[extropy-chat] 'a process of non-thinking called faith' 2

[Jef Allbright]

Thomas wrote:
> I sympathize with Ben when he laments that "we cannot make good 
> judgements now."  Collective decision making is not strictly possible 
> and, even allowing the sloppy concept, it's extremely slow 
> and fallible. 

Thomas, I'm curious about your thinking on collective decision-making.
It appears that you are saying that collective decision-making is flawed
in principle, and I wonder why.  

As the extropy list is composed of many smarter than average
individuals, we can certainly think of examples where our individual
effectiveness was impaired by regression to the mean, tyranny of the
majority, or even simply group domination by a particular alpha
personality.  But such instances are countered by many examples of
effective teams doing more than any individual could.

While individual capabilities are effectively limited by local resources
(especially bandwidth), group capabilities are effectively limited by
organizational structure which is much more extensible.

Curious to know your thinking on this.

- Jef