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Faye on the BBC website

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Beaky:
I've just bought the book that I think inspired the BBC News article (Just My Type by Simon Garfield) and the bunny image is reproduced in there too! Again, it's attributed to the Ban Comic Sans site.

Akima:

--- Quote from: Carl-E on 22 Oct 2010, 08:30 ---We're still capable of great things.  Just not in large, cooperative groups.
--- End quote ---
Yes, large groups achieve nothing great... <rolls eyes> Of course you slipped in a useful escape-hatch in the extremely subjective word "great" but:

The pyramids of Egypt, the cathedrals of Europe, the eradication of smallpox, the Great Wall Of China, the Grand Canal, the Apollo Program (and space exploration generally), the teaching hospital where I work*, and the very internet that allows me to send this message, are examples of arguably great achievements by cooperative groups. Of course groups can do great harm as well as good, but that simply emphasises the power of cooperation, rather than contradicting it.


--- Quote from: AsinineAxioms on 22 Oct 2010, 13:40 ---
--- Quote from: Carl-E on 22 Oct 2010, 08:21 ---Humanity is one of the few cases where the whole is actually less than the sum of its parts.
--- End quote ---
Funnily enough, my Western Civ professor has told us that as well. I guess it's a historian thing?
--- End quote ---
It sounds more like one of the sound-bites of which academics are all too fond. We'd obviously all be much better off if individuals lived in philosopher's caves and never formed groups. No villages, no towns, and, ironically, no universities. We'd achieve little more than grubbing for beetles, but at least we'd be keep our virtue intact, right? Group action is messy, hard work, as imperfect as any other human activity, and requires us to get our hands dirty, but it is the basis of all civilisation.

*Edit: I am not a medic (and don't play one on TV), I'm on the computer/technical services side of things.

Is it cold in here?:
A mob is stupider than its components. A bureaucracy is an idiot savant, capable of remarkable things within a narrow range but falling apart when faced with change or exceptions.

The amazing thing about humans is that we can build semi-functional cooperative structures larger than the 40-100 person tribes we seem to be designed for.

peterh:
And so, by virtue of Akima's contribution, the question is sufficiently reduced to a question of definition.
If we define a large group as a random pile of human components without any organization whatsoever, we have a mob.

If we have a clearly-defined task, that, while too large or complex to be handled by a single individual, can be split up into sub-tasks that CAN be handled by an individual, and we have an organizational structure that monitors task progress and adapts as needed, then we have an organzation.

If we have a system of definitions of values that the group agrees on, we can then decide whether a large group is capable of creating Great Things.

Simply saying that large groups of humans cannot create Great Things assumes that people are unable to organise themselves, and that the Internet (a group effort if there ever was one) is a vile thing.
Some of the things that were created by large groups (such as the Internet) could *never* have come about from the efforts of a single individual.

So, yes, I think there's much more to this blanket statement than meets the historians' eyes. ;)

Dliessmgg:

--- Quote from: peterh on 23 Oct 2010, 23:59 ---and that the Internet (a group effort if there ever was one) is a vile thing.

--- End quote ---
Goatse, tub girl, all sorts of horrible porn, ...

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