Flash Mob gone wrong | Hacker News Reader

Flash Mob gone wrong

ashitvora.info

152 pointsashitvora36 comments

Original source: http://www.tomscott.com/mob/. From the guidelines: "Please submit the original source". That's not quite the same as embedding something in your own blog and then submitting your own blog.

It's a story that requires a perfect storm of events with a large dose of human idiocy, it's not very plausible outside of Hollywood.

Ah, but there's a very large pool of humanity to draw idiocy from. Something that I'm sure has driven many an engineer (and politician) insane.

Actually, even that's not the original source! Among other things, I'm one of the co-organisers of Ignite London, which Tom Scott made this (very, very cool) video/presentation for. The video was filmed by another organiser (Richard) for Ignite London, so this is really the REAL original source (just to be pedantic) -

http://vimeo.com/channels/ignitelondon2#10060159

http://ignitelondon.net/videos

Another amazing presentation from that night (there were plenty) was the one about the price of chocolate bars, showing the use and abuse of statistics:

http://vimeo.com/channels/ignitelondon2#10052795

Thanks!

Get Tom Scott a slot at TED! He's a legend, and the same guy who ran as a pirate in the Westminster constituency at the last UK election.

I never heard of him, and I already am willing to second this :)

I don't care for this, it reminds me of slapping an "e-" prefix on something just to indicate that it's now somehow "internet ready".

More to the point, people acting like idiots is nothing new, but I think we'd all still be shocked if this actually happened, just like we'd be shocked if any kind of gathering resulted in a riot and 23 people dead.

But we won't be very surprised.

I've seen it in Mexico. For example, last week one medium-sized Drug Boss was cornered by the mexican army in Matamoros and he ordered a city-wide operation of road-blocking and setting-cars-on-fire in order to escape, aided by a personal army of highly armed mercs.

10 years ago, this event would have been very surprising and scary and unlikely. Now that our world is upside down and we are upside down too, it barely raised some eyebrows.

Far more fantastic things have happened in the past 100 years than a gang leader causing chaos to facilitate his escape from the authorities, unless there is some key aspect to your story that I'm missing.

The communication to notify anyone involved in facilitating his escape was all done through new technology, like Twitter.

On the other side of the coin, Twitter is being used to quickly inform residents when an assassination or cartel murdel appears to be brewing on the streets.

Here's a semi-sensationalist article on it, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/26/twitter-blog-mex...

And the famous twitter account of a Mexican anti-cartel activist, http://twitter.com/infonarco

I'm so glad this story is not true.

Indeed. The 'they don't know where to go, as they can't get to Google Maps' also doesn't ring true - if the police are arriving, I suggest most people would move away from the police, whether they can get to Google maps or not.

Odds on the police would use "kettle" tactics, so there would be nowhere to go away from them.

It's not true, it hasn't happened.

Yet.

I believe the Met. are using that much less now, since the whole fiasco with the G20 protests in 2009.

Its a flash mob, not a protest. The police would likely ask the mob to forest the area, as

I'm a little confused about which elements here are true actually. Did he piece together pieces of factual history to create a plausible scenario? And if so, was there ever a flash mob that resulted in a riot which lead to 23 deaths?

So far as I can tell it's entirely fictional.

The point is that, individually, there are precedents for each part of the story, not that they have all been tied together before. One of the graphics near the end illustrates this.

The 23 deaths part is a huge stretch though. There's been a few noted injuries at such mobs when turned riot but I can't even find an example of a single death from a flash mob type gathering.

There have definitely been riots however which have lead to deaths. Flash Mob -> Riot has happened, Riot --> Deaths have happened. Flash Mob -> Riot -> Deaths not yet.

Sure, it's definitely a stretch. He was a bit hyperbolic (as with the getting lost due to having no 3G bit). I can't think of any riot with more than a handful of deaths in a western country over the last 20 years (?)

In all, 53 people died during the riots and thousands more were injured.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_Los_Angeles_riots

(Just a history lesson. I agree with you that it's a huge stretch)

I'd say the "getting lost due to having no 3G bit" was one of the /least/ hyperbolic things - I can imagine that happening to me pretty easily nowadays.

If you pause it at 4:59 he cites (on screen) the partial events which could be combined to the single event

Upload to live news < 24 Hours - Epic Beard Man

Short Notice Flash Mob - Mass Moonwalk 2009

Personal Details Leak - Alex Wuori 2007

Flash Mob to Riot - Gallery Mall Mob 2010

I could definitely imagine something like this happening. It's awfully scary how technology can be used for unintended, malevolent purposes.

I don't get the point of this.

Yes, it's possible. But so what? A person in the early 20th century could have constructed a similar boogeyman scenario involving those new-fangled flying contraptions: watch out! Someone can take a plane across the country to kill you in mere hours! Yea, and?

I don't think the point here is to scare anybody. It's just an observation that says "if/whenever this happens, no body will act very surprised".

That's why he opens and closes his presentation with that quote.

So what was the point of making this a story about girl being killed, if not to scare/shock?

His entire point is that you wouldn't be surprised if this happened, which is exactly what you're saying. The point he's making is about how fast the world is changing along with our perceptions of what's normal and what's impossible.

But why make this point in the context of someone being killed? It would be just as crazy and impressive if it happened without someone dying. Its crazy-ness and impressive-ness has nothing to do with murder, so why give it that context? Purely for shock value?

It's true. Even the smartest person from the 1980s would struggle to understand much of what Tom is saying, let alone believe it. Consider:

4Chan, flashmob, YouTube, rickroll, subscribers (in relation to a person), Twitter, "logged off", Chat Roulette, "surfing", GPS (sort of), 3G, remix (in relation to video), "Web stream", links - mostly terms with no meaning even 10 years ago.

The whole world turns upside down in ten years - quite. Having just made that list, I now see why some older people struggle. I can imagine being similarly perplexed in another 50 years.

That's ridiculous. A smart person from the 1980s wouldn't understand your list because it's all brand names and neologisms. If you actually defined the words you're using, they'd have no problem understanding the ideas of a BBS, recording a video of yourself that other people can watch, sending people text messages, GPS, etc. etc.

And it would take half an hour to explain it, not a minute.

I agree with you in one regard, but I was extending the GP poster's observation:

The point he's making is about how fast the world is changing along with our perceptions of what's normal and what's impossible.

You could describe to Mr 1980 that there's an international, permanently running computer system that a quarter of the world uses each day and that you can upload videos to (and get feedback on) using a tiny credit card sized device with no wires at all.. but I'd suggest Mr 1980 would find this as far-fetched and unbelievable as I'd find someone talking about playing racket sports in the atmosphere of Jupiter. (Now I know better than to write this off as impossible by 2040..)

I think there are two levels of understanding. As you suggest, there's understanding the terminology, and you're right that there are a lot of neologisms in there. But I'm more impressed by the understanding and acceptance of the concepts involved. Even if you turn all of those terms into something Mr 1980 will understand, would he get it?

I was old enough then, of course almost everybody would get it then, easily! Even my granddad wouldn't have problems imagining. Think: since 1866 (it was 144 years ago!) there's uninterrupted communication using binary electric signals between US and Europe:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_telegraph_cable

More than anything, this video demonstrates the potential power of social media to people who don't understand it's usefulness. It even helped me "get" twitter.

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