The trillions of conspiracies in a collective hysteria
Moment 371
People in a mass hysteria aren't hysterical. The "illness" is at the mass, or collective, level. The whole network begins beating as one, with new notions of the righteous, new notions of the unclean out group, and so on.
And there are gazillions of individuals and groups coordinating to do authoritarian interventions. The overall synchronization at the network level relies on all that, just as firefly synchronization relies on gazillions of individual fireflies communicating and coordinating their flashing.
But in both cases no master planner is needed, and not even possible, to make these synchronizations happen.
Did you hear about the immunity passports for COVID they're doing in Europe? When will the hysteria end?
Dr. Changizi - usually follow your substack releases, as you make insightful, original points about many parts of the CV phase. On this point, why is it important to realize there was coordination, although without a central planner?
also, you mentioned the beam of wood connecting the out of sync bobbing items -- isn't the beam the central planner that provides the common instruction? ie, for this point, although there may not have been a central planner per se, weren't there still in many cases a common thread that somehow provided the point on the horizon (the compass goal) that the disparate groups used to align themselves, at least on the main/high level direction?
as an illustration, think back to when Trump was Pres - the red/blue states (vis a vis their Governors) acted quite differently in regard to the Federal Gov't interaction/involvement compared to when Biden was Pres; even individuals who condemned the vax when under Trump's direction were fans under Biden's.
guess my Q is, isn't there a dog whistle so to speak of some type of common purpose or goal, that although no actual central planner does provide the common direction; the aligned purpose?