

Flash Mob gone wrong - ashitvora
http://ashitvora.info/flash-mob-gone-wrong

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danw
Original source: <http://www.tomscott.com/mob/>. From the guidelines: "Please
submit the original source". That's not quite the same as embedding something
in your own blog and then submitting your own blog.

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tvon
It's a story that requires a perfect storm of events with a large dose of
human idiocy, it's not very plausible outside of Hollywood.

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icegreentea
Ah, but there's a very large pool of humanity to draw idiocy from. Something
that I'm sure has driven many an engineer (and politician) insane.

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petercooper
Get Tom Scott a slot at TED! He's a legend, and the same guy who ran as a
pirate in the Westminster constituency at the last UK election.

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riffraff
I never heard of him, and I already am willing to second this :)

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tvon
I don't care for this, it reminds me of slapping an "e-" prefix on something
just to indicate that it's now somehow "internet ready".

More to the point, people acting like idiots is nothing new, but I think we'd
all still be shocked if this actually happened, just like we'd be shocked if
any kind of gathering resulted in a riot and 23 people dead.

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armandososa
But we won't be _very_ surprised.

I've seen it in Mexico. For example, last week one medium-sized Drug Boss was
cornered by the mexican army in Matamoros and he ordered a city-wide operation
of road-blocking and setting-cars-on-fire in order to escape, aided by a
personal army of highly armed mercs.

10 years ago, this event would have been very surprising and scary and
unlikely. Now that our world is upside down and we are upside down too, it
barely raised some eyebrows.

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tvon
Far more fantastic things have happened in the past 100 years than a gang
leader causing chaos to facilitate his escape from the authorities, unless
there is some key aspect to your story that I'm missing.

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uxp
The communication to notify anyone involved in facilitating his escape was all
done through new technology, like Twitter.

On the other side of the coin, Twitter is being used to quickly inform
residents when an assassination or cartel murdel appears to be brewing on the
streets.

Here's a semi-sensationalist article on it,
[http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/26/twitter-blog-
mex...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/26/twitter-blog-mexico-drug-
wars)

And the famous twitter account of a Mexican anti-cartel activist,
<http://twitter.com/infonarco>

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wavewash
I'm so glad this story is not true.

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torme
I'm a little confused about which elements here are true actually. Did he
piece together pieces of factual history to create a plausible scenario? And
if so, was there ever a flash mob that resulted in a riot which lead to 23
deaths?

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petercooper
The point is that, individually, there are precedents for each part of the
story, not that they have all been tied together before. One of the graphics
near the end illustrates this.

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cracell
The 23 deaths part is a huge stretch though. There's been a few noted injuries
at such mobs when turned riot but I can't even find an example of a single
death from a flash mob type gathering.

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petercooper
Sure, it's definitely a stretch. He was a bit hyperbolic (as with the getting
lost due to having no 3G bit). I can't think of any riot with more than a
handful of deaths in a western country over the last 20 years (?)

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trotsky
_In all, 53 people died during the riots and thousands more were injured._

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_Los_Angeles_riots>

(Just a history lesson. I agree with you that it's a huge stretch)

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moskie
I don't get the point of this.

Yes, it's possible. But so what? A person in the early 20th century could have
constructed a similar boogeyman scenario involving those new-fangled flying
contraptions: watch out! Someone can take a plane across the country to kill
you in mere hours! Yea, and?

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mapleoin
His entire point is that you wouldn't be surprised if this happened, which is
exactly what you're saying. The point he's making is about how fast the world
is changing along with our perceptions of what's normal and what's impossible.

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petercooper
It's true. Even the smartest person from the 1980s would struggle to
understand much of what Tom is saying, let alone believe it. Consider:

4Chan, flashmob, YouTube, rickroll, subscribers (in relation to a person),
Twitter, "logged off", Chat Roulette, "surfing", GPS (sort of), 3G, remix (in
relation to video), "Web stream", links - mostly terms with no meaning even 10
years ago.

 _The whole world turns upside down in ten years_ \- quite. Having just made
that list, I now see why some older people struggle. I can imagine being
similarly perplexed in another 50 years.

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mquander
That's ridiculous. A smart person from the 1980s wouldn't understand your list
because it's all brand names and neologisms. If you actually defined the words
you're using, they'd have no problem understanding the ideas of a BBS,
recording a video of yourself that other people can watch, sending people text
messages, GPS, etc. etc.

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petercooper
I agree with you in one regard, but I was extending the GP poster's
observation:

 _The point he's making is about how fast the world is changing along with our
perceptions of what's normal and what's impossible._

You could _describe_ to Mr 1980 that there's an international, permanently
running computer system that a quarter of the world uses each day and that you
can upload videos to (and get feedback on) using a tiny credit card sized
device with no wires at all.. but I'd suggest Mr 1980 would find this as far-
fetched and unbelievable as I'd find someone talking about playing racket
sports in the atmosphere of Jupiter. (Now I know better than to write this off
as impossible by 2040..)

I think there are two levels of understanding. As you suggest, there's
understanding the terminology, and you're right that there are a lot of
neologisms in there. But I'm more impressed by the understanding and
acceptance of the _concepts_ involved. Even if you turn all of those terms
into something Mr 1980 will understand, would he _get_ it?

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acqq
I was old enough then, of course almost everybody would get it then, easily!
Even my granddad wouldn't have problems imagining. Think: since 1866 (it was
144 years ago!) there's uninterrupted communication using binary electric
signals between US and Europe:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_telegraph_cable>

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quickpost
More than anything, this video demonstrates the potential power of social
media to people who don't understand it's usefulness. It even helped me "get"
twitter.

