The premise of John Wyndham’s 1957 science fiction novel, The Midwich Cuckoos, is this: a species of parasitic aliens infect all the women of Midwich, Winshine. The women become pregnant, simultaneously, and give birth to children who seem normal in every way, except their golden eyes. The children possess telepathic abilities, and are able to manipulate the minds of others in the population. Because of their group mind, when one of them learns 
something, they all know it, and so superficially they seem to be far more intelligent. When one of the group is aggrieved or injured, they collectively punish the person responsible, usually in a disproportionate way.
See where this is going yet?
I think of The Midwich Cuckoos from time to time. It was long ago when I read it, and it wasn’t a seminal novel for me, by any means. But I think of it because of the internet. Because of Google, and social media, and the collective and tribal thinking of contemporary politics and culture.
(Click the PDF icon, upper right, if you prefer reading a black-on-white script)
Groupthink now ranges across everything from the trivial to the monumental. I’ve observed numerous discussions of Game of Thrones, for example, where the interlocuters pass off specific groupthink arguments about one or other facet of the series as their own. I’m a bit out of the loop, so at first, I’ll think: wow, what an insight. But later, when I look it up, I’ll often find they’ve simply repeated a popular hive mind sentiment, word for word.
The monumental: such as climate change. Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away (up until about fifteen years 
ago), belief in climate change wasn’t predicated by political persuasion. George Bush I, for example, took his responsibility for the climate seriously, enacting policies and reporting mechanisms that addressed global warming. Now, when a conservative leader wants to take meaningful climate action – such as Malcolm Turnbull in Australia – they get annihilated by their own side.
But that isn’t the point here. The point I’m coming to, after this lengthy preamble, is the nature of the hive mind. More and more I encounter people who don’t have an opinion on a film or book or political event until the collective conscious has decided on its response. Individuals who won’t admit to liking or not liking something until they’ve been given permission by the hive mind, and when they list their reasons for liking or not liking, use the talking points formulated by the hive mind.
I noticed this phenomenon initially in America. When I first travelled to States (I’ve been there four times over the 
past fifteen years) I was somewhat in awe of how articulate my American comrades were. Seemingly far more informed about politics than Australians; way more willing to talk about themselves and the world, and way more adept at it. Jack Serong puts it like this in his excellent neo-noir novel, The Rules of Backyard Cricket: “Americans, all of them born to witness. Five minute monologues, straight to camera…”
But my awe diminished somewhat when I realised that – some of the time at least – they were all saying much the same thing. Like they’d been sent out the daily talking points for democrats, or republicans, or libertarians.
I’m not picking on my American friends here (and I should point out that, for cultural reasons, they are, in general, far more articulate than Australians); rather, I’m saying this nation of rugged individuals joined the hive mind a little earlier than the rest of us. Australia, rarely capable of avoiding US trends in the political, economic, or social spheres, has followed gormlessly, particularly amongst our educated classes.
Thus, like the Midwitch Cuckoos, public thinking has become collective.
As has the treatment of one’s enemies.
Take the massive overreaction to, and subsequent punishment of, any individual who strays from the correct political line. Shaming, outing, cancelling, de-platforming, publicly humiliating, and professionally destroying those who somehow offend the delicate sensibilities of the Cuckoos. While it is mostly directed at those in the 
enemy camp, it seems to me some of the most vicious attacks are reserved for those in one’s own collective; those that dare to dissent from their own hive. In John Carpenter’s 1995 remake of the novel, The Village of the Damned one of the alien children tries to leave the Cuckoo hive mind; the remainder immediately try to kill the dissenter. (I was going to provide a real-life example here, but if I did, I could be accused of having some sort of ideological sympathy with the sinner. We (you, me, all of us), increasingly read articles like this looking for impure thought, for wrong-think, and I don’t want to distract from my central point).
The central point here is about trolls. Once a nuisance, a kind of vermin inhabiting cyberspace, they have now become the most powerful population online. Not numerically – I have enough faith in my fellow man to refuse to believe the majority are massive cunts – but certainly in terms of influence. Trolls now rule over the news cycle, providing a unlimited font of clickbait for news outlets struggling to retain relevance.
Trolls rule discussion in the public sphere, with the talking points of the most extreme views getting a public airing, while the rest of us wonder if it all isn’t just a little more complicated than that. Trolls get rewarded with social status, and sometimes streams of financial income, should their trolling be successful enough (via book deals, social media traffic; some join the editorial board of the New York Times, some even become President of the United States).
The thing I’ve noticed about Russian trolls is that they quite deliberately emulate the alt-right on the one hand, 
and hyperventilating woke leftists on the other. They didn’t make these personas up; they merely copied them. That is, Russian trolls are us: they are the worst of us, and the worst of us can, apparently, destroy democracy. In John Wyndham’s novel, the Cuckoos weren’t the most numerous, by any means. There were only 30 in a village of a few hundred. They were the most powerful because they thought collectively and acted ruthlessly.
Trolls are the Midwitch Cuckoos: thinking the same, using the same talking points, and when required, wreaking macro-aggressions on enemies. Science fiction has enabled them. In our cyberpunk present, through pervasive and intrusive information technologies, lives can be destroyed, democracies undermined, and politics pushed to the extreme.
You’d be forgiven for assuming a time which sees the radical assertion of individual identity – and increasing 
tolerance for and promotion of diversity – that individualism would be rampant. The opposite seems true. We are in a more conformist period than any I have experienced in my lifetime. Many friends, in private, tell me they are too scared to speak out or disagree publicly– especially with their own side. They remain silent (as I do), as the most radical and deranged positions become the norm.
The trolls among us, exactly like the book, are young parasites that give nothing back to society. They are a minority who become powerful by acting collectively, they are superficially intelligent yet ultimately unthinking.
I don’t know if there’s much we can do about it. I guess I just found it interesting that a middle-class English bloke in the 1950s accidentally predicated it all.
