The Power of the Crowd: When Small Things Work Together They Can Defeat Their Masters

I was playing with the kids and they had their little toys out. Before I knew it, I was down on the floor playing with the little horses and Link figurine from Zelda.

Not really thinking about it, I arranged the horses around Link in a circle, which created quite an intense battle scene. Suddenly Link was surrounded by many adversaries by all sides, all quickly closing in on him.

Even though Link is much larger than the small horses individually, as a whole they are much more powerful against him together.

It reminds me of an incident a couple months ago. I was in a backyard working and there were just two little puppies. At first they were just barking at me because they were scared, but after a while they became more emboldened and started to surround me and herd me into a bit of a corner.

Before I knew it, they came closer and closer to me, and one of them but the back of my calf. It wasn’t a bad bite since they were just small puppies, and didn’t break the skin, but it still hurt. I was able to get away from them quickly after the bite, but it shook me up a little bit.

I’ve never been afraid of dogs, let alone puppies, but when they ganged up on me like that it was kind of terrifying in the moment. It just goes to show that you can never underestimate the power of small things in greater numbers.