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> If I were to write a fictional story, and set this many characters of such magnitude in the same city at the same time, people would think the premise was abs
by roenxi 2y ago
> If I were to write a fictional story, and set this many characters of such magnitude in the same city at the same time, people would think the premise was absurd.
Heh, I chuckle because understanding the mechanics of what is happening in that anecdote one is one of the high-payoff learning curves the the article was talking about up to that point.
The dynamics of how a group makes decisions is not particularly intuitive and favours small knots of high-performing decision makers in a small geographical area. An interesting follow up observation is democracy actually leverages that really well in practice, but most people who notice get annoyed because they have a naive view that all the voters in a democratic polity are meant to have equal sway and impact in practice. The reality is the democratic process picks which tribe of decision makers gets control of the army and boots tribes when they descend into groupthink.
- BobbyTables2 2y agoI feel like 90% of the selection of tribes is only done by groupthink. People seem to have opinions based on propaganda instead of reason. Someone deciding which donut to buy in a donut shop is usually making a more informed choice.
- MichaelZuo 2y agoLikely way more than that. Considering how rare genuinely original ideas are… it’s likely even the 90th percentile HN reader will be regurgitating and parroting until middle age, at least.
- achierius 2y ago> democracy actually leverages that really well in practice Does it? Everything I know indicates that the #1 deciding factor in how much influence you can get (within a modern liberal democracy) is how much money you have to begin with. > people who notice get annoyed because they have a naive view that all the voters in a democratic polity are meant to have equal sway and impact in practice I don't think people have (nearly as much of) an issue with e.g. people who caucus getting more sway than your average voter. But even the most devoted party volunteer will struggle to out-influence even a relatively disinterested large donor.