[bambax]

> By staying silent and letting the memory study fall apart, the experimenter allowed an atmosphere of illegitimate violence to flourish.

Many people are cruel. Not all people, maybe; not most people, also maybe; but some people enjoy hurting others. We see this everywhere. Isn't it possible that this kind of profile jumped on the occasion to inflict pain on people with no fear of repercussions?

In other words, isn't this study just a sort filter to triage / order students from most cruel to less cruel?

[sneak]

No. I highly encourage people to read his book. What you are describing is a classic example of Fundamental Attribution Error - the assumption that people’s actions are primarily the result of some innate trait, versus that of circumstance.

His study plainly shows that most people, in the right circumstances, will act in unimaginably cruel ways.

[newsclues]

People that have been abused are more likely to abuse others.

If we remove this cycle of abuse, what is the natural rate of humans that will hurt others?

An uncomfortable idea, as victims become perpetrators, it may be best to segregate victims to prevent future abuse and victimization.

[stavros]

People that have been treated well are more likely to treat other people well.

If we remove this cycle of decency, what is the natural rate of humans that will hurt others?

The premise is flawed, humans learn from their environment and there's really no way to put a human in a coffin until they're 20 and see what they do then.

[palmotea]

> The premise is flawed, humans learn from their environment and there's really no way to put a human in a coffin until they're 20 and see what they do then.

Yeah, but you can also find that rate if you remove the trigger (abuse) from the environment (society) and see how the rate changes.

You don't have to lock someone in a coffin, or something ridiculous like that (and that would be counterproductive anyway). You create a society, or a least a sub-society, where there's no abuse, and see how much abuse is invented by the people raised in that environment.

[stavros]

Right but then you don't need to change anything, simply measure how many people act the opposite way to what they were raised, and then you'll know.

[palmotea]

> Right but then you don't need to change anything, simply measure how many people act the opposite way to what they were raised, and then you'll know.

That's presuming the only influence on a child's development are the adults who are raising them, which is not true.

[stavros]

In that case, preventing abuse has the same issue (it only changes the adults).

[newsclues]

If a child is sexually abused, perhaps society would benefit from segregating the victims of abuse to prevent the cycle of abuse from continuing?

Let’s put it another way, if a catholic priest touches a choirboy, it’s not a good idea to let the choirboy become a priest and victimize the next generation of choirboys.

Gross but perhaps a benefit to society

[kakacik]

Nobody can answer that. Abuse can be low intensity, spread across large period of time or intense 1-off event and resulting damage can be similar. Spread across whole lifetimes till the point of experiment.

Extremely individual reactions, what makes one tougher breaks another completely and permanently, and everything in between.

I'd say everybody experienced some sort and level of abuse, typical school bullies (which were usually also bullied somehow, hence the behavior).

[card_zero]

Back in the course of human evolution there must at some point have been mammals who were not yet riding on the dysfunctional cycle of violence. That means the natural rate must be non-zero, at least, or else the cycle would have no starting momentum.

[applfanboysbgon]

> as victims become perpetrators, it may be best to segregate victims to prevent future abuse and victimization

Wonderful idea. Let's not forget to segregate the poors, since they commit violent crimes at higher rates too. We can build a perfect utopia if only we just get rid of all the undesirables!

[anigbrowl]

I like how you went from a probabilistic assertion in the first sentence to a categorical one in the last. Perhaps you grew up in a fallacious environment.

[fishpen0]

In practice this just stops victims from coming forward and deepens the cycle