What Can System Thinkers Learn from Quantifying History

“Unprecedented” is a term that gets thrown around a lot these days amidst pandemic, war, ecological disasters, and other upheavals. But is what we’re collectively experiencing truly “unprecedented”? Researchers working in quantitative history shed light on this by examining past civilizations and cycles to find common patterns, which can help us understand the present.

In this session, we’ll discuss the relationship between systems thinking and quantitative history with Daniel Hoyer and Neal Halverson, moderated by Zaid Khan. We’ll explore similarities and differences between these two perspectives and how they can complement our understanding of complexity at the civilizational (and multi-civilizational) level.

 

Discussants

• Daniel Hoyer is a computational historian and complexity scientist. He holds a PhD in Classics from New York University, where he studied economic and social development in the high Roman Empire. Since 2014 he has been a part of Seshat: Global History Databank, a multidisciplinary project examining long-run social dynamics by combining qualitative and empirical information about the past with advanced quantitative analysis and computational modeling. He has affiliations with the Complexity Science Hub, Vienna and the SocialAI lab at the University of Toronto, and is the founder of a new organization: SoDy, the historical policy lab. His research explores societal responses to shifting ecological, social, and economic contexts that generate crises and shape the well-being experienced by different communities, looking into examples from the past as well as how this understanding may shed light on critical social pressures today. https://so-dy.org/
• Neal Halverson is a multi-dimensional designer and graduate of OCADU’s Strategic Foresight and Innovation program (2019). Neal has practiced design at both creative agencies and in-house design teams. Neal uses Design Thinking and innovation frameworks such as journey mapping to help bring clients into a better service practice in technology. For his masters research project, Neal attempted to show how history can be used to prepare for a better future when combined with theory and emerging foresight practices. To do this, Neal used a mixed set of cyclical historical framing methods - Kondratieff, Schumpeter, Elliot waves and the Fourth Turning - to map the rise and fall of innovation ecosystems in key locations in the United States. https://nealhalverson.com/
• Zaid Khan is a strategist and graduate of OCADU’s Strategist Foresight and Innovation Program (2020). Zaid is an enthusiast of grand civilizational strategy and historical thinking.

 

Timing, Venue, and Registration

• Thursday, July 10, 6:30 pm - 8:15 pm (option to continue conversation at a restaurant nearby)
• OCADU Graduate Studies, 205 Richmond Street West, Room 510

 

Suggested pre-readings / audio / video

• Hoyer, Daniel (2025). Is Canada heading down a path that has caused the collapse of mighty civilizations in the past? The Conversation Canada. Available at https://theconversation.com/is-canada-heading-down-a-path-that-has-caused-the-collapse-of-mighty-civilizations-in-the-past-254378
• Hoyer, Daniel (2024). History’s crisis detectives: how we’re using maths and data to reveal why societies collapse – and clues about the future. The Conversation Canada. Available at https://theconversation.com/historys-crisis-detectives-how-were-using-maths-and-data-to-reveal-why-societies-collapse-and-clues-about-the-future-218969
• Halverson, Neal (2019). Foresight Playback: Mapping the Future of Industrial Regions by Learning from Historical Cycles of Innovation. [MRP] https://openresearch.ocadu.ca/id/eprint/2548/
• Halverson, Neal (2019). Carving out a new destiny: Dayton’s bid to lift itself up. Medium. Available at https://medium.com/@halverson.neal/carving-out-a-new-destiny-daytons-bid-to-lift-itself-up-f4cdeaf5d304
• How Elite Surplus and Inequality Lead to Societal Upheaval with Peter Turchin (2025) | The Great Simplification EP#164. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bk9bs0F_oIU

 

Image: 19th-century Dayton meets cycles of innovation and finance (Neal Halverson, 2019)

 

More info: https://wiki.st-on.org/2025-09-11