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If You Thought Studying History Was Bad, This Math Professor Is Making It Harder
Raven writes:
New research out of Streeling University aims to make planning for the future much easier. The work, led by professor Seldon, tries to set probabilistic values on future events, and then weigh those probabilities against each other to figure out what combination of events is most likely to happen. Describing it under the unlikely moniker "psychohistory," Seldon seems to think planning even 10,000 years into the future might be possible. (Seldon also seems to be a bit of a doomsayer, so this is likely exaggerated.) Nevertheless, it'll be another tool for government planners to consider when developing new colonies.
this is more in the line of a slashdot april fools
I laughed, I cried, I remembered what day it was, I sighed.
Defending IP by destroying access to it? That makes sense, RIAA/MPAA. Go to the corner until you can play nice!
While being in sector Wye.
One link on a wiki about fictional psychohistory? 10000 years into the future is incomprehensible and whoever exists in that time will laugh at us. Just write sci-fi instead.
Can we please stop with the idiotic stories? One was funny. Two was meh. Three was dumb. At this point it's gone past annoying.
This is just another play for increased grant funding with less oversight. Convenient that the program managers won't be able to evaluate anything until well after the money is spent.
...Where Seldon is heard,
A discouraging word.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
People will actually pay you for this if you call it scenario planning. It's all in the marketing.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
a Foundation!
This guy needs to read The Black Swan and Antifragile by Taleb. Change happens piecemeal and unpredictably. Looking back as a guide to what the future holds only works if the predictor can show that events have happened prior to prediction based on is past observations. This is a fools errand.
Cheers!
When EVERY FRIGGIN POST is an April 1st "joke" and I use that term lightly, it is not very effective and less funny. If they had only thought to mix these in with REAL stories... oh but this is Slashdot...Never Mind!
And yes I vote for OMG Ponies!
Today I just can't be bothered to moderate anyone. Sorry.
Waste of my effort to moderate on April Fools stories.
Not only does a circle have no end, so does the the /. "jokes." This is a good one, though. Why don't they just bring back ZOMG PONIES! and be done with it?
Too late.
All predictive psychology depends on the population NOT KNOWING that they are being analyzed or guided...
So if a scientist sticks their finger into the pot, it skews the results - kinda like QM....
Now, another fact is that anomalies cannot be predicted. this is a failure mode of psychohistory.
Lady Gaga is one example. Paul Atreides is another. Bronies and such are entirely predicatable, as are the
"Get OFF my lawn" types, and the whining by gamers/hipsters about the April Fools topics here...
No, I didn't.
You should be ashamed! However psychohistory is alive and well! This is the year of the sheep, and human behavior can be predicted with perfection - show people Fear and they will beg to have their liberty taken away! B
I already know what's going to happen in the year 2525 and beyond. And, well, the year 9595 doesn't look good. Why bother planning for it.
...and Hari Seldon is his prophet.
But your usage of difference equations is illegal, Professor Seldon! Prepare to face the steely courts of the government.
It hinges too much on the people not looking ahead at the predictions before the prescribed date.
(I was getting sick of these April 1st posts, I grew up with these books and couldn't resist clicking and commenting)
Yea, it sounds good in theory, but only if you assume human nature is determinate. All it would take is a single incident or individual, a mutation perhaps, to totally derail any such prognosis. What are you going to do, hide a secret society of "psyco"-technicians among the populous to try and pull events back on course when the inevitable happens? Please, pull the other one.
The reason we subjugate ourselves to law is to better procure justice. If law does not accomplish this purpose then it m
But nobody paid attention to it so it is not fully published... but yeah, it does resemble string theory and is of practical importance and gives us some control and yes, it is mathematical in nature and does match (fit) current and _historical events, and yes, it does incorporate the Human psyche in it and I even used it to explain the mechanic of the surge of agriculture... so yeah, it does look feasible a psychohistory like the one promoted in this post and its possibilities, though mine is not a planning tool but rather a **genetic** explanation of history and its underlying mechanics... :-|