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posted by cmn32480 on Saturday August 29 2015, @06:22AM   Printer-friendly
from the hanging-out-with-like-minded-people-is-boring dept.

[translation mine] Arab Spring 2011: Young people take to the streets, they fight for a better life. Only when the movement grows do older people gain the courage to join them.

Why did the young people see the possibility for change, but not their elders? Network researchers believe to have found a reason: the young people were able to imagine that the majority of the people stood behind them. They were under the so-called "Illusion of Majority."

People orient themselves to the majority. However, what they take to be the majority is distorted through social networks, says Kristina Lerman of the University of Southern California: "Under certain requirements a minority opinion can appear to be extremely popular."

That depends on the structure of networks. The users don't know all participants, only a part - those people with whom they're connected. Whatever the majority of their friends do, they conclude the majority of participants do. They are then readier to join the perceived majority.

People who are particularly connected to others play an especially important role in the phenomenon of opinion formation. The full paper from Kristina Lerman is here.

Social networks mediated by technology can be disrupted by tech-savvy governments. As more social connections become purely online, will revolution in the future become impossible?


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by RedBear on Saturday August 29 2015, @07:38AM

    by RedBear (1734) on Saturday August 29 2015, @07:38AM (#229367)

    As I get older, no matter how grounded and rational I try to be in my general approach to life, I notice more and more as time goes by that the only way to produce real change in the world seems to be first having the ability to imagine that such change is possible despite all rational analysis seeming to show that it will be impossible. This is of course a very ancient idea at the heart of the sort of superstition and mysticism that "modern" man and science have been collectively ignoring and dismissing for centuries. Yet, in the final analysis, so frequently change is brought about by people who were at first simply dismissed as insane or irrational.

    I have read somewhere in years past that in order to move a herd in a different direction you only need to get 10% of the herd redirected and the rest will follow. This seems to apply to human societies just as easily as to a herd of stampeding cattle. This is one reason why I believe that we are very close to a tipping point with electric cars that will be marked by a massive amount of upheaval in the automotive market. Right now it's still fringe, only about one percent of the market is affected. But it's spreading rapidly. Within 3-6 years we'll be approaching much closer to that 10% of the market either owning one or seeing them quite frequently or knowing someone personally who owns one. And then, very suddenly, the collective consciousness will go from being very negative about EVs to being positive about EVs. Everyone will know someone who loves EVs and swears they will never go back to ICE vehicles for as long as they live. The "Illusion of Majority" will take hold even though it still won't be true in any practical sense, and the era of the fossil-fuel passenger vehicle will come to a relatively abrupt end that will no doubt shock a lot of people with its suddenness. The 2020s are going to be absolutely bonkers, due entirely to the powerful social phenomenon described in this article.

    --
    ¯\_ʕ◔.◔ʔ_/¯ LOL. I dunno. I'm just a bear.
    ... Peace out. Got bear stuff to do. 彡ʕ⌐■.■ʔ
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