Podcast Episode 333: Davi Barker on Psychological Testing
In this podcast episode from July 2013, Ben Stone talks to Davi Barker about the Milgram Experiment, the Stanford Prison Experiment, the psychological effects of power, and taking these experiments to the next step.
Links:
Link to the video of The Agorist Pitch – PorcFest X (Davi starts at 15m 56s)
The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil (book link)
The Milgram Experiment
Stanford prison experiment
Links to media produced after this podcast:
Authoritarian Sociopathy (article link)
Authoritarian Sociopathy: Toward a Renegade Psychological Experiment (book link)
Authoritarian Sociopathy: Toward a Renegade Psychological Experiment (audiobook torrent link and more)
Links to Davi Barker's other projects:
Bitcoin Not Bombs
Shiny Badges
Survivor Max
I haven't looked at the other experiments in depth, but scientifically speaking, the SPE was a joke:
There was no hypothesis
The guards were told how to behave, in accordance with Zimbardo's goals for the "experiment"
The Stanford Prison Experiment
And yet, it shows some disturbing aspects of authority nonetheless. And its results mesh with so many other studies in this field.
I can't agree because the methodology was so bad.
The SPE meshes with other findings because the "researcher" designed it to do so; it was a work of propaganda, and not an experiment.
It doesn't mean that the hypothesis is invalid; it just means we should look at other sources to examine that.
Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely
There has been enough historical justification to underscore the thought ;>