The ability to model a local political-economy has been around for a long time: SimCity does as good a job as one can expect given their limitations and methodology. And since, On January 10, 2008 the SimCity source code was released under the free software GPL 3 license under the name Micropolis. that's where I'd start my research. If I was going to do something ... which I'm not¹. SimCity, as is, does a good enough job that it is widely used by urban planners, city planners, & etc. as a tool. Idly projecting here but it seems to me a neural network-like construct having lots of nodes - 200 or 300 - running SimCity autonomously tossing in cross-communication plus "macro-economic" influences together comprising a first-hack Fitness Landscape would prove interesting. The easiest way to add complexity to the Fitness Landscape is to build some - say 10 to 20 - analog computers, cross-linkable with A/D and D/A conversion to/from the neural net to simulate continuous data streams which the neural net nodes have to 'chunk' - both for data processing and across time. As an added benefit, you'd get the first major non-von Neumann computer built in a long, long time. Which, by the way, is something we desperately need as a research tool. ¹ Unless somebody wants to pay me to do it. This gun for hire. I can be had. :-)
On January 10, 2008 the SimCity source code was released under the free software GPL 3 license under the name Micropolis.
that's where I'd start my research. If I was going to do something ... which I'm not¹.
SimCity, as is, does a good enough job that it is widely used by urban planners, city planners, & etc. as a tool. Idly projecting here but it seems to me a neural network-like construct having lots of nodes - 200 or 300 - running SimCity autonomously tossing in cross-communication plus "macro-economic" influences together comprising a first-hack Fitness Landscape would prove interesting. The easiest way to add complexity to the Fitness Landscape is to build some - say 10 to 20 - analog computers, cross-linkable with A/D and D/A conversion to/from the neural net to simulate continuous data streams which the neural net nodes have to 'chunk' - both for data processing and across time.
As an added benefit, you'd get the first major non-von Neumann computer built in a long, long time. Which, by the way, is something we desperately need as a research tool.
¹ Unless somebody wants to pay me to do it. This gun for hire. I can be had. :-)
The problem, of course, is that they are doing an empty-world simulation, whereas we want to do a full-world (or even overfull-world) simulation.
- Jake If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.
It is possible that MMO could develop OS tools that could be applied in many different 'scenarios', including RW ones. The point is (as I repeat) that when you harness, say, 250.000 users who spend, say, 20 hours a week 'playing', you get 125.000 work-weeks. A switch from 'games' to solving real 'problems' is not hard to envision. You can't be me, I'm taken
I am, without doubt, the stupidest son-of-a-bitch on the planet, fit only to sit in a corner and fill a drool cup.
MMO is how you get the asymmetrical microeconomic input and the varying degrees of Knowledge Struct Fitness for the Model plus the source of the initiating low-level inputs for morphing the macroeconomic parameters and, thus, the Fitness Landscape completing the Information/Praxis feedback loop to the Agents. Abstract the process and you get a solid, if singular, Set of data to apply to the Formal Model.
Damn it! How many frickin' times have I said, "semantics emerges from semiotics and syntax?"
Jesus, what a moron.
The problem is that people enjoy starting from scratch and building up - how do you generate player interest in joining an endgame scenario?
Another problem is that, if you run a simulation from scratch and then at the end of the game the exponential growth makes the whole thing crash, people will complain that the game is not well tuned for playability. Most economists teach a theoretical framework that has been shown to be fundamentally useless. -- James K. Galbraith
So as long as you're up-front about what you're doing, it seems to be possible to violate some of the usual genre conventions and still get something that works. I think the key here is to be very explicit that half the challenge of building an empire in this game is to make sure that there's something left to rule when you're done building your mega-corporation and grinding all the others into dust.
Let's all be libertarians! Fine.
Now watch as the world drives off a cliff.
Keep a historical record of previous incarnations. It would be educational - and also interesting in that most sims to date seem to be a-historical, which makes them culturally atypical.
My idea isn't to model specific examples or to create another Second Life - there are plenty of faux economies out there already.
It's more about creating another media channel which gets a practical progressive message to a potentially receptive audience, bypassing the trad media in the same way that blogs do.
The modelling algorithms are relevant, but less influential than intent.
