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Comment by Jach | Hacker News Reader

From replication of the experiment the figure's more like just 30% refusing after a certain point. In any case, being happy about 30% or 50% is a weird way to see things. "Sure, at least three billion humans are willing to follow insane orders from an authoritative figure they only know by authority (not by actually liking them a-la Hitler or fearing them), but the rest of us aren't quite as susceptible under these exact conditions!" It's like being happy that only 40% of Delaware voters voted for O'Donnell.

Also, does anyone else feel like the subject's (Man Two's) lines were scripted, or did people talk that way often back then?

Edit: replier is right, 'most insane' does not fit here.

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I guess your satisfaction with this result depends on your prediction.

Also, judging by the comments section on that site, presenting the result this way ("50% refused" instead of "50% complied") has a significant impact on how people respond to the result.

Brilliant observation. People respond very differently to the same fundamental numbers if you present them differently.

Scientists doing an experiment may well use very formal speech, and it stands to reason that (sufficiently well-educated) subjects adapt.

"the most insane of orders"? I'm sure there's more insane than painful or dangerous electric shock.

In regards to his lines, I'm pretty sure the abundance of "um"'s in speech is a recent phenomenon

I dunno man, disfluencies like "um" are an integral part of language. I'd put my money on them being plenty common in everyday language 45 years ago.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_disfluency

No, I totally agree with you, but there was a very specific period a handful of years ago I noticed people seemed compelled to fill any dead air whatsoever between thoughts with literally strings of "um"'s... So much so they'd still be saying an "um" after they were ready to say the next word (you could tell by their face and speech)

People have always used fillers (aka filled pauses) in speech. There is no evidence to suggest they have become any more or any less common.

For example, http://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com/2008/05/uh-er... cites a play by Agatha Christie (who dies in 1976) which is full of um's (using the British spelling of erm).

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