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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.
Fine witch side do you want?
I do hope they get the fjords right... lovely crinkly edges...
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
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.
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?
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.
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
Sounds nifty. Do you think it can tell me if it's gonna rain this weekend?
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.
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.
Actually, I think it was an Outer Limits episode (the old series). Could be "Wolf 359", but it's been ages since I've seen the series, and I'm only going by the plot synopsis on Wikipedia.
Frank
-- Roger Zelazny, "Home is the Hangman" (1975)
"Great men are not always wise: neither do the aged understand judgement." Job 32:9
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.)
That they're running "The Sims" ? And this is news?
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.
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.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Or an Etch-A-Sketch with one knob missing.
It goes from God, to Jerry, to me.
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
Any sanctions that deliberately restrict vitals such as fresh water are criminal in the extreme. Inflicting death upon the population in the hope of achieving political change is commonly called terrorism. Here's what Madelaine Albright had to say on the issue.
CBS Reporter Lesley Stahl (speaking of post-war sanctions against Iraq):
"We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And - and you know, is the price worth it?"
Madeleine Albright (at that time, US Ambassador to the UN):
"I think this is a very hard choice, but the price - we think the price is worth it."
An unbelievable statement to make. If only they had direct and clear evidence like that against Milosevic, his trial would have been over in a week. Of course this kind of terrorism/collective punishment goes on all the time, although not on the genocidal scale of the Iraq sanctions. A similar practice has been going on recently with suspension of aid to the Palestinians (and also taxes owed to them). We're not talking about preventing them from buying widescreen TVs and DVD Players, this is essential aid like food and water. They know full well that withholding hundreds of millions of dollars (and more recently restricting aid vehicles entering Gaza) will hurt the population severely.
Unfortunately the French, Germans and Russians were more than happy to sell Saddam what HE wanted under the table.
Considering the terrible suffering of the Iraqi people, I'm very glad people were bypassing the sanctions, even if their motives were greed. Maybe someone even managed to sell some vital water-treatment supplies and save a few people. Just picture the whole thing from the point of view of an ordinary Iraqi. For years the US, UK et al, is supporting the dictator who is oppressing you and killing your friends and family. They even encourage and support his war on Iran which is killing so many of the people you know. Then they decide they don't like him anymore and impose sanctions which result in the deaths of some 500,000 children, possibly including some of your own. I can't imagine the rage that so many Iraqis must feel towards the west.
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.
The assumptions you put into a simulation are the results that come out.
Hey don't blame me, IANAB