

Why so many minds think alike - rams
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/01/15/social.conformity.brain/index.html

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kirse
Also answered in this article:

\- Why exactly you're getting downvoted on HN for that unpopular opinion you
just posted

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msluyter
A fact that reflects well on YC News, IMHO, is that it's not _only_ having a
dissenting opinion that gets you voted down, but rather being poorly reasoned,
inadequately substantiated, badly stated, etc...

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mnemonicsloth
If you re-frame this idea a little, you can come up with a better idea of how
this bit of brain function probably operates in real life. (Experiments like
this are carried out in pretty artificial circumstances, after all)

HN formed after reddit started getting... frivolous. Lightweight. Unserious.
Dumb and trollish. We're here in part to have fun, but it's a forebrain kind
of fun.

So rather than saying that you get voted down on HN for sloppy thinking,
inarticulate, lazy, or generally being a dick [1], it might be more
appropriate to say that, the community punishes people for violating its
norms.

Or to get pedantic about it, the community assumes each of its members will
behave this way, and steps in to punish those who aren't averse enough to
being different in unacceptable ways.

[1] I think one of the site's official policies used to be "just don't be a
dick. You know what that means," or some such, but it seems to be gone now.

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dgordon
I was thinking of the Asch experiments well before they were mentioned in the
article. Notably, I seem to recall reading elsewhere that later attempts to
replicate Asch's work failed, and suggestions that the particularly conformist
culture of 1950s America was responsible. Yet this article suggests that what
the subjects perceived, in the case where the question had an objective
answer, actually changed according to brain imaging, not that they were made
unsure and went along with the group.

"Asch talked about the power of the "minority of one." When a unanimous group
pressures the individual, that group is weakened as soon as one person breaks
off."

Wouldn't it be more accurate -- and perhaps more revealing -- to call this the
"minority of two?"

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mdd
_The research calls into question decision-making bodies that operate by
consensus, Berns said. For example, in the U.S. legal system, many cases are
decided by the unanimous judgment of the members of a jury._

 _"You can't separate those judgments from the fact that you have 12 people
who have to come to a unanimous decision, and have to conform their opinion to
each other, so of course it will distort how they view evidence," he said._

I wish the article expanded a little more on that point... It's both
interesting and terrifying.

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rantfoil
This is significant for entrepreneurs. Apple was absolutely on to something
when it said: Think Different. Why think different? Because the masses are
wrong. (In fact, the masses are asses. =) ) And this is why many startups and
entrepreneurs are perceived to be pursuing inane, crazy or irrelevant ideas.
Prevailing wisdom isn't, and it takes a crazy dreamer to ignore the massive
and overwhelming tidal wave of group think.

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peregrine
My take on why so many people think alike and any idea you have is usually
thought up already; is that people get the same inputs.

We all read practically the same news, read the same top ten books, watch the
same Tv. talk about the same subjects. Sure we all have different
areas(Software Entrepenuers -> HN) but in reality we all have the same inputs
and outputs no matter how special we feel.

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dgordon
I don't remember the last time I read a top-ten book, and my list of recently-
read books is probably wildly different from yours, as are both from a random
third person here. The Internet opens up news and alternative news
dramatically -- it's not a three-channel world and hasn't been for a long
time, which brings me to TV -- a lot of people here don't watch it at all. I
don't watch much. "Same subjects" might be true from a big enough view --
there are only so many categories of thought to go around, but within
politics, science, world events, local events, philosophy, games, sports,
etc., there's a lot of territory to make up a huge variety of subjects that
people talk about.

Oh, and even though I disagree with your post and recognize that it's
irrelevant to the article, I voted it up because it's relevant to the topic at
hand and shouldn't have been voted down to 0.

~~~
peregrine
Thank you. I did read the article I am just saying the majority do everything
the same in a similar matter with similar inputs.

When it comes down to it we are a computers.

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johngunderman
This seems to explain why many brilliant people also have such unusual quirks.
They do not gravitate towards this "average" mentality (at least in some
fields), and this allows them to develop greater than average ideas in other
fields. Of course, none of them can truly be said to be "perfect" in their
resistance to to the norm, but there seems to be a correlation. Just my $.02

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flatline
This explains a lot, in my mind, about how otherwise intelligent people can
get pulled into cults and various other troublesome situations that rely on a
prevalent group-think. It's not that you can't think of why something is
wrong, but there's a strong natural impulse to go along with the crowd
regardless of how wrong it is and you may know it to be.

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rw
For those of us who cannot watch it: what's the scoop?

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whacked_new
The video doesn't say anything more than the text. It's basically the first 3
paragraphs of the article (which is like 200 words?)

What's interesting about this study is that apparently they are finding that
conforming people are actually genuinely perceiving the conformed opinion,
rather than just pretending (which would be a simple case of cognitive
dissonance).

