Death to the Individual!
Long live the Hive Mind!

Every once in a blue moon, Blogger.com (the nifty little service that has published and organized my online blogger for the past couple of years) will feature an interesting, blog-related article. Today, I came across this one and it was, genuinely, one of those Holy Sh*t moments. The article's contention was pretty basic and self-serving: 'Blogger.com is great because the whole is more than the sum of its parts! Join today!' But, then it delved into some startling research about the inherent intelligence in a "Hive Mind".

Apparently, some finance professor named Jack Treynor did an experiement with his students. To quote the article:

Treynor asked his class to estimate how many jelly beans there were in a jar. When added together and averaged, the group's estimate was 871— there were 850 beans contained within the jar. Only one student had made a better guess (a rogue genius, if you will). The now historic jelly-beans-in-the-jar experiment showed invariably that a group estimate is superior to the vast majority of individual guesses on a consistent basis.

Holy Sh*t.

Taken to its extreme conclusion, this is absolutely uncanny. Might not seem like a big deal on the surface, but, to me, the implications are enormous. Maybe all of this is old news to the rest of the world, but for me... well. Again:

Holy Sh*t.

Could it be that democracy truly is the most perfect form of government? Is any sort of election other than a popular vote faulty? Are websites like "Hot or Not" the purest, truest evaluation of physical beauty? Is there an inherent, objective, collective widom that surpasses the intelligence of any given individual? Can we blindly trust the Chaos Curve? Is there even such a thing?

There's been a mighty uproar over what some folks have called "The Blogosphere". Thousands of thousands are now actively contributing to their own blogs: sharing links, sharing diatribes, discussing, debating, digesting... is the internet producing some sort of super intelligence? And am I contributing to it with my ruminations on comic books and the mail delivery system? Hah.

"Hive Mind" used to be some sort of worst-case-scenario idea, an Orwellian/Kafkaesque nightmare. But is it so bad? Is the hive the antithesis of the individual? I'm not so sure. Maybe the best sort of hives are the ones whose individuals are the most distinct.

Whatever, man, I can't help but think there's a very clever screenplay idea in there somewhere.
...


Congratulations, Gary and Jennie Underwood, on the birth of lil' Allison on June 22! Normally, I'd post pics, but you can go and look at them for yourself at GaryAndJennie.com.

Gary has become a bloggin' machine, by the way. Go read. He's funny.

Thanks, Gar, for contributing your own daughter to The Hive. We grow together, brother. Together!
...


Good news, Grandpa Spellman's operation went according to plan. Last I heard, he's still recovering, but the aneurism has been taken care of. He won't be participating in any rugby tournaments for awhile, but we're all glad he's heading back toward health and prosperity.

Grandpa, I've no illusions whatsoever that you'll ever come within 50 ft. of this website, but nonetheless, good work, Old Chap.
...


Finally, the wife and I are taking wing for San Francisco tomorrow morning to attend the blessed nuptials of our treasured friends, Scott Godfrey and Stephanie Wells. Good people. And, whoopie! we get to see San Francisco. We've heard nothing but good things about the city... er... okay, we've heard nothing but good things from people who have actually taken the trouble to visit there. But we're excited.

"Watch out, Jer. There are a lot of gays there."

"Uh. Okay...?"

"You know what I'm sayin'?"

"Not really."

"Just be careful."

"...Be... careful of what exactly?"

"The gays!"

"The gays what?"

"You know what I mean. For one thing, there's AIDS."

"Ah. Okay, well, I'll try not to sleep with any homosexuals while we're there."

"Good man."

posted by Jeremy Bear 1:58 PM

---

Sunday, July 04, 2004

"Make me look old"

Everybody remembers Blu, right? So I sit down in the hair salon chair yesterday, when everyone's favorite hair-stylist eccentrique says, "okay, you're scheduled for a cut and color, is that right? What would you like to do?"

"Well, Blu, I've been thinking about this. Do you think you could make me look old?"

"Old?"

"Right. I was thinking of coloring my hair a silvery-gray. Almost white. You know how guys in their sixties look? Or, I guess a better example would be a guy whose hair goes gray or white prematurely. Something like that."

"...Ah... so... you... want to bleach your hair?"

"Sure, if that's what it takes."

"Well... I could bleach your hair completely white, then add a silverish tone on top of that... if... is that what you mean?"

"Yeah. I guess. Sounds good."

"Mm. Tell you what, I'll bring out a swatch palette of hair colors and you can... listen, you really want to look old?"

"I take it you don't get that request very often."

"No. Never. Everyone wants to look young. This is a first."

"It's not really that I want to come off like an old man, I just like the hair color old men have. It's cool. It's a little different. It was just an idea."

"...Okay. And how do you want it cut?"

"Oh, just really short. Clipper-short. Whatever you think looks best with old man hair."

So, as you can see from the picture above (click to enlarge), she did it. In the end, she really really liked it. Not only that, but several of the hair stylists came around to check out the experiment and the opinions were unanimous: pretty doggone cool. Granted, these people are paid to encourage customers about their hair decisions, but they seemed pretty sincere.

And, you know, I like it too. I'm usually teased at work about being The Guy with All the Hair Colors, and I'm sure this time'll be no different, but who cares? In this day and age, outrageous hair color isn't even outrageous anymore. My wardrobe is boring enough, why should my head be the same?
...


Well, anyhow, a joyous Independence Day to all. Give it up for freedom, brothers and sisters!

posted by Jeremy Bear 9:32 PM

---