Bewildered by Polls? Blame Evolution!
Below bewildering poll has been repeated multiple times with different proportions but with same results! At first I wondered if humans are irrational as species until it hit me that this might in fact be the result of meticulously fine tuned evolutionary behavior. 🧵 https://x.com/micsolana/status/1629482902235774977
Primary implication here is that humans seems to automatically get self-organized in proportion of risk! For ex, if there is 20% chance of rain, we may see 20% of people prepared for it. If a business fails 90% of the time, we may see 10% people willing to take that risk.
We, as species, invest in multiple possible outcomes, have a collective notion of probabilities and self-organize.
This is fascinating at so many levels. For ex, it can explain highly polarized views, a lot of politics, rarity of pioneers, fringe philosophies and so on.
Imagine if all humans acted “rational” and everyone chose only the most probable outcome. In that case, there will be no trail blazers, explorers, risk takers and even most businesses.
Individual irrationality is essential to achieve collective rationality.