This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Working Title: What You Are In The Dark: From YKTTW
Goldfritha: Cutting this because, by definition, this trope is about what you do when nobody knows. Therefore, it doesn't cover when you are acting so people will see you. If he learned that no one would know whether a crook had been dealt with outside the bounds of the law, and still stayed inside, that would be this trope.
- Commander Vimes of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch goes through some variation of this in almost every book he appears in. Most of the time, he does the right thing because people need to know that the law works- that public execution, trials, all of it, it's all there for a reason and it needs to be there. Perhaps the best example is his battle against Carcer in Night Watch.
Thesunisup: Fixed the Milgram example, which used to read thusly:
Philip Zimbardo's infamous Stanford prison experiment, in a way: part of the setup was to ensure that the "teachers" were fully aware that they would remain anonymous and would not be responsible if any of the "learners" were harmed or even killed in the course of the experiment.
There seems to be some confusion about this, given the various edits it's gone through, so I thought I'd set the record straight: Stanley Milgram was the one who did the experiment involving "teachers" and "learners," in which the "teachers" were assured that they wouldn't be held responsible if the "learner" was harmed/killed, hence why it's an example of this trope. Philip Zimbardo's Stanford prison experiment was an entirely different affair – there was no teacher/learner relationship involved and no promise of anonymity – although Zimbardo's findings were somewhat similar to Milgram's.
One more thing I'd like to add, Milgram kept himself impersonal from the matter and did not personally get involved, while Zimbardo fell completely into his role as the 'prison director' by directly involving himself in the experiment. While it does not invalidate the findings, I just thought I would mention that, as I find it relevant data and somewhat scary.
Falcon Pain: This just bugs me.
- One Paul Feldman conducted a large-scale experiment, basically let people choose to get a free bagel or pay a dollar for it. Between 1984 and 2006 he delivered 8400 bagels a week to 140 office buildings in Washington, while keeping careful statistics. It turns out even at the worst of times people are at least 87% good.
Does anyone else see the implication that the 13% who took the free bagel are bad? And if so, why are people being criticized for taking a free bagel when the guy who brought them gave them that option, on the same wiki that defends people who take part in digital piracy?
Goldfritha: I see the problem: the description is wrong. He wasn't offering them for free, he was selling them.
Falcon Pain: Ah. Honor system boxes make more sense there, yes.
