Comments on: Crowds can beat smart people, but crowds of smart people do best of all https://www.isegoria.net/2023/01/crowds-can-beat-smart-people-but-crowds-of-smart-people-do-best-of-all/ From the ancient Greek for equality in freedom of speech; an eclectic mix of thoughts, large and small Wed, 29 Apr 2026 21:58:02 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.6.1 By: Pseudo-Chrysostom https://www.isegoria.net/2023/01/crowds-can-beat-smart-people-but-crowds-of-smart-people-do-best-of-all/comment-page-1/#comment-3587738 Pseudo-Chrysostom Wed, 01 Feb 2023 09:21:25 +0000 https://www.isegoria.net/?p=49644#comment-3587738 To make a riff on the old Anonymous saying: none of us are as stupid as all of us.

To estimate the effective decision making capability of a consensus-based decision making body, take the wisdom of its most foolish member, and divide it by the total number of members.

]]> By: Anti-Stats https://www.isegoria.net/2023/01/crowds-can-beat-smart-people-but-crowds-of-smart-people-do-best-of-all/comment-page-1/#comment-3587344 Anti-Stats Sun, 29 Jan 2023 11:02:14 +0000 https://www.isegoria.net/?p=49644#comment-3587344 “Crowds”, or, “Consensus” will always be bad. No matter if it has higher average rates precisely because consensus will always remove exceptional ideas.

Example: 100 hundred smart people would have a 79% rate of correct predictions, but if you source them individually, you would probably have 95% due to their original ideas not shared in the consensus.

Statistics per se is bad science. It’s only useful to describe the past, but terrible for when the future is regarded.

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