iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

It turns out there's a bit of a reproducibility crisis in the computational social sciences. Sometimes it's bugs in the implementation, sometimes it's parameters or tweaks they didn't bother to record in the paper, sometimes... it's a mystery. We'll see a lot more issues as we continue.

Finale 🎉 A look back at *Growing Artificial Societies* - what was reproducible, what was not reproducible, etc.

100

Probably a dumb question, but is there an atproto Reddit equivalent? A place based more on semi-stable concepts of a community based around a given interest? I Googled™ and found Nooki and apparently that's... no longer viable?

320

Nathan Douglas @tenesm.us · 23h

"It's a closed model... experimenting with it is pointless." Here I was thinking that experimentation is actually a really good way to learn about a black box. If it's open, you can analyze the contents. If it's closed, I guess just give up, lol. "Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown."

1291

It's always the most unpleasant people saying that shit, too.

030

Each tick the agent is ill, their metabolism is impaired and a bit of their immune system is flipped to match a bit of the disease, representing recovery.

000

Disease 🦠 SugarScape has a delightfully elegant immune system model. Individuals' immune systems and diseases are both represented as binary strings, then compared at each contact event - if the binary string is a substring of the immune system, the agent is immune; otherwise, they're ill.

100

I didn't get much college counseling. I ended up graduating with a 1.67 cumulative GPA so maybe the other kids got college counseling while I was sitting in the corner melting crayons on the radiator and eating paste or something. "Nah, just ignore him unless he starts choking or smth."

In sixth grade the guidance counselor came to my class and spoke to each of us in turn. He asked what I wanted to be and I said "a chronic invalid," which he said wasn't funny, but it's at least a little funny because I have rheumatoid arthritis. Oh, if he could only see me now.

120

I might as well have been from another country, lol. @yetanotheruseless.com was talking about cover letters recently - I was told to write cover letters to show that I could spell, which was a big deal and meant I could maybe get one of the better minimum wage jobs 😛

It wasn't just me being stupid either. The VA paid for my degree and the counselor tried to talk me out of it. "I asked a guy with a CS degree what that is *pointed to his computer* and he didn't know. It's called a modem. Worthless degree."

130

Once again I feel like the dumbest person on this webzone. I wasn't aware software engineering paid well. I was so excited I almost cried when I was offered my first position ($42.5K, in 2012). I really wanted to work in AI but the professor who taught my AI class said it was a dead end 🙃

260

Anecdata doesn't count for much, but I'd say it was about 15% adults and 85% children in the first couple of years in the service, with seniors passing through or resting in a coarse bro period (which was worse). The exceptions tended to be older (23+). The vast majority were 18-20.

I loved my linguistics class and I know another engineer with a linguistics degree. Actually trying to dig into modeling language evolution right now as part of another project.

Yeah, I didn't get my degree until I was 31, and that was only possible because the gubmint paid for it. My twenties were spent unemployed, impoverished, depressed, and hopeless. Congratulations on making it ✊🏻

050

Nathan Douglas @tenesm.us · 29/09/2026

The formation of lending relationships and how it affects population and inequality; I have some ideas for exploring this further down the line.

000

Now for what ended up being maybe my least favorite part of the book, WAR! Show me your war face, Private Flump! 😡 The superficiality of this take annoyed me enough to plan an additional series focusing on just different aspects and behaviors of war. Soon?

000

Nathan Douglas @tenesm.us · 29/09/2026

Just watched *The Leopard* for the first time recently. Gorgeous!

000

Nathan Douglas @tenesm.us · 29/09/2026

Absolutely not me IRL

000

Reposted by Nathan Douglas

Rude Law Dog @esghound.com · 24/05/2026

I'm taking propecia not for hair loss but specifically because I want my junk to be more conical, narrower and supremely aerodynamic. My body is none of your business

3441

Huh. Apparently she's blocked me. Can't imagine why.

050

I think it's definitely compensated for a lot of my weaknesses, though by no means all of them.

Yeah, I think I'd definitely need to build up a good amount of structure underneath it, but it'd be worth it.

I read it as a cautionary tale about the value and risks of transgressive thought, i.e. "keep your mind open, but not so open that your brain falls out of your skull." Sort of like *The Neverending Story* was for fantasy, perhaps.

130

ooh that would be awesome! I'm going to poke around in the literature and see what exists (or possibly try to create something new for it).

@pfohl.bsky.social , this might be up your alley - the next "chapter" happens to be about a simple market system, introducing a second commodity, comparative advantage, trade, and market equilibria.

210

So I'm using this project as a way of investigating a lot of ideas and patterns individually so that I might be able to utilize them later in different ways - that game, in thinking about AI safety and control, etc etc etc.

The reason this book excited me so much is that I've been wanting to do a really detailed social sciences sandbox for a while in the form of a RPG. *Dwarf Fortress*, but with the prices set by market mechanisms, and by individuals crafting legends and religions, etc.

Thank you 😊 The book's short, physically small, and a pretty fast read (~180 pages before appendices, end notes, etc). I got a copy off AMZN for ~$10 but it's also available on the high seas.

The notion of a side, faction, or tribal identity, which will become very important in some future rules 😔

210

ooh, this is cool as hell.

dat gini coefficient anyway, ndouglas.github.io/SugarScape/

000

Nathan Douglas @tenesm.us · 27/09/2026

On the brighter side, inherited wealth and how it leads to persistent inequality!

130

That's really not what I was expecting, but it's a very interesting result. 12axes.vercel.app

030

Nathan Douglas @tenesm.us · 27/09/2026

"Astromycological Hellmouth of Horse Dewormer" is my favorite lyric of the Mars Volta