Clark McPhail sent me two articles. For starters, I refer to McPhail,
Powers and Tucker's "Simulating Individual and Collective Action in
Temporary Gatherings." The most advanced collective PCT model in that
article is "a ring of fifteen."
(1) I, Clark McPhail at U. of Illinois-Urbana, did not send you the
articles; perhaps Chuck Tucker at U. of South Carolina, sent you the
articles.
(2) The most advanced form of collective action in the article is not the
ring of fifteen which merely has (a) all fifteen controlling for the
avoidance of a disturbance and (b) one of the fifteen controlling for a
destination and (c) the other fourteen controlling for the one controlling
for a destination. That is a very simple one-level assymetrical
relationship between fourteen persons and the one person in which they
"have an interest". As you add levels of assymetrical relationships you
increase complexity. If it is not shown in the paper you cite it is shown
elsewhere by having one person (e.g., an officer) seek a destination, two
persons (e.g., each a non-commission officer) each seek the officer and two
addition persons (e.g., each a private) each seek one of the officers.
I have showed it to friends and asked
them what the game reminds them of. I call it "mob action."
(3) You don't tell us what your friends said, only what you said. I have
observed these arcs and rings hundreds of times, in demonstrations, in
parks and plazas, on beaches, on streetcorners. Only rarely have I seen
hands raised, objects seized, missles thrown, curses voiced. But then I
don't know what you mean by "mob". It is a garbage concept thrown around
loosely by people who only know what they read which is usually written by
other people who only know what they read. As someone who has seen
hundreds of gatherings over the past twenty years in which people
occasionally form arcs and rings among other elementary forms of social
behavior, I find the concept of "mob" totally useless. It refers to
nothing I saw in the civil rights movement, the anti-war movement, the
labor movement in the southern united states, the pro-choice/pro-life
movement I am currently observing. I have seen individual and collective
sequences of violence. I have never seen "a mob" because I do not know
what to look for what I hear that concept.
(4) I do see rings form around persons selling various goods, around
jugglers, preachers, musicians, comedians, political speakers, politcal
debaters, fist fights, arrests, and the like. It is a very common
elementary form of social behavior.
I come
back to this: it matters what kind of control you are modelling into
your simulations. You model violence well. You aren't modelling
peacemaking. You've captured half or less of human control reality.
(5) Since I have spent a good bit of time working with the "crowd"
simulation, I think I can honestly say that in my thinking I have yet to
model any violence at all. And I wouldn't know how to proceed to model
peacemaking since that strikes me as another word that is loosely tossed
about without any concrete action referents. What do people do when they
make peace? Do they make speeches advocating peace? If they do and there
are others in the area in which the speech is made who are interested in
the topic and both the speaker and the auditors are standing on the same
plane, a ring will likely form.
I am reading PCT, care to do likewise with the stuff I cite?
(6) I suppose it depends on whether it is relevant to my interests. I am
concerned with individual and collective sequences of action within
temporary gatherings in general; in religious, sport and political
gatherings in particular.