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How Super-Connectivity Kills Economics

13 points by maxprogram 15y ago

th0ma5 15y ago
Look forward to the continuing series. I will be curious what kinds of solutions outside of "just dig more into the complexity" there are out there in people's minds.
deleted 15y ago
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mdda 15y ago
I think the article has an interesting theme. However, the invention of the telegraph/telephone hugely increased the connectivity of the world, and the speed of the growth feedback mechanism. But economic theories weren't forced to change...
yummyfajitas 15y ago
I'm a bit surprised to see this - the typical criticism of mainstream economics is that it assumes super-connectivity, e.g., perfect information, minimal transaction costs, etc. It'll definitely be interesting to see what promise to be new criticisms of the current scientific consensus.
andylei 15y ago
> I see the explosive growth in interconnections driven primarily by the Internet as something that, if ignored, can lead to dangerous situations > Unfortunately, as the world has grown less stable the author implies that super connectivity has destabilized the world, but that's an entirely unwarranted assertion. he mentions a couple events (like the koran burnings which led to riots) with small beginnings and big impacts, but these are largely anecdotal and easy to counter. for example, i know a story where a guy eating a sandwich led to the beginning of World War II. but consider a couple of better measures of stability - large scale human conflict and economic growth. we're in a period of relative global peace; no major wars have been fought between large powers in decades. compare this to the first half of this century (way before the Internet), when there were 2 WORLD wars in which the death tolls reached the millions. nothing even close has even come close in the past 10 years. in fact, as connections between the US and Russia have increased, they have made major war between the two nations LESS likely. consider economic growth. look at this US GDP chart (http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/spending_chart_1900_2010USb_11s1lo011lcn__US_Gross_Domestic_Product_GDP_History http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/spending_chart_1900_2010...) and tell me the economy is more unstable now than it was a century ago. the reason the author is so off base is because if "super-connectivity" increases the impact of positive feedback loops, then it must also increase the impact of negative impact loops. as the world becomes more connected, it becomes easier to become more flexible.

13 points by maxprogram 15y ago

Look forward to the continuing series. I will be curious what kinds of solutions outside of "just dig more into the complexity" there are out there in people's minds.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

mdda 15y ago

I think the article has an interesting theme. However, the invention of the telegraph/telephone hugely increased the connectivity of the world, and the speed of the growth feedback mechanism. But economic theories weren't forced to change...

yummyfajitas 15y ago

I'm a bit surprised to see this - the typical criticism of mainstream economics is that it assumes super-connectivity, e.g., perfect information, minimal transaction costs, etc. It'll definitely be interesting to see what promise to be new criticisms of the current scientific consensus.

andylei 15y ago

> I see the explosive growth in interconnections driven primarily by the Internet as something that, if ignored, can lead to dangerous situations > Unfortunately, as the world has grown less stable the author implies that super connectivity has destabilized the world, but that's an entirely unwarranted assertion. he mentions a couple events (like the koran burnings which led to riots) with small beginnings and big impacts, but these are largely anecdotal and easy to counter. for example, i know a story where a guy eating a sandwich led to the beginning of World War II. but consider a couple of better measures of stability - large scale human conflict and economic growth. we're in a period of relative global peace; no major wars have been fought between large powers in decades. compare this to the first half of this century (way before the Internet), when there were 2 WORLD wars in which the death tolls reached the millions. nothing even close has even come close in the past 10 years. in fact, as connections between the US and Russia have increased, they have made major war between the two nations LESS likely. consider economic growth. look at this US GDP chart (http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/spending_chart_1900_2010USb_11s1lo011lcn__US_Gross_Domestic_Product_GDP_History http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/spending_chart_1900_2010...) and tell me the economy is more unstable now than it was a century ago. the reason the author is so off base is because if "super-connectivity" increases the impact of positive feedback loops, then it must also increase the impact of negative impact loops. as the world becomes more connected, it becomes easier to become more flexible.