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Nephilim: They Just Don't Make 'Em Like They Used To

7/6/2017

If you heard the "tick . . . tick . . . tick . . ." of another dumb Nephilim story yesterday, you're not alone: less than 24 hours after the report of the discovery of a "graveyard of not-so-tall 'giants'" excavated in China, the 5'11" remains have been interpreted as those of the Biblical Nephilim.

There was at least one individual that broke 6', but most were shorter.

Nephilim. Under 6'. Go figure.

Information, Division, and the Internet: A Simple Complex Systems Problem?

7/5/2017

I don't remember who was talking, but I recently heard some TV pundit remark that it was both a surprise and disappointment that the internet has contributed to fostering cultural/social/political divisions rather than promoting unity.

Disappointment? Yes.

Surprise? No.

Complex systems models have demonstrated over and over again that disunity (i.e., cultural polarization, geographic segregation, etc.) can emerge in systems within which information flows freely. The lesson is that having a high degree of information flow doesn't guarantee homogeneity at the scale at which the information is flowing. Two simple models demonstrate this point nicely.

First, the Schelling Model. If you're a fan of complex systems theory, you've probably heard of the simple simulation model that Thomas Schelling constructed and explored in the early 1970's and published in Micromotives and Macrobehavior (1978). The original model was implemented using coins and graph paper rather than a computer. It demonstrated how relatively small preferences about the characteristics of ones' neighbors can result in complete segregation of neighborhoods. Actors in the model make decisions about whether to stay put or move based on on information about their immediate surroundings. Through a multitude of individual, localized decisions, large-scale patterns of segregation emerge in the absence of any intent or authoritative control.

Figure by Sebastian Schutte (2010) showing results from a computer-based implementation of the Schelling Model (source: http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/13/1/2.html).

Second, Robert Axelrod's (1997) adaptive culture model (see here). If you want a simple complex systems model . . . it doesn't get much simpler than this one. The model demonstrates how polarized cultural regions can develop even though the only mechanism for interaction in the model is one of convergence (i.e., the actors can only become more, not less, like their neighbors).

Figure showing polarization in Axelrod's Adaptive Culture model (source: https://computationallegalstudies.com/2010/03/12/the-dissemination-of-culture-axelrod-1997-model-now-available-in-netlogos-community-model/).

The short version of my argument (which is all I have time for today) is that complex systems approaches will provide an actual chance to figure some of this stuff out. You're not going to be able to write a mathematical formula to do it, as straight math can't handle emergent phenomena (show me a formula that captures this kind of flocking behavior and I'll admit I'm wrong). And you're not going to be able to sort it out by comparing two or three variables at a time ("white males between the ages of 18 and 22 in this county voted for X, which the same demographic in this county voted for Y").

And of course there's no such thing as a "simple" complex systems problem. But complex systems theory has helped us understand a thing or two about human cultural/social/political behavior that we wouldn't be able to understand otherwise. And some of that understanding has come from some relatively simple models. I'm sure there has already been work done extending models like Schelling's and Axelrod's to represent media influences, complex structures of interaction (i.e., different network topologies, etc.), variable demography, etc. The smart money will pay attention to that work to help identify and understand the characteristics of our system that exacerbate divisions (and can be used to widen those divisions).

Nephilim: They Just Don't Make 'Em Like They Used To

Information, Division, and the Internet: A Simple Complex Systems Problem?

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