11 ms·

A full economy, with people on normal sleep / commute / eat / work schedules. Each person is a free agent. You'd model different relationships and the likelihoo

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TriinT 17y ago
It's called Agent-Based Economics: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent-Based_Computational_Economics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent-Based_Computational_Econo... and it's fun, but somewhat useless. Without analytical results, simulation results tend not to be insightful. You may see that something happens, but you don't understand the causal relations.
- deleted 17y ago
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- ivankirigin 17y ago
  But you can get global stats to find interesting things. It's similar to traffic simulation. It is often hard to decipher the cause of patterns, but you can show that a sequence of lights will reduce congestion.
mattrepl 17y ago
There actually was a recent paper describing a model of zombie infections, it was mentioned on HN previously. http://www.mathstat.uottawa.ca/~rsmith/Zombies.pdf http://www.mathstat.uottawa.ca/~rsmith/Zombies.pdf
- ivankirigin 17y ago
  Yeah, I took a lot of interest in that. Step 3 in the simulation is to make it a game.
Anon84 17y ago
A full economy, with people on normal sleep / commute / eat / work schedules. Each person is a free agent. You'd model different relationships and the likelihood of in person interaction. A REALISTIC simulation like this on a global scale would be ridiculously useful in multiple fields. And while several groups have been trying to do something similar, there just isn't enough data for it to work properly at the individual agent level. (At higher levels you have for example http://www.gleamviz.org/2009/09/us-winter-projections-mitigation-effect-of-antiviral-treatment/ http://www.gleamviz.org/2009/09/us-winter-projections-mitiga... )

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TriinT 17y ago

It's called Agent-Based Economics: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent-Based_Computational_Economics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent-Based_Computational_Econo... and it's fun, but somewhat useless. Without analytical results, simulation results tend not to be insightful. You may see that something happens, but you don't understand the causal relations.

deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
ivankirigin 17y ago
But you can get global stats to find interesting things. It's similar to traffic simulation. It is often hard to decipher the cause of patterns, but you can show that a sequence of lights will reduce congestion.

mattrepl 17y ago

There actually was a recent paper describing a model of zombie infections, it was mentioned on HN previously. http://www.mathstat.uottawa.ca/~rsmith/Zombies.pdf http://www.mathstat.uottawa.ca/~rsmith/Zombies.pdf

ivankirigin 17y ago
Yeah, I took a lot of interest in that. Step 3 in the simulation is to make it a game.

Anon84 17y ago

A full economy, with people on normal sleep / commute / eat / work schedules. Each person is a free agent. You'd model different relationships and the likelihood of in person interaction. A REALISTIC simulation like this on a global scale would be ridiculously useful in multiple fields. And while several groups have been trying to do something similar, there just isn't enough data for it to work properly at the individual agent level. (At higher levels you have for example http://www.gleamviz.org/2009/09/us-winter-projections-mitigation-effect-of-antiviral-treatment/ http://www.gleamviz.org/2009/09/us-winter-projections-mitiga... )