World Peace Endgame

Modern economics was born in the 1870s to mimic Newtonian physics.

The goal? Scientific "credibility."

But an economy isn’t a simple machine; it’s a system of "organized complexity"—more like a living organism than a steam engine.

#ComplexityEconomics #EconSky #SystemsThinking

The work @sfiscience.bsky.social and @ineteconomics.bsky.social are doing on Complexity Economics can’t arrive soon enough. It’s time for a model that respects reality.

#HeterodoxEconomics #DoughnutEconomics #PostGrowth

Economic models aren’t just "imperfect"—they’re the wrong type of mathematics entirely. We’re treating a complex ecosystem like a simple pendulum, and the results are becoming dangerous.

#ComplexityEconomics #SystemsThinking #EconSky #HeterodoxEconomics #DoughnutEconomics

Building *something* complex, that is.

I do think there is a strong selective bias, indeed.

As an example of sabotage being easy, many bosses do not hire underlings smarter than they are, so as to protect their position from competition.

The strategy is simple and easy to implement.

The scary thing is that I think it often doesn't take that much intelligence or strategy when the power imbalance is very large, or when people are in key positions.

Building complex takes insight.

Sabotaging something is relatively easy.

The Dark Side of Sunshine CRI – July 2017 - How a single change in our approach to lobbying has fueled a 40-year rise in inequality.

I just read this article, which argues that making congressional sessions open in the 1970s also gave lobbyists more power to influence legislation.

After this change, legislation caters to special interests and inequality rises.

congressionalresearch.org/DarkSide.html

I suspect it is a mixture of both.

Many people are stuck doing what the system incentivizes them to do, and the emergent properties can look planned even when they are not.

At the same time, people with money and influence are often in a position to reject ideas that diminish their control.

STRIKE! Magazine – On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs: A Work Rant Ever had the feeling that your job might be made up? That the world would keep on turning if you weren't doing that thing you do 9-5?

His original essay in Strike! Magazine is worth reading, although it was published prior to the YouGov poll:

strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/

#BullshitJobs #MeaningfulWork #HumanCapital

In Bullshit Jobs, David Graeber cites a YouGov poll that 37% of British workers believe their jobs make no meaningful contribution to the world.

If you eliminated them and the real work that supports them (custodians, electricians), one could eliminate 50% of all work without substantive loss.

Errors in the Economic Ledger: Part 2 How a discipline of mismatched mathematics and failed theories created its own truth, for a period of time.

Check out my latest Substack post!

Errors in the Economic Ledger: Part 2. How a discipline of mismatched mathematics and failed theories created its own truth, for a period of time.

#ComplexityEconomics #EconomicReform #SupplyandDemand

worldpeaceendgame.substack.com/p/errors-in-...

Link for DOT value of a statistical life, $13.7 Million as of 2024:

www.transportation.gov/office-polic...

We are living in the gaps. We are the 'irrationals'—the unquantifiable measure that actually gives the line its length, its weight, and its reality.

#MathPhilosophy #UBI #HumanScale

Even though the rationals are everywhere, they have a measure of zero. They take up none of the actual space.

When we only support the quantifiable (the rationals), we are trying to build a civilization on a set of points that—despite their frequency—have no volume.

@scottsantens.com

#UBI

To take the metaphor deeper: The 'rational' metrics of our world are dense. No matter where you look, the market tries to find a price, a data point, or a KPI. It’s everywhere.

But in mathematics, being 'dense' isn't the same as being 'substantial.'

#MathSky #PhilSky #UBISky #EconSky

It is the unquantifiable value of life, nature, and peace that is the "irrational" part of infinity that makes us whole.

#UBI #BasicIncome #Humanity

Cantor’s diagonal argument: the "uncountable" irrational numbers are a larger order of infinity. Rational numbers make up 0% of the number line.

We think we can organize our world only supporting the rational, quantifiable pieces of it.

@unsolvedmre.bsky.social @economicthought.bsky.social

The Department of Transportation (@us-dot.bsky.social) values a statistical life at $13.7M.

Food and shelter are cheap maintenance for such an expensive piece of equipment.

@ubilabnetwork.bsky.social @basicincomeaction.org @simonduffy.bsky.social @puffmushroom.bsky.social

#UBISky #HumanCapital

It is a challenge, indeed. I would love to see a global "Manhattan Project" to improve economics as a science.

It is a critical technology, and it currently contains a large number of holes and outright errors.

Simon Kuznets, who invented GDP in 1934, warned people not to use it as a general measure of economic health.

...and then we went on to use it as a general measure of economic health.

This sort of thing happens repeatedly in economic history.

Thomas Piketty (@thomaspiketty.bsky.social) noted that the World Bank was "amazed" to find human capital exceeds all other capital.

Why the shock?

It only seems surprising because our default economic setting for a human being not currently trading labor is $0.

#Economics #UBI #HumanCapital

Our tools are the problem!

Current economic models fail because they are too linear. We need to stop treating the economy like a simple equation and start modeling it as a complex ecosystem of stocks, flows, feedback loops, and delays.

This would help us create genuine wealth.

#Economics #UBI #Complexity #HumanCapital

We are bankrupting the world by mapping reality to a ledger that is mathematically too small to hold it. We quantify the minor part of existence and map everything else to zero.

@jamesowenweatherall.com @mathyawp.bsky.social

#Economics #ComplexityScience #SystemsThinking #CategoryTheory

This is the logic of debt money & why we need to rethink how money is created and circulated.

@rbreich.bsky.social (if you’re here — your thoughts?)

#UBI #MoneyReform

If you put 5 kids—4 small business owners & 1 banker—in a “classroom economy” with only $100 at 8% interest, a math truth emerges: businesses can trade all they want, but they can never generate enough to pay back the interest + principal.

#MonetarySystem #DebtEconomics #Econ101

Because it asks the impossible, the economy fails a basic ethical principle: “ought implies can.” If it is impossible to pay all debt, the obligation to do so loses its validity. A certain portion of society is destined to fail.

#EconomicJustice #FinancialEthics #SystemicInequality #BadFaithEconomy

Most money (M0, M1, M2) is created through credit in conjunction with an interest-bearing financial instrument, so we’ve set up a math problem where the two sides will never be equal.

More debt exists than money to pay it. This is why our economy has to grow.

#CriticalThinking #MonetaryPolicy

Quote Origin: Those Who Can Make You Believe Absurdities Can Make You Commit Atrocities – Quote Investigator® Quote Investigator®

Economics: Infinite growth is possible with finite resources.

Voltaire: "Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices."

#SustainableEconomics #Voltaire #AbsurdityandInjustice #ModernPhilosophy

quoteinvestigator.com/2021/11/08/a...

"Unlike physical goods, the abstraction of money allows us, in principle, to possess unlimited quantities of it. Thus it is easy for economists to believe in the possibility of endless exponential growth, where a mere number represents the size of the economy."

Charles Eisenstein, Sacred Economics