A call for wiser research on collective wisdom
Research has just shown that “The Wisdom of Crowds” phenomena can be biased – a bias that can be avoided by focusing …
How to integrate information for a wiser democracy
Many fields and professions – from journalism and academia to video games and movies – can and do stimulate informed – or …
What is it about Random Selection??
In recent months I’ve discovered that random selection offers unexpected gifts to our efforts to create more fair, functional, and intelligent politics …
Climate challenges us to reconnect to place, reality and reason
We are out of sync with the world and especially with “place”. We lack the insights and capacities that come from knowing …
Climate Change and Collective Intelligence
Climate change is so big and pervasive we can hardly see it. There’s almost nothing in our collective lives that is bigger …
Surveillance and parasitism harm society’s collective intelligence
What this post is about: Society’s collective intelligence needs to be able to see clearly what’s going on and take action about …
Feedback dynamics in climate and society
In the debate over climate change, I find myself paying more attention to authorities who highlight important positive feedback loops through which a warming atmosphere triggers increased climate change. Their troubling scenarios come not from inn…
Bacteria — and the intelligence of individuals and collectives
Collective intelligence is not an abstraction. It is a real-world emergent phenomenon — a phenomenon that ranges from collective stupidity to collective brilliance. It arises from interactions among entities in shared situations. Collective intel…
Will Egypt Revolutionize Democracy Itself?
Thomas Friedman suggests that the special strength of Egypt’s youth-led revolutionary movement has been “the fact that it represented every political strain, every segment and class in Egyptian society.” But then he turns around and says that dive…
An awesome video stimulates collective intelligence discussion
Macrowikinomics Murmuration is a beautiful and fascinating video. Many of the connections made by the commentator are thought-provoking. However, I suggest it may be not quite correct to say both (a) that individual birds are not intelligent and (…