JOURNAL: Good intro to Swarm Theory

Here's an article from the National Geographic magazine that provides a low impact introduction to swarm theory.

In essence, it provides readers with insight into how small autonomous entities (in our case guerrilla groups with a diverse set primary loyalties and thereby a similarly diverse set of motivations for why they fight), armed with simple rules of behavior (the rules of open source warfare), can coordinate (via stigmergic signaling) their actions to produce intelligent behavior at the aggregate level (an emergent intelligence sufficient to fight a war at the operational and strategic levels).

NOTE: Swarm theory also informs us on the potential effectiveness of unsupported organic terrorists in the West. Without an open source network in residence, the organic terrorist in the developed West is much more likely to fail than not (very much like a small group of bees/ants disconnected from the swarm -- lost and confused). However, improvements in virtual environments that provide new sources of connectivity are starting to unlock this potential -- although this type of development usually takes longer to develop than most people suspect. It may take a decade for the ratio to shift to where there are more successes than failures.

Comments

[Duncan Kinder]

This brings to mind Wellington's quote, "The Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton." Essentially, the English swarm defeated the French genius.

The appropriate method to develop swarm tactics would be through team athletics.

Several months ago, on Col. Patrick Lang's blog, when discussing the theories of H. John Poole, I suggested that his proposed tactics were too subtle, refined, and difficult to be ingrained upon the basis of a few months of basic training. I then proposed that various "hide-and-go-seek" and "capture the flag" type athletics be developed on the high school or even junior high level to develop Poole's proposed skills.

To the extent that Robb appears to differ from Poole, it would be that generalized swarming type sports, such as soccer and rugby, would be valuable - in other words, that we do what Etonians did on their playing fields.

Following Robb's swarm-type logic, I don't see a place for individual - as opposed to team - sports, although encouraging sports such as the martial arts and gymnastics nevertheless would seem to be useful.

[pm2075]

The spike in the price of oil is a pretty significant one(that's if anybody besides world commodity traders and investment banks and a handful of financiers and industrialist to go with it).

What's different this time?

This time they've factored in the life of a 3-yr old girl into the risk premium of oil.

In a world where your actions can get crowded out instantaneously with the rule of the media of the moral side to invent the truth, the guerillas know how exactly to up the ante(even with diminishing return exponetially with each action repeated) and which buttons to push!

P-
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/invest_mavin/

[Paul LaFontaine]

John writes: "It may take a decade for more successes than failures in the West" - Then we have a decade to drop glass beads into the nest and determine the interval patterns that trigger swarming. Once that knowledge is gleaned we have the remainder of that decade to create an economic incentive for private players to disrupt the interval patterns. A bazaar of security that has to be more subtle than companies hiring Peruvian private convoy guards to roar up and down MSR's in foriegn lands. When piecework payments that reward simple rules based behavior create a 'security smart' network then we are moving the the right direction. Something like Facebook apps with micropayments attached that draw in scaled pattern recognition and reaction power.

[french swede the rootless vegetable]

For more information on ant stigmergy I recommend this book: Ants at Work, by Deborah Gordon. On Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/24s39s