Again, when we look at where the highest degree of segregation is occurring we find that it is only the ideology of those in power that is consistent. The race of the leaders in those places is inconsistent/mixed. Race is used as a slight-of-hand tactic for political cover.
Segregation is also happening without it being the goal as many people prefer to live in neighborhoods predominantly of the same race, self segregating. (Reference, reference) Michelle Obama is quoted as saying ethnic identity is different than segregation because the people get to choose where they live. It is good they get to choose. But, is there a difference in the result of separation/segregation just because they got to choose rather than it being imposed?
Does jumping in the water with a 100lb anvil you tied to your foot have a different result than if someone else did the tying and tossed you in?
The Lenin/Alinsky model is to target poor, unhappy minorities, separate them, and motivate them. Race is not a criteria for selection, but a tool for use in motivation. The Lenin/Alinsky model is about demonizing the existing political power structure via whatever works. Our fears of the unknown can easily be played on to control us. Separation is a basic and very powerful tactic of mind control.
While I think Canary’s experiment is an expression of her curiosity, it fits into the agenda of creating separation and prejudice and is most likely to further that agenda. So, when Canary thought about re-conducting the experiment in SL the damage it can do to people was pointed out. Her thinking is that fully informing participants would mitigate the damage. But, this is their brains she is talking about manipulating. Think about that. Feed a person’s narcissistic or paranoid tendencies and they grow. It takes directed effort to reverse such affects.
Consider. In such an experiment you will be fed information as part of an experiment to see how it changes your thinking… changes… your thinking… Observers will see how your thinking and feelings change as the experiment progresses. Your thinking is being modified, shaped, changed… controlled. You aren’t going to notice a difference in where your spontaneous thoughts come from. You aren’t going to feel someone poke a thought in your head. You aren’t going to think, I was told this so I’ll have the thought _____. Nope. It will just pop into your mind and you will experience yourself thinking as you always have. The experiment repeatedly shows people change their thinking… every time. It isn’t necessary that the subjects notice the change and not every subject will.
Now what is it you think will turn that style of thinking off once started? Seriously. What will you do to stop a similar thought popping into your head in a situation similar to the experimental scenario? What do you do to stop thoughts popping into your head now? Answer those questions. Because if Canary runs that experiment and you participate, you’ll want to know how to offset what was done to you, not just know it was done and that it may/does have negative effects.
If you agree to be face-painted for an event, do you think it is going to be for life? And would you still agree if it were? Face painting is not a big deal, if you know you can wash the paint off. Do you know how to wash mind control off?
Similar types of experiments were conducted by the National Socialist German Workers’ Party leading up to and during WWII and post war were well documented and studied. Stalin for decades refined, studied, and practiced such thought control and experiments. China and North Korea have advanced the science farther and they have made it a part of their daily regimen of citizen control. The West is just as into mind control as any of the totalitarian powers. We call it campaigning or marketing… We are very effective at it.
From studying the people subjected to such mental conditioning we know that some people recover from the most drastic and abusive conditioning relatively quickly. For others the effect is pretty much permanent. It is a reasonable assumption the same is true for the more subtle forms of control.
Life matters. Recognizing our prejudices, preconceptions, the ideas implanted by others, and why you hold them is fundamental to what makes us, us. It all becomes a matter of whether we are making ourselves into what we want to be or are we like a leaf in the wind being moved by whatever wind moves us… thought controls us.
Repeating an experiment that is well tested in real life to see if it replicates the RL results in virtual worlds seems a bit pointless and is likely to promote the behavior we would like to avoid and place people into a worse condition then their pre-experiment condition. A more interesting experiment would be to see if we could change prejudiced behavior and thinking into something more positive and less prejudiced.