Most Opinions Suck - the Failure of the Crowd

One of the wonderful advantages of living in the land of freedom is that every man, woman, child, dog, cat, and idiot is free to form an opinion. Not only are we free to form an opinion, but opinions are also free - that is, it costs nothing for someone to form one. And that’s how we arrived at the title of this column: Most Opinions Suck. Why? Because of two reasons: 1) Most people don’t know what the hell they’re talking about, and 2) People form sloppy opinions because they’re completely free. Reason 1 should be self-evident to you. Reason 2, however, is the more important of the two: Because it costs nothing to form an opinion, people form them easily, sometimes without thinking and without having to challenge them against reality. Also, there is no incentive to be right or wrong. You gain nothing if you are right, and you lose nothing if you’re wrong, so most people don’t bother to second-guess or challenge themselves. No one is going to give or collect money from you based on how accurate you turned out to be. This is my own interpretation of the concept “Failure of the Crowd”.

Because I surf the web a lot, I’ve seen enough idiotic opinions to not only write a book, but fill an entire library with them. Sometimes it seems like people are blindfolded, shooting off their opinions like bullets out of a machine-gun into a dark night hoping and praying that they’ll get lucky and hit a small kernel of truth. Once in a while, someone with intelligence or talent will say something insightful but his voice of reason is easily drowned out by the shouting and madness of the crowd. But, it’s nothing to get upset about because, as I explained before, that’s just the nature of living in a free country and the nature of free things. There’s no cost involved and no risk, so people form and fling opinions around carelessly and haphazardly. I admit that I’m guilty of this myself - everyone is to some extent, I’m sure. But once you understand and accept this truth - the Failure of the Crowd - you are suddenly empowered because you are able to develop your focus and sharpen your judgment. It’d be a fine and dandy world if everyone could be right all the time, but the reality is that in order for someone to be right, someone else has to be wrong.

Half the people can be part right all of the time,
and some of the people can be all right, part of the time,
but all of the people can’t be all right, all of the time
-Bob Dylan, “Talking World War III Blues” from The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan

When you understand that 95% of the people in this world either don’t know what they’re talking about or don’t have any incentive to make sure they give you a correct opinion, you can finally begin to listen to yourself and those 5% that actually make some sense. Figuring out which 5% of those opinions is right is a skill that you’ll just have to develop. With experience, it will get easier. One thing is for sure: you’ll have to rely on your intuition and instincts more. This is a good thing - to be able to drown out the crowd of voices and listen to yourself. Take Apple, for example. The brainchild behind Apple is undeniably Steve Jobs. Without his vision and talent, the company wouldn’t be where it is today. Could a crowd have chose the right direction and path to take? If outsourcing vision was so easy or effective, companies would be run like democracies. Every decision would be collectively voted on, taking into account everyone’s opinion. The company’s direction and vision would be some nightmarish mixture of everyone’s twisted (and limited) imagination. The company would be pulled in every direction, resulting in a complete and utter disaster. Too many cooks don’t just ruin the broth, they create something completely inedible. Organizations require strong leadership in order to set one direction to go in. Listen to people’s opinions, but understand that some of what you hear will be plain wrong.

I’ve had to do precisely that in order to get to where I am today. Being the resourceful fellow that I am, I’ve consulted every resource available to me for insights about myself, life, success, and whatever else I’ve been interested in learning about. Sometimes, I’d be blessed with an insightful, creative, and intelligently-formulated idea or opinion. Other times I’d hear things that either didn’t make sense or weren’t applicable to my situation because the person dishing the advice wasn’t really listening. I don’t blame him because its not like I was paying him for his shitty advice anyway. Eventually I learned to develop my intuition and judgment about what I felt was right and wrong, what made sense to me and what didn’t. This is an exercise that no one can do for you - it’s a unique, individual act.  You must take the time to form your own well-reasoned opinions and understand why you feel the way you do, or else you’ll forever be pulled in a thousand directions by the well-intentioned but misinformed Failure of the Crowd.