CollectiveIgnorance

Opposite of CollectiveIntelligence.

How can collectives sometimes make spectacularly bad decisions.

Discussed by JaredDiamond in his new book : Collapse

• http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge114.html

• My UCLA undergraduates, and JosephTainter as well, have identified a very surprising question; namely, failures of group decision-making on the part of whole societies, or governments, or smaller groups, or businesses, or university academic departments. The question of failure of group decision-making is similar to questions of failures of individual decision-making. Individuals make bad decisions; they enter bad marriages, they make bad investments, their businesses fail. But in failures of group decision-making there are some additional factors, notably conflicts of interest among the members of the group that don't arise with failures of individual decision-making. This is obviously a complex question; there's no single answer to it. There are no agreed-on answers.*

See also :

• CollectiveActionProblems / TheTragedyOfTheCommons

• MarketsAsBonfiresOfReason