simulation of coping to understand conflict dynamics

. 1 Policy Assessment Corporation

Simulation of Coping to Understand Conflict Dynamics

George Backus, D.Engr.Policy Assessment Corporation

Denver, Colorado, USA

Telephone: 1-303-467-3566

CUAugust 19/21 2003


Peace And War

● Opposites?● Blends?

● Wrong Question?

● You cannot understand the future if you do not understand the past. We dare not deny what the past tells us about ourselves. We cannot make up a future that violates who we are.

● Belief/hope is not a valid approach. Math and science must have falsification.


Math Facts and Fancy

● Conclusions (given “facts) will possibly be incontrovertible.

● Need to find realistic, doable, change in system to allow sustainability and stable future.

● Optimization is not a valid approach; the assumptions violate what real humans can do.

● Human response represents a distribution --from the individual through the global level.


Two Days and then Refutation

● The End of the World● History: The present● History: -30 years● History: -6M years

● “Limits to Growth” and Technological Salvation● System Dynamics

● Overshoot and Collapse: Pacifism Prevents Peace● The Arms Race: US and Russia

● Coping with Peace● The Distribution of Nothing to Lose● Every Conflict has a Solution● United We Fall (Conflicts have No Solution)


Morality is a Choice

● Mathematical not philosophical statement ● There is only morality if you choose

● Living in affluent American neighborhood is not like living in the Ivory Coast, Liberia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Guatemala etc., etc., etc.

● Promoting group-hugs and singing “Give Peace a Chance” to stop war is a denial of reality.

● In mathematics, you must consider all alternatives (all potential choices).

● Only when you are faced with the full spectrum of possibilities does choice have a moral meaning.


End of the World

● A bit of “garage” engineering● A bit of history

● 1996: Peace: Lithuania-Kaliningrad Border● 1974: Fuel Processing: San Diego, California● 1984: Cold War: Czechoslovakia-Austrian

Border● 1971: Vietnam War: Madison, Wisconsin


Waiting on an Individual Extremist


Very Real Individual Choices

● U239+n=Pu239● Available to all who have a reactor.

● U235 is 0.007 of Natural Uranium ● Centripetal separation with vacuum cleaner would take ~ 5

years.

● Fission bomb limit is ~2MT ● Fusion has no limit

● Realistic limit is 50MT to avoid catastrophic fracture of earth’s crust.

● Requires very high tech and lots of $● Doomsday bomb is “too easy” to make. (US has it?)

● You have something to lose. You are not a threat.● But if you believed you were “right” and “they” were wrong…


Learning from History

● 1996: Peace: Lithuania-Kaliningrad Border● 1974: Fuel Processing: San Diego,

California● 1984: Cold War: Czechoslovakia-Austria

Border● 1971: Vietnam War: Madison, Wisconsin


Protesting War

● http://www.leemark.com/featuredcontent/sterling/sterling.html


Zimbardo Experiment (1971)

● Stanford University Student Pacifists● Prison Simulation: Guards and prisoners● Violence and Psychological Reality

”The Stanford Prison Experiment is a classic psychology experiment. What happens when you put good people in an evil place? Does humanity win over evil, or does evil triumph? How we went about testing these questions and what we found may astound you. Our planned two-week investigation into the psychology of prison life had to be ended prematurely after only six days because of what the situation was doing to the college students who participated. In only a few days, our guards became sadistic and our prisoners became depressed and showed signs of extreme stress.” http://www.prisonexp.org/

● The John Wayne effect● Fall of Iran and the “Ayatollah”


History – 6 Million Years and 6000 Peoples

● Constant Battles: Steven LeBlanc (2003)Guns, Germs, and Steel: Jared Diamond● Not one peaceful people in 6 Million years.● Peace is an transient accident

● Mahandas Gandhi And Martin Luther King● Neville Chamberlain and Hitler● Ecological imbalance is also economics and cultural

● Technology and Centralized Power● There is “peace” within a strongly-governed

country…if forced.● Technology will lead to abundance for all… if only

the earth were not finite.


Good versus Evil

MT MG NB SH ATH AH JS PP OBL?

Good? Evil?

0

2 .5

1 E -0 6

Frequency

Impact

AH (6-20 Million), JS(7-30M), PP(20% of Pop) 150 years ago life had no value anywhere. “Genocide” continues today.


Limits to Growth and Technological Salvation

● Dynamics of Growth in a Finite World: D. L. Meadows (1972)● “Discredited”… except it is still forecasting correctly.

● Technology can overcome, but at the wrong time.● Technology extends the low-cost exploitation of a

finite resource. It delays the hard decisions.● With even weak exponential growth, there is no time

to substitute from one resource to the next.● War is the outcome.

● Mathematical models can change the world.


WORLD3 Model


Mathematical Simulation: System Dynamics

● Business Dynamics: Systems Thinking and Modeling in a Complex World. John Sterman.

● POP(t)=POP(t-1)+dt*(BR-DR)● d(POP)/dt=BR-DR: BR=POP*FR: DR=POP*MR● Feedback, Delays, DQ as causal language● Complete: Constant to Variable, One to Many● Fear and greed behavior (Only need fear.)

BR POP DR Balancing Reinforcing

FR MR

+ +

+

+

+

-


Population and “Needs”

BR POP DR Balancing Reinforcing

FR MR

+ +

+

+

+

-

FOOD RG CR

RR

+

-

- FPR

-

+ +

+


Overshoot and Collapse (And War)

0.00

5.00

10.00

15.00

20.00

25.000 9 18 27 36 45 54 63 72 81 90 99 108

117

126

135

144

(Th

ou

san

ds)

Time (Years)

Un

its

Population

Food


Detailed Dynamics

0

200

400

600

800

1000

12000 9 18 27 36 45 54 63 72 81 90 99 108

117

126

135

144

Birth Rate

Death Rate

Consumption Rate

Regeneration Rate


Resources and Population

● At collapse, all die or some WILL die. It is a “war” choice.

● Maya, Indus, Mesopotamia, Moche, etc. are examples of the collapse.

● If factions, largest (fastest growing population) wins.

● 26 members of the human family may have existed together. Only the ONE best predator survived – by destroying the others.


Arms Race

● The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Paul Kennedy● Uncertain Mistrust

● Peace as a Darwinian Dead-End (Is that same ultimately true of war?)

GR2 Weapons1 GR2

ECON2

Weapons2

ECON1 +

+

+

+ - - - -

-

-


Unlimited Arms Race

0.00

10.00

20.00

30.00

40.00

50.00

60.000 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 32 34 36

(Th

ou

san

ds)

Time

Wea

po

ns

Weapons 1

Weapons 2


The Rise and Fall of Nations

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 32 34 36

Time

$/Ye

ar (

Billi

ons)

Economy 1

Economy 2

0.00

5.00

10.00

15.00

20.00

25.00

30.00

35.00

40.00

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 32 34 36

(Tho

usan

ds)

Time

Wea

pons

Weapons 1

Weapons 2


Coping With (Human) Nature

Coping Enhancement

Response

Attention Pressure

Atrophication

Gap

(-) (+) (+) (+) (-) (+) (-) (+) (+) (+)


Figure 1: Attention Behavior

Attention to Pressure

0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1

1.2

-3.5 -3.0 -2.5 -2.0 -1.5 -1.0 -0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5

(Pressure-Coping)/Coping

Att

entio

n Le

vel


Figure 2: Response Behavior

Response to Pressure

0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1

1.2

-3.5 -3.0 -2.5 -2.0 -1.5 -1.0 -0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5


Res

po

nse

Lev

el


Figure 3: Net Active Behavior

Net Response

0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1

1.2

-3.5 -3.0 -2.5 -2.0 -1.5 -1.0 -0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5


Net

Res

po

nse

Lev

el


Figure 4: Steady State Pressure.


Figure 5: Coping-Skill Atrophication


Figure 6: Maximum Sustainable Growth


Figure 7: Near the Limits to Growth


Figure 8: Collapse


Figure 9: Moderate Coping-Skill Overshoot


Figure 10: Gradual Coping-Skill Overshoot


Figure 11: Maximum Sustainable Growth with a Coping-

Skill Limit


Figure 12: Excess Repetitive Pressure


Figure 13: Tolerable Repetitive Pressure


Figure 14: Almost Burnout


Figure 15: Burnout


What is the Probability?

● Any individual bilateral conflict can be accommodated via coping.

● Given a distribution of incompatible (irrational?) individuals, there is no stable solution for multiple interacting parties at the extremes of the distribution.

● “The End” probability goes to unity in the long-term.

● Will an attempt to make all have something to lose succeed soon enough?

simulation of coping to understand conflict dynamics

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