Group Coordination

January 29th, 2012
contra, singing
Contra dancing, flash mobs, group singing, and facebook birthdays. Doing the same thing as lots of others around you feels good it's own way, differently from most things we do. Watching a comedy in company where laughs compound. Gathering at a funeral to be together in grief. Feeling the words of a charismatic demagogue play the emotions of the crowd. While our thoughts don't actually merge with the group's [1] we move part of the way to being a single entity.


[1] The Tines in Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep and Children of the Sky do this. I enjoyed both books a lot.

Comment via: google plus, facebook, substack

Recent posts on blogs I like:

Linkpost for March

Effective Altruism

via Thing of Things March 2, 2026

The Newest Technology in Frozen

There are lots of different things in Frozen that are new-ish, but my dad and I were wondering: what is the actual newest thing in Frozen? This led me to watch Frozen a lot while taking notes. Some of the things I found included: Elastic hair-ties A safety …

via Lily Wise's Blog Posts March 1, 2026

2025-26 New Year review

This is an annual post reviewing the last year and setting intentions for next year. I look over different life areas (work, health, parenting, effectiveness, etc) and analyze my life tracking data. Highlights include a minimal group house, the usefulness…

via Victoria Krakovna January 19, 2026

more     (via openring)