James Surowiecki, The Wisdom of Crowds

[mcb]

I just finished reading this intriguing book in which the author discusses conditions under which "crowds" (or "markets" or "networks" or "groups") can prove to be "smarter" than the people that compose them. Laura mentions it here. The essense of what I took away from the book is:

• A network of people can accurately answer a specific question put to it by aggregating the "personal knowledge" of its members, even when none of the members could individually come up with the answer
• For this to work well, the members must be able to answer independently (not under pressure to respond a certain way) and must decide at the same time, not serially
• There must be a mechanism, such as voting, that serves to aggregate the responses
• There are a number of distinct types of problems for which answers can be found by groups

It seems like we could do experiments of this nature here in the forum, using polling. This type of group, with its great diversity, ought to be ideal. It would be important to ensure that those participating did not feel any pressure to answer a certain way. We might, for example, put some of the proposed "quesions for the Cs" to the group. Some types of questions might require a "market" rather than a "poll" and I am not sure how we would do those.

The book also contains valuable insights into the issues of "groupthink" and why groups of people sometimes don't make good decisions. Knowledge of these issues can be very useful.

I listened to the audiobook, so I don't have the printed pages to go back and quote from; otherwise I would say more. I would be very interested in what others who have read it have to say. I would definitely recommend the book.

 

[thorbiorn]

There are chapter summaries here _http://www.squeezedbooks.com/articles/the-wisdom-of-crowds.html
where I found this section:

Independence of action and thought is important for the wisdom of crowds. If everyone thinks alike, then they’re less likely to arrive at a good answer to a given problem, because they’re less likely to fall into “groupthink”. “The more influence we exert on each other, the more likely it is that we will believe the same things and make the same mistakes”.

Comment: These statements could be taken to imply the following: If the decisions of the US/EU with regard to for instance the situation in Ukraine and the relation to Russia are not that wise, it indicates that the wisdom of the crowd, to be expected if there had been any real freedom, has been replaced by a distorted groupthink. Therefore, what rules is not the wisdom of crowds but the idiocy of pathocracy marketed under the registered trademark of "Freedom and democracy".