The Majority is Wrong
Jonathon Guyer
?? LinkedIn Top Voice ?? | ??? Host @ 'Easy to read Deep Thoughts' | Team USA ?? Boxing Coach | CEO @ Create Personal Equity
The following is true in a way that can't be untrue. The Majority of humans are wrong = super interesting. Worth the time to think about and if you catch it, the output is functional = shifts perspective.
The Majority can't be right
It's impossible. A mental visual of momentum and speed is. Speed = movement. Movement = time delay. Time delay = inconsistencies and variance.
What's universally accepted is old information. Old information is outdated and doesn't include new information or its dependent implications.
The Majority is using Old info
Picture a bell curve of all human understanding. Doesn't matter if we're talking science, culture, history... etc. It's the same conclusion regardless of where I apply this logic. The majority has to be wrong. No way around it and it's a bit of a letdown.
It's wrong if everyone agrees
Interesting to think about. Now that I know the majority has to be wrong (impossible to not be true), the next step outputs a perspective shift. Example: if the majority agrees = it's wrong. Kicker: if the minority agrees = it's wrong.
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The Minority is wrong too
The minority doesn't have enough confirmation to reach a conclusion that should be accepted by the majority. The measure or the delta between minority and majority is logistical and strategic = not a measure of correctness. Example: email campaign > understanding.
This is interesting x10
If the majority and minority are both wrong at all times and in super easy-to-prove ways, why do humans naturally skew toward a majority opinion = free up brain cycles = it's just easier. It's not a proof of correctness or incorrectness.
Why do we follow majorities?
Because it's easier. Humans skew toward the path of least resistance and if a bunch of people sound confident, we skew toward it by default. Any other path = more resistance (example: new learning, experience, resources..etc).
Those with kids and 60-hour-a-week jobs are less likely to search the Cosmos for answers to little, not immediately important questions, "looks like they know what they're talking about = good enough" = is actually, factually good enough.
Correctness of the Majority is not required.
?? glassBead. founder/agentic @ Waldzell AI.
5 个月One obvious exception, at least as far as any given person’s optimal heuristics are concerned, are things like physical/logical laws that have withstood many repeated, reproducible attempts to disprove them. They might still be erroneous, of course (Einstein’s physics replaced Newton’s, etc.), but even if the Pythagorean Theorum was verifiably wrong, I don’t have much interest in trying to prove that to the extend that I would make money decisions based on it. To the point: there are important, unpopular truths and important, popular falsehoods out there, and 1. Some of them are more worth the energy and time needed to meaningfully question them than others, 2. The set containing the truths that would be optimal for one person to discover is not necessarily fully or partially shared with another person, and 3. By definition, all but a specialized few will initially resist important, unpopular truths and important, popular falsehoods until they have withstood repeated, reproducible attempts to disprove them. To finally answer your question, it doesn’t mean much of anything when a majority of people agree, but that cuts both ways: a commonly-held view may be false as much as a seldom-held view may be true.