Item — HN Reader

Two other interesting recent articles on crowd behavior:

1) Why can't we be better at predicting successes? (movies, music, etc.)

Turns out when the crowd has social information thrown at them (previous number of downloads shown in listing) the ability to predict a success based on quality gets very unpredictable. http://www.filosofitis.com.ar/archivos/experimentalmarket.pd... Social data is a strong force.

2) Rice vs. wheat.

Wheat farming might be a reason why the industrial revolution started in Britain vs. China. Even though China was highly educated, people working in rice farming depend on large groups working collectively. A culture of collectivism then forms. Collectivism has been shown to breed less innovation than cultures where people are more individualistic (wheat farmers). http://internationalpsychoanalysis.net/wp-content/uploads/20...

Thought a discussion of Wisdom of Crowds might enjoy those if you haven't seen them.

The industrial revolution starting in Britain as opposed to China is almost certainly completely unrelated to farming methods, and much more related to politics. China during the industrial revolution was in the grip of a very weak, corrupt, and financially mismanaged dynasty. This set the stage for the Opium Wars and continued decline for the next 200 years, a period which has only recently ended. Prior to that, China was one of the most advanced civilisations in the world for most of its history.

Also note that the staple food of most of Northern China (including Xian, Beijing, and huge amounts of the population) is and has historically been, wheat based.

Its always key to take these kind of 'indirect' causation in anthropological fields with a huge grain of salt. It might be true but it is not really 'science' if the hypothesis can't be tested quantitatively.