"informational" cascade
Posted: Sat Oct 27, 2007 9:13 am
1st of all, the word is in quotes because it should be wiped out of the English language (& the users waterboarded or worse); something is informative, or it is itself information; "informational" is not a word.
Anyway, apparently somebody recently won a Nobel Economics prize for work on this stuff.
The Car Talk Guys claim a writer-in to their show actually invented the idea 1st.
BAM is brought up by the Nobel Guy; the idea is the the consensus opinion of a large audience, as that of BAM, is usually right.
The Car Talk Guys, citing their writer-in, contend that when the consensus is obtained out loud, what you can get is a disinformational cascade; one person gives the wrong answer out loud, the next person disagrees but thinks "well, they said it out loud didn't they; they must be right" & winds up agreeing, someone else down the chain uses the same reasoning, etc.
(The writer-in, of course, contended that Tom & Ray have started a lot of disinformational cascades on their show.)
Anyway, apparently somebody recently won a Nobel Economics prize for work on this stuff.
The Car Talk Guys claim a writer-in to their show actually invented the idea 1st.
BAM is brought up by the Nobel Guy; the idea is the the consensus opinion of a large audience, as that of BAM, is usually right.
The Car Talk Guys, citing their writer-in, contend that when the consensus is obtained out loud, what you can get is a disinformational cascade; one person gives the wrong answer out loud, the next person disagrees but thinks "well, they said it out loud didn't they; they must be right" & winds up agreeing, someone else down the chain uses the same reasoning, etc.
(The writer-in, of course, contended that Tom & Ray have started a lot of disinformational cascades on their show.)