Deferring responsibility to perceived authority figures:

When people are told what to do by an apparent authority figure, they will even go so far as to harm and even kill another.

Stanley Milgram’s famous 1961 social experiment on obedience to authority is hailed as a milestone in our understanding of how people’s ethics can drastically change when responsibility for their actions is deferred on to an authority figure, such as an ‘expert’ or leader. Intrigued by the role of Nazi military personnel in concentration camps during WWII, Milgram wanted to know how much coercion people needed in order to willingly inflict harm on another person.

“He asked volunteers to deliver an electric shock to a stranger. Unbeknownst to the volunteers, there was no shock—and the people they were shocking were actors pretending to be terribly hurt, even feigning heart attacks. Milgram found that most people would keep delivering the shocks when ordered by a person in a lab coat, even when they believed that person was gravely injured. Only a tiny percentage of people refused.” [Source]

The suggested conclusion is that people are inherently unable to think for themselves when given a subordinate role in some authoritarian hierarchy, such as the role of the people in a state-controlled world. Their natural and unconscious reaction is to defer responsibility for their actions to someone of authority, relieving themselves of the stress of guilt.

“Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority.” ~Stanley Milgram, The Perils of Obedience, 1974

In the Covid-19 reality, the masses are being deliberately directed toward one set of experts and influencers, and and directed away from other credible but contrarian perspectives. Those today who believe in mainstream authority are taking franchise in bullying, harassing, censoring, and threatening those who would prefer to be neutral or contrarian.
Reference : https://www.wakingtimes.com/3-ways-human-psychology-is-being-exploited-to-create-an-obedient-self-policing-society/

Further Info:
It’s actually easy to force people to be evil:
https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/02/its-actually-easy-to-force-people-to-be-evil/

Mirrored from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOUEC5YXV8U
Brian Burak