Goodthink: The New Science of Collective Intelligence
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Summary
Busting the myth of “groupthink,” a new look at how our ability to influence one another can accelerate individual and collective intelligence.
For years, scientists have struggled to discover the formula to produce the world’s smartest teams. But the solution has been elusive because they have focused on individual intelligences. In Goodthink, Damon Centola shows how to build teams, design online platforms, and create office spaces that sharpen our thinking individually and align our intelligence collectively. The secret, it turns out, is in the shape of our networks.
How did MIT’s Building 20, populated with outcasts and eccentrics, become one of the most innovative and productive research hubs in American history? Why did increasing the number of online echo chambers unexpectedly reduce political polarization? How can popular “herding behavior” make crowds more intelligent? This book has the answers. Taking us behind the scenes of the most successful systems of collective intelligence in the modern world, it introduces a new science of what it means to be smart.
