The Wisdom of Crowds and the National Initiative

A couple of years ago I read a book called The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many are Smarter than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economics, Societies and Nations by James Surowiecki. 

To me, it’s a good argument for why the National Initiative would be such a great tool, even a transcendent one. It may be why I had such an easy time accepting that it would be, while most people with a brain have doubts about the intelligence of the majority!

In it, Surowiecki explains that large groups of diverse people actually come to more intelligent conclusions that small groups of experts, or single experts. There’s something called “collective intelligence” that kicks in.

I don’t recall whether he discussed Corporate influence at any length, but it’s obvious to me that in instances where there's too much Corporate control dictating choices, there is little opportunity for collective wisdom to be displayed. So national elections haven’t been a good gauge of it, especially lately. Here’s a review from the amazon page that describes how it works:

From Publishers Weekly

While our culture generally trusts experts and distrusts the wisdom of the masses, New Yorker business columnist Surowiecki argues that "under the right circumstances, groups are remarkably intelligent, and are often smarter than the smartest people in them." To support this almost counterintuitive proposition, Surowiecki explores problems involving cognition (we're all trying to identify a correct answer), coordination (we need to synchronize our individual activities with others) and cooperation (we have to act together despite our self-interest). His rubric, then, covers a range of problems, including driving in traffic, competing on TV game shows, maximizing stock market performance, voting for political candidates, navigating busy sidewalks, tracking SARS and designing Internet search engines like Google.

If four basic conditions are met, a crowd's "collective intelligence" will produce better outcomes than a small group of experts, Surowiecki says, even if members of the crowd don't know all the facts or choose, individually, to act irrationally. "Wise crowds" need (1) diversity of opinion; (2) independence of members from one another; (3) decentralization; and (4) a good method for aggregating opinions. The diversity brings in different information; independence keeps people from being swayed by a single opinion leader; people's errors balance each other out; and including all opinions guarantees that the results are "smarter" than if a single expert had been in charge.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0385721706/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

One example given of group intelligence was the following:

In 1906, Francis Galton, known for his work on statistics and heredity, came across a weight-judging contest at the West of England Fat Stock and Poultry Exhibition. This encounter was to challenge the foundations of his life's study.

An ox was on display and for six-pence fair-goers could buy a stamped and numbered ticket, fill in their names and their guesses of the animal's weight after it had been slaughtered and dressed. The best guess received a prize.

Eight hundred people tried their luck. They were diverse. Many had no knowledge of livestock; others were butchers and farmers. In Galton's mind this was a perfect analogy for democracy. He wanted to prove the average voter was capable of very little. Yet to his surprise, when he averaged the guesses, the total came to 1197 pounds. After the ox had been slaughtered, it weighted 1198.