The 'group mind effect' we are currently seeing via blogs (or The Swarm as Hugh Hewitt likes to call it re: the Rathergate affair) is simply a facet of modern communication nets that allows mass analysis that rewards the content of the truth spoken more than the position of the speaker. It works best with issues of reality based objective truth and people who accept there is such a thing as "objective truth." The more scientific or objectively technical the issue is, the better.
I have seen it operate repeatedly before.
I first saw it on the old GENIE Military Affairs Round Table over 14 years ago in the run up to and aftermath of the first Iraqi-American war. Then much later and repeatedly over on FreeRepublic.com on a number of issues, but most spectacularly in a long thread analyzing the Columbia Disaster (Note the link is to 3000 graphically intensive posts -- broadband only use is highly recommended) that reached the same conclusion NASA did months later on the causes of the shuttle break up.
This is a radically egalitarian cultural development that is highly subversive of elitist hierarchies everywhere.
Cultures that only accept wishful thinking over harsh reality or only 'accepted truth' from people of the 'proper credentials' -- whether through advanced university degree or bloodline -- cannot take advantage of this analytic capability.
All the wider net of Internet communications does is reinforce group delusion. Whether this delusion is Arab Fantasy Ideology or the Hate-Bush Main Stream Media Cocoon or Republican Impeachment of Clinton hysteria.
Point in fact the existence of that 'group mind' analytic capability is a threat to the self image of Elitist people and must be suppressed by them because it represents an existential threat to them.
This has implications on a number of levels. In a "War of Cultures" sense it means that large groups of people with the right mind set connected to this net will process information and act faster on it than elites, any elites, as well as cultures dominated by them. Groups with the right mindset will have fewer layers of information filtering and plain better information to act on.
Horizontal circulation is accelerating while vertical is still the same -- each level of authority doubles the amount of time it takes a decision to be made on the way up. So in many cases the "Group mind" will render anything that the opposing hierarchy does irrelevant before it does it.
The example from nature is the way whole schools of fish off of coral reefs react in unison to a threat minimizing the chance any single individual will be killed by a predator.
The human affairs example is the military concept of the OODA loop where the faster "observe, orient, decide, and act" chain on one side in a war rapidly reduces the other side to quivering jelly.
The Anglosphere, of all the cultures on the planet, values the content of objective truth over the credentials of the speaker more than any other. That is why it is pulling away from the rest of the planet economically, scientifically and militarily. It is why historically dissenter Protestant faith dominated nations whupped Catholic nations in Europe. It was a virtuous cycle that had better information lead to better decision making that lead to stronger Protestant economies and militaries. That lead to the Catholics losing to the Protestants.
This is also why Islamic countries have such problems modernizing.
Other Useful Sources
- Instapundit makes similar points today.
- Hugh Hewitt discusses "open source journalism".
- Belmont Club discusses open source intelligence and blogs.
- An anti-Bush blogger at History News Network is very happy about Rathergate. Read why: Liberty, Power, and Knowledge: The Tale of the CBS Memos