Monday, November 27, 2006

Collective Wisdom

The American left-wing group Moveon.org, flush from the recent Democratic electoral victory, is emailing out a survey to find out what it should do next.

The email says:

"We've always believed in the wisdom of crowds—the idea that all of us together are smarter and wiser than any one of us. The survey will only take a few minutes of your time but your answers—along with the answers of all the other MoveOn members—will show the way forward."

Hmmm, all of us together are smarter and wiser than any one of us. Interesting notion.

I guess that's why angry mobs are so wise.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

This flies in the face of what I have heard in the past, viz., mob intelligence varies inversely as the number in the mob.

Monkey Loves to Fight said...

It is kind of arrogant, although not totally off. People with university degrees rarely support far right parties. Many may lean to the right or even be libertarian, but not too many are attracted to neo-conservatism and even less are to social conservatism.

Matt said...

This is a bastardization of the coin termed by James Surowiecki in his excellent book - The Wisdom of Crowds.

The term properly refers to a large number of individuals rather than a collective mob. In order to tap into the wisdom of crowds it's vital that people are thinking and acting independently.fxaf