[FRIAM] Swarms vs. herds

[thompnickson2 at gmail.com]

Ron, 

 

Thanks for this.  The idea that the delegation of individual choice to “leaders” that occurs in mobs is  a concession to the need for rapid concerted action in the face of an incalculable emergency is an important one to me.  It’s reminiscent of sexual behavior in which the interests of the entire body are temporarily put into the contr

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ol of a very small part of it  

 

 

 

 

 

I love the idea that a swarm of bees is just a bunch of bees going off to a quiet place to have a think.   For a fascinating rumination on mob behavior please see Among the Thugs. <https://www.amazon.com/Among-Thugs-Bill-Buford/dp/0679745351> 

 

Although I have made it (See attached) I have never been entirely comfortable with argument that in an emergency a bad decision be made quickly is preferable to no decision.    

 

Nick 

 

Nick Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

 <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com

 <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

 

 

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Ron Newman
Sent: Saturday, December 7, 2019 9:27 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: [FRIAM] Swarms vs. herds

 

Interesting take on swarms vs. herds:

 

"So in nature it’s interesting to see these different behaviors appear in other organisms. You know, in a prey organism where a herd could make bad decisions but what’s more important is it can make a kneejerk reaction and escape because they’re prey, you could end up with a mob mentality emerging. In a swarm, like bee swarms, where what’s more important is thoughtful deliberation, the process is parallel rather than serial and you end up with a group that can make, I would say, an enlightened decision that’s better than the individuals would have made because they have the luxury of time to make that decision...

 

 And because elections are done by polls rather than swarms, what an election will do is it will have the most popular choice emerge that’s not necessarily the choice that would maximize the satisfaction of a population...

And so this idea of we/us humans make decisions through polling, and it’s in a lot of ways far less evolved than the way that birds and bees and fish make decisions, which is through swarming. And a swarm will actually find that decision that really is the thing that reflects the combined sentiment of the population, whereas a poll is such an over-simplification, it’s really just what happens to be the largest plurality, but very often that’s very far from the answer that actually is the combined sentiment of a population."

 

full article:   https://voicesinai.com/episode/episode-61-a-conversation-with-dr-louis-rosenberg/

 

My take on it:  https://blog.ideatreelive.com/on-the-importance-of-idiots/ 

 


Ron Newman, M.S., M.M.E.

Founder,  <https://www.Ideatreelive.com> IdeaTreeLive.com Knowledge Modeling

www.RonPiano.com <https://www.RonPiano.com> 

Blog <https://blog.ideatreelive.com> 






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