[POAlex]

Yes, we definitely are like sheep.

Thankfully there is a Shepherd.

Alex

[zoidberg]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('POAlex', 'Y')es, we definitely are like sheep.

Thankfully there is a Shepherd.

Alex

[overlever]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pablo2079', 'r')epeat after me "I am an individual."

[Keith_McClary]

Herd mentality: Are we programmed to make bad decisions?
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A') natural desire to be part of the 'in crowd' could damage our ability to make the right decisions, a new study has shown.
Research led by the University of Exeter has shown that individuals have evolved to be overly influenced by their neighbours, rather than rely on their own instinct. As a result, groups become less responsive to changes in their natural environment.
The collaborative international study, which includes academics from Princeton University and both the Sorbonne Universites and Institute for Research in Computer Science and Automation (INRIA) in France, is published in the Royal Society journal Interface.
Lead author of the report, Dr Colin Torney, from the University of Exeter's Mathematics department explained: "Social influence is a powerful force in nature and society.
"Copying what other individuals do can be useful in many situations, such as what kind of phone to buy, or for animals, which way to move or whether a situation is dangerous.
"However, the challenge is in evaluating personal beliefs when they contradict what others are doing. We showed that evolution will lead individuals to over use social information, and copy others too much than they should.
"The result is that groups evolve to be unresponsive to changes in their environment and spend too much time copying one another, and not making their own decisions. "
The team used mathematical models to look at how the use of social information has evolved within animal groups.
By using a simple model of decision-making in a dynamic environment, the team were able to show that individuals overly rely on social information and evolve to be too readily influenced by their neighbours. The team suggest this is due to a "classic evolutionary conflict between individual and collective interest".
Dr Torney said: "Our results suggest we shouldn't expect social groups in nature to respond effectively to changing environments. Individuals that spend too much time copying their neighbours is likely to be the norm."
The study, Social information use and the evolution of unresponsiveness in collective systems, is published in the journal Interface on December 17 2014.

[Subjectivist]

I don't think we are programmed to make bad decisions, but the vast majority will go along to get along no matter how bad a leader is.

[Ibon]

That people are like sheep means that they can be lead either way. Enlightened leaders could guide the masses toward higher values of environmental ethics if we would choose.

When we sold our business we home schooled our children in 2005 and one special place we went that year was 16 days in Bhutan, a Buddhist country in cental Asia near Tibet and China and India. Land locked for centuries this country preserves a mostly agrarian culture that practices a living bhuddism. One could say that the flock there are educated from an early age with some pretty wholesome spiritual education that is reflected in the social statistics of the country in terms of crime, health care, education and general well being.

Not every citizen of Bhutan was born a Buddha but the flock there has a total different set of cultural values than your average western consumer. It is perhaps another topic that even in pristine Bhutan with an enlightened government the trappings of western materialism is also coveted there among the youth. Just as important however is the example this country sets at how the sheep could be lead with wise mentors and teachers steeped in ancient spiritual traditions

Can a set of external events happen to our modern industrial civilization which like a catalyst could trigger a deeper set of spiritual values that may one day be nurtured in order to lead the sheep in a more humble and harmonious way upon our mother earth? Or are the worlds leaders just too hell bent on pursuing the direction of moving the sheep toward collective suicide?

Just an open question?

[sparky]

.
humans are not sheep , they are pack hunters , act in group and follow a dominant male .

[Newfie]

If E O Wilson Is right we are less like sheep and more like ants where one colony competes with another. There are some problems with his model but he does seem to be onto something. It would surely explain our herd behavioir and a lot of the traits we hold is such high regard.

[Revi]

There's a famous book called the lobster gangs of Maine that examines how each lobster port is in competition with others, but they carefully guard the resource that they control. I think we are all a part of some kind of a larger group like that. We all are in competition, but not with each other, but with the other groups that surround us. We make alliances in order to survive. We are both cooperative and competitive.

https://www.amazon.com/Lobster-Gangs-Ma ... 0874514517

[Newfie]

That's pretty much CB the point Wilson makes.