Obedience to Authority
an experimental view
by Stanley Milgram · first published 1974
22% recommend65% neutral13% critical
Why HN recommends it
Classic account of Milgram's shock experiments showing how far ordinary people will go under instruction from an authority figure; a key text on obedience and moral responsibility in social science.
Common criticism: Critics question whether the experiment's results replicate reliably.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
In an experiment volunteers are instructed by an experimenter to administer an electric shock every time a learner makes a mistake. How many would go right up the scale to 450 Volts? This study goes some way towards explaining how ordinary people can commit the most horrific of crimes if placed under the influence of a malevolent authority.
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…an unresponsive subject with 450 volts, when almost everyone had assumed, prior to the experiment actually being run, that only a one-in-a-thousand psychopath would get there. Check out Milgram's book Obedience To Authority for more details.)
on “What happens when you refuse to answer a passport control officer's questions” ↗The book Obedience to Authority: http://www.amazon.com/Obedience-Authority-Stanley-Milgram/dp... Is an excellent piece of work, and shows how much work really needs to be done to try and do social science. Here's the actual table…
on “Half of Milgram’s subjects told him to take a hike” ↗That study is a classic that belongs alongside Milgram (obedience to authority) and Zimbardo (Stanford prison experiment). I'm not sure why it isn't better known. The three go together perfectly.
on “Obama Sued by Rand Paul Over Phone Surveillance Program” ↗…- de Grey * Gut Feelings - Gigirenzer Fiction: * Heart of Darkness - Conrad * Candide - Voltaire * Brave New World - Huxley * Selected Works - Goethe * 1984 & Animal Farm - Orwell Politics: * Obedience to Authority - Milgram * The Problem of Political Authority - Huemer * The Communist Manifesto - Marx * Socialism - von Mises * Just One Child - Greenhalgh * The God That Failed - Crossman * Death by Government…
on “Ask HN: What did you purchase that measurably improved your quality of life?” ↗I recommend that everyone read Stanley Milgram's book Obedience to Authority about his fake shock experiments. Some people simply suspend moral judgement entirely in circumstances where someone else is calling the shots. They no more regard themselves as culpable for the bad…
on “Tyranny of the Marginal User: why software gets worse, not better, over time” ↗This might apply here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obedience_to_Authority:_An_Exp... I recommend reading the book, it has a ton of useful stuff in it beyond what everyone knows about the Milgram experiment.
on “Meta found 'covertly tracking' Android users through Instagram and Facebook” ↗Following all the rules does not make you a good person. In fact, rule following and obedience to authority is what enables large scale evil. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment for a famous demonstration.
on “Y Combinator’s Paul Graham: We’re Looking For People Like Us” ↗There was a discussion on the experiments by Stanley Milgram about obedience to authority, and it applies here. When a consultant gets hired for advise or to "get stuff done", and the result of this is massive profits with a secondary effect of death and destruction, then the consultant is…
on “McKinsey to pay $573M to settle claims over opioid crisis role: source” ↗…Professor Fagan. Its a long read but worth it. >It looks very much as if you do. Far from it, unless you believe in not informing the public. The IPCC were hacked and exposed. Worth understanding Milgram's obedience to authority. Just whose data do you trust?
on “Antarctic CO2 Hit 400 PPM for First Time in 4M Years” ↗without any mention of the issues regarding the inability of anyone to reproduce the Milgram experiments and get the same results with any consistency, the whole example of "Obedience to Authority" as it relates to this sanctioned abuse of power should be thrown out. there isn't much left to learn from the milgram saga, other than that the consumer public absolutely loves pop-culture science.
on “Obedience to Authority: The Experiments by Stanley Milgram” ↗…reads: 1. Finite and infinite games, by James Carse 2. Antifragile, by Nassim Taleb (IMHO the book rambles on a little too much; some of his hour long YouTube talks convey the ideas almost as well) 3. Obedience to authority, by Stanley Milgram
on “Ask HN: What books have made the biggest impact on your mental models?” ↗…here. I told you I had heart trouble. My heart’s starting to bother me now. Get me out of here, please. My heart’s starting to bother me. I refuse to go on. Let me out." See the start of Chapter 7 of Obedience to Authority for more details. > Maybe try and jump the supervisor and make a bolt for the door? In the baseline "voice feedback" condition, the learner is strapped into a chair. He can't bolt. I think that the…
on “Obedience to Authority: The Experiments by Stanley Milgram” ↗…authoritarian abuses .." Yes but for a reason. One of the (nasty) findings of the Milgram experiment was that you don't have to be a "Nazis" in order to obey orders. For me there is nothing "cool" about blind obedience to Authority ~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment#Results
on “Milgram experiment participant who refused to administer shocks” ↗…our superior rationality. But what we should do is try to learn even more from theist errors. The errors are not just limited to the obvious (to us) errors like faith in the supernatural. There's also obedience to authority. The Milgram Experiments show that plenty of good people will do evil in certain circumstances.
on “What-aboutery” ↗…experiments, where people went along with the group with no overt pressure and with nothing at stake: http://psychology.about.com/od/classicpsychologystudies/p/conformity.htm The Milgram experiments on obedience to authority are also relevant. 65% of subjects went along with what amounted to torture of another person: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment While these experiments weren't about the spread of…
on “10% of a population is the tipping point for intellectual disruption” ↗