Informational Cascades are crucial drivers of choice. They’ve directed the course of evolutionary history and are responsible for many of our widely held beliefs. But the physical constraints of life normally govern the impact of such things since I don’t know exactly what decisions other people are making. The internet changes that pretty radically–I know exactly how many times a video has been seen on YouTube, the Alexa rank of a blog, the amount of diggs an article got and what purchases or interest my friends have according to their Facebook profile. I am more susceptible to thinking “Hey, I should like this because other people like it.”

They work like this:

Person 1 is faced between choices A and B. They choose A. Person 2 is faced with the same choice AND the knowledge that the subject before them went with A. The balance is tipped in that direction. Now, even if they choose B, Person 3 just starts the chain over. They’re deciding between A and B with 1 and 2 canceling each other out. Then their decision influences all those who come after until often so many A’s in a row make it irrational to go with B (even if B is better).

And so you see how easy it is for these chains start and how hierarchically dependent they are on the earliest players. As cascades form–an overwhelming favor of either A or B–people stop thinking for themselves and start letting others do it for them. This is how we get memes, Justin Timberlake, untrue beliefs that won’t go away, and people doing stupid things for no reason. For instance, Chief Seattle’s speech on property rights is the basis for much of our perception of Native American beliefs…but it’s totally false. Consensus leads us to accept it as true when a quick look at the facts say the opposite. Or more dangerously, people think that since a direction is the direction that most people head in, they ought to go the same way. The data is dictating their lives instead of dictating the data with theirs.

I think that it is a rather simple syllogism to live by: When you follow others, you add nothing to the information pool.

So go your own way. Carve your own path. I’m trying and it’s pretty goddamn hard. Carve a path. No matter how much it bothers other people, however much you’re “messing up what we had going here” or labels you get branded with (“even if it lands you in a straight jacket or a padded cell“), they can’t argue with the facts. And the facts state that those who make their own choices, independent of “common opinion”, contribute more to our understanding of what works and what doesn’t then anyone else.

Barbarians at the Gate—Brian Burroughs

Details the LBO of RJR Nabisco and what quickly became a 25 billion dollar clusterfuck. Reading these books is always surreal–like American Psycho without the irony. The best part, to me anyway, is after reading about how these guys acted and treated people with their “big swinging dick” mentality is looking at pictures. Most of them look like complete douchebags–old, oofy men unaware of their lameness. Which just goes to show that it doesn’t matter how many Gucci suits you buy or how many war analogies you apply to your business, in the end meaning can not be manufactured. None of them really accomplished anything. What mark is it on history that you tore apart a company and put it back together for some fees? No question, LBOs did a lot to shake up and reinvigorate archaic companies (media definitely could use this). Most of the guys that did it though, were just fancy used car salesmen.

All Marketers are Liars—Seth Godin

A quick read, but good. Says that people don’t buy what they need anymore–we have pretty much everything necessarily for survival–and that the future is providing things that tell a story. A marketer is the person that transforms a product into an authentic lie (contradiction on purpose) that provides the customer something to live through or by. Tucker is a master at this: Is he selling funny anecdotes or is it all a story about living Thompson’s “myth and legend”?

Cesar’s Way—Cesar Millan

Trying to train my puppy. The show is awesome and so is the book. It doesn’t matter if you have a dog or not, learning to be calm-assertive is something we all can work on.

Free Prize Inside—Seth Godin

The follow-up to Purple Cow. This is my fourth or fifth Godin book. There is a section in the middle called “A Passel of Tactics” that is an applicable version of the 48 Laws. It tells you how to work within a system to create change. He says rightfully that a great idea is never enough. You’re better set having a good idea with leverage. You should read it just for the tactics section. I think you can find it for free online.

The Four Hour Work Week—Tim Ferriss

I started rereading it for my post on Tim’s blog. Totally forgot he liked Seneca.

Academic Papers/Misc

Evolution of Human Bipedalism: A Hypothesis About Where It Happened—LP La Lumiere

A short, 6 page paper about Aquatic Ape Theory. The idea is that a some point in evolutionary history a group of apes were stranded on an island and forced into the ocean for survival. This is where we developed bipedalism (walking on two legs), our affinity for Omega-3, relative hairlessness and ability to swim. This author thinks it happened near the coast of Africa where the Danakil Alps were mostly submerged by the rising sea. The whole idea seems fascinating to me and I’m trying to read as much as I can on it. If anyone has anything good, please send it.

The Commanding Heights: Battle for the World Economy—PBS ( 6 hr, DVD Boxset)

I should probably do a post on this but if I don’t, watch the DVD. The first disc is about the battle of ideas in economics–Hayek vs Keynes, Chicago School of Economics vs the rest of the academic world. The second disc is about the turmoil of reform, after Milton Friedman won the battle, after the Soviet Union collapsed. And then the last one is called the Rules of the Game and it’s about how to succeed on this new frontier. If anything, get the first disc on Netflix just for its history of the world economy from the Industrial Revolution forward.

I came across this while doing research for the music project I talked about before.

Top Band Sites According to Alexa

1. Emusic.com

2. Iron Maiden

3. Nightwish

4. Backstreets.com (Bruce Springsteen)

5. Linkin Park

Alexa is no gospel, but from any context, the rankings are shocking. Iron Maiden shouldn’t be anywhere on that list. They haven’t had a platinum album in the United States in over 19 years. You never hear them on the radio and outside their core audience, most people think they’re a joke. Nightwish? Using conventional logic, their position is almost unexplainable.

So how is Iron Maiden on the list? How do they have a 7,000 Alexa Rank when Eminem and Fergie are at 75,000 and 20,000 respectively? For one, there is clearly a large demographic that is not being served by traditional radio and pop-culture. And when the distribution walls no longer exist–as they don’t online–the habits and tastes of consumers radically change. What Hollywood and mass-media does is create a round hole that makes it impossible for square pegs to go through. Then as gatekeepers, they can shape and control what constitutes a successful artist. All of that is artificial and relies on what Godin calls the 3 legged stool of the FCC, strict copyrighting, and limited retail outlets. The internet gets rid of all three–a massive power vacuum…

And mostly, I think it has a lot to do with this:

“There is an unspoken contract between the band and the audience. If you’re David Bowie and your fans want you to change every album then thats his style. With Maiden, that’s not our style, fans like us to play something thats identifiable; they want to see nuances of change but they’re happy with Maiden. Maiden’s music appeals to a certain person and in every generation theres a certain amount of those people born, thats why Maidens appeal is finite in terms of the number of records we sell in the short term.”

Bruce Dickinson