Dr Cameron Murray returns to Discernable to talk virtue signaling and group psychology. As an economist specialising in human behaviour, corruption and property, he conducts research and experiments on the ‘groupish’ behaviour of humans and how those groups are formed, maintained, and dismantled.

A key ingredient of any human ‘group’, ‘tribe’ or ‘crowd’ is the signals they employ and spread to new converts. Group ‘signaling’ explains much of the pandemic reaction we witness today in both government and populations, especially as both health experts and governments openly admit that science is not the determining factor of their policies. The latest admission from NSW and VIC figures is that the performance art of QR code check-ins helps to soothe the anxious in our community, so even though they are now ‘useless’, we should continue the theatre anyway.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/jan/27/qr-code-check-ins-useless-in-australias-omicron-wave-but-experts-urge-for-them-to-stay

‘Groups’ form around these sort of signaling behaviours precisely because groups use signals, and signals create groups. Just like Victoria’s ‘creeping assumption’ that killed ~800 people in 2020, the current circular feedback loop is a fertile nursery for the many ‘sides’ you see society divided into today.

So then what are we to do in this groupish world? Matt discusses with Cameron the best ways to see, to form, and to dismantle groups in the name of classical science, academia, logic and reason.