Re:“Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”
by gaius on Sunday July 07, 2013 @01:29PM
(#6002646)
What fascinates me about this is that the SWAT team and the spies are people too. Which sounds obvious but it isn't. Take a guy off the street and he believes about himself, and the government believes about him, that he needs to be surveilled constantly and if he acts suspiciously, violently confronted. But what if that guy is a bureaucrat or a policeman himself? What happens in the recruitment/training process to turn a person from one of the watched into one of the watchers? Does he flip back whenever he clocks out for the day? Are the cops happy to know that they or their families could find a SWAT team on their doorsteps one day for no apparent reason? Are the spooks happy to know that another spook is reading their families emails and judging them? The whole situation is so surreal as to defy easy comprehension.
[ Parent
| on HN ]
Re:“Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”
by knome on Sunday July 07, 2013 @01:51PM
(#6002734)
Bad things happen to other people, and sometimes it's easier to get their job done if they skirt the rules a bit. The target-du-jour would be fine if they hadn't been doing activity-du-jour anyways, so it's not like the person didn't deserve it.
Few believe that it will happen to them.
Humans are really good at denial, rationalization and ignoring the plight of people they do not directly care about.
It's a damning combination.
Re:“Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”
by nbouscal on Sunday July 07, 2013 @02:04PM
(#6002782)
This type of thing is well studied in e.g. the Stanford Prison Experiment. People's behavior is far more influenced by the environment and circumstances they are in than by their beliefs or opinions.
Re:“Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”
by afterburner on Monday July 08, 2013 @01:05AM
(#6005268)
People are constantly drinking the koolaid, and readily. They want to fit in, want their boss to like them, want to do as well as their colleagues, and don't want to confront anyone. It's the human condition, and takes effort and introspection to do otherwise.