Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh. There's Chuck. There's Jerry. When you squeeze us together in a one-meter-square space, we're still doing pretty good on Stuff You Should Know.
You know what's funny? As I was reading, and we'll get to it, but when things start to become problematic as far as people per square meter, and I started to panic.
Oh, really? Yeah. That didn't get me, but it occurred to me that some people listening to this are going to feel that way, too.
Yeah, because we're talking about crowds, and if even the discussion of being in very close proximity to someone else triggers you, then consider this your warning.
Yeah. Great, great job, Chuck.
Yeah, sure.
So we are talking crowds today, Chuck. You spoiled the entire episode by mentioning that. Yeah. I'm just kidding, buddy. And generally you think of this as huge mass of people, say like at a concert or something like that, or a show if you're into indie bands. But it can be any assemblage of people, any group of people.
I'm guessing more than two, if that old adage is correct, about three being a crowd. But it can be anything from a bunch of people in an elevator to a bunch of people going to Mecca, flocking to Mecca for the Hajj on any given year.
Yeah, I think like technically just any grouping. Who put this one together, by the way, initially?
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Chapter 2: What are the different types of crowds and their characteristics?
It's not the crowd's fault.
Yeah, they get blamed by authorities very frequently in retrospect. And then in further retrospect, it turns out like, no, actually, the authorities are probably at fault in this case.
Yeah. I mean, it's almost as if sometimes a peaceful protest can turn bad when an armed military shows up.
Right. Just the presence of that.
Just the presence. And then other things that happen after.
Right. So, yes, and we'll talk about that for sure, because there is a huge role for law enforcement in dealing with crowds. It's part of their job. They say crowd control, but that's apparently an outdated term as well. But dealing with crowds, managing crowds, so that's part of their job. That's not going to go away. We don't really want it to go away.
Instead, we want law enforcement to do it using the best practices that have been proven over and over again that cut down the chance of a crowd turning ugly by huge percentages.
Yeah, but, you know, one thing is for sure, like, people behave differently in crowds, and sometimes it's great, you know, I never dance like this, man, but I'm at Burning Man and look at me all of a sudden. Right. Or it can turn bad, and we're going to cover all angles.
Well, let's talk about some of the bad ones because there are some famous ones. This happens, you don't want to say a lot, but it's one of those things like a plane crash where it seems like it will happen all the time because it's just so... shocking details of it. Whenever it does happen, it seems like it happens way, way more frequently. That's just not the case.
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Chapter 3: How do crowds behave in emergencies?
Basically, you're moving because other people are moving. But you're ultimately you're keeping your same space, this one orbital circle, which is pretty awesome.
I mean, to be clear, because that sounded slightly confusing. People are not walking in a tight circle. You're just moving your body within a circular space.
Right.
Like maybe raising your elbow to scratch your head or something like that.
Right. So imagine the person in front of you. Imagine the person in front of you is backing up. So you back up and then you maybe move to the right and then they move this way and you kind of come forward to your left. And then you kind of back up a little bit to your left and then you back up center like that.
So you're facing the same way the whole time, but you're just shuffling your feet in the way that you're doing this. You're ultimately creating an orbit.
Yeah. And I think that also applies to just taking up your personal space with general body movement.
Yes. The electrons.
So this works out pretty great, this idea of social force. It seems to work pretty well, and even in big crowds, when it starts to get a little more highly dense is when it's a problem. And this is where you might get triggered like I was. And I don't even mind crowds.
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