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the
WISDOM and/or MADNESS
of
CROWDS
playing time: 30 min • by nicky case, april 2018
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Sir Isaac Newton was pretty sure he was a smart cookie. I mean, after inventing calculus and a theory of gravity, he should be clever enough to do some financial investing, right? Anyway, long story short, he lost $4,600,000 (in today's dollars) in the nationwide speculation frenzy known as the South Sea Bubble of 1720.

As Mr. Newton later said: “I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people.” yeah sucks for him →

Of course, that's not the only time markets, institutions, or entire democracies went haywire — the madness of crowds. And yet, just when you lose hope in humanity, you see citizens coordinating to rescue each other in hurricanes, communities creating solutions to problems, people fighting for a better world — the wisdom of crowds!
But why do some crowds turn to madness, or wisdom? No theory can explain everything, but I think a new field of study, network science, can guide us! And its core idea is this: to understand crowds, we should look not at the individual people, but at... ...their connections. →
Let's draw a network! Each connection represents a friendship between two people: draw to connect scratch to   disconnect when you're done doodling and playing around, let's continue → But social connections do more than just make pretty pictures. People look to their social connections to understand their social world. In this example, people look to their peers to find out what % of their friends (not counting themselves) are, say, binge-drinkers. Draw/erase connections, and see what happens! → cool, got it However, networks can fool people. Just like how the earth seems flat because we're on it, people may get wrong ideas about society because they're in it.
For example, a 1991 study showed that “virtually all [college] students reported that their friends drank more than they did.” But that seems impossible! How can that be? Well, you're about to invent the answer yourself, by drawing a network. It's time to... FOOL EVERYONE →
optional extra bonus notes ↑
↓ links and references
PUZZLE TIME!
Fool everyone into thinking the majority of their friends (50% threshold) are binge-drinkers (even though binge-drinkers are outnumbered 2-to-1!) FOOLED: out of 9 people Congrats! You manipulated a group of students into believing in the prevalance of an incredibly unhealthy social norm! Good going! ...uh. thanks? What you just created is called The Majority Illusion, which also explains why people think their political views are consensus, or why extremism seems more common than it actually is. Madness. But people don't just passively observe others' ideas and behaviors, they actively copy them. So now, let's look at something network scientists call... “Contagions!” → Let's put aside the "threshold" thing for now. Below: we have a person with some information. Some misinformation. "Fake news", as the cool kids say. And every day, that person spreads the rumor, like a virus, to their friends. And they spread it to their friends. And so on.
Start the simulation! ↓ (p.s: you can't draw while the sim's running) Note: despite the negative name, "contagions" can be good or bad (or neutral or ambiguous). There's strong statistical evidence that smoking, health, happiness, voting patterns, and cooperation levels are all "contagious" -- and even some evidence that suicides and mass shootings are, too. well that's depressing → Indeed it is. Anyway, PUZZLE TIME!
Draw a network & run the simulation, so that everyone gets infected with the "contagion". (new rule: you can't cut the thick connections) fan-flipping-tastic → This madness-spreading is called an "information cascade". Mr. Newton fell for such a cascade in 1720. The world's financial institutions fell for such a cascade in 2008.

However: this simulation is wrong. Most ideas don't spread like viruses. For many beliefs and behaviors, you need to be "exposed" to the contagion more than just once in order to be "infected". So, network scientists have come up with a new, better way to describe how ideas/behaviors spread, and they call it... “Complex Contagions!” → Let's bring back "thresholds", and the binge-drinking example! When you played with this the first time, people didn't change their behavior.

Now, let's simulate what happens if people do start drinking when 50%+ of their friends do! Before you start the sim, ask yourself what you think should happen. Now, run the sim, and see what actually happens! → Note that, unlike our earlier "fake news" contagion, this contagion does not spread to everyone!
The first few people get "infected", because although they're only exposed to one binge-drinker, that binge-drinker is 50% of their friends. (yeah, they're lonely) In contrast, the person near the end of the chain did not get "infected", because while they were exposed to a binge-drinking friend, they did not pass the 50%+ threshold.
And that's the difference between the "complex contagion" theory, and our earlier, naive, it-simply-spreads-like-a-virus "simple contagion" theory.
But, as stated earlier, not all contagions are bad — so enough about crowd madness, what about... ...crowd wisdom? Here, we have a person who volunteers to... I don't know, rescue people in hurricanes, help the poor in their local community, or something cool like that. Point is, it's a "good" complex contagion. This time, though, let's say the threshold is only 25% — people are willing to volunteer, but only if 25% or more of their friends do so too. Hey, goodwill needs a bit of social encouragement.

Get everyone "infected" with the good vibes! → You did this before, but now, with a complex contagion , it'll be tougher... Try to "infect" everyone with complex wisdom! ↓ (feel free to just hit 'start' and try as many solutions as you want) HOT DANG → Now, you may think: so what, complex contagions are just simple contagions that need more connections? Not so fast! The difference between "complex" and "simple" is a difference in kind, not degree. It's apples vs oranges, not apples vs more apples. This idea will be clearer if we revisit... ...yet another puzzle! → Now, let's do the opposite of everything we've done before. If you hit "start" below now, the contagion will just spread to everyone. No surprise there. But now, here's your challenge: draw a network to prevent the contagion from spreading to everyone! ↓ And that's the important difference between "simple" and "complex" contagion. While more connections always helps spread simple ideas, more connections can hurt the spread of complex ideas! (makes you wonder 'bout the internet, hm) And this isn't just a theoretical problem. This can be a matter of life... ...or death. → The people at NASA were smart cookies. I mean, they'd used Newton's theories to get us to the moon. Anyway, long story short, in 1986, despite warnings from the engineers, they launched the Challenger, which blew up and killed 7 people. The immediate cause: it was too cold that morning.
The less immediate cause: the managers ignored the engineers' warnings. Why? Because of groupthink. When a group is too closely knit, (as they tend to be at the top of institutions) they become resistant to hard-to-accept information that challenges one's beliefs or ego.
So, that's how to get crowd madness. But how can we "design" for crowd wisdom? In short, two words: Bonding & Bridging → ← Too few connections, and an idea can't spread.
Too many connections, and you get groupthink. → Draw a group that hits the sweet spot: just connected enough to spread a complex idea! ↓ This is called bonding social capital, the strength of the connections within a single group. But what about the connections... ...between groups? As you might have guessed, bridging social capital is the strength of the connections between groups. This is important, because it helps groups break out of their insular echo chambers!
Try to "infect" everyone with wisdom: Like bonding, bridging social capital has a sweet spot. (extra challenge: try drawing a bridge so thick that the complex contagion can't pass through it!) Now that we know how to "design" connections within and between groups, let's... ...do BOTH. → FINAL PUZZLE!
Draw connections within groups (bonding) and between groups (bridging) to spread wisdom to everyone: You just drew a very special kind of network! Networks with high bonding and bridging are profoundly important, and they're called... “Small World Networks” → "Unity without uniformity". "Diversity without division". "E Pluribus Unum: out of many, one".
No matter how it's phrased, people -- across times and cultures -- have often arrived at the same piece of wisdom: a healthy society needs a sweet spot of bonds within groups and bridges between groups. That is: Not this...
(because ideas can't spread) nor this...
(because you'll get groupthink) ...but THIS: Network scientists now have a mathematical definition for this ancient wisdom: the small world network. This optimal mix of bonding+bridging describes how our neurons interact, gives rise to collective creativity and problem-solving, and, at one point, has even helped us (barely) avoid full-out nuclear war! So, yeah, small worlds are a big deal. And finally, if you'd like to make a whole network from scratch, let's check out... The Sandbox Mode → NOTE: "Sandbox Mode" is totally optional! Feel free to skip it, or play around. Whenever you're done, let's recap... what we learnt today! Contagion: simple complex The Contagion's Color: Select a tool... Draw Network Add Person Add "Infected" Drag Person Delete Person CLEAR IT ALL (...or, use keyboard shortcuts!) [1]: Add Person     [2]: Add "Infected"
[Space]: Drag     [Backspace]: Delete
IN CONCLUSION: it's all about...
Contagions & Connections
Contagions: Like how neurons pass signals in a brain, people pass beliefs & behaviors in a society. Not only do we influence our friends, we also influence our friends' friends, and even our friends' friends' friends! (“be the change you wanna see in the world” etc etc) But, like neurons, it's not just signals that matter, it's also...
Connections: Too few connections and complex ideas can't spread. Too many connections and complex ideas get crushed by groupthink. The trick is to build a small world network, the optimal mix of bonding and bridging: e pluribus unum.
so, what about our question from the very beginning? why do some crowds turn to...
...wisdom and/or madness?

From Newton to NASA to network science, we've covered a lot here today. Long story short, the madness of crowds is not necessarily due to the individual people, but how we're trapped in a network's sticky web.

That does NOT mean abandoning personal responsibility, for we're also the weavers of that web. So, improve your contagions: be skeptical of ideas that flatter you, spend time understanding complex ideas. And, improve your connections: bond with similar folk, but also build bridges across cultural/political divides.

We can weave a wise web. Sure, it's harder than drawing lines on a screen... ...but so, so worth it.
“The great triumphs and tragedies of history are caused, not by people being fundamentally good or fundamentally bad, but by people being fundamentally people.”
~ Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett <3 CREDITS
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WIN start simulation reset & re-draw

BONUS BOX: How Else Can We Be Connected?

(blah blah blah, one-directional, weighted connections, etc)

BONUS BOX: A quick response to James Surowiecki's The Wisdom of Crowds

(blah blah blah)

BONUS BOX: Everything I Said Is Wrong

(blah blah blah: map, extending the model with ecologies or randomness, etc)

Further Reading

“a 1991 study showed that virtually all [college] students reported that their friends drank more than they did.”

[link]

“The Majority Illusion”

[link] [also, interactive NYT version]

“strong statistical evidence that smoking, health, happiness, voting patterns, and cooperation levels are all contagious”

[Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler, again]

“some evidence that suicides are [contagious], too”

[link]

“some evidence that mass shootings are [contagious], too”

[link - also Don't Say Their Names]

“The world's financial institutions fell for such a cascade in 2008.”

[link to Cass Sunstein's Lemmings of Wall Street right after the prices plunged - not technical]

“Complex contagions are weirder.”

[link to empirical proof of twitter complex contagion] [also, Granovetter's Threshold model] [and Dodds & Watt's Universal Contagion] [not to mention contrarians]

“groupthink”

[link to Janis's Groupthink article]

“bonding and bridging social capital”

[link to Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone]

“bridging social capital has a sweet spot”

[link to Granovetter's Strength of Weak Ties] [and response for complex contagion, the Weakness of Long Ties!]

“the small world network”

[link to Strogatz and Watts] [also the Bret Victor version]

“[small world networks] describe how our neurons interact”

[link plz]

“[small world networks] give rise to collective creativity”

[link to that Broadway and small world study. note PARABOLIC relationship]

“[small world networks] give rise to collective problem-solving”

[link to Social Physics book]

“[small world networks] helped us (barely) avoid nuclear war!”

[JFK and the Cuban Missile Crisis, his small-world team undid his earlier screw-up with the Bay of Pigs,

“Sandbox Mode”

pst... wanna hear a secret? those keyboard shortcuts (1,2,space,delete) can edit not just the simulation in sandbox mode, but all the simulations in this explorable explanation! seriously, you can go back to a different chapter, and edit the simulation right there. in fact, that's how I created all these puzzles!

“we influence [...] our friends' friends' friends!”

[link to Connected by Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler]

“be skeptical of ideas that flatter you”

yes, including all the ideas in this explorable explanation.