The Radford Free Press – Page 45 – All life is problem solving.

Commentary, Economics / capitalism, democracy, shareholder value, social question, technology, Tony Judt /

The Social Question

March 8, 2021

If you were to ask me what the greatest intellectual error of the past fifty years has been I wouldn’t hesitate. Shareholder value. It’s an easy response. Yes, it reflects my own curious interest in the fundamentals of business and its intersection with economics, but it is also emblematic of so much more. Derived as […]

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 […]