3 ms·

I'd say the financial industry is a perfect example. There's a nifty result that maintaining market efficiency is an NP-complete problem, and the standard assu

I'd say the financial industry is a perfect example. There's a nifty result that maintaining market efficiency is an NP-complete problem, and the standard assumption is that markets are solving this continuously and more or less autonomously in a way that don't depend on any particular actor. Krugman's model of currency crises for instance ends up with "markets" as a kind of Cthulu-esque omnipotent, amoral, and inscrutable actor.

another 13y ago
... with "assumption" used in its "spherical cow" sense, of course [1][2][3]. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NP-hard http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NP-hard [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_optimum http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_optimum [3] Making this point in the service of Internet Clarity. I don't think we disagree (unless I've misread).