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Marvel Universe Is Almost Like *Real Life* Society
TheMatt writes "Scientists at the University of the Balearic Isles have analyzed the Marvel Universe and found that it is almost
like real society. The team studied the statistical properties of each character, the books they were in, and who else appeared in them (through resources like the MCP).
While there were some similarities to real society, a close look revealed the artificiality. For example, the MU isn't very clustered, only 1.5x that of a random network; real life is about 10x more clustered. Of course, the realities of comics (the business) are why this occurs. Also, they found the most networked of all Marvel heroes was Steve Rogers, Captain America himself."
Why people are examining clusters in comics I don't know. Are they beowulf clusters of Marvel Superheroes? Or just load-sharing clusters of Marvel Superheroes?
Best Slashdot Co
Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson know this first hand. They should have asked them for some research material.
Now this is the kind of science that I can enjoy, especially after Book Reviews: The Skeptical Environmentalist
The only thing that we learn from history is that nobody learns anything from history.
While there were some similarities to real society, a close look revealed the artificiality
I'm wondering just how much exactly they spent on this study just to find out that comic books are in fact based on real society? I think the only reason this would even be important to the slashdot community is to see how foolishly Universities spend their money. I could have told them that comic books contain artificial societies for only $100 probably saving them thousands...
Any Universities needing useless information about comic books should make thier checks payable to aardWolf64, care of...
Breakfast served all day!
Also, they found the most networked of all Marvel heroes was Steve Rogers, Captain America himself.
Unfortunately, this research was responsible for the incredibly boring "Apocalypse Protection" series, when Captain America just tried to sell insurance to other superheroes for like 10 straight issues.
they looked at 11k comic books, and noted which characters apeared in each book. They then came to the conclusion, that comic books do not folow the same rules as real life. Their research also showed, that there was a corelation between the size of the group, and the chance of a specific character showing up.
------ Work is so much easier when you don't
Here's a translation:
Marvel Comic book characters are modelled after real world social interactions. Such as Person A has Friend B who has a Friend C, at a 3rd degree of seperation. Person A is more likely to know Friend C, because of social clustering.
All it is doing is showing a web of each characters connections and affiliations, similar to a six-degrees setup. Like Kevin Bacon.
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
The book, "The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference" has a couple of pages about networking. It mentions that a study was done to determine the connectedness of random people. It determined that random people can be connected within 6 links. Thus, 6 degress of separation.
The Kevin Bacon stuff is just a game based upon the same principle. I don't remember his score exactly, but in Hollywood circles Kevin is like 665th on the list of connectors. He can be connected to other people in Hollywood within 4.x people. The most connected person is Rod Steiger, who can be connected in 2.1x.
I smell the smell of an IgNobel prize in the air.
Oh great, another of my dork hobbies goes legit!
"Lady, I'm not 'wasting time and money on funny books,' I'm conducting an analysis of social interaction through the medium of networked vigilantism. Now pass that new issue of X-Force and refresh my strawberry sprite."
Hey freaks: now you're ju
All I see is that some bastards are paid to read tons of comics and do resume about them, which, to be scrupulously accurate, needs to be cross-checkes... by reading the comics again.
Bastards
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
Maybe I don't quite understand the research, but it doesn't seem that surprising that the Marvel Universe does not follow real-world clustering patterns: many of the characters have dual identities, which I would think throw off the usual associative relationship of friends.
As an example, consider this scenario:
Jane Goodcitizen is friends with Peter Parker.
Spiderman is friends with Captain America.(?-don't know, but let's just say)
In the real world, there would be a high correlation of friendship between Jane and Captain America, while the whole secret identity thing puts a monkey-wrench in the comic universe.
The closest real-world model would probably be the network of say traveling salesmen or spies.
Really, has society gotten to the point where life is imitating art? I can see it now:
2036 elections
It has been 8 years since the city of New York has been renamed to Metropolis. The current primary elections for the United States President have been reduced to the following candidates:
Al Gore
Lex Luthor
Stan Lee
Edward Brock
Strom Thurmond
Jeb Bush
Impossible Man
Adam Warlock
There is, of course, the Marvel First Meeting Corollary, which states that,
"No matter how many friends/associates they have in common, the first meeting between two heroes commonly results in them fighting."
I like you, Stuart. You're not like everyone else, here, at Slashdot.
Also, they found the most networked of all Marvel heroes was Steve Rogers, Captain America himself
Why not? He was the first major character (March 1941) that put Marvel, then known as Timely Comics on the map. He's simply had more time to network.
Only Human Torch (October 1939) and Sub-Mariner are older.
More info here (Google cache only)
I'm not afraid of falling, it's the sudden stop at the end that frightens me.
- Marvel writers (and writers of other comics, book and television universes) begin clustering their characters more, instead of letting them encounter each other more or less randomly, to increase the subconscious sense of realism.
- Software developers creating "artificial universes" apply the study to increase the clustering, and hence the underlying realism, of their creations -- for instance, Non-Player Characters in EverQuest or The Sims.
- Practical implementation for Marvel: LAY OFF THE CROSSOVERS and let characters who know each other already keep in touch each other instead.
"But Aquaman, you cannot marry a women without gills! You are from two different worlds! ... My life has been wasted".
...worst...study...ever.
Sorry, it had to be said.
I wish I had a kryptonite cross, because then you could keep Dracula and Superman away.
The entire superhero population of the MU is already blacklisted from all NYC-area companies providing auto insurance, home insurance, and fire insurance, while the life insurance companies are investigating about half of them for fraud in light of their various resurrections.
sheesh. Ok, I understand that this is quite nifty and all that. But for the life of me I can't figure out what this has to do with anything.
Seems like a huge waste of .
How the hell do you get funding for something like this? If you know, please tell me, I have an experiment to run to see if beautiful actresses enjoy sleeping with nerds (me). Of course, I would have to recheck my results many, many times.
Sent from your iPad.
A closer look reveals the Marvel Universe's artificiality. For example, social networks have a property called clustering... the Marvel network is only very weakly clustered - about 1.5 times more than a random network.
Another example of the artificiality of the Marvel Universe is that there are a bunch of people with super powers in it, where as in reality, there are realitively few people who can shoot lasers out of there eyes or turn into a gigantic green monster when they are angry.
Don't forget that Friday is Hawaiian shirt day.
The team studied the statistical properties of each character, the books they were in, and who else appeared in them (through resources like the MCP). While there were some similarities to real society, a close look revealed that comics actually have no similarity to reallife at all.
hehe.. the sentances are so much truer when I finish them.
Did they include issue #3 of Transformers?
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
... that the marvel universe parallels real life?
Did they mention the similarities in genetic mutatations?? They have Captain Doom, we have Microsoft.
"It seems," say the researchers, "that Marvel writers did not assign characters to books in the same way as natural interactions would have done it."
Wow. No kidding. What a freakin' revelation.
Do you think it might instead have something to do with sales, or perhaps who had a good idea for a storyline?
IT'S COMICS, PEOPLE! It's not real life. Any attempt to do serious analysis just ruins it for the rest of us. Well, me anyway.
Don't these guys have some social paradigms to overturn? Or maybe some cosmic mystery to unwrangle?!
To celebrate the occasion of my 1000th post, I will post no more forever on Slashdot. Goodbye.
Well, they don't really rank above or below each other, but Trekkies are indeed slightly below comic book fans on the chart.
But, your argument breaks down if we are talking about geeks who read superhero comics. Are we?
Stumbling in the dark
I hear slavering of jaws
Eaten by a grue.
Future news:
Scientists at the University of the Balearic lose funding altogether
TheMatt writes "Scientists at the University of this place you've never heard of have analyzed Slashdot and found that it is almost like real society. The team studied the statistical properties of each user, the stories they posted in, and who else replied to their posts (through resources like the Slashdot archives). While there were some similarities to real society, a close look revealed the artificiality. For example, /. isn't very clustered, only 1.5x that of a random network; real life is about 10x more clustered. Of course, the realities of web boards (the interface) are why this occurs. Also, they found the most networked of all Slashdot users was CowboyNeal, the default poll choice."
main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
. . . they would have found far fewer crossovers which are often cheap quick cameos meant to get the casual buyer to take a second look and hopefully buy. The bankruptcy probably made Marvel a lot more marketastic. Which is not necesarily good, so we can still go on hating that fat bastard . . . :)
It'd be nice to see their numbers on a timeline to confirm or deny this.
Scientists at the University of the Balearic Isles have analyzed the Marvel Universe and found that it is almost like real society.
Imagine that.. humans living in real society have created fiction that is almost like... real society! Simply amazing! Good thing those research dollars are still being put to good use now that we've got the environment all figured out. So uh.. who gets the patent?
My wife works with one of the 'doctors' who wrote a section of that book. He is a middle school english teacher .. and has nothing to do with human-interaction research.
.. he works in one of the worse schools in the district, even though he has a doctorate, where he was rather 'suddenly' transfered from his rather cushy county school job .. mid year .. that ought to set off some warning bells.]
.. just beacuse someone has their name in print, doesn't mean they are doing more than BS'ing.
.. there were parts in that book that were general enough to make me say .. 'yeah.. yeah ..i can see that']
[incidently
my point being
[still though
--Ne auderis delere orbem rigidum meum, non erravi pernicose!
My evil minions will be dispatched immediately.
BTW, for those wondering, the Spiderman bit in the headline of the NSU story: Reality Check foils Spider-Man, I think refers to a previous reporting of this study which labeled Spider-man as most connected.
At least, I think it does.
Fortran programmer...oh yeah. Array math for life!
But as you might expect, Slashdot has improved over society. Here you can always tell who loves or hates you, and you are reminded whom you love or hate. You can even ignore your enemies by assigning them a negative comment bonus. Just think of how convenient the world would be with those signals visible!
sulli
RTFJ.
Marketing--If a comic company funded the reasearch, it would be usefull to them
determin how close an artificial universe, created without much plan(if any), will be similiar to real society. May give insight to the way we think.
This is data, a rel thinker would find a way to put it to use, instead of just knee-jerk poopooing it.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Hold onto your hats, true believers! By strange coincidence, I read the latest (I think it's still the latest...) issue of Captain America. Captain America was (apparently) killed by a group of Doomsday Terrorists. They didn't find his body, but from what I hear the Captain's popularity has been flagging a bit for awhile, and this might really be the end of him.
-- dR.fuZZo
I know I have to elbow my way through beautiful women with enormous, gravity-defying breasts clad only in miniscule, skin-tight leather outfits every day. But, maybe that sort of thing is confined to Indianapolis.
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Ummm, no.
You see the X-Men have funding . . .
Where do the X-Men get funding? Adventure capitalists?
Man, if someone else said what I just said, I'd sure have to punch 'em!
IOW, smart cats, dogs, bears, etc. that take on human roles. In some cases, the "species" mix and in others, the animals hve replaced humans. Ever played Star Fox? Kinda like that...
And, much like tentacle pr0n, there's a subgenre of furry-on-furry and furry-on-human sex...Interesting...
GTRacer
- Would be a felinoid (probably)
Defending IP by destroying access to it? That makes sense, RIAA/MPAA. Go to the corner until you can play nice!
The Tick had a hell of a cold once that I remember.
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
Wasn't there an issue of the Incredible Hulk where a group of evil scientists released a swarm of radioactive mutant insects on the unsuspecting humans?
Wow, they're right! The similarities are uncanny.
Uhoh...
/bin/laden) by randomly snatching a person, and six specific contacts (since it might be likely that Joe Blow knows a guy, who knows a guy, who knows a guy, who knows a guy, who knows a guy, who knows a guy who knows where they are.
Well, with all this thought about the whole six degrees thing.
I'm just afraid that someone in the US's SSSSq Agency (Super Secret Secret Squirrels of course) will realize they have a good chance of finding that some hidden terrorist types (cat
Why... The implications of this amazing research to national defense are amazing.
It's a good thing that affirming our consequents is a common practice now-days (psst... If (all persons in the world are "connected" via a small number of links) then (randomly picking a person and starting from there is a good way to "connect" to someone specific). (randomly picking a person and starting from there is--sometimes--a good way to "connect" to someone specific). Therefore (all persons in the world are "connected" via a small number of links).
Mmmmm fuzzy logic.
Well, first off, the study was done in Spain. Last I checked, NASA funding from Spain wasn't getting cut
Actually, though, all the outrage here seems kinda silly to me. What happened to the "Science for the sake of Science" mantra? This is exactly that.
Yes, it doesn't have on-the-surface real-world applications. Reading comic books isn't gonna make a cure for cancer. However, it -does- have some economic value.
Think entertainment. TV shows, computer games, books, comics. If I were creating one of these, I could benefit from this study, a LOT. Marvel comics are extremely successful, and they have a "clustring level" of about 1.5. I wonder what some of the failures have? Probably, a lot less. This is valuable, because gives me hard figures correlating success or failure of a venture with the reality level of its social networks.
Even if it only increases the "reality index" of my entertainment products by 3%, that's significant. A universe which can be related to by my readers in inherently more interesting. If it's more interesting, then more people will buy my product, increasing my revenue, potentially by a lot.
Plus, a bunch of scientists got to sit around reading comics
( unless, of course, the study was done by computer OCR of the comics, but still... gotta do something with them once they're scanned
to accept the praise of personal wisdom is an affront to the very ideal i hold dear.
I personally think all women should look and dress this way!
Hmmm. Stay away from the Brickyard 400. You don't seem to be familiar with NASCAR ladies.
"Aw, Cletus, stop that! My parents are watching!"
"They's my parents too."
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
The scientists forgot that Spiderman is very good friends with Kevin Bacon .
This brings the Marvel Universe's clustering factor to ~300x that of reality, making the Marvel Universe into surreality...
The next episode of Marvel Universe is slated to have John Malkovich play every character
-D