Homo sapiens is Latin for "wise man" or "knowing man"; it is often used synonymously as "thinking man" and has been misunderstood to mean "rational man" in the collective imagination. We imagine ourselves to be rational; the idea that unconscious thinking dominates our minds and controls our behavior to a degree much greater than we recognize is anathema to most people, who pride themselves on their rationality. Yet it is relatively easy to show that at any given time large cohorts of us are irrational.
For example, there are non-negligible proportions of Americans who believe that the destruction of the World Trade Tower on 9/11 was an "inside job." Either they are irrational or those of us who believe they are irrational are ourselves irrational.
The sad fact is that The Wisdom of Crowds only holds when the crowds do not have an emotional investment in the outcome.
Consider two situations:
1) Two thousand people at a county fair all make guesses about the number of jelly beans in a jar. Behavioral economists tell us that their guesses should group around the actual number.
2) Two thousand people vote in an internet poll on the question of which countries are the greatest threat to peace in the world.
In the first instance, few of those two thousand people will have much in the way of an emotional investment in the outcome. Even if there is a prize to be won, the slim chances of winning $100 are not enough to invoke the power of the unconscious emotional desires.
In the second instance, people who have become invested enough in politics to answer internet surveys such as the one mentioned, are usually highly emotionally involved in the situation. They have, in a great many cases, lost the ability to behave and think in a logical, dispassionate manner. The idea that Israel and America, the two "winners" of the contest are a greater threat to peace in the world than countries whose ruling ethos involves genocidal aspirations and the desire for martyrdom would be clearly understood as irrational were one not so invested. The disparity between death tolls in conflicts and media coverage is all one needs to recognize that there is an irrational element to the focus on America and Israel as the greatest threats to world peace.
[Of course, if I am demonstrably wrong, then my insistence that the focus on Israel and America as "evil" dangers is irrational is itself an example of my irrationality. I will also grant that "proof" of Israeli and American perfidy would need to reach a fairly high level for me to surrender such an irrationally held belief.]
Further, consider the recent real world example of millions of people behaving irrationally:
In the financial melt down, millions of people believed that fundamental economic laws were no longer operative, that people who could not afford their homes could buy homes with inflated value and that value would continue inflating faster than the cost of living forever. Even a vast majority of the skeptics were pulled along for the ride. Yet the laws of the market place have not been repealed and the wisdom of Crowds failed spectacularly.
The Wisdom of Crowds must be amended:
A crowd will find a better solution to a problem than expected only in inverse proportion to their emotional investment in the problem. When a crowd is emotionally involved it no longer exhibits The Wisdom of Crowds but rather The Irrationality of Mobs.
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