Ignorance is... Democratic?

[Glaucus]

I'm putting this in Science & Tech because it's research.

In group decision-making, ignorance promotes democracy

Researchers have long wondered how the dynamics of decision-making work in these cases. Some evidence suggests that those who are ignorant or naïve are subject to manipulation by a loud, opinionated minority. If this is true, uninformed individuals are detrimental to democratic decision-making, since they can turn over power to a minority. However, a new study in this week's Science shows that, under certain conditions, uninformed individuals actually shift the balance toward the majority, enabling a democratic process where the majority rules.

Of course this may not apply to humans because a loud minority can be persuasive enough to convince people to act against their own best interests - whereas animals are likely to just be attracted to the biggest group (in other words, they're attracted to the majority and by doing so, increase it's size). Also, it's questionable if the majority wins here because majority means more then half think a certain way. If part of the majority is made up of uninformed people, then is it really a majority who think a certain way? I think the research shows that the larger group wins, but still doesn't prove that a majority wins. It's a subtle difference that many people seem to miss.

 

[robert l. bentham]

if spinach and strawberries can figure it out, we will too...

 

[FluffyMcDeath]

I'm putting this in Science & Tech because it's research.

In group decision-making, ignorance promotes democracy

The ignorant are a sort of liquidity that sloshed about and lends weight to whoever seems the most confident thus allowing the system to come to a decision. It doesn't mean that the decision is sound or correct, but at least it's a decision.

Manipulation of the ignorant is the art of politics and maintaining a suitably large stable of ignorance is an important goal in itself.

 

[robert l. bentham]

spinach grows year round. (i feed it to my dogs when pumpkins arent plentiful) nobody tells it what to do. it just does it. my best attempts to control where it goes when it grows have been little more than an effort in futility to say the least. it knows where it needs to go in order to grow.... strawberries did the same damn thing....we'll figure it out... might be horrifying at first but in the end... probably okay...