Never-before released photos of abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq were made public at an elite gathering in California on Thursday. Stanford University professor Philip Zimbardo displayed the shocking images as he described the prison’s design as resulting in a “Lucifer effect” that turned seemingly ordinary guards evil.”
If you give people power without oversight it is a formula for abuse,” Zimbardo said to stunned audience members at the Technology, Entertainment and Design conference, adding, “Unless it’s tenure.”
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“Because I had seen those cells before at Stanford. The power is in the system. It’s not bad apples, but bad barrel makers”.
You know, he’s right. We need someone ethical and semi-magical at the top of the pyramid. Someone like Scatman Crothers, really.
UPDATE: Mummified nun infestation pinpointed.
REUPDATE: Horrifyingly true! Not so much the celebs–though they’re horrifying–as what’s underneath his name at the head of his blog. *Shudder*
oh its all Lord of the Flies.
or mebbe more like ……13 Ghosts
the feng shui of evil
So his theory is that the plot of “Ghostbusters” and not a lack of oversight up the chain of command caused the “horrors!1!” at post-Saddam Abu Ghraib?
No, his theory is that a lack of oversight invited that, because the overseers can be trusted to oversee in a way that the underseers can’t.
Also, the barrel was bad.
An elite gathering in California. Do tell.
I saw those pics…the one of the guards stuffing those 17 Iraqis into a phone booth was the worst, even worse than the goldfish-swallowing ones.
How do you sleep?
On my side.
It’s ted.com’s. They’re a Roger Daltrey fanclub or something.
Oh. I’ve been getting lots of links from there from one of my europals. I clicked a bit and somewhere found that it was founded as a “new age” site. I think this weekend I’ll see what they’re up to. They have kind of daunting amount of content.
Someone should show these folks pics & videos of what happened in Abu Ghraib back when it was under Saddam’s mamangement. Might not hurt to point out that the folks who did this when we were running the place ended up with jail time for themselves and/or a dishonorable discharge, while Saddam’s thugs got medals for it.
I saw those pictures too and I was horrified, I tell you, mortified, I was petrified, stupefied, terrified, stultified, and all shook up especially about the ones with this guy wearing a dog collar, chained to a wall and with ten pound weights strapped to his balls and another one of a guy dressed in leather fisting this other guy with a ball gag in a suspended harness… hang on… that was something else. Sorry.
adding, “Unless it’s tenure.â€Â
Um… did he really say this or is it an Ace of Spades-style add on? Did he seriously say that? Was it a joke, or a self-aware bit of satire?
No, I added it on, Christopher.