I was reading an article from Scientific American about how small friendship triangles, when multiplied, can potentially cause a network of peace or one of war and hostility.
Consider a relationship triangle. Arthur and Carl don’t like each other. But Bill is friendly with them both. Bill will probably try to convince Arthur and Carl to get along. But Arthur and Carl are telling Bill that the other guy’s no good. You don’t need to be a math whiz to see that, as time goes on, either everyone will be friends or Bill is going to have to pick a side.
-Karen Hopkin (Scientific American)
Think about this for a moment. It’s essentially having mutual friend, but not befriending the person who also like the same person you like (hence mutual.) It’s a friendship triangle (the triangle representing three people) – like explained above – but with one week edge. The edge of the triangle represents a relationship between two people. Two of the three edges are well functioning but one is not. So either the mutual friend amends the weak “edge” and everybody is happy, or the mutual friend cannot do so and the entire triangle collapses. Imagine this triangle, but multiplied. If the vast majority of triangles with one weak can sort things out, that would be beneficial. It could potentially promote new, well-functioning triangles. This could lead to peace among networks. But what if things play out opposite? What if the majority of triangles collapse? Potentially the once mutual friend is now not friends with anyone in the triangle. With more collapsing triangle-like friendships could lead to a network disaster. What do you think will happen?
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