Thesis · essay and book
Simulate the World
The case for civic simulation, in two forms. Anselm Hook.
The essay. simulate.world, the earlier statement of the thesis: nine chapters, from Our World to Participate, about 15,000 words. The lighter read; start here.
The book. Simulate the World, a primer. Version 0.4, June 2026. PDF, 256 pages, 4 MB. The current, full argument, with case studies, methods, references and appendices.
We face challenges too large for any individual mind to hold. This is the book's thesis: that simulation is not a specialist's toy but a form of civic infrastructure, and that making it accessible matters as much as making it rigorous.
Two claims carry both.
Simulation is argument. A model of a system is a structured claim about how the world works, with premises and a conclusion. When a watershed manager says that a thirty percent increase in pumping drops groundwater to critical levels by 2031, that is an argument. It is stronger when the premises are inspectable, the uncertainty is visible, and you can push on the assumptions and watch what happens. A simulation that lets you do that reasons in public.
Accessibility is the unsolved problem. The tools for building serious models are mature. What is missing is a format that lets the model itself travel as a living document, running in the reader's browser, its assumptions exposed so that people who did not build it can inspect them and push back. Governments and corporations have models. Citizens do not.
Contents of the book
- Preface. The thesis, stated once.
- Part I, Why this matters. Our World. The Emotional Arc. Existential Threats.
- Part II, When it works. Case studies: Bali, California, Yellowstone, Grand Coulee, Rajasthan, coral reefs.
- Part III, How it works. The Landscape of Simulation. Data, Uncertainty, and Calibration. From Physics to Practice.
- Part IV, The original contribution. The Publication Layer. Participation and Governance.
- Part V, What now.
- Reference and appendices. A scenario library by scale, tools and institutions, notation, data sources, runnable recipes.
The arc runs from what we value, through the threats to it, to where simulation has already changed outcomes, to how such models are built and published, and finally to how people participate.
Status
Version 0.4 is an early working draft: about 41,000 words in 20 chapters, and revised continuously. Print and Kindle editions are planned. The closing chapter acknowledges the contributors and supporters.