Free Talk Live

The Lucifer Effect by Philip Zimbardo is an in depth study of mankind’s capacity for evil, beginning with the first complete treatise on the Stanford Prison Experiment ever published, and ending with the atrocities committed by US soldiers in Abu Ghraib. But as I was reading, I kept thinking of Ron Paul and the ongoing controversy between the libertarians and anarchists as to whether supporting his campaign is the right thing to do. I think this book has settled the issue for me.

In each of five experiments the method of inducing a powerful feeling, and the method of determining moral double standards was different, but in every one the results were the same. Powerful people judge others more harshly but cheat more themselves. But what’s especially interesting is his last experiment where distinguishing between legitimate power and illegitimate power garnered the opposite results.

Dana Carney, a professor at Columbia University, conducted an experiment intended to discover whether “leaders” and “subordinates” experience the same physiological response to lying. She found that power not only makes lying easier, but pleasurable.

Professor Carney speculates that authority could have a similar impact on other unethical behavior with similar physiological responses, such as cheating, stealing, exploitation, reckless behavior and even political corruption. She concludes, “Power will lead to increases in intensity and frequency of lying.”

The United States apologized on Friday for an experiment conducted in the 1940s in which U.S. government medical researchers deliberately infected Guatemalan prison inmates with syphilis.

The subordinate is stuck in the impossible position of both being conditioned to obey the authority, and empathizing with the victim. Is it any wonder why we see high instances of suicide and post-traumatic stress disorder among soldiers, but not among the ranking officers who give them their orders.

A 50-year mystery over the 'cursed bread' of Pont-Saint-Esprit, which left residents suffering hallucinations, has been solved after a writer discovered the US had spiked the bread with LSD as part of an experiment.

87-year-old Lorraine Bayless collapsed at Glenwood Gardens senior living facility in Bakersfield, California. A nurse named Colleen called 911 and was instructed by the dispatcher, Tracey Halvorson, to perform CPR to save the woman’s life, but Colleen replied that it was against their policy and she couldn’t do it, so she watched Lorraine die.

Audio of the 911 call has been released which is chilling to the bone, and mainstream coverage of the story is almost as terrifying.

While drafting the Declaration of Independence Thomas Jefferson wrote "our fellow subjects," then scrubbed it out and replaced it with "our fellow citizens", showing an evolution of thought.

A French TV documentary features people in a spoof game show administering what they are told are near lethal electric shocks to rival contestants. Those taking part are told to pull levers to inflict shocks - increasing in voltage - upon their opponents. Although unaware that the contestants were actors and there was no electrical current, 82% of participants in the Game of Death agreed to pull the lever.