Group think - Group think - Group think

truedelphi

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Sun Jul-12-09 02:04 PM
Original message

Group think - Group think - Group think

Edited on Sun Jul-12-09 02:11 PM by truedelphi

Although at first I was thinking that maybe the Un rec feature was okay, on

reflection, I do not. In introducing the idea, various champions of this concept

pointed out to Digg. As someone who uses DIGG and likes DIGG, that one

notion initially swayed me.

Well, Digg has some 32 to 35 MILLION people involved. It is not the small fish

pond that DU is. There is no way to kill diversity with DIGG - the fish pond is

just so vast.

But here it is very different. We have less than 150,000 people aboard DU. Add in

a censorship factor, and you pretty much turn "democraticunderground.com"

into "GroupThinkDemCentral.com"

To test out this theory, yesterday I deliberately created a topic about the dangers

that come with Group think.

You can access that topic here.
URL = http://tinyurl.com/mdpjgz

Within the first two hours, that OP had received ten responses. In the past, any

time I put up a topic that received that much attention in several hours, it ended

up on the Greatest Page. Yet yesterday's topic had been Un recc'ed so much that

it did not get to the Greatest Page.

I put out the word to about eight people on my Buddies list.

Still the topic could not fend off the Un recc's and did not get to the greatest

Page.

The whole thing was a test to see what would happen with the notion of

Groupthink.

DU used to be a place where the notion of Groupthink would have been

anathema. Last year, during the election cycle, you could see supporters of

various candidates opposing the idea of thought diversity.

If I remember correctly, last year at this time, many Hillary Clinton supporters

were rather aghast that anyone would waste their time or their vote on Barack

Obama.

If Groupthink had prevailed on DU last year, it would have been much harder to

have topics about any other candidate but Hillary. In terms of sheer numbers,

Hillary definitely had the edge. Luckily, for me, at least as someone who supported

Obama, that was not the case.

The original reason that I came to DU was because of the Stolen Election issue.

When I arrived in late '04 or '05, I do not think that the majority of people on DU

thought that the Stolen Election issue was valid. But the fact that discussion of the

issue was allowed brought about a change in the Groupthink, and by 2006, I

would say most on DU supported the notion that we should LOOK OUT for

election fraud.

Had Groupthink censored the early proponents of the Stolen Election issue,

would that change in thinking have come about?

If people want a very closed system of thought and ideas, then continuing the Un

rec concept is definitely the way to go.

It will make it a very sweet, cozy and pleasant place for one to view pictures of

the Obama family. And of course, from time to time some member will reach out

for support in the event of a personal tragedy.

But in terms of real politick and political debate, DU will have lost a great deal.