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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
by 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 agoI 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.