The perfectly dumb, smart social structure
Channel: Krzysztof Waśniewski
Date: 2020-05-25

I am experimenting with an artificial neural network, in order to give some depth to my thinking about the emergence of new social roles in cities, and about the role of cities as cradles for new social roles. I simulate the behaviour of a social structure in the presence of an external disturbance, e.g. rapid technological change, pandemic etc. Besides the easily predictable, alternative scenarios of social change, two really surprising observations emerge out of that experiment. Firstly, when social cohesion looses up, some social roles tend to disappear, but they kick back into existence shortly after. Secondly, and more generally, social roles do not really disappear under the impact of external stressors: they rather go dormant and can come back.  Read more at https://discoversocialsciences.com . Click on that link, and you will go to the website of my blog, 'Discover Social Sciences'. There, you will find the full, written update paired with this video.