July 9, 2026
Democracy.exe has a long history
New open access book on history of computers and politics
A free new book says people have been trying to “computerize” politics for decades
TLDR: A new free book says the idea of using computers to fix politics is decades old, not a fresh invention. In the comments, people mostly reacted with dry amusement and practical excitement, with one user reframing the title and another winning points by posting the free link.
The big news is a new open-access book, SimPolitics, and the community instantly zoomed in on the part that feels almost too on-the-nose: for more than 60 years, people have been pitching computers as the magical fix for elections, world crises, and the messy business of government. That alone had a certain "here we go again" energy. The book argues this isn’t some shiny new obsession from the age of artificial intelligence—it’s an old dream, stretching back to the 1960s, that politics can be turned into numbers on a screen and somehow solved.
The comments weren’t exactly a full-blown cage match, but they still delivered a very internet-style mix of helpful librarian energy and dry, knowing side-eye. One commenter basically did the public service announcement version of the thread, dropping the cleaner title—“America’s Quest to Solve Politics with Computers”—which sounds like a sci-fi movie and a warning label at the same time. Another skipped the debate entirely and posted the free link like a hero arriving with receipts. The mood? Equal parts curiosity, irony, and quiet amusement at humanity’s never-ending habit of saying, “This time the machine will fix democracy.” It’s less screaming drama, more a collective eyebrow raise—with a side of “fine, I’ll read it if it’s free.”
Key Points
- •The article discusses *SimPolitics*, a book about how computers became fundamental to political practice.
- •Fenwick McKelvey traces links between politics and computing from the 1960s to the late 1980s.
- •The book covers simulations built to influence campaigns, predict coups, forecast the future, and model politics.
- •It draws on archival and historical research into models of elections, voters, and international relations.
- •The book places current claims about AI fixing politics in the context of a longer history of technological promises.