

Predicting Riots and the Fall of Dictators - skmurphy
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20928024.000-i-predict-a-riot-where-the-next-dictator-will-fall.html

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skmurphy
Some key grafs

The key to predicting regime shifts, says Marten Scheffer of the University of
Wageningen in the Netherlands, is to look beyond individual behaviour to seek
simple laws that describe a population's collective behaviour.

"All complex systems exhibit certain symptoms before a regime shift," he says,
including slower responses to small changes, and a tendency for all players to
behave similarly.

In the past, Scheffer says, analysts focused on the trigger that sparks
change, rather than the underlying system. "We cannot predict the spark," he
says, "but we can say when a forest has accumulated dangerous levels of
kindling." Repressing revolution is not the way to achieve stability, he adds.
It would be like preventing small forest fires, allowing kindling to
accumulate until a big fire breaks out. But uncovering the symptoms of
instability may warn societies to reform themselves before revolution happens.

