Коротаев Андрей Витальевич

Построение предсказательного индекса революций: опыт использования методов машинного обучения

2021 · CHAPTER · ru

Структурные факторы мирной и вооруженной революционной смены власти: опыт анализа методами машинного обучения

2021 · CHAPTER · ru

Опыт анализа множества революционных эпизодов показывает, что на большинство случаев смены власти влияет значительное число структурных факторов – демографические, политические, социальные, экономические и так далее. В статье делается попытка системного анализа достижений различных авторов в области изучения революций и протестных движений. Для этого используется подход машинного обучения, с помощью которого возможно в рамках одной статистической модели проанализировать влияние множества факторов на возникновение нестабильности, а также ранжировать полученные результаты по уровню их влияния. В статье анализируются различные виды моделей машинного обучения, а также несколько подходов к анализу полученных результатов.

К регрессионному анализу рисков революционной дестабилизации в афразийской макрозоне нестабильности в XXI веке

2021 · CHAPTER · ru

В этой работе мы представляем индекс рисков революционной дестабилизации. Чтобы создать его, мы использовали регрессионный анализ на трех базах данных; список независимых переменных мы получили с помощью машинного обучения. В основе анализа лежит созданная в этом году база данных революционных событий с 1945 г., для создания которой использовались три другие базы данных. Особое внимание мы уделяем афразийской макрозоне нестабильности, включающей, в частности, Ближний Восток и Сахель. Этим исследованием мы открываем путь к масштабному регрессионному анализу факторов революционной нестабильности; в этой же статье мы приводим первичные результаты, которые наши читатели могут найти небезынтересными.

Революционные события в Мали (1960–2021 гг.)

2021 · CHAPTER · ru

Variation of Human Values and Modernization: Preliminary Results

2020 · ARTICLE · en

The current article investigates the relation between values and modernization applying some elements of the method proposed by Inglehart and Welzel (the authors of the Human Development Sequence Theory) to the data of Shalom Schwartz. The values survey by Schwartz specifies two main value axes, namely, conservation versus openness to change and self-transcendence versus self-enhancement. Our research has revealed that the correlation between these two value axes differs in its direction when estimated for “macro-Europe” (that includes Europe and former settlement colonies of North and South America and Oceania) and “Afroasia” (that includes Asia and Africa). In “macro-Europe,” we deal with a significant positive correlation between openness to change and self-transcendence, whereas in “Afroasia,” this correlation is strong, significant, and negative. We investigate the possible impact of modernization on this difference. To do this, we approximate modernization through such indicators as gross domestic product (GDP) per capita and the proportions of the labor force employed in various sectors of economy. We find that, in both megazones, modernization is accompanied by increasing openness to change values. As for the self-transcendence/self-enhancement axis, we propose two possible explanations of the different dynamics observed in Europe and in “the East” (Asia and North Africa), namely, (a) that Eastern and Western societies find themselves at different modernization stages and (b) that this difference is accounted for by different civilizational patterns. Further analysis suggests that the latter explanation might be more plausible.

Relative Deprivation as a Factor of Sociopolitical Destabilization: Toward a Quantitative Comparative Analysis of the Arab Spring Events

2020 · ARTICLE · en

The article analyzes relative deprivation as a possible factor of sociopolitical instability during the Arab Spring events using the methods of correlation and multiple regression analysis. In this case, relative deprivation is operationalized in two ways: (a) through the indicator of subjective feeling of happiness on the eve of the events of the Arab Spring, and (b) through the scale of decrease of the subjective feeling of happiness on the eve of the events of Arab Spring. It is shown that the change in the level of subjective feeling of happiness between 2009 and 2010 is a powerful, statistically significant predictor of the level of destabilization in Arab countries in 2011. The next most powerful predictor is the mean value of the subjective feeling of happiness in the corresponding country for 2010. At the same time, the fundamental economic indicators we tested, while controlling for them, have turned out to be extremely weak and at the same time statistically insignificant predictors of the level of sociopolitical instability in the Arab countries in 2011.

The Twenty-First-Century Singularity in the Big History Perspective—A Re-analysis

2020 · CHAPTER · en

The idea that in the near future we should expect “the Singularity” has become quite popular recently, primarily thanks to the activities of Google technical director in the field of machine training Raymond Kurzweil and his book The Singularity Is Near (2005). It is shown that the mathematical analysis of the series of events (described by Kurzweil in his famous book), which starts with the emergence of our galaxy and ends with the decoding of the DNA code, is indeed ideally described by an extremely simple mathematical function (not known to Kurzweil himself) with a singularity in the region of 2029. It is also shown that a similar time series (beginning with the onset of life on Earth and ending with the information revolution—composed by the Russian physicist Alexander Panov completely independently of Kurzweil) is also practically perfectly described by a mathematical function (very similar to the above and not used by Panov) with a singularity in the region of 2027. It is shown that this function is also extremely similar to the equation discovered in 1960 by Heinz von Foerster and published in his famous article in the journal “Science”—this function almost perfectly describes the dynamics of the world population up to the early 1970s and is characterized by a mathematical singularity in the region of 2027. All this indicates the existence of sufficiently rigorous global macroevolutionary regularities (describing the evolution of complexity on our planet for a few billions of years), which can be surprisingly accurately described by extremely simple mathematical functions. At the same time, it is demonstrated that in the region of the Singularity point there is no reason, after Kurzweil, to expect an unprecedented (many orders of magnitude) acceleration of the rates of technological development. There are more grounds for interpreting this point as an indication of an inflection point, after which the pace of global evolution will begin to slow down systematically in the long term.

How Singular Is the Twenty-First-Century Singularity?

2020 · CHAPTER · en

This chapter discusses in some detail the possibility of the Singularity being a product of biased human perception described by the Weber–Fechner law. It is shown that though the Weber–Fechner effect can produce series with a hyperbolic shape, the hyperbolic acceleration pattern with the twenty-first century Singularity detected in Panov and Modis–Kurzweil series is explained first of all by the actual hyperbolic acceleration of the global megaevolution.

Dynamics of Technological Growth Rate and the Forthcoming Singularity

2020 · CHAPTER · en

In this chapter, we consider the process of technological progress presenting one of the options for measuring its speed throughout the entire historical process. We find that the general dynamics of accelerating technological growth over the past 40 thousand years can be described with amazing accuracy (R2 = 0.99) using the following simplest hyperbolic equation: yt = C/t0 − t, where yt is the technological growth rate measured as a number of technological phase transitions per unit of time. Although since 40,000 BP the speed of technological progress tended to generally increase, however, according to the theory of production principles on which we rely, the acceleration of technological progress had noticeable fluctuations. These fluctuations can be explained by the fact that technological development proceeded within the framework of super-long cycles. We show that, within these cycles, the phases of accumulation of basic breakthrough innovations are replaced by phases of rapid growth of improvements in basic innovations and their wide distribution. These fluctuations between cycle phases affect the pattern of acceleration of technological progress. Currently, there are a number of calculations of the point of singularity of the Big History and global evolution, which generally localize the singularity around the first half of the twenty-first century. The point of singularity in our calculations, if we rely only on historical time points, falls on 2018, that is, in principle, it fully fits the results of other studies. There is a fairly reasonable idea of slowing down a number of important social processes (such as demographic development, urbanization), including the speed of technological progress. Indeed, there are already some grounds for talking about signs of a slowdown in progress from the 1960 to 1970s. However, according to the theory of production principles, as already mentioned, there are strong fluctuations in the acceleration of technological progress. We assume that at the moment technological progress is in the fourth—the scientific and cybernetic—production principle. According to this theory, we expect a powerful acceleration of technological progress in the area between the 2030s and the 2070s. In this case, if we take into account the expected time points, the point of singularity, according to our calculations, is estimated to be around 2106. That is, with this method of calculation, we should first expect a new way of acceleration of technological progress, and then, its slowdown in the region of the end of the twenty-first century—the beginning of the 22nd. We also identify the social mechanism for such acceleration and deceleration: in the coming decades, the process of global ageing can cause technological acceleration first and change its direction, and then closer to the end of the present and the beginning of the next century, on the contrary, elderly society can be a brake on scientific-technological progress.

The Twenty-First-Century Singularity in the Big History Perspective: An Overview

2020 · CHAPTER · en

This introductory chapter discusses the overall place of the twenty-first-century Singularity within the overall Big History. It is shown that to place the accelerating trend of complexity in the context of Big History, we need to distinguish the two forms (arms) of megaevolution so far in the universe. The first arm of evolution is the decelerating development of physical matter and energy into galaxies, stars, and planets from the initial Big Bang. The second arm of evolution is the accelerating rate of complexity evolution in the form of life, humans, and civilizations, which is the main concern of this book. The book is organized to present these historical megatrends, models, interpretations, future scenarios, and more philosophical questions along with the realization and debate about their limitations and uncertainty.