Re the Walmart example in the news of a surging crowd that trampled a person, only a very few times in my life have I been in crowds (mostly disorganized concert crowds) that could be said to have “pressed” me, and even though I am large and fairly strong it was pretty eye opening as my size and strength counted for almost nothing in that human mass. I was part of a human “wave” being pushed along by… by what?
I imagine there were people pushing forward at the rear, but at what point do people surrender their personal space bubble and consent to being squashed? It’s not like dinosaurs were chasing the people at the very back so why did they start shoving the people in front of them… or did they?
How do the dynamics of a trampling crowd actually work?
I’m not sure how the dynamics work, and I’m going to keep tabs on this discussion because I’m curious. I’ve been at concerts before where the crowd was like a wall pushing, and it does make you feel so small. I just can’t imagine how it would feel - being so helpless and knowing that you were being trampled to death.
How could people worry about shopping like that? Over what $20, $70, $100??? Craziness.
There’s no hard and fast rule. You can have a crowd of 2,000 where no one surrenders their autonomy but a gang of twelve where each member gives in to the will of the group. Any time you’ve got a large mass of people fighting for a scarce resource, you’re going to see violence and peoples’ personal autonomy surrendered for the will of the corwd.
It’s not just about saving twenty dollars, it’s about getting something that is rare, that may not be there any more. It’s a weird thing with our brains that we haven’t (or may not be able to) overcome.
It seems quite similar to a flock of birds or a herd of cattle, except there is an artificial plane that can’t be readily crossed. If all the birds were to veer into, say, a skyscraper, I’d imagine the dynamics would be pretty similar.
The thing is, a flock of birds doesn’t touch itself (well, I guess it would if it veered into a skyscraper) - obviously birds possess a skill humans do not in this case. I’d like to know more about it.
I tried out for the college edition of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire lo these many years ago - only the first 160 through the door got to try out, and we were forced to stand off hotel property and bottlenecked because it was a street, so we were all on the sidewalk. (It was raining cats and dogs, and the water was up to my ankles.) It was mostly guys and mostly a lot bigger than me - when they opened the doors we moved the length of a really big hotel (the downtown Ritz in Atlanta) without my feet ever touching the ground. I was literally carried along by the crowd, and there was no getting off the ride. Scared the crap out of me.
That would be scary, so I guess there is a downside to being small in a trample-like crowd. But when I’m at a concert and people are pushing without a lot of personal space to cushion the blow, I find that my height (6’1" which is taller than 95% of people at the concerts I go to,) makes me fall over easier, so when I’m in a situation where people are pushing and I have any space at all I lower my knees a couple inches so any pushes will be directed more downward than forward.
Of course, sometimes there isn’t even enough room to do that but then the place is so jam packed with people that if I fall down my fall will be cushioned
I read somewhere (The Poisonwood Bible?) that the technique is to stick out your elbows. If it gets to where you are being carried along, jump up and land your elbows & arms on the people around you. Then you will be carried along above everyone, a much safer situation.
I was in a crowd with some friends at Mardi Gras in New Orleans once, and we abruptly found ourselves completely wedged in, shoulder to shoulder with hundreds of people. After a few seconds, the crowd just decided to move. I was rapidly swept along about 50 feet sideways against my will, with my feet barely touching the ground. Scared the crap out of me. All I could think was what would have happened if I had tripped and fallen. I’m sure I would have been trampled.
One of my friends lost his shoe when the crowd moved. Even after the crowd dispersed, he couldn’t find it. He never did find it.
Well, humans don’t touch each other voluntarily in crowds, either. To reduce it to a one dimensional analysis, imagine you’re in a line. There is two feet of space in front of you, and two feet behind you. If the guy behind you moves up a foot, you’re probably going to move up six inches, to keep equal space all around. That’s how a flock or herd turns, somebody from the outside veers in, then somebody next to the guy on the outside overcompensates, sending a “compression” wave through the flock, until it finally hits the other side, and the entire thing has shifted. I disagree that humans don’t have this same instinct; we just allow ourselves to be in tighter, more confined quarters than flocks of birds or herds of cattle. Humans don’t touch each other in the back of a live concert, only in the front.
