PREDICTIONS – 10 Years Later - Santa Fe Institute

5. GOOD GUYS AND BAD GUYS COMPETE THE SAME WAY
documented also and their output can be quantified by the numbers and
the dates of their crimes, arrests, or court appearances. Moreover,
Cesare Marchetti argues that criminals are not different as far as the
mechanisms of their behavior is concerned. They simply have “unorthodox”
objectives. After all, criminality is socially defined. It is often
pointed out that to kill is criminal in peace but heroic in war.
Criminal activities abide dutifully by the laws of natural competition,
although competitive strife in this case deals less with rivalry among
fellows and more with how to outsmart the police. Police competence is
challenged by criminal competence, and the one best fit wins. And because
a criminal’s career consists of a number of “works,” just as in the
case of Mozart, one can think again of a presumed potential, a cap or
ceiling which may eventually be reached.
The hypothesis is that criminals, like artists and scientists, have a
potential for wrongdoing, and their output is regulated according to a
final ceiling and a precise schedule. Each has a natural mechanism incorporated
that dictates how many crimes will be committed and when.
The equation derived from fitting an S-curve to their data reveals this
mechanism, and because the equation can be established on a partial set
of data, it can be used to predict how many crimes a famous criminal
will commit and at what average rate.
It is known that we are genetically programmed in a quite a rigorous
way, but this form of long-term programming of one’s behavior may
come as a surprise to those with a firm belief in free will. Before he begins
his analysis of criminal careers, Marchetti remarks:
Human intelligence and free will are the sacred cows of illuministic
theology. Free will is already sick from the virulent attacks of
Freud, and intelligence is under the menace of astute computer machinery.
I will not try to muddle through these loaded and
controversial subjects, but take a very detached and objective view of
the situation by forgetting what people think and say and only look at
what people do. Actions will be my observables. 2
On the basis of more than a dozen cases in which he established that
criminal acts accumulated along natural-growth curves, Marchetti concludes:
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