:
"The experiment very quickly got out of hand. Prisoners suffered - and accepted - sadistic and humiliating treatment at the hands of the guards, and by the end many showed severe emotional disturbance."
"Prisoner 'counts,' which had initially been devised to help prisoners get acquainted with their identity numbers, devolved into hours-long ordeals, in which guards tormented the prisoners and imposed physical punishments including long bouts of forced exercise.
The prison quickly became unsanitary and inhospitable. Bathroom rights became privileges which could be, and frequently were, denied. Some prisoners were made to clean toilets using their bare hands. Mattresses were removed from the 'bad' cell, and prisoners were forced to sleep on the concrete floor without clothing. Food was also frequently denied as a means of punishment. Prisoners endured forced nudity and even homosexual acts of humiliation."
"As the experiment proceeded, several of the guards became progressively more sadistic - particularly at night, when they thought the cameras were off. Experimenters said approximately one-third of the guards exhibited 'genuine' sadistic tendencies. Most of the guards were upset when the experiment was cut off early."
"Prisoners began to show severe acute emotional disturbances. One prisoner developed a psychosomatic rash all over his body upon finding out that his 'parole' had been turned down (Zimbardo turned him down because he thought he was merely trying to 'con' his way out of the prison by faking illness). Uncontrollable crying and disorganized thinking were common among the prisoners. Two of the prisoners suffered such severe trauma that they were removed from the experiment early and replaced."
"Christina Maslach, a researcher previously unfamiliar with the experiment who had been brought in to conduct interviews, objected to the appalling conditions of the 'prison." ...Zimbardo has noted that of the over fifty outsiders who had seen the prison, she was the only one who ever questioned its morality. After only six days of the planned two weeks, the experiment was shut down."
Do some of those descriptions, and some of the photos at the Wikipedia URL, remind you of anything... such as what happened at Abu Ghraib? They had a recent interview with one of the "guards" from the Zimbardo Experiment in the documentary, and HE made the connection; he said that the photos he'd seen of Abu Ghraib inmates, and the descriptions he'd read about their treatment, reminded him of what the "prisoners" under his power had been subjected to. Coincidence? Not a chance.
The former "guard" said something else that was a big eye-opener; that he didn't believe that the "prisoners" were being truly harmed or upset, that he'd thought they were faking just to cause trouble, or were very weak people who were over-reacting to what he saw as just harmless horsing around... he was honestly convinced that the hysterics and total breakdowns that occurred couldn't possibly have been as a result of what he and his buddies did. Does this shed any light on the photos you saw of cheerful military personnel posing with mistreated Abu Ghraib inmates?
I'm not suggesting that any part of what happened at Abu Ghraib was ok or should be treated as anything less than criminal; the point the prison experiment makes is that this kind of behavior is NOT some sort of freakish aberration, NOT caused by "bad" people running the prison... it's BASIC HUMAN NATURE. That's why this sort of thing is STANDARD in prisons, military or otherwise; what occurs under non-wartime conditions isn't anywhere near as bad as what has historically been done to prisoners of war, of course, but it just differs in degree, not in type. This is why we need to focus, not on punishing perpetrators afterwards, but on giving training BEFORE assigning soldiers/guards to prison duty, and following up regularly to make sure that the "prison guard mentality" hasn't set in and started causing problems.
What all these experiments tell us collectively is that it's almost pitifully easy to put us in circumstances where we'll fail to do the right thing... or willingly, even eagerly, do the wrong thing. Most people reading this will say "*I* wouldn't do any of that stuff," but EVERYONE thinks that, and studies show that most people WILL do it; what makes YOU different? Do you have a lengthy history of always doing the right thing, even if it's difficult or contrary to what others want you to do, even if no one's watching... online as well as offline? Do you speak up when you see something odd or improper going on? Do you confront people who are misbehaving? Do you see people in authority as being no nobler than the rest of us, and so constantly analyze their orders to see if they're wise and appropriate? If someone tries to get you to do something, do you stop and think about it to be sure it's a positive thing to do rather than trying to seem "nice" by automatically doing what's asked of you? Can you honestly say that you have never, EVER, taken advantage of having power or the ability to harm, mistreat or "lean on" anyone? If someone's being victimized, do you ALWAYS leap to their defense, whether you know them or not? If so, congratulations; you probably wouldn't turn into a sadistic prison guard (or whatever)... but if you didn't answer each of those questions with a firm "YES," you're in the majority of people that falls prey to normal psychological pressures and WOULD likely do some of the things that seem so shocking in the documentary. Don't despair, though, because you can choose, CHOOSE, to become the sort of person who'd be the 1 in a million exception to all these scary rules of human behavior; you can start asking yourself on a regular basis if what you're doing is right, and if what those around you are doing is right, and if the answer is "no" you can change your behavior and confront those who are misbehaving... it takes alot of time and effort, a solid backbone, and the willingness to be targeted for abuse by offended wrongdoers, but if being "good" were easy, fun and rewarding everyone would be a saint.
Anyways, I'll say it again; watch the program if you get the chance... you'll never look at the human race the same way again.
1) The Milgram Experiment; this is one of the 2 classics of this genre, and demonstrates our willingness to harm others if an authority figure tells us we have to... which is just as topical today as it ever was (asterisks are mine):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment
"The participant and a confederate of the experimenter, who was an actor pretending to be another participant, were told by the experimenter that they would be participating in an experiment to test the effects of punishment on learning.
A slip of paper was then given to the participant and another to the confederate. The participant was led to believe that one of the slips said 'learner' and the other said 'teacher,' and that the participants had been given the slips randomly. In fact, both slips said 'teacher,' but the actor claimed to have the slip that read 'learner,' thus guaranteeing that the participant was always the 'teacher.' At this point, the 'teacher' and 'learner' were separated into different rooms where they could communicate but not see each other. In one version of the experiment, the confederate was sure to mention to the participant that he had a heart condition.
The 'teacher' was given a 45-volt electric shock from the electro-shock generator as a sample of the shock that the 'learner' would supposedly receive during the experiment. The 'teacher' was then given a list of word pairs which he was to teach the learner. The teacher began by reading the list of word pairs to the learner. The teacher would then read the first word of each pair and read 4 possible answers. The learner would press a button to indicate his response. If the answer was incorrect, the learner would receive a shock, with the voltage increasing with each wrong answer. If correct, the teacher read the next word pair.
The subjects believed that for each wrong answer, the learner was receiving actual shocks. In reality, there were no shocks. After the confederate was separated from the subject, the confederate set up a tape recorder integrated with the electro-shock generator, which played pre-recorded sounds for each shock level. After a number of voltage level increases, the actor started to bang on the wall that separated him from the subject. After several times banging on the wall and complaining about his heart condition, the learner gave no further responses to questions and no further complaints.
At this point, many people indicated their desire to stop the experiment and check on the learner. Some test subjects paused at 135 volts and began to question the purpose of the experiment. Most continued after being assured that they would not be held responsible. A few subjects began to laugh nervously or exhibit other signs of extreme stress once they heard the ***screams of pain coming from the learner.***
If at any time the subject indicated his desire to halt the experiment, he was given a succession of verbal prods by the experimenter, in this order:
Please continue.
The experiment requires you to continue, please go on.
It is essential that you continue.
You have no choice, you must continue.
If the subject still wished to stop after all four successive verbal prods, the experiment was halted. Otherwise, it was halted after the subject had given the maximum 450-volt shock three times in succession."
At this juncture, stop and ask yourself; based on your opinion of your fellow man, what % of people do you think would give the maximum level of shock, which was clearly labeled as being DANGEROUS? The test subjects were regular men, NOT death row inmates or psych ward patients; think of the men you know, all the men you've ever known, and ask yourself what the result of the experiment was.
"Before the experiment was conducted Milgram polled fellow psychologists as to what the results would be. They unanimously believed that only a sadistic few (0.1%), would be prepared to give the maximum voltage.
In Milgram's first set of experiments, ***67.5 percent (27 out of 40) of experimental participants administered the experiment's final 450-volt shock***, though many were quite uncomfortable in doing so; everyone paused at some point and questioned the experiment, some even saying they would return the check for the money they were paid. ***No participant steadfastly refused to give further shocks before the 300-volt level.*** Variants of the experiment were later performed by Milgram himself and other psychologists around the world with similar results."
Remember that the next time you hear war criminals say they were "just following orders"; it's not the cop-out it seems to be. Imagine what % of people would be compelled to obey authority during WARTIME, with their lives and freedom at stake rather than nothing at stake, and with the authorities being part of an established hierarchy of command over them, with actual power and control over them, rather than scientists with no ability to punish disobedience. What % of people would be unable to resist "immoral" orders given to them under THOSE circumstances, do you suppose? 80%? 90%? 99.99%? What does that tell us about how we should focus our prosecution of war criminals, or how we should even define what a war criminal IS? There are those that use being given less than pleasant orders as an excuse to indulge evil desires, and they should be treated like the scum they are, but what about ordinary folks who obeyed orders that were later judged to be immoral; what's the reasonable and fair way to treat them, given what Milgram showed us?
2) Some sick pup was calling McDonald's restaurants, pretending to be a cop, and getting managers to strip-search employees, make them do ridiculous things like jumping jacks while nude, and even perform sexual acts; you heard right, all this ugliness was done at the request of a voice over the phone that none of the participants had any proof belonged to a cop but complied with out of fear of "getting in trouble." The specific incident focused on had as the victim a minor girl (15 or 16), who'll be suffering for the rest of her life from the degradation she was subjected to; if you're the parent of a working teen, you might want to have a little chat with them about what they can and can NOT legally be made to do in the workplace, and about their right to contact an adult family member if there seems to be trouble.
3) Scary examples of how people don't speak up or take action when they witness something bad happening if there are other witnesses who aren't speaking up or taking action, known as the bystander effect:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect
a) The Kitty Genovese story:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitty_Genovese
She was murdered in front of 38 witnesses, and no one helped her, or even called the police until the end of the protracted assault when it was too late.
b) There was a drunk pilot staggering around a commercial airline; none of the passengers spoke up.
c) A series of experiments demonstrates that people will report smoke coming in under a door if no one else is in the room with them but not if there are others there who don't seem concerned.
d) They showed that if there's a lost kid asking for help in a public place, or even if someone COLLAPSES in a public place, no one will help.
e) And the biggie; as part of fraternity hazing, a boy was made to drink so much water that he fell prey to water intoxication (I'd never heard of it before either), and this group of boys who KNEW him, not total strangers at a distance but friends right up close and personal, let him DIE because none of them were willing to be the one to break ranks and call for help... one of the boys had actually dialed 911 on his cell phone but didn't press "send" because another boy showed up and announced that the victim was fine.
4) The other giant amongst psychological experiments, the Zimbardo Experiment, aka "the Stanford Prison Experiment":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment
What would you expect to happen if you took 24 undergraduate men, mostly from middle-class backgrounds, divided them up into "guards" and "prisoners" and put them in a setup that they were supposed to pretend was a prison? Think about that for a few minutes... and then read what actually happened:
"The experiment very quickly got out of hand. Prisoners suffered - and accepted - sadistic and humiliating treatment at the hands of the guards, and by the end many showed severe emotional disturbance."
"Prisoner 'counts,' which had initially been devised to help prisoners get acquainted with their identity numbers, devolved into hours-long ordeals, in which guards tormented the prisoners and imposed physical punishments including long bouts of forced exercise.
The prison quickly became unsanitary and inhospitable. Bathroom rights became privileges which could be, and frequently were, denied. Some prisoners were made to clean toilets using their bare hands. Mattresses were removed from the 'bad' cell, and prisoners were forced to sleep on the concrete floor without clothing. Food was also frequently denied as a means of punishment. Prisoners endured forced nudity and even homosexual acts of humiliation."
"As the experiment proceeded, several of the guards became progressively more sadistic - particularly at night, when they thought the cameras were off. Experimenters said approximately one-third of the guards exhibited 'genuine' sadistic tendencies. Most of the guards were upset when the experiment was cut off early."
"Prisoners began to show severe acute emotional disturbances. One prisoner developed a psychosomatic rash all over his body upon finding out that his 'parole' had been turned down (Zimbardo turned him down because he thought he was merely trying to 'con' his way out of the prison by faking illness). Uncontrollable crying and disorganized thinking were common among the prisoners. Two of the prisoners suffered such severe trauma that they were removed from the experiment early and replaced."
"Christina Maslach, a researcher previously unfamiliar with the experiment who had been brought in to conduct interviews, objected to the appalling conditions of the 'prison." ...Zimbardo has noted that of the over fifty outsiders who had seen the prison, she was the only one who ever questioned its morality. After only six days of the planned two weeks, the experiment was shut down."
Do some of those descriptions, and some of the photos at the Wikipedia URL, remind you of anything... such as what happened at Abu Ghraib? They had a recent interview with one of the "guards" from the Zimbardo Experiment in the documentary, and HE made the connection; he said that the photos he'd seen of Abu Ghraib inmates, and the descriptions he'd read about their treatment, reminded him of what the "prisoners" under his power had been subjected to. Coincidence? Not a chance.
The former "guard" said something else that was a big eye-opener; that he didn't believe that the "prisoners" were being truly harmed or upset, that he'd thought they were faking just to cause trouble, or were very weak people who were over-reacting to what he saw as just harmless horsing around... he was honestly convinced that the hysterics and total breakdowns that occurred couldn't possibly have been as a result of what he and his buddies did. Does this shed any light on the photos you saw of cheerful military personnel posing with mistreated Abu Ghraib inmates?
I'm not suggesting that any part of what happened at Abu Ghraib was ok or should be treated as anything less than criminal; the point the prison experiment makes is that this kind of behavior is NOT some sort of freakish aberration, NOT caused by "bad" people running the prison... it's BASIC HUMAN NATURE. That's why this sort of thing is STANDARD in prisons, military or otherwise; what occurs under non-wartime conditions isn't anywhere near as bad as what has historically been done to prisoners of war, of course, but it just differs in degree, not in type. This is why we need to focus, not on punishing perpetrators afterwards, but on giving training BEFORE assigning soldiers/guards to prison duty, and following up regularly to make sure that the "prison guard mentality" hasn't set in and started causing problems.
What all these experiments tell us collectively is that it's almost pitifully easy to put us in circumstances where we'll fail to do the right thing... or willingly, even eagerly, do the wrong thing. Most people reading this will say "*I* wouldn't do any of that stuff," but EVERYONE thinks that, and studies show that most people WILL do it; what makes YOU different? Do you have a lengthy history of always doing the right thing, even if it's difficult or contrary to what others want you to do, even if no one's watching... online as well as offline? Do you speak up when you see something odd or improper going on? Do you confront people who are misbehaving? Do you see people in authority as being no nobler than the rest of us, and so constantly analyze their orders to see if they're wise and appropriate? If someone tries to get you to do something, do you stop and think about it to be sure it's a positive thing to do rather than trying to seem "nice" by automatically doing what's asked of you? Can you honestly say that you have never, EVER, taken advantage of having power or the ability to harm, mistreat or "lean on" anyone? If someone's being victimized, do you ALWAYS leap to their defense, whether you know them or not? If so, congratulations; you probably wouldn't turn into a sadistic prison guard (or whatever)... but if you didn't answer each of those questions with a firm "YES," you're in the majority of people that falls prey to normal psychological pressures and WOULD likely do some of the things that seem so shocking in the documentary. Don't despair, though, because you can choose, CHOOSE, to become the sort of person who'd be the 1 in a million exception to all these scary rules of human behavior; you can start asking yourself on a regular basis if what you're doing is right, and if what those around you are doing is right, and if the answer is "no" you can change your behavior and confront those who are misbehaving... it takes alot of time and effort, a solid backbone, and the willingness to be targeted for abuse by offended wrongdoers, but if being "good" were easy, fun and rewarding everyone would be a saint.
Anyways, I'll say it again; watch the program if you get the chance... you'll never look at the human race the same way again.
