It’s time I give a progress update with the latest developments with the Alpha Zemerge project since the last update several months ago. I have concentrated on several key areas of the project which include, getting the user interface concept in basic working condition, working on UML sequence diagrams that will plan the execution logic order of the simulation, and creating an input method that will describe the initial population and the wealth distribution.
User Interface
The current state of the UI is a basic concept of how the simulation will display the various elements. Currently the elements include houses, businesses, a bank, a government, and resources. The simulation is set to randomly transfer wealth between the house units and the businesses units to show how this process will look like. When the transfers are complete the house/business elements are resized accordingly to show the overall inequality difference.
Here you can find the input page and the simulation/flash page:
UML Sequence Diagrams
In order to get a grasp and plan for the logic on the simulation the best way is to create UML sequence diagrams that visually show the order of execution describing the actions taken on various elements at each step of the simulation from a high level approach. The following image describes the current state of the simulation which is very basic at this point and will continue to expand and evolve over time.
Initial Population Wealth Distribution
In order to start a simulation run the user will have the ability to set initial parameters of the simulation, there will be countless of parameters that will describe the state of the simulation. The first set of parameters I wanted to tackle is describing the inequality of the population, or household inequality. The best way describing inequality from a numerical value is using the gini coefficient. At first I wanted to have an input for population size and input of the gini coefficient, but this pursuit become more complex then I originally conceived. I ended up having the user have more control by having the ability to specify five quantiles of income and population size for each quantile. Household income was not the only thing describing household wealth, after all overall household wealth is the defining factor of household inequality. For current simplicity I added a factor value for wealth, so if a population quantile is making 60K a year and its wealth factor is of 5X then this population has the average overall wealth of 5 x 60 = 300K on average.
Here is the original sandbox area where the population creation can be tested out with:
Household Inequality Population Generator (Zemerge Project Sandbox Area)
Here is a graph representing the population of 1000 households with equal quantiles with income averages of 20K/40K/60K/80K/100K.
Here is the same population with wealth representations of income/wealth factors of 1X/2X/3X/4X/5X, notice the steep curves at each end with a small minority having great wealth and small minority with lots of debt, with playing out of different values all sorts of different scenarios can be generated.
More about income inequality in the United States can be found here.
Also, a list of indexes describing the income inequality of various countries around the world can be found here.
The next steps over the next while is to continue to expand the complexity of the simulation to have at least a basic working model of a small scale economy. Having the user the ability to play around with various parameters is the key, thus the input of the initial state of the simulation will also be expanded, users will have the ability to describe a state of population from a wide variety of different scenarios and then have the ability to play out the simulation to their desired execution rules and values – including scenarios that mirror The Venus Project concepts! As always I am open to suggestions, collaboration and feedback so please don’t be shy.
