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I'm not sure I buy the idea of cliodynamics as useful for making predictions about the future, but I do like the idea of at least some researchers talking about history with data and through a data-driven lens. I don't get why there's such controversy over the idea of a data-driven understanding of history

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Because it is ridiculously easy to overfit your models, and the combined human behaviour producing 'history' is so complex and ever-changing that it cannot be simulated.

Also, if such a law were proposed, a widespread (dis)belief in that law could undo it.

Oh, I don't believe in a law of history or anything like that. I'm just saying the coupling the practice of history with data analysis is some cases could be fruitful - kind of like anthropological history, but with a bit wider focus

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