[FRIAM] Economic Disequilibrium or How Complexity Science nearly killed America
http://www.make-digital.com/make/vol15/?pg=173 Here is a beautiful article by George Dyson that is truly one of the clearest examples of the current problems with complexity theory especially its relationship to economics , what it is trying to do and what it actually did with the mess created on wall street it should make every every CTO and CEO sit up and shudder. Basically the credit models created by complexity science geniuses, that are the foundation of most high flying arbitrage financial houses, created there own version of reality that had very little relevance to the real world. These same geniuses made enormous amounts of money by designing this fake world and convincing there neophyte non tech masters they should be paid millions for its discovery conveniently forgetting that its roots were firmly built in fiction Someone shouts the Emperor has no clothes and presto the whole house comes tumbling down The FBI is also apparently digging into this cesspool so expect to see a large number of these bright software phds entering federal prison in the not to distant future It also has relevance to the scary statement by Janet Wing at the institute when she said that future computer models need not be grounded in reality but could create there own. Think also on the connection that not only are these complex models non verifiable but so are most databases and agent modeling systems. Without easy verifiability I would submit they are worse than useless As Dyson points out the tally sticks stocks that where used in the 13th century are far superior to the billions of dollars of hardware and software used today. A stick Stock lived in the real world and was verifiable at the lowest level of inspection. Sadly today our complex system have proved to be totally non verifiable with the associated collapse of trust. Its also a stark example to our 1st mile friends about the higher relevance of what goes into the pipe rather than the pipe itself and why hi speed verification of what is happening in the real world is so much more important The quicker we realize that the raison d'etre of the digital world is to improve the quality of life and include some moral directives in our work based in reality the more we will be able to sleep at night ( : ( : pete -- Peter Baston *IDEAS* /www.ideapete.com/ http://www.ideapete.com/ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
Re: [FRIAM] Economic Disequilibrium or How Complexity Science nearly killed America
Hey Pete, That's definitely an interesting extrapolation from that Make article. I love stuff like that. Thanks. But can you help me reduce my ignorance? Which complexity science geniuses created these credit models? And which ones do you think might go to jail? -glen Thus spake peter circa 09/30/2008 11:06 AM: http://www.make-digital.com/make/vol15/?pg=173 Here is a beautiful article by George Dyson that is truly one of the clearest examples of the current problems with complexity theory especially its relationship to economics , what it is trying to do and what it actually did with the mess created on wall street it should make every every CTO and CEO sit up and shudder. Basically the credit models created by complexity science geniuses, that are the foundation of most high flying arbitrage financial houses, created there own version of reality that had very little relevance to the real world. These same geniuses made enormous amounts of money by designing this fake world and convincing there neophyte non tech masters they should be paid millions for its discovery conveniently forgetting that its roots were firmly built in fiction Someone shouts the Emperor has no clothes and presto the whole house comes tumbling down The FBI is also apparently digging into this cesspool so expect to see a large number of these bright software phds entering federal prison in the not to distant future It also has relevance to the scary statement by Janet Wing at the institute when she said that future computer models need not be grounded in reality but could create there own. Think also on the connection that not only are these complex models non verifiable but so are most databases and agent modeling systems. Without easy verifiability I would submit they are worse than useless As Dyson points out the tally sticks stocks that where used in the 13th century are far superior to the billions of dollars of hardware and software used today. A stick Stock lived in the real world and was verifiable at the lowest level of inspection. Sadly today our complex system have proved to be totally non verifiable with the associated collapse of trust. Its also a stark example to our 1st mile friends about the higher relevance of what goes into the pipe rather than the pipe itself and why hi speed verification of what is happening in the real world is so much more important The quicker we realize that the raison d'etre of the digital world is to improve the quality of life and include some moral directives in our work based in reality the more we will be able to sleep at night -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
Re: [FRIAM] Economic Disequilibrium or How Complexity Science nearly killed America
I totally agree with Pete and might add from personal experience that the same persons who create and use such models, also create and use rumours and other very questionable methods to manipulate the market, aside. of course, from the highly risky hedge funding (we had long discussions at the FRIAM meetings about using hedging to pay for health care; I was totally opposed). Unfortunately many of the financial asset managers acted exactly like the CEO and others at ENRON. I believe they are criminal and motivated by greed and fear (like so much othe culture and media now). The empire is perhpas crumbling. Non-regulated markets generally fail in the end. As ex UN environmental governance expert and seeing how countries are inadequately reacting to global warming and other environmental threats, I believe that it is time to rationally analyze the balance between natural resources and human needs and find a more sustainable models. Jared Diamond points out this necessity in his book Collapse. I also would like to see all complexity modelers adept a code of principles and morality to avoid the misuses of complexity, e.g., torture, military aggression, financial manipulations. etc. Enough, Perhaps too much. Please excuse my rage. Paul Paryski ** Looking for simple solutions to your real-life financial challenges? Check out WalletPop for the latest news and information, tips and calculators. (http://www.walletpop.com/?NCID=emlcntuswall0001) FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
Re: [FRIAM] Economic Disequilibrium or How Complexity Science nearly killed America
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The empire is perhpas crumbling. Nah. Dow is already back 400 points so far. If it would just have slid a little more then there would have been some really good buys! FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
Re: [FRIAM] Economic Disequilibrium or How Complexity Science nearly killed America
PS did anyone answer Pete's question as to the identity of the creators of the financial market complexity models? Paul ** Looking for simple solutions to your real-life financial challenges? Check out WalletPop for the latest news and information, tips and calculators. (http://www.walletpop.com/?NCID=emlcntuswall0001) FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
Re: [FRIAM] Economic Disequilibrium or How Complexity Science nearly killed America
That's a good example of the way models fail as I've been describing. We make models as projections of how things made sense in the past and not to have any awareness of the future except their own failure. That's where my method kicks ass. I don't have the fancy tools others do, but I watch the environment for the divergent processes that are emerging and ask the dumb questions, like what will they run into and how will they be changed by it. One thing that happens when growth system collide with their limits is that their independent parts run into each other.I pegged this whole thing 16 months ago (and 30 years ago as well) and spotted the collision between the growth centers of energy and food (evident in the global price war bio-ethanol was part of touching off) and how that started a series of unexpected changes in direction.I called it the beginning of the big crunch and the control system misbehavior fishtailing. If people want to know what to do to reduce the level of the calamity even at this point they should ask. Phil Henshaw From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of peter Sent: Tuesday, September 30, 2008 2:06 PM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group; 1st-Mile-NM Subject: [FRIAM] Economic Disequilibrium or How Complexity Science nearly killed America http://www.make-digital.com/make/vol15/?pg=173 Here is a beautiful article by George Dyson that is truly one of the clearest examples of the current problems with complexity theory especially its relationship to economics , what it is trying to do and what it actually did with the mess created on wall street it should make every every CTO and CEO sit up and shudder. Basically the credit models created by complexity science geniuses, that are the foundation of most high flying arbitrage financial houses, created there own version of reality that had very little relevance to the real world. These same geniuses made enormous amounts of money by designing this fake world and convincing there neophyte non tech masters they should be paid millions for its discovery conveniently forgetting that its roots were firmly built in fiction Someone shouts the Emperor has no clothes and presto the whole house comes tumbling down The FBI is also apparently digging into this cesspool so expect to see a large number of these bright software phds entering federal prison in the not to distant future It also has relevance to the scary statement by Janet Wing at the institute when she said that future computer models need not be grounded in reality but could create there own. Think also on the connection that not only are these complex models non verifiable but so are most databases and agent modeling systems. Without easy verifiability I would submit they are worse than useless As Dyson points out the tally sticks stocks that where used in the 13th century are far superior to the billions of dollars of hardware and software used today. A stick Stock lived in the real world and was verifiable at the lowest level of inspection. Sadly today our complex system have proved to be totally non verifiable with the associated collapse of trust. Its also a stark example to our 1st mile friends about the higher relevance of what goes into the pipe rather than the pipe itself and why hi speed verification of what is happening in the real world is so much more important The quicker we realize that the raison d'etre of the digital world is to improve the quality of life and include some moral directives in our work based in reality the more we will be able to sleep at night ( : ( : pete -- Peter Baston IDEAS http://www.ideapete.com/ www.ideapete.com FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
[FRIAM] Slashdot | Stallman Says Cloud Computing Is a Trap
Interesting discussion on /. http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/09/30/2146250 When we started thinking about the sys admin issues for sfx (http://sfcomplex.org/ ), we had to decide on how to address free web services. One example we had used earlier was PBWiki, a very nice wiki engine. Another was http://www.airset.com/ .. a very nice web community site. The principle we evolved was simply this: we can use any SaaS (Software as a Service) system as long as any data we put into the system was easily available in a standard format. This means, for example, use of Google Calendar was fine: it is an iCal system with easily downloadable calendar data in a standard format. Note that GMail similarly passes the test: the mail data can easily be captured via the IMAP or POP protocols. PBWiki failed: there was no easy way to capture the format in a standard format .. i.e. in a wiki markup language. Ditto for airset, the system was too difficult to extract and place into any of the usual CMS systems (Joomla, Drupal etc) On the other hand, one of our projects is looking hard at deploying web applications on Google Maps and Google App Engine. This looks fairly safe: the main features we are using on Google Maps are lat/lng which transfer to other GIS systems nicely. Similarly, the App Engine uses python and Django templates, and all of the system is developed off-line then uploaded. It's only oddness is its datastore, which maps fairly nicely onto other sytems. We also are cautious about having a Plan B .. i.e. how to extricate. So our approach of standards and data extractability is one approach. How do you handle this? Any horror stories? .. successes? -- Owen FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
[FRIAM] Vote Obama or McCain: Global Electoral College | The Economist
Kinda nifty: http://www.economist.com/vote2008/ .. a world wide vote, even using an electoral college model. Such a huge landslide for Obama .. but then its quite a select audience! Interesting use of GIS as well. I wonder how hard it is for their IT department to cons up such a critter?! -- Owen FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
