For civics, CS and inquiry classes / No prep, browser only, free, no sign-up
01 — What this is
Experience how a society breaks, with your own hands
Move the parameters (sliders) and watch a society and its regional infrastructure come apart in front of you.
This is not a game and not a prophecy. It is a tool for thinking about why things break.
Not a machine for guessing the right answer, but a bench for trying "what if..." by changing the conditions.
02 — The four themes
One app, four ways to break
PAGE 1 Information
Filter bubbles and overfitting: information bias quietly erodes diversity and trust.
PAGE 2 Infrastructure
Shrinking population, efficiency drives, successor shortage — efficient yet disaster-fragile.
PAGE 3 Cognition
The mechanics of unstoppable outrage, and the way back from it.
PAGE 4 Stakeholder asymmetry
The channel dynamics by which affected voices are drowned out by spectators.
In class, pick one of these as today's theme.
03 — 3-minute demo (teacher projects)
Show the collapse, change one thing, save it
Open PAGE 1 and tap the preset "⚡ Weimar Collapse".
The society starts running — let the class watch it collapse.
Rewind to the past, change just one slider, and see if it recovers.
Ask: "What single change would have let this town survive?"
04 — What to notice
If they catch this, the lesson worked
Collapse comes not from one cause, but when several conditions overlap.
And yet one person, one move can change the future — if it isn't too late.
Students learn to ask not "who is to blame" but "which conditions, together, make things fragile".
05 — Discussion questions
Questions you can put on the board as-is
"When we only see what we like, why does the whole society become fragile?" (PAGE 1)
"When is optimization the right answer, and when is it fatal? (the value of redundancy)" (PAGE 2)
"Is runaway anger a weakness of will, or a structure?" (PAGE 3)
"If you could rewind one thing in a collapsed town, what would you protect?" (inquiry)
06 — A 50-minute format
How to run one period
10 min
Individual play on one theme.
10 min
Form a hypothesis for a "surviving configuration".
15 min
Test it by experimenting with the parameters.
15 min
Groups share: which intervention worked, and what it maps to in the real world.
A 10-minute opener also works (project a preset → collapse → one question in pairs).
07 — Handling notes (important)
A tool for understanding, not for blame
This app is a fictional simulation. Do not map it onto real countries, parties, or people.
In class, treat it as "a story about structures that can happen to any society" —
not about anyone or anywhere in particular.
Using its results to judge a real region, person, or party goes beyond what this model can support.