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posted by martyb on Wednesday November 09 2016, @05:44AM   Printer-friendly
from the every-man-before-he-die-should-strive-to-learn-what-he-is-running-to-and-from-and-why dept.

Many media outlets referred to what happened as a "mass panic" or a "stampede." But such terms are not appropriate to the situation, according to John Drury, a social psychologist at the University of Sussex.

"People follow others when they perceive these others as relevant, so it is not mindless," Drury says. "The problems come when the others don't take the danger seriously enough. People more often die in emergencies through not evacuating quickly rather than through haste."

Stampeding is a primitive, instinctive behavior of herd animals, and panic implies a rashness or irrationality in response to a real or perceived danger, Drury writes on his academic blog. But crowds shouldn't be compared to unintentional, mindless mobs. Instead Drury refers to these events as progressive crowd collapses.

Shared identity in the crowd (eg. "Cubs fans"), exit design, crowd traffic control, and sight lines are all factors in stampedes. The researchers are modeling different mitigation strategies like precise position monitoring via GPS event bracelets.


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday November 09 2016, @12:18PM

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Wednesday November 09 2016, @12:18PM (#424557) Journal

    C'mon, guys. You can't un-publish a story about the US election results after 95 comments have already been registered. Yes, it's political, but yes, it's 'stuff that matters.'

    I get that Trump is not popular in certain quarters. But you cannot argue that his election is not significant. Un-publishing a story that has already been discussed a lot is a failure on the part of SN.

    Another thing to consider is that even if the editors block stories that are officially about the election, the discussion will proceed in stories that have nothing to do with the election anyway. So the editorial decision blocks no discussion, and only makes the editors look bad.

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    Washington DC delenda est.
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