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Symbiotic Machines and Our Ignorance

Well, what are we to make of all this? Here’s something I came across in Diane Coyle’s recent book, “Cogs and Monsters”: “A large range of factual subjects, evidently part of science and duly explainable (in principle) by empirical methods operating under natural laws, treats different kinds of inordinately complex and historically contingent systems — […]

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Democracy? Surely Not!

Let’s stir things up for the New Year by continuing with one of my recent themes. A quote from an opinion piece in the NYT this morning [January 3rd]: “James Madison boasted that the Constitution achieved “the total exclusion of the people, in their collective capacity.” Its elaborate political mechanics reflect the elite dislike and […]

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Confusion Reigns

What on earth were they doing? Rocked but undaunted by the great financial crisis the orthodoxy of our central banks survived to fight another day.  The system had been saved.  That no one saw the onrushing crisis is still being debated.  Of course some people saw it coming.  Anyone with a scintilla of understanding of […]

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