Comments by "XSportSeeker" (@XSpImmaLion) on "The Most Horrifying Human Experiments Of All Time | Random Thursday" video.

  1. Ooof, the lowest depths humans can reach... tough as it may be, these things should always be brought up just to remind us how far low we once got. The only real problem in the video was, like others pointed out, using Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment for the conclusion. xD Weird, I though Joe's channel was one among several I saw debunking the whole thing... but nope. Pretty sure I watched a handful of channels debunking the whole thing already though. And if I'm not mistaken, I think I saw a mention about it even on TV when, for some reason, the topic exploded and got thoroughly debunked, years ago. I don't think the idea of de-individuation is totally wrong, there is something there perhaps more to do with power and influence of authority, how far some people will go given command and order or just permission, general radicalization, and certainly doing horrible stuff people would never do because blind faith and beliefs gave it an ok - but you know, in the particular case of Stanford Prison Experiment, through interviews with the participants and analysis of data collected in the experiment, seems the whole thing was biased from start. It was a grand fabrication that is still giving Zimbardo credit and fame to this day. The supposed results it gave are worthless, even if there might be hints of truth there. Students weren't randomly selected, Zimbardo knew them and picked specific people to play specific roles according to their personalities. They were directed to act a certain way, not only before it began but also during the whole thing, and the ones who acted more violently were encouraged while those who didn't were instructed to be more violent, more energic, play the role, etc. It was wholly directed, participants didn't act freely out of their own will. Then comes all the unethical stuff about Zimbardo not letting multiple students get out from the experiment when they asked to (including people playing prison guard part), which obviously pushed the situation to it's final conclusion, him not only monitoring but also being a participant of it acting as director and being there multiple times, and a whole host of other problems. Reason why the whole thing was never reproduced (well, of course it wouldn't given the ethical problems, but nothing about the experiment could be reproduced using different methodologies). In general, the debunking of Stanford Prison Experiment, people take it to mean that the whole concept of the study, that of de-individuation, to be completely false - because the study was a sham. But I don't think this is totally accurate too. The experiment indeed has proven nothing due to how biased it was... but it's proven nothing either way. It can't be used to say de-individuation is a thing, as well as it can't be used to say de-individuation isn't a thing. That aside, we know parallel concepts to de-individuation to be a thing already. Radicalization, blind faith, belief in false stuff leading to abhorrent behaviour. And perhaps the most horrific part of the Nazi camp experiments and japanese Unit 731, is that really, you can't oversimplify what happened there. This whole idea of promoting concepts that take out individual responsibility from people involved in horrific crimes and war crimes came about because of our need to reconcile with the idea of what humans are capable of. It's easier and more digestible for us to believe Nazis aren't humans like us, and that we would never act in such ways given the most extreme scenarios like war and whatnot. But even though I think these psychological traits and effects are there, even more given all we see regarding the political scenario, effect of fake news and firehosing, populism and a bunch of other stuff... it can't be oversimplified, and it's just part of the human condition. Likely, people leading those horrible experiments already had traits that led them to do those things - they were selected and chosen because they were willing to do it. Or they went ahead and used the war scenario to allow them to do what they already had in mind. And then, there's probably a mix of blind faith following, people who didn't agree with doing that but were forced to because of the situation, people who got conviced in several levels on it being for scientific progress or on treating victims as "not human", and a whole mix of things. If you really think about it, doing unspeakable things in the name of something is what we often also see in religious cults, general extremism and terrorism and political factions. And then, I personally think that a sense of ethics, of being social, and upholding moral standards is something that is built overtime, with education, with care, with standards, setting examples, providing care and fomenting whatever is needed to instigate a sense of what we call humanity. So, I see it as a social construct. If we don't wanna see stuff like Nazi experiments and japanese Unit 731 experiments from ever happening again, we have to work for it. People are not born as total blank slates, but more than we might think is socially constructed. So, it's about avoiding wars, not allowing for people to have unlimited power over the lives of other groups of people, enforcing human rights standards, giving everyone conditions to learn and keep such things in mind, etc.
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