Models are being applied to people in general to determine their associations for advertising, criminal apprehension and sociology. I find it much more interesting to apply these same models to governments and politicians. It is actually less interesting to me whether Paris Hilton smokes pot than knowing which lawyers and politicians use drugs.
I saw a recent analysis of DNA of people who live to be 100+ and the statistical relationship to about 110 SNPs. It was a very good correlation for being based on non coding DNA and given that it is a very complex product.
There are many patterns that don't show up in common analysis, but can be extracted by using statistical methods. Some very interesting patterns emerge from the relationships of nations. It is very similar to those of feudal Europe. It seems that somewhere in that supposed conflicting ideology is a coordination for common purpose. It seems to imply that nations cooperate at some level to maintain power over others and that as a result the wars are not conflict resolution, but driven by other forces in most cases. Patterns that show up in behavior of groups can often be random conspiracy and emergent properties of the data set. Ants act by some fairly simple rules and they do not have a hierarchical command structure and yet they exhibit group behavior that favors the queen.
Businesses, churches, and international organizations show these same patterns and though it may be in the governments interest to discover emergent threats to their dominance in their own ranks, it is far more useful to be able to see the hidden handshake of a corporate system or government.
The focus of power is to subdue and as a result the independent thought suffers. I am sure that governments would not like what they see if they apply the same methods to their own data. It is a weakness to be so transparent to the tools that are created to impose ideology on others. Correlations are not causations, but it gives you a very good place to look for the cause. It reminds me of a Star Trek TNG episode where ( the character ) Data analyzed the command structure of "Star Fleet Command". It would seem to be an indication to me that somebody involved was cognizant that "data" analysis of political and military structure as a whole, might yield some pattern. Roddenberry was an interesting fellow and even in the choice of pseudonym, it shows patterns that can be found by software that can never be seen by simple analysis of the vast ocean of data that exists. It is true everywhere, from the stars to the bars.
What prompts me to consider this is a bit of psycho-historian like analysis of power and what happens when new technology is created that disturbs the balance of power in the world or any system. It isn't science fiction anymore to consider concepts like those presented in "The Foundation" by Asimov. There are patterns and the black swan is always problematic to analysis or maintenance of power. The universe has no upper limit on stochastic combinatorics. Computers are limited in their scope and precision so are as a result only approximations of outcome, whereas the universe computes complete. Like a chain reaction, the technology implodes and what core of dark purpose arises is the "Empire of the Holy Darkness". There are always some new patterns that can be seen and though the techniques are intended for a specific purpose, the application in unique ways leads to some very interesting insight. I smell rats in the woodwork of human endeavor.
Asimov and Heinlein wrote some really good futuristic fiction and their legacy is still with us. It seems the new fiction is absolute crap to me. The kind of really good future projection is lacking. I can see for myself that the future will be far less cookie cutter past and something very bizarre. People like to cast the art form in such a way that strokes the ego, but the future looks like a mess as far as maintaining the social framework and mystique of animals.
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