light years

adam and eve

self portrait 1979

Samsara

"The Perils of Obedience"

The Milgram experiment on obedience to authority figures was a series of social psychology experiments conducted by Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram, which measured the willingness of study participants to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts that conflicted with their personal conscience.

The experiments were also controversial, and considered by some scientists to be unethical and physically or psychologically abusive. Psychologist Diana Baumrind considered the experiment "harmful because it may cause permanent psychological damage and cause people to be less trusting in the future."

Three individuals were involved: the one running the experiment, the subject of the experiment (a volunteer), and a confederate pretending to be a volunteer. These three persons fill three distinct roles: the Experimenter (an authoritative role), the Teacher (a role intended to obey the orders of the Experimenter), and the Learner (the recipient of stimulus from the Teacher).

The subjects believed that for each wrong answer, the learner was receiving actual shocks. In reality, there were no shocks. After the confederate was separated from the subject, the confederate set up a tape recorder integrated with the electro-shock generator, which played pre-recorded sounds for each shock level. After a number of voltage level increases, the actor started to bang on the wall that separated him from the subject. After several times banging on the wall and complaining about his heart condition, all responses by the learner would cease.

At this point, many people indicated their desire to stop the experiment and check on the learner. Some test subjects paused at 135 volts and began to question the purpose of the experiment. Most continued after being assured that they would not be held responsible. A few subjects began to laugh nervously or exhibit other signs of extreme stress once they heard the screams of pain coming from the learner.

If at any time the subject indicated his desire to halt the experiment, he was given a succession of verbal prods by the experimenter, in this order:

    Please continue.
    The experiment requires that you continue.
    It is absolutely essential that you continue.
    You have no other choice, you must go on.

If the subject still wished to stop after all four successive verbal prods, the experiment was halted. Otherwise, it was halted after the subject had given the maximum 450-volt shock three times in succession.

Before conducting the experiment, Milgram polled fourteen Yale University senior-year psychology majors to predict the behavior of 100 hypothetical teachers. All of the poll respondents believed that only a very small fraction of teachers (the range was from zero to 3 out of 100, with an average of 1.2) would be prepared to inflict the maximum voltage.

In Milgram's first set of experiments, 65 percent (26 of 40) of experiment participants administered the experiment's final massive 450-volt shock, though many were very uncomfortable doing so; at some point, every participant paused and questioned the experiment; some said they would refund the money they were paid for participating in the experiment. Throughout the experiment, subjects displayed varying degrees of tension and stress. Subjects were sweating, trembling, stuttering, biting their lips, groaning, digging their fingernails into their skin, and some were even having nervous laughing fits or seizures.

Milgram summarized the experiment in his 1974 article, "The Perils of Obedience", writing:

    The legal and philosophic aspects of obedience are of enormous importance, but they say very little about how most people behave in concrete situations. I set up a simple experiment at Yale University to test how much pain an ordinary citizen would inflict on another person simply because he was ordered to by an experimental scientist. Stark authority was pitted against the subjects' [participants'] strongest moral imperatives against hurting others, and, with the subjects' [participants'] ears ringing with the screams of the victims, authority won more often than not. The extreme willingness of adults to go to almost any lengths on the command of an authority constitutes the chief finding of the study and the fact most urgently demanding explanation.

    Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority. (read more) (watch film)

Stanley Milgram 

blue

science fiction ?

if the truth 

looked like science fiction 

would you believe it ?

modified

monkey sniper

 it's 

a crazy world...

ain't it ?

wildfire

radical revolution of the mind

"It is no measure of health 

 

to be well adjusted 

to a profoundly sick society."

 

Jiddu Krishnamurti

countdown to zero

a possible future 

countdown to zero

life boat

We are spinning around on earth at 1,000 mph...

while we are orbiting the sun at 67,000 mph...

as we orbit the milky way galaxy at 483,000 mph...

we are all in the same lifeboat...are you dizzy yet?

(earth doesn't orbit the sun like you think)

mystery of the moon

moon rising

sgt. karl wolf

lunar anomalies

pioneers of space

space flight

self portrait 1979

when you dream...

dream big !

the context

adults only

bettie page

adults only please

the notorious bettie page

storm clouds

corrupt

a brief history of tyranny in america

today is world ufo day 2013

World UFO Day is an awareness day for people to gather together and watch the skies for unidentified flying objects. The day is celebrated by some on June 24, and others on July 2. June 24 is the date that aviator Kenneth Arnold reported what is generally considered to be the first unidentified flying object sighting in the United States, while July 2 commemorates the supposed UFO crash in the 1947 Roswell UFO Incident.


The stated goal of the July 2 celebration is to raise awareness of "the undoubted existence of UFOs" and to encourage governments to declassify their files on UFO sightings. This day is celebrated in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Canada, China, Thailand, Belgium, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Netherlands, South Africa, Taiwan, Turkey, Czech Republic, Australia, Spain, Korea, Brazil, Italy, France, Nigeria, Finland, Austria and Poland.

i love you so

the shadow government

the greater community

taboo

synchro

they are here

life in the universe

cannibal

when we 

put profit 

above life 

we are 

feeding on 

our young

the allies of humanity

skinny bob

three aliens

the allies of humanity

Good readers will do

what a wonderful world

Eric Arthur Blair

"In a time 

of universal deceit,

telling the truth 

is a revolutionary act."

George Orwell