Spring India Post: Russell Peters

After Dr. Carr posted a link for Joe Wong, and Chase asked about stand-up in India- I’m inspired to share Russell Peters with the group. His ‘Be a Man’ routine is funny as heck.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qtrAMK7_Qk

Like Joe Wong, Mr. Peters creates an environment that is safe to laugh at ourselves. We should send comedians as foreign diplomats. “Common, be a man! Do the right thing!”

The Wisdom of Crowds- book review

“The Wisdom of Crowds” by James Surowiecki is a fascinating study of social psychology. In a sense, the book gives merit to the ideology that the market is the best predictor- because it is the average of many positions. Surowiecki asserts that for a crowd to be a good predictor, it needs to be diverse, independent, and decentralized. This logic validates what was right in the manner by which President Obama formed his cabinet in comparison to the manner in which G. W. Bush formed his. Crowds are wise if they are diverse. In the case of the former, the administration fell to group-think, homogeneous group-think that is. Good news for neo-cons, bad news for the world. Surowiecki asserts that organizations, “must accept the crowd.” In other words, decision making can’t be centralized to the point that diversity in opinion is not heard.

“The Wisdom of Crowds” inadvertently tells us that statistics will become ever more powerful as we look for indicators of perception and value in the future. The devil lies in how we assimilate our population. Is the population diverse enough? Is it independent and decentralized enough? The point of the book is that given the right parameters, the information collected from the crowd dwarfs the power of information collected from one mad genius.