IIRC the stanford prison experiment has been thoroughly criticized https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanfo

IIRC the stanford prison experiment has been thoroughly criticized https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment. The result of that experiment seems to imply even random people being "promoted" to have power over others with little demonstrable accountability is a recipe for disaster. From the dim recesses of my memory what I took away from Plato's Republic is that you never want those who seek power to receive it and only those who don't care about it "deserve" it. (Clearly a bit of an oxymoron) https://www.britannica.com/topic/philosopher-king https://www.britannica.com/topic/philosopher-king > On this view, philosophers are the last people who should or would want to rule. The Republic turns this claim upside down, arguing that it is precisely the fact that philosophers are the last people who would want to rule that qualifies them to do so. Only those who do not wish for political power can be trusted with it. > Thus, the key to the notion of the “philosopher king” is that the philosopher is the only person who can be trusted to rule well. Philosophers are both morally and intellectually suited to rule: morally because it is in their nature to love truth and learning so much that they are free from the greed and lust that tempts others to abuse power and intellectually because they alone can gain full knowledge of reality, which in Books V through VII of the Republic is argued to culminate in knowledge of the forms of Virtue, Beauty, and, above all, the Good. The city can foster such knowledge by putting aspiring philosophers through a demanding education, and the philosophers will use their knowledge of goodness and virtue to help other citizens achieve these so far as possible. I am a fairly optimistic person and believe people are mostly good. I agree some and perhaps many people that become police officers do it because they wish to do good. However, at a minimum I think the job attracts a lot of bullies and people that enjoy having power over others. And I think there is such a code of support of the "thin blue line" that ostensibly "good cops" can't be good cops because they allow "bad cop" behavior by their inaction. This is a powerful article on that topic: https://www.theroot.com/maybe-there-are-no-good-cops-1790856860 https://www.theroot.com/maybe-there-are-no-good-cops-1790856... I'd fix it all tomorrow by making a law that all wrongful violence/death/etc. judgements come out of the police pension and fraternal order of police funds instead of a city's budget. I bet that code of "omerta" would end in a heartbeat.