Infotopia response (1-73)

Throughout these chapters Sunstein refers to the way people exchange information to come to conclusions or produce knowledge. He specifically talks about the way jury members must decide upon a person’s guilt or innocence in legal matters. As he was discussing the ideas of “groupthink” and the Condorcet Jury Theorem, I immediately thought of the 1957 Henry Fonda film 12 Angry Men. The plot synopsis of the film can be found here. The film shows the story of Henry Fonda’s character as a jury member who tries to convince the other jury members that they should vote to acquit the man on trial based on reasonable doubt. Although at first Henry Fonda’s character is the only jury member with this opinion, he presents his own evidence that slowly convinces the other jury members that he is correct. Even though the film is fictional of course, I think Sunstein’s following idea is interesting in light of the way the film plays out: “Most people don’t like being the sole dissenter. If all but one person in a deliberating group have said that some proposition is true, then the remaining member may well agree that the proposition is true—even to the point of ignoring the evidence of his or her own senses” (66).