J.D. Riley's Blog
September 19, 2013
Twilight of the Zombies
After seeing the nascent Clown Holocaust arising in England, it occurs to me that Zombies are no longer cool or edgy; they are becoming worn out and prosaic. For Pete's sake, they're showing up in Sprint PCS stores inquiring about their "Unlimited for Life" guarantee. We have zombie computers, zombie processes, zombie debt, zombie loans, zombie banks--zombie zombie zombie. I realized that the golden age of zombies had jumped the shark when I saw the government getting on board with Zombie Apocalypse preparedness drivel from FEMA and the CDC. Nothing takes something from sixty to zero like the government. It's sadly tragic and mildly embarrassing by proxy, like me wearing Old Navy clothing. If the grown-ups are doing it, it just isn't cool anymore.
I'm not saying that all the impending zombie doom heading at us in the the form of World War Z isn't happening, or that Max Brooks and J. L. Bourne are just writing third-rate Twilight fan fiction. I am merely saying that I believe I have glimpsed the beginning of the end of this iteration of the zombie craze. But who knows, I could be wrong. I frequently am (my wife has reams of evidence to support this). All I know is that twenty-some years ago, I was hearing "Can't Touch This" being weaponized into a sonic death ray inside a club where I was working security. Yesterday, I heard it in a Eggos commercial.
You will know that it is finally, totally over when you hear Isolated System playing in your dentist’s waiting room.
I'm not saying that all the impending zombie doom heading at us in the the form of World War Z isn't happening, or that Max Brooks and J. L. Bourne are just writing third-rate Twilight fan fiction. I am merely saying that I believe I have glimpsed the beginning of the end of this iteration of the zombie craze. But who knows, I could be wrong. I frequently am (my wife has reams of evidence to support this). All I know is that twenty-some years ago, I was hearing "Can't Touch This" being weaponized into a sonic death ray inside a club where I was working security. Yesterday, I heard it in a Eggos commercial.
You will know that it is finally, totally over when you hear Isolated System playing in your dentist’s waiting room.
May 6, 2012
The Power of One
I caught an episode of Curiosity on the Science Channel last night (Saturday May 5, 2012) in which they repeated the (in)famous Milgram experiment on obedience to authority conducted at Yale University 1961-62. In short, test subjects were told they were participating in a study on the effects of negative reinforcement on learning. In this case, that negative reinforcement was purported to be a series of increasingly powerful electrical shocks administered by the actual test subject (the “teacher”) to an actor portraying the “learner” test subject. Just pulling numbers from my head, the experiment showed that a disturbing majority of people (in the neighborhood of 70 percent) would administer what they believed to be electrical shocks as high as 450 volts to screaming, protesting, begging subjects, simply because some “authority figure” told them to.
The results of the repeated experiment closely mirrored the 1961-62 results. Do an internet search on Milgram and you can read all you ever wanted to know about the results. People were genuinely distraught over what they believed to be torturous treatment they were giving to another person, but continued to do it because some guy in a lab coat told them that they must continue.
One woman in the Science Channel repeatedly refused to participate. Once understood that she would be shocking another person, she refused. One man refused to continue when the “learner” screamed that he wanted to stop and that he was experiencing heart discomfort (the subjects were led to believe that the learner had a mild heart condition). His reason was not repugnance, but legality. He cited the document that they signed which indicated that either subject could end their participation at anytime. Most others, however, kept administering “shocks” right up to the moral moment of truth built into the test at 150 volts, when the learner screamed that he was having chest pains and wanted to stop. They protested to Dr. von Labcoat, but after receiving his monotone “you must continue,” they did, sending a heart-warming 165 volts down the line, or so they believed.
The Science Channel then conducted a variation of the experiment. This time there were two people at the “teacher” table from where the shocks were administered--the test subject, and another actor. The actor refused to continue past the point where the learner said he wanted to stop. When that happened, the real test subjects spoke up that they too wanted to stop. Up to that point, they had participated in administering the shocks in spite of obvious moral conflict.
We have all heard “one person can make a difference,” or some similar positive, feel-good platitude. In this case, one person can make a difference. The time may come when some authority figure will expect us to “continue” their experiment in spite of the protests or pleas of the subjects. It probably won’t be administering electrical shocks to somebody. Instead, it might be ratting out your neighbor to whatever secret police with which we have been saddled. Maybe you will be expected to stand idly by while somebody is rounded up, or abused, or violated, or robbed, or tortured, or killed because of some twisted authoritarian pogrom. When times get ugly, and the jackboots begin the “three o’clock knocks,” standing up--standing out--is the last thing our survival instincts want us to do. Maybe this time it won’t be you or me that is being hustled out into the streets by government bullies, and we’ll thank our lucky stars. Next time we may not be so lucky, and it will be our turn at the “learners” table. As Protestant Pastor Martin Niemöller so eloquently pointed out, the life you save by standing up for others just might be your own:
First, they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out--
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out--
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out--
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me--and there was no one left to speak for me.
Pastor Niemöller spent the last seven years of Nazi rule in Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps.
The results of the repeated experiment closely mirrored the 1961-62 results. Do an internet search on Milgram and you can read all you ever wanted to know about the results. People were genuinely distraught over what they believed to be torturous treatment they were giving to another person, but continued to do it because some guy in a lab coat told them that they must continue.
One woman in the Science Channel repeatedly refused to participate. Once understood that she would be shocking another person, she refused. One man refused to continue when the “learner” screamed that he wanted to stop and that he was experiencing heart discomfort (the subjects were led to believe that the learner had a mild heart condition). His reason was not repugnance, but legality. He cited the document that they signed which indicated that either subject could end their participation at anytime. Most others, however, kept administering “shocks” right up to the moral moment of truth built into the test at 150 volts, when the learner screamed that he was having chest pains and wanted to stop. They protested to Dr. von Labcoat, but after receiving his monotone “you must continue,” they did, sending a heart-warming 165 volts down the line, or so they believed.
The Science Channel then conducted a variation of the experiment. This time there were two people at the “teacher” table from where the shocks were administered--the test subject, and another actor. The actor refused to continue past the point where the learner said he wanted to stop. When that happened, the real test subjects spoke up that they too wanted to stop. Up to that point, they had participated in administering the shocks in spite of obvious moral conflict.
We have all heard “one person can make a difference,” or some similar positive, feel-good platitude. In this case, one person can make a difference. The time may come when some authority figure will expect us to “continue” their experiment in spite of the protests or pleas of the subjects. It probably won’t be administering electrical shocks to somebody. Instead, it might be ratting out your neighbor to whatever secret police with which we have been saddled. Maybe you will be expected to stand idly by while somebody is rounded up, or abused, or violated, or robbed, or tortured, or killed because of some twisted authoritarian pogrom. When times get ugly, and the jackboots begin the “three o’clock knocks,” standing up--standing out--is the last thing our survival instincts want us to do. Maybe this time it won’t be you or me that is being hustled out into the streets by government bullies, and we’ll thank our lucky stars. Next time we may not be so lucky, and it will be our turn at the “learners” table. As Protestant Pastor Martin Niemöller so eloquently pointed out, the life you save by standing up for others just might be your own:
First, they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out--
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out--
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out--
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me--and there was no one left to speak for me.
Pastor Niemöller spent the last seven years of Nazi rule in Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps.
