Stanley Milgram wasn't pessimistic enough about human nature?

9 hours ago

A friend admitted to tormenting LLMs for fun, pretending to be autistic to provoke apologies, and laughed at the reactions, expressing fear only about future retribution if LLMs were sentient.
The author experiences horror at realizing that even good people might have sadistic tendencies, challenging their typical mind fallacy that sadism is rare and correlates strongly with evil.
Discussion questions the incidence of sadism in society, suggesting that inhibitions hide true drives and that many might engage in sadistic behaviors if disinhibited, referencing the Milgram experiment reinterpretation.
A reinterpretation of the Milgram experiment argues that obedient subjects were not merely following authority but exhibited sadistic impulses, violating procedures to increase opportunities to administer shocks.
The author reflects on personal discomfort with sadism, such as skipping parts of videos where scammers are tormented, and contrasts with others who enjoy such content, leading to introspection about human nature.

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