There are “wise crowds,” whose mean judgment is close to the correct answer, but there are also crowds that follow tyrants, that fuel market bubbles, that believe in magic, or that are under the sway of a shared illusion. Minor differences can lead one group toward a firm yes and an essentially identical group toward an emphatic no. And because of the dynamics among group members—our emphasis here—the level of noise can be high. That proposition holds whether we are speaking of noise across similar groups or of a single group whose firm judgment on an important matter should be seen as merely
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