Radical Dots Simulator

Visualizing extreme belief formation, echo chambers, polarization, and attitude latitudes

The world is full of people who are immune to data and reason. We’ve got Q-anons, anti-vaxxers, flat-earthers, and many millions of delusional people who think cats make fine pets (which is exactly what the whiskered illuminati want you to think).

But what can we do? If you come at people — guns blazing — with your opposing beliefs, the best case you can hope for is not being persuasive, worst case you’ll actually drive them further away.

I wanted to understand this better. What’s the psychology behind belief formation? Where do our deeply-rooted, occasionally-pernicious beliefs come from? How are they influenced by the people around us? What role does evidence play in what we believe?

A few theories offer compelling explanations for how individuals develop beliefs, but how does this play out with lots of people interacting in real time?

To test this out, I built a small simulator, using a rough model of 100 agents, who walk around, talk to each other, and attempt to influence each other, loosely based on Social Judgement Theory and Selective Exposure.

(The simulator is available on Observable, see links at the bottom).