that's far out! Great example. If you're interested I did a fairly careful study of the crimewave collapse in New York City http://www.synapse9.com/cw/crimewave_nys2.htm. It was something like the collapse of the Soviet Union, a whole crime culture just sort of gave up the ghost. The fascinating part is that it happened so fast it had to involve people changing their behavior, but no one on the street remembers when their rage went away... The noticeable effect was that you stopped hearing shots at night, it got surprisingly quiet. In the final analysis? What it seems to have been is a spontaneous community-wide change of heart. No doubt they were under huge pressure from many directions, but were unmovable until the end, which points to it being an internal rather than external cause.
There are lots of little bumps in the non-linear shapes you can read in time series data. A good general purpose data source is http://www.robhyndman.info/TSDL/. There tend to be good interventions for most any emergent system, if you have some early access and think about where the compounding returns (the critical positive feedback links) are located. Police don't quite know it yet but the GIS crime hotspot tools they're presently using to dispatch the cops to where the crime will be can become a superior emergence response tool too. Naturally they've also got to think about the whole picture of what's happening to find what kind of intervention would help, but that'll develop I think. > > Phil--That's an embarrassingly (for me) clear summary of what we > jargoned up and called "trend theory" on an NIH grant. After > too many > years in the drug field, I wanted to explain how and why > illicit drug > epidemics kept happening. So we looked back in history for when > "quickening" happened, for us the explosion of an epidemic incidence > curve, heroin in the 60s and 90s, crack in the 80s, X in the 90s, > methamphetamine in the 80s, etc. Then we looked around at what was > going on at about the same time in three areas, historical > conditions > of the population who were the faces behind the numbers, changes in > drug production systems, and changes in distribution networks. > Quickening there too. Turns out when you get dramatic and unexpected > changes in those distant systems at about the same time, and if they > link up into positive feedback loops, you get the curve and a > hell of > a lot more. More to it in terms of fitting the theory to the many > different instances, but on the whole it worked to tell you where to > look to prevent at some particular moment, except most of > what needed > intervention wasn't an individual, so the concept didn't fly well in > a medically dominated institute. > > Mike > > > > On Jun 13, 2006, at 8:59 PM, Phil Henshaw wrote: > > > The hardest thing about imagining how growth works is that > it demands > > that you comprehend a whole complex system at once. Of course you > > inevitably have to guess about the edges and plug in some > stock images > > where your observations or brain power are lacking, because the > > feat is > > always just a little too much to handle. Pick something > interesting > > you're very familiar with at first. The behavior of your kids, or > > your > > crops, or your business successes or failures, the moods of your > > friends > > or enemies, how ideas percolate in the lab, the last great or horrid > > party you threw, etc. Where you see exponential quickening (when > > innocent beginnings suddenly take off, or fall completely > flat, etc.) > > try to document *everything* connected that was happening. > Find the > > flow & the inflection points. > > > > > > Phil Henshaw ¸¸¸¸.·´ ¯ `·.¸¸¸¸ > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > > 680 Ft. Washington Ave > > NY NY 10040 > > tel: 212-795-4844 > > e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > explorations: www.synapse9.com > > > > > > > > ============================================================ > > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, > > archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > > ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
