Very interesting reading in the two Atlantic articles by Jonathan Rauch (via Rebecca) on artifical societies. How much will this work begin to influence public policy? The summary is in the last question of the second article (an interview with Jonathan):

Q: Do you think about the world in a different way now that you've delved into this field? And if so, how has it changed your world view?

A: I've come to have much greater respect for the notion of society as an independent actor in human life. I've come to be much more suspicious of the notion that if I think I have good intuition about people, that I then have good intuitions about public policies and society. I have come to understand in a way I didn't before that it's possible at the same time for societies to be both more surprising and more orderly than I ever thought. To me a lot of what this kind of thinking has done is set out a third, unexplored continent between determinism and randomness, where in fact there are patterns in life and in society that we may now have a shot at finding. And to me, that's a real eye-opener.