The Most Intolerant Wins
Добавлено: 15 ноя 2015, 15:38
Понимаю, что совсем далеко не все смогут это прочитать, но уж очень в тему дня: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/502 ... nority.pdf
The best example I know that gives insights into the functioning of a
complex system is with the following situation. It suffices for an intransigent
minority –a certain type of intransigent minorities –to reach a minutely
small level, say three or four percent of the total population, for the entire
population to have to submit to their preferences. Further, an optical illusion
comes with the dominance of the minority: a naive observer would be under
the impression that the choices and preferences are those of the majority. If
it seems absurd, it is because our scientific intuitions aren’t calibrated for
that (fughedabout scientific and academic intuitions and snap judgments;
they don’t work and your standard intellectualization fails with complex
systems, though not your grandmothers’ wisdom).
The main idea behind complex systems is that the ensemble behaves in
way not predicted by the components. The interactions matter more than the
nature of the units. Studying individual ants will never (one can safely say
never for most such situations), never give us an idea on how the ant colony
operates. For that, one needs to understand an ant colony as an ant colony,
no less, no more, not a collection of ants. This is called an “emergent”
property of the whole, by which parts and whole differ because what matters
is the interactions between such parts. And interactions can obey very simple
rules. The rule we discuss in this chapter is the minority rule.
The minority rule will show us how it all it takes is a small number of
intolerant virtuous people with skin in the game, in the form of courage, for
society to function properly.
...
The entire growth of society, whether economic or moral, comes from a small
number of people. So we close this chapter with a remark about the role of
skin in the game in the condition of society. Society doesn’t evolve by
consensus, voting, majority, committees, verbose meeting, academic
conferences, and polling; only a few people suffice to disproportionately
move the needle. All one needs is an asymmetric rule somewhere. And
asymmetry is present in about everything