Posted on 03/13/2002 7:35:26 PM PST by the
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This working paper presents an agent-based computation model of civil |
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Fascinating computational model of how civil violence erupts in a society. A surprisingly simple model yields great insight into how the structure of a society can seemingly tear asunder in a brief period of time.
This working paper also covers just how incrementalism allows governments to lose a great deal of legitimacy without provoking a revolution, so long as it does so in small enough steps.
I'll bump this to a few folks that might find it as fascinating as I did.
This truly is one of the most interesting things that I have read in the last 5 years.
Stay well - stay saf e- Stay armed - Yorktown
http://www.brook.edu/es/dynamics/papers/cviolence/cviolence.pdf is the link to the .pdf.
I verified the links by checking back through my browser history. I tried them both a moment ago and they appear to be down/slow right now.
Maybe my massive Freeper/Carnivore/Echelon following is chewing up all of the Brookings Institution's bandwidth right now. (Yeah, I wish!)
C:\>ping www.brook.edu
Pinging www.brook.edu [208.243.20.130] with 32 bytes of data:
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Ping statistics for 208.243.20.130:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 0, Lost = 4 (100% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 0ms, Maximum = 0ms, Average = 0ms
The mindset behind this paper does not bode well for the USA. There are some possible flaws in their modeling for the decentralized revolution but I will not discuss them publicly yet.
In general one can explain a great deal of the Clinton adminstration's behavior if one presumes that they had read this paper.
In short this is a paper that
I see the makings of a really good video game...
Stay well - Stay saf e- stay armed - Yorktown
Liberals' lack of understanding on this point is part of what allows them to draw such bright lines between LEO's and "civilians". (Civilians quoted because I detest the use of the term to distinguish between civil functionaries, such as police, fire, beauracrats and politicians, from their employers.)
Another point that I found very enlightening in the paper: The need for tensions to build in large steps versus small ones to bring about a revolution.
Instant communication via modern means insures that almost any de-legitimizing action taken by government will be an incremental step since it will be covered from beginning to end. No one wakes up anymore to news that their government changed drastically overnight. Dropping out, cutting communication channels, removing forums, hiding leaders and limiting dissemination of incremental bad news might prime the pump for a revolution. Now all the world gets is constant complaining about how bad things are getting.
Wouldn't it be strange if instant communications wound up reducing the chance of a revolution?
The model points out the need for agents to bide their time in a decaying governmental legitimacy situation. Acting alone early on, once their individual tipping point is reached, makes an agent likely to be caught. Only when things have gotten bad enough to trigger many agents in a locale will the individual have a chance to hide in a revolution's crowd.
Obviously none of this is new. I find surprising how effective this simple model is at predicting large scale events. It seems to provide very well a model of the decline of several civilizations in history.
What are the marks of a sick culture?
It is a bad sign when the people of a country stop identifying themselves with the country and start identifying with a group. A racial group. Or a religion. Or a language. Anything, as long as it isn't the whole population.
A very bad sign. Particularism. It was once considered a Spanish vice but any country can fall sick with it. Dominance of males over females seems to be one of the symptoms.
Before a revolution can take place, the population must loose faith in both the police and the courts.
High taxation is important and so is inflation of the currency and the ratio of the productive to those on the public payroll. But that's old hat; everybody knows that a country is on the skids when its income and outgo get out of balance and stay that way - even though there are always endless attempts to wish it way by legislation. But I started looking for little signs and what some call silly-season symptoms.
I want to mention one of the obvious symptoms: Violence. Muggings. Sniping. Arson. Bombing. Terrorism of any sort. Riots of course - but I suspect that little incidents of violence, pecking way at people day after day, damage a culture even more than riots that flare up and then die down. Oh, conscription and slavery and arbitrary compulsion of all sorts and imprisonment without bail and without speedy trial - but those things are obvious; all the histories list them.
I think you have missed the most alarming symptom of all. This one I shall tell you. But go back and search for it. Examine it. Sick cultures show a complex of symptoms as you have named... But a dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than a riot.
This symptom is especially serious in that an individual displaying it never thinks of it as a sign of ill health but as proof of his/her strength.
--From Robert A. Heinlein's Friday
though there are always endless attempts to wish it away by legislation.
It's those ten million scoped deer rifles again......
The US presents some interesting complications to the models.
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