This famous experiment was conducted in August 1971. The researcher had placed an ad in the Palo Alto City newspaper.

70 people replied and were brought in for interviews. According to Zimbardo, the lead researcher, these were “diagnostic interviews”. The term “diagnostic interview” was understood to mean looking for mental instability or particular sadistic tendencies in the respondents. The interviews were also used to eliminate respondents with “medical disability or history of crime or drug abuse”.

After the interviews, they were left with 24 participants.

This is the very first point of contention. There are many articles that discuss how these elimination interviews were not screening for the right psychological indicators. This is an open question because different people can have different opinions on what are disqualifying indicators.

One article question if the diagnostic interviews tested for BDSM tendencies. As shown about, the understanding was that sadistic tendencies were tested for, but the actual description by Zimbardo does not explicitly state that exclusion.

Also note, there are many articles that reference or discuss the SPE, there are books and movies about it. What I was unable to find is the original peer reviewed publication. The quotes I am using come from a 1975-slide show that Zimbardo prepared.

The way the experiment began, again according to Zimbardo, was:

Blindfolds are not part of normal police procedures. Before the victim even arrives at the mock prison, they have already been treated outside the normal practices.

One of the things to note is that Zimbardo was a prison reform activist. To set up his mock prison, he “called upon the services of experienced consultants”. His primary consultant was Carlo Prescott, a convicted felon with seventeen years in San Quentin, Soledad, Folsom and other prison.

His other consultants came from a pool of other ex-convicts and correctional personnel.

This would be the equivalent of somebody wanting to find out how access to guns effects people, and then hiring Giffords as their lead consultant. With their other consultants being experts recommended by Giffords, such as Brady, March for Our Lives, and Everytown.

As part of their mock prison, they created a punishment cell, called “The Hole”. It was a 2×2 closet. If you read The Gulag Archipelago: An experiment in Literary Investigation you will find a section where Solzhenitsyn talks about prisoners being tortured by being placed in an out building about 2 by 2 with countless bugs.

It makes me think that maybe Zimbardo might have heard some speeches by Solzhenitsyn and decided to implement parts of that narrative as part of his mock representation of an American prison.

From the point the prisoners are brought into the mock prison, they are treated in a manner to break them.

The prisoners were issued a smock, no underclothes, a pair of rubber sandals, a hair cap. They were fitted with a chain to their ankle.

Again, not at all normal.

I’m disgusted at what I’m reading. More so because Zimbardo is proud of his work.

He used this work to try to change people’s opinion of prison life. To imply that all prison personal were petty, sadistic, dictators.

In 2019, Thibault Le Texier published his paper “Debunking the Stanford Prison Experiment”

In other words, as a commentor pointed out on my article about Ordinary Men, there is a strong likelihood that the SPE is bad science.

I am in the process of separating from my job and caught a nasty crud to boot. I have something else already aligned and look forward to spending several days of leisure with the missus since I have had a vacation in over a year (And no, recovering from surgery is NOT a vacation dear HR department.)

Keeping with my long-standing policy, I shall not comment about the job I am leaving in specifics, but some general comments will eventually find this page, mostly about behaviors that can be applied to the usual musings of this blog.

I am taking a couple of classes this coming Sunday: USCCA Introduction to Defensive Shooting and USCCA Increasing Practical Marksmanship. I shall issue the appropriate AAR at a later date.

I am also planning on taking a defensive shooting class at a local range. I had one probably 25 years ago and barely touched a shotgun since. It is possibly the weapon I know the least and I intend to remedy that.

My Brother-in-Law has already issue threats about taking me hunting this Fall. Paraphrasing Captain Mal Reynolds, I guess I shall be ready to wait long time for a deer don’t come.  Speaking of BiL, I want to gift him with an AR in .458 SOCOM and I am looking for uppers.  He is truly a great guy and deserves to have at least one gun in the AR platform.  Any input you could offer will be greatly appreciated.

I think it is time to show some love to my faithful WASR 10 and upgrade it with MAGPUL Zhukov furniture and maybe even a new red dot even though the TruGlo installed in it has been flawless.

Another project I am thinking about is a very light AR based 9 mm pistol for the missus since she has been showing interest on longer weapons for home defense. Some interesting conversion kits for normal AR lowers are out there which make this project interesting.

That’s it for now.

Coast Guard deploys boats to deter ‘pirates’ taking over Oakland estuary, officials say

Pirates are taking over the Oakland Estuary Marinas. Yes, pirates. And local and federal authorities says it’s getting so bad – the U.S. Coast Guard is deploying help to patrol the area.

“Boat owners attacked by pirates,” said Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao. “There are no excuses for that.”

The vessels abandoned are covered in graffiti – left like a battleground scene of an action movie.

“We’re talking about piracy,” de Lappe said. “People who are living aboard marinas are being terrorized by these elements coming in at night in small dinghies.”

Why would be assume that the massive increase in property crime in California would be limited to land.

The same lack of prosecution and enforcement applies to California waterways as well.

Just as looting is skyrocketing on land, piracy is skyrocketing off shore.

It’s just too bad that you can’t shoot pirates in California like you can off the coast of Somalia.

That might prove to be an effective deterrent.

From the NY Post:

Murders in Staten Island soar 129% so far in 2023: ‘Wholly unacceptable’

Murders in the “forgotten” borough have surged 129% so far this year over last year, to 16 from seven.

Major crimes are up in every category and 17% overall, according to NYPD data through Sept. 10.

“This year’s increase in crime on Staten Island is wholly unacceptable,” District Attorney Michael McMahon told The Post, noting his office “has work to do” because of “misguided and harmful policies visited upon us by outside forces.”

Some of the murders and robberies are fueled by street gangs, mostly on the North Shore, said one recently retired veteran detective.

“These guys are just out there trying to make a name for themselves,” the detective said, adding, “They walk around with guns and there’s no stop and frisk anymore.”

Maybe letting New Yorkers defend themselves would change this.

Bruen was delivered to make that possible and New York responded with a legislative hissy fit that was even more restrictive than the pre-Bruen regulations.

And all they have to show for it is more violence and murder.

The Supreme Court should come back and smack these Blue state laws that try and do a end run around Bruen down so the good people of New York can actually defend themselves.

Shannon Watts wants to control our lives through the implementation of gun control and environmental regulations.

She thinks she knows better than the rest of us how to live.

Turns out, she’s a really shitty mom.

Hoe in the name of Zeus’ wrinkled ball-sack, do you raise a child who does not know what a toll is or how to pay one?

What is up with this trend of upper middle-class wine moms bragging about everyday activities their adult children cannot do.

You fucking raised them and you did a shit job of it, now you want to tell the rest of us how to live?

Fuck you.

Have another box of Franzia and contemplate your shitty parenting skills.

H/T: the wife, who is a much better mom than Watts.

That phone can get you killed.

Related note, #Philadelphia seems lovely…#crime #CityLife #decay #urban #Pennsylvania pic.twitter.com/4vq7KaE0QW

— Mrgunsngear (@Mrgunsngear) September 16, 2023

We won’t be able to hold this “stability” we think we have for much longer.
And yes, I understand the concepts of “keep your head on a swivel” and the rest of the litany, but that makes for only a very few of us.

Traditional Law Enforcement and the Justice System have been degraded to the point of being bad jokes at best.

I fear floodgates will soon be open and any semblance of polite society will require the stacking of the bodies of the violent criminals.

When we discuss the horrors of Nazi Germany, many people claim that they would not have turned a blind eye to the atrocities that were taking place. They are full of it. They are mistaken in every way.

There is the Stanford Prison Experiment, where they took volunteers and broke them into two groups, guards and prisoners. Within days, the guards were acting in some of the most atrocious ways possible. Every time the experiment has been repeated, the same results occur.

At Yale, Stanley Milgram conducted an experiment where he had two volunteers come up. They drew for who would play the interrogator and who would be interrogated. The draw was fixed, and the shill was always picked to be interrogated.

The interrogator would then ask questions of the “victim.” If the victim answered incorrectly, the interrogator would move a dial to increase the voltage being applied to the victim.

The entire thing was rigged. There was only one shock given, that was the first, which was given to the actual volunteer, so they would know what was happening to the victim.

Nearly every person who participated in the experiment went all the way to 300 volts. 65% went to the maximum of 450 volts.

The Milgram experiment has been repeated, and the results are consistent.

This is not to excuse the atrocities of the Germans, it is to strongly suggest that it wasn’t the German culture that allowed them to do this to their fellow humans, it was human nature.

In some ways, we can see the same things happening in our country. People that say, “You owning a gun makes me feel unsafe. Since I feel that you will use that gun to kill me or somebody else, you should not have guns. If you don’t give up your gun, I will send the police to take it from you by force, potentially ending up with your death.”

We see it in the othering that happens consistently. How many times have you heard somebody refer to “Maggots” or similar?

Unfortunately, the book is a little dry. It is a difficult read because it was written as a scholarly paper that was turned into a book. The hardbound copy is expensive. The book is filled with numbers, place names and unit names and numbers. Which makes it difficult for many people.

Netflix has turned the book in to an hour-long short. If you have not read the book, take the time to watch it. There are still many numbers, but it is easier to handle. They use a mix of historical images and film mixed with modern re-enactors to create a sense of history that is strong.

If you have read the book, the video is worth watching just for the historical footage and to get a better feel of the men.
—Christopher R. Browning, Ordinary men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the final solution in Poland (HarperCollins 1st ed ed. 1992)