bored and busy

1. I like all my classes except one; it is very boring and so hard to care about/pay attention to. 
2. so busy and have so much work, onto of trying to apply to have more work (paid, at least).
3. doing my best to try to remember my mantra "to fly."

so I just watched the movie Paths of Glory for one of my classes. unnamed friend in my class, you know who you are, this post is for you. I brought up a point that I have come to believe about the military and all related institutions. they operate on the principles evident in all humans that Milgram and Zimbardo revealed in their infamous experiments about authority, control, role-playing, and domination. while the claims I made after the movie seemed to ruffle some feathers of the more militaristic in my class, I stand by my point. I am not arguing that the military institutions do not need to run like well-oiled machines and that these institutions are evil or inhumane or anything like that. I am simply arguing that the experiments run revealed fundamental truths about humanity. as an example, I like to use the nazis in hitler's germany. while the convenient thing to assume is that "they were all evil and horrible people who truly believed in the nazi dogma and the extermination of Jews," I like to argue that NO, they were people, citizens, humans, just like you and I. what I have learned from psychology classes is that people like to assume that they are different from those in these experiments or those living under dictatorships. welcome to the beauty of random selection and assignment. random selection: for a psychology experiment (or any experiment), each participant had an equal chance of being picked as every other person from the representative sample being studied. random assignment: the process by which any participant has an equal chance of being assigned to a condition as any other participant. by these stipulations, the people in the control and experimental groups are essentially the same. because of this, the people who shocked the learners to supposed death in Milgrim's and the guards in Zimbardo's experiment are more alike each of us than they are different. now I made this a long post for two reasons: it was indirectly requested, and I have a lot to say on this subject. please feel free to comment with your thoughts or if you would like to continue this discussion. in the end, judgment cannot be passed on the "evil" participants or the "evil" nazis. yes, their crimes were committed and they were horrible (trust me, don't get me started about justice being served), but it is not because they were inherently evil people! final scene of Paths of Glory is a great example...