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Comment by groaner | Hacker News Reader

I have to agree; I can sense the schadenfreude all over the place and it's getting annoying.

Hacker News is great. I had been thinking this exact same thing but then realized I was being ridiculous. However, isn't it a little scary to realize how no one is in control of us? I noticed this when I was riding on Bart. Everyone acts a particular way based on what other people expect them to act like. We all operate with so much order and yet no one is telling us to. Just thought this was cool.

I'm pretty sure the news media doesn't decide which drum to beat every night based upon which drum people expect them to beat.

Really? You really believe that? All I ever see on the news is death, tragedy and drama. If they showed us something we didn't expect we wouldn't watch.

I believe there is a distinction between acting in a way to meet expectations, and acting in some way to gain attention. You seem to be speaking of the latter in your last post, and of the former in the one prior.

Of course not, they're not psychic.

But they do decide on the basis of which drum they think people expect them beat.

The first concern of most news networks today is ratings/viewer numbers. They pick stories that will attract the average person, and thus you have Missing White Woman Syndrome. It's also well documented that certain networks (i.e. FOX News) have stuck to a schedule of talking points handed to them by various political entities.

They also love "counter-intuitive" stories, so it's easier to sell a story about how a company that seemed to be doing really well is doing something bad instead of a bad thing happening to a mediocre company that nobody likes much anyway.

Swarm behavior is widespread in nature. One Million Heads, One Beautiful Mind http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00gq43y

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing and wrote a post about it a week ago: http://mopchopshop.wordpress.com/2010/03/02/the-toyota-witch...
(Note, post happen to have the same title, but totally different content)
I just found Hacker News yesterday, this site is amazing.

> I just found Hacker News yesterday, this site is amazing.
Say goodbye to your free time and productivity.

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