This is going to be unfair, because it's going to only be about the sixth episode, 12 minutes in, and less than five minutes long. They have an interview with Prof. Philip G. Zimbardo and his infamous "Stanford Prison Experiment". This experiment has been debunked. Prof Zimbardo encourage the "guards" to be rude and rough, then called the experiment off because "it was getting out of control". The fact that it was filmed meant participants were playing up to the camera. Not only were students playing guards encouraged to be "abusive", many of them were fully aware of Prof Zimbardo's political views; his opposition to the Vietnam war, support for Civil Rights, and more importantly the treatment of protesters by law enforcement, and imprisonment of those protesters. He planned for this experiment to get "out of control", and the students were basically in on it. I think it shows in the student interviewed here, who articulates exactly the point the professor wanted to make.. I actually have no trouble with the politics itself, and it could have been covered as hugely influential at the time. But it was bad science, and was presented for decades as being valid and above-board. At the very least, there should have been a challenge to this experiment and the conclusions. This also follows a commentary by a very young Geraldo Rivera on the deaths of Hendrix, Joplin and Morrison. I wonder if he was paid by the filmmakers for that.
Problematic: Stanford prison experiment and interview with Zimbardo
13 October 2023
Warning: Spoilers