The Madness of Crowds
How Mass Contagions Spread w/Mark Changizi
“The madness of crowds underlies the greatest failures of civilization: revolutions, dictatorships, totalitarianism, genocides, and the rich varieties of democide. How can we best immunize ourselves against hysterias and their consequences?”
The last few years, we have seen people get swept up in mass contagions, multiple times. There’s always a new ‘current thing’ herding the crowds.
Society has become conflicted and divided, and tension has reached a fever pitch. The genocidal massacre of October 7th has reawakened an ancient mass contagion far more dangerous than anything we have seen in our lifetimes.
In order to gain some perspective on the forces that drive mass contagions, I invited Mark Changizi onto my podcast.
Mark is a philosopher-scientist, entrepreneur, founder of the free expression institute, and author at loofwired magazine. He is an prominent critic of authoritarianism in all its forms, with a focus on the psychosocial aspects that underlie the madness of crowds.
We discuss antisemitism and the madness of crowds, Islamofascism, and the psychosocial phenomenons that makes us prone to take part in mass contagions.
Here is one of the key insights Mark brings to the table:
“People believe what they do on the basis of the narrative that emerges from their social network. This is the best way for societies to converge toward truth, but the networks can and do sometimes produce false narratives, and they can be practically impossible to roll back.”
This video is also available on Youtube.
⌚️Timestamps:
0:00 - Intro
2:15 - Psychosocial forces
5:50 - Humans don't change
12:30 - Far-left & far right join the same mob
19:06 - Coordination vs. organic
23:05 - Islamofascism
28:44 - Hamas & Iran
31:54 - Do Palestinians support Hamas?
34:40 - How Narratives Stick
43:00 - Radical Islam
48:30 - Envy of the West?
55:00 - Mass contagions
59:30 - Everyone is susceptible?
1:03:00 - Last thoughts
In our discussion, I also ask Mark his views about radical Islam. Is Islam itself fundamentally a problem? Or is it only the radical Islamist regimes? This book will answer some questions.
Read The Muhammad Code by Howard Bloom below.
🇨🇦 Click here
🇬🇧 Click here
Read one of my latest, a comprehensive summary of René Girard’s theories here:
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