just doing a little light morning reading on crowd psychology... :D
i dont know how it all pans out in the end yet, but i found it interesting how they go thru the theories that gained and lost popularity, and i started thinking about how that seems to be the case in many areas of science: they have a theory, then they find too many exceptions, so they come up with a better 'story' for it, and so it goes, until hopefully the theory is accurate enough. that may well work in some cases. but this crowd thing got me thinking - what if a hybrid theory is needed? like the backbone of a crowd are people of similar beliefs who come together to act in a certain way, together, and then the rest are followers - easily influenced 'sheeple'... :D
like in a concrete construction - you have a steel frame to provide a degree of flexibility, and the concrete encasing it to provide the rigidity - at a low cost. as much as some would like to have it, people are not all the same, there's a variety of individuals within a crowd, and perhaps thats a key strength of a mob - versatility - not just pure strength in numbers. maybe there are more kinds of people in a crowd, if no 2 people are alike, which might make a crowd even stronger, more versatile, more decentralised - i'm thinking kevlar. or the interweb. :)
i donno, maybe its too early in the morning. maybe i should just stick to wire pulling. but i like this multi-prongage idea.