When I was young, my father told me that the louder and more confident sounding a person was, the more you should be suspicious of the points they were trying to make. This perspective has served me well in life.

You've all probably heard this one before.... A teacher was giving a lesson about the Salem Witch Trials and he set up the rules for a practical hands-on lesson. “I'm going to come around and whisper to each of you whether you're a witch or a regular person. “ Your goal is to build the largest group possible that does NOT have a witch in it. At the end, any group found to include a witch gets a failing grade." The teens dove into grilling each other. One fairly large group formed, but most of the students broke into small, exclusive groups, turning away anyone they thought gave off even a hint of guilt. “Okay," the teacher said. "You've got your groups. Time to find out which ones fail. All witches, please raise your hands." No one raised a hand. The kids were confused and told the teacher he'd messed up the game. "Did I? Was anyone in Salem an actual witch? Or did everyone just believe what they'd been told?" And that is how you teach kids how easy it is to divide a community. Given our current state of affairs, does this sound familiar to anyone? Does it not reflect the current affairs globally? So ask yourself the question, who is making the claims and who benefits? It's almost never a case of this side is always wrong or this side is always the right side.

My mother started warning me at a very early age,”beware of the crowd mentality”. I think she was talking about “Group Stupidity”.

My Mom used to work with a child abuse agency. She said that there is a special way to question kids so you don't influence what they say. Kids often say what they think you want to hear instead of their personal observations, so you have to avoid asking leading questions. For example, if you are asking about if a door was open or closed, you ask "how was the door?"

Can we take a minute to appreciate Sabine's excellent sense of dry German humour?

In college I had a class in critical thinking. The instructor had us get into groups of 7. We read compound sentences and interpreted the sentences. We agreed on several compound sentences but then came a confusing sentence. We debated and 6 of us agreed that the sentence meant one thing but the 7th team member disagreed. One fellow just said “he’s wrong, move on.” I said “let him explain himself, because maybe he’s right.” And so we heard the lone dissenter, and it became clear to all of us, except the guy that wanted to move on quickly, that the lone dissenter was correct in his analysis. The guy that refused to listen to the lone dissenter never would change his mind. But I wonder if that wasn’t some sort of a social experiment and the disagreeable fellow was a plant to see how we would respond. I’d like to believe we passed the test, if it was a test.

Human ignorance is the biggest problem facing humanity. This is an excellent video that just touches on this topic. There if far more to this subject than people realize.

When I led a team of 130 engineers, managers and other professionals, I found that meeting once a week in an open setting of all primary stakeholders where every stakeholder was given time to speak their mind, report progress, request any needed resources, and identify risks and problems that they see was a critical process step that enabled the entire team to accomplish their extremely difficult and complex goal after 19 months on schedule and under budget. Speaking up was encouraged, and reporting problems and risks at the earliest possible time was rewarded with mitigating resources. Also all was reported up the chain with only minor editorial changes.

Collective stupidity has become a force of nature as of late. I put it down largely to the internet and the echo chambers it has created but there's still more to it...

Never underestimate the power of herd behaviour. I had an amazing example some years ago (before we all got Waze in our pocket). I was like many other people driving home from holidays. The traffic on the highway was very dense but still fluid. Then there was a police car next to the largest mobile electronic sign that I ever saw outside concerts. It read "Warning ! Work ahead - 1 lane only. Currently : 20 km jam, 4 hours delay! Alternative: take next exit and follow signs. 15 min delay". So I left the overcrowded highway and followed the signs. To my utter amazement,I was totally alone. I saw no car in front of me or in my mirror for about 15 minutes. Talk about ignoring your personal information to follow the herd 😮 Herd behaviour is exacerbated in stress and disaster situations. I had emergency training with firemen for my work and one of the first thing they taught was that, if you are ever caught in a disaster, ignore the crowd, stop 30 seconds to observe and think by yourself. They had numerous examples of crowds passing right in front of emergency exits and ignoring them, or worse, running towards the danger...

This reminds me of "Bonhoeffers Theory of Stupidity" which explains nicely how almost everyone you know seemingly lost their minds over the last few years. Fantastic video today!!

I love it!: "I've given up on correcting Wikipedia on quantum mechanics". Spot on Sabine.

This is perfect! I remember my Dad telling me during Covid-19, that ,,You can have as much toilet paper as you want, but it won’t do you any good without something to eat!” 😂😂😂

I learned this one absolutely years ago in my youth. I knew (I didn't grow up in Europe) that Poland had a coastline. Obviously. I was decently educated enough to know this simple fact. I met a friend who came from the UK, and swore up and down that it did not! He was emphatic! He was so certain of himself. I am the 8th child of 9. I was NEVER the best in my family in any subject or sport and had been badly bullied at school. I doubted myself despite the certain knowledge Poland had a coast, after hearing him be so certain I was wrong and he was right. After years of always being told I was wrong in everything, I shrugged and said "you must be right". Later, I checked because of a nagging feeling. Nope, I have been right all along. Later as I lived longer and got older and just a little bit wiser, I discovered that I had been put down unfairly by others. I was right far more often than wrong and that others had caused me to have an unjustly negative self image. I had been trained to consider myself automatically as of less value and wrong compared to others. Now I question even those who seem convinced of themselves. I am still not always right. I am not as intelligent as I would like to be and I know that I am only a short distance above the average, aka, enough to obtain a bachelors degree. This doesn't mean I allow myself to be swept aside any more and I am no longer as easy to fool. Confidence or lack thereof is a HUGE factor in this. People put their faith too easily in those who speak with emphatic confidence rather than real experts because we naively assume no one would be so certain unless they had facts. But there is a large group of the population who fall in the dunning kruger way, to the false self belief in themselves that is the polar opposite of the condition I once had having no faith in myself whatsoever. These people believe they are always right despite having very little knowledge or facts on their side, and speak with conviction, misleading the crowds. Just trust NONE of it. Neither yourself nor others without checking into all of whatever it is yourself carefully. And then check again doubted your first conclusion. I never followed the crowd. That was part of my school yard downfall. I refused to follow, and became a loner. This no longer leaves me feeling the least bit sad. When I got to uni, I discovered veritable communities of loners! And we are better off than the followers. They are walking about with blindfolds on being led by the untrustworthy.

It comes down to asking the correct question and allowing all possible answers .. Not giving a limited selection of answers to obtain the prefered / desired results .

Logic and common sense are gifts that many are all too willing to throw away.

One of the many great pieces of advice my dad gave me is: If EVERYONE is doing it or saying it or thinking it, proceed with caution and examine it closely. I have added to that: The truth or reality is static, but perceptions are dynamic.

Great video and explanations as usual. One minor correction. The "prison experiment" was conducted by Philip Zimbardo at Standford . Stanley Milgram is known for his experiments on obedience conducted in the 1960s during his professorship at Yale.

I did an escape room a couple weeks ago. Afterward, the owner was telling us that there is a sweet spot on the number of people it takes to be fast. Too few, they don't have opinions to find the answer. Too many and you have the opposite problem. It slows the group while listen to the bad ideas. Same concept

It's been a while since visiting. I forgot how dead pan hilarious Sabine is. 'Prevent my hair from looking like cauliflower', 'you vs. a cheese cracker! > I had to back that one up, wasn't sure I 'heard what I heard"! Thanks Sabine, for the education and the laughs.

In the meetings I have to attend, I'm intentionally going with declaring my opinions pretty quickly with a prefix roughly along the lines "My first feeling is that ..." - I've found that it helps other people to express their non-final opinions, too. And I think it pretty clearly conveys that I'm willing to change my opinion during the discussion.

I’m so impressed with how you weave everything together to make important topics accessible, understandable and entertaining to learn about. Kudos to you.

Absolutely love the use of common sense put forth on this channel. Thank you.

Reminds me of the jury I was on when a couple of jurors managed to change the minds of 10 others. Good video Sabin and love your humorous outbursts.

I'm glad the phenomenon of confident people dragging down collective performance was mentioned. I feel there's a lot more to it, though. 'Group politics' for example. A member of a group might say or do things they don't think are for the best, because they were influenced by others. There could be a any number of motivations for doing so. To my experience, there is almost always someone in a group who seek to control what others say or do. Usually they fall in the category of 'confident people'. Sometimes that's a good thing (people confident in their ability happen to be right at times), but often it isn't.

I always thought how fascinating it is that insects, like Bees or Ants that aren't really intelligent at all, can create huge and complex structures. Emergence is one of the coolest phenomenons in nature!

So glad I got your channel recommended. Truly great science content.

What a pleasure it is to follow Sabine. Great work.

At 0:25 in, I want to say absolutely.. when I was teaching complex software, students always found things I didn't know, by accident or not, it didn't matter (though it was accidental perhaps 60-80% of the time). I have learned to listen to people who know nothing even when going on tangents I think I can predict, because sometimes there's something in there that you will find useful, even if it's just a seed that plays on knowledge you already had and the other person can't understand the same details as you.. fresh perspectives pave the way for progress, and that often still succeeds or leads to other successes even if they misunderstood some things. Idea-people aren't always useless, if you have the time and patience for them. And you can plant the seeds of education with them for them to potentially oneday be the expert, too, furthering the field by inclusion and informal education that leads them into a passion for the subject. Plus, if you don't listen to them, they may not want to listen to you, so to make that happen, it's somewhat needed. Now I'll watch the remaining 20 minutes and 28 seconds, and surely more comments will follow 🤣

The built in fear of missing out, or not wanting to look different seems to drive a lot of behavior. I did the looking up at a building corner to demonstrate it to a friend many years ago and almost got beaten up when I told my friend, loud enough for the people also standing looking at nothing to hear, "i told you looking at nothing would attract a crowd". But I've always been a bit of a prankster. Also never conformed to "the norm" and speak my mind - no real fear of missing out or wanting to look like others (a bonus of having Aspergers).

Fascinating, as always. Thank you for your diligence and all the work that went into this amazing presentation.

Enjoyed this overview🙏 When I worked in a big CAE software company, loaded with intelligent and conscientious people, and would see releases and schedules still go pretty bad, I called it “communal incompetence” - individuals being just fine but what emerges not so much.🤷🏻‍♂️

Sabine, with dry humor and great clarity of thought you explain these intuitively obvious things so well!

I once watched individual ants in an ant farm, moving bits of rock hither and yon. Each ant's actions seemed random. They even often undid the work of their fellows! Yet tunnels and caves, and an entire structure, magically appeared anyway.

Im quickly becoming a fan , Sabina. Your clarity s refreshing.

The topic of collective stupidity reminds me of Stapp's Law: "Our universal aptitude for ineptitude makes every human accomplishment an incredible miracle." Personally, its always spoken to me as the understanding that human beings are fallible as individuals and how those fallacies can influence the collective.

Just a quick correction: the “prison” experiments were conducted at Stanford under professor Philip Zimbardo, the obedience to authority experiments were conducted by Milgram. Both are worth referencing in this case.

Thank you for a really interesting video! Collective stupidity, or the madness of crowds, is a huge topic with many fascinating facets to think about. You talked about how confident people can influence others to go with their ideas, even though being confident doesn't mean they're more likely to be right - but there's lots of other reasons people let others make decisions for them. We all do it every day. The world is just too complicated for any individual to fully comprehend, so we use heuristics to decide when to trust others. In addition to confidence we often trust other people when they appear to be on "our side," or when we perceive that they self-identify with the same traits that we do. This is how con men and grifters get past our defenses. They pretend to be members of the same group who want to share their knowledge with us because it benefits the group, but really they're using deception to benefit themselves. Grifters can start information cascades that last long after their individual grifts are done, with victims refusing to admit they were wrong. This is the source of a lot of misinformation we encounter today. I think crowds are most wise when the individuals within them have no particular incentive to pick one option over another. In addition to confidence we have to wary of those who have a self interest in the topic that's being debated.

Sabine, I appreciate your confident presentation of your ideas.

Thank you for this brilliant analysis!! Among other things, it’s validating of my bias against “confidence culture,” where all you need to fix a sink is “confidence.”

“Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one.” ― Charles Mackay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds.

There's also expectation bias. Especially when you have to present your decision publicly. In this case, instead on relying on the information that you hold, you give your answer based on what you think the group expects you to say. Another case can be, when you want to fit in a group and you weight the answers based on what the most correct one should be based on your knowledge of the group.

One of the biggest problems of our complex times, i believe - and would never have thought about trying to solve it. It's a very exciting topic - thank you Sabine! I learned a lot and had some hearty laughs. As someone else said it nicely: I'm drawn in by the science and i'm staying for the jokes.

Sabine, I also appreciate your videos and explanations provided. Thank you for the excellent work!

Sabine, I feel this episode is a fundamental stepping stone into something incredibly relevant. Connecting math, psychology, linguistics, and possibly other disciplines.

Very good video as always! pd. a tiny correction: slime molds are not fungi, but Myxomycetes. A rather weird group that is not clustered in fungi, plants, animals nor bacteria. Just another "protist" group.

Thanks! Keep making these great videos. As an American living in Germany for 5 years, I appreciate your sense of humor in ways not possible if I had never left the USA. You are an excellent explainer. Please keep sharing your insights.

I suspect one can help oneself make the correct Decisions by ensuring that the Information one uses is as independent and unbiased as possible, question always question. Excellent as ever. Vielen Dank.

I agree with all of this. The science about thinking is an amazing topic. My example of group behavior being affected (and infected) by social media is how information used to flow when I was younger compared to now. Before the internet, our local news paper had an opinion section to communicate ideas, and if a person thought that the city moving the farmer's market further away from the 202 bypass was a terrible idea, they could share their opinion posted in the news paper and the next town hall meeting like minded individuals who agree with that sentiment could tell the mayor in person and possibly reverse this decision. Fast forward to now. Now an issue that is happening 2000 miles away in a different state is affecting our local town hall meetings and changing local laws when there wasn't even an issue locally. As always, thank you for posting these science updates!

11:53 Correction: The (Stanford) prison experiment was conducted by Zimbardo. Milgram is known for the shocking experiments on the authority obedience ... (pun intended)

This video suggestion came out of nowhere. I love it! Subscribed!

What people miss about the toilet paper is that people are very complex and there is a lot of intuition involved, our conscious is not aware of the exact nature of intuition only the resulting answer in the form of a feeling. I think people instinctually realized how important Hygiene is during a pandemic, and secured the most needed resource at the time which was not necessarily food and water but personal hygiene.

"Fundamentally there's little difference between you and a cheese cracker." literally made me breathless with laughter!😆😂🤣😂😅 Your perfectly deadpan delivery is a treasure!👏

As always Sabine is both pleasant and informative. The combative nature of the "collective" inspired by a "fearless leader", and fed by propaganda - is an obvious downside to multiplying the power of the individual - but no single human can get to the moon. So there's that. Many thanks for this platform 🙏

“Fundamentally there’s no difference btwn u and a cheese cracker “ is my new favorite quote.

I really enjoy your channel. You have a nice sense of humor for a German 😊. The simplicity of your explanations makes the complex concepts more understandable.

As children discovering our new world we often question "Why?" when presented with adult statements. As adults confronted with beliefs or issues different than ours, I find asking "Why do you believe that?" to be more constructive and informative to both sides of a discussion. Sometimes it's the source of our information or doctrine that needs examination when opposites meet and call each other stupid.

Look at all the comments pretending they watched a 20 minute video, when the video was only posted 5 minutes ago.

Sabine - Great show, as always! Also you look great if I might say so. As I have gotten older I have become more outspoken. I love your channel. I have a technical degree from the late 60's (math and physics) and your show is perfect for someone like me who has forgotten more than I can say. Thanks again for a pleasant time.

I love your subtle but spot on sense of humor.

Thank you for another great video. I am retired now but I was a manager most of my career in the high tech defense industry. My experience over more than 30 years reinforced all of the ideas that you presented for avoiding collective stupidity. I found the important/urgent table particularly useful. By the way, I believe that the table was originated by Steven Covey in his book, "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People". Although the book title sounds a little like a business fad from the 1980's, I found it had some very useful ideas to improve one's interactions with people. If you haven't read it already, I would highly recommend it.

You make such great videos. I love your humor and your delivery.

Thanks! I just discovered your Channel and have become obsessed with your videos!

Knowledgeable Video and very well put together. Respect

Great! More of this please it would help our understanding without being caught in the trap of collective stupidity. So well done Ms.Hossenfelder.

Oh my gosh! Love this woman. Never miss a video. My wife asks me why I’m laughing so much and I struggle to explain….

Nice video. Food for thought. Thanks for giving clarity!

I just loved this video. The dry humor is very much appreciated, too. 🤭

Sabine, just a sincere thanks for your amazing science news coverage and insightful analysis. It’s some of the best out there. Please, consider putting up the audio track for these videos in a podcast. I would bet that I’m not the only one that enjoys your content through listening only, and KZfaq is just the worst platform for this.

Useful information not widely known. Thanks for sharing. Organization Behavioral Science was my favorite class in the MBA program.

Excellent discussion. Important theme.

Excellent discussion on information transfer .

Thanks! Great Episode! This episode should be required content, starting in middle school. I am showing this to my 11 year old daughter.❤

In social media, the most confident voices on the platform are often the ones who influence public opinion. That's why there's a race to the bottom when it comes to intellectual discussions that predictably turns into a shouting match even when the evidence says otherwise. Maybe this isolation into smaller groups makes plenty of sense when making objective decisions on parts of the big picture.

Top content, as always! 🤘🏽

That is how holisitc groups/ systems has been born, I guess. Important and good content with Sabine Hossenfelder as usual.

I have done the "look up in the sky" trick, as a child. My father taught it to me. He was wonderfully anti-social in some ways.

Keep sending More Mis ! I do enjoy your videos . They very very educational.

Great presentation Sabine. I've watched a few of your presentations before and I was surprised I wasn't already subscribed ... I am now though. There you go, I'm not that stupid after all. : )

Wow! Such an important message so beautifully delivered!

I follow A LOT of KZfaq channels and this one is easily one of my top 10 favorites. Sabine has a great sense of humor. 🙏😂🍻

Love this. Just discovered this channel. If other videos here are this good, I have a new favorite channel. And I’m not the least bit influenced by the 900,000 people who are already followers…

Nice thank you for being entertaining and informative i like your sense of humor as well

Scientists are not immune from this. They don’t want to be labelled a crackpot, so at least in some cases, they just go along with the consensus view.

An additional problem is when false information is added into the system on purpose, normally for political or commercial reasons.

Sabine, you're awesome! Never change !

You are so right! I was baffled drawing the line from what you said about stupidity, some time ago and what happened in the first Republican debate. “Averaging collective intelligence only works when the individuals don’t influence each other. ” Paraphrasing. When asked to raise their hand if they would support Trump if nominated, only a few hesitated and looked around for a split of a second.

thankyou for the distinction between herd behaviour and information cascades. excellent topic overall

"Ask the Audience" on the Millionaire show has skewed results because that was often the first lifeline used, meaning it was used on "easier" questions that more people would be likely to get right.

Your videos are a joy to watch ❤

Love watching since I discovered Sabine's channel.

Ants going in circles until they die is probably the best expression of what I consider humans to constantly do that I've ever seen in my life.

Wow that was a great episode especially the part about information cascade and the most confident people making their mind up 1st and then swaying the rest. The dunning-Kruger effect shows that often the most confident are the ones lowest in subject matter expertise.

I had a friend who had fun walking the woods with hunters (carying loaded guns). He would suddenly point at nothing and watch them immediately fire in that direction. This was very repeatable.

Very interesting discussion, and very well done. It brought to mind the susceptibility of some groups of people to believe conspiracy theories. Please do a discussion about conspiracy theories, if you don’t already have one. I just came across your channel and I will look through your video library. I’m subscribing.

Fascinating indeed! Thanks, Sabine! 😃 What I always tell friends is that you can read whatever you want without agreeing necessary. We need skepticism! Anyway, stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊

Thanks for all the great videos Sabine

For me this has shed some light on recent politics (COVID, war).

Huge Thank You for this explanation. I want to share an, in my mind a totally inexplicable experience. I am in the Board of Directors for a volunteer fire department. The station Chief, quite a dominant voice, who demeaned anyone that disagreed, got it in his mind that we needed a new fire engine. The station Chief invited a fire engine manufacturer to bring a fire engine, that was available for sale, to our station for review. Noteworthy points: 1. The fire engine was taller than our bay doors. Which means that it would not fit into our firehouse 2. The cost was approx $600K. We had nowhere near $600K in all of our accounts. Our Treasurer said, without discussing with any banks, that we can get a loan. 3. The engine needed several expensive modifications to meet our requirements. I wrote an email to the Board of Directors pointing out these issues, and advising them to vote no on the purchase. Vote result was 1 no (me), 10 yes!!! Fortunately, the County Fire Chief, highest authority, got word of this and prohibited the purchase of a fire engine that would not fit into the firehouse! Collective stupidity is alive and well.

The Sabines were an ancient Italian tribe who lived in the Apennine mountains and were known for their fiercely protective nature and resilience in battle