I like the analogy between social collapse and sand-pile collapse this implies :) [actually, rice-pile collapse] But can you say anything more about the model, eg, how you would make a simple computer simulation illustrating the dynamics? Based on your divorce example, it seems like the model is roughly “people sometimes form groups” (as opposed to “sometimes a new grain is dropped” in the rice-pile analogy). But how can we model the formation of very large groups, such as nations?
I like the analogy between social collapse and sand-pile collapse this implies :) [actually, rice-pile collapse] But can you say anything more about the model, eg, how you would make a simple computer simulation illustrating the dynamics? Based on your divorce example, it seems like the model is roughly “people sometimes form groups” (as opposed to “sometimes a new grain is dropped” in the rice-pile analogy). But how can we model the formation of very large groups, such as nations?