wisdom of crowds vs experts

[...] 'all of us know more than any of us' (including the professionals) and that self-experimentation combined with information-sharing with millions of other self-experimenters could lead to a much healthier population at much lower cost than the dysfunctional system we have now. This is another example of the Wisdom of Crowds [link mine].

[...]

While self-experimentation may lack objectivity [...] it has the unarguable advantage of taking into account individual variability (our bodies and minds are all different), and the personal engagement of the 'patient' must inevitably improve its efficacy. [...] It is only learned helplessness, and the outrageous prohibition of self-experimentation [...] that diminished self-experimentation from the principal means by which we accepted responsibility for our own health, to "inadvisable", "rash", and "irresponsible" behaviour. We now defer to 'professionals' to tell us what's good for us, at huge and arguably unnecessary cost to the 'health care system', our self-reliance, our independence, and our sense of personal responsibility.

-- Dave Pollard, Self-Experimentation: For More Than Just Diets (How to Save the World)

Experts certainly have a role, but they can hijack the agenda and deprive the whole process of legitimacy just because they have so much knowledge. So one of the problems with democracy that we have in the world right now is that people just don't think it achieves anything for them - that's why you get participation declining so dramatically in many Western democracies. [...] The experts have to provide the information that allows lay people to make informed decisions, without taking over the process.

-- Thomas Homer-Dixon, Worldchanging Interview: Thomas Homer-Dixon (Worldchanging.com)

love your blog jeff!!!

yes!!! the sum of the parts is greater than the whole!

and yes. i believe that a majority of the people are still zombies. but in the same breathe, i believe that a lot of people are beginning to wake up. and their will be a new r[evol]ution. Cause you can't have a revolution with out love!

-- drB (January 30, 2008 12:40 AM)

Thanks B'jammin.

No zombies, just people; we're all misled and misleading.

-- Jeff Schuler (April 2, 2008 11:18 AM)