
Computational sociology - eekthecat
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computational_sociology
======
eduren
See also:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychohistory_(fictional)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychohistory_\(fictional\))

Snark aside, I'm definitely interested in whether or not this field will have
impacts on future policy. In order to be useful I feel it would have to
actively avoid simplifying assumptions that have trapped similar fields.

~~~
creaghpatr
Regarding academic study, sociology is so partisan you need not worry about
them using computer science and/or logic to uncover hidden truths in the near
future.

In the private sector however, companies such as Premise and Palantir are
already eons ahead of academia, but their insights and data are proprietary.

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denzil_correa
There's another field closely related to Computational Sociology called
"Computational Social Science" \- an area/community which I was a part of.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computational_social_science](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computational_social_science)

There are many universities like Stanford, Cornell and Columbia which have
dedicated working groups for Computational Social Science.

[https://iriss.stanford.edu/css](https://iriss.stanford.edu/css)

[http://as.cornell.edu/block/computational-social-
sciences](http://as.cornell.edu/block/computational-social-sciences)

[http://datascience.columbia.edu/computational-social-
science](http://datascience.columbia.edu/computational-social-science)

~~~
pathdependent
This is my field, too. I am a Ph.D. candidate in computational social science,
working on a computational model of social belief systems.

I'm quite happy to see this on HN. Like many other disciplines, our field is
blossoming with the rise of cheap, high performance computing!

If your involved in this field and on HN, please reach out to me at
@generativist on twitter. I'm in the process of setting up a community for CSS
work, and will be soliciting feedback soon!

~~~
harlanji
Can you talk about what software packages, perhaps data structures and
algorithms you use? Any shortcomings / low hanging fruit? I see the domain as
an invaluable tool for a few applications... any particularly strong ones you
can see?

~~~
neuromantik8086
Wrt to algorithms / techniques used, you might want to check out this textbook
by some of the Cornell folks:

[http://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/kleinber/networks-
book/](http://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/kleinber/networks-book/)

They also made an EdX course for it:

[https://www.edx.org/course/networks-crowds-markets-
cornellx-...](https://www.edx.org/course/networks-crowds-markets-cornellx-
info2040x-2)

~~~
randcraw
Coursera offers about a half dozen courses in subjects seemingly related to
CompSoc:

Social and Economic Networks: Models and Analysis, Stanford

Networks: Friends, Money, and Bytes, Princeton

Sampling People, Networks and Records, Michigan

Applied Social Network Analysis in Python, Michigan

Capstone: Analyzing (Social) Network Data, UCSD

Social Computing, UCSD

Measuring Causal Effect in the Social Sciences, U Copenhagen

Smart Cities, EPFL

Organizational Analysis, Stanford

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programLyrique
The "impact on society" paragrapg is quite short. Has any work of
computational sociology inspired a real policy?

Could it replace economy as the main driver of politics and policies?

~~~
jk4930
Re policy, it's used e.g. in environmental resource management (regional
level), anti-terrorism (networks, opinion dynamics), urban planning, disease
control. Policy isn't based alone on it, of course. But it's used as an
ingredient. Often the models aren't good enough (lack of data and quantifiable
causal relationships) to gain an exact image of the modeled system, but they
provide a general system understanding (system behavior under different
[intervention] scenarios) that is often educational and gives insights that
then need to be empirically validated.

A barrier to increase its use in policy-making is the "science-policy gap"
between researchers and decision-makers. Either they don't understand the
utility of model results and dismiss them or they trust them too much--both is
not good. So researchers had to come up with ways to communicate results,
often include decision-makers (and other stakeholders) in the modeling
process.

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mazr
Come say Hi in Berlin if you're interested in this field ! [http://cmb.huma-
num.fr/](http://cmb.huma-num.fr/)

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rollinDyno
How can I get into this field? I'm a senior CS student.

~~~
jboynyc
If it's repeated in coming years, you should go to this summer school:
[https://www.russellsage.org/summer-institute-
computational-s...](https://www.russellsage.org/summer-institute-
computational-social-science-june-18-july-1-2017)

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pavement
Pretty interesting tangent:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociocybernetics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociocybernetics)

