a digital simulation of political philosophy

Pierre Depaz
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Instructor:

Love, friendship and oppression emerge over time.

Politics is the act of living together. Such an essential, and yet complex act has been a central point in philosophy throughout our ages, in the form of thought experiments by high-profile writers, which in turned influenced the very texts on which are built are democracies.

Computing power can now take care of these thought experiments and allow us to shift our focus on examining both our assumptions about how we are living, or should be living together, as well as the emergent complexities that these assumptions entail.

Social Contact allows the player to select assumptions dictating the behavior of abstracted agents, and witness their becoming over a tryptic encompassing the most important points of our lives: how do we come to live together ? how do we learn to grow together? how do we apprehend the presence of strangers?