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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?
(Score: 2) by Hyperturtle on Saturday August 29 2015, @09:38PM
I thought that those that had nothing behind them, and only the future in front of them, had nothing to lose except for the future? If the boat is sinking, then there is no reason not to dive in and try to swim.
And that those with years behind them, with property beneath them and belongings surrounding them, resisted change, because they had so much to lose, and might not have the strength or health at their side to allow them to act upon what they may otherwise be thinking? It is safer to not rock the boat if you cannot swim or are so saddled with baggage that you'll sink if you try.
Often, when someone sees many others doing the impossible, they find it is not so hard themselves--if only they would try.
And that this was the primary difference between young liberals and old conservatives? Between college students burdened with debt with after becoming the master of a skill that has been outsourced, and the rich kids who went to a great school with no questions about cost, and no real concerns about the education?
Those are general statements for sure, but it helps me understand why many "1 percenters" try to keep their 1% and the other 99% struggle so much to get something -- perhaps part of the 1%, perhaps a fair share. Those other people either don't deserve what they have, or they didn't try hard enough to earn what I have -- or what my parents inherited, or whatever stereotypical phrase we can use.
In any event, I think that we see the youth and their revolutions are more easily explained than simply following what everyone else is doing because of a majority opinion. A revolution is started by those that realize that they have the most to lose by staying in the current system. If there is no where for them to go, they fight to remain where they are, and better their standing. They may then go on to defend what they have earned the hard way, when young idealists find their ethos to be oppressive.
Heck that seems to be the way it works between desktop support and the server people at most places I have seen, at least...