How’s That Crowdsourcing Working For You Now?

In the aftermath of the Brexit vote, while all the really smart people are explaining that the Brits who voted to leave are stupid racists, few (if any) seem to factor into the equation that this is what happens when you leave decision-making to the will of the majority. You can argue whether the vote actually reflected the will of the majority, but that, too, is a fool’s argument. They took a vote. Leave won. That’s how voting happens. Excuses don’t change it.

Watching the blind adoration of every nouvelle concept in the past decade, there would seem to be no way to miss the fact that early adopters, loud and passionate, at the fringes keep trying to push their way to the center, to make their idea the mainstream. They talk their way past the objections, sometimes with slogans, other times with anger and viciousness, always with the certainty that simpletons clutch to their chest that they are right.

Maybe the Brits who voted to leave are stupid racists. So what? Even stupid racists get to vote. More realistically, even regular folks who aren’t on the cutting edge, who aren’t willing to sacrifice what few gains they’ve made in their own life to your gender and racial politics, to the sacrifices you feel are worthy because of whatever sense of fairness and equality you feel, get to vote.

For quite some time now, you’ve been lauding the concept of the wisdom of the crowd. There’s the wiki thing, where people believe that input by everyone who cares will, eventually, prove more accurate than input by the “elite,” simply because they know stuff.  This is crowdsourcing. Ask a nation what it wants, and it lets you know. Sometimes, it lets you know that it wants something different than what you thought it wanted, what you think it should want. And you’re shocked to learn that you aren’t the center of the universe, the magical point where all can agree that whatever you want is the best idea.

So, the groundlings are angry for reasons you find offensive. Immigrants? That’s just racist. And they’re cutting off their economic nose to spite their face, which makes them stupid to boot. Hah! They’re so wrong! You can bask in the knowledge that you are so much smarter, so much more progressive, as you stand smugly with your back against the wall.

While there are many differences here, there are still basic lessons to be learned. No, of course you won’t learn them. You will argue your way around them, as if more pointless noise will somehow realign the stars. But the lessons are there nonetheless.  The United States is doing a slow Brexit of its own. Different issues, but with some overlap as well. Yet, the core concept isn’t really any different, because at its heart is the nature of humanity. That’s the nature of things that so many of you deny exists, as if enough people denying the earth is round will make it flat.

Much to the anger and consternation of some, this point has been made here many times in small ways in varying contexts. While most people could get behind Black Lives Matter when it came to cops killing unarmed black kids, they wouldn’t be pushed to cry as much over microaggressions. I’ll fight for your life, but not because the name Woodrow Wilson hurt your feelings. You can argue with me that the former is just as bad as the latter, but you won’t win. Sorry, but as much as I care about your life and death, I just can’t muster the same concern for the Royall shield. Or, frankly, for the suffering you are “forced” to endure by being a Harvard Law student. Poor baby. And I won’t give up my “privilege” for it. You can have Melissa Click’s privilege, but not mine.

There is an important parallel here, and its name is Trump. He may be ignorant, racist, manipulative and dishonest, but he’s disruptive. You love that word, right? Trump is the Uber of presidential candidates. He’s the candidate of the disaffected, which means you can dismiss their concerns. Like the “leave” voters, they’re stupid and racists. But there’s a lot of them. And they see this as their chance to tell you to kiss their ass.

George Will announced that he is leaving the Republican Party because he cannot support this barbarian, and, worse still, he cannot tolerate House Speaker Paul Ryan’s flagrantly unprincipled support of Trump.  Does that mean he supports Hillary Clinton? Of course not, but that is the necessary by-product. In taking this position, however, Will addressed the Supreme Court problem.

But what about that last-gasp reason, resonant among many of the legal thinkers at the libertarian/conservative Federalist Society, for backing even a revolting Republican—the Supreme Court? Will’s answer was revealing: “Sure, but I’m also concerned with the fact that I do not really believe Republicans think clearly enough about what they really want in judges,” he told Ballasy. “Having a Republican president is not an answer in itself.”

Having a Democrat as president didn’t do a whole lot for some of the issues that concern me either. Labels aren’t enough, even if they’re easy proxies. Regimes come and go. Law does harm for far longer. But whose judges do I want? Merrick Garland? Because Sam Alito wants another justice to sit at his lunch table? Screw that.

People will sacrifice their self-interest for reasons that makes the trade-off sufficiently worthwhile to them. Not to you, perhaps, because you’re much smarter, more sensitive and less racist/sexist/whatever, but here’s a sad reality. People just don’t give a damn how you feel when it comes to sacrificing their “privilege.” They’re not willing to risk making their lives miserable. They surely aren’t going to put their kids at risk for your ideals.

You think Trump can’t win? You’re a fool. You can call his supporters racist and stupid, just like the smart folks are calling the “leave” voters in Brexit, but rather than changing minds, you’re proving them right as far as they’re concerned. For all your self-assessed brilliance, you’re not getting it. You pushed them beyond their breaking point, and they finally said “enough.” They may not be voting for Trump, but they’re voting against everything you believe in.

For a lot of people, the options available are bad and worse, and we’re just not sure which is which. The question will be put to the crowd and the crowd will answer. The answer may be “no.” But unlike the lie you’ve been telling yourself about crowdsourcing, that it will theoretically produce the best, most accurate, outcome, you are likely to learn that the one thing the crowd believes is that when it can’t get what it wants, at least it can reject what it doesn’t.

The crowd isn’t buying what you’re selling. You can call the crowd names and make up whatever excuses make you feel less impotent, but you asked the crowd and it answered.

12 thoughts on “How’s That Crowdsourcing Working For You Now?

  1. KP

    Unless you ask the crowd again… and again… “And you vill keep voting until ve get the answer ve vant!”

    But so nice to see democracy at work, to see the elites and the experts get a slap with a wet fish! Another example of how democracies never vote parties in, they always vote out the ones they have come to hate.

    You are probably right and people will vote for Trump as a protest against Govt generally, but it really doesn’t matter if he wins or not as it always becomes “the Govt versus the People” no matter who is in power.

    1. SHG Post author

      On very rare occasion, a regime change does exceptional good or bad. Most of the time, it just perpetuates the system, which loves itself too much.

  2. wild bill

    Brilliant. And white lifes matter too, and blondes. Can Amerexit be far behind, whatever that is?

  3. Mike

    We may be seeing a trend here. Other countries in the Euro zone are looking at exiting.

    This monstrosity might go the way of the Roman Empire except it won’t take 700 years.

    1. SHG Post author

      If UK leaves, it raises entirely different concerns for other countries, some of which are simple economic necessities. You have to adjust to changes in circumstance, and without Brits, the EU is a very different animal.

  4. Patrick Maupin

    Aw, c’mon. “Everybody knows” that “the wisdom of the crowd” is best utilized to get close to an analog value, as when obtaining the weight of the bovine in the town square.

    For discrete values, you’re much better of with the trusty Mattel® Magic 8 Ball®.

    But seriously, if you think crowdsourcing is bad when everybody is eventually forced to share the same reality, you should try it in a context where everybody can maintain his (well, usually his, atm) own personal reality indefinitely. I’m currently trying to decide which of 27 Linux variants to use for an embedded project. Which of those realities will realistically be maintained well enough to provide a modicum of aid and comfort when I get stuck is a non-trivial question.

  5. Hollis Hanover

    “You think Trump can’t win? You’re a fool.” Our opinions qualify us for foolhood, apparently. My opinion is that Trump will not be President. Get me a pointy hat. I’ll give it back November 9.

    1. SHG Post author

      The point is not who will win, but that Trump can’t. Who ultimately wins is irrelevant, as is your opinion. Sorry, but the point hat is yours in perpetuity.

  6. losingtrader

    “There is an important parallel here, and its name is Trump. He may be ignorant, racist, manipulative and dishonest, but he’s disruptive”

    Is that the same disruptive as your Air BNB example of “disruptive in the same way pervasive mediocrity is disruptive?”

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