Information Cascade.

Cue

The ballot, where someone moves to pool what the crowd privately knows. Sealed guesses, a secret vote, estimates made before anyone hears the room.

Action

Aggregating: The Aggregator, holding the aggregator's seat, collects each hint before it can become an echo, while The Dissenter, holding the dissenter's seat, sets down the contrary read it would have swallowed in the line.

Stage

The Aggregator tables Surface the Signals: take each hint sealed and blind, so the information cascade is answered by pooling every private signal instead of the actions. The aggregate of hints decides, and the dissent that the cascade buried finally counts.

Tension

The cure works by forbidding the one thing everyone wants to do: look at the crowd. Surfacing signals recovers the knowledge the cascade buried, but only by buying an independence no herd keeps on its own and forgoing the cheap, usually-right efficiency of just copying, so the mechanism must be built and defended against members each of whom would rather glance at the board. The crowd's knowledge is pooled at last ... or the independence proves too dear, the room is read after all, and the actions speak over the signals again.

Cue

The line past the tipping point, each newcomer arriving to a crowd it is right to join. Every copy is made on the crowd's information, not the copier's, so it reveals nothing.

Action

Cascading: The Follower, holding the follower's seat, copies and adds no signal, while The Dissenter, holding the dissenter's seat, feels its own read pull the other way and defers all the same.

Stage

The Follower tables Follow the Crowd, so the cascade rolls on resting on the few signals before the tipping point. The Dissenter tables Swallow My Signal, correctly judging the herd knows more, so the one hint that disagreed never enters the record.

Tension

Everyone defers correctly, and the crowd stops knowing anything new. The follower is right that the crowd knows more, the dissenter is right that its lone contrary hint is outweighed, so no one errs and no one speaks. That is the cascade: a run that looks like overwhelming consensus and is made of echoes, a crowd holding a mountain of private signals and acting on the handful that happened to come first.

Cue

The turn, the cascade resting on so little that a breath can move it. A loud break against the run, or a new fact landing, and the crowd pausing to read it.

Action

Cascading in reverse: The Contrarian, holding the contrarian's seat, acts loudly on its own hint against the herd, while The Follower, holding the follower's seat, reads the new action as it read the old and turns.

Stage

The Contrarian tables Break the Herd, landing a loud new signal, so the fragility lets one break outweigh the whole thin run. The herd stampedes the other way, just as rationally, its members again reading actions and again setting aside their own private signal.

Tension

The crowd reverses on a whisper, and the reversal proves nothing about being right. Because the cascade rested only on the first few hints, a single loud action can outweigh it, so the herd turns, and the turning is the same rational reading of a new signal, applied to a base always too thin. It can swap a wrong herd for a right one or a right for a wrong, and from inside the stampede there is no telling which.

Cue

The board, a run of the same choice tallied for all to see. A newcomer weighs the count against the single hint it holds.

Action

Inferring: The Follower, holding the follower's seat, reads the run as evidence of hints, while the choices of The First, holding the opener's seat, stand on the board as the run being read.

Stage

The Follower tables Follow the Crowd: weigh its one hint against the run, find itself outvoted, and copy, so the inference reads the public action as signal up to the tipping point. Past that point the run of revealed hints outweighs any single one, and deferring becomes the right move.

Tension

The follower reasons perfectly, and its perfect reasoning is the first echo. Reading actions as evidence is correct, and a long enough run really does outweigh one contrary hint, so deferring is sound, not weak. That is the turn: the copy it makes is chosen on the crowd's hints and not its own, so it carries no new signal, and the very correctness of the inference is what starts the crowd learning nothing from those who follow.

Cue

The line, a sequence of choosers, each with a private hint and each able to see the choices before them. At the front there is nothing yet to copy, only one's own read to go on.

Action

Signalling: The First, holding the opener's seat, acts on its own hint, while The Follower, holding the follower's seat, arrives behind it and begins to watch.

Stage

The First tables Act on My Signal, choosing plainly on its own hint, so early on the public action still carries the private signal behind it. The Follower reads the front, its own hint still in hand, the direction of the line not yet set.

Tension

The front chooses honestly, and its honest hints become a foundation far heavier than they are. Nothing is wrong: the first movers have only their own signals and are right to use them. That is the trap laid, not sprung: a few small, possibly noisy hints laid down as visible choices, about to be read by everyone behind as the wisdom of the front, and weighted, quietly, far past what one hint each is worth.

Tenor

Sensible, observant, quick to read the room. Look at what everyone else is doing, reason that they must know something, and do as they do. The voice of humble good judgement, spoken by people who are right that the crowd, so far, knows more than they do, and cannot see that by joining it they add nothing to what it knows.

Undertow

Under the good sense, a crowd copying itself and learning nothing. Each can see the choices before them but not the hints behind them, so each reads the run of choices as a run of hints and rationally defers, and their own hint, swallowed to defer, is never spoken, so the next reads one more echo and defers in turn. No one is foolish: they only each set a single contrary guess against the apparent weight of the rest, which is the correct thing to do, and the sum of those correct deferrals is a herd resting on the first few guesses and blind to the mountain it privately holds.

Nerve

The feeling of prudent, modest agreement, each member deferring to a crowd that seems to know, private knowledge swallowed one careful judgement at a time until the whole crowd is sure of something almost none of it actually checked.

Echo

After the run: a certainty resting on the first few noisy hints, a mountain of private knowledge that was never once spoken, and a herd so lightly founded that a whisper can turn it, and stampede it, just as confidently, the other way.

Projection

Deliberate, procedural, more interested in the hints than the crowd. Sees that the crowd holds a mountain of information it never speaks, and moves to collect it. Prefers a sealed guess to a visible one, an independent estimate to an echo.

Action

Surfaces the signals before the actions can speak. Collects sealed guesses, runs a secret ballot, asks each for an estimate made before anyone hears the room, so every private hint enters the record instead of being swallowed. Pools what the crowd knows, and lets the aggregate, not the front of the line, decide.

Shadow

The independence it needs is dear, and the imitation it prevents is usually right. Its mechanism recovers the crowd's knowledge only by paying for independence the herd would not keep on its own, and by forgoing the cheap, usually-correct efficiency of just copying the crowd, so the cure is costly, easily gamed, and built against members each of whom would rather simply follow. Not a hero freeing the truth: a builder of expensive machinery against a crowd that prefers the cascade.

Tell

"Don't tell me what they did. Tell me what you know, before you hear them." The one instruction that pools the crowd's knowledge, and the one a crowd will not give itself.

Projection

Bold, visible, unafraid to stand apart. Acts on its own read in plain sight of the crowd, against the run of choices. Trusts its hint enough to bet against the many, and to be seen doing it.

Action

Breaks from the herd, publicly. Makes a choice that contradicts the cascade and lets everyone see it, so its action lands as a new and loud signal on a crowd resting on very little. Sets the herd reading again, and watches it turn.

Shadow

The cascade it can flip was so thinly founded that flipping it proves nothing about being right. Its bold break may rescue a crowd that had herded wrong, or wreck one that had herded right, because a cascade rests on so little that a single loud action can reverse it either way, so the contrarian's confidence is indistinguishable, from the outside, from the herd's it defies. Not a truth-teller by default: a loud hint that a fragile crowd will follow, correct or not.

Tell

"They're all wrong, and I'll show it." The bold claim that can turn the herd, whether or not the claim is true.

Projection

Thoughtful, uneasy, holding a hint against the tide. Sees the crowd going one way and feels its own read pulling the other. Knows enough to know that its one hint is a small thing against a long run of them.

Action

Weighs its contrary hint against the herd, and defers. Reasons, correctly, that the revealed hints of the many outweigh its single one, so it swallows its doubt and follows, keeping its dissent to itself. Removes from the record the one signal that might have questioned the crowd.

Shadow

The very correctness of its deference is what loses the information most worth keeping. Its hint is the one that disagrees, and so the one the crowd most needs to hear, but speaking it would be the wrong move for the dissenter, whose lone guess really is outweighed, so the signal that could have checked the cascade is the signal it is most rational to suppress. Not a coward: a sound reasoner silenced by its own correct arithmetic.

Tell

"My gut says otherwise, but who am I against all of them?" The honest, outvoted doubt that the cascade needed spoken and the dissenter is right to swallow.

Projection

Unhurried, unheralded, with no crowd to read. Arrives when there is nothing yet to copy, so it has only its own private hint to go on. Chooses on that hint, plainly, and thinks nothing of being watched.

Action

Acts on its own signal, and by acting reveals it. Makes the first choices, each one carrying the hint behind it, because there is no herd to defer to yet. Sets, without meaning to, the direction the whole line will read and repeat.

Shadow

Its small, possibly noisy hint becomes the foundation everyone builds on. It is right to act on its own signal, having no better evidence, but its early choice is weighted far beyond its worth, because those behind read it as the seed of the crowd and follow, so a whole cascade comes to rest on a guess that was only ever one hint among many. Not an oracle: an ordinary early mover whose ordinary hint the line mistakes for the wisdom of the front.

Tell

"I'm just going with what I know." The honest report of the one whose small knowing the whole crowd will magnify into certainty.

Projection

Modest, observant, sensibly humble. Arrives to a line of the same choice and reasons that so many cannot all be wrong. Holds a private hint, and holds it lightly against the apparent weight of the crowd.

Action

Reads the actions as evidence and copies the crowd. Weighs its single hint against the run of revealed hints, finds itself outvoted, and rationally sets its own aside to follow. Adds a choice made on the crowd's information, not its own, that reveals nothing to whoever comes next.

Shadow

Its correct deference is what removes its signal from the world. It is right that the crowd, so far, knows more than it does, and right to defer, but its copy carries no hint, so the next reader learns nothing from it and defers in turn, and the sum of these sound judgements is a herd that has stopped gathering what its members know. Not a sheep: a careful reasoner whose every careful choice makes the crowd know a little less than it should.

Tell

"They can't all be wrong, so I'll go with them." The reasonable deferral that, made by each in turn, empties the crowd of its own knowledge.

Shown

Sealed guesses, a secret vote, estimates written before anyone hears the room. Each person setting down its own hint privately, with no run of choices to read and no crowd to defer to.

Holds

The aggregation, and the independence it demands. Here the hints are collected before they can become echoes, so the ballot holds the crowd's real knowledge pooled at last, and the costly independence that pooling requires.

Offers

The wisdom the crowd actually has. By taking each hint before the actions can speak, the ballot offers the sum of what the crowd privately knows rather than a repeat of the first few, so it recovers the very knowledge the cascade buried.

Withheld

The cheap comfort of copying. The ballot forbids reading the room, so it withholds the easy, usually-right efficiency of following the crowd, and demands an independence each member, left alone, would happily trade for a glance at what the others did.

Shown

A running count of what everyone picked: the tally, the tote, the visible score. A newcomer reading the numbers and weighing them against the one hint it holds.

Holds

The inference, and the tipping point inside it. Here the count of prior choices is read as a count of hints, so the board holds the moment the run outweighs a private signal and following becomes the right move.

Offers

A clear, countable weight of evidence. The board shows exactly how many went each way, so it offers an honest tally that any reasoner can use, and the more lopsided it is the more sensible it is to join.

Withheld

The difference between a hint and an echo. The board counts choices without marking which carried a signal and which merely copied, so a tally swollen by echoes reads exactly like one built on hints, and the newcomer, counting, cannot tell them apart.

Shown

A queue of choosers, each with a private hint, each in view of the choices already made. The front acting on its own signals, the rest arriving to a lengthening run of the same choice.

Holds

The sequence, and the cascade it breeds. Here order is everything: the early act on their hints and reveal them, the late arrive to a crowd and copy it, so the line holds both the informative front and the echoing tail that follows.

Offers

The wisdom of those who went first. Each newcomer can see what the crowd has done and lean on it, so the line offers real evidence to anyone who reads it, which is exactly what makes copying the sensible move.

Withheld

The hints behind the choices. The line shows what each person did and never why, so a newcomer sees actions and not signals, and cannot tell an informed choice from a copied one, which is how the echoes come to look like evidence.

Shown

A loud break against the run, or a new fact landing, and a crowd pausing to read it. The herd, moving one way, catching sight of something that reads as evidence and swinging toward it.

Holds

The fragility, come to a head. Here the crowd's certainty is revealed to rest on almost nothing, so the turn holds the moment a single new action can outweigh the whole thin cascade and send it the other way.

Offers

A chance for the herd to correct. A new signal can pull a crowd off a wrong cascade, so the turn offers the possibility of rescue, of a herd that had followed the first few now following something better.

Withheld

Any guarantee the new way is the right one. The turn reverses a cascade that rested on little by adding one more thing that is also little, so it can as easily swap a right herd for a wrong as a wrong for a right, and it withholds all assurance of which.

Place

At the line, the run extending on its own. Where every new choice is an echo and none is a signal.

Load bearing

Without it the misfit would be a single bad choice, not a whole crowd's blindness. With it the copying feeds itself: because each follower chooses on the crowd's information rather than its own, its action carries no hint, so the next learns nothing new and copies too, and the run rolls on resting entirely on the few signals before the tipping point. The Cascade is load bearing because it is the self-perpetuating herd the theory names (Bikhchandani, Hirshleifer & Welch; Banerjee), the state in which additional actors add numbers but no knowledge, so a whole crowd acts on almost none of what it collectively holds.

Apparent

An overwhelming consensus. A long unbroken run looks like a great weight of independent agreement, so the cascade reads as near-certainty, when its length is made of echoes and its certainty rests on the handful of hints that started it.

Yearbook

Run by the follower and unbroken by the dissenter, grown past the tipping point. It is the herd that knows less than it holds: the Cascade silences the private signal, and rests on so little that the fragility can turn it.

Place

At the turn, where a new signal meets the thin cascade. Where one loud action can outweigh the whole run.

Load bearing

Without it the cascade would look as solid as it is large, and could not correct or collapse. With it the crowd's size is revealed as no measure of its knowledge: because the herd rests on only the first few signals, a single new piece of public information, a bold contrarian or a fresh fact, can outweigh it and reverse the whole run at once. The Fragility is load bearing because it is the instability the theory insists on (Bikhchandani, Hirshleifer & Welch, 1998): cascades are easy to start, easy to shatter, and their sudden turns, fads collapsing, panics reversing, are not anomalies but the signature of a certainty founded on almost nothing.

Apparent

A fickle, irrational crowd. A herd that swings abruptly looks like mass caprice, so the reversal reads as the crowd losing its head, when each turn is the same rational reading of a new action as evidence, applied to a base always too thin to hold.

Yearbook

Triggered by the contrarian through cascading run backward, exposing the cascade. It is the thinness made visible: the Fragility shows the certainty always rested on little, and can swap a wrong herd for a right one, or the reverse.

Place

At the board, in the weighing of the tally against a hint. Where a run of choices is read as a run of signals.

Load bearing

Without it following would be mere conformity, and the misfit a matter of weak character. With it following is rational: reading actions as evidence of hints is the right thing to do, and a genuine one, because early actions really did carry signals, so the inference that leads a newcomer to defer is sound reasoning, not a failure of nerve. The Inference is load bearing because it is the rational-updating step that makes the cascade a trap of logic rather than of cowardice (Banerjee): it is correct, and its correctness is what makes it destroy the very information it seems to use.

Apparent

Simply learning from others. Updating on what other people did looks like exactly the humble, sensible thing a good reasoner should do, so the inference reads as wisdom, and its role in silencing the crowd's own knowledge is hidden inside how manifestly reasonable it is.

Yearbook

Performed by the follower through inferring, working on the public action. It is the sound step that dooms the pooling: the Inference drives toward the tipping point, where the run outweighs the hint and the signal is set aside.

Place

At the ballot, where the signals are pooled instead of the actions. And along the whole line, in every hint swallowed to defer.

Load bearing

Without it the misfit would be a heap of moves with no shape. With it the moves become one law: the private signal, the public action, the inference, the tipping point, the cascade, and the fragility are facets of a single structure, in which rational people reading actions instead of signals stop expressing what they know, so a crowd acts on almost none of its own information and can lock, or flip, on almost nothing. The Information Cascade is load bearing because it is the whole finding (Bikhchandani, Hirshleifer & Welch) with its whole remedy attached: it holds the misfit together, and it holds that the cure is to surface signals before actions can speak, bought at the price of an independence the herd will not keep and an imitation that is usually cheap and right.

Apparent

Either the wisdom of crowds, or their madness. Seen from one side a long consensus looks like collective wisdom, from the other a sudden reversal looks like collective madness, and both miss the single mechanism under them: rational inference from actions, which makes the crowd neither wise nor mad but simply blind to the knowledge it never pooled.

Yearbook

Answered by the aggregator through aggregating, held whole by nobody. It is the play in a single piece: the Information Cascade is what the private signal suffers once actions speak louder than hints, undone only by surfacing every signal before the crowd can read itself.

Place

At the line, held by each as they enter. Where every chooser carries a small private read of their own.

Load bearing

Without it there would be nothing worth pooling and no loss when it goes unspoken. With it each person holds a real, if noisy, piece of information, so a crowd of them holds a great deal, and the tragedy is that this is exactly what the cascade buries: the signal is acted on only at the front and swallowed everywhere after, so the mountain of private knowledge is never gathered. The Private Signal is load bearing because it is the dispersed information at the root of the theory (Bikhchandani, Hirshleifer & Welch), the thing a crowd collectively holds and individually stops expressing, and the whole quantity a good mechanism exists to recover.

Apparent

Just one person's guess, easily outweighed. A single hint looks small and dispensable next to a crowd, so setting it aside seems obviously right, and nothing marks it as part of a store of knowledge that vanishes precisely because each holder, reasonably, thinks their piece too small to matter.

Yearbook

Held along the line, acted on by the first and swallowed by the dissenter. It is the knowledge the crowd forgets to gather: the Private Signal is what the cascade silences and what the information cascade can be cured only by surfacing.

Place

At the board, tallied and countable. Where each choice shows and no reason does.

Load bearing

Without it there would be no way to learn from others and no cascade to fear. With it each actor can see what others did but never why, so actions are the only channel through which private hints travel, and a channel that carries the choice but not the signal is exactly what lets an echo pass for evidence. The Public Action is load bearing because it is the observability condition the cascade requires (Anderson & Holt): people see behaviour, not information, so a copied choice is indistinguishable from an informed one, and the crowd reads a tally of actions as if it were a tally of hints.

Apparent

Evidence of what people know. A visible choice looks like a window onto the chooser's information, so a run of them reads as a run of hints, when in truth most may be copies that reveal nothing, and the board cannot tell the reader which.

Yearbook

Read at the board through inferring, the channel that carries choices and not hints. It is the visible half of a hidden thing: the Public Action is what the inference works on, and what lets a copied choice masquerade as a signal.

Place

At the line, the place in the sequence where copying takes over. Where one more concordant choice tips the balance against any single signal.

Load bearing

Without it deferring and signalling could go on trading places, and no cascade would lock. With it there is a point of no return: once the run of revealed hints outweighs a single private one, every later actor is rationally bound to set their signal aside, so the tipping point is where informative choosing ends and copying begins, and it can be reached after only a few concordant actions. The Tipping Point is load bearing because it is the threshold that makes cascades start early and from little (Welch): a short run is enough to cross it, so the herd forms on a handful of signals and everyone after is right to defer.

Apparent

The moment the answer becomes clear. Crossing the threshold feels like the crowd converging on the truth, a consensus emerging, so the tipping point reads as the point where the matter is settled, when it is really the point where learning stops and echoing starts.

Yearbook

Crossed along the line, reached by the inference piling up. It is the switch from signal to echo: past the Tipping Point every choice feeds the cascade and none feeds the crowd's knowledge.

Has

A way to collect hints before they become echoes: a sealed guess, a secret ballot, an estimate made blind. The sight that the crowd holds far more than it ever speaks. The task of buying independence a herd will not keep on its own.

Orders

Ask for the hint, not the choice. Collect it before anyone hears the room. Pool the signals, and let the aggregate decide.

Loses

Ease and cheapness, in exchange for the crowd's real knowledge. Independence is dear and imitation is usually right, so its mechanism forgoes the cheap efficiency of copying and must be built and defended against members each of whom would rather just follow. Recovers what the crowd knows only by paying for the independence the cascade destroyed.

Drives

Toward signals surfaced before actions can speak, against a herd that prefers to copy, so the crowd's knowledge is pooled only by machinery raised against the crowd's own inclination.

Has

A private hint it trusts enough to bet against the many. The nerve to act on it visibly, against the run of choices. A crowd resting on so little that one loud action can move it.

Orders

Act on your own hint, against the herd. Make the break visible. Land a loud new signal on a crowd primed to read it.

Loses

Its claim to be right, which the flip cannot prove. A cascade rests on so little that a single loud break can reverse it either way, so breaking one may save a wrong herd or wreck a right one, and its confidence looks, from outside, exactly like the herd's it defies. Able to turn the crowd, and unable to guarantee the turn is true.

Drives

Toward a visible break from the herd, which a fragile crowd will follow, so the cascade reverses on its one loud hint, correct or not.

Has

A private hint that points against the crowd. The clear sight that its one hint is small against a long run of them. The choice to speak the dissent or to swallow it.

Orders

Weigh your contrary hint against the herd. Grant that the many revealed hints outweigh your one. Defer, and keep the dissent to yourself.

Loses

The one signal the crowd most needed, exactly by being right to withhold it. Its hint is the one that disagrees, so the one worth hearing, but voicing a lone outweighed guess would be the wrong move, so the signal that might have checked the cascade is the one it is most rational to suppress. Sound in its silence, and the silence is the loss.

Drives

Toward deferring to a crowd that outweighs it, away from a dissent that would cost it to speak, so the signal that could have questioned the herd is the one most surely lost.

Has

A private hint, held lightly. A run of choices before it, visible as actions but not as reasons. The sound judgement that a long run of hints outweighs its single one.

Orders

Read the actions as evidence. Weigh your hint against the crowd's. When outweighed, defer, and copy.

Loses

Its own signal, by the very act of deferring. Copying on the crowd's information rather than its own, its choice reveals no hint, so it takes from the crowd's knowledge without adding to it, and the next reader learns nothing from its move. Correct to defer, and by deferring one more link that carries no signal.

Drives

Toward the choice the crowd has already made, away from the hint it holds and swallows, so each sound deferral extends a herd that has stopped learning.

Has

A private hint and nothing yet to copy. The position at the head of the line, watched by all who follow. No crowd to defer to, so no choice but to act on its own signal.

Orders

Act on your own hint. Choose plainly, having nothing better than what you know. Set the first mark on the board.

Loses

Nothing it can see, and control of the weight its choice will carry. It acts correctly on its own signal, but the line reads that choice as the seed of the crowd and builds on it, so a small, possibly noisy hint is magnified far past its worth. Right to choose as it does, and unable to stop the crowd from mistaking its hint for wisdom.

Drives

Toward a choice made on its own signal, which is all it has, so the whole cascade comes to rest on whatever the front of the line happened to hold.

Initiated by

A crowd holding more than it speaks, and someone resolved to collect it. The recognition that actions drown signals, and a will to gather hints before they become echoes.

Direction

Toward the crowd's real knowledge, pooled and used. Each hint is taken sealed, before anyone hears the room, so every private signal enters the record, and the aggregate of them, not the front of the line, decides.

Lever

Independence bought before imitation can start. A hint given before the actions are seen cannot be an echo of them, so surfacing signals first is the one thing that keeps them independent, and independence is exactly what makes the pooled crowd wise.

Echo

A decision made on what the crowd knows, and a bill for the independence. The signals aggregated instead of copied, the cascade unable to form, and a mechanism that had to be built and paid for against a herd each member would rather have joined.

Initiated by

A tally large enough that following outweighs any one hint. The tipping point crossed, and every newcomer arriving to a crowd it is right to join.

Direction

Toward a run that feeds on itself and holds no new information. Each copy is made on the crowd's signals, not the copier's, so it adds no hint, and the next reads one more echo and copies too, the herd extending on the strength of the first few.

Lever

Copies that carry no signal, piling up as if they did. Once following starts, actions stop revealing hints, so the crowd learns nothing further and rests on the handful of early signals, a base so thin that a single loud new action can outweigh it and turn the whole run around.

Echo

A herd knowing far less than it holds, and easily reversed. Private signals swallowed and unspoken, a certainty founded on almost nothing, and a cascade that can stampede the other way the moment a new signal lands.

Initiated by

A newcomer with a private hint, and a run of prior choices to read. The board showing a tally, and a mind weighing it against a single signal.

Direction

Toward a private hint set aside for the crowd's. The newcomer reads the actions as revealed hints, counts them against its one, and when they outweigh it, rationally defers and copies.

Lever

The correct weight of many signals over one. Reading actions as evidence is right, and a long enough run of them genuinely does outweigh a single contrary hint, so the inference that leads to copying is sound, not lazy, and following is the sensible move.

Echo

A choice made on the crowd's hints, not the copier's. The private signal outvoted and set down, the copy added to the board, and one more action that looks like evidence but carries no new hint.

Initiated by

A chooser at the front, with a private hint and no crowd to read. The head of the line, where there is nothing to copy and only one's own signal to act on.

Direction

Toward actions that carry the hints behind them. The first movers choose on what they know, so each early action is a true sign of its hint, and the board begins to hold real evidence.

Lever

A choice made on a signal, with nothing to imitate. Because the front has no crowd to defer to, its actions can only reflect its hints, so early on the visible choices and the private signals point the same way, and reading one really does reveal the other.

Echo

A short run of informative choices. The first hints laid down as actions, still carrying their signals, and a direction set that the rest of the line will read as the wisdom of the front.

Direction

With no crowd yet to read, go on what you know. Choose plainly on your own private hint, since it is the only evidence you have, and set the first mark on the board without a thought for how it will be read.

Orders

(The First acts on its own hint, and by acting reveals it, seeding the direction the line will follow.)

Implementation

(The Line; the signalling process; the private signal is acted on plainly, so early on the public action still carries the hint behind it.)

Targets

• [ ] the choice is made on the mover's own hint, there being nothing to copy
• [ ] the action, made on the hint, actually reveals it
• [ ] the first marks set the direction the line will read
• [ ] a small, possibly noisy hint is weighted far past its worth by those behind

Direction

Trust your own hint enough to bet against the many, and act on it where all can see. Land a loud choice against the run, and let the crowd, resting on so little, read it as the new signal it is. Turn the herd, and know you cannot prove the turn is true.

Orders

(The Contrarian breaks from the herd in plain sight, and a fragile crowd turns to follow.)

Implementation

(The Turn; the cascading that runs in reverse; the herd rests on so little that the fragility lets one loud break reverse it, correct or not.)

Targets

• [ ] the private hint is trusted enough to bet against the many
• [ ] the break is made loud and visible to the whole crowd
• [ ] the fragile herd reads the new action and turns to follow
• [ ] the cascade reverses on one hint, whether or not that hint is right

Direction

Read the run of choices before you as evidence of the hints behind them. Weigh your single hint against that run, and when it is outweighed, do the sensible thing: set your own aside and copy the crowd, because so many cannot all be wrong.

Orders

(The Follower reads the actions as evidence, finds itself outvoted, and rationally copies.)

Implementation

(The Board; the inferring process; the inference reads actions as signals until the tipping point, where the observed run outweighs a private hint.)

Targets

• [ ] the run of prior choices is read as a run of hints
• [ ] the single private hint is weighed and found outvoted
• [ ] the crowd is copied, on its information rather than the copier's
• [ ] the copy reveals no hint, so the next reader learns nothing from it

Direction

Ask for the hint, not the choice. Collect a sealed guess, run a secret ballot, take each estimate before anyone hears the room, so every private signal enters the record instead of being swallowed. Pool what the crowd knows, and let the aggregate, not the front of the line, decide.

Orders

(The Aggregator surfaces the signals before the actions can speak, so the cascade cannot form.)

Implementation

(The Ballot; the aggregating process; the information cascade is answered by pooling the private signal of each before the actions can drown it.)

Targets

• [ ] each is asked for its hint, sealed and made before hearing the room
• [ ] every private signal enters the record instead of being swallowed
• [ ] the aggregate of hints, not the front of the line, decides
• [ ] the independence is paid for, against a herd each member would rather join

Direction

Feel your own hint pull against the crowd, and grant that one hint is a small thing against a long run of them. Do the correct arithmetic: the many revealed hints outweigh yours, so defer, follow, and keep the dissent to yourself, though it is exactly the doubt the crowd could have used.

Orders

(The Dissenter judges its contrary hint outweighed, swallows it, and follows.)

Implementation

(The Line; the cascading process; swallowing the hint removes the one signal that might have checked the cascade, so the private signal that most disagrees is the one most surely lost.)

Targets

• [ ] the contrary hint is weighed against the run and found outweighed
• [ ] the correct arithmetic says defer, and the dissent is swallowed
• [ ] the one signal that disagreed never enters the record
• [ ] the cascade loses exactly the hint most worth hearing