hi Paul, I wonder if you could write up a comment to present this article on the p2p blog: http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-01-mathematical-complex-societies-emerge-co... *The instability of large, complex societies is a predictable phenomenon, according to a new mathematical model that explores the emergence of early human societies via warfare. Capturing hundreds of years of human history, the model reveals the dynamical nature of societies, which can be difficult to uncover in archaeological data.* Note: I'm reading collapse by jared diamond, which I found a very disappointing book, not in terms of historical narrative, which is always interesting, but in terms of the very weak causal analysis .. you end up with the feeling, yeah, some societies collapse, shit happens, and some don't, but no discernible method or propositions to get us out of this mess .. Michel -- P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss: http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/p2presearch_listcultures.org Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens; http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens Think tank: http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI