Dewey Beats Truman!
Again!

zzzzz
billTuba | 10.31.07 - 1:08 pm | #

Be wary of palantirs. They're all too good at showing the future, whereby you draw completely the wrong conclusions.
Mark S. (not for Shea) | 10.31.07 - 1:19 pm | #

Sounds like a good time for a rousing game of Cheat the Prophet.
Sean P. Dailey | Homepage | 10.31.07 - 1:35 pm | #

Sure, it's all fun and game theory -- until the Mule shows up.
Tom | Homepage | 10.31.07 - 1:40 pm | #

Dunno anything about the math...

Reminds me of the "Itchy and Scratchy Land" episode of The Simpsons, wherein the park is populated by animatronic robots, and

Professor Frink warns that "all robots will eventually turn against their masters and run amok, in an orgy of blood and the kicking and the biting with the metal teeth and the hurting and shoving." But he adds that "According to my calculations, the robots won't go berserk for at least 24 hours." Immediately, all the robots start attacking the humans. Frink says in a slightly embarrassed tone, "Oh. I forgot to carry the one."

Since the model presumes all political actors are dirtbags, virtuous politicians would disrupt the analysis.

I've become less troubled by the mathematical modeling of human choices. There really are just so many choices one can make, and both personality and human nature have stable qualities that make both amenable to prediction.
Kevin Jones | Homepage | 10.31.07 - 1:53 pm | #

Tom
I immediately thought of the Foundations books as well.
Emily Bell | 10.31.07 - 1:56 pm | #

Come on! everyone knows that Hari Seldon invented this entire branch of mathematics single handedly. What a rip off.
quasimodo | 10.31.07 - 1:58 pm | #

Great article. I like how offended people get when they are shown to be predictable. Rational choice theory assumes people operate according to their fallen natures. Hopefully his models are less accurate outside the political and economic arenas.
Liam | 10.31.07 - 2:38 pm | #

Shouldn't be that hard. They do it every week on "Numb3rs".
victor | Homepage | 10.31.07 - 4:15 pm | #

Hari Seldon turns out to have been the front man for R. Daneel Olivaw, who did all of the arithmetic tweaking (would that I had stopped reading followons to the Foundation Trilogy, Prelude to Foundation was drek).
Richard Bell | 10.31.07 - 8:06 pm | #

Great. This kind of stuff is totally self-reinforcing. The more techniques like this become current, the more people will assume that others are using base motives for their actions, and the more likely they are to act accordingly.
Jon W | Homepage | 10.31.07 - 9:04 pm | #

Hmm... If it turns out de Mesquita's mathematics is really indeed as good as it's supposed to be (and so far his track record [so far] *seems* to imply so), I wonder what would be the implications of it being applied to the automation of business decisions.

Check out this post from the "Enterprise Resilience Management Blog" discussing the possibility of automating business management:

"Algorithms and Business"
http://preview.tinyurl.com/2op5ju

Incidentally, both this Good Magazine article and the ERMB post also reminds me of an a connection/comparison between math and religious faith made by a contributor to First Thing's blog, "On The Square":

"God and Imaginary Numbers"
http://preview.tinyurl.com/3avt4s
Jayson | Homepage | 11.02.07 - 12:06 am | #