One of the podcast’s main arguments were that we have more power and impact on other people than we realize. To demonstrate this point, the podcast alluded to the Milgram shock experiment; a psychology experiment conducted to prove the extent of obedience to authority figures regardless of a person’s conscience. In order to prove this, participants were told that they were assisting in an experiment where they had to administer shocks to a student behind a wall if they got an answer wrong in a series of questions. As the questions went on, the fake shocks increased to levels that would have been fatal. After hearing about the controversial experiment, most people identified with the volunteer rather than the experimenter, claiming they would find it easy to turn down those requests. However, what people fail to realize is the power we have over one another. Through egocentric bias, the concern of one’s own perspective and anxiety, they fail to see the interaction from the other side (the experimenter’s side). Many people will do things because the situation expects it much like the Milgram experiment, especially when a man in a lab coat who is deemed as credible puts you in that position. The volunteers most likely felt that they could not say no to his orders and in turn kept the experiment going.  

A time when someone’s remark impacted me significantly was in middle school during Debate Club. Me and a boy on the opposite side were going at it debating the ethicality of the death penalty. Both of us had strong views and were extremely passionate about our points as well. The debate club coordinator made the remark that I was too talkative and angry, while commending the boy for putting up a fight. Normally, this type of comment wouldn’t bother me, however it stuck with me for a while because I felt that I was being insulted for something the boy was being praised for. Due to this comment, I remained quieter during debates and tried not to seem so angry, until a friend made me realize later in the year that what the coordinator had said was not only sexist, but wrong. From then on, I was the same passionate, outspoken debater in the club as I was in the beginning, and I wasn’t going to let any comment affect me. My situation goes to show that even if we don’t realize it, sometimes small remarks can really affect a person (and in some cases cause long lasting damage) without the remarkee even knowing it.