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Comment by wayneftw | Hacker News Reader

Can the opposite exist too? i.e. people who are always pro-government and never question authority?

The Milgram experiment tells me: yes.

Both types are following their ideological model no? I see a lot of anti-conspiracy ideologues out there who won't even acknowledge actual, known historical conspiracies. They brush them off like "that would never happen today"...

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The credibility of the Milgram experiments and the common interpretations of them are currently in doubt. [0,1]

So no, there may actually not be people who are always pro-government and never question authority.

[0]https://digest.bps.org.uk/2017/12/12/interviews-with-milgram...

[1]https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/01902725198619...

What does your own observation say?

Have you never encountered a person who doesn't question things for themselves?

I've never encountered anyone who never questions authority and always supports the government, as far as I know. People tend to compartmentalize and rationalize, they'll accept authority about one thing but not another, they'll believe this but doubt that.

Have you ever reflected on the magnitude of American patriotism post-WW2, especially during wartime? Seems to be a major case of widespread, ideological and irrational pro-governmental belief.

What I've seen is that people question things if it serves them, but have lots of other priorities more important than critically thinking about everything they encounter

It depends on how it is defined. In many scenarios I don’t question authority, but it is usually because I have no stake in the outcome but rather whether I am in good terms with the authority.

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