Discussion Excerpts:

• Picard Star Trek The Next Generation Episode The Inner Light.
• There is an algorithm that runs in the brains of animals…it reduces risk.
• Crowded movie theater running fire.
• Conformity has real consequences.
• Sometimes crowds get can very angry and so serious harm to another person. I think it is statistical analysis, if you see a large number of same type of being you are, engaging in an activity, that statistic reduces the risk in that activity.
• Mimicry is in our nature, it reduces risk.
• Wildebeest will always run when will have some alienation but in the long term you can be admired if you don’t conform.lions chase them.
• You don’t have to wait until you see the lion.
• You can run when you see other wildebeests run. If you wait till you see the lion then the wildebeest might get eaten.
• The Wildebeest is designed that it might be able to defeat the Lion.
• All the Wildebeest has to do is lower its head if it is running towards the Lion and it can defeat the Lion.
• I think about that crazy wildebeest that doesn’t run from lions but towards them
• What is the value of people saying no?
• Eric Fromm wrote a book called The Sane Society, we have to ask ourselves is the world we are living in the ideal one?
• Galileo, the list goes on and on, they become martyrs.
• The spirit of the Asch experiment is to give the incorrect answer essentially to be liked.
• Daniel Khaneman system 1 and system 2 thinking.
• Examples of people looking foolish in the short term until they are proven correct many years later.  Examples of conformity such as the Luddites. “There is the wisdom of crowds and the evil of crowds.” “We aren’t on the savannah now. We are in a world of bits, atoms and computers.” The psychological need for belonging.