Quote Originally Posted by Presley Cannady View Post
...the fact remains to a degree of accuracy clusters of thinking human beings can be modeled successfully and have been for decades.
Sure have. My issue is with your "degree of accuracy." Adequate for your trade perhaps -- in my former trade that 'degree of accuracy' can easily get you killed.
If that's the case, we're wasting a lot of money on pshrinks, term insurance, and advertising with absolutely zero discernible benefit.
I'm unsure who constitutes your "we" but I do know that I'm not wasting any money on pshrinks. Or Term Insurance. As for advertising -- some success stories, some abject failures and even the success stories didn't get nearly everyone...

If one's ad campaign doesn't work out, few to no lives are likely lost -- if one's war campaign doesn't work out, many lives and perhaps more will be lost.
"This I find kind of disturbing, considering the key result was discovered almost half a century ago. What the hell have we been doing since? I mean it really feels like Gourley et. al. are shopping for new office space and maybe a graduate degree program, but why isn't there a whole field of Quantitative Conflict Studies out there?"
You are familiar with these guys? LINKThey and their founder have been at it since shortly after WW II.

They and others have tried the numerate approach to war for years. None of those attempts ever really took hold. I think perhaps there's a message in that...