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"The mob is inherently irrational" I strongly disagree with this sentiment or at least I think it should be put to the test more often. There's some wisdom of

by kriro 11y ago

"The mob is inherently irrational" I strongly disagree with this sentiment or at least I think it should be put to the test more often. There's some wisdom of the crowd factors that would suggest the mob doesn't need to be smart on an individual basis but my main objection is philosophical in nature. It strongly object to the Plato ideal of elitists that rule over the dumb (be it for good reasons or not). I think the case outlined by Popper in "The Open Society and Its Enemies" (particularly book 1) is pretty solid.

quanticle 11y ago
>I strongly disagree with this sentiment or at least I think it should be put to the test more often. Donald Trump is proving that sentiment right now. More seriously, there's a difference between a crowd and a mob. Notably, crowd opinions are uncorrelated - everyone in the crowd comes to their own conclusion, and then they vote. Mob opinions are correlated. People whose opinion differs from the mob, even are intimidated into either changing their opinion or, at the very least, remaining silent. Thus the mob quickly converges on a single opinion, whereas the crowd maintains a diversity of opinions.
- FilterSweep 11y ago
  I'm not trying to argue either way here - my argument is above - but do you think Twitter and social media in general favors the mob over the crowd?
  - bsbechtel 11y ago
    When it comes to internet vigilantism, it appears to be the case.
- monstruoso 11y ago
  >Mob opinions are correlated. People whose opinion differs from the mob, even are intimidated into either changing their opinion or, at the very least, remaining silent. Voting is supposed to be secret. So I don't think what you say applies at all.
  - zardo 11y ago
    People, for the most part, don't come to political opinions on their own, they are influenced by others. It doesn't take overt threats, people just don't want to be different than their peers, so they do what the people around them do.
FilterSweep 11y ago
I believe that very recent human evolution is favoring the abandonment of critical thinking. As N generation increases, Wisdom of the crowd decreases. There is also evidence that ""educated"" people have been outbred by ""uneducated"" people in the western world recently [0][1] [0] https://edge.org/response-detail/23788 https://edge.org/response-detail/23788 [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fertility_and_intelligence https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fertility_and_intelligence Education, and IQ aside, which I find both rather primitive measures (one is credentialist and the other is biased) - there is a Cost-Benefit analysis involved in the decision to have children, that many are not participating in to begin with. I find the above two links incorrect in that _education_ or _IQ_in_general_ can be true measures of "real" intelligence. however, their argument still stands. The point I'm getting at is Wisdom of any given mob in Generation N > Wisdom of any given mob in Generation N+1, during and after the modern age. NB: these are just my beliefs. I also find that IQ is not the most reliable measure for intelligence, given Flynn effects, given the biased nature in testing itself, and given more recent cognitive psychologies understanding of differing "realms" of intelligence.
- pooper 11y ago
  > There is also evidence that ""educated"" people have been outbred by ""uneducated"" people in the western world recently Well, yeah. Decision to have kids is not rational. Decision to have a LOT of kids (an old coworker has 10) ipmay even be accompanied by religious delusions or some misguided notion that one has a lineage to protect. I think we should not incentivize people to have children. No tax break per dependent. No tax break for saving towards your children's college. Basically, the only people who have kids should be people willing to take responsibility. Of course, we need to step up ways we take care of young people but it is the relationship between a society (through government I guess) and a young person. For example, easy, free of cost access to health care, easy, free of cost access to education, nutritious meals dad in school, and so on but no incentives for parents to have kids. > The point I'm getting at is Wisdom of any given mob in Generation N > Wisdom of any given mob in Generation N+1, during and after the modern age. I feel like this belief is similar to my previous ideas of a glorious past, almost a heaven we got handed down but were unable to keep up. We are looking at the past with Rose colored glasses. I mean surely the average man today is not as smart as Plato was has a mind to think in scientific processes as Lavoisier did. Now, I have to be careful of making a bad assumption that a newer generation is always wiser but I think I can safely say the newer generation has the benefit of hindsight. Basically what I'm saying is while there seems to be a trend of decline, it might actually be a trend of enlightenment overall and we just see the top declining while we might not see all boats slowly rising.
eloff 11y ago
I think you have too much faith in humanity. Your average citizen is poorly educated, ignorant of basic economic principles and is too certain of their often incorrect opinions. This is why communism happens. It's easy to see the appeal of fair distribution of wealth, is harder to understand why that's a doomed economic model. Yet look at Venezuela. With nearly a century of counterexamples, the government there continues to destroy the economy because that's what the mob wants. Now the mob can't buy toilet paper or baby formula. I object in principle to elitism, which has its own shortcomings, but let's not pretend the mob would make good decisions. They'd ignore minorities and make seemingly smart but ultimately foolish decisions again and again on emotional grounds instead of from a position of logic and knowledge.

by kriro 11y ago

quanticle 11y ago

>I strongly disagree with this sentiment or at least I think it should be put to the test more often. Donald Trump is proving that sentiment right now. More seriously, there's a difference between a crowd and a mob. Notably, crowd opinions are uncorrelated - everyone in the crowd comes to their own conclusion, and then they vote. Mob opinions are correlated. People whose opinion differs from the mob, even are intimidated into either changing their opinion or, at the very least, remaining silent. Thus the mob quickly converges on a single opinion, whereas the crowd maintains a diversity of opinions.

FilterSweep 11y ago
I'm not trying to argue either way here - my argument is above - but do you think Twitter and social media in general favors the mob over the crowd?
- bsbechtel 11y ago
  When it comes to internet vigilantism, it appears to be the case.
monstruoso 11y ago
>Mob opinions are correlated. People whose opinion differs from the mob, even are intimidated into either changing their opinion or, at the very least, remaining silent. Voting is supposed to be secret. So I don't think what you say applies at all.
- zardo 11y ago
  People, for the most part, don't come to political opinions on their own, they are influenced by others. It doesn't take overt threats, people just don't want to be different than their peers, so they do what the people around them do.

FilterSweep 11y ago

I believe that very recent human evolution is favoring the abandonment of critical thinking. As N generation increases, Wisdom of the crowd decreases. There is also evidence that ""educated"" people have been outbred by ""uneducated"" people in the western world recently [0][1] [0] https://edge.org/response-detail/23788 https://edge.org/response-detail/23788 [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fertility_and_intelligence https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fertility_and_intelligence Education, and IQ aside, which I find both rather primitive measures (one is credentialist and the other is biased) - there is a Cost-Benefit analysis involved in the decision to have children, that many are not participating in to begin with. I find the above two links incorrect in that _education_ or _IQ_in_general_ can be true measures of "real" intelligence. however, their argument still stands. The point I'm getting at is Wisdom of any given mob in Generation N > Wisdom of any given mob in Generation N+1, during and after the modern age. NB: these are just my beliefs. I also find that IQ is not the most reliable measure for intelligence, given Flynn effects, given the biased nature in testing itself, and given more recent cognitive psychologies understanding of differing "realms" of intelligence.

pooper 11y ago
> There is also evidence that ""educated"" people have been outbred by ""uneducated"" people in the western world recently Well, yeah. Decision to have kids is not rational. Decision to have a LOT of kids (an old coworker has 10) ipmay even be accompanied by religious delusions or some misguided notion that one has a lineage to protect. I think we should not incentivize people to have children. No tax break per dependent. No tax break for saving towards your children's college. Basically, the only people who have kids should be people willing to take responsibility. Of course, we need to step up ways we take care of young people but it is the relationship between a society (through government I guess) and a young person. For example, easy, free of cost access to health care, easy, free of cost access to education, nutritious meals dad in school, and so on but no incentives for parents to have kids. > The point I'm getting at is Wisdom of any given mob in Generation N > Wisdom of any given mob in Generation N+1, during and after the modern age. I feel like this belief is similar to my previous ideas of a glorious past, almost a heaven we got handed down but were unable to keep up. We are looking at the past with Rose colored glasses. I mean surely the average man today is not as smart as Plato was has a mind to think in scientific processes as Lavoisier did. Now, I have to be careful of making a bad assumption that a newer generation is always wiser but I think I can safely say the newer generation has the benefit of hindsight. Basically what I'm saying is while there seems to be a trend of decline, it might actually be a trend of enlightenment overall and we just see the top declining while we might not see all boats slowly rising.

eloff 11y ago

I think you have too much faith in humanity. Your average citizen is poorly educated, ignorant of basic economic principles and is too certain of their often incorrect opinions. This is why communism happens. It's easy to see the appeal of fair distribution of wealth, is harder to understand why that's a doomed economic model. Yet look at Venezuela. With nearly a century of counterexamples, the government there continues to destroy the economy because that's what the mob wants. Now the mob can't buy toilet paper or baby formula. I object in principle to elitism, which has its own shortcomings, but let's not pretend the mob would make good decisions. They'd ignore minorities and make seemingly smart but ultimately foolish decisions again and again on emotional grounds instead of from a position of logic and knowledge.