The Gods of Sugarscape: Digital sex, migration, trade, and war on the social science frontier

摘要

In the ritualized warfare of the game of chess, the board is a miniature battlefield on which opposing commanders-in-chief marshal their forces. Each playing piece has a particular pattern of allowed movements, and the game's rules shape the battle. The combatants can try out different strategies, directing bold attacks, mounting stubborn defenses, or waging wars of attrition across the grid. At the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., social scientist Joshua M. Epstein and computer modeler Robert Axtell also have a playing field on which to audition their ideas. They play their game on a 50 by 50 square lattice on a computer screen, and the playing pieces, or agents, are colored dots occupying some fraction of the squares.