Simulating a Wellbeing Economy

Offers & Needs
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Hello everyone!

I’m a computer programmer by trade and I’d like to find a way to put those skills to use in a way that could benefit our cause.

One idea I’ve had is trying to find some way of simulating economic systems. If I could make it interactive, perhaps such a simulation could be used, for example, as part of a game where you could alter the world’s economy to acheive specific objectives, with the aim of communicating to the player that economic rules aren’t set in stone and are much more flexible than we tend to imagine. Or, if it were realistic enough, perhaps it could be used in research or as part of thought experiments on how to acheive systems change.

I’m under no illusions that these are grandiose objectives that would be incredibly difficult to acheive, especially by a lone developer with no economics background. Realistically, I’d need to start as small as possible and gradually scale up the complexity over many years before having any hope of reaching those lofty goals.

But I still think it’d be worth at least trying, for a few reasons:

  • Our movement often struggles with pinning down what exactly a Wellbeing Economy would look like, and the process of creating a simulation could help answer questions (or at least clarify what questions we need to ask) and give us a clearer direction to work towards.
  • If successful, the project would provide a concrete example of Wellbeing Economics that at least works in theory. I think this would allow our proposals to be taken a lot more seriously by mainstream economists, as well as those with the rebuttal, “OK sure, the economy sucks as it is, but what would you replace it with?”
  • Completing the simulation (and to a lesser extent, talking about it as it is being developed) could work to help to spead awareness of our ideas and give indirect momentum to our organisation.

Now, I have posted this in a discussion thread, and that’s because I would love to hear your thoughts on the project. For instance:

  • Do you think it’s a good idea? Or if you think it’s not worthwhile for x reason I was unaware of, you could be saving me a whole lot of time and effort that would be better directed elsewhere.
  • If you think it worthwhile, is there any particular direction you’d like to see the project go in or that would be particularly valuable to WEAll? What design goals would your recommend I adopt for the system before I begin?
  • Do you have any skills you think could be of use to the project? I’m all ears!

I’m hoping to start on this in the new year once I’ve wrapped up some other things, which should give us plenty of time to mull this over in the meantime.

That’s it! Thanks for reading, and hope to have a constructive discussion with you all :grinning:

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Hi @unselfish-zoologist , I love the idea. Years ago I bumped into these ‘games’:

and used them to have a conversation with my children - it was actually my kids that brought the games up again a few months ago so clearly it stuck with them - and it definitely showed them the message the games are trying to convey and we had a good discussion about it.

How about something that plays with the social effects of wealth disparity? Or maybe echo chambers and polarisation? Simple interactive/visual illustrations of basic wellbeing concepts?

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@Oliver this is an interesting approach. Those interactive presentations remind me this other one, that is absolutely great:

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@unselfish-zoologist I think that this proposal is not only fantastic, but greatly necessary, this would be a very powerful tool to spread the awareness of the Wellbeing Economy and to advance into more concrete proposals.

I think that it would be better not to try (at first at least) to do a simulation in the sense that scientifics give (to have it as close to the real world as possible) because this would be very difficult. A easier approach and very useful would be to do a playable game, easy for any person to play and start getting in touch with the concepts of the new economy. This may become a very poweful narrative tool to spread the Word, and help people to actually imagine a different world.

This is an idea I’ve been mulling over for a long time. But for now I don’t have any time to dedicate to it (I’m involved in too much projects, I need to close some after I can sign up to another one). But I’ve got some ideas about it.

Ideally I dream on creating a full economy simulation game, like the Civilization saga or Democracy 4. But obviously this is far from reach.

A more feasible idea could be to make a simple game like Democratic Socialism Simulator, but dedicated to the Wellbeing Economy instead of Socialism.

Perhaps the contacts network of WEAll could be used to reach some scholars that know well the economic theory to give some advice and help building the game model.

I have even some very rough concept of a possible game structure and dynamics (it’s only an example):

  • The game has a world map that can be interacted by, globally or by countries.

  • There is an indicators panel shaped like the Doughnut Economics wheel, and that shows the current status of the world. The goal of the game is to get all indicators inside the green ring:

doughnut
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  • There is a way to evaluate actions or entities by giving them a score in each of the five values.

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  • We could also add a second dimension for stakeholders and shape it as a table like the Common Good Matrix.

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  • There are assets like money, natural resources or production facilities, and people of different kinds, that you can inspect.

  • The game is card-based, having action cards in a Magic the gathering style, that you can play using your assets and available people. The cards may represent actions like promulgate a Wellbeing of Future Generations Act, run a trial of an Universal Basic Income, adopt a Beyond GDP economy indicator… These cards, when played, should make an impact in the world state that is reflected in the indicators. The economy experts may help here to define this impact to be as realistic as possible, given that this is an extremely simplified simulation.

  • There may also be cards for world events, that occur randomly depending on the state of the doughnut indicators. For example environmental catastrophes, wars, peaks of some natural resource. But also things like an Occupy Wall Street or a democratic revolution in some country.

  • Finally the player will need to confront opposing forces, that represent people or organizations that benefit from the BAU status and are against changes. And they can play cards like Disinformation campaigns, MAGA uprising, Lobby pressure, etc. All with impact in the global status, too.

This is only a very early draft, but I think it could be built with not much effort, and a first version could be released being very simple and probably naïve, but serving as a proof of concept, to be greatly evolved later if people like it and other developers, economy experts and game designers come in.

What do you think? Do you like the idea?

I’m also a software developer and i have the skills for doing something like this. But as I said before, I’m afraid that for the moment I cannot dedicate any time to help. But if you are willing to start this project, in this way or in another one you have thought about, I could discuss ideas and try to reach some contacts that perhaps could help.

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Ha! There’s a very good reason they remind you of it - they are created by the same person - I had thought to mention that one too!

I’ve just spent 10 minutes hunting for another online game, this one uses a card-type format - from memory you play as a politician and have to make decisions about things that affect the people in your country and also the environment - but I was unable to find it again. But, I did start to see how many (online and in-person) games have been developed to illustrate various concepts. It’d be interesting to review some of those I expect.

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Hi @unselfish-zoologist, That’s an interesting idea. My first thought is that modelling an economy requires some choices about the level at which you will build the model. Will you look at economic interactions between sectors or regions - where you might consider how changes in trade law (between regions), dependencies (between sectors) or politics (between regions) affect the economy? Or will you model a local economy - which will be easier for people to relate to, but unrealistic given how interconnected the global economy is? You mention the world economy, so I guess you are leaning toward the former? I’d love to be in on a conversation about this.

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Ohhh I didn’t notice that they have the same author.

Perhaps we could make a section gathering this kind of games, for people to find them and may create workshops to experiment with the values.

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Hi Zoo! @unselfish-zoologist

That’s a wonderful idea Zoo, a step forward for our movement, and hopefully for the world!

I have been working, for more than 2 years, on 2 proposals about: How to simulate a Wellbeing Economy?, with an approach that I like to call The Wellbeing Driven Economy.

This LinkedIn post is a summary of a seminar at the Sorbonne university, in Paris, where I gave insights on: “How to implement a Wellbeing Economy, via a mix of Life Sciences, AI, and Wellbeing Economics?”

The Wellbeing Driven Economy is a proposal for a new economic system (paradigm), providing for the wellbeing of: all the people, and the planet!

Besides that, The Wellbeing Driven Economy proposes a concrete way on how to operationalize a Degrowth alternative.

Additionally, it is a way to guide our economies to operate in the Doughnut!

I would be extremely happy to continue the conversation, guys! (And I can send you all, gladly, detailed info via email. My address: admin@twde.org)

Kind regards,
Fernando

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Hey everyone, thanks for all your contributions. It’s given me a whole lot to think about!

I was quite inspired by the work of Nicky Case:

  • Each playable @Oliver mentioned only took a few months to make (compared with the many years of development time required of most successful videogames these days).
  • I was struck by how I didn’t need to be presented by a rigourous or even evidence-based explanation of the concepts in order for it to be able to have an impact on me (perhaps that tells you how much of a nerd I am!)
  • All her work is public domain. Not having to worry about whether someone’s work is correctly attributed removes a psychological barrier to re-using and sharing it (at least for me)

Looking further into Nicky’s advice on making similar work (“KEEP. YOUR. SCOPE. S. M. A. L. L.”), I have to agree with @andres.moya in that any kind of scientific whole-economy simulation is out of the question - at least, right now, without a dedicated team and plenty of experience behind us. I’d extend that logic even to something at the scale of a conventional videogame - so sadly, as much as I like ideas like using the Doughnut as an in-game indicator, I think it’s best to shelve that kind of thing for now.
I think instead I’ll try and create simple interative illustrations, as @Oliver put it, and aim to center each around one concept (for example, a single factor that increases wealth inequality). I hope that answers your question, @judybackhouse?

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I think it would be great to have a section on the forum for recommended reading/playing/viewing! Any idea how we can get that started?

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That’s my name!

Thanks for the information Fernando - I’d actually be interested in finding out more generally where and how I can study Wellbeing Economics, but I think that’s best discussed under a new forum topic. So I think I’ll get that started.

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