Emergent properties

How well groups make decisions depends on how their members share information and form opinions. In this regard, there are two opposing ideas: the wisdom of crowds versus mass delusions. As a collective, we know far more than any individual, but collectives can act more stupidly than most individuals would alone. You can more easily reason with individuals than with groups. Shared beliefs hold a group together and define its identity. Hence, groups are likelier to stick to their beliefs than individuals when confronted with evidence that they are wrong. Groups know more, but are also less rational than most of their members would be on their own. As the number of individuals in a group increases, their knowledge increases while their wisdom decreases.

Why is that? Groups aren’t merely the sum of their members. Groups have what experts call emergent properties. These are properties that emerge when individuals form a group. These properties seemingly appear out of nowhere. An individual water molecule can’t generate a wave, but billions of water molecules in a lake can. One cell doesn’t make a horse or a rabbit, but billions of cells do. A group of starlings can fly in intriguing patterns, which a single starling can’t. A single neuron can’t produce awareness. These properties emerge from the properties of the individuals. Individuals have properties that determine what they can do in groups, so a group of starlings can fly in intriguing patterns, while a group of humans can’t. And a group of water molecules can’t become a rabbit.

Collective intelligence

Collectives cooperate and achieve much more than individuals. And they can process more information, which the experts call collective intelligence. Their strength lies in their cooperation and in sharing knowledge. Bees and ants demonstrate collective intelligence. They share information about where to find food and use it collectively. Bees build beehives using a sophisticated division of labour, while ants can collectively defeat enemies many times their size.¹

It is a natural behaviour of bees and ants. Ants also demonstrate what can go wrong with collective intelligence. They follow each other’s trails. If an ant accidentally walks in a circle, an entire colony might follow it. They could end up walking in circles until they die. In this case, otherwise beneficial behaviour goes wrong with fatal consequences. That is collective stupidity.¹ We cooperate based on shared beliefs, which can be incorrect. Usually, our beliefs are beneficial. They strengthen the group’s cohesion, which is often more crucial to our survival than being right.

Groups know more and perform better on quiz questions than individuals because they can share knowledge. In 1906, an Englishman named Francis Galton discovered a phenomenon, later dubbed the ‘wisdom of crowds’. Galton visited a livestock fair where an ox was on display. In a contest, the villagers estimated the animal’s weight. Nearly 800 people participated. No one guessed the weight of 1,198 pounds, but the average of the estimates was 1,207 pounds, thus less than 1% off the mark.

Galton concluded that the finding suggests that democracy is the best form of government. Taking every view into account in Parliament could result in the best possible decisions. At the fair, the contestants independently assessed the ox’s weight. They didn’t arrive at their estimate in a group process, which may explain why it worked so well.² And so, the term ‘wisdom of crowds’ is deceptive because it is merely the aggregate estimate of independently thinking individuals.

No wisdom of crowds

There is no wisdom of crowds, but the stupidity of groups does exist. A single Jew can make peace with a single Palestinian, but the Jews and the Palestinians as peoples have failed to do so. Groups have collective intelligence, so they process more information than an individual. Humans are social animals rather than rational beings. Crowds can make better estimates on aggregate, but only as independent individuals, so if their members don’t influence each other.

As long as we retain an independent perspective, we can’t develop groupthink and become collectively stupid. When we influence each other, we can go collectively crazy. We desire our peers’ approval, which clouds our judgment. We are social animals who need the group to survive, so we share our group’s beliefs and don’t openly disagree when we don’t. We may share ideas we know are incorrect, so we ignore our knowledge and pass on the group’s views.

We are prone to moral panics, which undermine our rational thinking. A moral panic is a widespread feeling that some evil person or group schemes against our interests and well-being. Often, genuine concerns are causing these feelings, but the claims exaggerate the harm’s seriousness, extent, and certainty. Usually, the panic comes with false claims inciting hatred and fear. The role of moral panics is to promote group cohesion and generate collective action to remove the perceived threat.

Herd behaviour

Information often spreads through herd behaviour. We usually behave the same way.¹ YouTube makes use of it. If you come across a video with ten million views, you are more likely to watch it than one with only ten views. Usually, videos with ten views are not worth watching. In most cases, herd behaviour works to our advantage. It allows individuals to survive with less knowledge by depending on collective intelligence. We can’t know everything, so it is usually better to follow the herd. That saves time and energy. Social media is prone to herd behaviour. A cat video can become more popular because it’s already in favour, while a funnier one may go unnoticed.

The same is true for markets. During the Dot-com bubble, investors piled into Internet stocks. Many investors knew these stocks were crap, but they bought them anyway because they kept rising. Groupthink can cause stock market bubbles. In 1841, Charles Mackay wrote about three financial manias: Tulipomania in the Netherlands, John Law’s Mississippi Scheme, and the South Sea Bubble. He argued that greed and fear drive financial markets and can make people act irrationally to the point that people believe a tulip is worth a mansion.³

Confidence game

Information spreads via opinion makers like influencers and can lead to mass delusions. Confident but mistaken people play a crucial role. Self-assured people aren’t always wrong, but when they are, they amplify their errors because they have followers. Most people are insecure and follow the lead of people who appear self-assured. Leaders must be self-assured. Otherwise, no one will follow them. The business of influencers on the Internet is making money out of insecure people by advertising products no one needs.

Confidence is contagious. During the Dot-com bubble, the loudest voices on Internet message boards boasted about their profits in Internet stocks, thereby pulling in more suckers. The quality of group decisions depends on how we aggregate information. To take advantage of collective intelligence, we should try to:

• make people feel free to come forward with their information and opinions;
• prevent groupthink or group members from becoming biased by the information or opinions of others;
• and focus on the underlying causes rather than incidents.

That is difficult in small groups and even harder in societies. It goes against human nature. We follow confident people. And we don’t always like to hear the truth. The most successful politician in Dutch history was Mark Rutte, who became the longest-serving Prime Minister. He is jovial and cheerful. He was also the most prolific liar, and no Dutch politician had ever lied so often and with such confidence. Rutte once admitted that he had no vision, which probably is not a lie. It allowed him to remain pragmatic and make deals.

Rutte’s talents are now coming in handy as he has become the Secretary General of NATO. So far, he has succeeded in keeping the United States on board by praising Donald Trump for being a master strategist. Humans cooperate based on fairy tales, so lying is in our nature. We even learn to believe the lies, so that they become the truth to us. But if our leaders are friendly, visionless, pragmatic deal-makers, who lie to stay in power, we are surely doomed, given the magnitude of the problems humanity faces.

Collective action

Large groups struggle with collective action problems. The larger the group, the less effective it becomes at addressing challenges. Today, humanity faces global collective action problems, most notably the looming technological-ecological apocalypse and the increasing likelihood of another world war. It has become impossible to hide our incompetence in addressing them. The inconvenient truth is:

• It is unlikely that we can save ourselves, as the wit of a single worm already exceeds the collective wisdom of humankind. You would make better decisions if you were the leader of the world, even if your judgment is subpar.
• We must agree on what to do. In cases of fundamental disagreements, we fight. We cooperate based on fairy tales. Force rather than reason is our most convincing argument. The ideas that won out often did so by force.
• Non-contributors benefit from the group effort while enjoying the advantages of not contributing. If they get away with it, the free-loading will spread. It will undermine the group’s morale, and the collective effort will collapse.
• Most notably, people in the West suffer from the mass delusion that individual freedom and the interplay of personal interests and preferences through markets and elections ensure the best outcome for the general good.

By withdrawing from the Paris Agreement on combating climate change, the United States has demonstrated once again that it is the land of the freeloaders. Along with our pursuit of material wealth, nation-states and individual freedom are means by which we are about to commit suicide. We can’t deal with the responsibilities that come with freedom.

The saying ‘everyone for himself and God for us all’ reveals a profound truth about ourselves. Humans aren’t capable of solving their problems because of collective action problems and mass delusions. And we are better off with a single leader with unlimited authority. Ideally, this person is like a biblical good shepherd or Plato’s philosopher king. Even someone with a mediocre vision would do, as the wit of a single worm already vastly exceeds the collective wisdom of humankind.

If you like this story, you might want to see this video:

Featured image: Texel Rommelpot Tulips View West. Txllxt (2009). Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 4.0.

Latest revision: 30 October 2025

1. Collective Stupidity – How Can We Avoid It? Sabine Hossenfelder. YouTube.
2. The Wisdom of Crowds. James Surowiecki (2004). Doubleday, Anchor.
3. Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. Charles Mackay (1841). Richard Bentley, London.