Forgive me if I’m not able to join in on the L’il Elitist© ennui party TR throws for himself in his latest post on the administration’s Open Government Initiative (OGI). To be clear, it’s not that I think the OGI represents some earth-shattering development in government-public communications. Put more plainly, it’s more likely another Obama-style, buzzword-laden effort that sells us more synergistic sizzle than it does best of breed steak (“Now with 20% more proactivity! Look at those paradigms shift!”). Quick challenge: I filled my bingo card by 3:48 of the Promoting Transparency in Government video produced by the Office of Management and Budget. Can you do better? Without wanting to shoot yourself in the face? You’re a better man than me… which is a pretty good segue into TR’s post.
TR would have you believe that the particular breed of hairless chimp (some not so hairless; exception proves the rule) you see in the mirror every morning belongs to the homo nonoeconomicus branch of the evolutionary tree, incapable of acting as a rational, self-interested agent for himself. Which is to say, TR thinks you are an idiot. Based on Cinnabon’s annual sales figures, I’d have to agree (join me in my hatred of all things cinammon). Don’t worry, though. I’m an idiot, too. And so is TR. There, I said it. It’s out in the open. We’re all idiots. The good thing is, though, that we’re all different kinds of idiots.
We tend to put a lot of stock in the concept of experts. This has always been true of the financial markets, where “chase the expert” is practically a competitive sport. “Nevermind the contradictory empirical data telling us there is no such thing as an expert, this guy beat the market by 0.38% last year! Plow the kids’ college fund into into it! Hey, these guys at this place called Enron all went to Harvard… and the CEO’s brother is the weatherman for WGN-TV, America’s Superstation (an expert in his own right). Take out a home equity loan and ram it all in there. Oh, wait. The experts tell me I need to diversify. Tell you what, let’s put half with these Enron guys. They’re the smartest guys in the room, right? Real experts. Then, we’ll take the other half and put it with these guys over at AIG. They have about 20 or so guys (I hear some are pretty good at math) up in a skyscraper that have come up with a pretty good thing with these Credit Default Swaps. Why would I know what the hell that is? These guys are the experts. They do the thinking so I don’t have to.”
The problem with experts is that they suffer from the same malady as the rest of us. Yep, they’re idiots, too. The bad part about that is there’s fewer of them. TR links to a few tomes about the “Madness of Crowds.” The concept of most of these missives is that individually, we can do alright by ourselves, but put us into a crowd and we turn into a booger-eating cess pool of irrational loonies (see Nascar and American Idol). Trouble is, these theories have been debunked roundly. Turns out, if you put together a group of folks under certain conditions (transparency and access to information is one of them), they’ll invariably end up beating the expert, be it at stock picking, cattle-weight guessing, locating a missing nuclear submarine, what have you. James Surowiecki, in his book, The Wisdom of Crowds, gives an excellent overview of the profoundly counterintuitive idea that large groups of people are smarter than an elite few. Certain elements of our government have already bought in (the CIA, no less). Give it a read, give it some thought and let me know if it gives you (i) a little hope for America and (ii) a little chill down your spine when you hear folks like Nancy Pelosi and TR talk about a Nanny-State model which will care for the great unwashed by letting their more intelligent and civilized masters make the major decisions for them. As for me, give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the retched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door. I’ll put me and my merry band of idiots up against the New Aristocracy any day of the week.
[...] the debate below between TR and Mr. Kotter, for example. As everyone has the power to publish and persuade through nothing more than a blog [...]
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Mr. Kotter makes a few valid points. Some scientific studies have supported this “wisdom of crowds” phenomenon, though the actual book appears to rely more heavily on anecdotal evidence. I’ll even concede a biased starting point given that each person generally starts from the position that their own opinion is better than his neighbor’s. (A recent study even suggests that we all not only believe our opinions are better, but that God shares them). The problem is less in the theoretical value of collective wisdom than in its application. I’m thinking specifically of two aspects: (1) the assumptions on which the model is built and, (2) the use of the model across all applications.
1) Let’s call this one, “If a frog had wings.” If you accept that frogs have wings, you’ll generally accept that said frog’s posterior will be less likely to strike the ground. Similarly, one of Mr. Surowiecki’s necessary conditions for crowds to exercise their wisdom is that the individuals composing the crowds must be independent and not look to the opinions of others before making their judgment (or “information cascades”). My prior point is that this assumption, while a nice sounding proposition, is absurd. Interestingly, Mr. Surowiecki later in his book stands in awe of our ability to navigate a busy sidewalk. Individuals have an amazing ability to process seemingly insignificant cues from their “co-group” members and make their own decisions accordingly. So for those keeping score, the Wisdom of Crowds proposes an elaborate model based on a practically impossible assumption which the modeler immediately acknowledges is practically impossible.
2) However, let’s journey with Mr. Kotter to his fantasy world where bacon is the world’s primary element, and individuals don’t care about the opinions of others (for our purposes, we will refer to them as “Kotters”). Even in this world, the power of the wisdom of crowds seems to be limited to problems in which a quantifiable answer is the only answer. If you were to ask one million of these Kotters to produce a work of art, you would more likely get a kitsch or a video of dudes examining the various attributes of a pet hedgehog than you would the Mona Lisa or Schindler’s List. If you broke your leg, would you go to Mr. Kotter and his merry band of idiots or accompany me to one of those elitist doctor-types who claim, based solely on years in medical school, residency and training? As late as 1999, a good 20% of Americans believed the sun revolves around the earth! Mr. Kotter apparently has some disagreements with the vaccines-cause-autism movement (disagreements I strongly share). Yet were we to leave it to the idiots, there is a very real possibility that vaccines would be outlawed for precisely that reason. As to this great country, both the Federalists and Anti-Federalists feared the wisdom of crowds (which they called the mob) and put in place structures to ensure that elists like them continued to run things.
In fairness, elites have their fair share of failures. And, since they are often charged with running things, those failures are more public and on a greater scale. I know in this country current popular opinion raises the common man to new heights as the pinnacle of what it means to be American and the paragon of common sense. Give me Shiva the Doctor any day over Joe the Plumber.
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