Flash Mob gone wrong

http://ashitvora.info/flash-mob-gone-wrong

by ashitvora • 16 years ago

152 36 16 years ago

wavewash• 16 years ago

I'm so glad this story is not true.

nailer2• 16 years ago

Indeed. The 'they don't know where to go, as they can't get to Google Maps' also doesn't ring true - if the police are arriving, I suggest most people would move away from the police, whether they can get to Google maps or not.

RiderOfGiraffes• 16 years ago

Odds on the police would use "kettle" tactics, so there would be nowhere to go away from them.

It's not true, it hasn't happened.

Yet.

torme• 16 years ago

I'm a little confused about which elements here are true actually. Did he piece together pieces of factual history to create a plausible scenario? And if so, was there ever a flash mob that resulted in a riot which lead to 23 deaths?

tvon4• 16 years ago

So far as I can tell it's entirely fictional.

petercooper5• 16 years ago

The point is that, individually, there are precedents for each part of the story, not that they have all been tied together before. One of the graphics near the end illustrates this.

mikeryan2• 16 years ago

If you pause it at 4:59 he cites (on screen) the partial events which could be combined to the single event

Upload to live news < 24 Hours - Epic Beard Man

Short Notice Flash Mob - Mass Moonwalk 2009

Personal Details Leak - Alex Wuori 2007

Flash Mob to Riot - Gallery Mall Mob 2010

cantbecool• 16 years ago

I could definitely imagine something like this happening. It's awfully scary how technology can be used for unintended, malevolent purposes.

tvon4• 16 years ago

I don't care for this, it reminds me of slapping an "e-" prefix on something just to indicate that it's now somehow "internet ready".

More to the point, people acting like idiots is nothing new, but I think we'd all still be shocked if this actually happened, just like we'd be shocked if any kind of gathering resulted in a riot and 23 people dead.

armandososa2• 16 years ago

But we won't be very surprised.

I've seen it in Mexico. For example, last week one medium-sized Drug Boss was cornered by the mexican army in Matamoros and he ordered a city-wide operation of road-blocking and setting-cars-on-fire in order to escape, aided by a personal army of highly armed mercs.

10 years ago, this event would have been very surprising and scary and unlikely. Now that our world is upside down and we are upside down too, it barely raised some eyebrows.

tvon4• 16 years ago

Far more fantastic things have happened in the past 100 years than a gang leader causing chaos to facilitate his escape from the authorities, unless there is some key aspect to your story that I'm missing.

petercooper5• 16 years ago

Get Tom Scott a slot at TED! He's a legend, and the same guy who ran as a pirate in the Westminster constituency at the last UK election.

riffraff• 16 years ago

I never heard of him, and I already am willing to second this :)

moskie3• 16 years ago

I don't get the point of this.

Yes, it's possible. But so what? A person in the early 20th century could have constructed a similar boogeyman scenario involving those new-fangled flying contraptions: watch out! Someone can take a plane across the country to kill you in mere hours! Yea, and?

armandososa2• 16 years ago

I don't think the point here is to scare anybody. It's just an observation that says "if/whenever this happens, no body will act very surprised".

That's why he opens and closes his presentation with that quote.

moskie3• 16 years ago

So what was the point of making this a story about girl being killed, if not to scare/shock?

mapleoin• 16 years ago

His entire point is that you wouldn't be surprised if this happened, which is exactly what you're saying. The point he's making is about how fast the world is changing along with our perceptions of what's normal and what's impossible.

moskie3• 16 years ago

But why make this point in the context of someone being killed? It would be just as crazy and impressive if it happened without someone dying. Its crazy-ness and impressive-ness has nothing to do with murder, so why give it that context? Purely for shock value?

petercooper5• 16 years ago

It's true. Even the smartest person from the 1980s would struggle to understand much of what Tom is saying, let alone believe it. Consider:

4Chan, flashmob, YouTube, rickroll, subscribers (in relation to a person), Twitter, "logged off", Chat Roulette, "surfing", GPS (sort of), 3G, remix (in relation to video), "Web stream", links - mostly terms with no meaning even 10 years ago.

The whole world turns upside down in ten years - quite. Having just made that list, I now see why some older people struggle. I can imagine being similarly perplexed in another 50 years.

danw• 16 years ago

Original source: http://www.tomscott.com/mob/. From the guidelines: "Please submit the original source". That's not quite the same as embedding something in your own blog and then submitting your own blog.

tvon4• 16 years ago

It's a story that requires a perfect storm of events with a large dose of human idiocy, it's not very plausible outside of Hollywood.

icegreentea• 16 years ago

Ah, but there's a very large pool of humanity to draw idiocy from. Something that I'm sure has driven many an engineer (and politician) insane.

spxdcz• 16 years ago

Actually, even that's not the original source! Among other things, I'm one of the co-organisers of Ignite London, which Tom Scott made this (very, very cool) video/presentation for. The video was filmed by another organiser (Richard) for Ignite London, so this is really the REAL original source (just to be pedantic) -

http://vimeo.com/channels/ignitelondon2#10060159

http://ignitelondon.net/videos

Another amazing presentation from that night (there were plenty) was the one about the price of chocolate bars, showing the use and abuse of statistics:

http://vimeo.com/channels/ignitelondon2#10052795

Thanks!

quickpost• 16 years ago

More than anything, this video demonstrates the potential power of social media to people who don't understand it's usefulness. It even helped me "get" twitter.

Flash Mob gone wrong

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