Stupidity Is The Effect Of The Majority

In the News (BBC): “The ‘wisdom of crowds’ doesn’t always apply – sometimes group-think nudges people to make wrong-headed decisions.

“The decisions people make as a group tend to be more prejudiced and less intelligent than the ones they make individually. ‘When people interact, they end up agreeing, and they make worse decisions,’ he [Daniel Richardson] says. ‘They don’t share information, they share biases. We’re trying to figure out why that is, and how we can make collective decisions better.’

“Richardson’s work on conformity follows a tradition in experimental psychology that goes back more than six decades. In the 1950s, the Harvard psychologist Solomon Asch demonstrated that people frequently adopt the view of the majority even when it is obviously wrong, and even when they have to deny their own senses. …

“Group conformity stands in marked contrast to the “wisdom of crowds” effect, whereby aggregating the opinions of large numbers of people gives answers or predictions more accurate than those of any individual. This happens only when members of a crowd make their judgements independently of each other, and it is most effective when a crowd is diverse. In cohesive groups, on the other hand, where members share an identity, the urge for unity overrides all. ..

“’We think of the internet as an information superhighway. It’s not, it’s a bias superhighway. Twitter and Facebook are wonderful ways of sharing information, but it may be that because we’re sharing our prejudices, they’re making us dumber.’”

My Comment: The connection between opinions, which brings capability and not stupidity, is realized only in the connection of the ten principles. It is not the addition of opinions; on the contrary, there is a connection of denial of independent opinions. The members of the group aspire to annul their personal opinions and to unite efforts in creating one desire that is capable of receiving the idea from a higher level of nature.  Only in this manner can we rise about ourselves, and grasp the plan of nature, our goal, and follow it, remaining in a reasonable and comfortable condition.
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