Kit Yates

So they knew sort of what was going on, what might inform them being able to vote with the consensus.

And what we found was that if we allowed them to abstain, then they would switch consensus more quickly.

They would find a consensus, a decision more quickly.

But if we didn't allow them to abstain, we removed that option.

But it took them much longer to form consensus and to change consensus.

Yeah, with the locusts, it is like that.

Yeah, they're stopping and then they're allowing the decision to be made by a smaller group and then they're sort of following what happens.

I think...

Typically, you can think of two different decision routes.

One is like this familiar route where you try and persuade maybe like floating voters, people who are undecided.

You try to get them to join your side.

But actually, the mechanism that we found more effective for switching consensus in this mathematical model we built was that actually you try and go to someone who has the opposite opinion to you, but instead of trying to convince them to come whole hog onto your side, you try and say to them,

be a bit more open.

Why don't you take a neutral stance about this?

And that allows you to switch consensus more quickly.

And I think this has ramifications when we're thinking about things like anti-vaxxers, right?

There's this temptation to just be like, just take a vaccine because they work.

The science says so, but actually...

What's better is to say, actually, step back from the extreme decision.

And I'll step back from my position as well.