by Robert Gore
The crowd never thinks. People are only comfortable in a pack, and they’re most comfortable in one that’s racing off a cliff.
The Golden Pinnacle
Herd animals herd because there is safety in numbers. Even if the wolves or lions attack, they’re only going to get a small percentage of the herd. Such attacks even have an evolutionary advantage: they eliminate sick or weak members. Those who think humans are not herd animals labor under such vast misconceptions that they are beyond the reach of SLL.
One herd, Wall Street-Washington economists, surpass wildebeests and sheep. Their behavior, because it is so uniform, can easily be described. Membership in one of two subspecies is required: Keynesians or monetarists. Both have long histories of predictions that didn’t predict and policy remedies that didn’t remedy, but they all believe because they all believe. Intellectual foundations this shaky increase individual and group insecurity, so they base their work on the same set of statistics emanating from the government. The government’s assumptions, methodologies, and conclusions are never questioned, except by outcasts from the herd. After all, those assumptions, methodologies, and conclusions come from the herd itself.
The instinctive defensive tactics of the herd are the consensus and the wavering straight line. Economists are well aware of the expectations and predictions of other economists, and tend to cluster tightly around a given consensus. Occasionally an economist will deviate by a quarter or a half of a percentage point from the consensus, instead of the usual range of a tenth of a percent either way. It is thought by those who study these matters that this exaggerated and ostentatious display of independence can, if done only occasionally, make the individual stand out and thus promote advancement within the herd. Or perhaps it’s to attracts a mate.
[…] Herd Extinction […]