{"id":524,"date":"2010-03-12T03:43:16","date_gmt":"2010-03-12T10:43:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/?p=524"},"modified":"2010-03-12T03:55:27","modified_gmt":"2010-03-12T10:55:27","slug":"the-stupidity-of-crowds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/?p=524","title":{"rendered":"The stupidity of crowds"},"content":{"rendered":"

Let me start by saying (a) that I am a fan of James Surowiecki<\/strong><\/a> and enjoy his writing and insight; and (b) I think he has a point in his ‘wisdom of crowds<\/strong><\/a>‘ thing.<\/p>\n

Heck, the whole idea of democracy is based somewhat on the premise that large groups of ordinary folks can exhibit common wisdom.\u00a0 As Lincoln once said, “God must have loved the common man … he made so many of them!”\u00a0 I know that some of you read this and think of the current political environment and might conclude otherwise but over the long term democracy has served us … ok, it has served most of us … quite well thank you.<\/p>\n

But the cold reality is that crowds can also be stupid.\u00a0 Very stupid.\u00a0 And crowds are particularly stupid when then face things that they find foreign, strange, and uncomfortable.<\/p>\n

\"8527stupid-people-posters\"A recent case in point.\u00a0 The Mississippi school district<\/a><\/strong> that canceled their senior prom rather than allow a lesbian to attend in a tuxedo with her girlfriend.\u00a0 Yup.\u00a0 You read that right.\u00a0 Grown adults so afraid of a teen age lesbian couple that they canceled prom night.<\/p>\n

I don’t think it matters what you think about gays and lesbians.\u00a0 And I don’t think it matters what you think about teenage gays and lesbians.\u00a0 You may believe it normal and a sign of a maturing, evolving culture.\u00a0 Or you may find it unnatural and a sign of society going to hell in a handbasket.\u00a0 Or somewhere in between.\u00a0 Doesn’t matter.<\/p>\n

That a school district would cancel prom over fears that kids might see two girls making out is just stupid.\u00a0 Don’t Mom and Dad know that their children have already seen that and more on Fox<\/strong><\/a>?\u00a0 Do they think that if they cancel prom gays and lesbians will disappear?\u00a0 That their children won’t get ‘infected’?\u00a0 Don’t they realize that this lesbian couple is already in their children’s high school?\u00a0 That rather than make this go away that it shoves it in everyone’s face.<\/p>\n

Crowds do bizarre stupid things when faced with cultural fears.<\/p>\n

I know first hand growing up in Jefferson Parish Louisiana in the 1970s.\u00a0 I attended a public high school that was ALL boys.\u00a0 Yup.\u00a0 Public school.\u00a0 All boys.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because after desegregation some of the white parents – let’s call them a crowd of white parents at the time – figured that while they may have to accept that their white children will have to go to school with blacks, they could make sure that their white girls won’t have to mingle with black boys!<\/p>\n

And that was that.\u00a0 High school was divided into all boys and all girls schools.<\/p>\n

Stupid, stupid, stupid.<\/p>\n

Conclusion?\u00a0 Crowds can be dumb.\u00a0 And it isn’t hard to find examples (can anyone say … housing bubble?).\u00a0 So look around.\u00a0 What crowds are you hanging out with?\u00a0 What are they doing?\u00a0 Occasionally they can be wise.\u00a0 But they can just as easily be stupid.<\/p>\n

Chart your own course.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let me start by saying (a) that I am a fan of James Surowiecki and enjoy his writing and insight; and (b) I think he has a point in his ‘wisdom of crowds‘ thing. Heck, the whole idea of democracy is based somewhat on the premise that large groups of ordinary folks can exhibit common…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[57,60,61,59,62,58,156],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=524"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":530,"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524\/revisions\/530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerrysjuicebar.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}