The Longevity of Distinct Cultures in an Agent-Based Model of Memetic Drift

摘要

When a distinct cultural region forms, its rate of absorption into the surrounding culture may be an important variable to take into account when attempting to minimise conflict. This paper describes a re-implementation of Axelrod's agent-based model of cultural dissemination, and uses it to investigate how random drift influences the longevity of distinct regions. Cultural regions are found to be surprisingly resistant to such memetic drift.