There is an old book by Thomas Shelling from 1978, entitled Micromotives and Macrobehavior. In it he describes a computer model to explain segregated neighbourhoods, but it also can describe self-sustaining biased communities. In the model, every agent is grey or black. They prefer their own colour, but not strongly – they will move only if 45% of their neighbours are of a different colour. Very quickly, however (within "two moves" in the original computer model) the result is a completely segregated society. More intriguingly, he
Biases, by and large
Biases, by and large
There is an old book by Thomas Shelling from 1978, entitled Micromotives and Macrobehavior. In it he describes a computer model to explain segregated neighbourhoods, but it also can describe self-sustaining biased communities. In the model, every agent is grey or black. They prefer their own colour, but not strongly – they will move only if 45% of their neighbours are of a different colour. Very quickly, however (within "two moves" in the original computer model) the result is a completely segregated society. More intriguingly, he
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