par Bruss, F Thomas 
Référence Jahresbericht der Deutschen Mathematiker-Vereinigung, 116, 3, page (137-152)
Publication Publié, 2014-09
Référence Jahresbericht der Deutschen Mathematiker-Vereinigung, 116, 3, page (137-152)
Publication Publié, 2014-09
Article révisé par les pairs
| Résumé : | Whatever the future of mankind might be, certain things will probably never change. People will like to live and to be protected by the society in which they live. They will care for the future of their children. They will need food and resources and will thus have to think about production, distribution and consumption of resources. Also, as before, they will usually prefer a higher standard of living to a lower one.If we agree on these assuptions, is it then possible to predict limiting society forms for possible developments of human societies? Bruss and Duerinckx (Ann. Appl. Probab., to appear, 2014) proved that the answer is yes if human societies are modeled by sequences of so-called resource dependent branching processes. Among other results, they show how the survival criteria of the societies forming an envelope of possible societies can be explicitly computed.One objective of this paper is to make these results accessible in easier terms to a broader audience. Secondly, we offer new interpretations of the results and also look at specific examples showing real-world conclusions. For the latter, two recent decisions of the German grand-coalition government, widely discussed in the media, are chosen. We try to shed light on them in view of some of our results. |
