STREET DOGS

The minority is always stronger than the majority, because the minority is generally formed by those who really have an opinion, while the strength of a majority is illusory, formed by the gangs who have no opinion — and who, therefore, in the next instant (when it is evident that the minority is the stronger) assume its opinion … while truth again reverts to a new minority. — Søren Kierkegaard

From Rory Sutherland at Edge.org: Whereas we tend to think that markets are the result of aggregated preferences, actually a small minority of people who veto something can have a surprisingly large effect on a marketplace if the people who are not vetoers are happy to go along with a universally acceptable alternative.

So, if you have a school where, say, 5% of the pupils are Muslim, the whole kitchen will go halal. Why? Because non-Muslims don’t mind eating halal food. Muslims will eat only halal food. As the convenient thing is to have one kitchen that can serve everybody, everybody eats halal. (Slightly unfair to Sikhs, incidentally, who aren’t supposed to eat halal, but don’t make much fuss about it.)

Similarly, if you have a party that is exclusively male, chances are that the default drink is beer. However, if you have a mixed-gender party, something new enters the equation.

About 18% to 20% of women won’t drink beer in any circumstances. Men, however, will without much encouragement, drink pretty much anything.

Therefore, if you have a group that is 50-50 female-male, and let’s say 20% of the entire group won’t drink beer, everybody has wine. It’s the type O negative, the universal donor. Pizza is probably very popular because nobody really hates it.

Understanding that complex systems such as consumer markets sometimes have slightly counterintuitive rules to them is a useful thing.