I stumbled across this article from the economist, which briefly outlines some of the mechanisms which collective animals like bees and cockroaches make decisions. An excerpt:

Another form of groupthink occurs when people are either isolated from crucial sources of information or dominated by other members of the group, some of whom may have malevolent intent. This too has now been demonstrated in animals. José Halloy of the Free University of Brussels used robotic cockroaches to subvert the behaviour of living cockroaches and control their decision-making process. In his experiment, reported in an earlier issue of Science, the artificial bugs were introduced to the real ones and soon became sufficiently socially integrated that they were perceived as equals. By manipulating the robots, which were in the minority, he was able to persuade the cockroaches to choose an inappropriate shelter—even one which they had rejected before being infiltrated by machines.

I think we can easily find parallels to this in our own society. Deliberate disinformation campaigns by the cigarette industry and the fossil fuel industry regarding the safety of smoking and global warming, respectively, delayed the progression of the debate on these issues by years, maybe decades.

Via Policy Economist.

Tags: Long, Long Term Thinking, Term, Thinking