Don't you hate it when a great post is lost? I was writing and multi-tasking as always and lost about two paragraphs. Now I'm troubled by the choice. I can write about something entirely different or I can attempt to re-create my first bit of rambling.
I was going to write about how I think things to death and how that thinking is causing me health, energy, time and friends. But now it's coming out sillish. Of course, I just could be thinking too much.
Have you heard of an experiment involving two sets of people where the first group were the "shockers" and the second the "shockees"? I forget the details and of course I could just be remembering a dream, but the shockers dialed different levels of electrical shock to be delivered to the shockees. The dial was labeled, like from "minor" to "certain death." Apparently the shockers were quite ready to dial up to heaven, as it were, but they also faced dire side-effects. They exhibited visible and measurable signs of stress, like hair loss, weight loss, dry mouth, the whole nine yards. While the shockees had no control over their fates they just dealt with the situation. And as you may suspects, the Certain Death setting was not in fact deadly. I think this same experiment was done with rats as well, with the same results. Of maybe the rats were choosing between sexual stimulation and food. In case you're wondering, they starved. Any way, the group that had full control of the outcome, the shockers couldn't help themselves from making the worst decisions possible and they still suffered. What does that tell us?
Well, I don't know where I was headed with that little digression. Are rats better than people at choosing? Perhaps. There are an awful lot of rats in the world. I would estimate that rats outnumber humans by tens, hundreds, or maybe thousands. A hundred trillion rats can't be wrong?!?
As an aside, you may wonder what is the origin of the "whole nine yards." What I heard was that on Supermarine Spitfires in WWII, the length of the ammunition belt was 27 feet, or 9 yards. If the fighter shot is entire wad, as it where, someone got the "whole nine yards." There are other explanations but I like this one best.
I think the issue of the shockers and shockees was originally a psychology experiment to see how far people would go if ordered to. The shockees were not actually hooked up to anything but would modulate their screams of agony as the dials were changed. I believe they found that people will pretty much do anything if ordered to by an authority figure, despite the obvious infliction of pain and trauma on someone else. Not very encouraging to hear about that side of human nature.
Posted by: chris | March 04, 2005 at 05:45 PM