Social Decision-Makers Beat the “Homo Economicus” By Dirk Helbing The Internet and Social Media change our way of decision-making. We are no longer the independent decision makers we used to be. Instead, we have become networked minds, social decision-makers, more than ever before. This has several fundamental implications. First of all, our economic theories must […]

by Ben King I would like to thank Greg Fisher for inviting me to write this blog, and also thanks to Rhett Gayle and Torben Kaas for commenting on earlier drafts. My primary interest is identity and cultural evolution as a complex adaptive system, a focus that has led me through multiple disciplines both objective […]

The Idea of Semi-Permeable Agents By Greg Fisher A couple of months ago I attended a fascinating workshop organised by my colleagues David Hales, Jeff Johnson and Jerey Pitt, on the subject of ‘agents’ and ‘agency’ within the context of complex systems and computer simulations.  The discussion was excellent in part because of its content […]

On Monday Civitas published a book written by me and Paul Ormerod entitled “Beyond the plc”.  A press release and summary can be found on Civitas’ website here. In this article I want to provide some background to this work in two broad ways.  First, I will frame our thinking in the context of collective […]

Where have all the miners gone?  To judge by the rhetoric of the BBC and other media outlets, whole swathes of Britain lie devastated, plagued by rickets, unemployment and endemic poverty – nearly thirty years after the pit closures under Lady Thatcher! The reality is different.  There is indeed a small number of local authority […]