Quae nocent docent

I didn't do a very good job with this post yesterday. I've been trying to work on a problem that really requires a program written in a real grown-up language, but I'm doing it in a spreadsheet instead, which is several orders of magnitude less efficient, it's really crushing my computer, and I end up doing violently abbreviated versions of everything else. I really ought to learn how to code.

Anyway, the original article is here. (Cass R Sunstein (2002) "The Law of Group Polarization" Journal of Political Philosophy 10(2), 175–195)

Groups consisting of individuals with extremist tendencies are more likely to shift, and likely to shift more (a point that bears on the wellsprings of violence and terrorism); the same is true for groups with some kind of salient shared identity (like Republicans, Democrats, and lawyers, but unlike jurors and experimental subjects). When like-minded people are participating in "iterated polarization games" — when they meet regularly, without sustained exposure to competing views — extreme movements are all the more likely.

The problem with the parentheses was that the PDF I copied it from doesn't allow copy and paste, so I had to type it in myself. Sorry.

(Also see Hotelling Beach)