Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Predicting History is Easy: Model Politics as a Game

Prof. Bruce Bueno de Mesquita wants that the world knows he can do the unthinkable. With >90% accuracy he can predict the future. This is what his recent popular science book "The Predictioneers Game" claims. Others strongly contradict his claim.
Because his model is not shown in the popular book, I asked him to point me out the right sources. He kindly answered: 
The ISA paper is scheduled for publication in the journal Conflict Management and Peace Science (CMPS). [...] you might want to read European Community Decision Making, edited by Frans Stokman and me and published by Yale University Press or my short boo[k], Predicting Politics (Ohio State University Press) but these are on the old model. The math and structure of the new model is set out in the CMPS paper that is due out within the next few months.
Let me play a game:
What would it mean if his astonishing predictive power turns out to be true? would it mean we know the state of the world in 20 years? would it mean that your fate is given? would it mean that we will all use his method in business and private life in the future? 
what would it mean if his claim is wrong. he wants to put his academic renown at stake to be invited to talkshows? he don't know he is wrong and will be derided and forgotten? Or is he playing an aggressive game to promote his...
[...] company, Mesquita & Roundell,[1] that specializes in making political and foreign-policy forecasts using an unpublished and proprietary computer model based on game theory and rational choice theory.
The future will tell, because I will read his paper when its published.

Monday, December 6, 2010

Less is more: Braess' Paradox

Like many counterintuitive anomalies, it needs the right combination of conditions to actually pop up in real life; but it has been observed empirically in real transportation networks — including in Seoul, Korea, where the destruction of a six-lane highway to build a public park actually improved travel time into and out of the city (even though traffic volume stayed roughly the same before and after the change)
http://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/kleinber/networks-book/networks-book-ch08.pdf

Dissimnation of a great Technology now easier

The Brunswick Society Newsletter is now online even for nonsubscribers. Sensible decision Brunswickians!
http://www.brunswik.org/newsletters/2010news.pdf