During the past years, our society has been permanently disturbed by coherent information waves of high amplitude and huge social energy. Although often destructive—a kind of information tsunami—these waves can also bring about positive improvements in society. The main distinguishing features of these waves are high amplitude, coherence (the homogeneous character of social actions generated by them), and short time needed for their generation and relaxation. This book shows that social phenomena can be described by the recently developed social laser theory, which models stimulated amplification of coherent social actions. “Actions” are treated very generally, from mass protests, including the recent series of color revolutions and mass protests in the USA, to president elections and other collective decisions, such as acceptance (often unconscious) of some societal recommendations, say quarantine during the present coronavirus pandemic. Social laser is one of the quantum-like models that recently became popular in decision making, psychology, economics, finances, as well as cognitive, social, and political sciences. In such models, the mathematical formalism of quantum theory, especially quantum information and probability, is applied outside of physics. In the models presented in this book, humans are treated as carriers of social energy—social atoms—interacting with the quantum information field generated by the mass media. Quantum field theory describes this field operationally with the operators of creation and annihilation of information excitations. The author points to the following distinguishing features of the modern society simplifying social lasing: (a) transformation of humans into social atoms (loss of individuality), (b) generation by mass media of powerful information fields leading to the information overload of social atoms, and (c) creation of powerful social resonators based on Internet echo chambers.
