We’re done with If Then: How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future by Jill Lepore. Simulmatics has gone to Vietnam, and we’re in the fall part of the rise and fall of Simulmatics.
Here’s some ideas to kick us off:
What did you think about the book?
By the end, it wasn’t exactly clear what Simulmatics was actually offering ARPA for their money. Can you possibly believe that a technology company might oversell their offerings?
What did you make of the Simulmatics corporation’s Vietnam pivot?
How do you assess the character of the people who ran Simulmatics?
Maybe because the show has just been released but my mind went immediately to Foundation by Isaac Asimov. If we had enough data points, what is the limit of prediction? Were Simulmatics mediocre results a result of an immature technology and flawed datasets? Were they merely asking the wrong questions (as with the Vietnam surveying) or did they just give too much credit to the methodology as a whole? I think we're still debating this.
Also as a former data analyst for a healthcare firm, I can personally speak to the difficulties inherent in data, not simply the foundational like getting data from different places and formatting it into compatible structures, but also the difficulty of asking the right questions in the first place.
Rough end for the Simulmatics Corporation, was wild to learn just how mismangaged their work on Vietnam appears to be, just absolutely typical biases and errors and seems pretty thoughtless in design. I kept getting the main vibe of mediocrity from them; couldn't quite hack it in academia, then couldn't quite hack it in politics, then couldn't quite hack it in military contracting, and couldn't quite hack it in civilian consulting, so they kept just moving on to anyone with money and not much sense.
I feel like companies being way, way too confident in their own algorithms and refusing to revise their own opinions of their creations hasn't gone anywhere.
It planned to penetrate Vietnamese minds. It planned to win Vietnamese hearts! He wields the computer and those figures like King Arthur wielded Excalibur! Project Camelot! I could have read a whole book on the Vietnam section. Overall what a fascinating and super exciting book. Would love for there to be a Simulmatics Corporation Mad Men type series or even a movie. Happy Holidays and Cheers!
Maybe because the show has just been released but my mind went immediately to Foundation by Isaac Asimov. If we had enough data points, what is the limit of prediction? Were Simulmatics mediocre results a result of an immature technology and flawed datasets? Were they merely asking the wrong questions (as with the Vietnam surveying) or did they just give too much credit to the methodology as a whole? I think we're still debating this.
Also as a former data analyst for a healthcare firm, I can personally speak to the difficulties inherent in data, not simply the foundational like getting data from different places and formatting it into compatible structures, but also the difficulty of asking the right questions in the first place.
Very much enjoyed this read.
man the late sixties appear to have sucked
Rough end for the Simulmatics Corporation, was wild to learn just how mismangaged their work on Vietnam appears to be, just absolutely typical biases and errors and seems pretty thoughtless in design. I kept getting the main vibe of mediocrity from them; couldn't quite hack it in academia, then couldn't quite hack it in politics, then couldn't quite hack it in military contracting, and couldn't quite hack it in civilian consulting, so they kept just moving on to anyone with money and not much sense.
I feel like companies being way, way too confident in their own algorithms and refusing to revise their own opinions of their creations hasn't gone anywhere.
It planned to penetrate Vietnamese minds. It planned to win Vietnamese hearts! He wields the computer and those figures like King Arthur wielded Excalibur! Project Camelot! I could have read a whole book on the Vietnam section. Overall what a fascinating and super exciting book. Would love for there to be a Simulmatics Corporation Mad Men type series or even a movie. Happy Holidays and Cheers!