Swarm

What do you think about the swarm? "I hate it - it is a mass of people without apparent direction"	What do you think about the swarm? "I hate it - all within are completely egocentric and only interested in getting points"	What do you think about the swarm? "I hate them, they don't accept me"
Do you discuss academic questions with others? "Yes, especially if I find someone whose views go into my direction. Normally my final answer is close to what I originally thought"	Do you discuss academic questions with others? "Only before exams, we come together and wonder what the teacher might like to hear, we then produce a collective answer and vary it to make it look more individual"	Do you discuss academic questions with others? "I am alone"
Have you always thought the same? "No, there were moments when I had to change my way of thinking, it was a gradual development which I can recall"	Have you always thought the same? "No, I thought into all directions, they all seemed likely as soon as I thought more, it was difficult to choose one. Yet, I still think they all were right in some way (actually I prefer to learn facts, not think about a coherent direction of thought - thought is so speculative)"	Have you always thought the same? "I don't know"
How would you describe your views? "...something I develop - I wonder into which direction..."	How would you describe your views? "my personal opinion is balanced and basically very normal (I can imagine that there are a lot of people around who are not normal!)"	How would you describe your views? "I don't know"
What do you think about literature? "interesting, but basically not so different from other things"	What do you think about literature? "literature is all fancy, poets are not normal people, you have to be imaginative to write about them (which I am not) (I prefer linguistics)"	What do you think about literature? "I don't know"

Literature

• David Riesman with Nathan Glazer and Reuel Denney, The Lonely Crowd. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1950.
• Marco Dorigo and Mauro Birattari (2007), Scholarpedia, 2(9):1462. http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Swarm_intelligence