WEBVTT - How Crowds Work 0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:07.720 Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:11.119 --> 0:00:14.040 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, there's Chuck, 0:00:14.400 --> 0:00:18.639 there's Jerry, and he squeezes together in a one meter 0:00:18.800 --> 0:00:22.680 square space. We're still doing pretty good on Stuff you 0:00:22.720 --> 0:00:24.640 should Know, you. 0:00:24.600 --> 0:00:27.440 Know, as funny as I was reading, and then we'll get 0:00:27.480 --> 0:00:30.560 to it. But when things start to become problematic as 0:00:30.560 --> 0:00:34.040 far as people per square meter, and I started to panic. 0:00:34.920 --> 0:00:38.800 Oh really, Yeah, that didn't get me, But it occurred 0:00:38.840 --> 0:00:40.599 to me that some people listening to this are going 0:00:40.680 --> 0:00:41.560 to feel that way too. 0:00:42.200 --> 0:00:44.920 Yeah, because we're talking about crowds, and if even the 0:00:45.000 --> 0:00:49.080 discussion of being in very close proximity to someone else 0:00:49.200 --> 0:00:51.520 triggers you, then consider this your warning. 0:00:52.600 --> 0:00:55.920 Yeah, great, great job, Chuck. Yeah, sure, So we are 0:00:55.960 --> 0:00:59.160 talking crowds today, Chuck, you spoiled the entire episode by 0:00:59.240 --> 0:01:05.280 mentioning that, Yeah, I'm just kidding, buddy. And generally think 0:01:05.319 --> 0:01:07.640 of this this huge mass of people, say like at 0:01:07.640 --> 0:01:10.000 a concert or something like that, or a show if 0:01:10.000 --> 0:01:14.520 you're into indie bands, but it can be any assemblage 0:01:14.560 --> 0:01:17.200 of people, any group of people. I'm guessing more than 0:01:17.240 --> 0:01:20.880 two if that old adage is correct, about three being 0:01:20.920 --> 0:01:23.240 a crowd, but it can be anything from a bunch 0:01:23.240 --> 0:01:26.319 of people in an elevator to a bunch of people 0:01:26.880 --> 0:01:29.600 going to Mecca flocking to Mecca for the Hodge on 0:01:29.680 --> 0:01:30.440 any given year. 0:01:31.000 --> 0:01:34.240 Yeah, I think like technically just any any grouping who 0:01:34.280 --> 0:01:35.040 put this one together. 0:01:35.080 --> 0:01:36.640 By the way, initially. 0:01:36.600 --> 0:01:39.760 This was a Julia joint And thank you for reminding 0:01:39.800 --> 0:01:44.080 me before we go further. Kimberly from the Prison Labor 0:01:44.240 --> 0:01:46.720 listener Mail is the person who got this one going. 0:01:46.760 --> 0:01:47.760 So thanks Kimberly. 0:01:47.880 --> 0:01:50.080 Okay, yeah, thanks big time because I thought this was 0:01:50.120 --> 0:01:53.120 super interesting. But yeah, yeah, I mean Julia did some 0:01:53.160 --> 0:01:55.800 research and basically came back with this a crowd as 0:01:55.880 --> 0:01:59.760 any group of people temporarily gathered in the same physical 0:02:00.920 --> 0:02:03.720 relatively close to each other elevators. 0:02:05.040 --> 0:02:07.480 Sure, I mean it's a little surprising if you think 0:02:07.520 --> 0:02:09.320 about it. For some reason, I got hooked on the 0:02:09.360 --> 0:02:12.480 elevator thing. But there's a lot of different reasons those 0:02:12.480 --> 0:02:15.240 people could be together. They're all going to different floors 0:02:15.240 --> 0:02:17.040 in the same building, say if they happen to be 0:02:17.080 --> 0:02:20.280 on an elevator, or they could all have a shared 0:02:20.320 --> 0:02:25.240 interest they're all at a gun show, or they have 0:02:25.280 --> 0:02:29.799 a shared goal they're trying to overthrow their regime, their 0:02:29.880 --> 0:02:32.840 ruling regime. There's all sorts of different reasons people come 0:02:32.880 --> 0:02:35.720 together in crowds. Sometimes it's on purpose, sometimes it's not 0:02:36.360 --> 0:02:39.480 planned by that person, but it just happens. And one 0:02:39.480 --> 0:02:42.360 of the cool things is we've been studying crowds through 0:02:42.520 --> 0:02:46.919 all sorts of different lenses, and we've kind of whittled 0:02:46.960 --> 0:02:51.480 down to the fact that humans are essentially innately good 0:02:52.000 --> 0:02:54.519 at navigating crowds for the most part. 0:02:54.760 --> 0:02:57.760 Yeah, you know, some of the stuff Julia came back 0:02:57.760 --> 0:03:01.000 with was fairly like you might be a little scared 0:03:01.240 --> 0:03:04.000 of crowds, but it is good to know that that 0:03:04.120 --> 0:03:06.679 is sort of outdated thinking and why we will talk 0:03:06.720 --> 0:03:10.680 about bad things that can happen in crowds. The modern 0:03:10.960 --> 0:03:14.320 understanding of crowds, You're right, is that people are generally 0:03:14.480 --> 0:03:20.280 pretty orderly, even in the face of disaster, and the 0:03:20.320 --> 0:03:23.400 things that make a crowd go bad. A lot of 0:03:23.440 --> 0:03:26.040 times it's not the crowd's fault. 0:03:27.040 --> 0:03:30.559 Yeah, they get blamed by authorities very frequently in retrospect, 0:03:30.600 --> 0:03:33.280 and then in further retrospect it turns out like, no, actually, 0:03:33.360 --> 0:03:35.560 the authorities are probably at fault in this case. 0:03:36.000 --> 0:03:38.880 Yeah, I mean it's almost as if sometimes a peaceful 0:03:38.880 --> 0:03:45.520 protest can turn bad when an armed military shows up, right, 0:03:45.640 --> 0:03:48.320 just the presence of that, just the presence and then 0:03:48.520 --> 0:03:49.960 other things that happen after. 0:03:50.240 --> 0:03:53.360 Right, So yes, and we'll talk about that for sure, 0:03:53.360 --> 0:03:55.720 because there is a huge role for law enforcement and 0:03:55.760 --> 0:03:59.240 dealing with crowds, like it's part of their job. Sure, 0:03:59.440 --> 0:04:03.040 crowd out, they say crowd control, but that's apparently an 0:04:03.040 --> 0:04:06.360 outdated term as well. But dealing with crowds, managing crowds, 0:04:07.080 --> 0:04:09.080 So that's part of their job. That's not gonna go away. 0:04:09.200 --> 0:04:11.920 We don't really want it to go away. Instead, we 0:04:11.960 --> 0:04:15.440 want law enforcement to do it in the using the 0:04:15.480 --> 0:04:18.360 best practices that have been proven over and over again 0:04:18.600 --> 0:04:21.599 that cut down the chance of a crowd turning ugly 0:04:22.160 --> 0:04:24.400 by huge percentages. 0:04:24.960 --> 0:04:27.560 Yeah, but you know, one thing is for sure, like 0:04:28.040 --> 0:04:32.240 people behave differently in crowds, and sometimes it's great. You know, 0:04:33.080 --> 0:04:35.400 I never I never dance like this man, but I'm 0:04:35.400 --> 0:04:38.599 at burning man and look at me all of a sudden, right, 0:04:39.600 --> 0:04:41.560 or it can turn bad and we're gonna we're gonna 0:04:41.560 --> 0:04:42.360 cover all angles. 0:04:42.440 --> 0:04:44.320 Well, let's talk about some of the bad ones, because 0:04:44.360 --> 0:04:48.000 there are some famous ones that this happens. You don't 0:04:48.000 --> 0:04:49.480 want to say a lot, but it's one of those 0:04:49.520 --> 0:04:51.640 things like a plane crash, where it seems like it 0:04:51.680 --> 0:04:55.839 will happen all the time because it's just so shocking 0:04:56.600 --> 0:04:58.960 details of it. Whenever it does happen, it seems like 0:04:59.000 --> 0:05:02.200 it happens way more frequently. That's just not the case. 0:05:02.200 --> 0:05:03.720 But when it does happen, like I said, it can 0:05:03.760 --> 0:05:04.440 be pretty bad. 0:05:05.080 --> 0:05:08.760 Yeah, you know, because people can get trampled, people can 0:05:08.839 --> 0:05:12.560 be squashed by force, like in a crowd rush. Pressure 0:05:12.600 --> 0:05:15.280 can reach a thousand pounds of force, which is a lot. Yeah, 0:05:15.560 --> 0:05:18.240 that can lead to loss of life, notably, like you said, 0:05:18.240 --> 0:05:20.480 we're going to mention a handful, but the Astro World 0:05:20.520 --> 0:05:24.040 Festival in Houston very sadly in twenty twenty one at 0:05:24.040 --> 0:05:26.840 the Travis Scott performance, ten people lost their lives and 0:05:26.880 --> 0:05:27.800 many more were injured. 0:05:28.440 --> 0:05:30.640 Yeah, there was one I hadn't heard of that was 0:05:30.680 --> 0:05:34.320 pretty bad, quite bad. It happened at the coronation of 0:05:34.400 --> 0:05:38.360 Zar Nicholas the Second in Moscow in eighteen ninety six. Yeah, 0:05:38.400 --> 0:05:41.200 there was a crowd of half a million people who 0:05:41.240 --> 0:05:43.599 were all there for the coronation, and they knew that 0:05:43.640 --> 0:05:47.560 they were giving out free souvenirs. Essentially, I saw half 0:05:47.560 --> 0:05:50.479 a pound of sausage, bags of nuts, a souvenir cup, 0:05:50.920 --> 0:05:53.400 and apparently they had enough for everybody, but a rumor 0:05:53.440 --> 0:05:56.279 spread in the crowd that they didn't have enough for everybody, 0:05:56.400 --> 0:05:58.919 so the people in the back started pushing. A stampede 0:05:58.960 --> 0:06:01.559 broke out. In thirteen one hundred people died. 0:06:02.040 --> 0:06:03.520 Yeah, it feels like concerts. 0:06:04.240 --> 0:06:07.040 In sporting events, it can be dozens of people, which 0:06:07.040 --> 0:06:09.600 is all incredibly sad, But when people in the order 0:06:09.640 --> 0:06:13.640 of thousands are dying, yeah, from an event, that's pretty striking. 0:06:13.400 --> 0:06:16.960 And that really follows the model. It seems like for 0:06:17.480 --> 0:06:20.680 loss of life in crowd crushes, there's some sort of 0:06:20.760 --> 0:06:24.240 bottleneck toward the front, and it's wider in back, so 0:06:24.360 --> 0:06:27.400 people in back start pushing and the people in front 0:06:27.440 --> 0:06:30.839 can't go forward, so they get crushed. That seems to 0:06:30.839 --> 0:06:33.359 be like the case. That's what happened in Astro World, 0:06:33.520 --> 0:06:38.080 That's what happened in Moscow, That's what happened in Dusburg, Germany, 0:06:38.520 --> 0:06:41.880 at the world's largest techno festival, the Love Parade. 0:06:42.040 --> 0:06:42.760 Yeah, I remember that. 0:06:42.920 --> 0:06:46.640 Twenty ten twenty one people died and it was a 0:06:46.640 --> 0:06:47.559 tunnel in that case. 0:06:48.000 --> 0:06:52.680 Yeah, it also happened. I mentioned the Haje and two 0:06:52.720 --> 0:06:58.640 thousand people. Two thousand people died at the Hajje as 0:06:58.720 --> 0:07:02.320 part of that annual pilgrim to Mecca that all Muslims 0:07:02.320 --> 0:07:05.920 are required to do at least once in their lifetime. Well, 0:07:06.040 --> 0:07:07.920 they have like on the order of one and a 0:07:08.000 --> 0:07:11.360 half million people, up to two million people every year 0:07:11.480 --> 0:07:15.080 do this thing. And in twenty fifteen, two thousand people 0:07:15.120 --> 0:07:18.120 died because there was a bottleneck people push from the back, 0:07:18.720 --> 0:07:22.520 and that actually broke the previous record of the most 0:07:22.560 --> 0:07:25.680 people killed in a crowd crush that was also at 0:07:25.720 --> 0:07:27.720 the Hajj, this time in nineteen ninety. 0:07:28.200 --> 0:07:33.400 Yeah, super super sad. Because of all these tragedies, people 0:07:33.560 --> 0:07:36.800 have been studying how people move through crowds, crowd dynamics. 0:07:36.840 --> 0:07:39.920 It's you know, they use a lot of different sciences. 0:07:40.160 --> 0:07:42.320 Physics definitely is one, and we're going to talk about 0:07:42.320 --> 0:07:47.840 all these, but also physiology, psychology certainly, and what they're 0:07:47.880 --> 0:07:51.240 looking at is human behavior, how people behave when they 0:07:51.280 --> 0:07:54.760 get into crowd because it changes once you have sort 0:07:54.760 --> 0:07:57.400 of a veil of anonymity going on, and again it 0:07:57.400 --> 0:07:59.840 can be good or bad. But they use this in 0:07:59.840 --> 0:08:02.400 all all kinds of modeling, whether it's you know, in 0:08:02.440 --> 0:08:08.120 city planning or certainly event preparation, disaster management, crowd management, 0:08:08.120 --> 0:08:10.560 all kinds of people like we'll pay people a lot 0:08:10.560 --> 0:08:12.920 of money to study and give their findings. 0:08:13.080 --> 0:08:16.920 And you mentioned applying the principles of physics to studying this. 0:08:17.040 --> 0:08:20.000 I think that started in the fifties. And it's not 0:08:20.080 --> 0:08:24.000 like tit for tat, but the movement and the formation 0:08:24.120 --> 0:08:27.840 of crowds resembles it so much that you can basically 0:08:27.920 --> 0:08:33.479 use physics terms like orbital motion or oscillators to basically 0:08:34.000 --> 0:08:37.679 describe how people behave in a crowd and how crowds 0:08:38.200 --> 0:08:40.520 behave themselves. One of the ways of looking at a 0:08:40.640 --> 0:08:45.160 systems theory and complex adapted systems are what crowds do. 0:08:45.240 --> 0:08:47.600 It's chaotic at first, but then they start to move 0:08:47.640 --> 0:08:51.880 together as a whole. Lines of communication develop without speech. 0:08:51.920 --> 0:08:55.120 It's just kind of like the crowd learns through feedback 0:08:55.480 --> 0:09:00.480 and it just starts. It becomes a cohesive of whole 0:09:00.880 --> 0:09:03.680 rather than just a bunch of people together into space. 0:09:04.280 --> 0:09:07.920 Yeah, I mean, certainly fluid dynamics is a factor, and 0:09:07.920 --> 0:09:10.440 they kind of use some of that terminology as well 0:09:10.480 --> 0:09:14.440 when talking about crowds, because if you're a fluid, like 0:09:14.480 --> 0:09:16.880 let's say you're a liquid or even a gas, the 0:09:16.920 --> 0:09:20.559 particles are really tightly packed, but they're never actually colliding 0:09:20.600 --> 0:09:23.640 because they have electrons repelling each other. Yeah, we do 0:09:23.800 --> 0:09:26.959 a similar thing, but it's called what's known as social force. 0:09:27.840 --> 0:09:30.720 It's that thing when you're in a crowd and you 0:09:30.920 --> 0:09:37.440 just unconsciously instinctively navigate without like constantly bumping into other people, 0:09:38.320 --> 0:09:40.679 at least if. 0:09:39.760 --> 0:09:41.160 You're doing it right right. 0:09:41.600 --> 0:09:43.960 I've been in crowds where people are a little more unaware, 0:09:43.960 --> 0:09:45.880 and there may be reasons for that, so I'm not 0:09:45.960 --> 0:09:50.640 like casting aspersions. But generally speaking, your body is just 0:09:50.720 --> 0:09:54.720 automatically adjusting because you want that path of least resistance. 0:09:54.880 --> 0:09:57.840 You don't want to be banging into people all around you. 0:09:58.400 --> 0:10:02.360 And even in great crowds like a huge excited stadium 0:10:03.480 --> 0:10:06.520 after a big sports win or after a big energetic 0:10:06.520 --> 0:10:09.960 concert or something, you still find your way out of 0:10:09.960 --> 0:10:14.920 there generally, you know, not making contact with other people. 0:10:15.000 --> 0:10:18.520 Maybe slight you know, bumps here and there, but unless 0:10:18.520 --> 0:10:21.319 someone really has their head up their butt or they're 0:10:21.360 --> 0:10:23.680 super drunk, or there may be other you know, some 0:10:24.200 --> 0:10:26.680 genuine factor. They can't help. They're not just banging right 0:10:26.720 --> 0:10:27.720 into people constantly. 0:10:28.000 --> 0:10:31.640 Yeah. That made me wonder if it's electrons repelling each 0:10:31.679 --> 0:10:35.520 other that keeps liquids from bumping into one another. I 0:10:35.600 --> 0:10:39.079 wonder if the collective group of electrons in our bodies 0:10:39.600 --> 0:10:43.679 are what makes us inherently makes us inherently avoid it 0:10:43.760 --> 0:10:45.840 and almostatic sense for that kind of thing. 0:10:46.200 --> 0:10:46.960 I like that, Eddie. 0:10:47.320 --> 0:10:49.560 It's like the quantum explanation of swerving. 0:10:49.760 --> 0:10:50.960 Yeah, little hippie dippy. 0:10:51.320 --> 0:10:53.440 So there are a couple things that we've figured out 0:10:53.480 --> 0:10:57.480 about crowds that the way that they behave is again, 0:10:57.520 --> 0:10:59.720 this is spontaneous. I don't even know if we've said it, 0:10:59.760 --> 0:11:04.240 so maybe not. Again, it's spontaneous, it's unconscious typically, and 0:11:04.880 --> 0:11:09.520 it's collective. Right, So we're actually moving cooperatively with other people, 0:11:10.080 --> 0:11:12.360 whether we realize it or not. We think we're just 0:11:12.440 --> 0:11:14.559 trying to make it to the exit because we want 0:11:14.600 --> 0:11:16.160 to get to our car first so we can get 0:11:16.160 --> 0:11:18.400 the heck out of the parking lot as soon as possible. 0:11:18.840 --> 0:11:23.200 But we're actually unconsciously moving in conjunction with other people. 0:11:23.559 --> 0:11:27.240 One of the really great ways that that expresses itself 0:11:27.320 --> 0:11:31.440 is in lane formation, which is well, it's exactly what 0:11:31.480 --> 0:11:32.440 it sounds like, right. 0:11:33.559 --> 0:11:36.640 Yeah, it's people kind of gathering and moving in one 0:11:36.720 --> 0:11:42.200 direction together forming a lane. No one's taking the lead 0:11:42.240 --> 0:11:45.520 and saying everyone, this is the United States, So we 0:11:45.640 --> 0:11:47.840 generally walk down the right side of the hallway or 0:11:47.880 --> 0:11:50.680 the corridor and other people on the left. That is 0:11:50.720 --> 0:11:52.640 something when I've traveled abroad I had to get used 0:11:52.640 --> 0:11:55.200 to because I didn't realize the rules of the road 0:11:55.280 --> 0:11:59.199 typically apply to moving around the world as well. So 0:11:59.760 --> 0:12:01.840 I I didn't know that until I went over to 0:12:02.000 --> 0:12:05.480 England for the first time and was bumping into people constantly. 0:12:06.600 --> 0:12:09.559 But yeah, here in the United States, it's generally right side, 0:12:09.720 --> 0:12:12.400 left side or I guess it doesn't explain it well, 0:12:12.400 --> 0:12:14.360 but no, you did you move along the right side 0:12:14.400 --> 0:12:14.959 of a hallway? 0:12:15.040 --> 0:12:18.520 Sure, And that's just a difference in the electron spin 0:12:18.640 --> 0:12:21.120 of people in Europe and the people in the US. 0:12:21.400 --> 0:12:25.040 Oh Man, I also mentioned orbital motion too, right, So 0:12:25.360 --> 0:12:29.520 apparently in a crowd people moving in the same direction, 0:12:30.200 --> 0:12:32.520 or if you're in a crowd, that's just basically in 0:12:32.559 --> 0:12:35.280 one place. I think they studied the Festival of the 0:12:35.360 --> 0:12:38.679 Running of the Bulls in Pamplona. To get this information. 0:12:39.120 --> 0:12:43.319 You basically create you move in a circle in an 0:12:43.400 --> 0:12:46.080 orbit is what they call it, and you complete this 0:12:46.200 --> 0:12:49.880 orbit in about eighteen seconds. And when I was reading this, 0:12:50.000 --> 0:12:52.199 I'm like, that's just not true. And then I went 0:12:52.240 --> 0:12:56.200 and watched video of this study, and yes, people just 0:12:56.320 --> 0:13:00.360 move around in a tight circle. Basically, you're moving because 0:13:00.400 --> 0:13:04.240 other people are moving, but you're ultimately you're keeping your 0:13:04.240 --> 0:13:08.000 same space this one orbital circle, which is awesome. 0:13:08.000 --> 0:13:11.400 I mean to be clear, because that sounded slightly confusing. 0:13:12.080 --> 0:13:15.480 People are not walking in a tight circle. You're just 0:13:15.679 --> 0:13:20.000 moving your body within a circular space, right, like maybe 0:13:20.080 --> 0:13:22.800 raising your elbow to scratch your head or something like that. 0:13:22.920 --> 0:13:27.480 Right, So imagine imagine the person in front of you. 0:13:28.960 --> 0:13:30.839 Imagine the person in front of you is backing up, 0:13:30.840 --> 0:13:32.640 so you back up and then you maybe moved to 0:13:32.679 --> 0:13:34.360 the right, and then they move this way and you 0:13:34.480 --> 0:13:37.160 kind of come forward to your left, and then you 0:13:37.280 --> 0:13:38.880 kind of back up a little bit to your left, 0:13:38.880 --> 0:13:41.240 and then you back up center like that. So you're 0:13:41.280 --> 0:13:43.160 facing the same way the whole time, but you're just 0:13:43.240 --> 0:13:45.640 shuffling your feet in the way that you're doing this. 0:13:45.720 --> 0:13:47.559 You're ultimately creating an orbit. 0:13:48.520 --> 0:13:51.600 Yeah, and I think that also applies to just taking 0:13:51.640 --> 0:13:53.319 up your personal space with general body. 0:13:53.679 --> 0:13:54.840 Yes, the electrons. 0:13:56.120 --> 0:13:58.840 So this this works out pretty great, this idea of 0:13:58.840 --> 0:14:02.360 social force, it seems to work pretty well. And even 0:14:02.360 --> 0:14:06.000 in big crowds, when it starts to get a little 0:14:06.480 --> 0:14:09.360 more highly dense is when it's a problem. And this 0:14:09.520 --> 0:14:11.720 is where you might get triggered. Like I was. And 0:14:11.760 --> 0:14:14.960 I don't even mind crowds, but when it started talking 0:14:15.200 --> 0:14:17.959 and getting like denser and denser, I just found myself 0:14:17.960 --> 0:14:20.280 getting a little you know, my breathing sort of increased. 0:14:20.560 --> 0:14:21.200 Yeah. 0:14:21.240 --> 0:14:24.240 So at two people per square meter, a crowd moves 0:14:24.320 --> 0:14:27.160 a little slower because they're still trying to you know, 0:14:27.200 --> 0:14:29.840 get that distance between you and and your friend next 0:14:29.840 --> 0:14:33.360 to you. Four people, you're going to start to bump 0:14:33.400 --> 0:14:36.920 around a little bit. At six people, things get truly difficult. 0:14:36.960 --> 0:14:39.920 And at ten people per square meter and I measured 0:14:39.920 --> 0:14:42.760 that out on the floor, that made me panic a 0:14:42.760 --> 0:14:46.520 little bit. That means individual movement is basically impossible, and 0:14:46.640 --> 0:14:50.360 the likelihood of, like in a big crowd that's that dense, 0:14:51.240 --> 0:14:53.080 something bad is likely to happen. 0:14:53.440 --> 0:14:56.520 Yeah, this is the point where you can't raise your arms, 0:14:56.800 --> 0:15:00.360 they're at your side. If a crush starts to have happened, 0:15:00.440 --> 0:15:04.760 you can't breathe, so they're like, you can die of asphyxiation. 0:15:05.320 --> 0:15:09.000 There is a very famous tragedy in twenty twenty two 0:15:09.080 --> 0:15:13.920 in Soul, a Taiwan, tragedy where kids in their twenties, 0:15:14.080 --> 0:15:16.800 healthy kids in their twenties died of heart attacks because 0:15:16.840 --> 0:15:21.760 they asphyxiated and their heart stopped because of a crowd crush. Yeah. 0:15:21.760 --> 0:15:26.000 And if you're wondering what this all looks like, we 0:15:26.040 --> 0:15:27.800 didn't do big max. Should do one big max, but 0:15:28.320 --> 0:15:31.360 six people per square meter where you know it's not tragic, 0:15:31.400 --> 0:15:35.640 but movement is difficult. That's about seventeen hundred people packed 0:15:35.680 --> 0:15:36.880 onto a tennis court. 0:15:37.160 --> 0:15:38.720 Yep, So that's a lot. 0:15:39.320 --> 0:15:42.680 Yeah, and that was at six. We're talking ten is 0:15:42.800 --> 0:15:45.280 when you can really be in trouble. Now, that is 0:15:45.360 --> 0:15:50.880 not guaranteed that something's going to go wrong. In a 0:15:51.000 --> 0:15:55.240 Taiwan there were like this, This situation was going on 0:15:55.400 --> 0:15:58.520 for an hour or so before it turned problematic. So 0:15:58.640 --> 0:16:00.480 as long as the people in the back are doing 0:16:00.520 --> 0:16:03.440 good and not pushing, as long as somebody in the 0:16:03.480 --> 0:16:07.560 center doesn't faint and fall over or trip and fall down. 0:16:08.160 --> 0:16:11.240 This can work. It's not inherently going to be deadly, 0:16:11.640 --> 0:16:14.440 but the chances of it becoming dead it's just sitting 0:16:14.440 --> 0:16:17.160 there balancing on the razor's edge at that point, it's 0:16:17.200 --> 0:16:18.760 a really dangerous place to be. 0:16:19.320 --> 0:16:22.560 Yeah, it's that one triggering incident is when it can 0:16:22.640 --> 0:16:23.600 really go south there. 0:16:23.840 --> 0:16:24.880 Yeah, for sure, it's scary. 0:16:25.640 --> 0:16:28.560 Shall we take a break, Yes, all right, we'll be 0:16:28.680 --> 0:16:41.280 right back with more crowds. 0:16:34.360 --> 0:16:58.560 Stop you shut. 0:16:55.640 --> 0:16:58.960 All right. So we covered partially coverage physics. 0:16:59.040 --> 0:17:03.640 We should talk a little bit about psychology because crowds 0:17:03.800 --> 0:17:06.639 have their own distinct psychology around them as well, and 0:17:07.280 --> 0:17:10.159 people can behave in ways that they don't normally behave 0:17:10.240 --> 0:17:15.159 in a crowd just because of that psychology. And early 0:17:15.200 --> 0:17:17.560 on the explanation for that was like, if there's a 0:17:17.640 --> 0:17:21.640 violent crowd, then it was just full of violent people, right. 0:17:21.680 --> 0:17:26.560 And there was a French psychologist named Gustave Lebon in 0:17:26.600 --> 0:17:29.040 eighteen ninety five who wrote the literal book on this, 0:17:29.200 --> 0:17:33.160 like the first one called the Crowd Colon a Study 0:17:33.200 --> 0:17:37.520 of the Popular Mind, and it was very influential. But 0:17:37.760 --> 0:17:40.239 this is one of those that's a little outdated in 0:17:40.280 --> 0:17:41.160 a lot of ways. 0:17:41.560 --> 0:17:44.760 Yeah, it's right in some ways. But his whole thing was, like, 0:17:44.800 --> 0:17:48.800 you have any crowd together, they're inherently mindless, they form 0:17:48.840 --> 0:17:52.360 a collective mind, they become capable of anything. They're very suggestible. 0:17:52.520 --> 0:17:55.800 They're going to kill everybody in their path, right, and 0:17:56.160 --> 0:17:59.000 like there are crowds that have done that before. Sure, 0:17:59.440 --> 0:18:04.560 but that's not the inherent I guess trait of crowds. 0:18:04.560 --> 0:18:07.440 Like crowds are actually the opposite. They're actually way more 0:18:07.440 --> 0:18:12.520 peaceful and pro social than that. But Lebon essentially set 0:18:12.680 --> 0:18:15.879 the view of crowds that's still persistent today in a 0:18:15.920 --> 0:18:19.720 lot of quarters. And he did. Yeah, he just had 0:18:19.720 --> 0:18:21.360 a huge impact on this. 0:18:21.920 --> 0:18:22.120 Yeah. 0:18:22.160 --> 0:18:27.679 Absolutely, if you look at the different explanations over the 0:18:27.760 --> 0:18:31.240 years of like this collective behavior, because collective behavior is 0:18:31.280 --> 0:18:32.000 definitely happening. 0:18:32.359 --> 0:18:34.160 Yeah, there are a few different theories. 0:18:34.520 --> 0:18:36.680 One is a contagion theory and that was put forth 0:18:36.720 --> 0:18:41.480 by Lebon himself, which is that this irrational behaviors that 0:18:41.480 --> 0:18:45.080 happened in a crowd spreads like a virus. Yeah, that 0:18:45.160 --> 0:18:48.119 can happen, and it also can't. So I'm sort of 0:18:48.160 --> 0:18:49.240 fifty to fifty on that one. 0:18:49.640 --> 0:18:52.760 Yeah. Again, like all of this stuff makes sense. It's 0:18:52.880 --> 0:18:56.440 just not like this is the most salacious rare version 0:18:56.520 --> 0:18:59.600 of crowds, right. Yeah, you can also make the case 0:18:59.680 --> 0:19:05.240 like good positive behavior can be contagious in a crowd 0:19:05.280 --> 0:19:08.240 as well, because, like you said, people behave differently in crowds. 0:19:08.280 --> 0:19:09.240 That's just a fact. 0:19:09.520 --> 0:19:11.400 Yeah, like that dancing at Burning Man. 0:19:11.520 --> 0:19:15.480 Yeah, exactly. There's also convergence theory, which also makes a 0:19:15.480 --> 0:19:19.639 bit of sense that explains why crowds have a collective mind, 0:19:19.920 --> 0:19:22.240 and it just basically says that's because crowds are made 0:19:22.280 --> 0:19:25.920 up of similar people. Like usually there's not a lot 0:19:25.960 --> 0:19:30.959 of crowd like mindless, say behavior on an elevator, because 0:19:31.000 --> 0:19:34.200 everybody there didn't come together on the elevator to protest something. 0:19:34.600 --> 0:19:37.679 But if you have a protest, there's way more potential 0:19:38.080 --> 0:19:42.520 for collective mind behavior because there's people who are there 0:19:42.520 --> 0:19:44.840 for the same reason, So they're sharing kind of a 0:19:44.880 --> 0:19:46.600 wavelength already when they get there. 0:19:47.000 --> 0:19:49.399 Yeah, if you're at that concert together, you're there because 0:19:49.440 --> 0:19:53.560 you're you want to see Bob Dylan in person, all right, 0:19:53.960 --> 0:19:55.160 for the same reason. 0:19:55.080 --> 0:19:58.240 Sure, Or you want to hear David Crosby harangue you. 0:19:58.800 --> 0:20:01.359 Oh man, he will too, or he would have he did. 0:20:02.040 --> 0:20:06.639 Oh yeah, Okay, so that's convergence. There's also group mind 0:20:06.680 --> 0:20:09.679 theory a little on the nose. It's basically saying like, 0:20:10.200 --> 0:20:14.720 you lose your individual identity and it's replaced as a part, 0:20:14.880 --> 0:20:19.560 a cog of this larger group's identity. Yeah, yeah again, 0:20:20.080 --> 0:20:24.119 I guess. Yeah, it's not totally off. Social identity theory 0:20:24.160 --> 0:20:28.640 seems to be the prevalent, dominant view of I guess 0:20:28.720 --> 0:20:30.800 kind of d individuation in crowds. 0:20:31.320 --> 0:20:33.880 Yeah, that's where you just you're acting like everyone else 0:20:33.960 --> 0:20:35.800 is acting because you just want to fit in. 0:20:36.680 --> 0:20:38.399 Yeah, you can't really put it better than that. 0:20:39.760 --> 0:20:43.000 So how do you become a crowd member? There are 0:20:43.040 --> 0:20:44.359 a few key concepts there. 0:20:44.720 --> 0:20:47.080 First, you have to get training, go to school. 0:20:48.840 --> 0:20:51.800 Got to go to crowd school, all right, Uh, And 0:20:51.840 --> 0:20:53.520 the first thing you need in crowd school is a 0:20:53.520 --> 0:20:56.080 lot of people in a very tight spot. 0:20:56.520 --> 0:20:57.600 It's called panic school. 0:20:59.080 --> 0:21:01.360 Feeling right now, by the way, I'm okay, And it's 0:21:01.400 --> 0:21:05.800 weird because I don't have like, what's it called claustrophobia necessarily. 0:21:08.400 --> 0:21:11.280 I think it's more for me, just like I can't 0:21:11.280 --> 0:21:14.040 wait to get out of that crowd because I just 0:21:14.040 --> 0:21:15.000 want to have a little space. 0:21:15.160 --> 0:21:17.920 Maybe I do have a little clusterphobiah. 0:21:17.800 --> 0:21:19.480 Yeah, I mean it sounds like it, but I think 0:21:19.520 --> 0:21:20.840 everybody does to a degree. 0:21:20.840 --> 0:21:21.640 It's just I guess. 0:21:22.840 --> 0:21:25.480 Yeah, but I've never you know, I can accept hugs. 0:21:25.520 --> 0:21:27.680 And I was never one of those kids like under 0:21:27.680 --> 0:21:29.240 the dog pile that was like freaking out or. 0:21:29.200 --> 0:21:29.880 Anything like that. 0:21:30.040 --> 0:21:31.560 Oh yeah, I did not like that. 0:21:32.040 --> 0:21:33.880 Yeah, well you have a little claustrophobia, right. 0:21:34.800 --> 0:21:38.680 Yeah, a little bit. I've kind of outgrown it a lot. 0:21:38.760 --> 0:21:40.679 But yeah, if you put me in like a sewer 0:21:40.720 --> 0:21:45.520 culvert or hearing about like a caving accident, I mean 0:21:45.640 --> 0:21:48.080 I'll start Yeah, I can't handle that. 0:21:48.440 --> 0:21:50.200