SimPolitics: America’s quest to solve politics with computers

mitpress.mit.edu

77 points by mckelveyf 11 hours ago

https://direct.mit.edu/books/oa-monograph/6166/SimPoliticsAm...

Thank you for this, I'm going to give it a read.

I am unfortunately very bearish on politics in general. All politicians think short term, look after themselves, their families, their friends, and their interests first; Facts, and working simulations just get in the way. (I am still looking for a politician that is an exception to this rule) Human nature is unfortunately real, and the only way I can see to "solve politics" is to remove human's entirely, but that comes with a whole new set of issues and is another book I guess.

gigatree - 13 minutes ago

Exactly right, and same for society in general. There’s a degree to which humans work okay in their primitive state (hunter-gatherers, small homogenous communities), but once scaling and technology enters the picture we’re 100% toast without a fundamental recalibration towards genuinely caring for one another.
blindhippo - 35 minutes ago

The Supreme Intelligence has entered the chat... My brain has been stuck on that same thought for decades - wouldn't it be great to have a wholly objective, impartial, and independent governing mechanism to limit the influence of power hungry monkeys and their lackeys.
A fantastic low to the ground example of the fundamental problems with human politics is seen in American HOA structures and proliferation. It's utterly amazing to me how insanely corrupt a bog standard HOA can get months into it's inception simply do to base human behavior.
I'll remain bearish on this as well. "Democracy" and collective government has been our species best attempt at this and well...
- gigatree - 12 minutes ago
  
  Bet we’re less than 5 years from that tbh

al_hag - 7 hours ago

Open access link

https://direct.mit.edu/books/oa-monograph/6166/SimPoliticsAm...

mckelveyf - 6 hours ago

Thank you! Hope you find it interesting!
- hn_user82179 - 5 hours ago
  
  is this your book? thanks for sharing! This isn't at all my domain of knowledge but I have a little unexpected free time on my hands and am excite to learn something new. Your book Internet Daemons looks interesting too
  - mckelveyf - 3 hours ago
    
    Yeah, it's my book and happy to answer any questions too. Internet Daemons is open access too: https://www.internetdaemons.com/
    I'm Fenwick dot McKelvey at Concordia dot ca if you have questions.

- 11 hours ago

[deleted]

ChrisArchitect - 8 hours ago

Title is: SimPolitics - America’s Quest to Solve Politics with Computers

JimsonYang - 3 hours ago

Wouldnt this be a show hn?
- nerdsniper - 2 hours ago
  
  Not really. ShowHN’s are for interactive things and are supposed to be free and generally shouldn’t require account creation.
  “Reading material” is specifically called out as being off topic!
  https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html
mckelveyf - 8 hours ago

Thanks! I should have put that in the post in the first place
- dang - 3 hours ago
  
  We've updated it now, and put the open access link in the toptext. Thanks for posting this!