Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Preface
We want to reduce the structural hierarchy in which the rich always have the ability to gain the most information and
the poor must fight their way into getting hold of some of the information which may allow them to improve their
own communities and groups. Hence, we will start with the definition and clarification of a few terms. We will have a
PAC or Purpose, Audiene and Context Audit first so that the reader knows whether or not to invest his or her time in
our pamphlet. This pamphlet aims to select certain reports by intellectuals and provide notes for these reports. A special
page or pages for good reports will be delegated for some important quotes from these pamphlets.
Key Words (Red: Words present in the reports. Orange: Not present in report however important for
us in discussing certain concepts)
Deliberation: long and careful discussion
Group-think: groups of people which think exactly the same
Censorship: the prevention of expressing certain ideas or feelings.
Authority: a person or a group of people who supposedly have a lot of knowledge
Information Signals: the providing of other people with information
Social Pressure: the attitude which the organisation imposes on its members
Heuristics: he proceeding to a solution by trial and error or by rules that are loosely defined.
Eureka Problem: a decision which is brand new to the group
Personal knowledge: knowledge that is held by an individual.
Shared knowledge: knowledge which is held by the group.
Knowledge Annexation: the ability to compile knowledge from different areas
Opportunity Cost: the negative consequences of not making an alternative decision.
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PAC Audit
Purpose: To discuss the pros and cons of deliberation and the reasons why deliberation occurs in
groups. Outline the ways in which deliberation within groups may increase the chances of reasoning
fallacies are a failure of the group to be successful in achieving aims.
Audience: Upcoming groups, Groups which use deliberation, groups which want to use deliberation.
Context: This is most likely to come in the Internal Conflict of our organisation. It is of vital importance to use the discussions within the organisation to our advantage. Every deliberation or discussion
should be an attempt to move the organisation forward or improve the organisation. A good deliberation should try to exploit the knowledge which the members of the organisation have. Through the
study of this report, a person may realise ways in which the deliberations they have initiated or were
part of may have not been able to take a full advantage over the members.
Notes:
The blue part are the notes. The orange part is the analysis. The red parts are the titles of
the analysis.
There is an assumption among most groups that deliberation or long and careful discussions is the
best method to improve the quality of decisions. However, most groups arent able to live-up to their
fullest potential because they are unable to carefully exploit all of the information which group members have.
4 main reasons for such failures:
1)Judging people on events before the deliberation
2)Cascade eects. The statements of predecessors are repeated.
3)Group polarisation. Attitudes and the ideas of the participants goes to opposite extremes.
4)Shared Information is prioritised over the personal knowledge of participants.
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In the dogma or terms of Azadidome. The first factor is similar to our value of action knowledge annexation and the study of social pressure may be similar or even equivalent to the Environment tenet
in our Science and Technology value of action. Hence, our studies in those particular fields may allow
us to take advantage of Internal Conflicts. Due to this, we will be able to exploit deliberations in a
better way.
A lot of times groups fail to annex or compile the points which each of their members have which is
precisely the entire point of having multiple people involved in a deliberation. A group which is united
and well-known however unable to make high-quality decisions when it is required of them is worthless.
The author suggests 3 principal reasons why groups are successful during deliberation
a) The productivity of the collective is much better than the most productive member of
the group.
b) Knowledge annexation is a well-understood topic
c) Synergy: The concept which states 1+1=3. Basically, synergy occurs when ideas are compiled in
such a way that the final idea or plan is much better than the original plan or ideas s which the individuals thought o separately. eg. If a group member understands dialectical materialism. However, another person finds it confusing and doesnt really get the point of it. A synergy will occur if
the group members with a new method of teaching dialectical materialism or split dialectical materialism into materialist dialectics and dialectical materialism.
Brief Description Role of Information Signals and Social Pressure in the 3 reasons for success and 4 Reasons of Failure of Deliberation
Why does this occur? Let us study the two factors of which we stated earlier, information signals
and social pressure.
Over here we are going to provide you with an analysis on why information signals and social pressures
used in a negative or ineective way lead to the detriment of groups and if used in an eective way
lead to the success of groups.
Social Pressure 1 and Failure Reason 1
When the group members speak with each other and have dierent views, they tend to argue and debate their views, with the intention to maintain their beliefs. Due to this, they have developed their
own views in a dierent way. This increases confidence. However, as stated in our manifesto they do
not gain anything new, in terms of productivity. Due to this, arrogance is built within the organisation
as there is a lot of confidence built up within a particular person This may encourage them to exert
more social pressure on other individuals within the political party or organisation. Hence, they
may consider themselves superior to their fellow members however this may not be true at all. An arrogant person may over time become overtly aggressive. This built in aggression may increase the
chances of judging other people. An arrogant or aggressive person may often tend to use past events in
order to highlight were another person has got wrong an use that as fuel to increase his or her arrogance instead of focusing the issue at hand. Which is the first reason why deliberations often fail.
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Using such a style of thinking we may be able to generate more paragraphs and come up with solutions. This is an extensive topic and you could just write an entire book on it. These ideas may be explored in short stories and plays which may allow individuals to use their own imagination.
If Azadidome decides to create a manifesto or rule book for deliberations the 2 psychological factors,
4 main reasons for failure in deliberation and 3 reasons for success in deliberations should be thoroughly considered. Of course, in consideration, with other works such as MSW(Maos Selected Works)
and the manifestoes and so on.
The author mentions that statistics may be a method to find out which decisions my be made by
groups. Looking at the citations I think if a reader is interested in such a topic
Two Sources of Self-Silencing
a) Information Signals
Assume if we have a person called Marx. Say if Marx believes that an X decision needs to be made.
Imagine if all of the members of his group think that X also needs to be made. Marx may not provide the reasons for why the decision X is best. Assume if his reasons are A, B and C .The other
members of the group might think that X is true however for completely dierent reasons say F,G
and H. This is what happens in an organisation. The decision X will be conducted mainly by Marx
then the reasons A,B and C will be taken into perspective. If decision X will be conducted by other
people within the organisation then then F, G and H may be taken into consideration. In this case,
the decision made will consider the ideas of Marx and hence the end product may be like another
decision Y. This may be good or bad.
In a group if two people lets call them X and Z have a lot of authority , then in order to gain more
respect and power, members of the group may intentionally gravitate towards the decision made by
X and Z. The information signals by them are generally seen to be more powerful and have more
weightage compared to other people. In Marxist circles, say if Engels is quoted in a justification, the
judgement say Y may be considered to have a mass of A. If another person say Fidel Castro said
something which was better than what Engels said, it may only receive a mass of A-, however if you
got rid of the titles and the credits. It will have a mass of A+.
There may be an assumption by a person lets call him Tom that the information that he may provide lets call it A will be useless when considering decision B. However, if you phonetically spell assume you get Ass-u-me which means that Tom may fail both himself and his entire group due to
information that is held back however may be helpful to the entire group.
In deliberations, people usually try to avoid providing limitations of their own conclusions. However, limitations may be important while considering whether the X or Y conclusion which may help
the group decide in a better way
b) Social Pressure:
If the majority of the group members think of a particular decision A. Other members who may be
in the minority might not want to speak out against decision A or suggest the limitations of decision
A or suggest decision B. This is because speaking out as a loner is often dicult. A random person,
lets call him Lenin may feel threatened to speak out against decision A even though he may have
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serious issues say X, Y,Z which the group may have to consider before conducing the decision A. If
Lenin has previous knowledge and has taken decision A or been in a group which has taken decision
A and failed, then Lenin may be leading his group to failure and may do so involuntarily because of
social pressure. Even if the members of the organisation do not desire to do so.
People may tend to not speak against other people who seem provide their own opinion in a more
persuasive and confident way.
To act more persuasive, people participating in a deliberation dont provide their own doubts about
the decision which they have chosen.
Even if provided sucient evidence that a decision is likely to be detrimental, members choose not
to disclose that they prefer another option or another decision.
Racial dierences, gender and other ethnic detail may prevent people to provide their opinions and
ideas as they thing that their opinions have little prevalence. It is a proven fact that female researchers are less likely to self-quote than males researchers.
Failures on steroids
I realised somewhere through the middle of the reading that the reasons which I listed above are reasons for failures within deliberations. However, the author was taking about some other factors. He
had a more psychological or metaphysical approach and I had a more logical approach this lead to
some other interesting points. Some of which I think are extensions of my earlier stated failures
achieved through a logical methodology. Personally, I think these failures are important and should be
considered holistically in addition to my earlier stated failures. Hence, I called them failures on
steroids as they are reasons why people fail however for people who are more serious about understanding failures and may want to adjust deliberations within their own organisations or start new
ones while considering the following principles.
A: Amplification of cognitive factors
B: Cascade eect
C: Group polarisation
D: Over-weighting of common knowledge
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Failures on steroids
1: Amplification of cognitive factors
These are type of failures associated with thinking processes. Someone interested in studying this in
detail might want to read On Contradiction by Mao Tse Tung.
People often use Hereustics which allow them to arrive at facts or opinions which are predictably
false or weakly supported.
Types of Heuristics:
Availability Heuristic: When people use the term err in English they are searching their brains
for availability heuristic. An availability heuristic is based on the knowledge with the person has examples of.
Media may be a big bias in this. For example, if people have seen terrorist attacks on the media very
often they may be likely to think that such attacks are very common. This is also a common reason for
stereotypes and biases based on ethnicity, gender and identity. A person may consider a terotrirst attack a very big threat were as more common stu such as
Familiarity Heuristic: Someone may make a heuristic as they are more familiar to it.
If a random person sees an Arab or Muslim person they are very likely to think of Muslim extremist
terrorist organisation as they are used to them. However, Rumi or Ibn Al Hayhtam are not too familiar hence referring or assuming that they may poetic or think a lot about science may not be something which comes to mind immediately.
Salience Heuristic: Created due to shock.
A terrorist attack on television may be more salient or more vivid to viewers compared to a report or
book on terrorism. Hence, they may remember something more or be more awed. When people saw
the video of extremists attacking two or 3 French Liberation magazine members they were more
shocked. However, when 50-80 Adivasi people were killed in the East side of India in a massacre
around the same date, most of them women and children, the world didnt even give a fuck because
there was no video-graphic evidence of the massacre.
Sympathetic magical thinking: People may associate certain objects with certain ideas and may
connect it with certain concepts.
For example, a book with Arabic or Urdu writing may frequently be associated with terrorism. A
book with French writing may be associated with being poetic. However, both of these may not be
the case.
People may make multiple heuristic and reasoning fallacies while making decisions while they are in a
group. Due to this, it is more likely that mistakes are increased dramatically in groups of large numbers.
Groups who associate their identity with the organisation may be more likely to agree with the decisions of the organisation. This is probably why an organisation continues on making a mistake. We
may want to start making deliberations more like reading clubs at school to not only to maintain but
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to increase the quality of the discussions in which each member is delegated with a certain task. The
reading clubs, Ive been in basically delegate each member a certain role in a discussion, each role is
rotated.
Egocentric Bias: The bias which assumes that everyone in the world thinks like you.
The author states it is important to have people to have a variety of backgrounds and ethnicities. If
you are discussing about dialectical materialist, a group with people with a degree ranging from
Physics to Anthropology might do better than a group practicing a certain subject. In addition, it is
important to have from dierent ethnicities as each person carries their own cultural background. If
you have people from dierent cultural backgrounds you are less likely to think that everyone acts and
thinks exactly the way you do. Hence, you are more likely to be open-minded and less stereotypical.
In addition, each society even capitalistic society fills us with dierent attitudes and personalities. By
having a varied ethnic or cultural group you are more likely to find the flaws within your own personality and add them.
Hindsight Bias: The assumption that you have some kind of super-powers or extreme intelligence skills of interpreting or predicting the future.
Luckily one type of bias that is removed or eliminated is the hindsight bias. Which is the assumption
that a particular person predicted an event say the starting of violence in Iraq. There is likely to be a
worship of idols or leaders in groups especially the reading club styled deliberation that I mentioned
earlier.
The author also notes that groups tend to work better Eureka problems. Which are problems or
decisions brand new to the group.
Taking advice from this report. I think that when trying to write-up or practice an activity which is
already familiar with the group or even an individual, you should try adding a new element such as
writing in a new format or a new style. This not only reduces boredom but adds a new element of innovation and prevents arrogance from being much of a factor as no one has the upper hand in terms
of having the best experience with such a problem.
2: Cascades
Process by which influence one another. And try to apply social pressure on each other to the point
that the members refuse to disclose their personal knowledge. And repeat shared knowledge.
A lot of times the same mistakes or same decisions may be repeated and seen as policy
Informational Cascade: The Same information is passed from one generation to another. However, such an information may or may not be true.
Some information being passed from one generation may be important or vital. It may be hard for
individuals to correct what their predecessors did wrong even though if they think that their information is wrong. Rebelling individually is very hard and requires a lots of guts. Not a lot of people have
that though.
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Reputational Cascade: People know or are aware of their personal opinion and about some truths
within the particular topic. However, they dont disclose this out of fear of a decrease in reputation
among the members in their group.
Availability Cascades: We have assumed that people are in a sense which is completely rational. If
the media is able to infiltrate your brain and make you feel traumatised. You may be morning for
someone who you dont even know and for no reason. This may enter your deliberations and cause
biases and be involved in arguments within the group which is totally irrelevant
3: Group polarisation
When you are deliberating within a group, you are forced to defend your views and your opinion, especially if you are from dierent cultures. Due to this, the group is more likely to go extreme in its
beliefs and ideologies. This is most likely because in most of the world deliberations or discussions are
meant to be a mode for stress relief. In India we have a word "gap chaat. Which basically means discussions which are meant for no purpose and around no central topic. In my opinion, this is the capitalistic attitude that proletarians or workers and semi-proliterians or employees have been thought to
have when amongst each other. However, this is extremely detrimental for community economics or
community organisation. On the other, the leading capitalistic family have developed the art of having
more decision based deliberations. In order to proceed, we must learn how to quit from ideological
deliberations and advance to more plan based or decision based deliberations. Decision based deliberation at first may seem more uncomfortable because we are not used to it. I remember when me and
Domekhan used to try to spark up decision or plan based deliberations those discussion would usually
be the most hostile or uneasy or uncomfortable discussions however after the decisions that are required are taken then you are thankful for the deliberation and though multiple minor victories and
successes one may be motivated to continue this future. I dont say that you should never have ideological or catching up deliberations however their needs to be a balance between each type of deliberation. Having a correct and optimised balance between each type of deliberation may help people in
not becoming too polarised in a group. Hence, this prevent splits within the organisation which are
created from small ideological dierences.
The lack of recognition and study in groups about the two factors of success within deliberations Information Signal and Social pressure. Groups must set ground rules which force group member even
leaders to also follow the rules. Such rules should be set in recognition of the 2 factors of success within the deliberation working inside the 4 reasons for failure within deliberations, 4 failures within deliberations on steroids and the 3 categories of success within deliberations.
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Further reading
Here are some sources which the author cited which we think will be important and investing to read.
1) Smart Groups by Harvad Business School
2) Infotopia by Cass. R.Substein
3) Groupting 2nd Edition by Irving L. Janis
4) Interaction with Others Increases Decision Confidence but Not Decision Quality: Evidence
against Information Collection Views of Interactive Decision Making by Chip Heath and Rich Gonzalez
5) Social Corroboration and Opinion Extremity by Robert Baron
6) Proper Analysis of the Accuracy of Group Judgments by Daniel Gigone and Reid Hastie,
7) Experimental Evidence of Group Accuracy,Reid Hastie
8) Information Pooling and Group Decision Making by Bernard Grofman
9) Comparing Micro and Macro Rationality, by Robert J. MacCoun
10) Judgments, Decisions, and Public Policy by Rajeev Gowda and Jerey Fox
11) Why Societies Need Dissent by Cass R. Sunstein
12) Inside the Jury by Reid Hastie
13) Team Medical Decision Making by Caryn Christenson and Ann Abbott
14) Decision Making in Health Care by Gretchen Chapman and Frank Sonnenberg
15) On Contradiction by Mao Tse Tung
16) The Eect of Discussion upon the Correctness of Group Decisions: When the Factor of Majority
Influence Is Allowed For,by 12Robert L. Thorndike
17) Heuristics and Biases: The Psychology of Intuitive Judgment by Thomas Gilovich, Dale Griffin, and
Daniel Kahneman
18) Availability: A Heuristic For Judging Frequency and Probability, 5 Cognitive Psychology by Amos
Tversky & Daniel Kahneman
19) The Perception of Risk by Paul Solvic
20) Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases by Daniel Kahneman, Paul Slovic, and
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Amos Tversky
21) Sympathetic Magical Thinking: The Contagion and Similarity Heuristics by Paul Rozin and Carol
Nemeroff
22) Heuristics and Biases by Gilovich, Griffin, and Kahneman
23) Group Consensus Approaches in Cognitive Bias Tasks by Mark F. Stasson
24) Bias in Judgment: Comparing Individuals and Groups by Norbert L. Kerr
25) Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes by Janet A. Sniezek and Rebecca A. Henry
26) Overconfidence and War by Dominic Johnson
27) Effects of Attorneys Arguments on Jurors Use of Statistical Evidence by Edward L. Schumann and W.
C. Thompson
28) Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes by Glen Whyte
29) Investigation of the Preference Reversal Phenomenon in a New Product Introduction Task by James W.
Gentry and John C. Mowen,
30) Escalating Commitment by Whyte
31) Group Consensus Processes by Stasson
32) We Knew It All Along: Hindsight Bias in Groups by Dagmar Stahlberg
33) The Blind Leading the Blind by David Hirschleifer
34) Why Societies Need Dissent by Sunstein
35) Information Cascades in the Laboratory by Lisa Anderson and Charles Holt
36) Information Cascades: Replication and an Extension to Majority Rule and Conformity-Rewarding
Institutions by Angela Hung and Charles Holt
37) Information Cascades in the Laboratory by Lisa Anderson and Charles Holt
38) Are More Informed Agents Able to Shatter Information Cascades in the Lab?
39) The Economics of Networks: Interaction and Behaviours by Patrick Cohendet
40) Are More Informed Agents by Willinger and Ziegelmeyet
41) Availability Cascades and Risk Regulation by Timur Kuran and Cass R. Sunstein
42) Social Psychology: The Second Edition by Roger Brown
43) The group as a polarizer of attitudes by S. Moscovici and M. Zavalloni
44) Are Judges Political? An Empirical Investigation of the Federal Judiciary by Cass R. Sunstein
45) Deliberating about Dollars: The Severity Shift by David Schkade
46)Extremism and Social Learning by Edward Glaeser and Cass R. Sunstein
47)Hidden Profiles: A Brief History, by Garold Stasser and William Titus
48)"The Common Knowledge Effect: Information Sharing and Group Judgments, by Daniel Gigone and
Reid Hastie
49)The Impact of Computer-Mediated Communication Systems on Biased Group Discussion, by Ross
Hightower and Lutfus Sayeed
50)The Psychology of the Internet by Patricia Wallace
51)Pooling of Unshared Information in Group Decision Making: Biased Information Sampling during
Discussion by Garold Stasser and William Titus
52)Hidden Profiles, by Stasser and Titus
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