88-718 Large-scale Social Phenomena

12 units, Carnegie Mellon University

A special seminar devoted to new ideas and new methods in the study of human behavior on the very largest scales. Emphasis on data science approaches and the analysis of archives, historical and contemporary, as a new arena for the development of new theories and the testing of old ones. Well consider both cognitive models of the individual, and the institutions and social organizations people have created in responsefrom the parliaments of the 18th Century to 20th and 21st Century technologies such as branching bulletin board comment threads and the blockchain. A major goal of our seminar is for you to ask, and answer, a nontrivial research question with the view towards a peerreviewed publication. Well use class discussion to answer questions about the reading and to go beyond the assigned papers to speculate, together, on new ways to test their conjectures and claims.

Prerequisites: none listed

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