Sabrina Kilian wrote:
> It may reduce the behavior, though. There is the nice psychological echo
> chamber effect, of sitting around a large crowd of people who, you
> think, all believe the exact same things you do.

There was a very recent study I read. Apparently, religious people don't 
trust atheists, as in, they say they wouldn't give atheists jobs that 
demanded a high level of trust.  But when they find out that something like 
20% of the people around them in general are atheists, they are much more 
likely to give them such jobs. It's no longer "those weird atheists, I don't 
know why they're weird" and more "apparently I know a lot of atheists and 
didn't know that, so what's that to do with how trustworthy they are?"

> term, which I can't remember right now, for describing how many people a
> person can actually know.

I've heard it called "monkey circle", but that's probably an informal name. 
It's between 100 and 200 or so for humans, based on estimates of brain size 
vs other animals. Anything bigger than that and you can't give people unique 
personalities in your mind.

> Won't fix the problem entirely, since religion isn't the only place this
> happens. Any time a large crowd gets together and talks about the facts
> they all agree on, it is bound for trouble.

Well, unless there's a correcting mechanism involved.

 > And now I broke meta

Stop banging your head against the fourth wall. ;-)

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

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