Irrepressible Thought — Proudhon on What Democracy Cannot Answer

In principle then, I admit that the People exists, that it is sovereign, that it is predicated in the consciousness of the masses. But nothing yet has proven to me that it can perform an overt act of sovereignty, that an explicit revelation of the People is possible. For, in view of the dominance of prejudices, of the contradiction of ideas and interests, of the variability of opinion, and of the impulsiveness of the multitude, I shall always ask what establishes the authenticity and legitimacy of such a revelation-and this is what democracy cannot answer.

Irrepressible Thought
Proudhon on What Democracy Cannot Answer

Curious Leftist

Tom Atlee — Comparing “Wisdom of the Crowds” to Real Collective Wisdom

“The Wisdom of Crowds” is about how accurate (or not) dozens or thousands of people are when they are guessing the number of beans in a bottle or predicting who is going to win the World Cup. The number of times their average collective guestimates are accurate is remarkable – which is the subject of Surowiecki’s book. But is that what WISDOM is really about? 

If some individual could predict the outcome of this year’s US elections, would we call them wise? Is that what we proclaim Christ or Buddha as wise for doing? 

I would love it if we would reserve the terms “wisdom” and “wise” for guidance that makes life better – especially useful guidance that makes life better for most or all of us – including all the creatures of this living, fragile Earth – over the long term. That’s what we need wisdom for, now more than ever. 

The traditions of the world’s great religions are one source of that wisdom, if we are mindful and heartful about which aspects of them we choose to follow, such as the near-universal Golden Rule of treating others the ways we would like to be treated. That’s wise. 

Various forms of systems thinking – from shamanism to ecology and complexity sciences – offer such wisdom because they deal with the wholeness and interconnectedness of the world. Nature’s ways of solving problems – as revealed by the sciences of biomimicry and evolution – also offers such guidance because nature’s solutions (and ways of generating solutions) have arisen and proven themselves through millions of years of testing.

Public Intelligence Blog
Tom Atlee: Comparing “Wisdom of the Crowds” to Real Collective Wisdom

David M. Rothschild — Understanding How Polls Affect Voters

Confirming past studies, we find strong evidence of an overall bandwagon effect; people become more supportive of policies that have more general support. We further find that both social acceptance and social learning drive the bandwagon effect. However, the effect of social learning is significantly and substantially stronger than that of social acceptance. Thus, the main reason that people conform to majority opinion in the political domain is that they believe there is information about the quality of the candidates or policies to be learned from mass support. We find no evidence for the third mechanism -- that people conform because they want to reduce cognitive dissonance related to not supporting a candidate that will likely win or policy that will likely be implemented.

The idea of the bandwagon effect seems disheartening for democracy if conformity pressures silence minority opinions. However, this research has given us a reason for optimism; people seem to be conforming not only because they see normative value in being part of the majority but also because they believe that there is information in collective opinion. Citizens want to be informed and the collective wisdom of their fellow citizens is just one source of information on which they have learned to rely.

PredictWise
Understanding How Polls Affect Voters
David M. Rothschild | PhD in Applied Economics at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, Economist with MicroSoft Research-NYC, and a fellow at the Applied Statistics Center at Columbia.