I’ve been thinking about ways to use simulation to teach young and old (particularly the young) about complexity and unintended consequences, things that are not easy for most people to grasp well, but are essential for our society to escape simplistic ideologies and simplistic solutions, for all of us to have a more intelligent discourse on how to make the world better.
Such concepts are better understood or taught through interactive simulation (where the interaction is the users tweaking the settings, coefficients, equations or rules) combined with easy to grasp graphic representation of both the simulation in progress and the results.
Some of the things I’ve thought of illustrating this way:
- Game Theory. For example have a population where individual sims engage in prisoner’s dilemma repeatedly with a random other sim each time (until it runs out of money). What are the results when different portions of the sim population use different strategies? Is there a way to setup the rewards/penalties in a way that encourages the best greater good even when individuals behave selfishly?
- complex systems, positive and negative feedback, chaos, emergence, evolution
- The Mathew Effect (e.g. rich get richer, poor get poorer). The general concept of vicious/virtuous cycles.
- the notion of the Tragedy of the Commons. And also the Tragedy of No Commons.
- market economics, supply and demand, the invisible hand. when does it work and when does it not. what happens when consumers have perfect knowledge, and what happens when they have different degrees of partial knowledge?
- Cooperation vs competition, in evolution/ecosystems, economies, politics.
Please let me know this overlaps with your interests!