Is this the beginning of Psychohistory?

[Asbo Zaprudder]

http://blog.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/9041/title/Math_Trek__Mathematical_Fortune-Telling

"Predicting the future is not very hard, according to Bruce Bueno de Mesquita: a little mathematics is all you need. Figuring out how to manipulate a situation to achieve specific aims is a bit less straightforward, but Bueno de Mesquita says his mathematical tools can usually do that, too."

Fascinating stuff. Apparently, Bueno de Mesquita's computer models are based on game theory and rational choice theory. Personally, I'm not convinced that humans are very rational, but irrational beliefs could well act as valid inputs to the equation. It reminds me of Hari Seldon's science of Psychohistory from Isaac Asimov's Foundation trilogy -- except that Psychohistory as Asimov envisaged it seemed to have more in common with Statistical Thermodynamics. Psychohistory relied on a vast Galactic population creating historical forces that mere individuals could not deflect -- akin to a Marxist or materialist view of history . Bueno de Mesquita's model seems to totally ignore the little people and concentrate on interactions between the main players, which is more consistent with a Hegelian view of history.

It seems as though there is money to be made from this computer model, as it has not been made available for peer review, and Bueno de Mesquita has set up a company (Mesquita & Roundell) to exploit it.

It'll be interesting to see if some of the "players" (volatile regimes in certain countries) cotton onto the fact that their stances and motivations can be modelled and predicted, and how they react to this if they feel they are being manipulated.

 

[TheBrew]

We cannot currently model complex systems like human history. There are so many underlying factors that the computer power required is still astronomical. Not to mention the vast amount of time it would take to set up such a model with all of the billions on billions of variables.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

The whole of human history, no, but the application seems to be more limited to predicting the near history of countries that aren't well disposed towards the US, such as Iran and North Korea, and how to deal with them to achieve the least-cost, highest-benefit outcome. It makes me wonder if they ran through all the scenarios with Saddam's Iraq, and war was the only way for the US required to fulfill its geopolitical goals.

 

[Holdfast]

Human beings are essentially moderately predictable when in large numbers - but only over a very short period of time. We already know that and there are any number of models to predict crowd behaviour, walking patterns, stock purchases, etc, etc. None are perfect, but many of them aren't half bad. It sounds like the article talks about one such model. I don't pretend to understand the exact mathematics, but the core principle has been around for a while.

The trouble is extending that over a longer period of time as the randomness of human behaviour creeps in. You would need some kind of fudge factor to account for that "gut" instinct because it's not irrational and wrong (which I guess would be relatively easy to work with) but rather it's irrational and right.

*shrug* Or I could be talking crap.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

Ignoring the rest of the story for a moment because something caught my eye...

From the article:

"He foresaw that China would reclaim Hong Kong 12 years before it happened."

How is that any great prediction, since the 99-year lease was coming to an end in 1997 and negotiations between Britain and China for how Hong Kong would be returned to Chinese hands had been concluded since the signing of the Sino-British Joint Declaration in 1984?

I mean, in 1980 I predicted that Los Angeles would host the Summer Olympics in 1984 after being awarded them in 1978, and it turns out I was a regular Nostradumbass and got that one right, but no one calls me an expert on the future.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Historical trends are definitely predictable, and better models and greater computing power can only help. Predictions on an individual or small-scale level will likely never be possible overall.

But the Seldon Plan relied on, among other things, the population not knowing that the model existed or what the predictions were; that would have thrown the whole thing off. In real life, I'm not sure if that would make such a difference, since most people are so easily influenced by fad and fashion.

 

[TheBrew]

The whole of human history, no, but the application seems to be more limited to predicting the near history of countries that aren't well disposed towards the US, such as Iran and North Korea, and how to deal with them to achieve the least-cost, highest-benefit outcome. It makes me wonder if they ran through all the scenarios with Saddam's Iraq, and war was the only way for the US required to fulfill its geopolitical goals.

Well then you are going on about game theory modeling, which is a good model for making optimal decisions, but still not able to accurately predict anything more than immediate history with any accuracy.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

^Agreed. On reflection, I think this smacks of marketing spin more than anything. Throw in a few buzz words, some dodgy claims, and people with too much cash might well fall for it.