so yeah that’s that’s supposed to be me
as you can see I’m a little bit larger
in real life so some of you know me as a
blogger some of you know me as a
programmer and a researcher others know
me as a writer and I want to share with
you some insights that have picked up as
I bounced around these different careers
I want to talk to you about how we
connect I want to talk to you about how
Game of Thrones became popular and how
tech starter people might kind of be
similar to racists in their behavior so
there’s a lot of stuff so let’s begin so
my story starts 10 years ago I was
actually quite poor and I was living in
a slum there was you know basically just
a concrete hot and yeah yeah so that was
you know basically me concrete hot metal
roof nothing special
we were the low end of the
socio-economic ladder and my
neighborhood were people who like me
typically single a Buddhist not very
educated most of them were school
dropouts in fact I myself dropped out of
school be–would most of them would go
on to drive three wheelers for a living
so we had certain beliefs we believed
that education was useless that English
was for some sort of posh people that
Muslims had a thousand children and all
Tamils
LTT supporters you can see that these
are rather problematic believes to have
now I knew that there were other
communities that did not share these
beliefs my father was a driver and he
would come back and he would tell me
about the people that he drove for
people who lived in Colombo apartments
and drank whiskey and talked about the
American economy as fascinating because
these people to me were like aliens so I
had two options I could either choose to
believe in what people like me believe
well I could choose to believe the
aliens naturally I believed in people
like me yeah so that’s me slowly picking
up their beliefs and one day I started a
blog I don’t know why I did it
and I like to write so I kept on writing
and the early blogosphere way back in
the day was this very diverse place
there were all sorts of different people
there all sorts of different committees
but very small so every time I put
something out these people would argue
ferociously I would come and say here’s
how the world works and they say no no
no absolutely not you’re completely
wrong and I would save up 50 rupees a
week I’d go to this internet cafe and
I’d read their stuff and argue back and
forth all the time but out of these
arguments I learned something this
suddenly there was all sorts of
conflicting information coming my way
suddenly there was this belief that what
my community believed was not
necessarily right or true so my biases
slowly began to be stripped away from me
those beliefs that I had every time
someone in the slum made a racist joke I
had this contradicting information in my
head and I could look at them saying I
refuse to participate in this I’d like
to say that blog actually made me a
better person
but sadly good things don’t last as more
and more people came online
the bloggers started sorting themselves
out into different groups the rich urban
educated people sort of themselves on
into one the Marxists went to another
and we stopped talking to each other
I was not immune I had by that time
gained quite an audience there were
about 200,000 people reading what I said
and I had my own little clique my own
little micro community around me we all
had the same political beliefs the same
ideologies same way of thinking and I
there came a day when I realised that
all the people who disagree with me the
people that I learned from they were
gone and this was very sad because I had
no one to learn from anymore
so as an author and the researcher
today I can put names to these effects
the frosty singularity in academia it’s
called homophily this is the concept
that people tend to make friends faster
easier and connect more often to people
who are like us we be like people who
are like us basically and we look for
certain types of similarity we look for
race and ethnicity age shared values
education we look for people who are
roughly on the same places on the
socio-economic ladder we do these things
almost subconsciously and we might all
think that no I don’t make friends that
way but really large groups of people
follow these laws case in point we
looked at the Cole data for 10 million
people in Sri Lanka we looked at where
they call from where they call to and
what we found was that those stereotypes
you know what they say about the rich
upper class people in Colombo who know
nothing about the rest of the country
that’s us in red right there
you know the stereotypes about the
people in Candida rata cap tier and how
the people down south are two completely
different communities altogether yeah
these are similar people connecting to
other similar people in fact it’s not
just Sri Lanka entire nations follow
these laws so as you can see this is a
piece of research that we did where we
looked at Facebook it’s a network of 2.3
billion people we looked at friend
connections and we looked at how they
form between nations and we realize that
nations tend to cluster themselves into
communities like this you have the
Americas hanging out of there a sort of
Islamic countries from the old little
community there all of Europe sort of
buckets itself there the African
countries hanging out so these are again
similar people hanging out with other
similar people and they form communities
and I would argue that that’s a good
thing because we need communities one
person can build a pyramid you need 2000
for that but what happens when we form
these communities we stop talking to
each other and then something pretty bad
kicks in
we call it groupthink see groupthink is
the tendency for people to absorb
whatever beliefs that circulate in the
community around them even if sometimes
they don’t make sense we pick these up
now for example me my son
picking up beliefs without obviously not
rational but I’ll give you an example
which I think you can relate to Game of
Thrones right all your friends are
talking about Game of Thrones everybody
is talking about it some of you start
watching it because you don’t want to be
left out or the cricket match if we
trying World Cup comes around people
start talking about this thing and
suddenly you’re watching it just to stay
in touch because you really don’t want
to be left out of those conversations
this is a very subconscious thing and I
you know TV series cricket matches maybe
not so bad but what about ideas an idea
like maybe you should vote for a
particular politician an idea like maybe
this particular race of people are bad
and should be removed from this country
does that sound familiar to you
you see groupthink gives us unquestioned
belief it makes us censor the ideas that
we generate which don’t actually conform
to the group norms it makes a stereotype
anyone who opposes us it makes us
close-minded so if you were in medieval
England you’d be strapping on a sword to
join the crusade instead today you’re
eating avocado Post which is the great
enemy of mankind
you’re watching Game of Thrones you’re
investing in startups that you shouldn’t
and you’re watching your friends join
some cult church wondering if you’re the
odd man out and in fact I’ll give you an
example as a journalist I came across
two groups that conform so perfectly to
this the tech startup people and the
single abode is racist
day in and day out they would generate
ideas that made absolutely no sense I
know some of you have seen this and you
tell them maybe Oh business plan doesn’t
work or what you’re saying is morally
and ethically ambiguous and they just
one person would go to a pub the other
might coat the together and they’d go
back to their own little circles right
we’ve all seen this happen but this
became a problem to me because I
quite frightened eyes are so many good
and rational people well-educated people
falling into these traps and becoming
right-wing racist and it I was there I
don’t want to go back there so I looked
for answers and I found a man called
John Stuart Mill who once said that I
quote it is hardly possible to overstate
the value of placing people in
connection with people who are
dissimilar to themselves such is one of
the primary causes of progress
dissimilarity that became a very
interesting idea so I decided to conduct
an experiment on myself
two years ago I ditched all of my best
friends some of you in the audience
today I’m sorry I kept only people who
are not similar to me I kept antisocial
programmer I kept an anarchist metalhead
a businessman a guy who runs nightclubs
and activists people who would never get
along in the same room you put them in
the same room they beat each other to
death so no singularity was my theory if
no similarity no community forms thus no
group thing even this wasn’t enough
because at the end of the day these are
all people from Sri Lanka so if you put
the national anthem they’ll all stand up
so I reached out through Facebook to
researchers in India and activists in
all sorts of countries and right-wing
science fiction authors from America and
I put myself at the heart of this sort
of crossroads of different people
different beliefs and something amazing
happened my group thing my beliefs began
to be dissected there was nothing I
could say without someone arguing back
and it felt like being a blogger again
and I heard arguments yes my friends
will tell you that I do I give a lot
with a lot of people but through these
arguments I started learning and I could
push aside my biases and I could absorb
information again and thus I started
learning and started evolving again now
today people introduce me if you read
that TEDx docket as an author and a
researcher I don’t think I’ve done any
of these things by being particularly
smart or good-looking
my secret if I actually have one is that
I tend to reach out to people who are
dissimilar with me who who don’t
actually though I don’t get along with
and then I learn from them I wore when
this as an author my greatest strength
is that when I put something out a dozen
people who are completely unlike each
other I have seen it they’ve critiqued
it if it can get through them it can get
through the rest of the world as a
researcher the same thing applies this
practice is codified in our place of
work so what I want to ask you to do is
to stop a minute think about the
similarity in your friends circles in
your communities think about what biases
and beliefs you may have accepted
subconsciously just because people
similar to you are saying these things
now we know the causes we know the
effects we know it’s not good for us and
what I’d like you to do they start
connecting to people who are not like
you
to people who violate these fault lines
because as John Stuart Mill said it is
one of the primary sources of progress
and I would say in today’s political
climate we need this now more than ever
before
consider that had I been in the slum had
I absorbed that had I’ve obeyed that
similarity in that group think I would
still be a racist
I would not be giving a speech in
English in front of thousand 200 people
I wouldn’t be writing books I would be
doing any of this stuff but this is to
me one of the most important things you
can do I’m not asking you to be as
Extreme as I did I’m not asking you to
remove your friends overnight that’s
difficult but we live in a world of
social media where potentially billions
of people can connect to each other with
a click of a button I’m asking you to go
home think about the group think in your
own circles start connecting outside
fight similarity I know I did then if
yeah
thank you for listening the way
[Music] you
as you can see I’m a little bit larger
in real life so some of you know me as a
blogger some of you know me as a
programmer and a researcher others know
me as a writer and I want to share with
you some insights that have picked up as
I bounced around these different careers
I want to talk to you about how we
connect I want to talk to you about how
Game of Thrones became popular and how
tech starter people might kind of be
similar to racists in their behavior so
there’s a lot of stuff so let’s begin so
my story starts 10 years ago I was
actually quite poor and I was living in
a slum there was you know basically just
a concrete hot and yeah yeah so that was
you know basically me concrete hot metal
roof nothing special
we were the low end of the
socio-economic ladder and my
neighborhood were people who like me
typically single a Buddhist not very
educated most of them were school
dropouts in fact I myself dropped out of
school be–would most of them would go
on to drive three wheelers for a living
so we had certain beliefs we believed
that education was useless that English
was for some sort of posh people that
Muslims had a thousand children and all
Tamils
LTT supporters you can see that these
are rather problematic believes to have
now I knew that there were other
communities that did not share these
beliefs my father was a driver and he
would come back and he would tell me
about the people that he drove for
people who lived in Colombo apartments
and drank whiskey and talked about the
American economy as fascinating because
these people to me were like aliens so I
had two options I could either choose to
believe in what people like me believe
well I could choose to believe the
aliens naturally I believed in people
like me yeah so that’s me slowly picking
up their beliefs and one day I started a
blog I don’t know why I did it
and I like to write so I kept on writing
and the early blogosphere way back in
the day was this very diverse place
there were all sorts of different people
there all sorts of different committees
but very small so every time I put
something out these people would argue
ferociously I would come and say here’s
how the world works and they say no no
no absolutely not you’re completely
wrong and I would save up 50 rupees a
week I’d go to this internet cafe and
I’d read their stuff and argue back and
forth all the time but out of these
arguments I learned something this
suddenly there was all sorts of
conflicting information coming my way
suddenly there was this belief that what
my community believed was not
necessarily right or true so my biases
slowly began to be stripped away from me
those beliefs that I had every time
someone in the slum made a racist joke I
had this contradicting information in my
head and I could look at them saying I
refuse to participate in this I’d like
to say that blog actually made me a
better person
but sadly good things don’t last as more
and more people came online
the bloggers started sorting themselves
out into different groups the rich urban
educated people sort of themselves on
into one the Marxists went to another
and we stopped talking to each other
I was not immune I had by that time
gained quite an audience there were
about 200,000 people reading what I said
and I had my own little clique my own
little micro community around me we all
had the same political beliefs the same
ideologies same way of thinking and I
there came a day when I realised that
all the people who disagree with me the
people that I learned from they were
gone and this was very sad because I had
no one to learn from anymore
so as an author and the researcher
today I can put names to these effects
the frosty singularity in academia it’s
called homophily this is the concept
that people tend to make friends faster
easier and connect more often to people
who are like us we be like people who
are like us basically and we look for
certain types of similarity we look for
race and ethnicity age shared values
education we look for people who are
roughly on the same places on the
socio-economic ladder we do these things
almost subconsciously and we might all
think that no I don’t make friends that
way but really large groups of people
follow these laws case in point we
looked at the Cole data for 10 million
people in Sri Lanka we looked at where
they call from where they call to and
what we found was that those stereotypes
you know what they say about the rich
upper class people in Colombo who know
nothing about the rest of the country
that’s us in red right there
you know the stereotypes about the
people in Candida rata cap tier and how
the people down south are two completely
different communities altogether yeah
these are similar people connecting to
other similar people in fact it’s not
just Sri Lanka entire nations follow
these laws so as you can see this is a
piece of research that we did where we
looked at Facebook it’s a network of 2.3
billion people we looked at friend
connections and we looked at how they
form between nations and we realize that
nations tend to cluster themselves into
communities like this you have the
Americas hanging out of there a sort of
Islamic countries from the old little
community there all of Europe sort of
buckets itself there the African
countries hanging out so these are again
similar people hanging out with other
similar people and they form communities
and I would argue that that’s a good
thing because we need communities one
person can build a pyramid you need 2000
for that but what happens when we form
these communities we stop talking to
each other and then something pretty bad
kicks in
we call it groupthink see groupthink is
the tendency for people to absorb
whatever beliefs that circulate in the
community around them even if sometimes
they don’t make sense we pick these up
now for example me my son
picking up beliefs without obviously not
rational but I’ll give you an example
which I think you can relate to Game of
Thrones right all your friends are
talking about Game of Thrones everybody
is talking about it some of you start
watching it because you don’t want to be
left out or the cricket match if we
trying World Cup comes around people
start talking about this thing and
suddenly you’re watching it just to stay
in touch because you really don’t want
to be left out of those conversations
this is a very subconscious thing and I
you know TV series cricket matches maybe
not so bad but what about ideas an idea
like maybe you should vote for a
particular politician an idea like maybe
this particular race of people are bad
and should be removed from this country
does that sound familiar to you
you see groupthink gives us unquestioned
belief it makes us censor the ideas that
we generate which don’t actually conform
to the group norms it makes a stereotype
anyone who opposes us it makes us
close-minded so if you were in medieval
England you’d be strapping on a sword to
join the crusade instead today you’re
eating avocado Post which is the great
enemy of mankind
you’re watching Game of Thrones you’re
investing in startups that you shouldn’t
and you’re watching your friends join
some cult church wondering if you’re the
odd man out and in fact I’ll give you an
example as a journalist I came across
two groups that conform so perfectly to
this the tech startup people and the
single abode is racist
day in and day out they would generate
ideas that made absolutely no sense I
know some of you have seen this and you
tell them maybe Oh business plan doesn’t
work or what you’re saying is morally
and ethically ambiguous and they just
one person would go to a pub the other
might coat the together and they’d go
back to their own little circles right
we’ve all seen this happen but this
became a problem to me because I
quite frightened eyes are so many good
and rational people well-educated people
falling into these traps and becoming
right-wing racist and it I was there I
don’t want to go back there so I looked
for answers and I found a man called
John Stuart Mill who once said that I
quote it is hardly possible to overstate
the value of placing people in
connection with people who are
dissimilar to themselves such is one of
the primary causes of progress
dissimilarity that became a very
interesting idea so I decided to conduct
an experiment on myself
two years ago I ditched all of my best
friends some of you in the audience
today I’m sorry I kept only people who
are not similar to me I kept antisocial
programmer I kept an anarchist metalhead
a businessman a guy who runs nightclubs
and activists people who would never get
along in the same room you put them in
the same room they beat each other to
death so no singularity was my theory if
no similarity no community forms thus no
group thing even this wasn’t enough
because at the end of the day these are
all people from Sri Lanka so if you put
the national anthem they’ll all stand up
so I reached out through Facebook to
researchers in India and activists in
all sorts of countries and right-wing
science fiction authors from America and
I put myself at the heart of this sort
of crossroads of different people
different beliefs and something amazing
happened my group thing my beliefs began
to be dissected there was nothing I
could say without someone arguing back
and it felt like being a blogger again
and I heard arguments yes my friends
will tell you that I do I give a lot
with a lot of people but through these
arguments I started learning and I could
push aside my biases and I could absorb
information again and thus I started
learning and started evolving again now
today people introduce me if you read
that TEDx docket as an author and a
researcher I don’t think I’ve done any
of these things by being particularly
smart or good-looking
my secret if I actually have one is that
I tend to reach out to people who are
dissimilar with me who who don’t
actually though I don’t get along with
and then I learn from them I wore when
this as an author my greatest strength
is that when I put something out a dozen
people who are completely unlike each
other I have seen it they’ve critiqued
it if it can get through them it can get
through the rest of the world as a
researcher the same thing applies this
practice is codified in our place of
work so what I want to ask you to do is
to stop a minute think about the
similarity in your friends circles in
your communities think about what biases
and beliefs you may have accepted
subconsciously just because people
similar to you are saying these things
now we know the causes we know the
effects we know it’s not good for us and
what I’d like you to do they start
connecting to people who are not like
you
to people who violate these fault lines
because as John Stuart Mill said it is
one of the primary sources of progress
and I would say in today’s political
climate we need this now more than ever
before
consider that had I been in the slum had
I absorbed that had I’ve obeyed that
similarity in that group think I would
still be a racist
I would not be giving a speech in
English in front of thousand 200 people
I wouldn’t be writing books I would be
doing any of this stuff but this is to
me one of the most important things you
can do I’m not asking you to be as
Extreme as I did I’m not asking you to
remove your friends overnight that’s
difficult but we live in a world of
social media where potentially billions
of people can connect to each other with
a click of a button I’m asking you to go
home think about the group think in your
own circles start connecting outside
fight similarity I know I did then if
yeah
thank you for listening the way
[Music] you
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