Chapter 3
Social Forces
Revealing the Causes of Success and Disaster
Complex systems can behave in unpredictable ways and cause a lot of trouble. But it
doesn’t have to be like this. Their behavior depends on the interactions between the system
components, the strength of these interactions, and the institutional settings. Consequently,
for a complex system to work well, it is important to understand the factors that drive its
dynamics. In physics, many phenomena have been understood in terms of forces, which
can be measured by suitable procedures. In a similar way, the success or failure of socioeconomic systems depends on hidden forces, too. Thanks to new data about our world we
can now measure the forces driving socio-economic change. This will allow us to act more
successfully in future.
Societies around the world are suffering from financial crises, crime, conflicts,
wars, and revolutions. These “societal ills” do not occur by chance, but for a reason.
The fact that they are happening time and again proves that there are hidden causes,
which we haven’t understood sufficiently well. This is why we keep failing to cope
with these problems. In future, however, we will be able to understand societal
problems and cure them. This will be akin to the discovery of the X-ray by Wilhelm
Conrad Röntgen (1845–1923), which helped to reveal the causes of many diseases
and to cure billions of people.
1
Given that we are now living in a Big Data age, will we soon be able to answer
all our questions and find the best possible course of action in every situation? Of
course, it’s far from clear that this dream will ever come true. However, the growing
amount of data about our world will certainly allow us to measure the hidden forces
behind our global technological, social, economic and environmental systems, just
as microscopes and telescopes enabled us to discover and understand the microand macro-cosmos—from cells to stars—in the past. Similarly to how we have built
elementary particle accelerators to discover the forces that keep our world together,
1 Nevertheless, it is important to avoid an overdose of radiation, which can be very harmful. In a
similar way, mass surveillance can be harmful to society, as I will show later. When measuring
what’s going on in society, it is therefore, important to respect privacy and the fundamental right
of informational self-determination. The Nervousnet platform featured in this chapter is taking this
into account.
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
D. Helbing, Next Civilization,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-62330-2_3
35
Social Forces
Revealing the Causes of Success and Disaster
Complex systems can behave in unpredictable ways and cause a lot of trouble. But it
doesn’t have to be like this. Their behavior depends on the interactions between the system
components, the strength of these interactions, and the institutional settings. Consequently,
for a complex system to work well, it is important to understand the factors that drive its
dynamics. In physics, many phenomena have been understood in terms of forces, which
can be measured by suitable procedures. In a similar way, the success or failure of socioeconomic systems depends on hidden forces, too. Thanks to new data about our world we
can now measure the forces driving socio-economic change. This will allow us to act more
successfully in future.
Societies around the world are suffering from financial crises, crime, conflicts,
wars, and revolutions. These “societal ills” do not occur by chance, but for a reason.
The fact that they are happening time and again proves that there are hidden causes,
which we haven’t understood sufficiently well. This is why we keep failing to cope
with these problems. In future, however, we will be able to understand societal
problems and cure them. This will be akin to the discovery of the X-ray by Wilhelm
Conrad Röntgen (1845–1923), which helped to reveal the causes of many diseases
and to cure billions of people.
1
Given that we are now living in a Big Data age, will we soon be able to answer
all our questions and find the best possible course of action in every situation? Of
course, it’s far from clear that this dream will ever come true. However, the growing
amount of data about our world will certainly allow us to measure the hidden forces
behind our global technological, social, economic and environmental systems, just
as microscopes and telescopes enabled us to discover and understand the microand macro-cosmos—from cells to stars—in the past. Similarly to how we have built
elementary particle accelerators to discover the forces that keep our world together,
1 Nevertheless, it is important to avoid an overdose of radiation, which can be very harmful. In a
similar way, mass surveillance can be harmful to society, as I will show later. When measuring
what’s going on in society, it is therefore, important to respect privacy and the fundamental right
of informational self-determination. The Nervousnet platform featured in this chapter is taking this
into account.
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
D. Helbing, Next Civilization,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-62330-2_3
35