h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

He certainly started a discussion. I misunderstood the question. I raised my hand because I thought I might fall for hurting people if a boss told me to, but the teacher wanted the hands of those who thought they *wouldn't."

Juist one more example of my feckless inability to be dishonest even if it makes my friends criticize me. My friends did criticize me. I couldn't have done otherwise. I know I'm capable of hurting people, and I wish I could find a cure for it.

Looking for the 'cure' is a transcendental question. Most religions are still working on it.

It's trickier than in sounds.

Just read Byron:

IN men whom men condemn as ill
I find so much of goodness still,
In men whom men pronounce divine
I find so much of sin and blot,
I do not dare to draw a line
Between the two, where God has not.

I'd consider the source on that quote.

It' always to double-check. I may have misunderstood. The *title* seems to be Byron. The author is Joaquin Miller.

Joaquin 'Behind Him Lay the Grey Azores' Miller? Hm. Real name: Cincinnatus Hiner Miller...

Ambrose Bierce said of him (according to W*k*): 'In impugning Mr. Miller's veracity, or rather, in plainly declaring that he has none, I should be sorry to be understood as attributing a graver moral delinquency than he really has. He cannot, or will not, tell the truth, but he never tells a malicious or thrifty falsehood.' Which isn't quite as bad as what Truman said about Nixon, but close.

I wouldn't take his word for anything - Miller's, I mean. He was a filibuster. Filibusters were Americans who went around fomenting revolutions in South American countries. I disapprove of this activity quite as much as I do making schoolkids recite Mr Miller's poetry.

Would you like schoolkids to recite form the following list?

http://classicalpoets.org/2016/01/07/10-greatest-poems-ever-written/

I have seen Milgram's experiment and "The Wave" when I was in secondary school around the same time we all went to see "Schindlers list". Not really a happy part of the curriculum.

I wonder about an alternative version of the experiment. Given that not hurting the subject will make you the subject, would you trust the person after you to do the same? And if not, would this change your choice?

I'm a little confused, Caiman. Could you run that experimental design change by me again?

". Given that not hurting the subject will make you the subject"

I'm not sure how that would be the case. Do you have to be the subject in order to not hurt the subject?

Searching for a cure requires that you actually understand the sickness.

Good point, there.

I agree.

Sometimes, though, a cure accidentally presents itself. Serendipidity.

Penicillin. Or perhaps beta blockers for Covid-19. (Or not. Things do tonturn without warning. I'd be sorry not to sue them.)

Sorry about the typos in the previous post. The sun is in my eyes, and my fingers are clumsy.

When they isolate the particular allele that causes evilness...

Ah wait, been down this conversational road before...

There's definitely (I'll avoid using evil) something that surfaces when you give certain humans an excuse, or authority, to inflict suffering on others.

Maybe it's simple cowardice, the prospect of being caught and punished, that prevents 'normal' people admitting that just beneath the veneer of civilization lurks an actual monster that can be coaxed out by the tiniest of reasons?

Remove the fear of being culpable, and the trap door opens, and the daemons surface!

OK, people are evil or certainly capable of evil.

Cue the arguments...

No argument here. Theologically, it's called Original Sin. After that, things get murky.

The "monster" inside me is someone who wants to charm people with how much he knows. Even if it turns out that the other people know more. Which is often beneficial because the monster in me often enjoys learning some things he didn't know.



My mother's brothers were fond of telling stories. Any kind of audience would do, but an appreciative one was best. You should see my brother when he's in front of a group of his admirers.

I do miss he days when people came to libraries to get answers from reference librarians (of which I was one). Now people carry little gadgets in their pockets, so they can look things up on Google.

O course, librarians have tried to warn people not to believe everything they see on Google.

Especially when Google and others are selective in giving you what they think you want to hear instead of just giving you everything to let you decide on what is relevant.

-Run that change past me again-

So: If in the experiment, instead of having a distinction between people doing the hurting and people getting hurt as separate groups, you give the people doing the hurting the choice not to hurt someone at the cost of replacing the person you could have been hurting, would you trust the person after you to make the same choice, not hurting you and releasing you from your post?

I have a mental image of hundreds of librarians queuing up to give each other electric shocks now...vicious race of beings are the Librarians.