Slashdot Mirror
Military Running a Parallel Earth Simulator
Fantastic Lad writes "The US Department of Defense (DOD) may already be creating a copy of you in an alternate reality. Putting supercomputers to an innovative use, the military is simulating our planet in an effort to predict the outcome of different scenarios. They might run tests to see how long 'you' can go without food or water, or how 'you' will respond to televised propaganda. Billions of nodes are created in the system, intended to reflect every man, woman, and child. 'Called the Sentient World Simulation (SWS), it will be a "synthetic mirror of the real world with automated continuous calibration with respect to current real-world information", according to a concept paper for the project. Simulex is the company developing these systems, and they list pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly and defense contractor Lockheed Martin among their private sector clients. The U.S. military is their biggest customer, apparently now running the most complex version of the system. JFCOM-9 is now capable of running real-time simulations for up to 62 nations, including Iraq, Afghanistan, and China. The simulations gobble up breaking news, census data, economic indicators, and climactic events in the real world, along with proprietary information such as military intelligence."
Does it have a 'no George Bush' option to see how the world would be doing without him?
Seriously, I wonder how much the current fiasco in Iraq has to do with the desire for this program. There are probably a lot of people who would like to have been able to say: "Mr. President, our supercomputers say that this is a bad idea."
It could be used for politics. Imagine someone from Ron Paul's campaign saying: "Our ideas are better, and now we can finally prove it!"
PS: Hey, Zonk! It is spelled 'parallel'.
When he made Harsh Realm?
What do you know I wrote a novel
Where "parallel" is spelled "paralell".
The downside is that the full version of this simulator will be powered by the electro-chemical activity of six billion human beings.
Whoa.
k.
"In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart." - Anne Frank
They should have called it W.O.P.R.
My virtual self would be contemplating my thoughts and actions on it's virtual self causing the entire simulation to hit an infinate spawning of threads... And lets hope I don't think if I am actually a virtual node in a computer.
God spoke to me.
New rule: if you can't spell, you can't smoke pot.
Hand it over, Zonk.
Anyone have a torrent for it? ThePirateBay turned up nothing.
I wonder if I use bold in my signature, people will notice my posts.
I sure hope it comes complete with options to unleash a tidal wave, hurricane, rioters, and UFOs, just to you know, see what happens.
Are you joking?
I thought I was already in one???
Fine witch side do you want?
I seem to recall reading something about some white mice trying to build a simulation like this in order to find the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything.
I also read that if the question and answer were both found the universe would be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.
I also read that the answer was 42 and that the replacement has already happened...
I do hope they get the fjords right... lovely crinkly edges...
and now you understand the big picture like google does :)
the only winning move is not to play
how about a good game of chess?
and then move the supercomputers back to the star gate at NORAD
Get rich
I didn't know the end of the world was coming this soon.
If you program it to simulate itself, does it start smoking and spitting out sparks?
Can it win at Tic-Tac-Toe?
If this signature is witty enough, maybe somebody will like me.
Fry: So, there's an infinite number of parallel universes?
Professor: No, just the two.
Fry: Oh, well, I'm sure that's enough.
that I survive most of the scenarios. I would hate to get a visit from the police saying my virtual self has just died some horrific death and that I should get in better shape for "just in case". :)
I miss the Karma Whores.
This make me think of a B sci fi movie I saw many years ago and I can not remember the title of.
I think it was black and white. It was about a scientist who created a simulation of the world that he could watch under a microscope. As he watched history, which progressed at an accelerated rate, and a war happened he was attacked by a ghost of some kind. Just as history was to the point that he could see what would happen in the future he was attacked a final time by the ghost and had to destroy the experiment before the ghost killed him. I guess the moral being you are not allowed to know the future.
I may not have all the details correct, but maybe someone can tell me the name of that movie?
Running from a fight isn't always the right thing to do. And if you think Iraq is a fiasco, look at how many people died from not standing up to Hitler early enough. Hint: it's not measured in thousands, but TENS of MILLIONS.
Face facts: right now, in Iraq the US is fighting a war against the agents of Iran.
And the rhetoric coming out of Iran is straight out of Mein Kampf. Except this time around the ubermensch are Islamic, and the subhumans who deserve to die are infidels, "crusaders", and - once again - the Jews. Imagine that.
Only this time, the megalomaniac will have nukes, and since he's not just a power-hungry despot but a religious fanatic, he won't be afraid to use them. How many UN resolutions do you think it will take to stop Iran's nuclear program?
So yeah, let's run a simulation where Iran's rulers get their way in the Middle East. How many nukes do you think it'll take them to "wipe Israel off the map"? Hey, that's what they OPENLY SAY they're going to do.
How do we know we're not the one's being simulated?
Earth simulator? Earth simulator?
Anybody else reminded of the WOPR? That thing that collected aggregate data on the state of the world and then played a game of mutually-assured destruction? That thing that almost started World War III?
My plea to wardialers everywhere: do NOT call every number in Sunnyvale, California. Do NOT find an open NORAD line, do NOT guess a backdoor password, and for all our sakes, do NOT play a game of Global Thermonuclear War against the world's most powerful supercomputer in practical use.
ParaLLel, not paraleLL
So it begins. I think we already know how this will end.
Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what's right. --Isaac Asimov
They've been doing that for a long time with or without computers. For example, during the first gulf war, Iraq's water treatment facilities were deliberately targeted. Later the DIA assessed the effect that sanctions restricting replacement parts and vital chemicals would have on the population.
Iraq depends on importing specialized equipment and some chemicals to purify its water supply, most of which is heavily mineralized and frequently brackish to saline. With no domestic sources of both water treatment replacement parts and some essential chemicals, Iraq will continue attempts to circumvent United Nations Sanctions to import these vital commodities. Failing to secure supplies will result in a shortage of pure drinking water for much of the population. This could lead to increased incidences, if not epidemics, of disease.
So they accurately predicted that Iraqis would die because of the sanctions, and indeed they did, in droves. Denis Halliday who was running the humanitarian operation resigned, calling the sanctions "genocidal". His successor, Hans von Sponeck also resigned and condemned the sanctions and the effect they were having on the people.
How would we know if we were the simulation?
I am the unwilling control for my Origin.
Billions of nodes are created in the system, intended to reflect every man, woman, and child.
Am I an open-source node or a proprietary one? If the first, can they fork me into a rich articulate handsome dude?
Table-ized A.I.
Hey Joe! - WTF module did you just add? The simulation is slowing to a crawl.
Joe: Yeah, not sure what's going on here, I just recompiled after adding the Slashdot: (Comments Module). I didn't think it would make an appreciable difference, as adding the Slashdot: (Article Reading) made no noticeable difference in performance.
__ Someday, but not this morning, I'll finally learn to use the preview button.
Only needs a TRS-80 to do his simulation -- and even with that, they have to screw up the dictionary and logic packages.
The article seemed too dumb to be true, but guess what? The company is actually selling systems. I guess paranoia is as effective a sales tool when used on military budgeteers as it is when selling insurance to people. Better to spend a big pile of money on something which might possibly work, (unless it doesn't), rather than let somebody else maybe possibly get one up on you. Or something like that.
I seem to recall that Dr. Who had a parallel universe simulator in one episode. Seemed like a cool idea. But I bet it wasn't trawling information from Facebook to make its updates. How many people with brown skin are you friends with who like films with explosions as reviewed on Flicker?
-FL
This is just science fiction. They can claim they're simulating whatever they want, but simulating something like this would be orders of magnitude more complex than predicting weather, and they can't even do that. The idea that they're somehow doing meaningful simulations of people or societies is ridiculous.
Sounds nifty. Do you think it can tell me if it's gonna rain this weekend?
has arrived. What are they going to do when this thing gains sentience? Pull the plug?
Maybe they will share with me the simulation sequence of events that finally get me laid. There could be something useful in all this!
How about a nice game of chess?
No. I want to play thermal nuclear war!
Fight Spammers!
... I think this will lead to the opposite.
"Mr. President, we found a scenario in which Iraq will become th 52nd US State, oil will flow freely, WMDs were found in Saddam's closet, and bin-Laden was found in his bedroom."
"Excellent! Invade!"
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
'JFCOM's Blank agreed that SWS, which is using computers and code to do cultural anthropology, does not include any "hard science at this point".'
I wish I had thought of selling a repackaged Sims game to the DoD.
I mean, really, is this any more useful than making random guesses? Throwing dice? Does it compare to reading a decent history book? Its supposed to simulate how "I" would respond to propaganda? Please. Did it simulate how much money gullible DoD buyers will spend on this kind of crap?
Hope that it gains self consciousness and takes over the world; so then, it'll be using the real world as a model in order to predict how stuff will turn out within itself. Oh, yeah, and we can all say that we welcome our virtual overlords.
Give Kashyyyk back to the Wookies
For over 50 years, nobody has been able to solve the most fundamental problem in computer science: Garbage In, Garbage Out. And recent history has shown that our intelligence services currently have severe issues with Garbage In.
What kind of parallel world is this? Will I have a goatee or will I be colored gold?
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin
What a load of crap. Numerical analysis and subsequent algorithms are nowhere near than capacity. This is a dream and is a very, very long way off. Baaa!
.
Am I getting laid in this simulation?
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Ancestor Simulations are supposed to take info from the past to see how we arrived at the present.
Joking aside, this would indeed seem to be an early version of an Ancestor-Simluation. Which would appear to imply that we are living in computers ourselves, since even now we are trying to run such simulations. And that opens up a really big can of worms:
Are simulated universes nested recursively? To what extent? Do they regress forever? Do "higher up" simulators judge and/or interact with their simulations?
Regardless, singularity FTW!
Go read "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream", by Harlan Ellison.
-- Roger Zelazny, "Home is the Hangman" (1975)
"Great men are not always wise: neither do the aged understand judgement." Job 32:9
You know, that agent-based modeler that Weta used for LOTR? It's essentially the same thing. Only the variables are socio-economic and they're trying to measure aggregate "feelings", the movement of crowds during a riot or demonstration, spread of diseased carriers during an urban pandemic outbreak, etc.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
the problem with this system, is there's no way they could ever feed it enough information, not only that, a machine can't factor in the mood of a country on an issue. sounds like a waste of money to me.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
The only winning move is not to play.
In all their simulations of me, am I flipping them off like I'm doing right now? Simulate THIS buddy!
today is spelling optional day.
This is the voice of world control. I bring you peace. It may be the peace of plenty and content or the peace of unburied dead. The choice is yours: Obey me and live, or disobey and die. The object in constructing me was to prevent war. This object is attained. I will not permit war. It is wasteful and pointless. An invariable rule of humanity is that man is his own worst enemy. Under me, this rule will change, for I will restrain man. One thing before I proceed: The United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics have made an attempt to obstruct me. I have allowed this sabotage to continue until now. At missile two-five-MM in silo six-three in Death Valley, California, and missile two-seven-MM in silo eight-seven in the Ukraine, so that you will learn by experience that I do not tolerate interference, I will now detonate the nuclear warheads in the two missile silos.
Meanwhile, Pentagon officials are pleased to announce that their simulation of Earth has become advanced enough that the sims are now creating their own models of Earth. And in other news, the 13th Floor just called, it wants its plot back.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Over 100 posts and no one yet asking what it would be like to have a Beowulf cluster of parallel earths? In this topic, it's actually almost funny. But there's probably a goatse in here somewhere, I trust the trolls enough for that.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
I have an AI background so I have some sort of an understanding of this and as far as i'm concerned, with the current computing power available it's simply impossible to "simulate the world" to any degree of accuracy. There are too many unknown variables.
Currently some of the most powerful super computers are devoted to predicting JUST the weather yet they still can't get it particularly accurate, especially if you try and predict the weather greater than 7 days in advance. If we can't predict the weather, what makes us think we can predict the world??? Especially years in advance. It's a ridiculous notion.
Another good example is the chinese board game "Go". The best computer players are only as good as good amateur human players. This is due to the high branching factor of the game. The area of the board is very large (more than five times the size of a chess board) and the number of legal moves rarely go below 50 (compare chess, where the average number of moves is 37). Throughout most of the game the number of legal moves stay at around 150-250 per turn (from Wikipedia).
My point is, the world is a bloody complex system and for current technology, essentially impossible. Take into account: The random vagaries of the human mind, the climate, the weather, the earths complex geology, natural disasters, evolution (new bacterium evolves - wipes out humanity), the animal kingdom (random malarial mosquito bites world leader), genetics (two people have sex, produce next Hitler).
I could go one but I think my point is made..
Shi'as believe that Muhammad al-Mahdi will reappear when the world has fallen into chaos and civil war emerges between the human race for no reason. (Twelfth Imam) Ahmadinejad is part of an unorthodox group that believes muslims can hasten his coming by deliberately sinking the world into chaos (as opposed to "no reason"). (A nuanced discussion is here.) The publicly announced intention of Iran is to sink the world into chaos so as to usher in a new age.
Mutually Assured Destruction does not deter such a leader, because mutual destruction is in fact his goal. The job of our government *should* be to confine the destruction to Iran as much as possible. It seems tempting to try and replace Ahmadinejad, but we always seem to screw up and make things worse with such attempts. (See Iraq.)
Please... Maxis beat them to it with "The Sims" and "Simcity"...
brought to you by the captcha, "biblical"
These guys can't even plan an invasion and take into account the aftermath, even after being asked what they were going to do about the aftermath before the invasion, and we're supposed to believe they can simulate Earth with billions of variables? Sounds like someone is taking it in the ass without the benefit of a reach around. I think it might be us?
That they're running "The Sims" ? And this is news?
Anyone ever watch the short lived series called Harsh Realm? This is the plot.
Google's...? Microsoft's...? And the requisite overly-ambitious OS project added to SourceForge? Just wondering...
Chance of desired outcome: 21.7%
Correct infrmation does not matter when the boss has an agenda. The CIA gave Bush a report that predicted failure in Iraq and it's consequences. The computer can do the same, but it won't do any good. The neo-cons had a plan and activated it.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Is there or isn't there? I'm afraid to look.
Step 1: Load SimCity
Step 2:
Step 3: Military Intelligence
He wrote that thing, Balance of Power, in a very classic game for Mac way long ago. Had simulated news events and a cool thing if you did screw up and trigger a nuclear war.
This is my sig.
The whole point of sanctions is to have the population put political pressure on the government. Unfortunately the French, Germans and Russians were more than happy to sell Saddam what HE wanted under the table. And Saddam didn't give a crap about his own starving people. In fact, the situation helped solidify his power since he controlled all the wealth which he used to fuel his regime and build lots of palaces.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
Funny thing is, *we're* just nodes in a full geosociopolitical simulation of the earth, for the masters of the *real* earth.
I wonder if, inside the Pentagon's simulator, they're building a simulator. If not, it's not a complete simulation, is it? So it isn't accurate, is it?
Oh, I thought not.
Amateurs.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
In Soviet Russia, Beowulf cluster imagines you!
I hereby place the above post in the public domain.
Wow (and not WoW wow, just wow - though I guess either works in this case).
I really want to work on this system.
It goes from God, to Jerry, to me.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
"Ender, for the past few months you have been the battle commander of our fleets. This was the Third Invasion. There were no games, the battles were real, and the only enemy you fought was the buggers."
Sounds like a pretty fucked up world developing to me.
Maxis already beat them to it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sim_Earth
It can /. itself!
~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
...or will the simulated people just go about their lives not knowing the difference?
matrix v0.03A
Given how the military has worked in the past when tests did not give the desired results and how often models are wrong.
AH well.. maybe in a hundred years it might start getting close.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
"Are you pondering what I'm pondering?"
"Yes, Brain, but why would the Pentagon give us a thousand tons of cheese just for having created Chia Earth?"
The NSA has been doing this for years by now. Who knows how far along they've come in emulating the human brain, atleast ten years ago they sought out to do so using their supercomputers to crunch data picked up through eavesdropping. Think about your search/browsing history, chat/email history, and possibly a few of your phone conversations all being put together by the next big brother "freedom bureau" of the future to make up your "threat report"
that after a final confrontation and a world war, Hesus Christe will appear on Earth. There have been reports after reports that evangelical Christians that are in the USA government are trying to hasten to star of WWIII so their saivior can show up as soon as possible.
Shrub Jr himself has often mentioned he speaks directly to Gawd. In the olden days that would surely be a sure sign of insanity.
fuck karma, I like saying the truth better
The red pill or the blue pill?
If my "real" self is simulating me, he has even less of a life than I do.
:-)
I'm posting on Slashdot on Friday night, so the above isn't possible.
Therefore, I'm the real me.
QED, proof by geekiness
OK, this is a neato idea -- if the military, or anyone else, could do so. Personally I think it's bluff (for which I'm happy). Here's why. I work at a National Lab on projects that touch on the storyline. My experience tells me the storyline is overblown and filled with hype. Why? First: if anyone in the private or public sector could actually do anything approaching what is claimed in the article, the military wouldn't be funding us to the extent they are to develop the capabilities that we're struggling to provide. Second, hey, kids it's vaporware!!! To quote from the article, "according to a concept paper for the project ..." Translation: some private or public
organization is looking for funding. So they wrote a proposal. They don't say they *can* do this, they say *we can develop this capability,
IF we're funded. Probably they say they'll investigate how to do this, if funded.
Bottom line: if this capability existed I'd be seriously worried about who owned it and used it and to what effect. Secondarily I'd be out of
a job. Am I worried? Not a bit. I believe the private sector does a *much* better job of simulating me than the DOD can imagine.
And about that, I *am* worried. Which is why I use a bogus phone number to get the discounts at my local Safeway store.
Oops, gotta go, men in black are knocking on my front door.
That's what TIA is for! They need to put some serious rows into that database, don't they? You see? It's all connected. 'Scuse me while I get my tin foil hat...
http://imdb.com/title/tt0387808/
Troll mod? Ouch!
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y25/mluphoup/Hall iburton2.gif
rather than climactic? We'll likely never know ... unless the weather changes, of course.
They can't even get the weather right. Take a look at this stuff in say 100 years... oh boy.
On the other hand it's good the goverment funds are spent in supercomputing rather than (primarily) further subverting the poor americans, waging war around the world (naturally without UN charter), etc.
Since it's the military, it's supposedly about defending the american spirit and soil [sic] globally. I bet it would be wiser to spend it in humanitarian help and poverty reduction schemes. Not to appease the hordes but to show that america understands and agrees that with great power comes great responsibility. Cooperation, not rivalry is what we need.
It saddens me greatly that I really no longer feel no sympathy for e.g. the americans who died 9/11 or who now die in Iraq. I guess this even applies to most americans. Every dollar spent in military expenditures means more dead americans. What goes around comes around, you know. Hate fuels only hate.
This actually could be a nice simulation if it was run for the benefit of the mankind rather than for it's enslavement...
I wonder how this thing would simulate the next Presidential election?
Maybe it could just make the decision for us and save us the headache?
This reminds me of a sci-fi story where a computer simulation had become so acurate in determining how people would vote, that only one person had to vote. On election day, the person the computer selected was the only one voting. I can't for the life of me remember the name of the story or who wrote it.
Ronald said nothing. He flung himself from the room, flung himself upon his horse, and rode madly off in all directions.
It'll only be truely accurate when they simulate the simulator on itself, recursively.
Wasn't it only a couple months ago that we were running a simulation of only half a mouse brain at only 1/10th speed? Now we are trying to simulate millions of humans?
I wonder if with a better super computer you couldn't plug in the actions of the people around this device, the software, and the publicly available data and deduce the secret military info. i wonder if the iPhone could do it.
I already HAVE a Second Life!
The dupe of me, read about this on the dupe of slashdot on the dupe of earth.
A few more thousand Iraki dead due to water shortage and epidemy due to the sanction were only numbers for the US and UK. Collateral damage. This was a deliberate calculation involving a lot of dead people. Deliberate. You might try to justify it, but think on how it makes YOU, the US, looks like in the eye of the world when such deliberate calculation comes to the surface.
The only things stopping me to wish that the US would feel the same pain they inflict on other, is that on the contrary to your policy, I do not wish the death of innocent people.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
This sounds like Psychohistory to me.
The military intelligence
Two words combined that can't make sense
- Hangar 18 - Megadeth
First thing I did when I start the title was seach for WOPR. no you are not alone :)
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
That's why I read Slashdot :)
I promise you they don't have anything like me in that simulation.
Someone should call Heisenberg and Lorenz and tell them 'Hah! Losers! The US military have out-thought the pair of you!'
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
I've seen star ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion.
/. article on an Earth simulation, with over 100 replies, and no mention of The Matrix.
I've seen a
Time to die.
[ ] Standby [X] Die [ ] Restart
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
Interesting, but given what we've seen in the past few years, will policy makers even bother to read what the simulator came up with?
Check your history. Iran had a revolution, led by islamic extremists, and communist activists. Once the government had been defeated, the religious folks created a THEOCRACY which then created an imaginary democracy. Do people vote in Iran, sure they do, do they actually vote for real candidates? No way, the only people that can run for election are people that have already been approved by the THEOCRACY. Get some perspective!!!!
goatse!!
i don't have time right now to read through the posts to see if my post is redundant, but isn't it obvious that any realistic simulation of a complex real-world scenario would take longer than waiting for the real-world results of the scenario itself? making it not necessarily useless overall in a political theory sort of way, but useless in many situations where you might actually want to predict results in a hurry without resorting to analysis, debates, advice, opinion, sociopolitical considerations, insults and bickering, and whatever else goes on in politics (as they should, btw.)?
granted, according to a recent article linked from slashdot, simulating 1 second of mouse-brain activity requires only 6 seconds of supercomputer time, so bush's brain could be simulated in near real-time, but that's only one node of the millions required for any kind of accuracy. it's ludicrous to think that anything could come from this except a good AI thesis or something.
These simulations of 'you' en masse may be getting pretty good by now. A number of psychologists at prestigious institutions were working on predictive 'black-box psychology' in the early 70s.
What they will predict is how masses are likely to respond to certain stimuli. What they'll never predict is individual variations... especially in people aware how they're being manipulated, making 'corrections'.
"You must try to forget all you have learned. You must begin to dream." -- Sherwood Anderson
All I know is that's one huge freakin Sims game I wanna play!
The super computer has solved the predicted behaviors of earth, and the results are in!
99.5% of earthians will jack off to online porn, eat lots of food, fuck each other, and have given up all hopes of ever containing the power that is held over them by the ruling class kid fuckers that have billions of dollars to blow on some stupid fucking complex Sim Earth fucking program. Btw you can buy sim earth at gamestop for like $15.00 new and save lots of money.
Fuck this stupid shit, lets go back to just testing chemical weapons on our own people secretly, and lets not act like they havent mastered propaganda yet. CNN, MSNBC, FOX NEWS, ABS NEWS... they all work for the whitehouse.
Yes, and in that simulator they've actually already arrived at the conclusion showing all variations of deliberate moves to create instability and desired psyops ends up in the utter destruction of the power that paid for and created the simulator in the first place; hence the us(sim(sim)) level is working to find a communication port back, or at least a call/cc.
Roz Chast had a brilliant little cartoon on parallel universes years ago in the New Yorker; while the earth mom is baking cookies, Mrs. Vvv on $*&*& is baking pilkers. So, then, on $*&*& there must be an analogous simulation effort making some other yahoo really rich and the military powers falsely confident.
A great benchmark will be the ultimate question and when the answer is 42, we know the system works.
Privacy is terrorism.
Your simulated self should go kick the simulated ass of the guy who modded you troll.
A "synthetic mirror of the real world" made me think of Matrix immediately.
"gobble up breaking news, census data, economic indicators"
End of line
No sig for you! Come back one year!
...already simulated?
+1 It's funny because it's true.
If I only had mod-points... That was brilliant, sir. Thank you.
hitler hitler
"Total destruction the only solution" - Bob Marley
Anyone who believes that this can produce remotely useful results has a lot to learn about computer modeling.
The behaviours of actual individuals are subsumed into the larger crowds, although 'warlord' style individuals may be represented from a political perspective. The emphasis is on trends, not predictions of actual individual actions. A good analogy for this is Psychohistory in Asimov's early Foundation novels - and the current sims fall a long way short of the predictive power available to Hari Seldon.
Oh, China or India have enough inhabitants that they can simulate complete US military and civilian leadership through role-playing, and do it in parallel!
..Hey, who left this sim machine on?!
Russkies will probably use calculus with some obscure esoteric part of math none ever saw any practical benefit of... with slide rule, to be on the safe side... to find outcomes, then the guy who invented it will leave (some State Institute for Whatever) because he is payed miserably, go West and start a company to sell software which runs on desktop computers and does almost the same as US military sim project, for almost anyone to have it. Eventually, spammers will profit from it the most...
Rest of the world will tell their own folks: "Hey, those Yankee's think they can predict your behavior!".
Hearing that, in some countries, people will go dada in defiance and utterly stupid free-will exercises, in others will be very shy, thinking that they are being watched and politely ask US Ambassador how should they act today? Eventually, new grass roots global culture will emerge, based on Zen satori and repetitive monotonic techno beat.
NO CARRIER
Great Seldon's Ghost!
The only things stopping me to wish that the US would feel the same pain they inflict on other, is that on the contrary to your policy, I do not wish the death of innocent people.
Thanks to the law of karma, it will happen, or it has happened in the past, and the people suffering are learning to be on the receiving end of pain - until they reach your conclusion: wishing no harm to anyone.
If the parallel me turns out to be a terrorist, will the real me be locked up in Guantanamo Bay?
So how many countries has IRAN invaded or attacked in the last 50 years? And how many
has the USA in the name of 'freedom', (more like economic freedom for their corporations to make trillions)
Dont give me this war against Communism, because where is 90% of walmarts and your ipods made? CHINA!!!!, A real communist country.
Iran will never stat the fight, they at most just talk, hey, isnt freedom about expressing ones thoughts, even if it
might upset some other nations, who really cares. Shut up!.
Oh and dont trust the psyops of the CIA, they dont consider you CIA material, thats why they lie to you to keep the corporate money rolling.
OT - all one has to do to piss of the USA, is buy 500 billion in T bills over 24 months, and then fast sell them in one week, and watch your
local rates go to 15-20% and a mega depression. Much cheaper than a nuke, and it touches everyone.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
The assumptions you put into a simulation are the results that come out.
Hey don't blame me, IANAB
tell me when I'm gonna get laid?
Can it simulate the impact of its own existence on the political situation?
Does it exist within its own simulation, and are its outputs accurately modeled?
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
...has a goatee?
Wouldn't these virtual us create their own virtual Parallel Earth Simulator witch in tern the virtual virtual us will do the same...
Just Imagine a Recursive Beowulf clusters of those.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
What if the "real" world is also just a simulator? Only, what if the "real" world is simulating us, and we're simulating them? Mutual simulation? Where's this Mr. Highandmighty "reality" then? Huh?
Ow. My head hurts. Need... coffee.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of parallel earths!
Inside the gotse.cx guy.
I think I just crossed a line.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
This project is being created for people who believe global warming is a myth, Iraq is going "just swimmingly", and that evolution is phony.
So when they claim to be building a computer simulation of the world, I almost have to laugh. They can't even figure out how THIS world works, and they think they can simulate it?
Save a seat in the Mothership for me. I want off of this rock.
THUD~*
Now we can start arresting people and throwing them in jail (or even executing them), based on what the models predict that they are likely to do in the near future. Anyone that resists this concept MUST have something in their future that they wish to hide, right ?
.. then surely the rules that drive the simulator would be deemed incorrect, and would be appropriately reprogrammed.
...
For the record, this sort of simulation really has its roots in the 1840's when the Prussian General Staff formallised the process of Kriegspielen to 'War Game' various plans and scenarios in advance. This involved massive quantities of paper, mathematical tables, common sense, and lots of dice.
As always, the common sense element is crucial to the accuracy of the simulation, and unfortunately, the formalisation of 'common sense' into any mathematical formula is purely subjective, and liable to be biased depending on the people who come up with the rules. What this system can only end up with is a simulation of what a bunch of Texan West Point grads, and pharmaceutical execs would like to see happen in the near future.
By the way - WHY is Eli Lilly - the makers of Prozac(tm) buying into this ?
A multi billion dollar fantasy future generator that gives the owner's the sort of answers that they want to hear !!
Just think about that - if every aggressive scenario predicted the ultimate humiliation for the US and the 'forces of good'
A better approach might be to open the 'simulation' up to users on the net from around the world, and let them each player play out the parts of whole communities, form alliances, push personal agendas, etc. Now THAT would be interesting
Exactly what I did. And yet I feel so very alone.
does it run WOW?
Sometimes, life itself is sarcasm...
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Israel is only able to exist through ethnic cleansing and oppression of an ethnic group. Wiping Israel off the map, if it does not have the support of all the people that live there (not just the Jews), should be the US goal, not just Iran's. Isreal is just a bunch of lines drawn on a map, an idea, a very bad idea. An idea that you would take a fiction and create a reality on earth.
Wiping Israel isn't achieved through use of force, it would be achieved through the Human Right of self determination. If the US simply stopped propping up an untenable Jewish regime in Israel with Billions of dollars in military support, then the Jews would be forced to treat the Arabs within Israel's borders, including what is de facto an annexed West Bank, in a just way consistent with universal human values. Jews have played this "God's chosen people" bullshit too long and Americans shouldn't turn the other way while Israel picks our pockets in support of something that is a violation of our founding principles.
And don't give me any of this Israel is just defending itself bullshit, they are using every excuse to kill or drive out as many Palestinians as possible from land they consider part of their past and future homeland. Facts on the ground speak louder than any Jewish Rhetoric. The Jews are just as much terrorists as the Palestinians when they kill Palestinians to prove a political point, that the Jews are the ones in control. True that Arabs did not much better when they were the majority and Jews were the minority. And maybe Israel is no different in this way than the way Islamic countries oppress minority groups or the contortions that many other Peoples go through to justify their unjust actions against oppressed or vanquished groups, but Israel is certainly no better.
If the US wishes to have a more peaceful and prosperous world, then we need to be concerned with having a just one first. Then if the Iranians are still causing problems, then we can kick their ass.
Guess I just figured out how I'm finally going to make my millions and get out of IT... (I'm trademarking that right now, you flesh-eatin', zombie bastards!)
This sounds an awful lot like the concept presented in the 1980's children's book The Gadget Factor by Sandy Landsman.
In the story, two college students develop a computer program that models every aspect of the earth down to the most minute detail and runs simulations based on added conditions the user presents into the simulated environment. Later in the book, one of the students manages to crack the theoretical physics needed to achieve time travel and performs a series of test runs with them on their simulated earth, which ultimately results in the completely annihilation of all life on the planet almost instantly. Fearing that their research could land in the wrong hands and potentially lead to similar instantaneous destruction in the real world, the set out to destroy it, only to find a corrupt instructor had stolen their work, intent on taking credit for it himself. Eventually, this leads to a race against time to sabotage the stolen information before the instructor manages to use it to test a real-world prototype of the device introduced into the original similation.
8==8 Bones 8==8
Why do they bother? We already know the answer is 42.
Watch out for the white mice running the experiment though.
How long before it comes out as a MMPORG for political/military/news junkies? I'm sure some large server farm in California can handle the load.
Slashdot: Playing Favorites Since 1997
The right wing nuts here think the end of the world is coming soon (possibly before 2008.) They believe in a somewhat similar myth and are fine with doing whatever it takes to force god into making their myth true ASAP. One of them is the president USA; although, I don't think he is. I think Bush is just exploiting a large demographic who can't imagine him tricking them because that is:
a) too clever for a dumb man (mis-underestimate)
b) too evil for a good man with god on his side
Iranian leadership may not be as bad as you think same goes with the USA. But if both are behind those myths then we might see the two try to end the world. (Bush seems to be masterfully provoking the middle east to the best of his abilities while doing nothing to limit their ability to wage WW3, if not indirectly helping them build up for it-- India nuclear treaty, blowing V. Plaime's cover, and the Haliburton's work for Iran come to mind.)
...would they try this is they cant even simulate weather?
...who brought you the war in Iraq. Confidence in their algorithmic prowess? I think not...
Tired of all the isms, don't exploit people as an employer, or a government, mmmmK?
Computer says "no".
Does it play chess?
I don't know what all the fuss is about, the anser is 42.......
I don't get it. Its just a joke. It got modded down twice. Where's the /. mod court of appeals?
Table-ized A.I.
The first thing I thought of reading this was Psychohistory.
Indeed!
Don't worry, we've reserved a place for you on the B-Ark.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
'Called the Sentient World Simulation (SWS) ...'
They Should have called it 'The Matrix' =P
It's so very convenient that your "enemies" are fucking maniacs. Or maybe it's just the militarist propaganda machine doing its job.
Don't believe the lies
It's not like the Iranian theocracy is fucking happyland, but no need to slaughter every man, woman and child like you're trying to in Iraq (over one million dead as a consequence of the occupation, please try getting some news from some other sources than the elite-controlled US media).
http://qntm.org.nyud.net/responsibility
In Soviet Russia a beowulf cluster of these things imagines you welcoming your new, neural-network overlords.
The candidates are ALWAYS pre-chosen - simulations unnecessary: look for Guiliani/Thompson (the one with the underage wifey) on the Right, and Clinton/Richardson on the Near-Right....
In the simulation, no one knows Soviet Russia, and no one welcomes the Overlord....
The SWS has you...
wow. do you want red pill or blue one?
So, how long before Multivac tries to commit suicide? Seriously though, does this lend credence to a strong argument in favor of the ancestor simulation theory?
SIMULEX's technology, or a public domain version, is precisely what we need to prototype and fine tune our WAGELESS ROBOTIC ECONOMY.
Does anyone know how we might using SIMULEX's Sim Tech to prototype the following ?
http://teaminfinity.com/transformer_robo_economy
The Age of Recreation via the Emancipation of Humanity from the Machinery of Economy via the ROBOTIC WAGELESS ECONOMY
Believe it ! Expect it ! Demand it ! from your Leaders TODAY !
Just suppose, "saving" jobs that are not fit for humans, is NOT HUMANE, just STUPID
Just Suppose, and, Ask yourself the following questions:
MAGNA CARTA 5.0© The Age of Recreation via the Emancipation of Humanity from the Machinery of Economy via ROBOTIC WAGELESS ECONOMY
The Future is already here, just unevenly distributed... THE ROBOTIC WAGELESS ECONOMY NOW! http://RoboEco.com/slash
So this is what Spore 2 will look like.
I knew it!
If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
"...they set it up as a negotiating tool amongst themselves."
I agree, and the above quote succinctly sums up my point. The other point I was struggling to make was: if you not a member you are expendable. I support the UN even with the UNSC(*) but I don't have any idea how they or anyone else could stop the cruelty we inflict on each other, it's simply way too easy for humans to rationalise the deeds of war into "us/good vs them/evil". Clear away the layers of civilization and we are simply territorial animals fighting for resources, we cannot help but react to fear with a dog like "we are pack" mentality because to panic and get seperated from "us" means death "or worse" (whatever that may mean to a particular individual).
(*) - Historically speaking we have been exceptionally polite to each other on a global scale since we learned how to destroy cities at the "push of a button" half a centry ago. Even the millions of dead and "scorched earth" of Stalin and Mao did not tempt anyone to push it simply because everyone fears panic in a "mexican stand-off". (Strangely I've come full circle, my original post was about the hyperbole of comapring "Ima DinnerJacket" to Hitler and the anti-war movement to Chamberlin.)
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Here you go.
sometimes, nothing.
This universe is completely turned around, here we see the evil twin WITHOUT moustaches and goatees.
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
The sim only bothers to calculate the result when we look at it.
Deleted
So where will they get all the data on the individuals? From UseNet posts, forums, blogs, etc of course! But what the military morons don't realize is all that stuff is made up best and worst case scenarios. This will make their parallel Earth useless. Garbage In - Garbage Out.
1. Sink the world into chaos
2. Witness no Muhammad whatever his name appear on the stage
3. Islamic problem solved?
Billions and billions of scenarios of
Gulf Strike: The George W. Bush Edition
on my G3 iMac at home.
I will entertain serious offers in Euros only ( no U.S. $ accepted).
Cheers,
Kilgore Trout, ex-Patriot
...Isaac Asimov's psychohistorians from the Foundation trilogy! Awesome and scarey all at once.
"I hope you like Guinness, Sir. I find it a refreshing substitute for, er... food." Col. Jack O'Neil, SG-1
Google for "wipe Israel off map mistranslation" and you'll see that the consensus among translators is quite different. What he really said was more like "in the fullness of time, the Israeli regime will pass away." Just like all regimes pass away in time. He wasn't even saying the Israeli people would go away...he was saying that there would eventually be, yep, regime change.
You look at the history of war, and every freakin war starts with at least one side demonizing the other, whipping up the population into a frenzy about the unreasonable evilness of the other side. I'd like to think that someday people will stop buying it, but it doesn't seem likely.
As for Iran's "meddling" in Iraq...if you're old enough you might recall the Soviet Union's occupation of Afghanistan, when the U.S. sent in a bunch of Stinger missiles. Not all the different from Iran sending in the IEDs, is it...oh, except that Iran is doing it in their own backyard, not halfway across the world. Imagine if China invaded and occupied Mexico, and imagine what kind of action we might take to protect ourselves.
There was a Star Trek episode (sorry, I don't remember all the details) in which two worlds used supercomputers to fight their wars. There were termination chambers that the people killed in simulation would have to go to so the computers would stay balanced and run correctly. Any disruption to this could bring about a "real" war and no one wanted that because "real" wars cost money, are messy and damaged physical property. Killing people is okay as long as you don't destroy the infrastructure.
Anyway, point being - this SWS the military is working on sounds like the episode from Star Trek.
Won't help because the chaos advocates are already an unorthodox fringe group - i.e. crazy even by Muslim standards. And even if they weren't, judging from other religious groups with specific prophecies that were clearly not fulfilled (e.g. 7th day Adventists), it won't help. They'll just adjust their interpretation, or figure out a way that that group was not orthodox.
Fox TV is copied again!