We fail to realize that people are smarter together

Issue 87: People grossly underestimate how much smarter people are when they work together in groups to solve problems

“The masses have never thirsted after truth. They turn aside from evidence that is not to their taste, preferring to deify error, if error seduce them. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim.”

Writing in the late 1800s, French physician Gustave Le Bon cemented in the public consciousness that people in groups were inherently stupid, barbaric, and violent. He believed that crowds relied on instinct, rather than logic. In his view, people essentially fell under the spell of hypnosis the moment they connected with others.

Although these ideas might seem dated, this core idea has been recycled multiple times the past century and a half. During the COVID-19 pandemic, anti-vaxxer Robert Malone told The Joe Rogan Experience that the public was suffering from a mass formation psychosis, whereby “They literally become hypnotized and can be led anywhere… They will follow that person – it doesn’t matter whe…