After watching a group of ‘Vikings’ storm the capital, I thought to myself, how did we get here? Is the world filled with more crazy people than it used to be? I realized that while the answer to that is ‘Yes’, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the proportion of crazy people living among us has changed. As the world population has gone from ~2.8bn in 1955 to ~7.8bn currently, even if the proportion of crazies stayed the same, the nominal amount has increased. As the amount of crazies has increased, they have become more aware of others like them, and the knowledge that there are others like them has reinforced and emboldened them. I call this ‘Quorum Theory’. According to ‘Quorum Theory’, it is not the percentage of people in a society with crazy beliefs that matters, it is only the nominal amount of crazy people. When those crazy people find each other, it confirms their crazy beliefs and encourages them. Knowing that they form a Quorum indicates that their positions and beliefs aren’t crazy.
To put this into context, if we assume that 1% of the population is crazy, using the square mileage of the continental U.S., in 1955 there would have been ~19.0 square miles between each crazy person, by 2020 that would shrink to ~9.5 square miles between each crazy person. Layer on improved modes of transportation and communication, as well as the internet, and it has become infinitely easier, for crazy people to find each other. In a sense heart-warming, but also very dangerous.
This Quorum phenomenon has led to a society which has become increasingly contentious. It is the reason that modern political parties have been hijacked by extremes. As each party has entrenched around their most fringe members, it has devalued the core beliefs of all parties to the other side, making every issue as acrimonious as the most extreme debates. As a result of these extremes, there has been an increasing movement in society to completely shun those who ascribe to a different political or social agenda, as the extremes of those on the same spectrum are anathema to others.
“According to ‘Quorum Theory’, it is not the percentage of people in a society with crazy beliefs that matters, it is only the nominal amount of crazy people.”
In the end, smart people are right on controversial subjects maybe ~65% of the time, really smart people ~75%. Political parties and social ideologies are no different. Different cases call for different approaches. I set up this blog to ascribe my own opinions and set of values to social questions. While I have my own inherent biases, which I will try to call out when I catch them, I will attempt not to allow any overarching political or social allegiances to taint my opinions. People talk about seeing the forest for the trees as a positive thing, but if you start out with a view of how the forest should look, this can become a very dangerous skill, as smart people can rationalize data to fit their initial thesis. I will attempt to examine each situation by looking at the trees in the forest, rather than skewing each tree to fit my overarching vision of what the forest should look like.
The other day I read ‘The Giving Tree’ to my kids. While the author Shel Silverstein is believed to have been a card-carrying communist and I am a card-carrying capitalist (both Amex and Visa…subtle brag?), that doesn’t mean that the lessons and insights into human nature and relationships expressed in the book aren’t important to teach our children: whenever you are in a bind, you can always run the long-con on a tree and sucker it into giving you everything it has. After all, that is why gullible people are called saps.