Collective Intelligence Vs Collective Stupidity

Saturday 22 July 2023, 1:30 to 3:30 pm

Any replies to the organizer - thormay@yahoo.com

Venue: Zoom online

[I highly recommend a 20 minute video by Sabine Hossenfelder as an introduction to this topic : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25kqobiv4ng ]

Talking Points:

1. Democracy is driven by the belief that the collective intelligence of a population will produce a better society in the long run than the 'power of 1' - the decisions of a dictator. What are your views on this? Evidence? A middle way?

2. How does marketing exploit collective stupidity? Examples.

3. The thinking behind having juries in criminal trials is that 12 heads are believed more likely than a single judge to get it right than get it wrong. How reliable is this belief? What can lead juries astray?

4. The Great Financial Crash of 2008 was an example of group think gone wrong by lots of clever financial people. How exactly did this happen? Can it happen again? What are other instances of financial madness?

5. Why does religious/ideological belief and superstition so often lead to deadly mass stupidity? For example, the Salem Witch Trials, 1693 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salem_witch_trials) were a classic example of collective stupidity becoming collective evil. However these trials were not an outlier. Between 1450 and 1750 up to 50,000 'witches', mostly women, were executed in Europe. Think of other examples.

6. Can you think of some non-human examples of collective intelligence, and how it sometimes flips to go wrong?

7. How is the phenomenon of 'emergence' linked to collective intelligence in nature?

8. The overall level of education in a country is supposed to be a good indication of that country's "intellectual capital". Thus most countries in north eastern Europe consider it a good national investment to make tertiary education free or nearly free. Australia now follows the American model of treating tertiary education as a for-profit industry. Is Australia's dividend going to show collective intelligence or collective stupidity? What are the pros & cons?

9. What is the power of 'influencers' to harness group intelligence, or alternatively group stupidity? Evidence?

10. There is a phenomenon called an "information cascade" which can drive people to behaviour they might personally doubt. This can have good or bad effects. e.g. We have been exposed to cascades of information about climate change, the Ukraine war, health issues and many other things. An information cascade becomes a rip current which is very hard to resist. More examples? What is the best way to navigate information cascades?

Extra Reading

Sabine Hossenfelder (25 March 2023) "Collective Stupidity -- How Can We Avoid It?" Youtube @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25kqobiv4ng [Thor, comment: This is a brilliant explanation of the topic. Sabine is gifted]

Thor May (2015) "The Unexpected Power of Stupidity". The Passionate Skeptic website @ http://thormay.net/unwiseideas/stupidity.htm [Quote: "Stupidity turns out to be complicated. Stupidity in its many guises does more damage on a daily basis than generations of clever ideas have ever been able to cope with. Human stupidity ranges all the way from planetary destruction to self mutilation by vengeful individuals cutting off their own nose to spite their face. Given the scale of stupidity’s ravages, it is a matter of wonder that it attracts so little systematic public research under its own name".]

Jonathan Freedland (19 May 2023) "They’re openly saying it: Brexit has failed. But what comes next may be very dark indeed". The Guardian @ https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/may/19/brexit-failed-blame-remoaner-elite-refugees [Thor, comment: It seems to me that Brexit was one of the most stupid collective decisions an electorate in a modern state has ever made. It was a political exploitation of mass ignorance and prejudice in a large segment of the British population. Of course, it has backfired spectacularly. Dictatorships also, of course, make stupid decisions: witness Putin's war in Ukraine]

Asha’ar Rehman (March 30, 2018) "Ideology is Irrelevant to Power". Dawn media (Pakistan) @ https://www.dawn.com/news/1398424

Matto Mildenberger (April 23, 2019) "The Tragedy of the ‘Tragedy of the Commons’ - The man who wrote one of environmentalism’s most-cited essays was a racist, eugenicist, nativist and Islamaphobe—plus his argument was wrong". Scientific American @ https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/voices/the-tragedy-of-the-tragedy-of-the-commons/ [Quote: "Fifty years ago, University of California professor Garrett Hardin penned an influential essay in the journal Science. Hardin saw all humans as selfish herders: we worry that our neighbors’ cattle will graze the best grass. So, we send more of our cows out to consume that grass first. We take it first, before someone else steals our share. This creates a vicious cycle of environmental degradation that Hardin described as the “tragedy of the commons ... And he promoted an idea he called “lifeboat ethics”: since global resources are finite, Hardin believed the rich should throw poor people overboard to keep their boat above water. ... But the facts are not on Hardin’s side. For one, he got the history of the commons wrong. As Susan Cox pointed out, early pastures were well regulated by local institutions. They were not free-for-all grazing sites where people took and took at the expense of everyone else. Many global commons have been similarly sustained through community institutions".]

Dima Vorobiev, I worked for Soviet propaganda (2018) "Communism sounds fantastic on paper. Why did it fail in reality?" Quora @ https://www.quora.com/Communism-sounds-fantastic-on-paper-Why-did-it-fail-in-reality [Quote: "One problem kept popping up. Humans are shaped by evolution to be a bunch of lazy, selfish, sneaky, predatory bitches. It takes the fear of pain, starvation, and death to get us off our idle behinds and make ourselves useful. There are also a tiny minority of people who are driven by curiosity, vanity and the desire to make a difference. But they are a maddeningly selfish bunch, too. They prefer to do their own stuff and object strongly when other people tell them what to do. There’s also a powerful unselfish thing called love. It can do wonders and prevail over everything. But the unselfishness of love makes it the most dangerous enemy of Communism: people eagerly sacrifice the common good for their kids, their lovers, their family, and their friends"].

Didi Kirsten Tatlow (Oct. 31, 2012) "Can China Be Described as 'Fascist'?" [Note: This piece was written just before the current PRC leader, Xi JinPing, was installed in power]. New York Times @ https://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/01/world/asia/01iht-letter01.html

Kenan Malik (26 March 2017) "How can we distinguish violence driven by ideology from sociopathic rage?" The Guardiana @
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/26/distinguish-violence-driven-by-ideology-from-sociopathic-rage

David French (April 2022) "Free Speech for Me but Not for Thee - The American right has lost the plot on free speech". The Atlantic @ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/04/republican-dont-say-gay-bill-florida/629516/

Wikipedia (2023) "Witch-hunt" @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witch-hunt

Wikipedia (2023) @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salem_witch_trials

Jason Wilson (25 Oct 2018) "'Dripping with poison of antisemitism': the demonization of George Soros - The billionaire was the first target in a series of mail bombs sent this week, an attack that comes as vilification of Soros has reached new heights." The Guardian @ https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/24/george-soros-antisemitism-bomb-attacks

Gary Younge (2 June 2014) "Who's in control – nation states or global corporations?" The Guardian @ https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/02/control-nation-states-corporations-autonomy-neoliberalism

John Gooley ( 12 April 2022) "Trial by jury vs trial by judge alone – what’s the difference?" Stacks Law Firm @ https://stacklaw.com.au/news/criminal-law/trial-by-jury-vs-trial-by-judge-alone-whats-the-difference/ [Quote: "Statistics show defendants are more likely to be found not guilty by a judge than a jury. The Bureau of Crime Statistics examined NSW trials between 1993 and 2011 and found defendants were acquitted 55.4 per cent of the time in a judge alone trial, compared to 29 per cent in a jury trial".]

Pat Vaughan Tremmel (June 26, 2007) "New Study Shows How Often Juries Get It Wrong". Northwestern University @ https://www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/stories/2007/06/juries.html [Quote: "... A new Northwestern University study shows that juries in criminal cases are reaching incorrect verdicts. The study, which looked at 271 cases in four areas of Illinois, found that as many as one in eight juries is making the wrong decision – by convicting an innocent person or acquitting a guilty one".]

American Bar Association (September 2017) "New study reveals how juries think and behave". ABA @ https://www.americanbar.org/news/abanews/publications/youraba/2017/september-2017/new-study-reveals-how-juries-think-and-behave/ [Quote: "In 92 percent of cases, at least one instruction was read aloud among the jurors. But although jurors discussed instructions a lot, they were inaccurate in comprehending them 17 percent of the time."]

Thor May (September 21, 2008) "The Decider announces the end of triumphalist capitalism ... Whose zoo do these simians belong in now?". Thor's New China Diary @ http://thormay.net/ChinaDiary2/the-end-of-capitalism-is-announced [Quote: "Bestriding the world like an inflatable colossus in 2000, George Bush and his cabal set about forcing the world to be for him or agin’ him. It turned out we were mostly agin’ him, but that didn’t trouble his voter base too much since like George they thought the other 94% of the world’s population came from the Discovery TV Channel, and weren’t god fearing Christians anyway. While the world went to hell, back on the ranch George and friends presided over a remarkable transition in America’s fortunes. He turned the treasury’s record surplus into a record deficit that would indebt ordinary Americans for generations."]

Ablison (2023) "50 Important Pros and Cons of Free Education". Ablison blog @ https://www.ablison.com/important-pros-and-cons-of-free-education/

Michael Bond (14th January 2016) "Why people get more stupid in a crowd". BBC @ https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20160113-are-your-opinions-really-your-own