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Manias and Mimesis: Applying Girard’s Mimetic Theory to Financial Bubbles (2019)

toppy 3y ago
Nice technical metaphor: "The first things worth writing down were the terms of deals—in what is perhaps a metaphor for the destructive nature of non-market conflict, some of the oldest writing we have consists of cuneiform tablets recording the terms of loans and forward commodities contracts. These were written on clay, which could be reused, but when a city was razed the fires would bake the clay, writing the contract from random-access memory to permanent storage."
somedude895 3y ago
This attempt to link a popular theory to a popular topic seems really shaky. At first they explain the difference between imitation and mimetic desire: > While imitation, on Girard’s model, refers to the positive effects of copying someone else’s behavior, mimetic desire—which desires the other’s desire—opens up a deeply violent dimension. But later they mix up the two: > A speculator wants to be the person who bought Amazon at the IPO; the en- trepreneur wants to be the person who took Facebook public at a twelve-digit market capitalization. Speculators can trivially emulate their mimetic models through leverage, i.e. through believing what the model believes, only more so. If you’re competing with someone who put 100% of their money into Bitcoin, you’ll never catch up if you make the same trade. To me this is imitating anothers' investment, the underlying desire being making money. If anything, the memetic behavior here would be the much more fundamental copying of others' desire to accumulate money itself.
- zby 3y ago
  Adding to this: mimetic desire works on a subconscious level, imitation in buying attractive stocks is entirely conscious.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
ethanbond 3y ago
I have yet to encounter a phenomenon that’s best or only explained by mimetic desire. Even mimetic desire itself, AFAICT, is readily explained by less “exotic” reasoning: people try to distill information from other people’s actions when the environment isn’t readily providing that information itself. This always come across as more of a hobbyhorse for people who try to cognition their way into bias-free cognition (and think they’ve done it). > Bubbles shouldn’t exist. They represent anomalies that are irreconcilable with deeply enshrined beliefs in market efficiency and rationality. The deeply enshrined beliefs are not true in practice and we have evidence out the wazoo to prove it. Why jump through hoops to explain a bad model?
- AnimalMuppet 3y ago
  Does mimetic desire recurse? Do people believe in mimetic desire because they want to be like people who believe in mimetic desire, not because they actually believe it? > > Bubbles shouldn’t exist. They represent anomalies that are irreconcilable with deeply enshrined beliefs in market efficiency and rationality. > The deeply enshrined beliefs are not true in practice and we have evidence out the wazoo to prove it. Why jump through hoops to explain a bad model? I think you said this a bit badly. Market efficiency and rationality are in fact a bad model, once you look closely enough. But they're jumping through hoops to explain the deviation from a bad model. Well, if the model is bad, no weird theory is needed to explain the deviation. The deviation is very simple - the model is bad. I think I'm agreeing with you - the rational market is an approximate theory that clearly and visibly breaks down, and Girard's memetic theory is goofy and convoluted and is not needed at all to explain economic bubbles. I just think you stated it in a bit of a confusing way.
  - spellbaker 3y ago
    [dead]
blueyes 3y ago
George Soros's theory of reflexivity is very useful for understanding this phenomenon. https://www.georgesoros.com/2014/01/13/fallibility-reflexivity-and-the-human-uncertainty-principle-2/ https://www.georgesoros.com/2014/01/13/fallibility-reflexivi...
tech_ken 3y ago
I could have used a clearer definition of "mimetic desire" as well as a better linkage to the "scapegoat" outcome. Maybe I just need to read the original book, but as described here it felt super wooly.
- AnimalMuppet 3y ago
  It's not better in the book. It's just spread over more words, so that it's harder to nail down that it's weird. About the "scapegoat" bit: Gerard says that's what was going on in Oedipus, and also with Jesus' trial. But then he says that of course they don't say that in the texts - in Oedipus and in the Gospels. So, yeah, 2000 years later this one professor has the correct interpretation, and everyone else has been misunderstanding them all these years? Not likely. It's more like Gerard is just making stuff up so it fits his theory. That's not evidence, that's fantasy. A year (or a few) ago, someone here on HN linked to an incredible takedown of Gerard's position. Can anyone recall the link, or find the HN post?
specialist 3y ago
Thiel's enthusiasm for "minetic theory" is a prime example of rationalizing hierarchy with the language of metaphysics.

Nice technical metaphor: "The first things worth writing down were the terms of deals—in what is perhaps a metaphor for the destructive nature of non-market conflict, some of the oldest writing we have consists of cuneiform tablets recording the terms of loans and forward commodities contracts. These were written on clay, which could be reused, but when a city was razed the fires would bake the clay, writing the contract from random-access memory to permanent storage."

somedude895 3y ago

This attempt to link a popular theory to a popular topic seems really shaky. At first they explain the difference between imitation and mimetic desire: > While imitation, on Girard’s model, refers to the positive effects of copying someone else’s behavior, mimetic desire—which desires the other’s desire—opens up a deeply violent dimension. But later they mix up the two: > A speculator wants to be the person who bought Amazon at the IPO; the en- trepreneur wants to be the person who took Facebook public at a twelve-digit market capitalization. Speculators can trivially emulate their mimetic models through leverage, i.e. through believing what the model believes, only more so. If you’re competing with someone who put 100% of their money into Bitcoin, you’ll never catch up if you make the same trade. To me this is imitating anothers' investment, the underlying desire being making money. If anything, the memetic behavior here would be the much more fundamental copying of others' desire to accumulate money itself.

zby 3y ago
Adding to this: mimetic desire works on a subconscious level, imitation in buying attractive stocks is entirely conscious.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

ethanbond 3y ago

I have yet to encounter a phenomenon that’s best or only explained by mimetic desire. Even mimetic desire itself, AFAICT, is readily explained by less “exotic” reasoning: people try to distill information from other people’s actions when the environment isn’t readily providing that information itself. This always come across as more of a hobbyhorse for people who try to cognition their way into bias-free cognition (and think they’ve done it). > Bubbles shouldn’t exist. They represent anomalies that are irreconcilable with deeply enshrined beliefs in market efficiency and rationality. The deeply enshrined beliefs are not true in practice and we have evidence out the wazoo to prove it. Why jump through hoops to explain a bad model?

AnimalMuppet 3y ago
Does mimetic desire recurse? Do people believe in mimetic desire because they want to be like people who believe in mimetic desire, not because they actually believe it? > > Bubbles shouldn’t exist. They represent anomalies that are irreconcilable with deeply enshrined beliefs in market efficiency and rationality. > The deeply enshrined beliefs are not true in practice and we have evidence out the wazoo to prove it. Why jump through hoops to explain a bad model? I think you said this a bit badly. Market efficiency and rationality are in fact a bad model, once you look closely enough. But they're jumping through hoops to explain the deviation from a bad model. Well, if the model is bad, no weird theory is needed to explain the deviation. The deviation is very simple - the model is bad. I think I'm agreeing with you - the rational market is an approximate theory that clearly and visibly breaks down, and Girard's memetic theory is goofy and convoluted and is not needed at all to explain economic bubbles. I just think you stated it in a bit of a confusing way.
- spellbaker 3y ago
  [dead]

blueyes 3y ago

George Soros's theory of reflexivity is very useful for understanding this phenomenon. https://www.georgesoros.com/2014/01/13/fallibility-reflexivity-and-the-human-uncertainty-principle-2/ https://www.georgesoros.com/2014/01/13/fallibility-reflexivi...

tech_ken 3y ago

I could have used a clearer definition of "mimetic desire" as well as a better linkage to the "scapegoat" outcome. Maybe I just need to read the original book, but as described here it felt super wooly.

AnimalMuppet 3y ago
It's not better in the book. It's just spread over more words, so that it's harder to nail down that it's weird. About the "scapegoat" bit: Gerard says that's what was going on in Oedipus, and also with Jesus' trial. But then he says that of course they don't say that in the texts - in Oedipus and in the Gospels. So, yeah, 2000 years later this one professor has the correct interpretation, and everyone else has been misunderstanding them all these years? Not likely. It's more like Gerard is just making stuff up so it fits his theory. That's not evidence, that's fantasy. A year (or a few) ago, someone here on HN linked to an incredible takedown of Gerard's position. Can anyone recall the link, or find the HN post?

specialist 3y ago

Thiel's enthusiasm for "minetic theory" is a prime example of rationalizing hierarchy with the language of metaphysics.