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miriam_eI think ghettos are up there with scary belief systems (religion, nationalism, racism, sexism, and so on) for their ability to incubate damaged and dangerous mind-sets in people. I wonder if there is any way to prevent them.
When I speak of ghettos I include not only the places that everybody associates with the name -- poor, underprivileged areas -- but also the gated communities that insulate the rich from the real world and let them grow unhinged attitudes that are just as dangerous as the loony muslim jihad-dreams that fester in poor islamic ghettos.
Birds of a feather naturally flock together. Unfortunately groups of like-minded people far too easily go collectively insane. Groups become more rational when healthily diverse, and in fact can even become smarter than the smartest individual in the group. But the very opposite happens when groups become uniform and think in lock-step; they become more stupid than the most stupid member and end up convincing their members to do truly hair-raising things.
We need ways facilitate diversity and impede ghettoism. But how?
When I speak of ghettos I include not only the places that everybody associates with the name -- poor, underprivileged areas -- but also the gated communities that insulate the rich from the real world and let them grow unhinged attitudes that are just as dangerous as the loony muslim jihad-dreams that fester in poor islamic ghettos.
Birds of a feather naturally flock together. Unfortunately groups of like-minded people far too easily go collectively insane. Groups become more rational when healthily diverse, and in fact can even become smarter than the smartest individual in the group. But the very opposite happens when groups become uniform and think in lock-step; they become more stupid than the most stupid member and end up convincing their members to do truly hair-raising things.
We need ways facilitate diversity and impede ghettoism. But how?
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Date: 2010-08-22 01:14 pm (UTC)I put it on hold at my library and had to wait a while.
Loads of holds already put on it. I bet they'll buy more copies cause of it.
I think it's a groundbreaking work.