Guilt by associatrion is a marvelously flexible instrument.

Submitted by Robert S. Weiss (United States), Oct 23, 2008 at 17:26

Someone reasonably active in our social world is likely to have around two hundred fairly close associations. (The "Dunbar number," an estimate of the number of people whose lives the average person is able to keep in mind, is 150.) Suppose each of these fairly closely associations has a hundred non-overlapping fairly close associations. That puts him within two steps of 20,000 people. Within that population of 20,000 I would imagine you could find all sorts of people with all sorts of histories and political beliefs. Want to find Moslem associations for Obama? No problem. How about reactionary Republicans? Start with Orrin Hatch and see where that goes, and I would guess you'll be overwhelmed by the number of connections.

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