Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Petter Holme @pholme.bsky.social · 5h

Another theme is the revolutionary change LLM chatbots brought about. The shift from the big-data era of AI as super-human predictors to AI as human simulacra. I.e., from a mainstream science viewpoint, a change to a methodologically more familiar ground.

3/3

1

Petter Holme @pholme.bsky.social · 5h

The main theme is how entwined we are with the technology we use to study ourselves—how readily we accept replicas of ourselves and our environment as tokens of scientific insight.

2/3

1 1 1

Petter Holme @pholme.bsky.social · 5h

arXiv alert 📄🚨
arxiv.org/abs/2510.05743 w Milena Tsvetkova

This was such a fun paper to write! The development leading up to today’s social/behavioral science with AI agents. The history itself is a roller-coaster ride connecting many of the big themes of 20/21 century human-centric science.

1/3

1 3 5

Petter Holme @pholme.bsky.social · 23h

Yes! Glieck's "Chaos" is not the only book that is kinda built around a bunch of color plates of the Mandelbrot set in the middle. For good reasons, of course, just the idea that one can enjoy a picture by keeping zooming in on it still blows my mind.

1 3

Reposted by Petter Holme

Reconstructionist @unavaleable.bsky.social · 1d

Bring back inscrutable security posters

11 110 420

Petter Holme @pholme.bsky.social · 5d

Network of the day.
An autocatalytic network from: S Levy, Artificial Life, 1992.

6

Petter Holme @pholme.bsky.social · 8d

That's a great question. Is there any Swedish stadspop? This is the closest I can think of, but not really spot on: open.spotify.com/track/64ZJ20...

Jackie

open.spotify.com

1 2

Petter Holme @pholme.bsky.social · 8d

Ah, now I saw what I wrote about Prigogine's Exploring Complexity. Well, that was a bit ill-informed and is now updated (including the date). Thanks for the heads up.

1

Petter Holme @pholme.bsky.social · 8d

Books from that decade had a pioneering spirit that there was no reason for later ones to have (and if they did, it feels a bit contrived).

Order Out of Chaos comes out of a different intellectual tradition / hype cycle, even if some complexity writers assimilated it petterhol.me/2024/01/24/d...

Dissipative delusions

Lately, I’ve been reading books and papers of, and about, Ilya Prigogine, and here’s a little report. [1] I have always been fascinated by cult leaders. The way they create wallless ech…

petterhol.me

2

Petter Holme @pholme.bsky.social · 8d

petterhol.me/2018/05/07/l...

Less is more

In this blog post, I will explore why network science is mostly a science of large networks and argue that studying small networks can be just as rewarding and challenging as studying large ones. I…

petterhol.me

3 7

Petter Holme @pholme.bsky.social · 8d

arXiv alert! 📄🚨
Robustness of small networks
arxiv.org/abs/2509.23670
Great to dust off one of my favorite topics and get to collaborate with the legendary
@aliceschwarze.bsky.social and Peter Mucha

Robustness of 'small' networks

Modeling how networks change under structural perturbations can yield foundational insights into network robustness, which is critical in many real-world applications. The largest connected component ...

arxiv.org

1 6 23

Petter Holme @pholme.bsky.social · 8d

I updated my blogpost about complexity science books from the golden era (1987–1996). Now it covers 17 books—many very readable even 30 years later!
petterhol.me/2022/08/11/t...

The golden era of complexity science books

Here is a list of complexity science books in a popular science style from when the hype was the biggest—from 1987 and a decade further*—and some very brief comments. Several of them are available …

petterhol.me

3 1 10

Reposted by Petter Holme

FT Alphaville @alphaville.ft.com · 9d

Org-chart of the week:

on.ft.com/4gHkxoU

Welcome to First Brands’ debt jungle

[FREE TO READ] ‘Lions and tigers and off-balance sheet factoring, oh my!’

on.ft.com

1 8 22

Reposted by Petter Holme

Nature Human Behaviour @nathumbehav.nature.com · 13d

Jia et al. experimentally show that when individuals can tailor their actions to each neighbour - a freedom termed social networking agency - they display higher cooperation, trust and fairness in economic games. @ivanromic.bsky.social @pholme.bsky.social
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Social networking agency and prosociality are inextricably linked in economic games - Nature Human Behaviour

Jia et al. experimentally show that when individuals can tailor their actions to each neighbour—a freedom termed social networking agency—they display higher levels of cooperation, trust and fairness in economic games.

www.nature.com

4 12

Petter Holme @pholme.bsky.social · 14d

New paper in NHB 📄🚨
We ran extensive experiments to show that making the rules of some canonical economic games looser, makes people more cooperative
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Social networking agency and prosociality are inextricably linked in economic games - Nature Human Behaviour

Jia et al. experimentally show that when individuals can tailor their actions to each neighbour—a freedom termed social networking agency—they display higher levels of cooperation, trust and fairness in economic games.

www.nature.com

10 21

Petter Holme @pholme.bsky.social · 16d

It’s pretty good! They don’t sound so smart but neither do the typical Swedish podcasters 😁

1 1

Reposted by Petter Holme

Eleanor Power @eapower.bsky.social · 20d

📣 Job alert! *Assistant Prof in Computational Social Science*. We're a friendly department, with sharp students, at a great institution, in a lovely city. We have real strengths in computational social science & are looking for a colleague to build this further. Share and reach out with quesions!

LSE Methodology @lsemethodology.bsky.social · 20d

We're hiring an Assistant Professor in Computational Social Science ❗

📚 jobs.lse.ac.uk/Vacancies/W/...

Apply before 26 October to join an internationally outstanding group of social science methodologists 🌎

we're hiring assistant professor in computational social science, applications close 26/10/2025

26 20

Reposted by Petter Holme

Network Science Society @netscisociety.bsky.social · 20d

In just about a week, the season's first NetSci Colloquium will happen. And we're starting with a bang . . . with none other than Iain Couzin talking about Collective Behavior in Animal Groups. September 24, 10 AM ET. Register here to get a Zoom link: iu.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

15 10

Petter Holme @pholme.bsky.social · 20d

The figures of old simulation papers are so vaporwave.

(From: Gilbert & Conte (eds.), "Artificial Societies.")

1 2 17

Reposted by Petter Holme

loackme @loackme.bsky.social · 21d

3 9

Reposted by Petter Holme

Haneul Jang @haneuljang.bsky.social · 24d

💙New paper!💙

How is knowledge transmitted across generations in a foraging society?

With @danielredhead.bsky.social
we found: In BaYaka foragers, long-term skills pass in smaller, sparser networks, while short-term food info circulates broadly & reciprocally

academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/ar...

Transmission networks of long-term and short-term knowledge in a foraging society

Abstract. Cultural transmission across generations is key to cumulative cultural evolution. While several mechanisms—such as vertical, horizontal, and obli

academic.oup.com

4 66 160

Petter Holme @pholme.bsky.social · 29d

My idea about "strong passports" is heavily influenced by the fact that the title page of Swedish passports (at least between 2005-2010) used to crack pretty quickly.

Nicola Rennie @nrennie.bsky.social · 29d

There was lots of data to play with for #TidyTuesday this week where we're looking at the power of different passports! ✈️

I decided to try out the idea of using small multiples and highlighting to untangle a spaghetti chart with lots of lines 📊

#RStats #DataViz #ggplot2

Chart showing how rankings of passports have changed over time, split by region with top one in each highlighted. European are ranked high, and UAE has had a dramatic rise.

5

Petter Holme @pholme.bsky.social · Sep 5

Network (visualization) of the day, by Duane M. Palyka (1968).

From: Margit Rosen, et al. (eds.): A Little-Known Story About a Movement, a Magazine, and The Computer’s Arrival in Art: New Tendencies and Bit International, 1961-1973 (2011).

1 3 9

Petter Holme @pholme.bsky.social · Sep 5

Must be one of the papers I've cited the most often.

1

Petter Holme @pholme.bsky.social · Sep 4

some serious nomological clout there 💪

1 1