Hive mind
The crowd within. Ask me again in 3 weeks. and we'll average it.

The Wisdom of Crowds

The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations, first published in 2004, is a book written by James Surowiecki about the aggregation of information in groups, resulting in decisions that, he argues, are often better than could have been made by any single member of the group.

According to Surowiecki, these key criteria separate wise crowds from irrational ones:

Diversity of opinion

Each person should have private information even if it's just an eccentric interpretation of the known facts.

Independence

People's opinions aren't determined by the opinions of those around them.

Decentralization

People are able to specialize and draw on local knowledge.

Aggregation

Some mechanism exists for turning private judgments into a collective decision.

• Keep your ties loose.
• Keep yourself exposed to as many diverse sources of information as possible.
• Make groups that range across hierarchies.

You can view an interesting talk by James at TED here.

I would hope that I resemble "an eccentric interpretation of the known facts" as opposed to the ants going in circles.

“enlightened self-interest” (American democracy) vs "unenlightened selfish greed" (cause of the current financial crisis in US) = a Tragedy of the Commons.

Connectivism meets Connectivism the learning theory