On 5/24/07, Nicholas Thompson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Carl, > > I am trying to get my Psych 101 in order: Was the kitty genovese incident > the one that led to that horrendous series of experiments that demonstrate > that if you give people a shock console (or what they THINK is a shock > console) and ask them politely to do so, they will cheerfully use shocks
>From the few videos that I've seen of the experiments the subjects were hardly cheerful in carrying out the order to shock, especially as the shock-to-be-delivered was percieved to be increasing in intensity. As far as related humor goes. A few years back a group of art students at Carnegie Mellon (I thinkk) conducted some art 'experiments' using a remote controlled graffitti-writing vehicle. In it they claimed that "in nearly 100% of the cases a given agent of the public will willing participate in high profile acts of vandalism given the opportunity to do so via mediated robotic technology" (http://www.appliedautonomy.com/video/ContestationalRobotics_LAN.mov). The key idea in all this is this concept of mediation. The shock was mediated by someone in authority and an shock apparatus. If the Miligram was asking the subject to take live wires to the skin of the person to be shocked then I doubt his results would have been as strong as they were. As with graffiti writer, if you gave the group of girl scouts a can of spray paint would they spray paint a 20ft banner saying "girl scouts rule!!!!!!!!" on a public sidewalk? > that they think are lethal, just so long as they are told to? > > reminds me of the stoners that jg showed us at arrowhead, who would run out > from the crowd, throw a stone, and then sink back into the anonymity of the > crowd. > > Thought experiment: if all humor were forbidden, would genocide be > possible??? In the Pleistocene context, with many small groups in > desperate conflict for unpredictable resources, what was humor FOR? > > N > > > > [Original Message] > > From: Carl Tollander <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > Date: 5/24/2007 2:52:28 PM > > Subject: Re: [WedTech] Teachers drop the Holocaust to avoid > offending Muslims|the Daily Mail > > > > Nick asks: > > >Do we need a science of Comparative Genocideology? > > > > Closest I've seen that starts to address this is Chapter 15 from Philip > > Bobbit's book "The Shield of Achilles" > > titled "The Kitty Genovese Incident and the War in Bosnia". I'll bring > > it by FRIAM. > > > > C. > > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
