I was thinking about conversation again today. This podcast I was listening to was about information, and the storing of knowledge. In it he started talking about how no one person's knowledge is superior to the accumulated knowledge in a conversation, or words to that effect. It got me thinking about all the unsaid things that go on when people gather, the contributions that don't get made cause we're too shy, or were in a zone of thinking things are boring and keep them that way out of habit. I remember this story I heard one time where they took two groups of people and gave them one of those lists of things you might need on a desert Island, and asked them to prioritize the list. One group was assigned a leader, while the other group was asked to reach a consensus. The group with a leader finished much quicker, but in the end the leaderless ones had more correct answers. It seems that people in the led group hesitated to contribute their knowledge, deferring to the leader's "expertise". In the other group people were more inclined to put their two cents in. I'm not sure what that all means in the scheme of things, but it does make me wonder what gets missed when people are sitting around censoring their own conversation for one reason or another. Kinda like school, where only one or two people seem to answer all the questions. Nobody wants to appear stupid I guess. Good luck with that.