What it takes to stand up to authority(bbc.com)
bbc.com
What it takes to stand up to authority
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20180709-our-ability-to-stand-up-to-authority-comes-down-to-the-brain
79 comments
How would a government weaponize this? By going around damaging people's brains with brute force?
By promoting hard-hitting contact sports to youth, and issuing equipment that doesn't do a good job at protecting the head?
Even considering the underreporting with young, high school athletes, a large number of young football players in the US have suffered concussions[1] at a very young age when their brains are developing, and that's with equipment that we can reasonably assume is designed with safety in mind. If a nefarious government were to try to promote a sport, which had rules and equipment that lead to a higher risk of brain injury, and cultivated an image/environment that elevates "toughness"(not complaining when you feel you've been injured; a significant fraction (~16%) of high school football players continue to play even after being hit hard enough to lose consciousness, so that attitude is there, just need to bump the number up), that might get you close.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concussions_in_American_footba...
Even considering the underreporting with young, high school athletes, a large number of young football players in the US have suffered concussions[1] at a very young age when their brains are developing, and that's with equipment that we can reasonably assume is designed with safety in mind. If a nefarious government were to try to promote a sport, which had rules and equipment that lead to a higher risk of brain injury, and cultivated an image/environment that elevates "toughness"(not complaining when you feel you've been injured; a significant fraction (~16%) of high school football players continue to play even after being hit hard enough to lose consciousness, so that attitude is there, just need to bump the number up), that might get you close.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concussions_in_American_footba...
TBH, we're far better at reducing executive function and impulse control simply by widespread drug usage, pornography usage and (IMHO) highly rewarding, low-attention media, esp social meda, youtube, and video games. All of those are FAR more widespread than playing football, and in aggregate, are far more likely to render one subservient.
Wake up sheeple!
Not here please.
Okay, but I think it probably isn't a good outcome where a serious comment saying the same thing is more welcome than the ironic one.
I don't see that it said the same thing. This is an opportunity to practice the site guideline that asks you to respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, instead of a weaker one that's more easily dismissed.
Well, they don't need to weaponize it in order for it to have been propagated en masse. Atmospheric lead in the 60s and 70s could have had a similar effect on the generation that shall not be named.
Transcranial magnetic stimulation? Those Millimeter wave body scanners at the airport?
I don't seriously think the gov't is out to do this, but there are possibly ways to do it without leaving outward physical traces.
I don't seriously think the gov't is out to do this, but there are possibly ways to do it without leaving outward physical traces.
This can be taken as conspiracy theory territory, so before it gets there, let me phrase it in a particular way.
I have no doubt that some people in the mental health care industry have entertained thoughts about how some mental health care medications can be used to make people more docile and obedient.
I'm not saying that is the intent. But the fact that such people have that kind of power without necessarily having all the checks and balances in place needed to ensure such scenarios do not occur, is concerning. At the very least, there should be ways to provide easy and accessible ways victims of such circumstance may challenge such treatment.
There often aren't ways, because once you are labeled crazy, most people in the mental health care industry think they know what is better for you than you do.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Meaning, it's easy to exploit a power dynamic when society assumes one side is good, and one side is bad.
I'm trying to be very delicate in my phrasing, because this is not a conspiracy theory. People can and do exploit such circumstance and pad it over with good intentions. And challenging these types of situations requires extensive care, rigor, and transparency - and a willingness to look at oneself from all perspectives.
And that's often a very difficult thing to do, for anyone.
When people are forced to examine themselves from sides that only tell them everything negative about them, the individual ego fights to survive. This is the case for anyone who has experienced stigma and discrimination. The choice is always, obey or be punished. And that's not fair, because the judgements that lead to these decisions are often collected from a one sided perspective.
It's a hard problem, but it needs to be discussed. I personally hate having this problem bottled up in my head. Because I know, how easy it is, to sway it back to good intent. Intentions are garbage if people keep judging you and placing you beneath them. Actions matter. Even if those actions are as simple as, judging less.
Honestly, I think most conspiracy theories stem from people's real life experiences, but because of judgement, disbelief, and stigma - the truth mutates. The moral of the story is retained, but the person dissociates from the trauma of not being believed and being mistreated, over and over again.
People can easily become convinced that they have little recourse or options left. It's not always brain damage. Sometimes it's just getting stuck in a pattern of perpetually perceiving judgement from everyone around them. I personally don't know if having to think that way changes the structure of the brain. Furthemore, I don't know if having the brain restructured in such a way indicates anything defective. It may just be different.
I have no doubt that some people in the mental health care industry have entertained thoughts about how some mental health care medications can be used to make people more docile and obedient.
I'm not saying that is the intent. But the fact that such people have that kind of power without necessarily having all the checks and balances in place needed to ensure such scenarios do not occur, is concerning. At the very least, there should be ways to provide easy and accessible ways victims of such circumstance may challenge such treatment.
There often aren't ways, because once you are labeled crazy, most people in the mental health care industry think they know what is better for you than you do.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Meaning, it's easy to exploit a power dynamic when society assumes one side is good, and one side is bad.
I'm trying to be very delicate in my phrasing, because this is not a conspiracy theory. People can and do exploit such circumstance and pad it over with good intentions. And challenging these types of situations requires extensive care, rigor, and transparency - and a willingness to look at oneself from all perspectives.
And that's often a very difficult thing to do, for anyone.
When people are forced to examine themselves from sides that only tell them everything negative about them, the individual ego fights to survive. This is the case for anyone who has experienced stigma and discrimination. The choice is always, obey or be punished. And that's not fair, because the judgements that lead to these decisions are often collected from a one sided perspective.
It's a hard problem, but it needs to be discussed. I personally hate having this problem bottled up in my head. Because I know, how easy it is, to sway it back to good intent. Intentions are garbage if people keep judging you and placing you beneath them. Actions matter. Even if those actions are as simple as, judging less.
Honestly, I think most conspiracy theories stem from people's real life experiences, but because of judgement, disbelief, and stigma - the truth mutates. The moral of the story is retained, but the person dissociates from the trauma of not being believed and being mistreated, over and over again.
People can easily become convinced that they have little recourse or options left. It's not always brain damage. Sometimes it's just getting stuck in a pattern of perpetually perceiving judgement from everyone around them. I personally don't know if having to think that way changes the structure of the brain. Furthemore, I don't know if having the brain restructured in such a way indicates anything defective. It may just be different.
Very real problem. TBH, this is the utility of conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theories aren't necessarily useful because they're true. They're useful because the vulnerabilities which are brought up in conspiracy theories often exist in reality, and they need to be accounted for.
Do vaccines contain substances which might be used for social engineering? Probably not, beyond the obvious disease reduction. Might unscrupulous government forces be WILLING to do such a thing, in collaboration with the oft-demonized private corporations? Absolutely. Especially given the recent news that the biannual reports which HHS was supposed to give to congress on the reduction of adverse vaccine effects have not been done since 1987, when they were first mandated. These reports were (presumably) mandated as a condition for allowing drug companies to avoid suits for vaccines. (Solution: easily available independent testing)
Might the telecom companies and USGOV be monitering everything we do electronically, as Alex Jones was telling us? Yeah. Are they? Ofc. (Solution: Encryption)
So if mental health care practitioners wished to intentionally change the behavior of Americans to a more subservient one, might they? Have they? Have not Psychoanalysis and Public Relations been exactly this (see: Century of the Self)? (Solution: IDK)
Do vaccines contain substances which might be used for social engineering? Probably not, beyond the obvious disease reduction. Might unscrupulous government forces be WILLING to do such a thing, in collaboration with the oft-demonized private corporations? Absolutely. Especially given the recent news that the biannual reports which HHS was supposed to give to congress on the reduction of adverse vaccine effects have not been done since 1987, when they were first mandated. These reports were (presumably) mandated as a condition for allowing drug companies to avoid suits for vaccines. (Solution: easily available independent testing)
Might the telecom companies and USGOV be monitering everything we do electronically, as Alex Jones was telling us? Yeah. Are they? Ofc. (Solution: Encryption)
So if mental health care practitioners wished to intentionally change the behavior of Americans to a more subservient one, might they? Have they? Have not Psychoanalysis and Public Relations been exactly this (see: Century of the Self)? (Solution: IDK)
Brute force is not required to damage/alter the brain. Food, aclohol, drugs or stress can easily alter brain chemistry in dramatic ways. Now, whether or not any government will do something like that is another question.
What do you mean? American society is full of cheap bad food, life is high stress, and drugs and deserts are being promoted daily and constantly in TV shows and movies.
I've noticed how smoking seems to be on the uptake also.
Best thing people can do is to turn off the TV but they won't.
I've noticed how smoking seems to be on the uptake also.
Best thing people can do is to turn off the TV but they won't.
By forcing the enlisted (conscripted) members of their armed forces to undergo procedures or take drugs that make them more compliant.
I thought we already did this by deploying fast food chains everywhere? (taking drugs that make people more compliant or apathetic)
Does eating fast food cause compliance to authority?
It might. Give people empty calories, take away the amino acids, vitamins, enzymes and other nutrients require for normal brain activity, and people get numbed and dumbed down, apathetic, weak.
I have always stood up to authority and as I have improved my health, my will power and energy to stand up to authority has increased substantially.
I have always stood up to authority and as I have improved my health, my will power and energy to stand up to authority has increased substantially.
Yeah - my intuition is there is a correlation, but really I’d love to see any sort of research that relates to this.
Very difficult to measure IMO - a causality analysis requires more control over the variables. It's too easy to make measurement errors in social psychology studies.
Who would be willing to eat fast-food and put themselves on a bad diet to test if their ability to resist authority deteriorates? The sampling bias alone would be too big and skews the whole result.
And people learn: Maybe their behavior in authority tests changed not because of their diet but because they get confronted with those tests more often. We can't be sure that they slept enough or that the food is responsible for their change in behavior.
Designing such a study and pulling it off without making major mistakes is harder than writing completely bug-free code for a big software project.
Who would be willing to eat fast-food and put themselves on a bad diet to test if their ability to resist authority deteriorates? The sampling bias alone would be too big and skews the whole result.
And people learn: Maybe their behavior in authority tests changed not because of their diet but because they get confronted with those tests more often. We can't be sure that they slept enough or that the food is responsible for their change in behavior.
Designing such a study and pulling it off without making major mistakes is harder than writing completely bug-free code for a big software project.
I believe it is already being done at full scale. :-)
Most people are already eating the junk full time. Now we just need to get a big swath of them off of it and measure the changes.
Most people are already eating the junk full time. Now we just need to get a big swath of them off of it and measure the changes.
Chemtrails, man.
The answer is in the article, oddly enough.
The BBC is at one level all about free speech, uniquely funded and good for you. At another level it is deeply tied into the military establishment in the UK. Since the beginning job applicants have had to pass the Room 101 test and that is a real thing - any socialist types simply did not get employed. They would not be blacklisted and unable to work in the industry, however, the commercial channels (ITV) did not pay for training, you had to get that from the BBC and then you could work elsewhere thanks to that experience.
To quote Napoleon (the old enemy) "Four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets." The BBC has approximately four TV channels that shape the minds of the British public. Consequently people in the UK are highly invested in a set of ideas that cannot be thrown out on a wholesale basis.
From time to time there will be high profile events that get reported by the BBC in a way that is not consistent with facts on the ground. Yet people will attend such an event, go home and, despite seeing events with their own eyes, decide that they must have understood the situation incorrectly to believe what 'Auntie BBC' said, to then take that on as the 'correct' interpretation of events.
To think otherwise, i.e. to 'believe' one's own eyes requires a subversive mindset or, as is more likely to be the case, a conspiracy minded mindset where everything from moon landings to flouride is up for reinterpretation. We have all met those types of people - 'nutters' - so those that did see something different to the reported story learn not to say what they saw with their own eyes. To do so would cast them out of the herd and in with the 'nutter herd'. We are social animals and being outcast like that is worse than death.
If someone who happens to be sane does relate 'what they saw with their own eyes' to the rest of the herd then it is unlikely that members of the wider herd are going to believe them even if they do not come along with 'moon landings/contrails/whatever' baggage. This is because they are highly invested in the BBC world view and the latitude that it allows. The spectrum will range from Hillary to Trump but not as far as Bernie. Bernie is mainstream, but you get the idea. It is a fixed stage, outside this allowed latitude there will be terrorists and the KKK. The voice of protest will be allowed in this Overton Window with people such as Russell Brand or, in times gone past, Tony Benn. These folk don't have to be 'covert CIA operatives acting as gatekeepers', they just operate within the same Overton Window as everyone else, playing their role quite naturally, the sponges for dissenting voices that don't go along with whomever is in Number 10.
The implications of going with the BBC world view are generally good. You can go on anti-Trump protests posting your pics onto Instagram so everyone knows you are solidly against racism and whatever else it is easy to object to. There is no danger of being cast outside the herd.
The BBC has a veritable 'full spectrum dominance' with radio all around the world, the web as well as their mainstay 'free to air, advert free' television. Britain might not rule the waves any more but the airwaves are doing nicely.
I have not given any incident of where reality and BBC reality differ, however, people that suffered at Hillsborough, people that lived through the miner's strike, people that were there at Bloody Sunday, people that were abused by BBC 'disc jockeys' have had this problem to live with. Due to injustice they have had to 'rebel'. Nobody could speak out about the 'disc jockey' whose name we do not speak of until he died and was buried under six foot of concrete (he knew that his grave would not lay undisturbed). Yet everyone in the BBC knew. And in the wider press. And he was only a 'disc jockey' without any nuclear weapons or henchmen.
Hence, in the UK at least, the BBC is how the government has weaponised 'mind control' and made questioning authority not something one does. People just do not have the mindset to do so as they have been encultured to be British.
The BBC is at one level all about free speech, uniquely funded and good for you. At another level it is deeply tied into the military establishment in the UK. Since the beginning job applicants have had to pass the Room 101 test and that is a real thing - any socialist types simply did not get employed. They would not be blacklisted and unable to work in the industry, however, the commercial channels (ITV) did not pay for training, you had to get that from the BBC and then you could work elsewhere thanks to that experience.
To quote Napoleon (the old enemy) "Four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets." The BBC has approximately four TV channels that shape the minds of the British public. Consequently people in the UK are highly invested in a set of ideas that cannot be thrown out on a wholesale basis.
From time to time there will be high profile events that get reported by the BBC in a way that is not consistent with facts on the ground. Yet people will attend such an event, go home and, despite seeing events with their own eyes, decide that they must have understood the situation incorrectly to believe what 'Auntie BBC' said, to then take that on as the 'correct' interpretation of events.
To think otherwise, i.e. to 'believe' one's own eyes requires a subversive mindset or, as is more likely to be the case, a conspiracy minded mindset where everything from moon landings to flouride is up for reinterpretation. We have all met those types of people - 'nutters' - so those that did see something different to the reported story learn not to say what they saw with their own eyes. To do so would cast them out of the herd and in with the 'nutter herd'. We are social animals and being outcast like that is worse than death.
If someone who happens to be sane does relate 'what they saw with their own eyes' to the rest of the herd then it is unlikely that members of the wider herd are going to believe them even if they do not come along with 'moon landings/contrails/whatever' baggage. This is because they are highly invested in the BBC world view and the latitude that it allows. The spectrum will range from Hillary to Trump but not as far as Bernie. Bernie is mainstream, but you get the idea. It is a fixed stage, outside this allowed latitude there will be terrorists and the KKK. The voice of protest will be allowed in this Overton Window with people such as Russell Brand or, in times gone past, Tony Benn. These folk don't have to be 'covert CIA operatives acting as gatekeepers', they just operate within the same Overton Window as everyone else, playing their role quite naturally, the sponges for dissenting voices that don't go along with whomever is in Number 10.
The implications of going with the BBC world view are generally good. You can go on anti-Trump protests posting your pics onto Instagram so everyone knows you are solidly against racism and whatever else it is easy to object to. There is no danger of being cast outside the herd.
The BBC has a veritable 'full spectrum dominance' with radio all around the world, the web as well as their mainstay 'free to air, advert free' television. Britain might not rule the waves any more but the airwaves are doing nicely.
I have not given any incident of where reality and BBC reality differ, however, people that suffered at Hillsborough, people that lived through the miner's strike, people that were there at Bloody Sunday, people that were abused by BBC 'disc jockeys' have had this problem to live with. Due to injustice they have had to 'rebel'. Nobody could speak out about the 'disc jockey' whose name we do not speak of until he died and was buried under six foot of concrete (he knew that his grave would not lay undisturbed). Yet everyone in the BBC knew. And in the wider press. And he was only a 'disc jockey' without any nuclear weapons or henchmen.
Hence, in the UK at least, the BBC is how the government has weaponised 'mind control' and made questioning authority not something one does. People just do not have the mindset to do so as they have been encultured to be British.
It is interesting. Believing one's own eyes grounds individuals to a reasoning system that is directly connected to truth - their own direct experience of their existence. It's terrifying to think some people intentionally try to override that system with the intent to control, without true care for the individual.
> Assigning negative term after term to harmless groups of people was intended to be emotionally wearing and to make most participants feel uncomfortable. Plenty dropped out as it got more intense. For those who carried on, it was a belief that they were contributing to something important – a rigorous scientific study – that drove them to push through.
It's a pretty sloppy to assume that they believed this because of an authority figure.
It's a pretty sloppy to assume that they believed this because of an authority figure.
Too many factors go into determining what fatigues a person emotionally, and the response in the event of emotional fatigue is just as unpredictable for every person.
Even non-conformists conform. It's just a blind spot because you don't know how to actually see that you are continuously behaving in a particular way, that rigorously adheres to some behavior that has yet to be described or defined. I can be a non-conformist by always doing the opposite of what everyone I observe does. I'm still conforming to a pattern, that's capable of being studied, followed, predicted, and eventually, that pattern will have to change too, to remain true to some spirit of non-conformity, if that's my highest value.
Thankfully it's not. But authority, conformity, group think, individuality. There's more than one way to see it. Psychology is a sloppy science because people can always change these things. Just have to analyze it enough, detect the pattern of being detected, and override it.
People being able to be individuals without an all seeing eye of meticulous study is important to me. That can be mentally fatiguing for plenty of people. I don't know if it matters how important their belief in the study is, if the means contradicts the intention. Life is ridiculous.
Even non-conformists conform. It's just a blind spot because you don't know how to actually see that you are continuously behaving in a particular way, that rigorously adheres to some behavior that has yet to be described or defined. I can be a non-conformist by always doing the opposite of what everyone I observe does. I'm still conforming to a pattern, that's capable of being studied, followed, predicted, and eventually, that pattern will have to change too, to remain true to some spirit of non-conformity, if that's my highest value.
Thankfully it's not. But authority, conformity, group think, individuality. There's more than one way to see it. Psychology is a sloppy science because people can always change these things. Just have to analyze it enough, detect the pattern of being detected, and override it.
People being able to be individuals without an all seeing eye of meticulous study is important to me. That can be mentally fatiguing for plenty of people. I don't know if it matters how important their belief in the study is, if the means contradicts the intention. Life is ridiculous.
I found that study a really strange one as well. They seem to be operating on the tacit assumption that all of the participants are mush-minded simpletons who think "assigning negative terms" in some study somehow had some relevance to anything anywhere in the world. That's absurd. I invite you to find yourself a quiet room and dedicate yourself to writing the most insidious, invective, negative diatribes aimed at me personally that you are capable of manufacturing. You could do it for decades, and absolutely nothing would come of it. Anyone who believes differently is both wrong and probably has some mild form of mental illness which causes them to conflate their own thought processes and imagination with reality.
Asking a person to assign negative terms to photos is as consequential as asking them to whistle or drum their fingers on a desk. It is meaningless and utterly amoral in content. We're not talking about even applying the terms to actual people, but to images. And they're not being monitored or published. There are a million guarantees that what is being done is thoroughly and totally meaningless.
Asking a person to assign negative terms to photos is as consequential as asking them to whistle or drum their fingers on a desk. It is meaningless and utterly amoral in content. We're not talking about even applying the terms to actual people, but to images. And they're not being monitored or published. There are a million guarantees that what is being done is thoroughly and totally meaningless.
Don't underestimate the power of subconscious processes, e.g. we like things we already know or even words that contain letters of our name [1]. There exists an incredible amount of these biases.
> There are a million guarantees that what is being done is thoroughly and totally meaningless.
There are a million subtle ways to influence behavior and thinking. It's very likely that the scientists aren't able to properly measure the effects (because it's hard to isolate the control variables), but the resulting knowledge won't be zero. I agree with you that many scientists overestimate their understanding of the underlying mechanisms - IMO it's still too much hand-waving - in reality our knowledge about social psychology is very limited.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mere-exposure_effect
> There are a million guarantees that what is being done is thoroughly and totally meaningless.
There are a million subtle ways to influence behavior and thinking. It's very likely that the scientists aren't able to properly measure the effects (because it's hard to isolate the control variables), but the resulting knowledge won't be zero. I agree with you that many scientists overestimate their understanding of the underlying mechanisms - IMO it's still too much hand-waving - in reality our knowledge about social psychology is very limited.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mere-exposure_effect
It is not about to what it does with person on picture, it is about what it does with person that is writing them. The way it affects their thinking and feelings toward target, how much they are aware it is affecting them, the way it makes them more and more comfortable with insulting person on pic and what they think or feel about that.
The discomfort is partly because you can make yourself like or hate people you don't know personally and trying to come up with bad/good things to say about them is one approach how to do it. You start process insulting them and you can see yourself starting to feel differently and some might feel good about the process and where it leads.
You know how people close themselves into bubbles that says only bad things about some outside group and then become to genuinely hate that outside group? It is the same, but is small scale, temporary limited and easier to detect.
The discomfort is partly because you can make yourself like or hate people you don't know personally and trying to come up with bad/good things to say about them is one approach how to do it. You start process insulting them and you can see yourself starting to feel differently and some might feel good about the process and where it leads.
You know how people close themselves into bubbles that says only bad things about some outside group and then become to genuinely hate that outside group? It is the same, but is small scale, temporary limited and easier to detect.
I can see that, but I don't understand how simply 'attaching a label' could lead to any real earnest sentiment. If I train myself, day in and day out, to tag a photo of children 'racist', is the presumption that I will start to actually think that children generally believe in fundamental qualitative differences between people that break along racial lines? That isn't how my brain works. If someone asks me 'hey, are kids racists?' I don't think 'hmmm... do I FEEL LIKE kids are racists?'... I think 'Hmmm... do I have any evidence or have I come across any resources that suggest children might harbor racist tendencies?' And 'well I attached all those labels' doesn't qualify as evidence of anything except me wasting my time. Words have power, but they're not magical.
It certainly can be frightfully easy to lead people down a path into forming tons of negative associations about some group or topic, and that will result in a trained emotional response pretty reliably..... but it's just an emotional response. It doesn't mean anything, and can't be used to support or detract from anything in terms of what is true.
It certainly can be frightfully easy to lead people down a path into forming tons of negative associations about some group or topic, and that will result in a trained emotional response pretty reliably..... but it's just an emotional response. It doesn't mean anything, and can't be used to support or detract from anything in terms of what is true.
> it's just an emotional response. It doesn't mean anything, and can't be used to support or detract from anything in terms of what is true.
Emotional responses are more important for your belief system and vice versa than you seem to realize. "what is true" is based on your belief system. It may not seem visible, but all those small interactions shape our emotions and belief system.
It's like training data for a neural network which has functional components and meta-learning capabilities (this is essentially what a brain is). Saying "this training data doesn't affect my neural network" or "this part (emotions) of my neural network doesn't affect another part (reasoning)" is not correct when training neural networks. Why would you assume that this is any different for your biological neural network? Every interaction shapes your brain, however small it seems.
Emotional responses are more important for your belief system and vice versa than you seem to realize. "what is true" is based on your belief system. It may not seem visible, but all those small interactions shape our emotions and belief system.
It's like training data for a neural network which has functional components and meta-learning capabilities (this is essentially what a brain is). Saying "this training data doesn't affect my neural network" or "this part (emotions) of my neural network doesn't affect another part (reasoning)" is not correct when training neural networks. Why would you assume that this is any different for your biological neural network? Every interaction shapes your brain, however small it seems.
You will be more likely to assume the children are racist in ambiguous situations. You will be more likely to react negatively to them.
Children will see your negative emotional response to them and will react to it. The negative or positive emotional response on someone determines a lot about your interaction with them and is hard to hide for most people.
Children will see your negative emotional response to them and will react to it. The negative or positive emotional response on someone determines a lot about your interaction with them and is hard to hide for most people.
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I'm not sure we can do much to understand the role of authority without understanding the role of conditioning in what makes people act.
For instance, why are most schools so regimented and rule-rich? For efficiency, certainly, but not all school rules increased efficiency. I would guess some of the rules exist to reinforce obedience to the other rules.
For instance, why are most schools so regimented and rule-rich? For efficiency, certainly, but not all school rules increased efficiency. I would guess some of the rules exist to reinforce obedience to the other rules.
> I would guess some of the rules exist to reinforce obedience to the other rules.
If it existed, it seems like there would be evidence of this, in the literatures of educational research, training, and school management. I doubt there is conspiracy of school principals.
Schools are bureaucracies, and like every bureaucracy they have rules, often rules that seem nonsensical to people who haven't had to manage one. People feel like companies and other organizations are overly regimented too.
If it existed, it seems like there would be evidence of this, in the literatures of educational research, training, and school management. I doubt there is conspiracy of school principals.
Schools are bureaucracies, and like every bureaucracy they have rules, often rules that seem nonsensical to people who haven't had to manage one. People feel like companies and other organizations are overly regimented too.
Every single government primary and secondary education system on Earth is a direct descendant of the Prussian one. Non-existent to very limited choice of how one spends ones time, constant ranking and grading to inure people to dominance behaviours that do not come naturally, and all in groups that are age normed rather than competence or ability normed.
School doesn’t have a singular purpose because there’s no one out there who designed it but learning definitely isn’t in the top five things it does. The people who did design the progenitor of modern school systems designed it to get people to sit down, shut up and do as they were told, and to love the government.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussian_education_system
http://www.overcomingbias.com/2016/04/school-is-to-submit.ht...
School doesn’t have a singular purpose because there’s no one out there who designed it but learning definitely isn’t in the top five things it does. The people who did design the progenitor of modern school systems designed it to get people to sit down, shut up and do as they were told, and to love the government.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussian_education_system
http://www.overcomingbias.com/2016/04/school-is-to-submit.ht...
I don't think that's true. For one, there are many publications about strict education and until relatively recently, it was the leading school of thought; we have movies featuring them, even praising them (Harry Potter for example - that was an example of a school lead as a benevolent dictatorship - that of course turned out bad later in the series). For two, people mostly don't read books about parenting but then they're parenting their kids somehow - how? Well, with whatever they picked up from their parents, TV, fiction books... Isn't it possible that it might be the same with teaching? I have some experience with working in education. Most of my former colleagues almost never think about the way they teach; you ask them why did they punish a student for disobedience (aka "he drank water even though I told him not to") and they say "because that's how it's done", you asked them why are they explaining something in that way and they don't know, they just do.
The problem is if there's a survival benefit to becoming rigidly obedient, insulating this information would be valuable. Think about pyramid schemes.
Filed under "believe, but cannot prove":
Whereas I thought anxiety (or lack of) was first order predictor someone's behavior (eg conservative vs liberal), I now think the root is someone's fear response.
Reformulated: fear -> anxiety -> (submission to) authority
Whereas I thought anxiety (or lack of) was first order predictor someone's behavior (eg conservative vs liberal), I now think the root is someone's fear response.
Reformulated: fear -> anxiety -> (submission to) authority
I think that’s a pretty cynical view. You could just as easily say it’s about discipline. To be successful in pretty much anything requires discipline and some level of regimented behaviour.
Why is the cynical view not appropriate? I'm much more suspicious of the idea that something was implemented with everyone's best interests in mind if there isn't strong evidence pointing there.
> To be successful in pretty much anything requires discipline and some level of regimented behaviour.
There's no evidence to confirm this statement, even though it may sound like common sense.
And this post reads odd. The current school model is very old. If schools exist to instill discipline, and discipline is required for success, I'd expect everyone to be super successful right now.
> To be successful in pretty much anything requires discipline and some level of regimented behaviour.
There's no evidence to confirm this statement, even though it may sound like common sense.
And this post reads odd. The current school model is very old. If schools exist to instill discipline, and discipline is required for success, I'd expect everyone to be super successful right now.
There is overwhelming evidence to confirm that statement. Conscientiousness is the greatest predictor of lifetime success besides intelligence, and discipline is a core element of consciousness.
You’re postulating that the entire education system is conspiring together to teach children a sense of self-discipline as part of some oppressive conditioning scheme. Any form of achievement in life requires discipline. It’s completely irrational to suggest otherwise.
You’re postulating that the entire education system is conspiring together to teach children a sense of self-discipline as part of some oppressive conditioning scheme. Any form of achievement in life requires discipline. It’s completely irrational to suggest otherwise.
What kind of evidence? How do you define success?
Society and civilization are built around discipline and order, but it doesn't mean you require those qualities to have success.
The role of school is to teach people to fit into a civilized world. It is not oppressive, it's not always conditioning, but it's a mean to give people a chance to live a comfortable life inside the frame of civilization. Success is a different thing.
Society and civilization are built around discipline and order, but it doesn't mean you require those qualities to have success.
The role of school is to teach people to fit into a civilized world. It is not oppressive, it's not always conditioning, but it's a mean to give people a chance to live a comfortable life inside the frame of civilization. Success is a different thing.
>What kind of evidence? How do you define success?
Scientific evidence, and in every possibly way you could define success.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3498890/
>This article investigates how personality and cognitive ability relate to measures of objective success (income and wealth) and subjective success (life satisfaction, positive affect, and lack of negative affect) in a representative sample of 9,646 American adults. In cross-sectional analyses controlling for demographic covariates, cognitive ability, and other Big Five traits, conscientiousness demonstrated beneficial associations of small-to-medium magnitude with all success outcomes.
This is only one example, these results are replicated in many, many other studies.
>Society and civilization are built around discipline and order, but it doesn't mean you require those qualities to have success.
Conforming to societies expectations really has nothing to do with this. No matter what it is you want to achieve in life, and no matter how passionate you might be about it, any worthwhile archievement in life requires discipline. Relationships, art, sports, philosophy, career... Achievement in any of those areas requires discipline.
Even if society was in a total state of disorder, you’d still need discipline to get what you want from life.
Scientific evidence, and in every possibly way you could define success.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3498890/
>This article investigates how personality and cognitive ability relate to measures of objective success (income and wealth) and subjective success (life satisfaction, positive affect, and lack of negative affect) in a representative sample of 9,646 American adults. In cross-sectional analyses controlling for demographic covariates, cognitive ability, and other Big Five traits, conscientiousness demonstrated beneficial associations of small-to-medium magnitude with all success outcomes.
This is only one example, these results are replicated in many, many other studies.
>Society and civilization are built around discipline and order, but it doesn't mean you require those qualities to have success.
Conforming to societies expectations really has nothing to do with this. No matter what it is you want to achieve in life, and no matter how passionate you might be about it, any worthwhile archievement in life requires discipline. Relationships, art, sports, philosophy, career... Achievement in any of those areas requires discipline.
Even if society was in a total state of disorder, you’d still need discipline to get what you want from life.
I have a hard time with psychology as a science, it was showed many studies were not reproducible. I like psychology, but studying success and finding that discipline=success really seems like using some layman vocabulary to tell people the source of why they're unsuccessful in life, which reminds me of motivational speaking, which I despise with passion. Diagnosing people with lack of discipline is more a questions of morals, ideology of life and philosophy than science. It's not something you can do or do with results, and often it will just be about motivational speaking, which is often scamming.
Conscientious people also often are conformists, which to me is not a good thing.
"Big Five personality traits" and the HEXACO models seems like pseudo science to me, because I don't think you can precisely define those things with a study of behavior, and come with relevant and applicable notions of those metrics.
We are in an age of the study of AI, and psychology sounds like it's the alchemy of the study of the brain. It might work in some places, but I don't think we can rely on it. Worse, I hardly think you can use psychology in a thoughtful process of helping people without sounding like a madman.
Conscientious people also often are conformists, which to me is not a good thing.
"Big Five personality traits" and the HEXACO models seems like pseudo science to me, because I don't think you can precisely define those things with a study of behavior, and come with relevant and applicable notions of those metrics.
We are in an age of the study of AI, and psychology sounds like it's the alchemy of the study of the brain. It might work in some places, but I don't think we can rely on it. Worse, I hardly think you can use psychology in a thoughtful process of helping people without sounding like a madman.
I think me and you have very different requirements for "overwhelming evidence" when it comes making a sociological claim. These are extremely difficult claims to prove and get overtuned pretty frequently. If it's a claim that seems to change every 5 years and is highly reliant on the society it was based on, the evidence for it was probably never overwhelming.
I'm not sure if there's much to conscientousness besides the associated correlation with obedience to authority making it easier to get benefits from said authority.
> You’re postulating that the entire education system is conspiring together...
I'm not really postulating that, it's rather unnecessary. Lots of bad things are done to humans and bought as cargo cult without anyone singularly conspiring for it. It's sufficient a general philosophical belief set to have been present long enough to influence some system or structure, and then you can get stuck with it for a few hundred years. This happens all the time to everything from parenting models to gender stereotypes. It's much more insidious than some people conspiring because it lives much longer than any given person.
> Any form of achievement in life requires discipline. It’s completely irrational to suggest otherwise.
Given that there are carefree goofballs getting what they want and extremely hardworking, dilligent single mothers working three jobs... I think such a strong belief in discipline is much more irrational.
It's rather self-focused, if you think about it. You think you're more powerful than the world.
I'm not sure if there's much to conscientousness besides the associated correlation with obedience to authority making it easier to get benefits from said authority.
> You’re postulating that the entire education system is conspiring together...
I'm not really postulating that, it's rather unnecessary. Lots of bad things are done to humans and bought as cargo cult without anyone singularly conspiring for it. It's sufficient a general philosophical belief set to have been present long enough to influence some system or structure, and then you can get stuck with it for a few hundred years. This happens all the time to everything from parenting models to gender stereotypes. It's much more insidious than some people conspiring because it lives much longer than any given person.
> Any form of achievement in life requires discipline. It’s completely irrational to suggest otherwise.
Given that there are carefree goofballs getting what they want and extremely hardworking, dilligent single mothers working three jobs... I think such a strong belief in discipline is much more irrational.
It's rather self-focused, if you think about it. You think you're more powerful than the world.
Without trying to be rude, you’re talking from a position of complete ignorance on this topic. For starters, this is about psychology not sociology. The big five and intelligence are the only measurable qualities that been used consistently and over time to make predictions. This isn’t some flash in the pan pop-science, out of everything the field has produced, the big five is one of the only things you could point to and say “that’s definently science”, and out of them conscientiousness makes the strongest predictions of all.
You also don’t seem to even know what conscientiousness is.
>Conscientiousness is the personality trait of a person who shows an awareness of the impact that their own behavior has on those around them. Conscientious people are generally more goal-oriented in their motives, ambitious in their academic efforts and at work, and feel more comfortable when they are well-prepared and organized.
It can be broken down further into subcategories if orderliness and industriousness. Neither of those qualities are related to “obedience to authority”. Agreeableness is, but agreeableness is an entirely different personality trait. Industrious people are often very disagreeable.
You also don’t seem to even know what conscientiousness is.
>Conscientiousness is the personality trait of a person who shows an awareness of the impact that their own behavior has on those around them. Conscientious people are generally more goal-oriented in their motives, ambitious in their academic efforts and at work, and feel more comfortable when they are well-prepared and organized.
It can be broken down further into subcategories if orderliness and industriousness. Neither of those qualities are related to “obedience to authority”. Agreeableness is, but agreeableness is an entirely different personality trait. Industrious people are often very disagreeable.
No, people are not ignorant simply because they disagree with you or use different and perfectly applicable terms. The might think the topic is much bigger than its field of study, though.
> For starters, this is about psychology not sociology.
It's both. How humans are educated is absolutely sociology and most psychological topics relate to sociology some way or another since it's basically impossible to separate humans from their society. This is really not the point you should have went with if you wanted to score points calling someone ignorant.
> The big five and intelligence are the only measurable qualities that been used consistently and over time to make predictions.
You consider the Big Five acceptable because you are comparing it to other psychological models, but that's not the standard. The standard is in the hard sciences. This is not overwhelming evidence. This is "it's all right", maybe "it's better than nothing". The theory of evolution has overwhelming evidence.
These is not trivial conclusions that are being made here. The conclusions that are made from things like Big Five will affect our schools, our workplaces, our governments, our lives. It needs to be rock solid if it's to be bought as dogma. It's not sufficient for it to be better than the rest, or occasionally be predictive. The "evidence" for Big Five is hugely reliant on self-evaluations.
You're deriving "Any form of achievement in life requires discipline" from something that's mostly correlation, and you're using two term sets that are imprecisely defined: "achievement" and "discipline". How can there be overwhelming evidence for something so imprecise? How much discipline does a given person have? How does this interact with things like "grew up poor" or "had poor nutrition"? How much achievement is achievement? Is a happy person with 2 kids more achievement than a person with a 180k job? A study can look at one or the other but can it tell me who has more achievement? "There's mostly a positive trend between this thing and this other stuff" is not "overwhelming evidence".
Pretty much all our measurements of achievements and conscientousness correlate heavily with "acceptable and equipped for present society". Conscientousness is beneficial in a world where it's important to show up on time so you don't get fired and keep track of 30 different bills. Big surprise. What about a society where these things are not that important? Oh, wait, we don't have one. Put this in the bucket where larks are happier than night owls. How is this glaring problem with these styles of observations not obvious to you?
This is the entire problem with sociology, and, yes, I say sociology, because the problem with pretty much all psychology is that it forgets it's also pretty much always sociology.
> You also don’t seem to even know what conscientiousness is.
Here's the thing: terms like discipline or grit are much older than the Big Five model. "conscientousness" is not really a term people would use but that's effectively what it is a proxy for. But the term you used is "discipline". People are not obliged to use the Big Five's specific definition. Discipline is extremely strongly associated with conformity and authority obedience in human cultures. The topic of this discussion is about discipline instilled in education, a very authoritative environment. Another one that comes to mind is military. There's going to be a relationship there and your studies won't be able to get rid of it.
> It can be broken down further into subcategories if orderliness and industriousness. Neither of those qualities are related to “obedience to authority”. Agreeableness is, but agreeableness is an entirely different personality trait. Industrious people are often very disagreeable.
It's not really entirely different, it's been bucketed under a general "Stability": https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S019188690...
One of the criticisms of Big Five is that it overlaps with itself a lot: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S019188691...
It seems strange to say that a given factor is "entirely different" for a model known for its overlap. It seems further strange to get attached to specifics here when there are different styles of splitting up the model and when there are preexisting definitions of terms like "discipline".
> This isn’t some flash in the pan pop-science
Except it is. Google conscientiousness, grit, etc., and see how many articles will pop up. It's all the rage right now, and has gotten popular mostly due to a mix of influences Gardner and Dweck, the studies from both of which are very suspect. It's not really Big Five that made it popular.
> For starters, this is about psychology not sociology.
It's both. How humans are educated is absolutely sociology and most psychological topics relate to sociology some way or another since it's basically impossible to separate humans from their society. This is really not the point you should have went with if you wanted to score points calling someone ignorant.
> The big five and intelligence are the only measurable qualities that been used consistently and over time to make predictions.
You consider the Big Five acceptable because you are comparing it to other psychological models, but that's not the standard. The standard is in the hard sciences. This is not overwhelming evidence. This is "it's all right", maybe "it's better than nothing". The theory of evolution has overwhelming evidence.
These is not trivial conclusions that are being made here. The conclusions that are made from things like Big Five will affect our schools, our workplaces, our governments, our lives. It needs to be rock solid if it's to be bought as dogma. It's not sufficient for it to be better than the rest, or occasionally be predictive. The "evidence" for Big Five is hugely reliant on self-evaluations.
You're deriving "Any form of achievement in life requires discipline" from something that's mostly correlation, and you're using two term sets that are imprecisely defined: "achievement" and "discipline". How can there be overwhelming evidence for something so imprecise? How much discipline does a given person have? How does this interact with things like "grew up poor" or "had poor nutrition"? How much achievement is achievement? Is a happy person with 2 kids more achievement than a person with a 180k job? A study can look at one or the other but can it tell me who has more achievement? "There's mostly a positive trend between this thing and this other stuff" is not "overwhelming evidence".
Pretty much all our measurements of achievements and conscientousness correlate heavily with "acceptable and equipped for present society". Conscientousness is beneficial in a world where it's important to show up on time so you don't get fired and keep track of 30 different bills. Big surprise. What about a society where these things are not that important? Oh, wait, we don't have one. Put this in the bucket where larks are happier than night owls. How is this glaring problem with these styles of observations not obvious to you?
This is the entire problem with sociology, and, yes, I say sociology, because the problem with pretty much all psychology is that it forgets it's also pretty much always sociology.
> You also don’t seem to even know what conscientiousness is.
Here's the thing: terms like discipline or grit are much older than the Big Five model. "conscientousness" is not really a term people would use but that's effectively what it is a proxy for. But the term you used is "discipline". People are not obliged to use the Big Five's specific definition. Discipline is extremely strongly associated with conformity and authority obedience in human cultures. The topic of this discussion is about discipline instilled in education, a very authoritative environment. Another one that comes to mind is military. There's going to be a relationship there and your studies won't be able to get rid of it.
> It can be broken down further into subcategories if orderliness and industriousness. Neither of those qualities are related to “obedience to authority”. Agreeableness is, but agreeableness is an entirely different personality trait. Industrious people are often very disagreeable.
It's not really entirely different, it's been bucketed under a general "Stability": https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S019188690...
One of the criticisms of Big Five is that it overlaps with itself a lot: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S019188691...
It seems strange to say that a given factor is "entirely different" for a model known for its overlap. It seems further strange to get attached to specifics here when there are different styles of splitting up the model and when there are preexisting definitions of terms like "discipline".
> This isn’t some flash in the pan pop-science
Except it is. Google conscientiousness, grit, etc., and see how many articles will pop up. It's all the rage right now, and has gotten popular mostly due to a mix of influences Gardner and Dweck, the studies from both of which are very suspect. It's not really Big Five that made it popular.
When I said ignorance, I meant it very literally. You clearly are not at all familiar with the domain. The effort to categorize personality traits has been ongoing since the 19th century, and the big five have been studied since the 40s. Nothing about this is pop-science. This is about making measurements and predictions, which is exactly what science is. The big five have been the most useful tools for measuring personality traits for decades, and have produced predictions with far greater precision than any other framework in all of psychology, barring IQ.
I have not stated a single opinion in this thread. Everything I’ve said is supported by decades of scientific research, all you’ve posted is a long-winded description of your opinions and feelings.
I have not stated a single opinion in this thread. Everything I’ve said is supported by decades of scientific research, all you’ve posted is a long-winded description of your opinions and feelings.
> Being able to stand up to authority doesn’t hinge on bravery or courage, confidence or stubbornness. The brain processes and regions essential for rejecting ideas from authority figures are starting to be revealed.
Nonsense. Sure everything stems from chemical processes in our bodies, including the brain -- of course. But they breed the bravery, courage, confidence and stubbornness. I don't see why we must contrast these two things. They have a one-directional causation link between them.
Nonsense. Sure everything stems from chemical processes in our bodies, including the brain -- of course. But they breed the bravery, courage, confidence and stubbornness. I don't see why we must contrast these two things. They have a one-directional causation link between them.
Hmmm, I wonder if there might be some evolutionary reason why we shouldn't do this?
I mean it's not like a deferrence to authority allows human beings to coordinate and work together efficiently. Hierarchies are totally inefficient ways to work together and get things done.
/s
EDIT: A paper that is very much worth reading: https://hbr.org/1990/01/in-praise-of-hierarchy
I mean it's not like a deferrence to authority allows human beings to coordinate and work together efficiently. Hierarchies are totally inefficient ways to work together and get things done.
/s
EDIT: A paper that is very much worth reading: https://hbr.org/1990/01/in-praise-of-hierarchy
I'm not sure I understand the grammar of the HN title. What does "goes in length" mean?
"The BBC goes in length" made me do a smirking double-take, but I have a sophomoric sense of humor.
We've reverted the submitted title of “The BBC goes in length about research showing how our brain responds to coercion” to that of the article.
Actual article title: "What it takes to stand up to authority"
Isn’t that a reproduction of the (well-criticized) Stanford experiment, which already didn’t need to be demonstrated because we already demonstrated it with the Nazi horror?
But it did need to be demonstrated. "That could never happen here, not in our country" needed to be refuted.
The distinction here is some further evidence of the actual mechanism through which this operates, and, critically, evidence that we can actively work to improve our ability to challenge immoral authority.
The $64 billion dollar question, though, is whether anyone in society will see it as reasonable to expect themselves or anyone else to abandon their intuition which tells them to follow without question, the 'natural' and 'automatic' response that they identify most strongly with their 'self', and train themselves to contradict and contravene that part of themselves. As is so often the case, you can't fix the flaws that your emotional and intuitive processing of the world brings about if you venerate intuition and emotion and denigrate any attempts to change it.
The $64 billion dollar question, though, is whether anyone in society will see it as reasonable to expect themselves or anyone else to abandon their intuition which tells them to follow without question, the 'natural' and 'automatic' response that they identify most strongly with their 'self', and train themselves to contradict and contravene that part of themselves. As is so often the case, you can't fix the flaws that your emotional and intuitive processing of the world brings about if you venerate intuition and emotion and denigrate any attempts to change it.
Then we would need to train everyone to be essentially an ubermensch - they need to be able to operate on meta-levels and use metacognition all the time.
This is a hard task, you need cognitive resources (which means you have enough sleep, food, resilience, mental energy and a stress-free environment) and a lot of time and it's also very demanding to doubt essential beliefs about oneself and ones' own values.
So I don't really think that most people will do it. It's just too cumbersome and frankly, they have other things to do and the current mode works for them most of the time. When it fails, something like the Nazi regime happens (for various reasons, not only due to lack of advanced metacognition), but high expectations won't help us, anyway.
- - -
I think a good solution is to build a system which generally uses balance mechanisms to keep power divided - we can't expect all people to be highly self-aware and self-critical. Unsurprisingly, that's exactly why we use democracies. Unfortunately, those systems stop to work when the majority of people lack advanced metacognition or don't have the required cognitive resources or lack information and understanding. Unfortunately, this can happen pretty fast.
This is a hard task, you need cognitive resources (which means you have enough sleep, food, resilience, mental energy and a stress-free environment) and a lot of time and it's also very demanding to doubt essential beliefs about oneself and ones' own values.
So I don't really think that most people will do it. It's just too cumbersome and frankly, they have other things to do and the current mode works for them most of the time. When it fails, something like the Nazi regime happens (for various reasons, not only due to lack of advanced metacognition), but high expectations won't help us, anyway.
- - -
I think a good solution is to build a system which generally uses balance mechanisms to keep power divided - we can't expect all people to be highly self-aware and self-critical. Unsurprisingly, that's exactly why we use democracies. Unfortunately, those systems stop to work when the majority of people lack advanced metacognition or don't have the required cognitive resources or lack information and understanding. Unfortunately, this can happen pretty fast.
I'm not sure exactly what 'ubermensch' implies, but I think I understand the point of what you are saying. And I agree, it is unreasonable, even biologically, to expect human beings to effectively perform at their mental peak continuously. Brains don't work that way. But, that's also not necessary. The vast majority of situations we face in day to day life don't really call on us to be able to muster complex well-reasoned arguments with nuance. When deciding whether to buy a gift for a partner, you're fine to go with whether that feels like the right thing to do.
The problem comes in when people take a positive stance against ever trusting the use of reason. Where they see someone stepping back, and dealing with a topic dispassionately, and alarm bells start going off. They immediately distrust the person, and if their conclusions contradict the gut intuitive reaction they have to a topic, they will side with the intuitive reaction. The 'intuitive reaction' of human brains is essentially documented in any comprehensive list of common logical fallacies. They were things we feel ought to be true, but we know are not. Things like a terrible person can't make good points, if a person is wrong about one thing they must be wrong about others, if things happened close together spatially or temporally they must be causally connected, if something is natural it must be better than artificial, etc. At that point, it doesn't matter if anyone in the group is practicing metacognition and solid reasoning, because they will be actively resisted for precisely that.
Societies view of intellectualism changes on the scale of centuries. It was at a height before World War I, almost to the point of fanaticism. It made people willing to believe that science and reason would usher in a utopia by default, because it was not capable of doing otherwise. Then, mustard gas rolled down hillsides into trenches. Mechanized tanks crawled battlefields. The creations of science were used to wreak the most horrible suffering, and society paused at that. By the time the concentration camps were unveiled after the end of the eugenics (all widely accepted as true and reasonable by the scientific community of the time), the horror wasn't new. And the 20th century kept the hits on coming, with tragedy after tragedy laid at the feet of science and reason. We may know now that all of those people made critical errors and overreached with hubris or were outright corrupt, but that doesn't matter terribly much to the person who never understood it well to begin with. All they know is that it's not a sure thing, and it can lead to stupendous tragedy. The tragedies born by anti-intellectualism, such as Pol Pots purging of intellectuals, Maos similar practices that resulted in profound starvation and the deaths of millions, couldn't get much airtime in the face of society shrinking away from reason.
I don't think this is a simple problem. In fact, I have often referred to it as the single biggest problem facing the human species. Civilization includes its own undoing. At the beginning, lethal danger, famine, disease, and other terrors of the past make people willing to try anything - even dispassionate reason. And then they build a civilization. Whose primary, if not sole, goal is to remove danger from the lives of as many as possible. This must, absolutely must, include removing the dangers which motivated the willingness to reason and ignore intuition. Given enough time, arguing for expansion of the infrastructure of civilization becomes harder. Given more time, arguing for maintenance of the existing infrastructure becomes harder. People revert to relying on intuition if for no other reason than it is easier and no longer bears many negative consequences. And when the infrastructure begins to fail, and danger re-asserts itself, it is naive to think people would see the error of their ways and return to reason. There is no historical basis for such a hope. The mother whose unvaccinated child dies of measles does not blame herself. No, they will blame not having gone far enough. They will blame what remains of the infrastructure, and call for it to be dismantled. And they will continue until humanity returns to its 'default state' of slogging through the mud, racked with disease, starving, killing each other over whose god is stronger.
The problem comes in when people take a positive stance against ever trusting the use of reason. Where they see someone stepping back, and dealing with a topic dispassionately, and alarm bells start going off. They immediately distrust the person, and if their conclusions contradict the gut intuitive reaction they have to a topic, they will side with the intuitive reaction. The 'intuitive reaction' of human brains is essentially documented in any comprehensive list of common logical fallacies. They were things we feel ought to be true, but we know are not. Things like a terrible person can't make good points, if a person is wrong about one thing they must be wrong about others, if things happened close together spatially or temporally they must be causally connected, if something is natural it must be better than artificial, etc. At that point, it doesn't matter if anyone in the group is practicing metacognition and solid reasoning, because they will be actively resisted for precisely that.
Societies view of intellectualism changes on the scale of centuries. It was at a height before World War I, almost to the point of fanaticism. It made people willing to believe that science and reason would usher in a utopia by default, because it was not capable of doing otherwise. Then, mustard gas rolled down hillsides into trenches. Mechanized tanks crawled battlefields. The creations of science were used to wreak the most horrible suffering, and society paused at that. By the time the concentration camps were unveiled after the end of the eugenics (all widely accepted as true and reasonable by the scientific community of the time), the horror wasn't new. And the 20th century kept the hits on coming, with tragedy after tragedy laid at the feet of science and reason. We may know now that all of those people made critical errors and overreached with hubris or were outright corrupt, but that doesn't matter terribly much to the person who never understood it well to begin with. All they know is that it's not a sure thing, and it can lead to stupendous tragedy. The tragedies born by anti-intellectualism, such as Pol Pots purging of intellectuals, Maos similar practices that resulted in profound starvation and the deaths of millions, couldn't get much airtime in the face of society shrinking away from reason.
I don't think this is a simple problem. In fact, I have often referred to it as the single biggest problem facing the human species. Civilization includes its own undoing. At the beginning, lethal danger, famine, disease, and other terrors of the past make people willing to try anything - even dispassionate reason. And then they build a civilization. Whose primary, if not sole, goal is to remove danger from the lives of as many as possible. This must, absolutely must, include removing the dangers which motivated the willingness to reason and ignore intuition. Given enough time, arguing for expansion of the infrastructure of civilization becomes harder. Given more time, arguing for maintenance of the existing infrastructure becomes harder. People revert to relying on intuition if for no other reason than it is easier and no longer bears many negative consequences. And when the infrastructure begins to fail, and danger re-asserts itself, it is naive to think people would see the error of their ways and return to reason. There is no historical basis for such a hope. The mother whose unvaccinated child dies of measles does not blame herself. No, they will blame not having gone far enough. They will blame what remains of the infrastructure, and call for it to be dismantled. And they will continue until humanity returns to its 'default state' of slogging through the mud, racked with disease, starving, killing each other over whose god is stronger.
> because they will be actively resisted for precisely that.
Then your response has to be to adapt. Wrap some emotional frame around your reasoning and people will listen to your position because you speak their language. This doesn't help in the greater picture, but can help in individual interactions with anti-intellectual people.
- - -
> People revert to relying on intuition if for no other reason than it is easier and no longer bears many negative consequences.
I like the analysis. Pretty dark, but I agree with it. The fragility of civilization is often attributed to the interconnectedness and interdependencies, but the psychological implications are often overlooked.
Although I have to disagree with some parts: I don't think it's just a battle between intuition and reasoning that is the root cause for annihilation of social progress. Intellectualism and anti-intellectualism both produced horrible and positive things in the past. I don't think that both approaches are entirely right and that every generation has to find a dualistic point of view which combines intuition and reasoning into a framework that deals with emotions but also solves problems rationally. I've got the feeling that you see intuition and emotional aspects as entirely negative (Mao, unvaccinated children, killing each other over whose god is stronger, ...).
Then your response has to be to adapt. Wrap some emotional frame around your reasoning and people will listen to your position because you speak their language. This doesn't help in the greater picture, but can help in individual interactions with anti-intellectual people.
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> People revert to relying on intuition if for no other reason than it is easier and no longer bears many negative consequences.
I like the analysis. Pretty dark, but I agree with it. The fragility of civilization is often attributed to the interconnectedness and interdependencies, but the psychological implications are often overlooked.
Although I have to disagree with some parts: I don't think it's just a battle between intuition and reasoning that is the root cause for annihilation of social progress. Intellectualism and anti-intellectualism both produced horrible and positive things in the past. I don't think that both approaches are entirely right and that every generation has to find a dualistic point of view which combines intuition and reasoning into a framework that deals with emotions but also solves problems rationally. I've got the feeling that you see intuition and emotional aspects as entirely negative (Mao, unvaccinated children, killing each other over whose god is stronger, ...).
>Then your response has to be to adapt. Wrap some emotional frame around your reasoning and people will listen to your position because you speak their language.
This is the problem... a person who values reason would see that 'emotional frame' as the most disgusting, base, unethical kind of manipulation. Sure, you could violate everything you believe and coerce people by manipulating them emotionally... but if others figure out what you are doing, they will realize you as a hypocrite and be even less likely to consider your viewpoint.
>Pretty dark, but I agree with it.
Oh, I left out the dark parts. The dark parts come when you start asking yourself 'how can we fix or avoid this problem?' I've been considering the problem for many years, and the only ideas I have ever been able to think of are stupendously unethical and would debase whatever society used them.
>I've got the feeling that you see intuition and emotional aspects as entirely negative (Mao, unvaccinated children, killing each other over whose god is stronger, ...).
I do not, actually. Emotion and intuition are important parts of human life, and an integrated view is key. We even have support for this in biology. There are people (maybe just one person, I can only recall reading about one case) who have a lesion in a very specific part of the brain which essentially destroys their ability to experience emotion. One of the surprising things found was that this also affected their ability to reason. Specifically, they could consider an argument and produce a list of 'pros' and 'cons' for choices, but no matter how lopsided the lists are, they're incapable of deciding upon a course of action. Utterly and completely incapable of making the leap from argument to decision. So you simply can't function without emotion coming in to play.
The reason intellectualism is the right path (and by that I mean relying on reason and science in situations where the matters are important) is that it can integrate all of this, it can recognize its own shortcomings, and it can formulate ways of dealing with them. All of the tragedies of the past can usually be traced back to someone (or groups) who had all of the tools available to them which could have said "you do not have the evidence to support your conclusion", but they let other motivations sway them from rigor. Total rigor is impossible, of course. We will always have limited information. Acknowledging this, and being circumspect and conservative in our actions, building in the ability to turn back, is something only intellectualism can do.
I do not and would not advocate a 'Vulcan' emotionless outlook. We are human, and we have emotion. It's not inherently destructive. However, our emotional capacity is an outgrowth of the functioning of our brain which evolved to keep us alive (just) while living in small tightknit tribes on the African savannah. It did not adapt to function in anything like the environments in which we find ourselves today. As such, it is often misleading. The silver lining is that whether it is or is not misleading is something that reason can determine. If our emotional responses are consistent with reality, great, reason will verify that and give us confidence. If not, reason can enable us to correct ourselves. As emotion is a trained response, enough repeated correction results in this not always being a 'battle'.
This is the problem... a person who values reason would see that 'emotional frame' as the most disgusting, base, unethical kind of manipulation. Sure, you could violate everything you believe and coerce people by manipulating them emotionally... but if others figure out what you are doing, they will realize you as a hypocrite and be even less likely to consider your viewpoint.
>Pretty dark, but I agree with it.
Oh, I left out the dark parts. The dark parts come when you start asking yourself 'how can we fix or avoid this problem?' I've been considering the problem for many years, and the only ideas I have ever been able to think of are stupendously unethical and would debase whatever society used them.
>I've got the feeling that you see intuition and emotional aspects as entirely negative (Mao, unvaccinated children, killing each other over whose god is stronger, ...).
I do not, actually. Emotion and intuition are important parts of human life, and an integrated view is key. We even have support for this in biology. There are people (maybe just one person, I can only recall reading about one case) who have a lesion in a very specific part of the brain which essentially destroys their ability to experience emotion. One of the surprising things found was that this also affected their ability to reason. Specifically, they could consider an argument and produce a list of 'pros' and 'cons' for choices, but no matter how lopsided the lists are, they're incapable of deciding upon a course of action. Utterly and completely incapable of making the leap from argument to decision. So you simply can't function without emotion coming in to play.
The reason intellectualism is the right path (and by that I mean relying on reason and science in situations where the matters are important) is that it can integrate all of this, it can recognize its own shortcomings, and it can formulate ways of dealing with them. All of the tragedies of the past can usually be traced back to someone (or groups) who had all of the tools available to them which could have said "you do not have the evidence to support your conclusion", but they let other motivations sway them from rigor. Total rigor is impossible, of course. We will always have limited information. Acknowledging this, and being circumspect and conservative in our actions, building in the ability to turn back, is something only intellectualism can do.
I do not and would not advocate a 'Vulcan' emotionless outlook. We are human, and we have emotion. It's not inherently destructive. However, our emotional capacity is an outgrowth of the functioning of our brain which evolved to keep us alive (just) while living in small tightknit tribes on the African savannah. It did not adapt to function in anything like the environments in which we find ourselves today. As such, it is often misleading. The silver lining is that whether it is or is not misleading is something that reason can determine. If our emotional responses are consistent with reality, great, reason will verify that and give us confidence. If not, reason can enable us to correct ourselves. As emotion is a trained response, enough repeated correction results in this not always being a 'battle'.
> but no matter how lopsided the lists are, they're incapable of deciding upon a course of action.
Reminds me of [1] from Futurama. Here [2] is an article about that man.
> As emotion is a trained response, enough repeated correction results in this not always being a 'battle'.
I agree to a certain extend. I think you have a very differentiated and reflected view.
> the only ideas I have ever been able to think of are stupendously unethical and would debase whatever society used them.
I would like to hear your solutions. Analyzing is one thing, but constructive ideas to solve these problems is another big feat.
[1]: https://youtu.be/1-bCIA_vyVc
[2]: https://www.thecut.com/2016/06/how-only-using-logic-destroye...
Reminds me of [1] from Futurama. Here [2] is an article about that man.
> As emotion is a trained response, enough repeated correction results in this not always being a 'battle'.
I agree to a certain extend. I think you have a very differentiated and reflected view.
> the only ideas I have ever been able to think of are stupendously unethical and would debase whatever society used them.
I would like to hear your solutions. Analyzing is one thing, but constructive ideas to solve these problems is another big feat.
[1]: https://youtu.be/1-bCIA_vyVc
[2]: https://www.thecut.com/2016/06/how-only-using-logic-destroye...
a) Trying to understand historical events with many variables via deliberate scientific experimentation is a reasonable thing to do.
b) The Stanford Prison Experiment has always been under a ton of scrutiny, and is a good example of flashy events heavily covered in intro psych courses that are viewed with a lot more skepticism in the professional community (so I have read, anyway).
c) More info recently came out about it recently, actually: https://cosmosmagazine.com/social-sciences/new-evidence-show...
d) Repetition of scientific findings is one of the main pillars of science. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis
b) The Stanford Prison Experiment has always been under a ton of scrutiny, and is a good example of flashy events heavily covered in intro psych courses that are viewed with a lot more skepticism in the professional community (so I have read, anyway).
c) More info recently came out about it recently, actually: https://cosmosmagazine.com/social-sciences/new-evidence-show...
d) Repetition of scientific findings is one of the main pillars of science. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis
while the fact remains that everyone should derive his or her own opinion on this highly sensationalized study, Philip Zimbardo's response is worth reading
http://www.prisonexp.org/response/
First of all, I believe that it DOES need to be demonstrated -- repeatedly, to lots of people, so we can change how we respond to such a situation.
But more relevantly, this experiment was not attempting to "demonstrate" the effect. It was attempting to better understand the effect. That, in particular, is research that we badly need.
(PS: I'm defending the idea of performing this sort of experiment, not the specific experimental protocol followed. In particular, I question whether applying negative judgements to people is actually a valid proxy for causing harm.)
But more relevantly, this experiment was not attempting to "demonstrate" the effect. It was attempting to better understand the effect. That, in particular, is research that we badly need.
(PS: I'm defending the idea of performing this sort of experiment, not the specific experimental protocol followed. In particular, I question whether applying negative judgements to people is actually a valid proxy for causing harm.)
There were too many factors contributing to the Nazi events. You cant simply point at it and make definitive conclusion over some bare-bone simple events.
You also cant assume that 1933 Germans would react the same way to the authority then 2018 Dutch.
You also cant assume that 1933 Germans would react the same way to the authority then 2018 Dutch.
Not to mention, the world is much more connected now. Most German citizens were unaware of the death camps until the end of the war.
They knew full well about other abuse that was done to Jews, opposition and others too. Nazi were pretty bad openly, beating Jews in streets, beating people who shopped in Jewish stores, taking away their possessions, restricting their rights. All that long before they invented death camps.
I've never understood how the classic interpretation of milgram that "people can become monster under authority" were remotely relevant.
"hurting other people" is just a natural tendency inside at least a large proportion if not all humans. That's why we've had so many wars in the history, bullys at school and abuse in generally ANY UNREGULATED ENVIRONEMENT (chrisitan schools in the 50s in france for example, prisons and in some way even the weinstein compagny). That's also why a lot of us love watching MMA, boxing, and why many people love, even secretly because society doesn't acknowledge this feeling, going at war [1].
We can argue all day whether it stems from a domination instinct, a fear of our own weakness or how this instincs have to be channeled into a more constructive force / healthy contribution for society but the point is that this instinct exists... probably in most persons.
At some point i suspect most participants in milgram experiment switched from the "this is horrible" voice in their head to the "my feelings tells me it's not horrible I feel in power it's cool I almost like it plus there's authority so i wont get punished so it's fine". It's not so much of a big deal.
[1] https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/news/a28718/why-men-lo...
"hurting other people" is just a natural tendency inside at least a large proportion if not all humans. That's why we've had so many wars in the history, bullys at school and abuse in generally ANY UNREGULATED ENVIRONEMENT (chrisitan schools in the 50s in france for example, prisons and in some way even the weinstein compagny). That's also why a lot of us love watching MMA, boxing, and why many people love, even secretly because society doesn't acknowledge this feeling, going at war [1].
We can argue all day whether it stems from a domination instinct, a fear of our own weakness or how this instincs have to be channeled into a more constructive force / healthy contribution for society but the point is that this instinct exists... probably in most persons.
At some point i suspect most participants in milgram experiment switched from the "this is horrible" voice in their head to the "my feelings tells me it's not horrible I feel in power it's cool I almost like it plus there's authority so i wont get punished so it's fine". It's not so much of a big deal.
[1] https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/news/a28718/why-men-lo...
> I've never understood how the classic interpretation of milgram that "people can become monster under authority" were remotely relevant.
> "hurting other people" is just a natural tendency inside at least a large proportion if not all humans.
Many societies convince themselves that they are civilized and others are not.
> "hurting other people" is just a natural tendency inside at least a large proportion if not all humans.
Many societies convince themselves that they are civilized and others are not.
Claiming that people love war seems like a pretty dangerous statement to me without some very solid study. There's a lot going on there, most notably, trauma. People who went to war are not necessarily the people who come back.
Why is it dangerous? You explain nothing.
Wait, I really have to explain why an incorrect gender-based generalization could be dangerous? How about the conclusions the person I'm responding to arrived at.
It's one thing to describe the experiences of soldiers returning from Vietnam, because that is valuable information. It's another to interpret it and make conclusions when there are 50 other valid explanations.
"People/men like war/aggression/risk" is honestly not a new concept, and it's seems pretty correct on the surface, especially when you cut out the whole part of your comrade slowly dying due to a stray shell. This is the glorification of war that books like Catch-22 and Slaughterhouse Five were written against.
Most incorrect claims are dangerous, and the reasons are not always all enumerable since you often can't see the problem when you think a false thing is true. I.e., if you already think women are hysterical, treating them as hysterical doesn't seem like an issue because, well, they're hysterical.
It's one thing to describe the experiences of soldiers returning from Vietnam, because that is valuable information. It's another to interpret it and make conclusions when there are 50 other valid explanations.
"People/men like war/aggression/risk" is honestly not a new concept, and it's seems pretty correct on the surface, especially when you cut out the whole part of your comrade slowly dying due to a stray shell. This is the glorification of war that books like Catch-22 and Slaughterhouse Five were written against.
Most incorrect claims are dangerous, and the reasons are not always all enumerable since you often can't see the problem when you think a false thing is true. I.e., if you already think women are hysterical, treating them as hysterical doesn't seem like an issue because, well, they're hysterical.
Late answer: your answer is quite level-headed I think.
I would say that first that I never said anything about gender-specific, or if i did it was a mistake.. My point is that every human (men or women) has a potential of violence that can be unleashed in many situations. This potential is the kind of thing that look "unnatural" "scary" or "bad" when you see it and don't feel it but feel naturalyou experience it.
Granted there's not many data / source in my answer. My point is just that I feel a bit weird when I see a lot of articles like this who talk about violence being an "unnatural" tendency of the humans when I think it is a very natural tendency (which we constantly try to make disappear in our peaceful societies, which is why it might look unnatural nowadays.).
I would say that first that I never said anything about gender-specific, or if i did it was a mistake.. My point is that every human (men or women) has a potential of violence that can be unleashed in many situations. This potential is the kind of thing that look "unnatural" "scary" or "bad" when you see it and don't feel it but feel naturalyou experience it.
Granted there's not many data / source in my answer. My point is just that I feel a bit weird when I see a lot of articles like this who talk about violence being an "unnatural" tendency of the humans when I think it is a very natural tendency (which we constantly try to make disappear in our peaceful societies, which is why it might look unnatural nowadays.).
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WOW, that's going to come in handy when some government decides to weaponize it.