So, now that you've listened and responded to the GOOD show, it's only fair that you do the same with the BAD show--your second LISTENING. This time, replace the word kindness in each statement with the word cruelty:
1. Cruelty is hard-wired in our brains, a biological imperative that promotes survival.
2. Cruelty is chiefly a product of experience and circumstance, a quality that is found only in some individuals.
Are some people just born bad? Are we all equally capable of cruelty? Is environment more influential in the manifestation of evil than of good? Is your answer the same as it was in Assignment #1?
Once again, respond by clicking the comment link at the bottom of this post, identify yourself and the number of the question you most closely agree with. Use evidence from BOTH shows to support your position.
For your VIEWING assignments, please go to TED.com and watch both The Paradox of Choice and Beware online "filter bubbles." Come to class on Day 3 with two copies of this sheet printed and filled out--one for each Ted talk.
Meanwhile, I will collect the golden lines you have been selecting from Ishmael as you read on the FIRST DAY of class. We will be doing some work with this novel, but probably not until the second week, so you won't need your book with you right away.
Man, you guys, this is going to be fun! I know it's hard to let go of summer and get back to the grind, but this will be a whole new grind! You're going to like it!!
109 comments:
Haylee Hansen
Cruelty is chiefly a product of experience and circumstance, a quality that is found only in some individuals. The radiolab had three chilling stories of situations that individuals were in, which resulted in cruel behavior or actions. It began with Stanley Milgrim's experiment on human nature. These men were knowingly inflicting pain on, what they believed to be, another test subject. Although it was somewhat disturbing to hear the results when they made the men out to be heartless, it is important to look at the experiment as a whole. The men in the broadcast pointed out the success rate rose a substantial amount when the man who was instructing the teacher would be dressed in something as simple as a lab coat. Humans respond to authority with out realizing it, and these men were under the impression that they were doing something to make a breakthrough in science. Little did they know, they made a large breakthrough. It just was not in the topic of memory. These were grown men that were in this test, and they were from many different backgrounds. This being said, human nature cannot be summed up due to their actions. Some of the men refused to inflict the pain, while others just kept the experiment running. These characteristics are due to things that have shaped them into the men they are today. The cruelty is obviously not one that is hardwired into our brains, or all the men would have reacted in a similar manner. On the other hand, if their wife was about to be shot, most, if not all of them would take the bullet for her without thinking. We learned this principle in the "Good Show Broadcast," which shows that kindness is hardwired into our brains. The best way to look at these two contrasting characteristics is to think about a child. Although we may be born with different tendencies, children do not come out cruel or evil. Children are incredibly moldable, and adapt to their surroundings. They are innocent and very eager to learn. Unfortunately, many children do not grow up in homes that teach them good values. The nature of cruelty begins at a young age, but is not something that we are all born with. It comes from the circumstances that come our way, and what we are exposed to in our lives.
2. Cruelty is chiefly a product of experience and circumstance, a quality that is found only in some individuals.
I thought that Radiolabs story of Stanley Milgram's experiments proved that cruelty was not hardwired into our brain. The subjects knew that they were hurting others...The subjects responded to authority (men in lab coats) While other subjects refused to inflict pain on others ,this theory proves Cruelty is not hardwired into our brains, because if it was we all would've done it.
Karina Ramos
2. Cruelty is chiefly a product of experience and circumstance, a quality that is found only in some individuals.
The radiolab gave 3 different stories describing the bad side. The first story describes an experiment that volunteers can decided to carry on or stop, while 65% are willing to shock, others ask to stop. Some don't second ask themselves if what they are doing is right. They think that they are helping with science and not that they are doing something bad or against the society. They are trying to do something right.
Fritz Haber had a big ambitious, was willing to help his people. He was focus on helping his country, that he left his child with his wife dead. He invented a chemical that was going to help his country but never thought about the other people that was going to die because of him especially his own people after Hitler took charge of Germany.
People are not born with bad, their experience throughout life leads them to bad choices.
We are all capable of cruelty but it's whether we make the choice, others have a high possibilities due to his childhood, experience or any suffering reason.
The Environment is more influential in the manifesting of evil than of good because we are amaze of why do people kill and we can't never get the reason why? Nor the killer knows why.
Because we can't never know why.
People are born with the kindness,the good comes within in but the bad because of their own experience and circumstance
Amalia Larsen
Cruelty is chiefly a product of experience and circumstance, a quality that is found in only some individuals. The first story they talked about in the Radiolab Bad Show hit the nail on the head, so to speak. A woman’s relationship with her ex-boyfriend was described. This woman, we can assume, was a generally normal and pleasant person to be around, living with the usual highs and lows of day to day life. Once her ex started to blackmail her with a sex tape however, the way she was described started to change. She schemed and planned how to get rid of him. Eventually inviting him over for dinner, she even went as far as picking up a kitchen knife and knowing in her mind exactly where she would stab him and how she would go about it. This story demonstrated very clearly how cruelty is a product of circumstance; if the man had never threatened to blackmail her, she never would have had thoughts of murdering him. Only because of the situation did this woman become violent.
Interestingly, this is not the same answer I put for the Good Show. This is because while listening to the Good Show it was simple to see that there is a clear survival benefit to bettering a whole community (think amoeba) through kindness, whereas in the Bad Show, there is no clear benefit to anyone but the sole murderer removing an annoyance from their life.
Davis Calande
2. Cruelty is chiefly a product of experience and circumstance, a quality that is found only in some individuals.
RadioLab presented several cases to support the theory that cruelty isn't present in all individuals, but must be created through experiences in ones life. The main example that backed up this case was a shocking experiment lead by Stanley Milgram. By the end of this experiment it was apparent that certain individuals were more evil than others. No matter what the circumstance the individuals were put through there were always two outcomes; the individual would either continue shocking the actor as long as the "scientist" instructed them to, or the individual would act upon their own moral standpoints and hold their ground. From this we may conclude that there are individuals who are good, and those who are bad. Those who are good remain true to a trait hardwired into our brains, kindness. The brains of the individuals that are on the bad side have been altered through past experiences, bringing out the trait of evil. But what are those experiences that lead an individual to be bad, what is it that causes evil? In some circumstances evil is a traceable trait through one's lifetime, some children are beaten and abused, others bullied by their peers, and others are just brought up by utterly horrible parents. There are however, some people such as Gary Leon Ridgway who have no apparent traces to becoming evil. So what is it that makes them so cruel... What could bring an individual to be this way?
Duncan Ocel says:
The capacity for cruelty exists in all humans, and many non-human animals. It is a distinct evolutionary advantage when species have a high population density and resources are in short supply. Consider three members of the same species, who all have four children and a spouse. Supposing that each parent has the capability to gather resources for three people, but access to enough resources to keep two people alive, each couple can only support two of their children. Parent A of family 1 decides to kill Parent A of family 2, while Parent A of family 3 decides not to kill anyone. Parent A of family 2 dies, leaving family 1 to exploit his territory. Family 1 now has enough territory to keep all four children alive, as well as both parents. Family 2 has one half of their original territory, and only one parent, so only one child can survive. Family 3, which did nothing, has both parents intact, but only enough land to keep two children alive. After this fashion, the cruel family produced 4 offspring and the non-cruel families produced 1 and 2 children each. That makes for 4 cruel children and 3 nice children. If the territory gain from one killing was insufficient for family 1, they may have killed again, which would have made for only 2 nice children to survive. Assuming that all children reproduce successfully, this means that each generation, occurrences of nice genes will remain constant while occurrences of cruel genes steadily double. In this way, capacity for cruelty quickly spreads through a population.
The broadcast indicated that most things that people consider to be "cruel" are done with good intention. In the aforementioned situation, Parent A of family 1 acted to ensure survival for his children. In Milgrim's experiment, "teachers" acted to further science. If acting for the good of many by inflicting pain on a single person is cruelty, then it becomes clear that it is a part of our brains from the get-go due to the 65% participation rate of the control group of the study. In the other instances of the study, the benefit to the world became less apparent either as the pain of the individual overwhelmed it, or as the experiment seemed less legitimate. In ideal conditions, so-called cruelty is abundant, natural, and universal.
19:51
10 August 2012
Walker Sorlie
I don't really agree with either of these statements because cruelty is hard-wired into our brains, as shown in Stanley Milgram's experiment but it doesn't help us to survive now. Cruelty is also a product of circumstance and experience, but everybody has cruelty in them. If i was to choose a statement, i would choose #2:Cruelty is chiefly a product of experience and circumstance, a quality that is found only in some individuals. I side with this one because it is a little more logical to me. We don't have to be cruel to survive anymore. Also, I believe that our experiences and circumstances do contribute to our cruelty. If you grow up in an abusive household, than you have a greater chance of growing up to be violent. There are some people that are just born bad, but then there are people born normal, but their experiences turn them bad.
My answer this time is the same as it was last time, only with kind and cruel interchanged. It is weird that i think that both kindness and cruelty are hard-wired into our brains. I chose the answer that made the most sense to me, and they came out to contradict themselves. Food for thought.
Kaitlyn Hickmann
Cruelty is hard-wired in our brains, a biological imperative that promotes survival. The Bad Show pointed out that 91% of men and 84% had thought of killing someone at one point in their life. One might argue that if cruelty was hard-wired in our brains, these numbers would be 100%, but killing someone is arguably the most extreme act of cruelty there is. All people, at some point in their lives, have carried out acts of cruelty, from lying to excluding people to merely finishing the last bit of ice cream rather than sharing it. What I've come to realize after listening to both The Good Show and The Bad Show is that the terms "cruelty" and "kindness" don't exist. All acts of cruelty are justified at the time in which they're performed. No one ever feels they're doing the wrong thing, though they may be aware the common belief is that what they're doing is wrong. Each act of cruelty seems, at the time, the right thing to do. For example, Stanley Milgrim's experiment in which men were shocking other men, for the sake of research and progress. Though they knew hurting people was wrong, they justified it because it was for the greater good. War is another prime example of this. We glorify the soldiers who are killing people, given the fact that we're all told these people are the enemy, and we're being protected. We consider killing others to be difficult work because it's presumably bad, but it's necessary for the greater good and that's how we justify it. We haven't met the people we're killing; therefore, we kill them merely because we're told to, and we're taking orders. They're doing the same thing. We are cruel, selfish, kind, loving beings, because in the end, all of those terms are the same. They're defined differently in different societies, and the only evidence we have of actions being "good" or "bad", or "kind" or cruel", is that we choose to believe certain actions are good, bad, kind or cruel. Everything we do is simply a reaction to our circumstances, combined with our genetic disposition, and free will is an illusion we choose to believe. In this way, cruelty is also chiefly a product of experience and circumstance, a quality that is found only in some individuals.
Brendan Kent
Cruelty is hard-wired in our brains, a biological imperative that promotes survival. The preservation of genes, the biological instinct behind altruism, can also be used to explain cruelty. When we look at the example of the altruistic amoebas that die so that the majority of their population can live, we can only assume that this is to protect their important commonality, their genome. As I mentioned regarding ‘The Good Show’, from the genomic standpoint, it makes much more sense for 20% of amoebas to die so that the remaining 80% can live, than risk the death of the entire population. Cruelty is in a sense, the same concept: a small group pays the price so that the majority can live and, ultimately, pass on the genes they all have in common. The only difference is that the small group that pays the price does so against their will. Stanley Milgram’s experiment looked into human cruelty by taking 40 adult males, nicknamed ‘teachers’, and giving them a button to press. When this button was pressed, the men were told, a ‘learner’, who they could not see, but could hear, would be shocked. The men were told to press the button when the learner got a word wrong, in a word-matching format. The gist of this experiment is that the teachers who continued to shock the learners, thinking that they were in serious pain, did so because they believed that it was a noble cause for science, and would in some way benefit humanity. This is a perfect example of the kill one so many can survive. The rationale likely was ‘It’s okay for me to hurt this person because it is for the better of humanity’. Like the amoeba, a small group is paying the price to help the majority of the population pass on the genes very similar to their own, or so the ‘teachers’ thought. Through the biological instinct to preserve our genes, whether at our own expense or at someone else’s, we subconsciously do what is best for our genes. German scientist Fritz Haber likely had a similar rationale when he invented and implemented chemical warfare during World War I. By destroying the enemy population and ending the war, the human race would be much better off than if the stalemate of trench warfare continued. This is the same rationale behind many wars because each side believes that by eliminating the enemy or the ‘bad guys’ who threaten our species, we can achieve peace and ultimately pass on a greater number of our genes. Altruism and cruelty are more similar from a biological standpoint than many believe because, in most cases, they share a common goal in the mind of the killer or the one who sacrifices them self. This goal is the urge to preserve the common genes of a species as the expense of a small group.
Hannah Goldstein
Cruelty is chiefly a product of experience and circumstance. While kindness may be hard-wired into our brains as a way to protect our species, cruelty is mostly present in situations controlled by orders. As the Milgram experiment proved, the average human being is mostly willing to perform acts beyond their moral comfort zones if instructed to by a superior. It makes them feel as if they are doing something beneficial for the greater good. As I've mentioned before, humans are born pack animals, so performing an act of cruelty is often misconstrued as being productive or even kind by many individuals. Even Hitler thought that exterminating everyone but the Aryans would positively benefit the entire human race. One thing that I thought was interesting was the point made on the show- who are we to determine what is the "greater good"? This is something that can be decided on our own, but it helps if there are people around you telling you what the greater good ought to be in your mind. This goes back to how cruelty is most easily enforced by the commands of a superior or even a peer. While there are, of course, some exceptions, humans learn cruelty as opposed to being born with it.
Brittany Christiansen
Cruelty is chiefly a product of experience and circumstance, a quality that is found in some individuals. The first small story was about a friend of one of the radiolab interviewers. He had been a fairly timid person normally, but once made fun of or cornered in front of public he was a time bomb. Wanting to kill his wife because having his shirt made fun of which was just turning him into a monster from the situation he had faced earlier. Luckily the wife was smart to get out of the environment and hide for six months once she saw how violent he was about to become. The Milgram experiment was also circumstantial, where the subjects had wanted to stop shocking the people but were responding to the authority telling them to continue. The subjects especially wanted to end the experiment when the person on the other side stopped responding, but were told that is was "essential to continue". Previously we had listened to the "Good Show" and realized that we are wired to be good people, and this show now tells us that there are certain situations on which we can be manipulated to act out of what we are normally designed to be like. Anyone can snap from being abused, made fun of, or simply being told to do something that they wouldn't normally attempt. This proves that cruelty is just from experiences and circumstances.
Juliette Green
1. Cruelty is hard-wired in our brains, a biological imperative that promotes survival.
In The Bad Show on Radiolab they explain stories of how humans are cruel and do almost anything to survive. In one of the stories Stanley Milgrim a clever scientist used four sentences telling the “teacher” to continue the experiment of shocking an innocent human, almost all of the “teachers” would disobey. This experiment really shows that most people (non scientist) don’t want to obey other people’s orders. People would rather want to do something that would help know or think something such as science even if it’s an act of cruelty or violence. In one of the other stories a women was being black mailed by her ex boyfriend threatening her as well as her job and new relationship. Her happiness was at stake and she was forced to think about how life would be without this threat, this would to think about killing her ex boyfriend because without him all her problems would be gone. This woman was not raised to kill other humans, few people are most are raised to be kind and show affection to others. Without being raised to love and nurture most people would be cruel and violent because they have not learned otherwise. My answer on the last assignment was that people aren’t born with kindness but they do it only for self satisfaction and self survival. When you are forced to sacrifice yourself to save your sibling or a cousin you are drawn to save your sibling because of the genes he or she carries is closer to yours which I believe to be cruel because you just want a part of yourself (as in your genes) to survive.
Austin Schussler
2. Cruelty is chiefly a product of experience and circumstance, a quality found only in some individuals. Radiolab discussed several different cases in which people had either thought about or carried out homicide or had been indirectly or directly involved in cruelty towards other human beings. The first discussion in "The Bad Show" involved a husband and wife who were at a party and at some time during that night, the wife had humiliated her husband sending him into a rage (Later the Husband would admit to thinking about killing his wife). This exemplifies how cruelty is only a pproduct of circumstance because had the wife not been so harsh, her husband would have not responded so severely. On a similar topic, the test/experiment put on by Stanley Milgrim also supported that cruelty is a product of circumstance. The participants believed that they were shocking the victim for the good of the experiment. They sub-conciously knew that although what they were doing was wrong, they believed it to be acceptable because if they refused to continue the "experiment" would be stopped. The people in this experiment had a greater reason to be cruel. Although I do not condone being mean, I believe that all acts of cruelty come through what we do in our life and what we experience.
Cruelty is neither a hard-wired survival promoter nor is it something only gained from experience. Cruelty in and of itself is something that has no real advantage and is therefore never the sole reason to complete an action. I believe that people are naturally selfish and want to further themselves. Cruelty alone doesn't further anyone. In every example shown by The Bad Show there is always selfish motive for this so called "cruelty". The people in the shock experiments all shocked someone else, not because they wanted to, but for the good of science. They reasoned with themselves and came to the conclusion that this "cruel" act was actually good for science and therefore not cruel. Haber was the exact same. He did things that we find to be atrocious in hindsight but he thought were good! Haber did everything that he did for the good of his country, the good of hungry people, the good of a growing population; the good of something. This shows, once again, that cruelty was not the driving force of his actions and that he was not trying to be cruel at all. The final man, the killer, only came close to sharing his reasoning once. He said that he did it because he "had to". Now this may not seem like a good reason. In order to truthfully answer this it must be looked at through a more abstract lens. He did this for a reason. He was compelled to do this by something, and although we may not totally understand his reasoning, we can pretty confidently say that it was not to be cruel. He did it for himself, for his own good. In the end, I don't see a huge difference between The Good Show and The Bad Show. The Good Show would agree that people act, in general, for good. All of the heroes in The Good Show acted for good, in the same way that the examples did in The Bad Show. Overall, both shows demonstrate how people don't really act to be cruel at all. Cruelty is simply another thing that happens in order to achieve "goodness". For these reasons, cruelty is neither a hard-wired instinct nor a product of experience.
-TK Wasserman
Abbey Tozer
Cruelty is chiefly a product of experience and circumstance, a quality that is found only in some individuals. Radiolab dicusses three interesting yet brutal stories about cruelty in humans. The first topic/story discussed simply proves that humans are not born with cruelty hardwired in their brains. This experiment, created by renound scientist/experimentalist Stanley Milgrim was formed by having test subjects push a button. This button would send an 'electric shock' through to another test subject in a different room. Although this 'person' getting schocked wasnt actually being shocked, the test subjets didn't know. Some kept puching the button, not caring wether or not this person spoke afterwards, while others refused at certain point as the voltage went up. If cruelty was to be hard wired in our brains, all the subjects would have hit the button, and not thought twice about it. I believe that all people are born with kindness. It's the experiences and circumstances that they're put in as they grow older that shape their evil, or not.
Mercedes Mingus
Cruelty is chiefly a product of experience and circumstance, a quality that is found only in some individuals. The Bad show discussed a story about how a husband was sent into a rage because his wife humiliated him. This man wanted to kill his wife, which is no doubt an act of cruelty, but it was brought out by humiliation and rage. The fact that his desire to kill his wife only surfaced after she upset him proves that cruelty is truly circumstantial.
Another story was told about the experiment preformed by Stanley Milgrim. He had subjects press buttons that would send electric shocks to another subject behind closed doors. Though nobody was being shocked, the one subject truly thought he was shocking and hurting the other subject. Some would continue to raise the voltage, but others refused to continue. They couldn't hurt the subject on the other side of the door. If cruelty was hard-wired into our brains, then all the subjects would have continued to shock the other subjects. It would be much easier to say that cruelty is something found in everyone; however, it would be impossible to confirm. The acts of kindness displayed by humans help prove that cruelty is something that is only displayed by a select amount of the population.
Nicole Cuddihy
Cruelty is chiefly a product of experience and circumstance, a quality that is found only in some individuals. Illustrated in the dark stories shared in the radiolab podcast, cruelty is situational, unique to ones experience and circumstance. The first scenario depicts a man who was enraged, to the point that he was going to murder his wife. The anger was attributed to his wife's insult, yet if this minor action had been the true cause of his rage then the amount of violent crimes would be much higher. His reaction was suddenly so malicious because he must have had previous circumstances which led him to a short temper. In following stories it continues to support the theory that cruelty is unique to situation as it goes into detail of a woman and her aggressive ex boyfriend. It is due to his threatening actions that she considers and attempts to murder him and her unique circumstance separates her from the average human who would not feel compelled to murder their ex. Later as they discussed Stanley Milgrim's case, it became more evident that cruelty was caused by circumstance. The subjects results, which varied, proved that cruelty was not hard wired, or if so, quite unorganized. Additionally these subjects believed they were contributing to the greater good with the experiment and most of their compliance was based on responding to authority, not their own malicious intentions. Similar to Kindness, cruelty is due to circumstances and is not hard wired in our brains. It is due to unique situations that certain people to risk their own lives to rescue strangers whereas others go to excessive lengths to preform malicious deeds.
Morgan Freeman
2. Cruelty is chiefly a product of experience and circumstance, a quality that is found only in some individuals.
radiolab had three diferent examples of crulty in humans. I found nothing proving its a way of how we survive. The Stanley Milgram's experiments were design to show if humans are able to make the right decision of stopping the experiment after a few or so shocks, completing the experiment, or not doing the first shock. People know this test as an obediance test rather than a human cruelty test because we dont want to see ourselves as being cruel heartless monsters. The second example was Fritz Haber. He created a way toproduce more food to feed the growing population. But he decided when World War 1 came to use his accomplicement as a weapon for the German Army. Which lead him downt the path of cruelty. Another example of his cruelty is after his wife shot herself, he left his young son with her. That expireance caused him to also take his life. The last example for him is the gas he created to use for pestasides, which later used by the Nazis to be used as the gas at the concentration camps. The final example was the Green River killer whos only explination was he killed 49 women and his only explination was because he had to. The "Good Show" was about kindness. The way i explain why i chose the other topic this time was in the "Bad Show" it never mentioned anything about anyone of these people hurting or killing someone who shares the same genes. Kidness and cruelty are two different things that never happen in harmony but on will happen over the other. When cruelty wins it leaves many peoples kindness slowly fade away.
Maxwell Cook
Cruelty is chiefly a product of experience and circumstance, a quality that is found only in some individuals. In this radiolab, several situations were discussed that delved into the dark side of mankind. The first story is of a man who was in such a rage that he felt that he might murder his wife. While considering the murder of a spouse is cruel, this rage was due to his wife’s act of humiliating him, and was circumstantial. The second discussion is of a girl who plotted the murder of an ex-boyfriend because he blackmailed her. Again, the response of murder was a product of the circumstance in which she was placed. The next two topics are of the horrifying experiments conducted by Stanley Milgrim and of the German scientist Haber. In both of the cases, the acts of cruelty preformed, while morally debatable, can be justified by the belief of serving a higher purpose. Kindness, not cruelty, is a function hardwired into our brains. Everyone will experience situations in which cruel thoughts arise. Whether or not we act it is up to us.
2. Cruelty is chiefly a product of experience and circumstance, a quality that is found only in some individuals. The Bad Show told three bone chilling stories about acts of cruelty acted upon individuals. Many acts were taken upon strangers, while one was upon an ex. Although I believe every human has a cruel side, the cruelty that humans respond with is created by an experience that takes place in one’s life. The first story is of a man humiliated by his wife because she didn’t like his shirt, so soon he plans to blackmail her, causing her to plot his murder. This normally calm and pleasant woman became violent only because of the situation she was in. Stanley Milgrim's experiment about human nature was disturbing to hear, but simply proves cruelty is not hard-wired in our brains. If you look at the experiment as a whole, you realize each individual who continued to up the voltage and press the “electric shock button” was convinced they were doing something to create a breakthrough in science. Yet when individuals, who were pressing the button, were put in the same room as the person they was shocking, they refused to shock the innocent person. This goes to prove that human cruelty is only demonstrated when someone is put in a situation where they feel the need to follow orders, otherwise they would not have refused to shock the innocent person when they were in the same room. Fritz Haber killed by the hundreds, not knowing he was affecting his family, especially his wife, and ultimately his country in the end. He had a big ambition to help his country defeat their enemies, but in the end, his cruelty overpowered him and took him away from his family, and country. The final story that RadioLab talked about was Gary Leon (Green River Killer). He is the only exception in this talk that I would say has cruelty hardwired in his brain. He could not answer ‘why’ he murdered almost a hundred women, and even admitted “murdering women was his ‘career’.” Going back to the Good Show, it only makes sense that cruelty is a product of experience and circumstance, just as kindness is. Even though kindness seems much more common for most individuals, cruelty is in each and every one of us, and it’s up to the situations we’re in to determine if we are going to let our cruelty out or not.
Cruelty is chiefly a product of experience and circumstance, a quality that is found only in some individuals. The bad show opens up with a moderatley disturbing story about a man wanting to kill his wife because she publicly made fun of him. Hearing this occurance, first led me to believe that some people are just born with an extremely dark side. After listening about Stanley Milgrim's famous shocking experiment, my opinion changed. His results show that 91% of men and 84% of woman thought about legitamitley killing someone. I believe that if cruelty was stuck in our heads, all the people would have said yes. It is the situation that you are put in. No man or woman wanders down the street, happy as can be, and stabs a random victim passing by. If this were to happen all the time, cruelty would be hardwired into our brains. I learned from The Good Show broadcast that indeed, kindness is something that comes naturally. For example, the citizens carying out heroic and kind deeds never thought twice about doing so. It is instinct. This unforced kindness takes up too much room for any hardwired cruelty to exsist in our minds.
Carly Fristoe
Cruelty is hard-wired in our brains, a biological imperative that promotes survival. The bad show talked about many "evil" men that made a decision to act in a poor way. Gary Leon Ridgway murdered 48 women for no apparent reason. He was interrogated and confessed to murdering the women, but would not give a clear answer. I believe cruelty is hardwired into our brains, but it is an action of sorts that has to bring it out of us. Ridgway said he was stepped on by women all his life, it is seems he it a breaking point. The good show talked about normal people choosing to save a life, but they were never forced to risk their own life for someone else's.
With the astonishing percentage of men and women fantasizing of killing someone was presented in the show, I was shocked. In the back of my mind, however, I though if so many people fantasized about killing, why isn't there an extremely high amount of killers out on the streets? Yes, the numbers today are high, but shouldn't they be higher if so many people think about killing someone. This leads me to believe that it is a decision to be cruel, but so many people choose not to because they are not faced with danger or extreme frustration with a person. In other words, it takes an action to cause a reaction and not all people are faced with an action that propels them to act out with violence and cruelty.
Aedin Wright
2. Cruelty is chiefly a product of experience and circumstance, a quality found only in some individuals. In the Bad Show, stories were told that showed people going crazy or acting on their anger. David Buss opens his book with the story about a man who feels so angry he wants to kill his wife. I think, pushed to a certain point, we may all feel capable of murder. But that certainly isn’t cruelty. Cruelty describes the indifference to suffering or even the pleasure in inflicting it. Humans learn cruelty; they are not born with it. I think this speaks to the discussion towards the end of the radio lab, WHY? We want to know why because we are scared we ourselves are capable of this indifference. Luckily, most of us are equipped with consciences, stopping us from going to the highest voltage, like in Stanley Mailgram’s experiment. Cruelty itself is rare and can be learned, but has no evolutionary advantage. No one is born bad.
Cruelty is cheifly a product of experiece and circumstance, a quality that is found only in some individuals. Radiolab presents many compeling arguements for why cruelty is only a product of expeirence. The first example makes an excellent points. It asked the question, have you ever wanted to kill someone. The answeres were suprising. It shows that up to 75% to 80% gone into great detail on how they would kill someone if they would. This question was then asked to a larger group of 5,000. When the results came back, 91% of males and 84% of females wanted had once thought of comitting homicide. Know you may be thinking that this shows that cruelty is hard-wired into our brains, but in fact it is just the opposite. If that was true then wouldnt the awnser be 100%? Also isnt it fair to assume that the people who anwered yes had, had a expeirence or circumstance in which killing was a more appropriate thing to do at the time. This is proven by the 20 year old female mentioned by Radiolab. She talks about how she wanted to kill her ex-boyfriend. Her ex was blackmailing her with a sex tape and making her life miserable. Her expeierence is what made her have these feelingfs of cruelty. This is not the only point that is brought up on "The Bad Show". The most important case presented is an experiment by Stanley Milgrim. Milgrim's experiement conists of 40 of your regular, everyday males. They were told by authority to commit a shock to a "learner" who could not be seen only heard. 65% of the men who inflicted pain to the learner continued until the shock was at its highest voltage. This shows that cruelty is a quality found in only some individuals. It is also unfair to say that the 65% did it because the wanted to. They were being told to do it by a man who had control. In human culture we look up to authority and it can sometimes be very hard to argue or refuse when being told to do something by authority. Although the Radiolabs arguements are very deep and meanigful, nothing is infuential then ones one expeierences. The way I look at the idea of cruelty is that it is a product of expierence and circumstance is because I have never wanted to do something cruel for no apparent reason. Something happens to yourself where you feel the need to act cruel or harmful. I can say that I have done cruel acts, but it was cheifly a product of expierence and curmustance, a quality found in only some individuals. Think back to when you were young. Did you ever want to inflict pain or a cruel act without benifiting? Based on factual evidence the anwswer should be, no.
Cruelty is chiefly a product of experience and circumstance, a quality that is found only in some individuals. People are born kind, with the intentions to love others. An individual is cruel or "bad" if that is how their environment has conditioned them. The innocence of being "good" is what we are all born with, some of us never lose it, but evil can overtake that goodness if the circumstances create it to. The teacher who asked his students if they have ever wanted to kill some, and how was very surprised with his findings: most of them did and were able to explain with great detail how they would pursue it. I believe that most humans, like the major percentage of the students, are able to possess the mindset of "being evil." Because the kindness we were all born with is taken over some of the time, but in the case of the students, most of them will not actually go out and kill someone, But through society like the media, where we learn that some horrific events actually do take place, as humans we are able to recreate things like that within our own minds, and sometimes, lives.
They bring up Nazi's, which brings to mind the evil that Hitler put upon people. It took one man to create thousands and thousands of "bad" people. When races were being gassed and shocked and overall murdered, because they had experienced this, it appeared to be okay after time.
A reason I agreed with on the show, why people will commit evil actions is because they can find justice with in it. As long as one can convince them self that there is some good in a bad action, and justify it with something, they are perfectly capable of doing it. We aren't born evil, we are born good, and some of us are conditioned to be evil.
Alex Dean
2. Cruelty is chiefly a product of experience and circumstance, a quality that is found only in some individuals. Any human in the right situation has the capability of being cruel. Whether or not a person is cruel to others and or the severity of their cruelty is based solely on past experiences of that individual and the circumstances of the situation. How people react to situations also varies for the same reasons. Two people exposed to the same situation may react differently based on earlier events in their lives, how they were raised as a child and or other experiences. In the situations discussed in the Radiolab broadcast, all of the subjects expressing physical cruelty were provoked into that position. The college student was blackmailed by her boyfriend, and the husband in the beginning of the broadcast was humiliated repeatedly by his wife. Humans are animals and if an animal, or human, is backed into a corner and enraged to such a degree, they can snap and this snap is commonly expressed in the form of cruelty. Even the lifesaving heroes depicted in “The Good Show” could be pushed to the limit and experience a snap of the same degree under the right circumstances.
1. Cruelty is hard-wired in our brains, a biological imperative that promotes survival. In the Stanely Milgrim experiment on human nature volunteers were brought in walking on the street outside of the building in which they were doing the test in. They were offered a certain amount of money to do the test, some declined and some agreed. The volunteers would sit down and ask someone in the other room, in a electric chair certain questions and if they were to get it wrong they would get electricuted. This is why I think everyone has some cruelty in their brain because when the volunteers were asked to electricute the other person they did but when they were forced to most didn't want to. So you can see how when people are just given the chance to electricute someone they will actually do it but when they are forced they seem to start second guessing themselves.
If you think of another situation when it's about survival. If there was a major world disaster and someone in your group was slowing you down, they now are putting you in risk of danger. So by this point people would just be in survival mode and without thinking kill the person who was unfit to survive, even if you loved that person. This just shows how far people will go to survive, even if it means killing someone you love. So this is why I think everyone has some sort of cruelness hardwired into their brains.
2. Cruelty is chiefly a product of experience and circumstance a quality that is found only in some individuals. The Milgrim series of experiments demonstrated this point very well. Alex Haslom sees the experiment in a way that most people never think of. During other versions of the scientific endeavor, the percentage of people who actually followed through dropped significantly. The "teachers" felt as though they were acting in the best interest of science, of progress. They were completely willing to follow through of their own will. They did not have some sort of inner urge to harm or hurt the learner. In their minds, the actions were completely justified. Haslom also illuminated the scientific researcher's scripted "prods" to urge the subjects to continue the experiment. If the subject refused to continue a certain number of times the fourth and final prod would be utilized by the scientist. The teacher would be informed they had "no choice" but to continue the experiment. Interestingly enough, once ordered, every single person ended the experiment. Once placed in this specific circumstance, they all did what many would view as the "right thing."
Every single piece used in podcast has some sort of justification or reasoning behind the "evil" action. The woman who answered her professor's survey did so with the idea that she was protecting herself. As stated earlier, the subjects of the Milgrim experiments believed they were advancing science. German scientist Fitzhaber acted for the betterment of his country during times of crisis. In times of duress, we see who will rise above and who will become a victim of circumstance. As Haslom put so eloquently early in the podcast, "maybe ask yourself the question, what is greater and what is good?"
Kama Remley
2. Cruelty is chiefly a product of experience and circumstance, a quality that is found only in some individuals. The Bad Show opened with the story of man who was so angry at his wife, he had actually considered murdering her. The next story was about a women who was being blackmailed by her ex-boyfriend, she was so desperate and angry from the situation she was in she debated killing him. Both of these stories were products of the circumstances they were in. These people were average citizen but when put in the right circumstance could have committed murder. The Stanley Milgrim Experiment also backs up my opinion. The men had to chose whether of not to continue giving the electric shocks. They knew the shocks were hurting another human being yet they continued because an authority figure told them to. When put in the circumstance these normal men committed bad acts. They might not have before but when put in the situation they did.
2.Cruelty is chiefly a product of experience and circumstance, however is found in everyone. A brilliant man by the name of Fritz Haber is an excellent example of this, in the beginning of his career he used his recourses and mind to help and save people. However when World War One started he used his inventions and transformed them into one of the worst weapons in world history. He was criticized by many and was even shunned by his wife, but in the end he said it was a great feat for Germany and all should celebrate. Even if it lead to the death of thousands of men, Allied and German. A closer to home example of cruelty and how it is a product of experience is our parents. Some could say they are the cruelest people in all of our lives. From the time we are young they push us to the point of breaking but usually only to make us better as a person or sport. Eventually they will throw you out of your home into the world, with only the experiences they have taught you and eventually the process will begin again.,
2.Cruelty is chiefly a product of experience and circumstance, a quality that is found only in some individuals. Both the man wanting to kill his wife and the girl who tried to kill her ex-boyfriend were put in situations that caused the terrible results. Those two people would not have acted like that if they were not put in the circumstances. In the Stanley Milgrim experiment, the "teachers" were put in a situation where they had to shock a man when he got a question wrong. They were regular people that thought they were helping science by shocking another man. The experiment proved that anyone, when put in the right situation, will act in a cruel manner.
Brenna Burk
Cruelty is a chiefly product of experience and circumstance, a quality that is found only in some individuals. Radiolab's discussion about Stanley Milgrim's experiment was an eye opener about cruelty because it proved that although some would not think twice about inflicting pain and hurt upon someone and just continue to shock them with high voltage, others would refuse to proceed with the experiment. If cruelty was hardwired into our brains, it seems that the only important matter of the experiment would be to follow directions and shock the victim; nobody would go out of their way to say something about the immoral act of putting someone else through pain and refuse to move up to higher voltage/continue the experiment. Seeing that there were mature adults involved in this experiment, the ones who continued to inflict the pain perhaps had more painful experiences themselves to make them the kind of person willing to be cruel to another. On the other hand, those who refused had perhaps gone through experiences where they could see the bigger picture of what is right and wrong in the way of hurting someone, rather than just focusing on the science aspect, and how shocking affected memory. This refers and agrees with my previous opinion in the Good Show by Radiolab, where I decided that kindness is hardwired into our brains. Although some would continue to hurt the person being shocked without a worry of putting them through pain, they still had in mind that they were obeying the instructions of the scientist, not refusing them and preventing science from progressing. This could be considered as an act of indirect kindness to the scientist, even though it is harder to see than the direct kindness of not proceeding with the experiment in worries of hurting another. Either way, we all have kindness somewhere within us, it can just be harder to find in some than others. A lot of that can relate to past experiences and what has shaped the person to be who they are, and how they put forth that kindess hardwired into their own self- whether it is by showing it all the time, occasionally, or going against what is kind to be cruel based on the kind of person they have come to be- the contradiction we have considered in these past two Radiolabs.
Josh Clouston
Cruelty is chiefly a product of experience and circumstance, a quality that is found only in some individuals. When babies are born they are innocent. Some might call them a "blank" slate, ready to be impressed upon by the previous generation. They don't know right from wrong or up from down. As their parents/guardians, it is their responsibility to teach their baby the do's and don't of life. The major problem with this is that everybody's rights and wrongs differ a little bit, and some times they differ a lot. While one family might think it is fine to hit someone if they make you mad, another might say an action like that is completely unacceptable. Now this example can be used both ways and to different extremes, but the principle is the same no matter what. If you are constantly told its okay to do something, you wont think twice about doing it again in the future, where as if you are always told not to do something, you might think before doing that action. this example goes hand and hand with Pitbulls. When many people see a Pitbull walking down the street, they tend to move to the side or try to avoid it. Mothers with small children will snatch their kid up to protect him or her. The truth is, Pitbulls are not bad dogs, they are just trained from puppy years to attack when commanded and fight to the death. A well socialized Pitbull that is trained as a family pet, is very sweet and gentle. In fact, Pitbulls bite less people per year as a whole than Golden Retrievers, yet Retrievers are one of the most common family pets. Another key point that the "Bad Show" pointed out is that a person may be raised right and be very mild mannered and kind but still might be pushed to lash out if the situation demands it. The man who threw the party with his wife, may have never thought once about doing anything to hurt her or make fun of her, but after she publicly humiliated him, he was ready to kill her. All of these points just go to show, that cruelty is not hardwired in our brains. If it was Pitbulls would be born ready to kill, and the man at the party would have already injured if not killed his wife. All people are born innocent, but through experiences and circumstances, some people change, and its not always for the good.
Laura Robson
2. Cruelty is chiefly a product of experience and circumstance, a quality that is found only in some individuals. This is the same choice I selected after listening to the Good Show. What I find truly fascinating is that, after reading through a sampling of my fellow classmates' answers for the Good Show, many students thought that kindness was a biological imperative; however, after listening to the Bad Show, more seem to believe that evil is something taught by experience. I have to wonder if this is simply due to the way the information in the program was laid out, or because of a truly pessimistic view on human nature. To believe that good and evil come from different places sounds bizarre to me. The notion that goodness is only born from an instinct to survive, whereas society teaches us to hate or be evil, is a deeply disturbing one. I would argue that the true biological imperatives to promote survival that may be interpreted as evil are mostly acts of cowardice or selfishness. The woman who nearly murdered her ex-boyfriend, for example, was acting out of extreme fear, not out of a causeless desire to kill. Had she not had reason to want this man dead, perhaps she could be considered evil. It was her fear, though, that drove her actions. Haber's evil (which can more easily be considered evil than other questionably wretched or selfish acts), was not born out of fear, however, and, therefore, had little to do with biology. He created his lethal gas warfare plan because of extreme nationalism. Haber embraced the idea that his country deserved to win the war, and wanted to help this dream become a reality. The results of his gas experiment were horrific, evil. He wouldn't have used this weapon to kill so many people if not for the German war effort. As an infant, he would have felt no allegiance towards Germany or the Central Powers, and had no specific sides or teams that he begrudged. This must mean that society and culture taught him that it was okay, even good to make his discovery kill "the enemy." Haber's evil was somehow taught to him. In the same way, the Green River Killer was taught to hate women (though, in this case, it seems quite likely he had some sort of awful mental illness, which would be the exception to my theory that evil is not born straight from biology), which inspired his murderous rampage. At the end of the day, if psychological disorders were taken out of the picture, I believe we are all capable of true and terrible evil. At the same time, though, it is my equally strong belief that we can all be extremely good just as easily. It comes down to circumstance, our life experience, and what we are taught is right and wrong.
Clara Williams
2.Cruelty is hard wired into our brains, a biological imperative that promotes survival.
My opinion does not change. I believe that, just as kindness is hardwired into our brains, cruelty is also there. However, it may be more present in different people and it may hardly show in others. When Nazi soldiers were on trail, and as it was brought up in the bad show, they pleaded that they were just following orders and it wasn't their fault. But they did still enact the crimes, they still DID them. If cruelty was not hardwired into their brains wouldn't they have been able to say no and not act in such a cruel manner?
I think we all have a little cruelty in us, even if we don't believe it. Of course we are not all psychopaths and sociopaths that go around trying to kill people all the time, we use cruelty in a moderate way. I'd like to think of it as a coping mechanism. When you get really mad at someone, most of our teenage minds go straight to hating that person or calling them names to our friends or something worse. That's a form of coping, and coping helps us survive, its not the best way but we are able to survive by coping/venting our feelings to our friends in order to make ourselves feel better.
The good show broadcast brought up something about how is it possible that there is kindness in "such a dog eat dog world" and I have to say I think kindness balances out cruelty, it overshadows the bad things we've done. Its like a balancing act of different harmonies.
Cruelty is chiefly a product of experience and circumstance, a quality that is found in only some individuals. The first story they talked about in the Radiolab Bad Show described the events well. A woman’s relationship with her ex-boyfriend was described at first. The woman in the relationship was a generally normal person to be around, living a normal everyday life. Once her ex started to blackmail her with a sex tape however, her personality changed dramatically and she planned how to get rid of him. Once she started inviting him over for dinner, she went as far as picking out a knife and knowing exactly where she was going to stab him. This story demonstrated very clearly how cruelty is a product of circumstance; if the man had never threatened to blackmail her, she never would have had thoughts of murdering him. The woman became violent only because of this situation.
This is not the same answer I put for the Good Show. This is because while listening to the Good Show, you could see that there was a clear survival benefit to making a community better (think amoeba) through kindness, whereas in the Bad Show, there is no clear benefit to anyone but the sole murderer removing an annoyance from their life.
Ryan Blackwell
2. Cruelty is chiefly a product of experience and circumstance, a quality that is found only in some individuals.
The Radiolab shared the experiment that Stanley Milgrim studied, human obedience and nature. The actual subjects of the test believed the people they were inflicting voltage on were the test subjects. The result of the first experiment showed that 35% of the people tested would stop shocking the unknown person. As they began to disobey the instructor, he would tell the subjects to keep going on with the experiment, that "they didn't have a choice." As I said in my Good Show's response, all people have a choice. The subjects of Milgrim's test realized that they had a choice too, and they eventually went with the non-cruel of the two. AS this suggests, cruelty is not found in all people, just something that develops over certain circumstances. The only thing that people are born with are the tangible things. Kindness, cruelty, and all other traits are developed over a lifetime.
Keanan Naegele
2. Cruelty is chiefly a product of experience and circumstance, a quality that is found only in some individuals. During the podcast, the radiolab hosts discussed three stories, all of which I believe point to the previous statement. The first story was about a "science experiment" in which the people participating were unknowingly the test subjects. They thought they were participating in a memory experiment where they would shock the "subject" if he got an answer wrong. They continuously shocked the man (at least they thought they were) even after agonizing screams were coming from the room in which the test was taking place. The circumstance here was that they were doing it in the name of science. Another story about Fritz Haber also shows that cruelty is a product of experience and circumstance. He was born in Germany, and like most people held his country above all others. This nationalistic feeling is passed on to us by society. He is helping to this day because a nitrogen product of his is used in making large amounts of crops. His nationalism also led him to do unthinkable things, like using his knowledge of nitrogen to make gases that were used in trench warfare. The last story about a serial killer who probably killed more than 50 people. When being interrogated, he says that he was stepped on women his whole life. While he was obviously mentally ill which led him to go the extreme, it still shows that he had experiences in his life that contributed to his actions.
Kaylie McQuillin
2. Cruelty is chiefly a product of experience and circumstance, a quality that is found only in some individuals. Radiolab's 'The Bad Show' exposed the dark and cruel sides of humans. The first story was of a man who had been humilliated by his wife at a dinner party. His humiliation and rage brought out a cruel side, making him want to kill his wife. His feelings are unexcusable but this story proves that his circumsances and humiliation brought out an evil side in him. Another story was of a scientific experiment held by Stanley Milgrim. Test subjects would be brought in and put in charge of electrically shocking other test subjects (actors). Although they couldn't see the people supposedly being shocked, the shockers could hear that they were inflicting pain. While some refused to continue, others turned up the electric shock to full. If cruelty was hard wired into our brains every test subject would have followed orders and turned the voltage up to full. Cruelty is more prominant in certain people than others.
As I said in the Good Show, traits such as kindness and cruelty are based off of your experiences and circumstances.
2. Cruelty is chiefly a product of experience and circumstance, a quality that is found only in some individuals. People respond to their surroundings. Some have a hard environment, and others don't. Different enviroments can create different types of people. However, an environment is not the only descerning factor in a person's actions. A singular event or beliefs can change a person's view as well as their actions. If someone who has been dubbed as cruel had grown up differently, or had had a few more good events, they could have chosen to not act in a cruel way. The same is true in reverse. In Radiolab's segment, they disscused the results of an experiment to find how far someone would go in hurting someone. While the results varied, it shows that overall cruelty is not something that is engrained in our minds. It shows that the situation determines how many people will continue on with the experiment. It also shows that not everyone was apt to hurting another person because the results never had that high a percentage. This shows that cruelty depends on the circumstances that come our way. How we live, and events that at the time might not add up to much, but overtime they can change a person's mind or actions.
Marcus Hansen
2. Cruelty is chiefly a product of experience and circumstance, a quality that is found only in some individuals. If you grow up with life always given to you, and everyone around you is nice, you will nit have any reason to be cruel. If brought up in a environment where you have to be cruel to get food or money or whatever you need to survive, then you will end up cruel. This show explained that you not everyone was cruel, with the little percent that didn't shock, or didn't think about killing, and that alone tells us only some people have the experiences that make you cruel. It also showed that people respond more to gut feeling and maybe a little prodding a lot better than to a direct order. I thought that was a very interesting fact.
Raleigh Audette
Cruelty is hard-wired into our brains, a biological imperative that promotes survival. Cruelty is as action taken by all people many times in there lives whether it is merely making fun of someone at school, or killing over fifty women as seen by Gary Leon Ridgeway. Cruelty is always an action taken by our instinct to survive. Kids make fun of one another to try to gain popularity among st a group and isolate the weak, and according to Gary Ridgeway, he killed those women because he felt threatened by them. Although not all people are mass murderers, the instinct to be cruel is in everyone's head as seen by the survey that was given around the world that proved over seventy percent of people had given detailed thought to killing someone. Some people might ask how we can have kindness and cruelty hardwired into our brains and that it is simply impossible to have a person that is both kind and cruel. But Fritz Haber, the man who dedicated his life to creating ammonia fertilizer and saving billions of people also created chlorine gas which killed hundreds of thousands in the worst way imaginable during WWI. Fritz Haber is a prime example of someone who used his survival instinct of goodness to save lives, and his survival instinct of cruelty to take lives. There is no other possible explanation than the shire instinct of survival that can explain cruelty because no one wants to be cruel, or inflict pain, or kill, but people will do whatever it takes to survive.
Carl Akacich
2. Cruelty is chiefly a product of experience and circumstance, a quality that is found only in some individuals. First, we must specify what cruelty is. This question can have drastically different answers, depending on how you define cruelty. Every one at one point in their life does something that may be seen as wrong, however to the person who committed the “wrong” act it may have been seen as completely good. The woman who was being blackmailed was pushed to extreme conditions. She would not have wanted to kill her boyfriend simply because she was cruel and didn’t like him. She felt threatened by him so she was pushed to the severe measure of wanting to murder him. Fritz Haber was acting upon his good intensions to see his country do well in the war. Although in most cases actions that are seen as cruel are done for good in the mind of the person committing the actions, the real acts of cruelty come when a person is forced through bad experiences to act as they see fit.
1.Cruelty is hard wired in our brains. We are selfish people and want to be happy, even if that means getting rid of someone else to get what we want. In the show the teacher who did the experiment on killing, there was a high percentage of people that said would kill. The woman with her ex-boyfriend wanted to get rid of him so she could be happy again, and not have to worry about being blackmailed. She was willing to take a life to improve hers. Most of the time humans will do whatever they can to get them the most money, fame, or praise, anything that will feed their ego. The teachers in the shocking experiment kept shocking the students even when the learners were screaming and acting as if they were in insane pain. They thought that they were important and that the experiment could not go on without them. 65% of the teachers shocked the students. Some even after they stopped screaming, when they could have been dead.
Cruelty is chiefly a product of experience and circumstance, a quality that is found only in some individuals. I say this because in the second story with the psychology experiment when they were slowly gradually electrocuting the person they weren't able to see. 65% were willing to keep shocking the person in the other room even after they stopped yelling because the people in charge of the experiment would say that they needed to keep going or something along the lines of they had no choice and they needed to keep shocking the person in the other room. While the rest of the subjects just stopped because they realized they did have a choice to stop or keep going. The people who realized they had a choice wanted to make sure the person in the other room was alright and make sure they didn't hurt them to bad.
Alyssa Hale
2.Cruelty is chiefly a product of experience and circumstance, a quality that is found only in some individuals. I say this because not everyone is bad. Such as, with the experiment, he brought males in to memorize a group of words. Then everytime the subject would get the word wrong they would get an electric shock through them. He also brought in other people who would shock the male volunteers with higher and higher voltage each time. It was an experiment asking how far would the shocker go till they couldn't handle the person screaming in the other room. How far would they go till they would say stop? 65% were willing to shock the volunteers even after they stopped screaming. These people aren't necessarily bad, but it looks like they are bad because they were doing their job. How did they know that it was all just an experiment to see how far they would go? How did they know that if they refused to shock the person that they wouldn't get fired? I think that some people might just be plain bad, but most people are good they just have had circumstances that make it seem like they are bad.
Cruelty is chiefly a product of experience and circumstance, a quality that is found only in some individuals. Humans are not equally capable of showing cruelty because we are all hardwired different ways. In the Milgrim's case, it showed that 65% of the "teachers" chose to continue shocking the patients even after they could no longer hear their screams. Although this may seem like they are cruel for doing this, they were obeying orders, were being pushed on to continue shocking the learners, and believed they were needed for this experiment to make a breakthrough in science. Also, there were 15 other experiments similar to the original, but with changed variables. The percentage of people willing to continue shocking the learners changed with each test. This shows that those who seemed "cruel" during these tests stopped shocking based on their different experiences and the circumstances of these tests. Some even refused to shock anyone so not everyone is equally cruel. Another topic discussed in the Bad Show was about a woman and her ex-boyfriend. She only thought of killing him because he blackmailed her. She was cruel only because of the circumstance. Similar to my post for the Good Show I believe that, like kindness, cruelty is also taught to humans as they grow older and they are not born with it. My answer was the same as assignment #1. I think they turned out that way because I believe that kindness and cruelty are character or personality traits, and your character is based on experience and circumstance which is why everyone is different from one another.
Jadyn Maestas
2. Cruelty is chiefly a product of experience and circumstance, a quality that is found only in some individuals.
In the end it all comes down to nature or nurture. I believe that the situation a person is born into effects greatly the type of person they become. We can all agree that people that are born into fortunate (rich) homes are often quite different from those who are born into not so fortunate (poor) homes. It's all about circumstance. For example, people who were abused as children are more likely to have abusive relationships than children who were raised in supportive families. In fact, mommy and daddy issues often trigger ruthless behavior later in life. This is why I don't think cruelty is hard wired into our brains. It's learned. From teachers, parents, relatives, and even friends. And unfortunately, not all kids are raised in functional homes but these people are not the majority. Sure, we're all capable of doing bad things- the statistics for David Buss's survey showed that- but most humans would not intentionally hurt somebody that was doing them no harm. In Stanley Milgrim's experiment, 65% of all the men they tested shocked their learners to the highest voltage. The flaw in this experiment was that they tested no one else but adult men and the teachers were not able to see their learner. In most cases of brutality and even homicide, the attacker will see their victim, therefore, I think this experiment shows little on how real men would deal with inflicting pain or even killing a human being. Everybody is born good but circumstances shape people. Those of us who were not nurtured and did not get the loving parents were shaped by circumstances that lead them to lead terrible lives. Then again, I like to see the good in people.
Kadyn Mauldin
!. Cruelty is hardwired into our brains. I believe that at a certain point in our history cruelty, or the ability to hurt others was necessary to our survival. In some circumstance in the past, it was either us or the other guy, there for, cruelty was an evolutionary tool. This 'ancient instinct' still resides in us today, in every human being. That being said, I do not believe that every human being is naturally cruel. I believe that the instinct has simmered down to a subconscious level and the necessary circumstances are required to awaken it.
The radio lab's story about the woman with the blackmailing ex boyfriend provides a good example to my point. She seemed like a well-off and generally good-natured woman, until the situation with her boyfriend threatened to disassemble her current social life. Acknowledging this threat, the woman's instinct for cruelty saw this as an opportunity to surface. She realized that for her to carry out a better lifestyle, without having to worry about her ex boyfriend, she needed to eliminate the problem.
Although cruelty is hardwired into our brain, it takes the appropriate circumstances to bring it forth.
Hudson Dolezal
2. Cruelty is chiefly a product of experience and circumstance, a quality that is found only in some individuals. Radio lab gave three compelling stories about the bad side. The first story about Stanley Milgrim's experiment showed these guys causing someone they did not know pain and not that many of them asked to stop. The wide variety of backgrounds that they came from was to show that no matter where you come from, the cruelty is still there. It is still a little questionable to say all of mankind in cruel based on just a few people's actions but it is a good example that when someone is given power over another he might not use it the best way possible. It is based chiefly on the fact of how you grew up or how you experienced the world around you and how it treated you because if you were not treated well and felt like no one appreciated you, you might turn those feelings into actions that are not a good thing.
Kiley Cunningham
1. Cruelty is hardwired into a brains, a biological imperative that promotes survival.
The radiolab had some interesting theories on the subject of cruelty. At the beginning, they explain a survey that took place, asking if people had ever felt the urge to kill somebody. 84% of women had answered yes, as did 91% of men. If cruelty was really based on circumstance, wouldn't that be a bit heavy to take in that all those people had had a situation that made them cruel. Also they explain how in three situations, people do horrible deeds on humanity, failing to recognize that what they had done was evil. Instead resting on the fact that they had done what they believed was for the greater good. However, the podcast raised the question "what is good and what is great?". As in, how do you know which one is the better? How do you know you are making the right choice by doing what you are doing? Who decides what it is you are to do? Because, as again stated in the radiolab, humans only do things when they think it's their own choice. They don't respond well to commands. You can't just brush an evildoing off with the fact that "you thought it was right". Everybody knows when they are doing something cruel. Even if that knowledge is just a small voice in the back of one's head, it is there. Everybody is cruel, everybody is evil, nobody is "just good."
Britt Hanson
1. Cruelty is hardwired into our brains.
I believe that some where along the lines of evolution, cruelty was hardwired into our brains in order to survive. Having the ability to be cruel to someone else, or in some circamstances the ability to kill another was a part of primal human life. Cruelty can be seen as another example of survival of the fittest, and a part of life needed to survive over others who may do harm to your well being, as discused with kindness in the "Good Show" broadcast. An example that helps to support this idea is the survey that was disscussed at the beginning of the Radiolab podcast. It brings up the point that the majority of people have at least once in their lives thought about killing someone. The survey brought the statistic of 91% of men and 84% of women, said they had thought about killing someone into the light. This shows that the majority of the popluation that was suveyed felt the need to be "cruel" or take someones life in order to improve their own well being. Even though I believe that cruelty is hardwired into our brians, I also believe that the cruelty inside everyone comes out based on circumstances. This can be supported by the woman who was being black mailed by her ex-boyfriend. She didn't feel the need to take his life until he began to blackmail her. Once she realised that her life would not be as good as it could with the fear of her ex-boyfriend always on her shoulders, the woman who to many seemed happy and well off to others had a vivid thought of being "cruel" to someone, and almost went through with it. The circumstance brought out the cruelty inside of her, but that need to act out in a cruel way didn't just appear out of no where, it was already hardwired into her brain. Whether the cruelty in someone is brought out by an individual circumstance or not, cruelty at one point had to be hardwired into our brains in order to survive, and is one of the insticts that has lived on into today.
1. cruelty is hardwired into our brains.
Although it is an incomprehensible idea to the human race we are hardwired to show cruelty to others. Like in the "Good Show" I believe that through the epigenome we are hardwired to do cruel acts as well as kind acts. The epigenome is effected by experiences and therefore through certain experiences we can be hardwired for cruelty. Examples can be seen throughout stories given of possible experiences that could cause cruelty to be a natural reaction. For example in the shock experiment. Humans live in groups and despite evolution are prone to instinctively do what is best for the group and would therefore do what is best for the group. In this case the belief that it would benefit others allowed them to carry out a cruel act. However, when the person being shocked is brought in the same room the will to do the experiment drops in participants. This is because all our life we have seen verbal and physical reactions and somewhere along the line the epigenome learned that if certain behaviors are displayed we should stop. Not all people had this change in behavior because some still carried on with the experiment. Furthermore, obey doctors and scientists has been introduced to the list of behavioral changes in the epigenome so when the man/woman running the test is not a scientist some people stop obeying. An experiment is not needed to show our natural impulse to cause cruelty. Children will sometimes withhold food not due to hunger or great need, but because they would rather see them not eat. In fact sometimes people will with hold something they weren't going to use and start using it just to be cruel. This is because all humans at some point have experienced something that made cruelty and epigenomic response. Out of spite I have withheld something another person needed, which, while cruel I found it justified. Looking back it wasn't. So applying all examples through multiple experiences each human will depending on the situation respond with kindness or cruelty. While there are extreme cases of cruelty we all display it to some extent. It is needed because if all humans only responded with kindness how would we have we survived when a predator tried to eat us? Although it is considered a detestable trait it is necessary in a world that is survival of the fittest.
Amelia Cassidy
1. Cruelty is hard wired in our brains. However, it is through certain experiences and circumstances that it is shown. Though, just because we have it in us doesn’t mean that we must act upon it. In Radiolab’s first example, a friend of David Buss admitted to wanting to kill his wife over something she had said/done to him during a dinner party. After the party he had called Buss because he knew that if he stayed in the house, he would surely kill his wife. Some might say that his wife’s action brought about this cruelty but, if you think about it, something as silly as publicly making fun of another person’s clothing really isn’t enough to cause someone to want to kill another. That cruelty was already in him. And it is inside all of us. Another example was the experiment of Stanley Milgram. In this experiment, he took 40 ordinary men (teachers) and had them shock another man that they could not see but hear (the learner) when he got a word wrong. They would shock the learner over and over, as cruel as it is, because they believed they were doing the right thing in support of science. Because of that belief, it proves that man can be cruel even when he thinks that he is doing what is right and further shows that cruelty is in fact hardwired into our brains.My response to the Good Show was the same as this, although kindness took the place of cruelty. We can’t have good without bad, darkness without light, love without hate. Without one, the other couldn’t exist.
Cruelty is chiefly a product of experience and circumstance, a quality that is found only in some individuals. Radiolab discussed three different examples of cruelty in humans. The Stanley Milgrim experiment was designed to measure how humans will blindly follow erratic rules, even if it means sabotaging another individual. Individuals were being instructed from a scientist, and the experiment was purposely conflicting with the subjects conscience, as they tried to perform certain tasks to obey the authoritative figure. The end results showed that 65 % of participants were willing to proceed with the experiment and inflict pain on the unknown person, while the other 35% of participants acted upon their moral beliefs and refused to shock the unknown person. I believe that past experiences and your surroundings shape who we are as individuals and can affect your outlook on what is right and wrong, whether we are kind or cruel. Some participants chose to continue shocking the unknown subject because of the circumstance they were in. If they were not told what to do by an authoritative figure, they could have stopped. Peoples reactions to different situations varies. Painful memories and experiences may have influenced them to be more cruel or less. The subjects in this experiment felt as though they were doing the "right thing", whether that meant furthering science (continuing shock), or avoiding harming someone. These actions seemed to be justified for both sides. In two other examples of human cruelty, each person planned and thought about killing someone because another human had upset them. Although cruelty is dark and twisted, it is proven in all three examples of the Bad Show, that each person was cruel because they felt the reasoning behind the evilness was justified. The story of the man wanting to kill his wife because she made fun of him in public shows why he was so upset. The woman who wanted to kill her ex-boyfriend because he threatened her are somewhat relatable. The man and woman felt that what they thought was the correct thing to do because the actions were justified. A human can choose to be cruel out of frustration or reaction, but cruelty is something that’s learned, but no one is born with it.
Sage Wiltse
Cruelty is not something that is hardwired into our brains; it is something that comes from life experiences or certain situations. The Bad Show demonstrated that many people in our society have cruel thoughts but the percentage of individuals who actually carry out these thoughts was close to none. I’m sure that the ones who came close or carried out these acts of cruelty had an episode in their life that brought the cruel side of their personalities out to play. Another case that the Bad Show discussed was the man who was so embarrassed and humiliated by his wife that he stated he was going to kill her. Of course this is horrible, but it wasn’t his personality because he was said to be a nice guy; it was brought on by a certain situation combined with his anger at that specific moment. Stanley Milgrim conducted an experiment testing to what level of cruelty a human being is willing to go to. The experiment was set up using civilians who were ordered to shock the other person, who they couldn’t see, until the experiment was complete. 65% of testers were willing to keep shocking the other person even if they stopped screaming. But again, this was brought on by a certain situation and they were being given orders to do what they were told to do. Almost all of civilians said they couldn’t continue at some point during the experiment. If cruelty were hardwired into our brains there would have been no question in their minds if they should continue or not. Cruelty is a characteristic that is acquired through experiences or even in the way you were raised; but if it were hardwired into our minds the world would be filled with7 billion horrible people.
Zach Herbik
1. Cruelty is hard-wired in our brains, a biological imperative that promotes survival. Although this instinct must be provoked, it is very much present and anyone is capable of thinking or acting in cruelty. As was shown in the Milgram experiment, a person is capable of performing cruel acts if it seems necessary for that person's survival or better well being. The volunteers for this experiment were asked to administer an electric shock to another person if they answered a question incorrectly. These shocks were not real and did not really harm anyone, but the volunteers had no way of knowing this. For each shock that the volunteer supposedly posed upon the other person, the voltage was meant to increase to eventual dangerous levels. The experimenter, dressed in a lab coat, was meant to seem like a person of authority, and used this authority to make each volunteer continue with the experiment. Even though each subject was uncomfortable injuring the person that they were supposedly shocking, almost all of them continued the experiment to the end, reaching the highest voltage possible on the machine. They did this, seeming that they had knowingly injured another person, simply because they were asked or told to by an authority figure. Any person could have stopped performing the shocks but none did because this task was asked of them by a person who seemingly had more power than them. This proves that with the belief of self-preservation, or the belief that the cruelty they were performing was for the greater good, as the experimenter often told the volunteers that it was crucial to the experiment that they continue with the electric shocks, any person is capable of performing cruelty, and that this cruelty is already existent, needing only some coaxing to be released.
Sheridan Jeffries
Cruelty is hard-wired in our brains, but not so much so that we are horrible people. It is needed so that we can survive, otherwise we would not be able to kill animals and eat them. All predators have some cruelty in their mind, and even if we are more evolved, humans are still predators. Even herbivores can be cruel; they fight over territory, mates, and food. Nowadays we don’t have to fight over mates and food, but there are plenty of wars in this world over land and territory.
Another example of cruelty that we exert is sometimes shown when we feel threatened. It is a safety mechanism. A good example was in the bad show, a woman was asked if she ever thought of killing someone. She replied yes and commented that she was 60% of the way towards acting upon it. She had asked her ex-boyfriend over and even picked up the knife she could have used to stab him when he saw her with the knife and he ran. Of course, it is unknown if she really would have acted upon it, but the act still shows that if one is feeling threated, after a certain point, we will almost always act upon it. It depends on the thing the person loves or is attached to, the threat, and a large amount of other factors. I know for a fact that if someone or something threatened my immediate family (including my pets) or home, if the threat was large enough, I might resort to thinking about how to protect my family. Other things that can be easily prevented don’t bother me. Not everybody is protective, and sometimes it also depends on ones experiences.
Almost everybody probably has some sort of breaking point that will allow him or her to tap into that cruelty factor, even if it is not in his or her nature. Others may, instead of having a breaking point, be cruel people as this is their nature. People can be taught how to be cruel, and untaught again. But if someone is naturally just crueler than the average human, it is not something one can take away.
Jillian Krueger
Cruelty is chiefly a product of experience and circumstance, a quality that is only found in some individuals. However, there is something to be said about both statements about cruelty among human beings. Cruelty is present in every human being. Every person has the capacity for cruelty given the right circumstances. When the professor asked his students if they had ever thought about killing someone I was surprised to hear that 75% - 80%. I would imagine 79% of those homicidal fantasies were not undeserving in some fashion. When prompted or done wrong in some way, human are violent creatures. Acting on the thought is what separates rational behavior from unnatural cruelty. The study conducted with the fake shocking is more eye opening to me every time I hear it. It speaks truth to the theory of people being capable of horrible things if told to do so. Cruelty also comes from a place of fear or self preservation. This is exemplified perfectly in "Lord of the Flies." By the middle of that novel you completely forget that the characters are little school boys because the experiences on the island and the circumstances involving constant danger have transformed them into savage men. There are a few rare cases in history, "superhumen," who rise above and beyond to stand up for what is right. As discussed in "The Good Show" putting oneself in harms way to save a life is the greatest form of heroism. In the case of Fritz Haber, he did it because he so strongly believed in science he could not pass up the opportunity to advance the progression of the war. Some people do cruel things to receive praise or because they think it is what is right. They discuss in "The Bad Show" Haber's lack of doubt in the morality of his effort and the fact that he did not hesitate with thousands of lives in his hands is what made him bad. He had no idea the kind of ripple effect his decision was going to have. The story of Gary and the 49 murders does not fit any mold of evil act I have ever encountered. The "why?" question carries so much weight because we as the human race want to have a solution, a reason, closure of some kind. In my mind there must be a reason. No one person can have that much evil inside them to kill for no reason at all. Some people's brains are just messed up and that is frightening because there is nothing we can do about it but take the good and the bad in people and the world for what it is. No one is all good or all bad. I choose to see good in people until they give me reason not to.
Megan Mitchell
2. Cruelty is chiefly a product of experience and circumstance, a quality that is found only in some individuals. The big thing that really impacted me was when I listened to Stanley Milgrim's experiment. It was not about the questions they subjects were asked but how far the men would go, hearing how much pain they were causing the test subjects. 65% of the men kept flicking the switch even when the "subject" was screaming and yelling out of pain. The most moving part about the experiment was when the success rate rose only because the instructor was wearing a lab coat. This told me that the men respond to authority. After that they were talking about a man who went on trial for Nazi crimes and when asked why he did them, responded with: because I was told to. He didn't have to do those things but because someone more important than him was asking him to, he did it. In conclusion, I don't believe that people are born bad they are shaped by the ones around them while they are growing up, whether that be good or bad. Cruelty is not hard-wired into our brains it is influenced by the experiences around us. I answered the Good Show question the opposite as this one but I still stand by my answer that good is in everyone it just takes different circumstances for us to realize that.
Luke Lewis
2. Cruelty is chiefly a product of experience and circumstance, a quality that is found only in some individuals.In my opinion, cruelty is up to the person causing the wrong doing. In the "Bad Show" they discuss murder and why people chose to do bad things. They talk about how the majority of people in the nation have thought about killing someone. The important thing to keep in mind is that thoughts aren't actions and we as humans control our actions. RadioLab used the experiment at Yale as an example of how far people will go when told to do something regardless of the situation's moral ethics.The study showed that when given a direct order to do something bad, people fight against it. I believe this experiment showed the human ability to stop and consider their actions.Another example was when they talked about why serial killers do the things they do. They show that the killers did what they did because they wanted to, not because their brains made them. I think it's also important to consider that anyone is capable of cruelty, but not everyone will actually commit an action of cruelty. Lastly I think the environment you are raised in affects how you process cruelty and the situations you encounter later in life.Such as living in an abusive family versus living in a loving family and so on. We will always wonder why exactly people do what they do, but it will always be clear that it's that one person making the choice.
1. Cruelty is hard-wired in our brains, a biological imperative that promotes survival. We see homicidal acts and serial killers as emotionally broken, we assume they came from a broken home or had a bad experience that left them scarred and angry. When an introductory psychology class was asked had they ever thought about killing someone, 80% of the class responded with a yes and went into vivid detail of the act they thought of committing. Granted most probably had an experience that led to these malicious thoughts but, the detail they went into shows that we have cruelty hardwired into our brains. A hot topic today is gay marriage. Why if cruelty is not hard wired in our brains do people see to it to make a homosexual person's life hell? In the good show the first couple minutes talk about how '"thousands of animals are being eaten alive, others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear. Others are slowly being devoured from within by rasping parasites, all this happening within the span of a minutes time. This is not a single person's cruelty leading to this, it is a universal conflict. I believe that cruelty spawns from greed, in Africa, killing the mother gorilla for the newborn to sell to a zoo for thousands. In China harvesting organs from a human while said human is still alive, just to sell on the black market. In the United States the wealth is held in the top 10 percent while millions starve and families go without food. Justifying that cruelty spawns from greed, and greed is as hardwired in our brains as cruelty for without both, there would be no fight for survival.
Megan O’Neil
2. Cruelty is chiefly a product of experience and circumstance, a quality that is found only in some individuals. The radiolab program showed this to be mostly accurate. When they were talking about the shock testing, people would volunteer to give a stranger electric shocks if they got something wrong in the experiment. They could not see the person being shocked, but they certainly could hear them! At many points while this experiment was demonstrated, the people doing the shocking would question whether they should keep going and if it was morally right to do so. But as soon as they voiced their opinion to the person/scientist overlooking the experiment, the scientist would tell them that it is necessary for the experiment that they continue shocking the stranger at a higher voltage. Then, many volunteers would completely disobey and leave the experiment.
The initial experiment does sound kind of bad in a way. Shocking someone at a higher and higher voltage each time they say the wrong word. But these volunteers were told this was promoting science. This shows that people will do bad if they think it’s a good, noble cause. In this case, they would be promoting science. I think that it would be painful for the volunteer also because they are shocking another person that they don’t even know and can’t see at all. But it would be mostly painful for the person getting the shocking (if the person was actually getting shocked). All of these people were doing this for the greater good. Always ask yourself, “what is greater and what is good?” before you do something.
Alex Noble
2. Cruelty is chiefly a product of experience and circumstance, a quality that is found only in some individuals.
Cruelty and kindness are two qualities that are closely related to eachother. Just as kindness is shaped and molded by circumstances and experience, so is cruelty. In the listening, they talked about the Milgram experiment and how people would shock the man o the other side of the wall if they thought it was for the good of science. They were willing to hurt a fellow man whom they have never met before if they thought some good was to come out of it. But as soon as the scientist tried to restrict their ability by saying that they had no other choice, they would stop. Humans, by nature, do not like to be controlled. They want to be in control of their own life and do what they want, not what someone else tells them to do. As with the man who was up on trial for WWII war crimes, he said he only did it because he was ordered to do it because he was told that it was for the good of mankind. He was fearful of the consequences that might follow if he was to disobey orders. If someone grows up experiencing pain and suffering and cruelty in life, they are more likely to pass it on because they feel as if it is only fair.
Hannah Gill
1.Cruelty is hard-wired in our brains, a biological imperative that promotes survival. Right off the bat Radiolab throws out the statistic that ninety-one percent of men and eighty-four percent of women admit to having thoughts about killing another human being. One of these cases is more deeply explored as they tell the story of a woman who wanted (and nearly attempted) to kill her ex-boyfriend who was black-mailing her. This is a case of cruelty that promotes her own survival. In a world where humans were wild, killing would be natural. Just like kindness, it relates back to the survival of the species and the survival of our own genetics; our killing instincts are particularly strong when we are threatened, and like kindness it can go both ways. Kindness is the natural, biological imperative that makes animals self sacrifice for the good of the species; for example when amoebas have a spell where food is scarce, twenty percent of them die so that the other eighty percent can live. Cruelty on the other hand is a natural, biological imperative that causes animals to sacrifice another for the good of their genetics or the species. Together cruelty and kindness balance out so that the species may stay alive, cruelty keeps an animal from letting itself die, and kindness keeps an animal from letting the species die, without either the species would be lost. There are some situations in which cruelty is circumstantial such as the Green River killer who killed many women and when asked why he simply responded that he had to. I think this is evidence of a more extreme, circumstantial evidence, but this sort of thing is not common, some people are capable of more cruelty than others, and I believe this is not something they are born with. The environment manifests both evil and good. My answer to this question is the same as the first because I think that kindness and cruelty are our natural imperatives that promote the survival of us and our species.
Liam Maher
Cruelty is hard-wired in our brains, a biological imperative that promotes survival. Although, I would say that instead of promoting survival, it is an attribute resulting in our need to survive and thrive. For a long time, humans main concern has been to survive. With this mentality, greed and selfishness are triggered. As you see in the first story of the radiolab, the subjects are knowingly shocking innocent citizens for an experiment. They care more about being involved in something that has the potential to be a substantial research experiment, than the well-being of these people. In the second story, about people having thoughts of murder, is an exellent example of a person's need to survive. The girl who was being black mailed by an ex-boyfriend went 60 percent through with her plan to kill him. She believed it would make her life better. She thought that with him gone, surviving would be iminent. This of course is not a direct example of the need to "survive," but a more evolved, modern one. The last story about the serial killer basically just proved that some people have a more cruel mind than others. One could say that it is not a piece of human nature because so many people do good deeds, and some of the stories from "The Good Show," showed people who have no reason to to good, but do anyway. This however, is irrelevant. These are not situations where cruelty would be needed for "survival." If the man who saved the person from being killed by the train did know the near death victim, and happened to hate or even dislike the person, we could've seen absolutely different results. So i believe that cruelty is certainly a part of human nature and is hard wired into our brains, some more prominnt than others.
Option 2:
Cruelty is chiefly a product of experience and circumstance, a quality that is found only in some individuals.
Response:
It is common to hear, you learn as you grow older. Whether it is in an educational environment or through social interactions. We pick ourselves up and learn from our mistakes. This allows humans to expand our understanding and determine if we should take that same road again. This shows we, humans, as a species can be molded. We are born kind. The “Good Show” provided support to that theory. We have an instinctual sense causing us to act on our kindness, protecting our species. Some may have a stronger urge to be kind, although kindness lies within all. This leads to the issue if cruelty is a product of experience and circumstance. People find themselves in difficult situations on a daily basis; positions where they feel threatened, torn down, scared, and harmed. These encounters lead to the thought of violence and cruelty. As described in the “Bad Show” a girl felt threatened by her former boy friend because he implicated he would reveal explicit photos if she began a new relationship. Another example, a man was humiliated by his wife in front of his friends sparking the thoughts of violence. People who are raised in troubled homes are proven to act out or continue the patterns they witnessed early in life. This continues to support we are molded by experience. Humans if necessary can bridge the gap between kindness and cruelty. For example, a kind man, a new father, works as a police officer. The police officer is put into a situation where a man is running at him with a knife. The officer’s brain is firing on all cylinders. He finds the ultimate outcome is he may never see his newborn child again. He is forced to jump the barrier separating kindness and violence and shoots the assailant. Faced with a knife, the possibility of never seeing his family again and a solution, the officer was led to his decision, opting for the solution, although violent. This leads me to the conclusion that cruelty is a result of life experiences only being possessed by some.
Lindsey Brodeck
1. Cruelty is hard-wired into our brains, but it is not a biological imperative that promotes our survival. Unlike the previous Radiolab, which was able to find examples in the animal kingdom besides us that seemed to have an “altruistic gene” that did in fact promote survival, in this show there was no search for a similar “cruelty gene”. This show was all about justification. We all have cruelness inside of us, and cruelness is easier to draw out when the little “why” inside of us is satisfied.
Half a century ago, a scientist by the name of Stanley Milgrim decided to test how far people would go if someone was ordering them to keep on going. The most infamous statistic was 65 percent. 65 percent of the participants were willing to shock others, over and over again, past the point of death, because a man in a white lab coat was telling them to do so. However, there is one fact the general public does not know. There were more experiments, with far different outcomes. When the “shockee” was in the same room as the participant, the obedience dropped to 45 percent. Only a 30 percent obedience rate remained when the shockee had to hold the participant’s hand. If the man ordering the shocks had no lab coat, and therefore didn’t look like a scientist, only 20 percent obeyed. If three participants were in the room and two out of the three refused, obedience went down to 10 percent. Finally, when two experimenters started disagreeing, absolutely no one obeyed. Each of these scenarios prompted more and more of a “why” inside of the shockees, which silenced more and more of the cruelty inside of them. Similarly, when the man ordering the shockee would say he had absolutely no choice, there was a 0 percent obedience rate. As humans, we are much more likely to carry out cruel acts if we feel like we are working towards a greater good, rather than just being commanded to do so, because when we are commanded, the “why” begins to grow. Why are we shocking innocent people? Is it only because this man is commanding us to do so? The questions mentioned above felt a lot less honorable to the participants, and therefore they were much more likely to continue shocking their subjects when they felt it was only for the advancement of science.
This “why” inside of us also needs to be satisfied when we see others commit cruel acts. The biggest reason people watched hangings in the fifteenth century was to see a confession, which offered at least a little bit of redemption and therefore justification as to why the criminal committed the act. Similarly, Shakespeare always gave his villains a moment where they were understood, tapping into the desire all humans want to satisfy. But there was one story where he didn’t: Othello. By the end of the play, where Iago is finally discovered to be behind all of the murders, Othello asks him one simple question. Why? And he gives him nothing; no motives and no reason.
All humans have cruelness hardwired into their brains, and have and will commit cruel acts. What everyone is striving for is a justification, a reason that will satisfy the “why”. And when we find it, we can commit atrocities that simply feel like we’re working towards a greater good. But, as Alex Haslam in this Radiolab so eloquently asked, what is greater, and what is good?
1. Cruelty is essentially hard-wired into our brains as a biological gene that supports natural survival. Cruelty is not just for the purpose of personal survival, but was also used to protect the general community. For instance, amoebas will kill a small fraction of their gene pool if that small percentage was likely to harm the others resulting in mutual extinction. Cruelty is also a means of personal survival to prove dominance. When individuals are grown up around violence and abuse they therefore often become more violent and cruel. However this is not a source of environment and circumstance, but rather using their genetic hard-wired cruelty to defend themselves. Everyone has cruelty, but not everyone must use it in terms of survival.
Eli Abraham
1. Cruelty is hard-wired in our brains, a biological imperative that promotes survival. This is my belief because I don't think that 80% of people's feelings about wanting to murder someone could be because of experience and circumstances, it sounds more to me like cruelty is something natural to us. Life has always been about survival and sometimes survival requires use to do something cruel to someone else for our gain. Take, for instance, the story of the woman who was being blackmailed by her ex-boyfriend, she understands that the consequence for murder would be life in prison but still she comes close to murdering him. She knows that the release of the sex tape would be no where near as bad as going to prison but she is so upset that her brain is telling her to eliminate the problem in her life. If cruelty was not hard wired into our brains the thought of murdering him would have never entered her head, and she definitely wouldn't have partially carried out the act.
Laney Hayes
Cruelty is chiefly a product of experience and circumstance, a quality that is found only in some individuals. I believe that everyone is born kind, or good with the intention to love. When people become angry or mad, it is almost always because something provoked them to feel that way. WHen that man wanted to kill his wife, the rage was brought on by humiliation. He then proceeded to get away from his wife when the urge to kill her persisted which shows that even in his extreme anger he wasn't completely cruel. When the people that were randomly selected around the world were asked if they had ever considered killing someone, the percentage that said yes was shockingly high. But, most of those people explained a reason of why they would want to, and the reality is that most of them would not carry their plan out. It would be more concerning if the majority of people that said they have wanted to kill someone didn't have a reason. Cruelty is not hardwired into our brains, it is almost like a learned behavior. Seeing it or being around it during a childhood can form someone to act that way. I think everyone has the potential to be cruel, but it takes something to provoke them and to bring it out. No one is born bad.
2. Cruelty is chiefly a product of experience and circumstance, a quality that is found only in some individuals.
I believe that cruelty is a learned trait among most, if not all, human beings. As demonstrated in Radiolab's, The Good Show, people are born to be kind. However, once presented with a difficult environment -- beginning with the simplest of situations like not sharing crayons -- humans begin to act upon a more angry part of themselves. If one kid is not being nice to another (who has always been nice up to that particular moment) then the nice child will suddenly learn the kindness isn't 1. in everyone, and 2. isn't always the way to go. With instances such as this starting at such young ages, it can come to question if cruelty would be a learned trait, or a hard-wired one. The majority of humans would most likely act as the successful computer program in The Good Show: simply repeat whatever the other program does. If the other is kind, you will be kind. If the other is rude, you will be rude. And this to me, seems to be a learned circumstance. Not all people are rude, and I can just introduce you all to my aunt Alli to prove that.
However, I do believe some individuals are born with less kindness than others. And these "naturally" rude qualities are typically found within those who had a rough home life. i.e. verbally, physically, and/or sexually abused, bullying, and other destructive environments.
Maddi Grenfell
1. Cruelty is hard-wired in our brains, a biological imperative that promotes survival. With in the first five minutes of the "Good Show Broadcast" a shocking satistic informs us that 91% of men and 84% of women have had the urge to kill another human. This proves that kindness is not the only thing that fills our body, but each and everyone has a dark side waiting for a chance to come out. WIth Stanley Milgrim's experiment cruelty was put to the test, individuals repeatedly shocked another human during an experiment. Although during certain circumstances a scientist was behind the individuals telling them to keep going. All test subjects would fail to listen. A portion of the group would stop, while the rest would keep going knowing they were hurting another human being, but supporting a greater good. Stanley Milgrim's experiment proves that even though cruelty is hard wired into our brains sometimes it is for a greater good but the rest of our devilish circumstances is where our bad shines through.
Will Mayer
1.Cruelty is hard-wired in our brains, a biological imperative that promotes survival. At the start of the "Bad Show" there was a survey that was taken all over the world. The question was, have you ever thought of killing someone? And the statistics were very interesting. Ninety-one of men surveyed yes and eighty-four of women surveyed yes also.This brought up the the thought about survival and the human race trying to survive. Well there was this one story about a women who broke up with her boyfriend because he was calling her names and being aggressive towards her. He said " if you are seeing another man I will leak a sex video to my campus." Well in fact she was seeing another man, but the other guy didn't know yet. She thought her life would be a lot easier if he was dead. She invited him for dinner at her house and while he was chopping the carrots she grabbed a knife and was going to stab him in the chest. But he saw the knife and ran out. When she was asked how close she was to killing him, she said 60%. This whole thing was cruelty which promotes survival. Like in the "Good Show" we are hardwired to do cruel acts as well as good acts.In the Milgram experiment, a person was capable of performing cruel acts if it was for survival. The people that was choose for this experiment was ordinary human beings, from plumbers to businessmen. If the person in the other room got the question wrong the volunteer got to shock them. The voltage increased every time. The volunteers couldn't see the people but they could hear there screams. The volunteers were very uncomfortable but almost all of them finished the experiment to the very end because they were told to by a more powerful man then they were. This experiment showed that any person is capable of performing cruelty, and it has always been inside us. It just need an experiment to show it.
Katie Simpson
I believe that cruelty is also a product of experience and circumstance, a quality only found in some individuals. The radiolab gave three examples of situations that individuals were put in resulting in cruelty. However in a way they were all the same situation. In Milgrim's experiment on human nature people electricuted strangers because they thought it was for a worthy cause. They might have done it to themselves if it was what hte experiment required. If the test subjects were told that they had no choice they would immediatly stop. In the case of Fritz Haber, he created the gases when trying to find a way to make more food to feed the starving. According to Ishmael we are all inacting a story. Anyone can be cruel if it furthers the carrying out of our story. We can also be kind for the same reasons. If you believe in the reasons for doing things you can be both incredably cruel and kind. But the values that give you belief in causes come from experiances.
Ashlea Dolf
Cruelty is hard-wired in our brains, a biological imperative that promotes survival. The studies showed that 91 percent of men and 84 percent of women have fantasized about killing someone. This shows that cruelty is hard-wired in our brains. Even though the percentages weren't 100 percent, murder is only one form of cruelty. There are many other forms of cruelty such as shocking a person as showed in the Stanley Milgram experiment. All people have cruelty in them just not all of them act upon it, or you don't see them act upon it.
Alexa Thomas
2. Cruelty is chiefly a product of experience and circumstance, a quality that is found only in some individuals. Unlike my response to The Good Show, I believe that cruelty is not something that we as humans are born with, but something that only comes up in the right circumstances. Though people may have different opinions as to what the definition of cruelty is, I personally believe that to commit a truly cruel act, you would have to do something that either directly, or in some cases indirectly, negatively affected someone or something. However, for it to actually be cruel, rather than just rude or harsh, it would have to be an act of the extremes. For instance, murder would be considered a more severe act of cruelty. In the story about the man who thought about killing his wife, he was put into situations that aggravated him to such an extent, that he no longer felt a need to protect his wife, but a need to be rid of her. However, because he never actually harmed her, he never committed an act of cruelty, only fantasized of committing one. Had he been put into an even worse situation, he may have done so. Therefore, I believe that for someone to do something cruel there needs to be a situation or circumstance that sets them off, causing them to acct in a cruel manner.
2. Cruelty is chiefly a product of experience and circumstance, a quality that is found only in some individuals. I stick with the same opinion I had after listening to the Good Show, that people learn to be cruel (or good) through experience, and are not born as good or bad. There are many examples the Bad Shows gives through stories that support this belief, like Fritz Haber's. Fritz Haber believed from a young age that he could grow up to do extraordinary things for the good of the country he loved, and when his country needed more good crops, he put his intellect to use and solved the problem with nitrogen rich fertilizer. After his success, when his country went to war, he used the same technology to kill others in mass amounts. Through the experience of growing up in a time of war, Fritz learned that he should do whatever his good country asked of him. He was not born wanting to kill, but killed because his experiences in life had taught him it was the right thing to do. The same argument could be made about the students in the first study, who when asked if they had ever thought about killing another person, most said yes. These students may have thought about killing another human for their own gain, but were raised to know that killing is bad, and life is precious. Their experiences up until the point where they contemplated killing let them know that it would be the wrong thing to do. When people believe they are doing the right thing, either cruel or good, this is reflecting on their experiences in life. People learn what is right, and are not born knowing, so even when a person kills another person, it is because that is what they have learned is the right thing to do, even if it's not. The Good Show and the Bad Show are more similar than we think, because all of the stories told in both are just reflections of different peoples experiences in what is wrong and what is right.
Cruelty is chiefly a product of experience and circumstance, a quality that is found only in some individuals. I believe that all people have some sort of darkness inside of them whether it as large as murder or as small as jealousy. During the talk of the topic on Stanley Milgrim's experiment, one of the men talking said, "Human nature affords infinite potential for lightness and darkness".
I feel like many people who feel the need to murder have deep rooted problems or feel jealousy or hatred towards the people who they feel the neeed to kill. But then there are some people who I feel really have something wrong in their heads. In the last topic of the radio lab a man Gary Ridgeway has killed 49 women, all of which were prostitutes. When he is asked why he did it, he just responds, "I needed to kill".
I chose the same answer as I did in the Good Show. I don't exactly agree that good and bad are only found in some people but everybody has a little bit of each depending on their own life experiences and problems.
Jordan Weaver
1. Cruelty is hard-wired in our brains, a biological imperative that promotes survival.
Just as kindness is hardwired into the brain, so is cruelty. In two of the examples radiolab gave in their program, people acted cruel because they believed it was necessary. Fritz Haber was both a profound genius and fierce nationalist, and those two traits came together to create chlorine gas. This the German army used to defeat their enemies in the first world war. Chlorine gas poisoning is an incredibly inhumane way to kill someone, even if used in a brutal war, and Haber was present during the first battle in which it was used. He himself released it. However Haber wasn't some madman who enjoyed inflicting pain on others. He even created a way to synthesize ammonia, affectively helping billions of people. No one- Haber included- is inherently cruel or inherently good. Just like humans are programmed to be kind to benefit the human race, humans are also programmed to be cruel when it is necessary for the growth of our species.
The Milgrim experiment is an excellent example of this. Hundreds of average adults- mostly men- were tested, and while the results varied with the changed circumstances of the experiments, the feedback always gave the same message: When people believe that what they are doing is benefiting the world in some way (In this case it was in the name of science), they are willing to go to great lengths and even be cruel to other people. If it is for the advancement of the greater good, they believe that it is necessary. The fact that this was such a common consensus among such a varied group of people shows that it is a part of our DNA and isn't just something that is learned.
That being said, some people are definitely more cruel than others. Some of this could be in part due to certain genetic disorders, and some of it could be because of past experience. While it is true that, statistically speaking, those who grow up in dangerous, hostile environments are more likely to be abusive themselves, it does not mean that cruelty is learned. Cruel tendencies can be enforced through these situations however everyone, no matter their circumstances, has the potential to be cruel. Like kindness, it is necessary to survive.
Addie
Cruelty is chiefly a product of experience and circumstance, a quality that is found only in some individuals. The Radiolab presents several cases that support this theory. Cruelty can really depend on the life circumstances we are put through. The first topic was a great example for why its chiefly a product of experience. A young woman had broken up with her boyfriend, and he began to blackmail her with their personal sex tape. Her behavior toward him had changed once he started blackmailing. Her mind was now focused on how to get rid of him. She even picked up a knife and plotted out where she'd stab him and how she'd do it. This goes back to how cruelty is a product of circumstance. Maybe if this young woman was never blackmailed, she wouldn't have ever considered killing her ex. Her actions relate directly to her situation.
Cole Burford
One and two both. Because everyone is capable of being cruel, however, through experiences and circumstances some people can develop more cruel habits. In the radiolab, they start with a frightening statistic that shows 91% of men and 84% of women have fantasized about killing another individual. Though not everyone is likely to act on their initial idea, it shows that many individuals have cruel thoughts in them, naturally and from experience. They go on to share Stanley Milgrim's experiment. Using average American men and women with a range of occupations and ages, Milgrim placed a "learner" who had supposedly memorized a group of words and then placed a volunteer in another room to shock the learner on command when the learner answered wrong. 65% of the volunteers shocked the victim even after the point of screaming. However, many different results came from Milgrim's experiment. When the volunteer could see the victim, the percentage dropped to 40%. And so on the obedience percentage dropped exponentially, eventually to the point where when the volunteer was ordered to continue, the disobedience was 100%. This cruelty was in no way produced because of experiences these volunteers had had with these strangers, it was just in their brains to continue following commands and inflicting pain. On the other hand, think about examples like random killing sprees, more specifically like Cho Seung-Hui. Born in South Korea, he moved to the United States at the age of eight. He was by no means rich, and had a severe mental disorder. When he caught whim of the Columbine massacre, he was fixated on it. The story just appealed to him, and through his experience and fascination of the story it is believed that it led to his destruction in the Virginia Tech Massacre on April 16, 2007. He was not born with the urge to want to kill people, but over his life he was shown to certain things that shaped him in a negative way. So I believe that all humans and many other species have an ability from birth to be cruel, but through experiences and trials some people become more cruel and evil.
Emma Su
2. Cruelty is chiefly a product of experience and circumstance, a quality that is found only in some individuals.
Not all people are capable of evil or cruelty. Cruelty is only acted upon by some individuals, maybe from result of circumstance or environment. Most people have evil thoughts sometimes, but that does not mean they possess the quality of cruelty. To be a cruel and evil person, I think you have to act upon the evil thought. As mentioned in “The Bad Show” from Radiolab some ninety-one percent of men and eighty-four percent of women admit to thinking about killing another person. Some of these people go as far as planning the murder in great detail. However, just because these people have evil thoughts it does not mean they are necessarily capable of carrying out such violence. If every person who thought of killing someone actually did, there would not be many people left on this planet. Murders would occur constantly and the human population would quickly dwindle. That being said, carrying out cruel and evil acts would not promote survival. Murder of your own race does not promote the survival of your race. Perhaps murder would increase the chance of survival of an individual, but it would decimate the human race from within leaving no one to benefit from evil, including the individual. A reason cruelty is carried out may be a result of thinking they are helping society. The famous experiment by Stanley Milgrim provides evidence, as many people were willing to “shock” another person, because they thought it was going to help science, and therefore society. This kind of cruelty is easier to carry out since people think they are doing something good and will therefore help society to survive. This is an example of a circumstance that promote cruelty. People are born good but evil results from environment and circumstance.
Kindness and goodness are hardwired into our brain because they do promote survival of the whole. Radiolab’s “The Good Show” pointed out that kindness and good deeds occur almost as a reflex. Many heroes who won the Carnegie Hero award say their deed of saving another human life did not require any thought at all. Instead, these actions, that put their own life at risk, occurred naturally. This goodness promotes the survival of the human species. My answer is not the same as the first one, because cruelty in the long run would not help the human race thrive and therefore is not a biological imperative. Kindness, however, does help the human race survive in the long run since it helps promote people to help each other to survive.
Kira Davis – Part 1 of 2 (Sorry! This is really long for some reason… I liked the topic and went a bit overboard…whoops)
2. Cruelty is chiefly a product of experience and circumstance, a quality that is found only in some individuals
The world isn't black and white. The majority is a vast gray area that gives strength to different meanings to things. No one can have legitimate knowledge on whether or not cruelty is hardwired into our brains or if it's a product of experience. Surely, it can be observed and experimented upon. But we will never know for sure because every human being is different from the next one. Nothing that we do is exactly the same as what other people do. It just simply isn't possible. However, with our amazing observational skills as humans, we can make the best inference on why people are cruel.
Radiolab's "The Bad Show" brings to light some cruel actions taken by people of all different backgrounds but with one common denominator: they have all been pushed to a point of cruelty in some way. If people were born cruel, they would always be doing cruel things because they enjoy it. And the people that do enjoy it are those that have been changed by their environment. If it were a physical characteristic that every person had, then people wouldn't need to be pushed into doing it. It's a product of experience. Everyone learns differently. Some people learn correctly, others don't. It's simply our body's unique perception of the world as it is to every individual person.
Radiolab gives a few different examples. Such as Stanley Milgrim’s case. His experiments that were a test to see how far people would go when they know they’re supposedly hurting people. The subjects would keep on shocking people they couldn’t see, but could hear screaming when the people got a question wrong. Milgrim wanted to see if they would set the shock up to the highest voltage, if they would go all the way even if the person behind the veil could be dead. (Even though no such person being tortured was there to begin with). While these people had no vendettas against those they were supposedly hurting, they still continued to do it. A contributing factor could very well be the fact that they couldn’t see the person being hurt. Because our primary sense is sight, and “seeing is believing”, it would only be natural that these people didn’t feel very connected to the person they could very well be killing. This case, I would have to say, would be a case of circumstance. They could continue to be cruel because the circumstance made them feel like what they were doing wasn’t wrong.
Kira Davis - Part 2 of 2
Cruelty may not be hardwired into our brains, but most certainly every single person has the capacity for cruelty. There is a way that, given the circumstances, every person could find it in their hearts to do something truly despicable. And once a small portion of that capacity is filled, it cannot be emptied, because of the experience that caused them to be such a way changed them. But it was the experience that changed them, not that it was there to begin with. And more people than not have been changed into these half-cruel people, because the world isn’t a friendly place. “The Bad Show” demonstrates this with the professor’s findings when he asks the class whether or not they’ve thought about killing someone. And the vast majority, 91% of males and 84% of females, said that they would and some even described it. But in order to have that thought of wanting to kill, they would have had to felt wronged in the first place.
If cruelty were hardwired in our brains, then it would have to be hardwired into those of every living being. If it were hardwired in our brains, even the youngest offspring could commit an act of murder out of pure spite. But a baby does not have spite, because as of yet, no one has wronged them and they don't yet have the ability to comprehend what it is people are doing to them.
The definition of cruelty is an indifference or pleasure to causing pain in another. Have you ever seen a dog truly pleased that it bit you? The only reasons that a dog would bite a person are if it’s threatened or if it's trained to do so in certain circumstances. They don't bite out of the pleasure of watching their victim cry out in pain. This enough is not cruelty. And if a dog's brain is not hardwired with cruelty, then neither is a human's.
My answer is not the same as it was in my response to “The Good Show” and whether kindness was hardwired in our brain or born from experience. The main reason for this is the very opposite definitions of the words themselves. It takes so much more effort to be cruel that it can’t be considered hardwired into the brain. Kindness is natural because it takes a certain amount of it in order for a species to survive. Let’s say I switch my answers. Now kindness is chiefly a product of experience and cruelty is hardwired into the brain. With the amoeba that was mentioned in “The Good Show” it was kindness that constantly saves their species. If they had all been cruel, because it was hardwired and a natural thing, then that species of amoeba wouldn’t exist. Because to be cruel is to be selfish; and no amoeba would want to die if another amoeba lived. The world as we know it wouldn’t exist today if cruelty and kindness switched where they originated from. Cruelty and kindness are opposites, therefore, neither of them can come from the same place; they have to come from different origins because that is the nature of opposites.
Liz Clark
Cruelty is chiefly a product of experience and circumstance, a quality that is found only in some individuals. Stanley Milgram's famous experiment was a great example that cruelty isn't hardwired into individual's brains, because not all of the subjects were willing to proceed with the experiment. I think another example of this is children that grow up in an abusive environment tend to have a higher chance of being abusive or violent themselves as adults, while a child who grew up in a loving educational environment has less of a chance of this. I think that kindness is apparent in all humans at some point in time, but this could fade over time if an individual learns to survive in cruelty, and then in turn learn cruelty for themselves. Kindness or cruelty are characteristics that develop and build on each other after each situation one faces. I think that if someone feels threatened this is what can drive them to do crazy things or have thoughts of killing another because in a sense it protects us. The man who was humiliated in front of his wife's friends got so angry that he wanted to kill someone who he loved. This shows that if we are put into the wrong situation where we feel threatened or harmed physically or psychologically it can be dangerous, especially if you already tend to show violent qualities. Nevertheless, cruelty is definitely just a quality found in some individuals who have been shaped that way from experiences in their own lives.
Andreia Todd
2) Cruelty is chiefly a product of experience and circumstance, a quality that is found only in some individuals. Unlike my opinion that kindness is hard wired in your brain, I do not believe it is the same for cruelty. I do belive that some are crueler than others, but that all relates to a triger of something horrible that has happened in that persons life. In the RadioLab the "Bad Show", a girl wants to kill her ex boyfriend after he blackmails her, saying that he will release their sex tape to her entire university. She even makes it to the point of plotting how she would kill him, and almost follows through with her fantasy. I believe that this girl may not have always been cruel or evil, but from this horrible experince in her life she became dark, and almost killed someone she hated.
Not all people are evil or cruel. Sometimes people might do horrible things, but cruelty is not hard wired in your brain. Through bad experiences and tragic moments, some people may commit evil acts, but these moments are prompted from tragic incident.
Cruelty is chiefly a product of experience and circumstance, a quality that is found only in some individuals. While kindness is hard-wired into our brains, a biological imperative that promotes survival, cruelty manifests itself purely through environmental influence. The radiolab program revealed several scenarios where seemingly calm-tempered people grew frighteningly malicious under certain circumstances. The most significant evidence came from the Milgrim experiment. At first glance, it seemed as though the test subjects were genuinely cruel people because they willingly shocked what they believed to be other test subjects; however, at a closer look, specific conditions intensified their willingness to cooperate. Milgrim experimented with not one, but several levels of cooperation by varying the experiment. When the experiment conductor was dressed in a lab coat, cooperation was higher, thusly proving the test subjects were only being cruel to aid the progress of the experiment. He concluded that people are more likely to do bad actions for a good cause. The "Good Show" revealed that kindness is in each being for their greater good, but the "Bad Show" proved that cruelty was only stirred from a specific incident, and not present in day to day life. Each creature is born with kindness to help them grow and achieve survival, while cruelty is hidden until a moment comes along to bring it alive.
Griffin Reinecke
1. Cruelty is hard-wired in our brains, a biological imperative that promotes survival.. People are hard-wired to look at for themselves even if that means hurting someone else and this was shown in the Radiolab's examples. In the Stanley Milgrim experiment on the nature of humans the participants would knowingly inflict pain to another human being and the more the person looked like they had authority, by putting on a lab coat, the participants would be more willing to do it and not let down the test administrator. Many people would say that even though some people did shock the other person because some didn't it shows that people are not all cruel but what I see is that peoples first instinct is to do what they need to protect themselves and their loved ones. This goes back to George prices formula which said the more genes you have with someone the more you are willing to help them. The show said how many people live their life as kind and caring people but in the right moment they will do something cruel and that is because our brains are wired to promote ourselves even if this hurts others. The cruelness in people only goes to a point and to end up like the killer and kill almost 50 women you have to go through some experiences. People will be some what cruel to promote their own survival because that's what our brain tells us to do but every person will only be so cruel and the more cruel people will be is based on previous experiences.
2. Cruelty is chiefly a product of experience and circumstance, a quality only found in some individuals. Radiolab proved this statement to be mostly accurate, starting with the woman who attempted to kill her ex-boyfriend. The cruelty instinct was brought out because of a circumstance- being blackmailed by her ex with a sex tape. This behavior was not engaged previously when she was dating the man. Only because of the blackmail her cruel ways were revealed. Another example is the man wanting to kill his wife because of the humiliation he experienced at a dinner party. There was no previous attitude that showed any intention of wanting to kill his wife, meaning that the humiliation sparked the cruelty of his ways. Finally, the experiment by Stanley Miligrim showed people shying away from hurting someone because they had done nothing wrong. This experiment proved the statement that cruelty is a product of circumstance.
Cruelty is chiefly a product of experience and circumstance a quality that is only found in some individuals. As discussed in the Radiolab program, Stanley Milgrim's experiment provided much insight in human nature. His experiment consisted of one man issuing the experiment, another answering questions, and one more shocking the man with increasing amounts of voltage if he answers the questions wrong, all disguised as a memory test. The actual point of the test was to test human nature, and at what point, if any, they would refuse to issue pain to another human, even if they're told to. Some tests had results in which most people would continue to shock the other, even if the thought the other was dead, while others would barely shock the man at all. It was not an instinctual thing for the people to continue to shock the others. Most did not wish to, but only continued to for the sake of the experiment. These varied results show that not all people are born bad. There must be experiences and circumstances that cause people to act like this.
I flip between the fact that cruelty is hard-wired for survival, and the fact that cruelty is a product of circumstance. Naturally, humanity has known cruelty before the start of civilization. They hunted, fished, and still fought with another at that time. This imperative still continues to show itself. In the trials of the Nazi soldiers, they pleaded guilty for horrendous crimes they could have avoided, but still committed them. Yet you can flip this around. These soldiers could have been forced by the Nazi regime to do these actions. Better yet, in Fitz Haber’s case, he worked to create something beneficial for society, ammonia fertilizer, which got used in a cruel way as poison gas by others around him. Yet, in case of the attempted stabbing, the girl tried to save herself cruelly by trying to stab a man that was going to personally damage her mental and physical beliefs. It is hard to say, whether cruelty is hard wired, or something that stems from our environment.
Cruelty is hard-wired in our brains, a biological imperative that promotes survival. Evolutionarily shaped instincts promote competition in nature. Competition can create serious feelings of anger and hatred among people toward others with which they do not have a close relationship. As always, the particular nature of a person affects their sensitivity towards creating these hostile relations. Committing “cruel” acts, or as I like to put it, selfish deeds, is just a way of dealing with competitors. The Bad Show mentioned a 20-year-old woman who was threatened by her ex-boyfriend to stay away from other men. The woman responded by almost killing him. This is a great ex ample of two humans being driven by their competitive genes; the ex-boyfriend is competing for the woman, while the woman is competing for another man. A great example of this competition on a larger scale involves the man Fritz Haber, who was also mentioned on The Bad Show. The story and personality of Haber The Bad Show described is only one side of it. There is a documentary about Haber that explained that he personally disapproved of chemical warfare but felt forced to introduce and use it because of national pride (and pressure from the German government who, according to the documentary, almost forced him into constructing the weapon). Either way, this shows that nationalism and the competition between groups of people was a major contribution to the deaths of many in WW1 and WW2.
In The Good Show, the man that jumped under a train to save another man did that not only because he felt a human-to-human bond, but also because the man under the train posed no competitive threat him.
Everyone is capable of being cruel. Selfishness is a natural part of being an organism on this planet, struggling to survive, reproduce, and pass on genes. Circumstances and experiences only affect the magnitude and frequency of cruel acts a single person commits.
Aidan McCoy
Cruelty is chiefly a product of experience and circumstance, a quality that is found only in some individuals. Radiolab used the story of Stanley Milgrim’s experiment on humans to see how much pain one would inflict on a fellow man just because he was told to. The key here is to realize that they were told to do this; they were not acting upon their own thoughts or feelings. They all wanted to stop but because of their respect for authority they pressed on, thus making it completely circumstantial. This want to stop that all of them had relates back to “the good show” where Radiolab demonstrated how kindness was hardwired into the brain. It is the response to authority that caused these people to hurt others. This is the same response demonstrated by Fritz Haber when he was told to create a new kind of chemical warfare during WWI.
Jacqueline Manley
#1
Cruelty is in all of us. Some in different degrees than others. Some might show it more than others. But inside all of us it some level of cruelty, weather we exploit it or not. Some displays of cruelty can be produced from experiences in the past or the current situation. Being put in hostile and vulnerable settings can influence a persons cruelty. The Bad Show pointed out that high amounts of both males and females had had thoughts about killing another person. Just because the whole 100% of us didn't have these thoughts, doesn't mean that there wasn't some level of cruelty in our thoughts. Cruelty is hard-wired in our brains.
Declan Watts
Cruelty is chiefly a product of experience and circumstance, a quality that is found only in some individuals. Like it did with the good show, the bad show had some very good examples to support both arguments, but I believe that cruelty, just like kindness, is something that is is developed in a person over time through experience. The Stanley Milgrim experiment supports my idea strongly. Many people were called in for an experiment where they were told they would be inflicting pain on another test subject, while the person receiving the shocks was only an actor. Some people couldn't bring themselves to harm the other person, while other people had no trouble pushing the button, even knowing the voltage would increase gradually. If cruelty was built into people at birth, the results of this experiment would all be the same, which was not the case. Another story told from the radio lab was one of a couple at a dinner party. The wife had embarrassed her husband in front of everyone there, and the husband seriously considered killing his wife. This also supports my argument in the fact that every human being would react differently to such a situation as this. Some people would take a less serious approach to handling it, such as giving the cold shoulder for a while or confronting the spouse in a calm, non-aggressive manner. Unfortunately, there are people who would take it very seriously, and maybe take the same approach as the angry husband from the story. I think the difference in these types of people is based on experiences and childhood. What a person lives through, especially at an early age, can shape who they turn into. Experiences can greatly change the personality of any human being.
Cruelty is chiefly a product of experience and circumstance, a quality that is found only in some individuals. In a study, 91% of men and 84% of women had fantasized about actually killing people, not 100 %. Cruelty is brought out in a situation or because a person was told to do something that was cruel. When the man on radiolab talked about his friend that really was going to kill his wife, he said that that friend was always a good person that wouldn't ever do that. He was put into a situation that brought out the cruelness in him. People don't just randomly do cruel acts, they have to be in a certain situation to start acting cruel or go through a hard time that makes them cruel. Which proves the fact that cruelty is chiefly a product of experience and circumstance.
Cruelty is chiefly a product of experience and circumstance, a quality that is found in only some individuals. The Radio lab proved this statement to be mostly accurate, starting with the first story of the women who attempted to murder her ex-boyfriend. The story began with the description of a, so to speak, normal pleasant women, and her relationship with her ex-boyfriend. As the story progressed and the Ex began to black mail the women with a sex tape, her behavior began to change drastically. Because of the circumstance brought upon her, the seemingly normal women began to show signs of harshness and cruelty. The women began to scheme and plan of ways to get rid of her ex. She went as far as inviting him over for dinner, picking up a knife from the kitchen, and visualizing whereshe would stab him. This was the story that was most clear in describing how cruelty is a product of circumstance. If the women’s ex-boyfriend had never black mailed her with that tape, then she would have never even thought of murdering him. It was solely this event and this circumstance that made the women turn to violence.
Cruelty is chiefly a product of experience and circumstance, a quality that is found in only some individuals.
The first scenario that radiolab described was about an assumed normal and pleasant women who was living her normal day to day life. These assumed characteristics started to change when her ex-boyfriend started to blackmail her, with a sex tape. She went from being a normal women, to planning how to get rid of her ex-boyfriend. She got to the point of inviting him over for dinner one night. She picked up a kitchen knife, and was going to stab him. She knew in her mind exactly where she would stab him and how to do it. Her cruel and violent thoughts were all because of the circumstance that was at hand. Which was blackmail. If the man hadn't threatemed to blackmail her with a sex tape, she would not have become violent.
Radiolab narrated a story about a girl who broke up with her boyfriend, and when he wanted to rekindle their relationship, she said no. He then replied with threatened blackmail, saying that if she didn't agree to get back together with him, that he would send a tape of them having sex to her entire student body. She then began feeling terror and fear, along with anger. She wanted to kill him. Cruelty is a product of experience and circumstance. Although I believe that this is true, I also believe that cruelty is hard-wired into our brains at the same time. 91% of men and 84$ of women had fantasized about killing someone. Down to planning HOW they were going to do it, WHEN they were going to do it, WHERE they were going to do it... Every detail was planned out and thought over carefully. Murder is arguably the most profound form of cruelty.
On the other hand, what is cruelty? What is Kindness? What does it mean to be cruel or to be kind? Cruelty can be found in any sin. A lie perhaps. A theft. And who among us is clean from sin? Kindness can come in simple forms, like a smile. A wave. Or sharing the other half of your sandwich to a kid who doesn't have any lunch money. Both kindness and cruelty are hard-wired in our brains from the beginning, from the time we were born. Because of experience and circumsance, we individually develop certain degrees and levels of each. Kindness and cruelty are not black and white, but rather they are grey.
Cruelty is chiefly a product of experience and circumstance, a quality that is found only in some individuals. The radio lab described one professors experience with a survey taken within his class. The survey was about murder and had the following question, "Have you ever thought about killing someone, who, where, and why?" The professor was astonished that over 90% of his class said they had thought about killing someone and provided in depth details about what they would do. One story was about an angry ex-boyfriend who threatened to send a girls sex pictures out if she ever dated anyone else. She said she has thought about killing him and at one time attempted it. This girl did not want to inflict cruelty on her ex for no reason, she was being blackmailed. Thats why cruelty is a product of circumstance, that individual would not want to kill without good reason and her experience with that person.
In my criminology class, my teacher Scott Vincent explains that he has never worked a murder that did not involve drugs or alcohol. That also leads me to believe that cruelty is a product of circumstance. Without those disputes over drugs and alcohol, people wouldn't want to kill each other. Therefore cruelty is chiefly a product of experience and circumstance, a quality that is found only in some individuals.
Danielle Taylor
*Sorry this is so late. I transferred into your class after the 2nd week of school and i have just found the time to makeup the summer homework.*
The bad show had me bouncing back and forth from each statement. While I believe that (1.)Cruelty is hard-wired in our brains because everyone has the natural reaction of revenge. If someone does something bad to you, you automatically want revenge on that person (even if it's just the thought). Which would mean that it would be so called "hard-wired" in our brains. But on the other hand, I can also see the truth in (2.)Cruelty is chiefly a product of experience and circumstance, a quality that is found only in some individuals. When radiolab tells about the poor relationship between and girl who is getting blackmailed by her boyfriend, the end result was her cracking and murdering her boyfriend with a knife. This is evidence that cruelty is a product of circumstance because if her boyfriend hadn't of blackmailed her then she never would have killed him. It also addresses that cruelty is is only present in some individuals because not every girl who is getting blackmailed would go to the extent of killing the person because most of them would have more self control.
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