If you're so passionate about it, you should go implement these changes to show how the model fails. I would read that, if it were done well. It's not obvious to me that simply changing the radius or grid geometry would have the effect you claim.
Your objection is just that the model is too simple, but everyone knows linear regression predicts quite a lot, quadratic polynomials estimate physical motion very well, etc.
On the other hand, I don't think the authors make the claims about faithfully and objectively measuring reality that you say they do. You're building up a straw man there.
FWIW, the majority of the first page of this user's comment history (6/10) are complaining about feminism in some fashion.
(I don't generally like looking at people's comment history, but one, you're absolutely spot-on that it would be easy to change the simulation - it's public domain and it's in JavaScript, this is Hacker News, if you don't know how to edit the JS console yourself there are tons of people who will gladly help if you ask, so the lack of curiosity is interesting. And two, I've seen some sort of shift in more vocal MRA-adjacent / alt-right-adjacent viewpoints on this site in recent weeks and I've been kind of curious where it's coming from.)
Anyway, in the hope of not dragging this too far off-topic: 'tnone, do you have a specific change you'd like to see implemented in the simulation? I'd be happy to implement the change and rehost it and see what happens. I think there are genuine criticisms to be made (for instance, https://github.com/ncase/polygons/issues/9 sounds worth some investigation, despite the phrasing of the comment thread). But given how easy it is to apply actual data to these questions, I think we should do that to avoid FUD.
In particular, how about changing the radius to be the surrounding 24 squares (two steps out, instead of one), or making it less likely that an individual polygon will move again shortly after it has moved?
Since I wrote that comment I feel the itch to do it myself :) He said topology, but I don't think he meant what I'm thinking of: a torus! A Mobius band! The projective plane! My curiosity is getting the better of me.
Its interesting to see how the simulations looks like they are modeling society, and reminds me strongly on how game of life tries to be a model of artificial life. however, if someone want it to mean more then they really need to test the model and get data on how well it can predict.
I recall a study with LA demographic data that showed the statistical distribution of LA matches the distribution output by the Schelling model. Hazy on the details though :(
Your objection is just that the model is too simple, but everyone knows linear regression predicts quite a lot, quadratic polynomials estimate physical motion very well, etc.
On the other hand, I don't think the authors make the claims about faithfully and objectively measuring reality that you say they do. You're building up a straw man there.