There is a balance between personal signals and decisions of past users for most people in a decision making process. However, I question what can be said for the initial individual to accept or reject something.

Theory has it that the first individual makes a decision based on their personal signal. So thereafter the other individuals don’t have to rely on their own signals, but can outsource that consideration to the group that has decided before them. For the next person to join the group, the decision becomes easier, and it is somehow admirable to operate like that. But, what if there was a certain type of person that didn’t always rely on the group?

Apparently Francis Galton, before his information cascade conversion, felt that only a few people were keeping society at large healthy. This of course carries some political implications. Because if we could identify this type of person, then we would make him or her president or king.

But we can’t (or at least we think we can’t) identify these people. So we have political campaigns and elections to make sure that we have a consensus on who would make the best candidate to bring health to society.

But we find ourselves hitting and missing in the democratic regions of the world. Some elected officials were healthy for society, while others deteriorated our condition. But this shouldn’t be in a democratic nation. The cream of the crop should always rise to the top in an information cascading political world. Because the voters are assuming that the decisions of the majority are a safe bet despite their individual signals.

Well then we should go back to our original statement and say that the reason we are hitting and missing as a democratic society is because we believe that there is such a health bringing individual, that will start a cascade of blooming prosperity. I believe it to be true myself.

This type of individual can be found by looking at their history of decision making. First of all they would have to be among the first in a group to take an action. Then we should be able to observe whether the action they took brought about some benefit. Then we should choose the individual who initiated the most benefit to society to be the president or king.

This, in my opinion, is where western society is going. For now we have been looking at the voting history of senators and officials to decide who is the best. But the time will come that surveillance will afford us to see the decisions of every member of society. Things like movie rentals, and grocery lists will be reviewed to see what information cascades individuals are instrumental in starting, and whether those lead to health or harm. Leaders will be selected like this rather than democracy. But there are flaws to this system as well, such as whether such surveillance will be accepted by the public.