Let’s face it, polls are polarizing, and political polls are deeply polarizing.  They don’t merely reflect the views held by groups, they drive groups into entrenched positions.

It’s easy to blame the pollsters and pundits, but it’s not their fault.  Polls only have one purpose – to highlight the differences among us.  They certainly don’t help us find common ground.

So is there a better way?  It turns out, there is. And like many innovations, the solution comes from Mother Nature herself – SWARMS.

It all goes back to the birds and bees… and fish too.  When flocks and schools need to make a collective decision, they don’t take a poll and analyze the results.

They form a swarm – a unified system that acts as a collective intelligence, everyone pushing and pulling in real-time, with feedback loops maximizing the consensus among them.

That’s great for the birds and bees, but what about us humans?

Can people swarm? We can – a new platform called UNU allows groups to swarm on issues, finding consensus in a matter of seconds. But does it work for emotional topics, like politics

That’s what we wanted to find out, so we asked a group of Democrats and Republicans: “What should congress focus on?”  Normally that would produce a never-ending argument…

But can a swarm find common ground? As shown in the replay below, the group weighed the options in real time, and came to consensus in under 60 seconds:

The swarm has spoken – “Job Growth”

Will this put an end to political arguments?  Never.  But, to get a group of people with diverse political views to find common ground in under 60 seconds… that can only help.

Want to TRY UNU for yourself, sign up to be a BETA TESTER here.