annoyance

cat distracted in process of torturing still live mouse.  perhaps even distracted by iself: its dreams of immediate future: skull crunching, juices squirting, lost in dream, mouse stops playing dead, runs away.  cat flicks tail, annoyed.  dream dashed, nothing but more work to do.  no fun anywhere.

ants mob their enemies.  humans mostly run away, occasionally a mob forms, historically mobs often get stupid & violent, authorities typically don't like them except when they can control them, but mostly what we do is run away to try to preserve the "me" or its immediate relatives etc.  selfless types are relatively rare.  moral idealists of various kinds would like to create an infectiously transmissable selflessness to make "perfect" citizens who will organically defend the group but training is only partially and occasionally effective.

gunperson walks into crowded restaurant, starts shooting.  mob behavior, entire room converging on the shooter, guaranteed to produce casualties but gunner overcome & disarmed.  normal course of events is everyone gets under table or just sits there, gunner pics them off until cops come & shoot the gunner.  the 3 people out of 100 who would want to do something can count on not having any help from the unformed mob.  humans do not spontaneously mob carriers of danger.

usually they have to be worked up with speeches & rhythmic stuff into a "state" then the organizers show them the door & they walk through.  otherwise they'll just sit there doing nothing until the cat comes.  social self organization is not a genetic human trait.  it is done by hand, so to speak, through culture. 

the normal mob is an audience.  its main activity is focused observation on performers.  is it true that there is no history of defensive mobs?  that's what civilians are all about, right?  people who do not defend themselves?  even in citizen soldier countries some fight & some stay home with the kids, telling them not to fight.