Inertia of Numbers: Uwalde, Guagamela, Crecy, and others.

In a number of circumstances, the presence of large numbers breeds inertia.. Certainly cowardice is a central component, but the presence of great numbers allows for inertia, cowardice and stupidity. In essence a central factor is: there are so many other people here, why do I have to do it? It does seem incredible the level of cowardice and inertia in Uwalde, but the large numbers of law officers bred for the circumstance of: why me? All the time and effort and investigation into Uwalde: the answer is simple and no need to spend more time: the law officers experienced inertia because of their great numbers, which fed into cowardice, stupidity, and why me. I did think it unfair that news organizations focused on a young female officer, and hounded her later when she was in a new job. She was recorded as saying 'if her infant child was in the classroom she would have rushed in'..... so would everyone else- so of everyone to be picked on in that tragedy- why her?

Guagamela is the famous victory of Alexander the Great over Darius III of Persia, and Crecy the victory of English longbow men over French mounted knights. At Guagamala a force of something like 40,000 primarily Macedonians defeated an army of something like 500,000 Persians and allies. The huge numbers of Persians allowed for stupidity in organization of battle tactics, and general cowardice. Discussion of these battles is not the purpose of this blog, and certainly it was not simply inertia at Crecy, but the military advance of the English longbow which was instrumental in victory. But a profound stupidity is not uncommon and occurs with superior numbers.

The French learned quickly after Crecy, and in the US, law officers learned quickly after Uwalde. Subsequent mass shooting events elsewhere in the US were dealt with with alacrity.

A related subject is well summarized by Bertrand Russell's quote: The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent full of doubt. This will be the subject of a separate blog.

Critical to avoid the inertia of numbers, and the thinking: why me?