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Simulating Societies

Posted by michael on from the playing-by-the-rules dept.

blamanj writes "Most of us were exposed fairly early to Conway's game of Life. A few simple rules produce a fascinating variety of behavior. Now, it appears that similar simulations can predict the behavior of populations and human societies."

3 of 231 comments (clear)

  1. Dr Seldon ? by cheekymonkey_68 · · Score: 1, Redundant

    Remember Asimov's Foundation series where Dr Seldon used mathematics and psychologists to predict and model the behavior of populations and human societies.

    Asimov has a habit of predicting scientic advances such as robotics(Everyone know Asimovs laws of robotics ?)

    Ok he was basing it on the presumption that you could predict the behviour of very large population (ie whole planets),but the concept was the same

    Better watch out for the Mule...

  2. Once Again... by Qwerpafw · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Again, Science fiction predicts fact!

    Isaac Asimov, in his wildly popular "Foundation" series (read it if you haven't), predicted that eventually human actions as a group (not individuals) could be calculated through computer simulations. He called it "Psychohistory" (as previously noted). In the novels it was a matter of probability, almost certain probability in most cases, butunlikely events still were able to mess it up. (For example, a telepathic genetic abnormailty, or "Mule," was born, and using his powers basically conquered the galaxy, thereby screwing up predictions)

    Anyways, its really nifty how many cool technologies have been predicted by science fiction authors.

  3. Issac Asimov's Harry Seldon by darkonc · · Score: 2, Redundant
    This reminds me of Seldon's statistical sociology work in the Foundation series (most explicitly in the first book) -- where he expounds that, as a large group, people are statistically very predictible, and reasonably controlable as a result.

    Other large scale societal modeling took place with The Club of Rome's Limits to Growth -- It used the SIMULA simulation language to investigate such questions as population growth, resource usage, environmental degradation and capital investment as co-related variables. They came to some very interesting (and even disturbing) conclusions.

    --
    Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.