5 Psychological Experiments That Prove Humanity is Doomed

[zonmoy]

Psychologists know you have to be careful when you go poking around the human mind because you're never sure what you'll find there. A number of psychological experiments over the years have yielded terrifying conclusions about the subjects.

Oh, we're not talking about the occasional psychopath who turns up. No, we're talking about you. The experiments speak for themselves:

http://www.cracked.com/article_16239_5-psychological-experiments-that-prove-humanity-doomed.html

[keep_it_real]

1. This does not bode well for the state of humanity

[katty]

2. best post of the day, thx, and we wonder why?NOT

[rock]

3. These propensities go back as far as history

So we've always been doomed. Being doomed and knowing when the death knell will sound are two different matters.

[ForeignSpectator]

4. K&R

[Prophet 451]

5. Already knew about these

I studied psychology at A-level and was told about these. There's one additional horrifying detail for the Milgram Experiment. Some variations of the experiment only had the authority figure communicating with the subject through a PA system (like an entryphone) but in both cases, the dial controlling the voltage had the lethal voltage clearly marked and the majority exceeded it anyway.

Of course, it wasn't really lethal because no shocks were really being administered but still, scary.

[eridani]

6. OK, but how about the OTHER Milgram experiments?

The ones demonstrating that just one ringer inserted into the mix saying "Hell no!" could get the followers to back off.

[Emillereid]

7. There's another experiment that belongs with the others but for the life of

me I can't remember the authors. Essentially the experimenters randomly assigned people to one group or another -- there's was absolutely nothing to distinguish one group from another -- and yet within minutes the groups began to believe their group was somehow better than the other; the us versus them mentality emerged quite quickly. Anyone else remember this experiment - I learned about it in the 60s so it's old.

[caraher]

9. it wasn't the prison experiment? nt

[Emillereid]

10. Nope. It was a very simple experiment. The experimenters randomly assigned

people into groups A and B - and within no time, they identified with their group and formed an us versus them mentality.

[uberllama42]

13. I was at a youth leadership conference when I was in high school

and they divided us into two political parties, the Federalists and the Nationalists. Within about three hours people from opposite sides were going nuts on each other, despite the fact that we had not established platforms and had no obvious ideological differences. People established party loyalties almost immediately, for no good reason other than the fact that we had been labeled as opponents.

[Soylent Brice]

8. i can't open the link from where i am..

i can't read the article at work. could someone post more info about this please?

[cliss]

11. I'm not sure if we're doomed....

...but we've got some problems.

I think if anything, our success as a species might just kill us. We've been too successful and as a result, we're decimating our home, Planet Earth.

Desmond Morris - the Naked Ape.
Have you read the book Naked Ape? It's a great book, the author explains that we are really tough, resilient creatures. I.e., the Australopithecus, a tough little ape which left Africa when things got too hot.
He calls us "Bad weather apes" meaning, we are suited to survive the toughest conditions; droughts, storms, freezing weather you name it we can survive the toughest conditions. Darwin's Law of the fittest!
Unfortunately, we have been able to eliminate so many of our threats that our success might just kill us.
There are currently 6.67 billion of us little Apes around the planet. The planet per se can only sustain around 2 billion. That means that 4.67 billion are at risk.

Decreasing quality of life.
As we spread out and cover the globe, our quality of life diminishes. The more mouths to feed, the more repressive become the governments, and nations become more unstable.

[uberllama42]

12. Actually, the phrase "survival of the fittest" belongs to Herbert Spencer

Who published seven years before Darwin's Origin of Species. He was more of a sociologist than a biologist, and a lot of the eugenic ideas sometimes labeled Darwinism came from him.

A lot of people who attack Darwin claim that his theory was racist, but in reality his experience with Fuegians and other "primitive" cultures made him slightly less racist than the average Victorian.