The Radford Free Press – Page 42 – All life is problem solving.

Economics / Brian Arthur, complexity, market failure, Philip Anderson, Texas /

Sameness is Just Wrong

February 24, 2021

There is something truly odd about any economist who lives wholly in the world of equilibrium. Truly odd. Just think of what they have to assume to get there: The first step is to make sure the problem they are tackling is well defined. Really well defined. Without ambiguous objects lurking in dark corners. The problem […]

Commentary, Economics / algorithms, Allison Stanger, artificial intelligence, big data, complexity, democracy, Facebook, Santa Fe /

AI and Democracy

February 22, 2021

Just a quick thought prompted by my reading of a talk given by Allison Stanger during the Santa Fe Institute’s 2019 Fall symposium. First she gives us a nice quote from Hannah Arendt’s “The Human Condition” who says the question is not … “whether we are the masters or slaves of our machines, but whether machines still serve the […]

Economics / business firms, complexity, Douglass North, economic theory, institutions /

Complexity, Institutions and Firms

February 18, 2021

Are they associated? We all know that one of the central problems of economics is the existence of uncertainty. At least since Frank Knight’s work in the 1920s, uncertainty has been something of concern to economists. Knight’s description of uncertainty as being a condition in which no probability distribution existed, or could exist, has led […]