society-in-silico

Society in Silico

A book about economic simulation, the journey from academic models to policy tools, and what it means in the age of AI.

About

This book traces the history of microsimulation from Guy Orcutt's 1957 vision through to modern tools like PolicyEngine and Cosilico. It's written to be accessible—not a textbook, but a narrative that connects:

• The personal journey of building simulation tools
• The intellectual history of modeling society computationally
• How microsimulation bridges academia and policy
• What AI means for the future of policy analysis

Structure

manuscript/           # The book itself
  front-matter/       # Preface, introduction
  part-1-origins/     # History of microsimulation
  part-2-building/    # PolicyEngine & Cosilico journey
  part-3-future/      # AI age implications
research/             # Notes, references, research
  people/             # Profiles of key figures
  concepts/           # Linked concept notes
  timeline/           # Historical events
  references/         # Source materials
assets/               # Images, diagrams
build/                # Pandoc build configuration

Workflow

This repo is designed to work with:

• Obsidian for conceptual mapping and research organization
• Claude Code for AI-assisted drafting and editing
• Pandoc for building final outputs (PDF, EPUB, etc.)

Opening in Obsidian

Open this folder as an Obsidian vault. The research/ folder uses wiki-style links for connecting concepts.

Building

cd build && make pdf   # Generate PDF
cd build && make epub  # Generate EPUB

Author

Max Ghenis

License

Content is draft/unpublished. All rights reserved.