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Knowledge of Extremes
Mar. 4th, 2004 12:00 pmA friend of mine was telling me about his latest experiences in Citizen Police Academy, a twelve-week program teaching about the Austin Police Department. This meeting was very intense; they simulated being in a situation where they would have to decide whether or not to shoot someone. There are all kinds of tiers of interaction; of course shooting is a last resort. And then you aim to kill and keep shooting until there is no longer a threat. To understand why, they got to watch a recording made automatically from a police car of a traffic stop. It seemed like a routine stop, and the police officer told the driver he was going to be let off with a warning after a routine weapon search. Well, the trunk held drugs and the driver held a weapon with which the driver began shooting the officer. Even after the driver had been shot five times, he was still ready to shoot the officer if the officer stood up again.
So, during the exercise, some people got to find out they have bad aim. Some people got to see they had bad judgment, shooting at anything that moved, and plenty of things that didn't. Some found they were too reluctant to do any shooting at all, even after the situation had escalated to the point where there was no better choice.
Valuable information, but traumatic. It surprised me because certain kinds of psychology experiments are no longer allowed because of this sort of psychic trauma. For example, subjects in Stanley Milgram's experiment on obedience learned that they would do horrible things to other people just because an authority figure asked them to. These were people in an experiment, told to please continue the experiment, not people who were in fear for their own safety or anything like that. The experimenter was trying to understand how something like the Holocaust could have happened. But now this kind of experiment is considered unethical.
Of course this kind of self-knowledge is good to learn in a relatively safe environment. Then maybe you'll do better in a real-life situation. I don't think I've learned anything like this. Well, I have learned how I behave in emergencies, based on one experience with an impending hurricane on a camping trip and one experience with a fire. In an emergency situation, people have many different possible reactions such as taking control of the situation, freezing and becoming useless, or running around panicking and making everything worse. What I do is stand around trying to think, which doesn't work for me (hmm, I wonder which blanket would be best to ruin by throwing it over the fire), but then if a take-charge type comes along, I can do what they say or follow their example. I don't think this particular knowledge helps me do better in real-life situations, though. Maybe it would make me ask for advice instead of standing around trying to think of what to do myself?
One kind of knowledge of extremes does help me in real life, though. You know how when you're injured, you're supposed to rest long enough to heal, but then start using the injured part. If you don't rest long enough, you can re-injure yourself, and if you rest too long, it takes longer than necessary to heal. Based on incidents of worsening my injuries, I have concluded that when I err, I tend to err toward the macho side. So now, when I can't decide whether I should rest more, I know the answer is yes, I should.
So, during the exercise, some people got to find out they have bad aim. Some people got to see they had bad judgment, shooting at anything that moved, and plenty of things that didn't. Some found they were too reluctant to do any shooting at all, even after the situation had escalated to the point where there was no better choice.
Valuable information, but traumatic. It surprised me because certain kinds of psychology experiments are no longer allowed because of this sort of psychic trauma. For example, subjects in Stanley Milgram's experiment on obedience learned that they would do horrible things to other people just because an authority figure asked them to. These were people in an experiment, told to please continue the experiment, not people who were in fear for their own safety or anything like that. The experimenter was trying to understand how something like the Holocaust could have happened. But now this kind of experiment is considered unethical.
Of course this kind of self-knowledge is good to learn in a relatively safe environment. Then maybe you'll do better in a real-life situation. I don't think I've learned anything like this. Well, I have learned how I behave in emergencies, based on one experience with an impending hurricane on a camping trip and one experience with a fire. In an emergency situation, people have many different possible reactions such as taking control of the situation, freezing and becoming useless, or running around panicking and making everything worse. What I do is stand around trying to think, which doesn't work for me (hmm, I wonder which blanket would be best to ruin by throwing it over the fire), but then if a take-charge type comes along, I can do what they say or follow their example. I don't think this particular knowledge helps me do better in real-life situations, though. Maybe it would make me ask for advice instead of standing around trying to think of what to do myself?
One kind of knowledge of extremes does help me in real life, though. You know how when you're injured, you're supposed to rest long enough to heal, but then start using the injured part. If you don't rest long enough, you can re-injure yourself, and if you rest too long, it takes longer than necessary to heal. Based on incidents of worsening my injuries, I have concluded that when I err, I tend to err toward the macho side. So now, when I can't decide whether I should rest more, I know the answer is yes, I should.