In this episode of the Judgment Call Podcast Yaneer Bar-Yam and I talk about:

• 00:02:22 What is the science of complex systems? How does it choose the proper layer of abstraction?
• 00:11:33 What role social media plays in modelling a 'social collective'?
• 00:14:47 Why AI is not helpful modelling the pandemic.
• 00:18:46 Is consciousness just an algorithm? Will it simply emerge if the algorithm is right?
• 00:22:01 Why humanity faces extinction in pandemics unless it organizes collective behavior according to Yaneer Bar-Yam.
• 00:22:15 Is COVID a virus that will stick around just like the flu? Is it different than diseases we suffered through over the millenia?
• 00:30:01 Can we still stop COVID? What would it entail? What role does the vaccine play?
• 00:34:13 Why we need another (real) and hard lockdown to burn out the virus according to Prof. Bar-Yam.
• 00:37:12 What is the exit strategy after a lockdown? Why no country has fully opened up yet (incl. travel restrictions).
• 00:40:00 Why travel bubbles never seem to get started (after being announced).
• 00:45:23 What we should do when a new virus hits? How we potentially stop any new virus?

Prof. Yaneer Bar-Yam is the President of the New England Complex Systems Institute. His recent work quantitatively analyzes the origins and impacts of market crashes, social unrest, ethnic violence, military conflict and pandemics, the structure and dynamics of social networks, as well as the bases of creativity, panic, evolution and altruism.

You can also watch this episode on Youtube - #50 - Yaneer Bar-Yam (Complex Systems and why we need another 'real' lockdown urgently).

He is the author of two books: a textbook Dynamics of Complex Systems, and Making Things Work, which applies complex systems science to solving problems in healthcare, education, systems engineering, international development, and ethnic conflict.