Asimov's Psychohistory Becoming a Reality?

northernboy writes "Today's LA Times has an article describing how a Wikileaks data dump from Afghanistan plus some advanced algorithms are allowing accurate predictions about the behavior of large groups of people. From the article: 'The programmers used simple code to extract dates and locations from about 77,000 incident reports that detailed everything from simple stop-and-search operations to full-fledged battles. The resulting map revealed the outlines of the country's ongoing violence: hot spots near the Pakistani border but not near the Iranian border, and extensive bloodshed along the country's main highway. They did it all in just one night. Now one member of that group has teamed up with mathematicians and computer scientists and taken the project one major step further: They have used the WikiLeaks data to predict the future.' Considering they did not discriminate between types of skirmish, but only when and where there was violence, this seems like an amazing result. It looks like our robotic overlords will have even less trouble controlling us than I previously thought."

Comments

That is no prediction

[siddesu]

In the absence of change in circumstances, it is quite obvious that areas of conflict will have more conflict. TFA doesn't say enough about the methodology for one to be able to estimate how valuable it is.

On the other hand, yet another good thing about the Wikileak emerges. Were those data hidden by the secrecy wall, this research would not have been available to the NATO forces over there. Is secrecy really productive? Was the leak good or bad? Are the costly measures to make future leaks less likely a good investment?

Re:That is no prediction

[drinkypoo]

On one hand, I know a person (personally) who knows another person (personally) who was named in the leak who was currently deployed over there. On the other hand, who can say that their identity wasn't already known? On the gripping hand, what the fuck are we actually doing over there anyway?

Re:That is no prediction

[slew]

[W]e weren't broke during WWII and the Civil War was not about slavery.

Actually we were pretty broke during WWII. Remember WWII was right after the great depression and many think it was the event that allowed us to pull out of the depression. The US treasury debt was ~$40B in 1941, and $250B in 1946 when the war ended. The US financed WWII with lots of warbonds...

FWIW, I don't think any historians would agree that we fought WWII to protect the rights of any people (other than US self interest). The US entered WWII to stop Japan from gaining too much influence in the Pacific (of course we were at the same time giving lots of money to England in their fight against Germany, but that wasn't really to protect their rights either). History records that it all came to head when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. The fact that Germany wanted to pick a direct fight with the US pretty much gave us no choice but to go over to Europe for real too...

And of course the Civil war wasn't about slavery, but states rights. Is it okay to secede from the union when you don't get your way? Apparently, no say the winners.

Re:That is no prediction

[Black Parrot]

For those who say it isn't our business to protect the rights of others, that line of thinking was invalidated by WWII and previously in the Civil war.

So what's our policy for deciding which people's rights get protected?

Roll the dice, and if their country is important to our strategic economic interests we intervene, otherwise we don't?

And whose right were we protecting on those occasions that we knocked off or destabilized democratically elected governments to put some thuggish warlord into power?

Re:That is no prediction

[jbburks]

The US only entered the war after Japan attacked the US without warning one fine Sunday morning, firing the first shot of the Pacific War. Japan could have surrendered at any point and saved themselves from the atomic bombing. Instead, they were arming women and children with sharpened stakes. The nuclear bombing saved more lives, both US and Japanese than it took.

Re:That is no prediction

[cavreader]

Slavery was the most sensationalist and persuasive argument for the Civil War. It made good press coverage and personalized the argument on whether to engage in the war. Slaves did exist and slavery needed to be abolished but the Civil War was a fight against Balkanization. Instead of 50 states we could have ended up going down the path of creating 50 different countries and boy wouldn't that be fun.

Re:That is no prediction

[drinkypoo]

while the North made their money on the backs of poor lower-class workers who were exploited just as bad

Yeah, all those whippin's and amputations and such that the poor lower-class workers got... er, wait.

Re:That is no prediction

[artor3]

And whose right were we protecting on those occasions that we knocked off or destabilized democratically elected governments to put some thuggish warlord into power?

The fact that people who happened to be born in the same 3.5 million square mile area as us did bad things decades ago does not mean that we should never do anything ever again.

I'm against most wars for purely practical reasons: they're expensive, rarely work, and they kill lots of people. But intervening in other countries to stop atrocities can be a good thing, when done right. Suggesting we should never do so simply because we don't have a good way of deciding where to intervene is foolish. To use the requisite car analogy: I can't come up with a definitive method to make sure I always buy the right car, but that doesn't mean I should never buy a car, just that I should try my best to get it right.

Re:That is no prediction

[Black Parrot]

The American Civil Was was about *more* than slavery, but it's ridiculous to say that it wasn't about slavery.

My U.S. History professor, who wrote a dissertation about the civil war, agrees but in a slightly different way. He said it was an economic war.

I think it was a broader cultural schism, basically the same thing the parent country worked out in their own civil war a couple of centuries earlier:

north = roundheads (modernity)

south = cavaliers (medievality)

Of course, our esteemed Founding Fathers set us up the bomb with the 3/5 compromise. They wanted a union more than they wanted to deal with the issue of slavery, so they left it for their great-grandchildren to solve.

Re:That is no prediction

[Kjella]

History records that it all came to head when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. The fact that Germany wanted to pick a direct fight with the US pretty much gave us no choice but to go over to Europe for real too...

The attack on Pearl Harbor happened in December 1941, D-day was in June 1944. The turning point in the war was probably in late 1942 so by the time the US got seriously involved in ground combat it was pretty obvious Hitler was going to lose. The invasion was to stop the Soviet Union from taking all of Europe, it was to stop communism not fascism. Ironically that was one of the reasons Hitler got to do all he did, the other European leaders thought he'd stop the commies. You might say that backfired a little when he made a peace treaty with Stalin and invaded westwards instead, if you're going to let a rabid dog loose you'd better make sure he'll bite in the right direction.

Re:That is no prediction

[kdemetter]

You are right, but you are forgetting the frame of mind of that time.
I'm sure most lower class workers took it as part of the job, and were happy that they were at least free, and had a job.

When looking back on history, it always seems cruel, because we are used to higher standards of living.

For all we know, somewhere in the future, people will pitty us because our foods contained to much salt.

Re:It's only temporary

[HornWumpus]

Sounds like algorithmic trading.

Re:But I thought...

[Anonymous Coward]

He was replaced by The Jackass.

Re:Moslem beheading non-moslem

[jbburks]

And in the countries the US hasn't gotten to yet, they just stone women who've been raped for adultery, sell daughters into marriage and generally work against any sort of progress.

Re:Hmm

[PPH]

Yeah. Like some electrician in a shipyard in Gdansk who gets pissed off about politics. The Warsaw Pact nations never saw that one coming.

Note to architect: Don't upset the electrical contractors.

Re:Moslem beheading non-moslem

[z0idberg]

And in the countries the US hasn't gotten to yet, they just stone women who've been raped for adultery, sell daughters into marriage and generally work against any sort of progress.

From Wikipedia:
Current dowry practices
#India
#Bangladesh
#Pakistan
#Nepal
#Afghanistan
#Vietnam


Good luck with getting through that list. Are they starting their way from the bottom and working upwards? Perhaps should have ticked the bottom one off before moving to the next one.