Blogger
The internet is up in arms this week over OKCupid’s disclosure that it has been conducting secret experiments on users. But before we all get swept up in a righteous fury, let’s take a second and ask ourselves: What exactly is so shocking about this? Sure, OKCupid is treating humans like lab rats, but haven’t we all conducted a covert human experiment at some point or another?
Whether it’s the A/B headline testing news websites use every day, or a search engine showing different results to different people, or a regular person using his hostages to test how quickly the human body succumbs to hypothermia, we all need to recognize that so-called human experimentation is commonplace in our society.
Before we cast the first stone, let’s ask: Who among us can honestly say they’ve never kept a man awake for weeks to observe the effects on his reflexes?
Human experimentation, like it or not, is simply how we gather information, discover the effects of psychotic drugs on unsuspecting subjects, and move forward as a society.
The sudden outrage at OKCupid reeks of hypocrisy. The most outspoken critics are the same ones who accept Facebook newsfeed manipulation without batting an eye; they’re the same ones who vivisect their own spouses when they die; they’re the same ones who send their kids to schools where teachers systematically lesion different parts of their brains to establish which regions are most essential for motor function.
Human experimentation, like it or not, is simply how we gather information, discover the effects of psychotic drugs on unsuspecting subjects, and move forward as a society.
So as you denounce OKCupid for “betraying your trust,” just keep in mind: The next time you wake up in a windowless room with a freshly stitched-up wound through your side, or a website tailors ads to your demographic, or you find yourself reliving the same day with variations so subtle you wouldn’t notice them if you hadn’t experienced the scenario 50,000 times before—well, you’re participating in the same kind of experiment that OKCupid is running.
It’s science, it works, and it’s time to accept it.
