4 ms·

A Generative Model of the Mutual Escalation of Anxiety Between Religious Groups

64 points by dayve 8y ago

sonofgod 8y ago
Was a bit concerned about the probability of those clusters in Figure 1 occurring by chance, particularly with the middle one looking so weak: it's about a 0.8% chance of getting three and a 7% chance of getting two over a thirty year period... Just about seems convincing.
akozak 8y ago
I wonder what this model would suggest if used to guide interventions aiming reduce anxiety/violence. Would it be more effective to e.g. introduce more helpful similarity-based influence into each group, or reduce cross-group incursions? (There are obvious connections there to political debates.)
- neuronexmachina 8y ago
  I think it'd be interesting to create a simple game based on the model, allowing players to experiment with interventions like you describe. > We chose the main elements of the architecture (agent traits, networks, hazards, group identities, etc.) with the goals of the model in mind. While many other variables and factors are relevant for mapping a phenomenon as complex as religious conflict, we aimed for a level of abstraction that captured the most salient and empirically-researched mechanisms that bear on this type of intergroup conflict. In the remainder of this section, we describe the architecture of our model including: (1) the entities within the model, (2) the process used to initialize the entities, and (3) the rules that dictate the interactions among them. > Our model is made up of N agents separated into two groups interacting in a two-dimensional landscape. The two groups of agents are: (1) a majority group and (2) a minority group. The disparity in size between these groups can vary from negligible (2 agents) to extreme (N-2 agents). Each group is composed of individuals who share a set of distinctive supernatural beliefs and ritual behaviors.
  - akozak 8y ago
    A game would be alright, but I'd settle for researchers running simulated interventions themselves and submitting it for peer review ;)
  - anigbrowl 8y ago
    I would be acutely interested in exploring that, or even a half-functional prototype thereof.
empath75 8y ago
The importance of the contagion threat should be noted when people talk about immigrants or minorities bringing disease or calling them vermin or rats. It's been part of every genocide or pogrom.
burfog 8y ago
This model is pretty far from reality. It treats every religion identically. In the real world there are some religions in which it isn't acceptable to harm any living thing... and others that take a very very different approach to violence. The model ignores this.
- codezero 8y ago
  Even in those religions that claim not to harm things, it seems (without evidence so forgive me) that doesn’t play out in practice. Christianity says turn the other cheek yet is ok with the crusades at the time and the inquisition for example.
  - sonnyblarney 8y ago
    The Crusades and the Inquisition are a tiny, tiny slice of Christian history, and I think bad examples of anything. The Crusades were a legit attempt to thwart invaders in the Holy Land, that vile mercenaries weren't so '20th century manners' should be a surprise to nobody. It was in the end just a war, and the Inquisition was a totalitarian attempt at forced belief system. Germans were mostly Christian in WW2 and often did some 'very bad things' and to me that's a much better example of 'good people gone awry' even though their actions weren't religious in nature. The Soviets, in the name of their very progressive ideology did terrible things 100x the scale, it's just that they had a different ideological premise that happened to not be religious. More consistently and broadly the Church set up charities, the hospital system, education and the University system as we understand them. Also - there's such a huge chasm between 'faith' 'belief' and 'actual behaviour' that it's always a stretch. The OP's point is very valid: Ideologies and religions are very different in terms of their metaphysical ideals, their beliefs, social constructs of morality, and resulting behaviours. Moreover, it's almost impossible to separate those from cultural norms. For example, many of the cultural epitaphs that we often associate with Islam (i.e. head coverings) really are not 'religious' per sey - they are aspects of the hyper conservative culture of the Arabic peninsula. Islam has a lot to say about specific behaviour of it's adherents, so naturally, Arabic aspects of moral behaviour are going to be codified into 'religious law' by Islam. Buddhism on the other hand, doesn't generally have a lot of specific behavioural rules. Finally I would say that all cultures espouse some kind of ideological or metaphysical ideal - some are more overtly religious, some more overtly secular, but they are all ultimately the same thing. You could substitute 'political ideology' for 'religion' and use the same equations. I find this subject basically enthralling and intoxicating, I love it, but I think it's all just far too vague, there are so many variables that we barely understand, it's so hard to draw conclusions. You could stick a number of forks in almost every statement of the paper if you wanted to.
gowld 8y ago
I don't trust a paper whose authors are so invested in burying their ideas in pretentious vocabulary that they are forced to turn off their spellchecker and can't spell "xenophobic" consistently. Also, the authors definition of "religion" is quite broad -- it's any belief that some unseen force affects the world. For example, "illegal immigrants" or "Russian bots" or any other "bogeyman" fit the authors; definition of a "supernatural" religious target
- falcor84 8y ago
  I think that many social science thinkers would agree with this broad definition, Yuval Noah Harari being a particular popularizer of this. And it's growing on me too.

64 points by dayve 8y ago

Was a bit concerned about the probability of those clusters in Figure 1 occurring by chance, particularly with the middle one looking so weak: it's about a 0.8% chance of getting three and a 7% chance of getting two over a thirty year period... Just about seems convincing.

akozak 8y ago

I wonder what this model would suggest if used to guide interventions aiming reduce anxiety/violence. Would it be more effective to e.g. introduce more helpful similarity-based influence into each group, or reduce cross-group incursions? (There are obvious connections there to political debates.)

neuronexmachina 8y ago
I think it'd be interesting to create a simple game based on the model, allowing players to experiment with interventions like you describe. > We chose the main elements of the architecture (agent traits, networks, hazards, group identities, etc.) with the goals of the model in mind. While many other variables and factors are relevant for mapping a phenomenon as complex as religious conflict, we aimed for a level of abstraction that captured the most salient and empirically-researched mechanisms that bear on this type of intergroup conflict. In the remainder of this section, we describe the architecture of our model including: (1) the entities within the model, (2) the process used to initialize the entities, and (3) the rules that dictate the interactions among them. > Our model is made up of N agents separated into two groups interacting in a two-dimensional landscape. The two groups of agents are: (1) a majority group and (2) a minority group. The disparity in size between these groups can vary from negligible (2 agents) to extreme (N-2 agents). Each group is composed of individuals who share a set of distinctive supernatural beliefs and ritual behaviors.
- akozak 8y ago
  A game would be alright, but I'd settle for researchers running simulated interventions themselves and submitting it for peer review ;)
- anigbrowl 8y ago
  I would be acutely interested in exploring that, or even a half-functional prototype thereof.

empath75 8y ago

The importance of the contagion threat should be noted when people talk about immigrants or minorities bringing disease or calling them vermin or rats. It's been part of every genocide or pogrom.

burfog 8y ago

This model is pretty far from reality. It treats every religion identically. In the real world there are some religions in which it isn't acceptable to harm any living thing... and others that take a very very different approach to violence. The model ignores this.

codezero 8y ago
Even in those religions that claim not to harm things, it seems (without evidence so forgive me) that doesn’t play out in practice. Christianity says turn the other cheek yet is ok with the crusades at the time and the inquisition for example.
- sonnyblarney 8y ago
  The Crusades and the Inquisition are a tiny, tiny slice of Christian history, and I think bad examples of anything. The Crusades were a legit attempt to thwart invaders in the Holy Land, that vile mercenaries weren't so '20th century manners' should be a surprise to nobody. It was in the end just a war, and the Inquisition was a totalitarian attempt at forced belief system. Germans were mostly Christian in WW2 and often did some 'very bad things' and to me that's a much better example of 'good people gone awry' even though their actions weren't religious in nature. The Soviets, in the name of their very progressive ideology did terrible things 100x the scale, it's just that they had a different ideological premise that happened to not be religious. More consistently and broadly the Church set up charities, the hospital system, education and the University system as we understand them. Also - there's such a huge chasm between 'faith' 'belief' and 'actual behaviour' that it's always a stretch. The OP's point is very valid: Ideologies and religions are very different in terms of their metaphysical ideals, their beliefs, social constructs of morality, and resulting behaviours. Moreover, it's almost impossible to separate those from cultural norms. For example, many of the cultural epitaphs that we often associate with Islam (i.e. head coverings) really are not 'religious' per sey - they are aspects of the hyper conservative culture of the Arabic peninsula. Islam has a lot to say about specific behaviour of it's adherents, so naturally, Arabic aspects of moral behaviour are going to be codified into 'religious law' by Islam. Buddhism on the other hand, doesn't generally have a lot of specific behavioural rules. Finally I would say that all cultures espouse some kind of ideological or metaphysical ideal - some are more overtly religious, some more overtly secular, but they are all ultimately the same thing. You could substitute 'political ideology' for 'religion' and use the same equations. I find this subject basically enthralling and intoxicating, I love it, but I think it's all just far too vague, there are so many variables that we barely understand, it's so hard to draw conclusions. You could stick a number of forks in almost every statement of the paper if you wanted to.

gowld 8y ago

I don't trust a paper whose authors are so invested in burying their ideas in pretentious vocabulary that they are forced to turn off their spellchecker and can't spell "xenophobic" consistently. Also, the authors definition of "religion" is quite broad -- it's any belief that some unseen force affects the world. For example, "illegal immigrants" or "Russian bots" or any other "bogeyman" fit the authors; definition of a "supernatural" religious target

falcor84 8y ago
I think that many social science thinkers would agree with this broad definition, Yuval Noah Harari being a particular popularizer of this. And it's growing on me too.