HiveMind

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A HiveMind is not the same as a CollectiveIntelligence. A HiveMind has one thought process that controls each of its composite agents. Thus, there is a strong dictating force, the overmind, that implants an idea into the weaker subminds that enact it.

I'd say television is the best mechanism created for creating a HiveMind (followed closely by religious institutions and the academic tradition). People who watch television share common experiences and thoughts, although these are created by television. Take, for instance, the phenomenon of two people discussing sitcoms they watched the previous night, even if they didn't watch them together. Many people's entire conversational context is TV. These people are the types who quote MontyPython? and TheSimpsons? to each other all day long. GlobalMedia?. GlobalVillage. -- SunirShah

Hm. The shows you mention seem to me almost the antithesis to a HiveMind. Both shows are filled with social satire, and are working on shaking up the HiveMind of more conventional television shows. I am trying to think of better examples, but i don't watch much television. Maybe entertainment shows are not so much the problem as the dearth of truly informative news, the compression of complex opinions into soundbites, and the mixing of documentary and fiction in ways that leave people unable to tell what's fact and what isn't. Not to mention the fact that mainstream television (GlobalMedia?) is owned by large corporations which can easily affect its news services. -- AlixPiranha

I wrote that little piece five or six years ago (forgive the TemporalContext). There is similar commentary on Wiki:HiveMind, but my brain is not nimble enough to remember. Professional sports are more HiveMindish than the shows I mentioned, as are CNN and Fox News in the United States, and more visibly dramatic, Argentinian private television. -- SunirShah

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