It's not Russia, it's Putin
This topic contains 262 replies, has 9 voices, and was last updated by TheEncogitationer 1 year, 6 months ago.
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September 14, 2022 at 9:14 pm #44553
You would have to go far and wide simply soliciting passersby to find somebody to shock to death a stranger. Yes context matters.
It’s not context. It’s manipulation. The authority itself is an illusion of social order. While I am not suggesting response to authority isn’t a thing, I am saying it’s wrong to place excessive emphasis on it. In the Milgram experiment, the person conducting the fake experiment doesn’t have authority over the participant until the participant is put through a series of manipulations. What I am saying is if you remove the manipulations, the authority aspect would likely have a higher failure rate on its own than manipulation would if you removed the authority figure.
September 14, 2022 at 9:28 pm #44554Context and manipulation in appearance of authority are symbiotic.
Autumn, I guess i am not sure what you are getting at. If the subjects felt less coerced they would not give the shocks? So if the experiment was intended to inform the subjects that choosing to shock was purely voluntary and that they could decline there would be fewer who complied? If that is what you are getting at then i agree. I would call that context. When the mob is doing awful shit or authority requires us to do awful shit we are inclined as a species to do awful shit. I am only guessing what you are intending to convey.
September 14, 2022 at 11:04 pm #44555Pope that report did not mention that “Patriarch” Kirill was a Soviet KGB agent, LOL.
WOW! This is Darth Vader shit now.
September 14, 2022 at 11:59 pm #44556Autumn, I guess i am not sure what you are getting at.
Symptom versus disease. Abusive authority dynamics are a symptom of much more fundamental problems, and those problems can manifest in other harmful ways such that you and I are the ones doling out shocks even without any apparent authoritarian command.
September 15, 2022 at 12:35 am #44558I’m not asking just Jake, but would it help our contextual understanding any to use the example of Putin (as the exploiter/authority) and his Russian soldiers and/or Ukrainians as his long con/experimental subjects?
Also interesting (emphasis mine):
The point is that it is the appearance of AUTHORITY that causes the rank and file to do as they’re told, to go with the flow. That is fairly universal among us and throughout history. I agree it is not inherently good or bad. It just is. It is not working for us though. In a state of nature it is the right way.
Nature, literally accidentally created this brain we have. Perhaps if we could leave a time capsule that could be dug up generations later after we’ve bombed ourselves back to the stone age… Could you or we think of something to write for the time capsule, as if it’s coming from Mother Nature Herself (or credible surrogate), unlike Dead Sea Scrolls, to set homo sapiens (or similar) off on the right foot this time?
September 15, 2022 at 1:40 am #44560I’m not asking just Jake, but would it help our contextual understanding any to use the example of Putin (as the exploiter/authority) and his Russian soldiers and/or Ukrainians as his long con/experimental subjects?
I’d wager there are many many Russians who are neither loyal nor obedient to Putin. And amongst the soldiers there are many who don’t want to be fighting in Ukraine, supposedly. But the enormity of what falls under his jurisdiction is actually mind-boggling. I think it hits a space where our minds can’t really grasp what we individually could really do to stop Putin and cut off the authority invested in him short of assassination. When you have millions of people all trapped in a “but what can I do about it?” mindset, it’s very difficult for an adequate number to speak up, get organized, and move effectively in opposition. From Putin’s perspective, he doesn’t need the majority of Russia to support him even; he just needs them to not actively stand against him.
September 15, 2022 at 1:44 am #44561I would have a diminished opinion of myself if i fell in line with the majority of Milgram subjects.
I have questioned things since i was a kid. Have questioned teachers. Have thought my way to unpopular opinions. Have stood up for people who were being abused by a groups at risk of personal harm. I have felt repulsed at the herd instinct viscerally. I used to be so fucked up i would not go to a movie because i hated getting up at same time as the audience. I know that is odd. Really can not see myself administering shocks. I remember touching an electric fence only 100 volts and it stung. Have been shocked by an old tv and it was not fun. I can not conceive of any way i would be manipulated into being a shocker.
The five mile queue is a symptom of the same disease. You show me a person who is in awe of the queen and will wait that long to catch a glimpse and i will show you a shocker.
The Russians who are feeling sick at having to prosecute Putin’s war are not alone. Imagine how many throughout history have (1. not wanted to risk or give up their lives or take lives even for a just cause 2. damn sure not wanted to risk or give up their lives or take lives for an unjust cause.) They feel trapped. In the 2nd WW Russian deserters were shot. The Putin’s put up their feet on a desk at a safe distance from harm and assess the progress of their game. Lives are so damn cheap. And people like chimps FEEL their place and their importance in the hierarchy. Like Autumn’s mom and the majority of humans we feel confined in our role and our freedom.
Sorry Pope i got no wisdom for time capsule.
September 15, 2022 at 5:46 am #44563Accountable to others for what?
The subject has made an agreement with the experimenter. Agreements have normative force: instinctively we feel we should stick to them. This is the manipulation in my opinion.
September 15, 2022 at 4:41 pm #44567Simon says: The subject has made an agreement with the experimenter. Agreements have normative force: instinctively we feel we should stick to them. This is the manipulation in my opinion.
I simply do not see it. Authority v. decency is how i see it. And that is how Milgram saw it. Here is what he wrote.
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.[11]
If you want to say that the exercise of authority is manipulative i say that it is intended to be. For the great majority authority or its appearance is difficult to deny. I suppose if all citizens were questioning authority all of the time that society would fail. There has to be a happy medium. It can’t be treason to oppose tryranny…to steal a line.
September 15, 2022 at 5:40 pm #44568Both Russia and Ukraine have the same problem: Their crack forces are mostly dead or injured and they are forced to recruit or draft amateurs and quickly train them how to fight or in the Case of Russia to use mercenaries or troops from allies like the Chechens. Now, nonprofessional soldiers don’t adhere to the chain of command and are far less committed than their pro counterparts, so both sides are plagued by deserters or soldiers who wave the white flag in order to save their skins.
Now, Ukraine’s recent gains almost seem too easy. One can’t completely rule out a Russian trap where Ukraine moves in ahead of its supply lines and best offensive weapons and Russian troops move in to surround them and cut their supply lines.
There is open criticism of Putin in Russia now on Russian TV and Putin’s days in power may be numbered, though a few of his enemies may find themselves plunging from sixth floor windows as has been happening. “Accidents” of that sort have been happening lately, along with handgun “suicides.”
The problem is, we don’t know who would replace him. Would it be a leader who wants to be able to claim he got Russia out and will bring the country back into the international fold or will it be someone more determined to win the war and maybe with the smarts and leadership skills to pull it off?
September 15, 2022 at 8:57 pm #44569These post WWII attempts that superpowers make to occupy smaller countries never pan out. Even after the US and allies wrecked the Iraqi Army; the city of Baghdad could not be secured. There was a IED or an RPG waiting for you around the next corner. And now every Ukranian knows the Russian military is bullshit. A $240K US missile versus a $35M Russian jet or $5M tank….which side would you rather be on?
September 15, 2022 at 10:34 pm #44570I think I would disagree somewhat about both Russia and Ukraine having the same problem regarding their troops. Ukraine has several factions, some from Ukraine and some from neighboring countries that have been fighting Russia for years. Some like the Muslim Tartar brigade from Crimea or Chechen “rebels” strike fear and horror into Russian troops. These groups hate Russia with such a passion as they are happy to die in battle killing them.
Some of the recently recaptured towns in the East said that many of the Russian soldiers there came in the second wave and were mostly “innocent children” who admitted to only joining because it gave them a wage. Most were only in army a few weeks before arriving in Ukraine and were there to defend what the first wave had captured. They fled because most were still just gullible teenagers who had never been outside their villages in Russia and had no combat experience. They ripped off their Russian uniforms and dressed in local civilian clothing and fled. When you hear that brigades of Chechen rebels and Muslim Tartars are speeding towards you and that they consider you to be “the underwear of the orcs”, it’s exit stage left time. They are being slaughtered now.
Russia troop morale is almost non-existent. They don’t want to be there. Ukrainians civilian groups are not just trying to take back their lands from “the intruders” but are out to settle scores for Russian war crimes. The official army is being continually trained in battle and by elite forces from NATO countries who are not just arming them but often fighting alongside them.
September 15, 2022 at 10:57 pm #44571Maybe Russia should have put their best software people on developing weapon systems instead of trying to divide US citizens, splintering our families with all the Q/Maga crap, influencing our elections, anti-vax BS, and spawning billions of right-wing facebook/twitter bots. Granted, they are good at it. There are still plenty of very stupid ass Americans who are drinking from the firehose of bullshit. I even dug into some shady political emails I got and sure enough it went back to a .ru domain. Fuck Russia.
September 15, 2022 at 11:35 pm #44573When I first saw this photograph of 2 Republicans at a Trump rally in 2018 (in Ohio, I think), I remember thinking that the GOP was never going to recover. Many are still falling for the corrupter in chief. I was sad and angry at the same time and then just very disappointed. America, what have you just gone and done!
September 15, 2022 at 11:57 pm #44574When I first saw this photograph of 2 Republicans at a Trump rally in 2018 (in Ohio, I think), I remember thinking that the GOP was never going to recover. Many are still falling for the corrupter in chief. I was sad and angry at the same time and then just very disappointed. America, what have you just gone and done!
Overdue for heart attacks and Mexican immigrants are their big concern. It’s the culmination of years of trickle-down. From unions and pensions to “here, invest in our 401k because we are moving your good jobs overseas”. No wonder these idiot boomers are all so disillusioned. Their “golden years” will not live up to the description therefore they blame the homeless, atheists, gays, trans, dems, Mexicans. Yeah, Trump’s gonna drain the swamp.
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