DYNAMICSADVANCED◉ LIVE LAB
Polya Urn / Path Dependence
Early draws rewrite the odds — history locks in QWERTYs, VHSs and dominant cities.
How it works
- Draw a ball, return it plus an extra of the same color.
- Early luck tilts odds; tilts compound into lock-in.
- Identical starts diverge — explain variance with history, not quality.
Use → Audit increasing returns; intervene early or standardize late.
Watch out → Judging locked-in winners as inevitably best.
Try it → Run 12 urns × 200 draws in the lab; marvel at the spread.
REDCAPE jobs → Explain
Free sources → Coursera M8 (Path Dependence)
INTERACTIVE LABoriginal recreation — poke it
LOWEST SHARE
4%
HIGHEST SHARE
97%
Same start, same rules — the early draws decide where each urn locks in.
Attach to a lattice — combines with
Different families, shared jobs. Disagreement between them is where insight lives.
GROWTH
Capital Share (r > g)
When returns on capital outrun growth, wealth concentrates without any villain.
SHARED JOB: EXPLAIN
GAMESCoordination & Culture
Pure coordination games plus memory harden into culture as equilibrium.
SHARED JOB: EXPLAIN
DISTRIBUTIONSEntropy & Uncertainty
Entropy scores surprise: equilibrium, cyclic, random and complex outcomes sit at different levels of uncertainty.
SHARED JOB: EXPLAIN
More in Dynamics
Random Walk & Markets
Unpredictable steps accumulate; efficient markets leave mostly randomness behind.
Markov Chain
Next state depends only on now. Run it forward to get the long-run mix.
Cellular Automata & Game of Life
Tiny local rules aggregate into gliders, blinkers and chaos. Emergence needs no boss.