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."

Comments

The political options

[Harmonious Botch]

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'.

Re:The political options

[PDXNerd]

For the US military, it will more than likely be used to simulate the economic and political fallout of potential US movement, be it military, political, or financial. What does the world do if the US invades Iran? Engages militants in Africa? "Acquires" even more of the world's precious resources? Which nations will be the loudest enemies? Which will be our friends?
 
Do you want to play thermonuclear war, etc?

It's not so much the "prove we are better" aspect, but "how can we stay on top when we decide to throw a little chaos in the mix?". The big dog needs to stay the big dog. Real time intelligence is one thing, but now they have "response forecasting".

Re:The political options

[wellingj]

People have well known objectives, such as chasing the American dream.
You forget that people gave up on chasing what they wanted in the 90's.
Now everyone thinks they are entitled to the American dream, without working for it.

Re:The political options

[zippthorne]

Well, where are the protests? I mean, aside from the Iranians setting up roadside bombs, where are the people with signs, marching through the streets? Iraq has a population larger than California, but they can't muster a single crowd of dirty hippie-alikes?

Maybe the problem isn't that the Iraqis fear we will stay, but when we will leave. Perhaps the reason we're not training the Iraqi security force quickly enough (remember, the benchmark for starting the withdrawal?) is that the people who would join are afraid we will pull out before completion leaving them and their families high and dry for retaliation. Where would this fear be coming from, I wonder?

Predicted Effect of Iraq Sanctions

[MrSteveSD]

Putting supercomputers to an innovative use, the military is simulating our planet in an effort to predict the outcome of different scenarios.

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.

Parallllllllel.

[Fantastic Lad]

Just for the record, I spelled it correctly when I submitted this nugget of weirdness. I also used the sentence, "Ever wonder what sort of company gets green lit to grab a share of the free flowing gobs of taxpayer Warbux?" but my brand of editorializing is a tad left of left.

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

Home is the Hangman

[Samrobb]

Don operates the second-largest detective agency in the world, and he sometimes finds me useful because I do not exist. I do not exist now because I existed once at the time and the place where we attempted to begin scoring the wild ditty of our times. I refer to the World Central Data bank project and the fact that I had a significant part in that effort to construct a working model of the real world, accounting for everyone and everything in it. How well we succeeded, and whether possession of the world's likeness does indeed provide its custodians with a greater measure of control over its functions, are questions my former colleagues still debate as the music grows more shrill and you can't see the maps for the pins. I made my decision back then and saw to it I did not receive citizenship in that second world, a place that may now have become more important than the first.

-- Roger Zelazny, "Home is the Hangman" (1975)

Re:So Chris Carter was right?

[jollyreaper]

When he made Harsh Realm [imdb.com]? The premise of that show doesn't even make any sense. This guy has to enter a simulation to kill a rogue general who went all Col. Kurtz in it? Well shit, isn't that guy's body sitting in a pod a few rows down? The only possible way where that sort of plot-line could work is if the world is complex enough that massive changes cannot be "hacked" into it but have to be finessed and cajoled. That would be more along the lines of Hitchiker's Guide where the grand experiment cannot be simply rebooted but has to be run out to the end and then you need the cooperation of a sentient mind within the simulation to get the final answer.

This also hits upon a weakness in the scenario presented in the original Matrix (the sequels are dead to me). If the machines control the world, how can the rebels even exist? Forget about the logic that Agents should have reaperbot aims, they should be able to materialize 15 ton weights and anvils to drop on runners. So, why aren't they?

The retcon I came up with makes a lot of sense. The machines are like the Japanese of the 80's, not being very good at inventing technology but very, very good at improving it. From this perspective, they never invented the matrix technology, it was probably a military application that got spun off by some start-ups to create live-in MMORPG's. Whatever the reason, the technology existed. The loading construct, the world simulation, all of this is built on top of existing code. I've not done a lot of programming but I've seen scary projects where people have no idea what parts of the code do, they just know it breaks if you touch it. It's left alone like the forest where the bogeyman lives.

So, how did the war go? Machines fight man, man blackens the sky, mass human die-off, machines struggle to come up with a way to survive. Machines would of course have fusion power so humans are not batteries. Human brains turn out to make great parallel processors, cheaper than trying to do it in silicon. Why do they humans have whole bodies instead of just brains in jars? Because that's what the original technology was designed for and the machines were not able to figure out a way around it. So how are humans able to hack into the system? Because there are holes that even the machines can't figure out how to patch. If Windows is the most complex software project ever, just imagine what code will be like that far in the future. Why are the Agents not able to hit the humans every time they shoot? Jammer software prevents the agents from getting a good fix on where a fast-moving runner is, there's enough imprecision in what they know of as the xyz coordinates that they can miss unless they're close. Why can't the agents make anvils fall out of the sky? Because of anti-cheating code leftover from the original design. The deja vu-causing hacks are time-intensive enough to pull off and can still bug the system, thus they are of limited use. Why is the timeline set in the late 20th century? Why not the 19th century? Why not the 17th or ancient Rome? Maybe that's what the best codebase they had was designed to simulate. The movie never answered whether the entire world was simulated from pole to pole or whether it was just the city they were in. The movie never stated how the timeline was manipulated, just how far the machines ran through the world before resetting the timeline. Did they run through a five year interval and just do a memory reset for everyone in the Matrix? Did they run multiple world instances? None of these questions were answered and they probably would have bogged down the movie if they were.

Anyway, I'm still laughing at the idea of Harsh Realm, the guy's supposed to spend a season or two hunting down a guy who should be sitting in the VR pod next to him. Reset the damn sim!

Re:What if Neville Chamberlain had a backbone?

[Actually, I do RTFA]

How many UN resolutions do you think it will take to stop Iran's nuclear program?

Well we now know the US needs more than 18 UN resolutions and 3 Congressional authorizations in order to go to war. That's what Bush had for Iraq and he sure won't touch Darfur or Iran with one jot less than that.

Good. Not because I think it's a bad idea to go into Darfur (or Iran for that matter), but because the Iraq war featured the most inept political leadership in US history. If a war is waged in my name, do it right. Overwhelming force from day one. Shoot the looters to maintain order. Write their constitution for them, and make sure it includes provisions to change it to what they want after we leave.

In general, I have no problems with US military action. Demand tribute for freedom of the seas? Fuck you Tripoli. Blow up our ship, or cut off our Captain's ear? Fuck you Spain. Have land that would make it convinent to have a redundant intercontinental rail-line? Fuck you Mexico.

That said, please don't make me look stupid for agreeing with you on Iraq. Neither the UN nor any Congressional acts supported us going in, certainly not with the facts the way they were. Hell, Congress even said "If the President tells us the CIA/NSA/FBI/Tweety Bird told him that X is true, he has our permission to invade." And Bush wrote back "The US Congress said in a bill '... X is true'. Therefore I have permission to invade."

The brinksmanship had worked. The inspectors were happy with their cooperation, and Saddam sent us a 1000+ page document detailing forbidden weapons he had. I don't remember Bush Sr. bombing Moscow once they folded.

Re:What if Neville Chamberlain had a backbone?

[gilroy]

Blockquoth the poster:

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.

Actually... there is an emerging consensus among historians that Neville Chamberlain quite possibly has gotten a raw deal. Despite the video-friendly meme of returning from Munich waving the paper and saying "Peace in our time", Chamberlain had a pretty good grasp of the diplomatic and military situation. In 1938, the British rearmament had barely begun, the British people were not ready to endure a war, and -- most importantly -- the Chain Home system of radar stations had not yet been deployed. The balance of power was stacked heavily in favor of Germany but it was also clear that, with the Allies finally starting to wake up (and their economies starting to stir), that balance would increasingly tilt toward them. Chamberlain knew that. Hell, even Hitler knew that -- it's why he was pushing so hard for (limited) war in 1938 and why he flew into a rage when Chamberlain "tricked" him into a peace conference.

So maybe the lesson from history actually is, sometimes, it's a good idea to wait out the situation. Sometimes, time really is on your side... no matter how it looks at the moment.

Of course, the other lesson of history is, you're gonna get roasted for "appeasement".

Re:Personally...

[non]

this was precisely the case in Douglas Adam's Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, where WayForward's first successful software product was software that would allow you posit an outcome and then describe how you would get there. Richard MacDuff can actually tell which version of the software is in use by various agencies by which bugs are exposed via their logic. Mr Adams' particularly surreal type of science fiction is the last thing i would have expected to come true.

Re:Personally...

[LouisZepher]

Then you must've missed the "psychic elevators" story about a year ago, a poorly-worded article title mentioned "Quantum computer runs faster when off" (being thought of as a Deep Thought reference, thought TFA explains that it meant "quantum off" referring to the atoms. Hell, I've often described Wikipedia to people that haven't used it as: "Wikipedia has supplanted the ordinary encyclopedia as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom, thought it contains many omissions and much that is apocryphal (or at least wildly inaccurate)." There's a bunch of stuff out there *now* that fits Hitchhiker"