SimPolitics: America’s quest to solve politics with computers

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

boznz• 13 days ago

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.

blindhippo• 13 days 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...

gigatree4• 13 days ago

Bet we’re less than 5 years from that tbh

reactordev4• 13 days ago

Make no mistake, America was founded on greed. Our cries for Democracy and Liberty were only so we wouldn't have to pay the King's taxes. We wanted the western native lands that the British promised to protect with hired native americans. The notion that "All men are created equal" only applied to virtuous white men.

Also, France was eager to give hell to the British and the Colonies were a mere spat in the global theater once France entered chat.

gigatree4• 13 days 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.

6510• 13 days ago

Not at all, people incapable of caring for others can also contribute wonderfully but they operate entirely different. It is arguably mean to expect our behavior from people who feel nothing for other people and your generosity is weakness to be exploited. They do however have great respect for that what scares them shitless which can be upgraded to unmatched respect if the scary thing helps them when they most need it. Could be a person or an organization. In the old days they have wives. lmfao

oezi• 13 days ago

I get the bearish case but it is easy to forget how much difference good vs bad politics can have and that politics isn't primarily a game of facts. It is an optimization problem under many unknowns and its history is littered with academic theories debunked and hard won compromises.

mckelveyf11• 13 days ago

I mean it's debatable that it's an optimization problem but it's been tried. One thread in the book is the reaction the Limits of Growth. That model extrapolated trends, very abstractly, to predict the future. A successor, the Latin American World Model or the Bariloche Model, tried to imagine an ideal world and optimize for it. Very different approaches and a good question to ask when you hear someone talking about computer simulations.

left-struck• 13 days ago

I think a better way to run a democracy might be to have our leaders chosen at random. Sounds like a joke, but I’m serious:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition

mckelveyf11• 13 days ago

There is such an enduring link between democracy, elections and math. What I interesting was the focus on trying to model politics correctly rather than "better" with computers. I dug up some good games and programs from the early days that I have to put online sometime.

gowld• 12 days ago

This is how the criminal courts operate (juries).

Lord-Jobo2• 12 days ago

Certainly I think it’s something worth actually trying in the modern age. We’ve had quite a long run now of the representative democracy, I think we should all be open to talking about and trialing these “okay so what’s next?” Options. Before crisis or collapse makes the decision for us.

mckelveyf11• 13 days ago

People sure tried. But really the book traces how that happened. I think it became easier to imagine politics working like a computer than with people, like how computer reasoning and rational choice became an ideal to measure other political thought.

telxosis• 13 days ago

"solving politics" is nonsensical beyond winning elections.

Most political issues don't have a "solution", they have various trade offs that are contingent.

jerojero• 13 days ago

Theres a big problem, which has been described by many philosophers and political theorists (from socrates to Machiavelli) which is that politicians are first and foremost self-serving.

Most political work is not done for the population as a whole but for the own continuing of the political class and personal enrichment. Yes, sometimes these incentives align with the interests of the constituents. But if politics is about compromise and you have two groups with opposing views whose only common ground is "we are all politicians here" its most likely that a lot of the agreements are going to benefit the political class.

There's people arguing for sortition and sortition (at least as citizens assemblies, the way the OECD describes) tries to solve this problem. As people go into an assembly and don't have other incentives than to defend their own positions with regards to a certain topic of discussions. Its not a permanent body and that gets rid of some of the perverse incentives of politicians.

ActorNightly• 13 days ago

If you are still in the camp of "all politicians...", you are part of the problem.

Its a shame that midterms are going to likely swing to the Dem side, because the thing that needs to happen is for Republicans to hold power for 10+ years to run the country into the ground so people like you feel real strife and stop living in your own little fantasy world where you pretend like you are morally superior above others.

rayiner• 12 days ago

You should read Plato's Republic and Aristotle's Politics. This was a known problem 2,400 years ago.

https://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/politics.html

https://www.sciencetheearth.com/uploads/2/4/6/5/24658156/pla...

Hammershaft• 12 days ago

I think it's less that politicians think short term, and more that voters think short term. Politicians are just responding to the incentives created by willfully ignorant voters.

throwaway27448• 13 days ago

Can anyone tell me if it acknowledges the dialectic?

mckelveyf11• 13 days ago

Its got sublimes for cheap.

NotGMan• 13 days ago

I didn't read the book but the problem in politics is always the silent majority.

On the internet, the 5% of haters and the 5% of the biggest fans mostly comment. 90% of the people don't, the silent majority.

How are you gonna model what those who don't give an opinion say?

Polls? Remember the USA 2016 election where Trump won?

mckelveyf11• 12 days ago

But that's always been the case. Nixon started to use the term in 1969 just as his campaign was working with top advisor to build more interactive systems to measure and predict the elections per riding. A bit theme of the book is how to appreciate the gap between a simulation and reality, something old and new.

amelius• 13 days ago

Looking forward to "modeling the economy with AI agents".

mckelveyf11• 12 days ago

The nuance that kept me from spinning out in writing the book was the assumption that politics is weird, and not the same as the economy.

Lord-Jobo2• 12 days ago

The economy is deeply weird and irrational too. In many of the same ways as politics.

liampulles• 12 days ago

Great video on the subject of applying science to business and government: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sf0vb4yiZR4&t=2s

SimPolitics: America’s quest to solve politics with computers

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