I read Wisdom of Crowds: Why the many are smarter than the few and how
collective wisdom shapes business, economies, societies, and nations by James Surowiecki. A recommended
good read (spoiler alert: the author fails to state how to build a wise crowd
and how the wisdom of crowds applies to nations).
So what is Surowiecki’s thesis? He
argues that experts are overrated because with
the right conditions, groups are more intelligent than individual experts. He
notes that for a crowd to be wise, four features must be present; diversity
(different people and ideas. For example, Nigerians from East, West, South,
North), independence (A makes decisions independent of B, there is no herd
mentality or bandwagon effects at play), decentralization (the availability of
local knowledge), and aggregation (individuals’ decisions are collated into a
collective decision by a benevolent central planner). Surowiecki says these
four features can be used to solve most problems because on average the crowd
is always right. Examples of the wisdom of crowds include the emergence of
Twitter, Linux and the various Occupy movements. These examples show that the
wisdom of crowds truly works.
However, can it work in Nigeria? Do the active Nigerians on social media exhibit the traits of a
wise crowd? I’d say not yet. Comments and views of
Nigerians on Twitter and Facebook give me no hope. This is because feature 1
(diversity) is present but that is where it ends. Herd mentality is common and
individuals who try to deviate from “accepted” views are overruled. As a
result, we cannot proceed to features three and four. This practice is sad
because: I have observed that the accepted responses or views are incorrect,
generation of ideas is stifled and the band wagon is always off point. If we cannot allow ideas and thoughts to flow
without shouting one another down can we effect the change we want? My answer is no because if you look at the thoughts of people on
certain issues, it is like we sleep and face the same direction. Nigeria seems
to prove that crowds are not wise.
This can be changed. How? It can be
changed by Nigeria’s social media activists. We need to change our focus from
complaints to actions. Rant all you want, the governor that would be steal
public funds would do so with sufficient people who would “convince” you that
it is his right to do so. Related to this is I believe that valuable time that
can be used to develop solutions is spent on complaining about all that is bad
about this country. I think that if Nigeria’s Facebook and twitter activists
change roles from chief complainers to chief aggregators of collective wisdom,
we may begin to see changes.
It is easy for me to question and
state how incompetent the minister of Ministry A is. However, the goal should
be how can I as a citizen change ministry A. A lot of us were all over twitter
moaning the Dana Crash, some people used social media to organize and provide for people affected by the crash.
It is time we aggregate our
collective wisdom to better our society and social media gives us an
inexpensive means of doing so. We do not have to meet in Lagos and discuss how
things can change. We can do that from the comfort of our beds and homes.
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