A project called the Living Earth Simulator (LES) plans to look at recording and modeling all aspects of society.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12012082

Their quote:

"Revealing the hidden laws and processes underlying societies constitutes the most pressing scientific grand challenge of our century."

Laws of cities

Can cities be predicted? Or is each city unique and incomparable?

Here's one (retired) physicist that says there are simple equations that describe cities:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/19/magazine/19Urban_West-t.html

Warming or cooling?

Many people have tried to forecast societal change through a "Newtonian" model. They think they can use historical trends, contextual understanding of those trends, and guesses about future influences. Combine all that into a complex model and -- voila! -- instant prognostication.

The poor record of predictions doesn't stop new predictions. If such predictions were true, humanity would be over, the planet wasted, oil and resources at an end, et cetera.

And yet populations keep increasing. The medical problems are from over-eating and living long enough that cancers spread.

Is predicting possible or useful? Maybe lessons learned in meteorology can be applied in social science areas.

Philosophers have looked at societies and individuals without agreeing on the effects.

To greatly simplify, three views have formed:
1. people are not perfect, but society can be perfected
2. people are not perfect, but society can prevent people from regressing
3. people are not perfect, but people are capable of greatness

The first reflects Rousseau and utopian writers who see society as order-able and suited to defining individuals' behaviors, beliefs, and character. Communist theoreticians sought to have a "scientific" society constrained by laws. Socialists adopt this view.

The second reflects natural law philosopher Thomas Hobbes and religious writers who see society as required to control the baser tendencies of natural people.

The third elevates people to self-rule. Here, society is dynamic and emerges from autonomous individuals.

How a society changes depends on its expression. No society purely expresses just one of the models. Elements of all three appear in every nation and conflicts between the models is endless.

What is "society"?

Society is made up of individuals but, like fish in water, do the individuals know they are in a society? How many societies can one individual be in? With the web, societies can form without regard to physical location.

Legendary football coach Vince Lombardi describes society as "Individual commitment to a group effort -- that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work."

Philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau called the rules that a society lives by "the social contract."

Birth of social trends

Where do new social trends come from?

Who originates fads or fashions? Who creates memes or trends?

After one is created, how does it spread and grow?

Most trends are created at the edge of society. The edge might be defined by wealth, location, life-style, or other dimensions. From, the edge, it is eventually transferred to the center.

Like an infectious disease, society is continually assailed with many new social trends. Most trends are ignored or rejected but a minority enter the society where they may briefly blossom or, rarely, become part of the society. The parallels to processes in biology are notable.

Throughout human history, societies have feared the outsiders who have strange customs and barbarous languages. Walled countries (Han China, imperial Japan, modern Cuba, Soviet Russia, etc) succeed in slowing the influx of social change but change is rapid when the barrier breaks.