Paul Cortez

[reijigin]

So it's been almost a year since he got convicted of second-degree murder which I am completely sure he is innocent of. Did anyone else follow his case? I'm curious if anyone else saw the same news I did and thinks the guy did it. I can't believe he got 25 to life.

Comments

[reijigin]

They got a group of volunteers and put one in two different rooms connected by microphone. One guy had a "shock box" which was a series of buttons that would deliver a shock from a mild prick to a shock strong enough to kill someone. They had a list of words that were meant to go together, which the other volunteer was supposed to have read and memorized. He would read a word, and the person in the other room would have to tell what word went with it. If he forgot, he got shocked, and every time he got shocked he got more electricity. With them in that room was a professional looking older man in a lab coat holding a clip board telling them to keep going.

Except the person being shocked was actually an actor who wasn't being harmed at all, but the volunteer in the shock box room thought it was real. Beforehand they estimated that less than 1% of all the people they tested would actually go so far as to "kill" the other volunteer... But actually all but a couple of them went through and honestly thought they had killed the other volunteer. Whenever someone started to get uncomfortable, the man in the lab coat would urge them on and they would keep going.

They eventually concluded that a professional looking person who sounds assured can convince the average person to do anything.

[bekscilla]

OOoooh, i *have* heard of that experiment. It's a worry really, what people will do

[reijigin]

Amazing innit? o_o;

[bekscilla]

amazing/terrifying, yup!