>If society was 1/10th as savvy about group dynamics as it is savvy about the cognitive bias caused by love and sexual desire, we'd be vastly more advanced. I

>If society was 1/10th as savvy about group dynamics as it is savvy about the cognitive bias caused by love and sexual desire, we'd be vastly more advanced. I believe that all the troubles with "harrasment" in online communities is about group dynamics. Its when one group encounters another and identifies them as other (and not similar). Reddit also shows it too - but has a "No brigading" rule - they know that groups attack other groups and has a rule in place. Twitter is a better example - the controls are more about the individual and not the group - about individual behaviour on the platform - but the groups are there and very strong. For example, people may identify with the pro-Smith presidential campaign and bump up against people who are pro-Baker. The intersections where groups meet occur all the time in twitter but actual explicit grouping is almost impossible. I'm thinking of a kind of new service where people can assign themselves to groups both physical and virtual. And can assign others to groups too. More visibility of groups should be a good thing, I think. I imagine for example that bystanders to pro presidential groups arguing would be able to label this as an inter-group interaction and be able to filter this out perhaps. Or I imagine that simply knowing that that attack from left field about some subject was due to the attackers belonging to a group and being able to understand that ideology. I'm being naive here, of course. What I want to happen is to increase the understanding of group dynamics in people to reduce undue suffering. To see ones own groups as being flexible and to see what ideas come from ones own groups and then seeing other people in their groups and seeing the same for them.