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So what? Any complex system behaves like that, which makes the analogy banal.
by ispo 4y ago
So what? Any complex system behaves like that, which makes the analogy banal.
- jason-phillips 4y agoNot quite, I would argue. That may be true of any unregulated system of peers, but not a structured, regulated system.
- williamcotton 4y agoSuch as the hard-earned trials that over time led to what we call civilization.
- mandmandam 4y agoThe potential to massively alter collective human behaviour via tiny variations in social networks is objectively interesting, and important. There's quite a lot at stake there, if you care to look - as the article does a decent job of beginning to address. The comparison and similarities of human flocking behaviour to other complex systems are not one to one, and are poorly understood. Consider that you might simply be overestimating your understanding.
- ispo 4y agoThanks for your enlightening comment.
- Silverback_VII 4y agoTo say that interconnected humans behave like a flock of birds is very flawed in my opinion. Each bird in a flock sees the REAL behaviour of the other birds but this is not necessarily the case with the internet since an entity can heavily influence your perception of the other people by controlling the communication channel. The Internet and social network is more like adding the possibility to create one virtual bird for each real bird and then remotely control the whole flock.
- ispo 4y agoLook at this from the other way around, imagine you could put a few drones influencing the birds.
- 082349872349872 4y agoBooks on propaganda from the 1920's explicitly discuss "closing triangles" to artificially influence perception of near-neighbour opinions.
- ispo 4y agoPlease can you provide a citation?
- 082349872349872 4y agoI believe I'm remembering either Crystallizing Public Opinion (1923) or Propaganda (1928), both by Bernays. (IIRC, the exploitation of local social graphs is in his description of the techniques used to sell US entry into the Great War/WWI) But there were other authors I consulted in the same timeframe, and Linebarger, in Psychological Warfare (1948) points out that propaganda/public relations men (they were all men, in those days) are less than completely reliable sources when it comes to testimony as to their methods and their efficacy. So you'll probably want to triangulate a bit yourself. Edit: Propaganda Ch.I,p18 is already promising: ... it must be remembered that these thousands of groups interlace. John Jones, besides being a Rotarian, is member of a church, of a fraternal order, of a political party, of a charitable organization, of a professional association, of a local chamber of commmerce ... This invisible, intertwining structure of groupings and associations is the mechanism by which democracy has organized its group mind and simplified its mass thinking. ... To admit that [this structure] exists, but expect that it shall not be used, is unreasonable.
- ispo 4y agoAmazing description of for what today are called the layers of a multiplex.
- Oxidation 4y agoIndeed, if it turns out social media platforms allow not only measurement but control over the parameters of the "flock" behaviour, it's only a matter of time before it's possible to engineer sheepdogs. You can't control what you can't measure, and social media is a very effective measurement tool of crowd behaviour. Whether you can control what you can measure, well that's up to Cambridge Analytica 2.0 to figure out.
- kuramitropolis 4y agoI'd wager it's already happened. The general loss of definition since before the pandemic, the events of the past year in particular, especially the sudden burst of clarity around some of the sketchier economic affairs of these past few months, seem to suggest that something bigger's brewing already.
- ispo 4y agoYou are not being clear enough to make your post different than a conspiracy theory.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- bobthepanda 4y agoPart of good science is trying to verify the obvious, because sometimes what is "obvious" is not correct, and sometimes it is partially true but differs in ways that are unexpected. We have a whole science crisis around replicating results as it is.