‘Army of idiots’, social media & trumpism a.k.a.: From Grassroots movements to Building global community: Self-organization & Emergence

1. ‘Army of idiots’, social media &
trumpism
From Grassroots movements to
Mark Zuckerberg’s vision for
Building global community
2017 -
http://abrailas.github.io/
Project Networked Networked lives:
https://hub3001.wordpress.com/

2. 2017 – Brailas, A. 2
By Christoffer A Rasmussen (Rasmussen29892 at da.wikipedia) - Own work,
Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6736876

3. Complexity, emergence,
self-organization,
strange attractors
In context
3

4. GRASSROOTS MOVEMENTS
Social media & Grassroots movements
4

5. What is a grassroots
movement and how can
be facilitated/
catalyzed by social
media?
2017 – Brailas, A. 5

6. 2017 – Brailas, A. 6

7. 7
2011: Occupy wall street movement
By David Shankbone - Own work, CC BY 3.0,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16835148

8. 8
2011:
Occupy wall street movement
By David Shankbone - Own work, CC BY 3.0,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?
curid=16901773

9. 2017 – Brailas, A. 9

10. 10

11. 2017 – Brailas, A. 11
ByJonathanRashad-Flickr,CCBY2.0,https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=13535760
“Celebrations in Tahrir Square after Omar Soliman's statement that concerns
Mubarak's resignation. February 11, 2011 - 10:15 PM”

12. 2017 – Brailas, A. 12

13. 2017 – Brailas, A. 13
"Web 2.0 has facilitated the creation and
spread of content, changing social-movement
activism and organizing.... Whether they are
Americans organizing the Occupy Wall Street
protests or Egyptians tweeting in the streets
during the revolution that same year, movement
participants are recognizing and expressing
grievances, and organizing resistance, through
the information and communication technologies
that are now widely available, portable, and
participatory".
McCaughey, M. (2014). Cyberactivism on the
Participatory Web (Vol. 18). Routledge., p.2

14. 14
https://www.ted.com/talks/wael_ghonim_let_s_design_social_media_that
_drives_real_change

15. 15

16. SELF ORGANIZATION
Global order from local interactions
16

17. 2017 – Brailas, A. 17

18. 32 Metronome synchronization
2017 – Brailas, A. 18
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5v5eBf2KwF8

19. Self-Organization
• Self organization in biology and social sciences is the
spontaneous appearance o0f some form of order
without being imposed by an external
force/guidance
• Global order from local interactions
• No leadership/ central controlling authority
• Simple parts constitute a complex whole
• A collective and resilient organizational entity
• Emergent dynamics at the complex whole level
2017 – Brailas, A. 19

20. participants (agents)
• The participants (agents) in a self-organized
system/entity can be chemical molecules, insects,
humans or machines
• Participants respond individually to
environmental/contextual challenges, leading to
a collective response
• The total set of the individual responses seems to
have a ‘behavioral’ attractor (meaning), that is a
state of maximum fitness for the complex system
• The global meaning/attractor of a self-organized
entity is not always/usually known/understood
by the individual parts
2017 – Brailas, A. 20

21. Complicity…
• A fundamental feature in self-organized systems is
the interactions/synergies between the
actors/participants
• Local synergies are propagating in the whole system
• Chain reaction gradually lead the system to its global
attractor
• Sometime, external observers are able to
know/define/observe/construct the global system
attractor (without the participants/observer having
the same clear view).
2017 – Brailas, A. 21

22. Ant bridges
Each individual ant
communicate chemically
with its neighbors to
construct a live bridge,
without central guidance
and coordination (there is
no single guiding ant).
2017 – Brailas, A. 22
Image by Geoff Gallice from Gainesville, FL,
USA - Army ant bivouac, CC BY 2.0,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.p
hp?curid=18800680

23. Ants constructing a lifeboat documentary
2017 – Brailas, A. 23
www.youtube.com/watch?v=A042J0IDQK4

24. No leader
2017 – Brailas, A. 24

25. 2017 – Brailas, A. 25
«A recent article in Science magazine, called “Getting
the Behavior of Social Insects to Compute,” described
the work of a group of entomologists who characterize
the behavior of ant colonies as “computer algorithms,”
with each individual ant running a simple program that
allows the colony as a whole to perform a complex
computation, such as reaching a consensus on when
and where to move the colony’s nest.»
Mitchell, M. (2009). Complexity: A Guided Tour. USA: Oxford University
Press. (p. 145)

26. 2017 – Brailas, A. 26
«This would be an easy computation for me to program
on my computer: I could just appoint one (virtual) ant as
leader and decision maker. All the other ants would
simply observe the leader’s decision and follow it.
However, as we have seen, in ant colonies there is no
leader; the ant-colony “computer” consists of millions of
autonomous ants, each of which can base its decisions
and actions only on the small fraction of other ants it
happens to interact with. »
Mitchell, M. (2009). Complexity: A Guided Tour. USA: Oxford University
Press. (p. 145)

27. 2017 – Brailas, A. 27
Slime molds are eukaryotic organisms single
cells that aggregate together to form
complex entities. As independent amoeba
are feeding on bacteria. Then are moving in
concert to form an entity able to depict an
emergent behavior. Although single cells they
seem to exhibit a form of intelligence at the
global lever of observation.
Slime molds

28. Slime molds
2017 – Brailas, A. 28
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkVhLJLG7ug

29. EMERGENCE
Emergence & Complexity
29

30. 2017 – Brailas, A. 30
The behavior of large and complex aggregates of
elementary particles, it turns out, is not to be
understood in terms of a simple extrapolation of
the properties of a few particles. Instead, at each
level of complexity entirely new properties
appear, and the understanding of the new
behaviors requires research which I think is as
fundamental in its nature as any other (P. W.
Anderson, 1972).

31. 2017 – Brailas, A. 31

32. 2017 – Brailas, A. 32
The whole is not ‘more’ than the sum of its parts,
but it has different properties. The statement
should be: The whole is different from the sum of
its parts. In other words, there does not exist a
superiority of value of the whole. Both whole and
parts are equally real… the whole has definitive
properties of its own.
— Kurt Lewin

33. 2017 – Brailas, A. 33
ByHagainativ-Ownwork,CCBY-SA3.0,https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18758617

34. 2017 – Brailas, A. 34
“Life, in this view, is not to be located in its parts, but in the
collective emergent properties of the whole they create.
Although life as an emergent phenomenon may be
profound, its fundamental holism and emergence are not at
all mysterious. A set of molecules either does or does not
have the property that it is able to catalyze its own
formation and reproduction from some simple food
molecules. No vital force or extra substance is present in
the emergent, self-reproducing whole. But the collective
system does possess a stunning property not possessed by
any of its parts. It is able to reproduce itself and to evolve.
The collective system is alive. Its parts are just chemicals”
(Kauffuman, 1996, p. 24).
The emergence of life

35. BUILDING GLOBAL COMMUNITY
2017 – Brailas, A. 35

36. 2017 – Brailas, A. 36
"ὁ δὲ μὴ δυνάμενος
κοινωνεῖν ἢ μηδὲν δεόμενος
δι' αὐτάρκειαν οὐθὲν μέρος
πόλεως, ὥστε ἢ θηρίον ἢ
θεός -
He who is unable to live in
society (co-acting with
others), or who has no need
because he is sufficient for
himself, must be either a
beast or a god
— Aristotle
ByAfterLysippos-Jastrow(2006),PublicDomain,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1359807

37. 2017 – Brailas, A. 37
"Knowledge is unknowable
to all of us. It is a fabric we
weave collectively.”
— Ken Robinson
BySebastiaanterBurg-Flickr:SirKenRobinson@TheCreativeCompanyConference,
CCBY-SA2.0,https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=14534304

38. 2017 – Brailas, A. 38
“Social media gives legions of idiots
the right to speak when they once
only spoke at a bar after a glass of
wine, without harming the
community. Then they were
quickly silenced, but now they
have the same right to speak as a
Nobel Prize winner. It’s the invasion
of the idiots.” Umberto Eco (Trans.
T. Bolin)
ByBogaerts,Rob,CCBY-SA3.0,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22554268
https://comipi.wordpress.com/2015/06/18/the-invasion-of-the-idiots-and-modern-
churnalism/
https://zwingliusredivivus.wordpress.com/2015/06/10/the-invasion-of-the-idiots/

39. 2017 – Brailas, A. 39
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Trumpism

40. 2017 – Brailas, A. 40

41. 41

42. 2017 – Brailas, A. 42

43. 2017 – Brailas, A. 43

44. 2017 – Brailas, A. 44

45. 2017 – Brailas, A. 45

46. 2017 – Brailas, A. 46
Do you think Facebook
would like to build
or to catalyze the
formation of local
and global
communities? And how?

47. 2017 – Brailas, A. 47

48. How are you intelligent?
2017 – Brailas, A. 48
https://vimeo.com/103731800
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oS9h3S3VK0

49. 49
Thank you!
Hub3001 team
https://hub3001.wordpress.com/
abrailas@panteion.gr
http://abrailas.github.io/