Tag Archives: economics

PROMPT: Excited

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Daily writing prompt
What are you most excited about for the future?
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I think humanity has a golden age coming. Unfortunately, a.) as John Maynard Keynes pointed out, “In the long run, we are all dead.” Accordingly, I don’t expect I’ll live to see that great age. And, b.) said great age is likely to come on the backend of a tragic period whose reach and devastation will make the Second World War seem like a puny and short-lived regional skirmish by comparison. [I also think there’s a good chance I’ll miss the worst of this, but there’s no accounting for the rapidity at which it might move (and the process has begun.)]

The root of this combination of relative near-term pessimism and long-run optimism is the observation that we are experiencing a technological revolution that there is no reason to believe won’t end in machines that are both smarter and more capable than we, and we have no plan for what to do in that scenario. We have no conception of what an economy looks like in which machines do everything faster, more cheaply, and more efficiently than human labor. I wouldn’t be so pessimistic if our institutions and legal frameworks were trending better and better, but — in fact — after years of spreading rule of law and democracy, we are starting to see global shrinkage and a rise of a strange populist authoritarianism that I can only imagine being catastrophic under the stress test that is to come.

Why the long-term optimism? Nothing lasts forever, and tough times breed tough and capable people. [Whereas comfort addiction is a major factor in our near-term predicament.] I think the Golden Age will be humans learning not to be defined by production / consumption but by developing the human body and mind to its utmost capacity.

A lot of people are worried about population collapse. I am not so worried about that. I think that: a.) humanity could use some thinning; b.) we do fine with long time scale threats. As pressures rise, the adjustments start and — perhaps with some growing pains — we’ll get where we need to be. The AI / Machine Learning revolution concerns me because I suspect it will happen too quickly to steer the ship (like being in an aircraft carrier as a tsunami comes, there’s no agility to navigate out of the way and no speed to outrun it, you just have to take the damage and try to recover.)

You were probably looking for an answer like flying cars, but I gave up on those long ago.

The End of the World as We Know It [Free Verse]

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Humans have been hunters,
   gatherers,
   farmers,
   machines,
   thinkers,
   and creators,

And have no idea what we'll next be.

I think that people will next be
      -- simply --
   Human Beings,
      Full-time Human Beings --
      More Human,
      More Being...

And many will fail spectacularly.

PROMPT: Harmony

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What could you let go of, for the sake of harmony?
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My wonkish need to analyze the train wreck that is our present state of governance and social discourse.

PROMPT: First Thing

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Jot down the first thing that comes to your mind.
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We’re all screwed. Embrace the chaos or head for the hills.

There is a class of problems that brute force solutions, even when they nudge the needle in the desired direction, always end in devastation.

One can’t drive an aircraft carrier like a jet-ski and expect anything other than a bunch of drowned sailors and destroyed planes.

[Guess who’s been reading the news.]

BOOKS: “The Cultural Revolution: A Very Short Introduction” by Richard Curt Kraus

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The Cultural Revolution: A Very Short IntroductionThe Cultural Revolution: A Very Short Introduction by Richard Curt Kraus
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Publisher Site – OUP

The decade-long Cultural Revolution in China is generally looked upon as a bleak time and place to be alive. This brief guide reflects on the political, economic, and cultural dimensions of Mao’s attempt to root out capitalist and middle-class influence from Chinese society. The book also reflects upon other events in China during the period (e.g. detente) and how they related to the Cultural Revolution. It also explores how China came out of the Cultural Revolution.

The author makes efforts to be diplomatic and evenhanded about the event. Some readers will find this beneficial to their purposes and may even see the occasional glimmer of a bright side to a dismal period in human history. However, one should not expect to gain any visceral insight into the sadness and chaos of the era. While there was discussion of not only the end of the Cultural Revolution but what China’s continued path looked like, it didn’t get much into whether there was a long shadow to the revolution and what that shadow might look like.

I found the book informative though there were dimensions into which I would have liked to gain more insight (e.g. it doesn’t go much into the influence on religion, nor on more peripheral arts,) but that’s the challenge of such a concise guide. Also, the author is of a political science background, and this informs what elements are given more or less discussion.

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PROMPT: Shoes

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Daily writing prompt
Tell us about your favorite pair of shoes, and where they’ve taken you.
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Well, they were Timberland hiking boots, a pair that was comfortable and had served me well on a number of hikes in various parts of the world. Then, on the Goechala Pass Trek in Sikkim, I learned that they were only held together by some planned-obsolescent glue.

I had to hike six days with one of the soles strapped to my foot for one of the boots, and five days for the other. Yes, after so many miles of hiking in various environments, they fell apart within one day of each other. I guess the glue has a finite number of puddle steps in it, and I hit that number one day earlier with one boot than the other. That’s when I realized there’s nothing special about a shoe. It’s just a bunch of the lowest cost materials stuck together in the lowest cost assembly method and designed so you’ll have to buy a new pair every few months to years, depending upon the type of shoe, its use, and its price point. If there were a monopoly on shoe production, no pair would last more than a week. It’s only competition that allows for some halfway decent pairs to exist. I’m happy with any shoe that protects my feet, and — once it doesn’t — it’s dead to me.

Zambia Limerick

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There was a shrewd carpenter from Zambia
  dismayed to hear what was paid to IKEA.
 He took apart his shelves,
  said, "Make 'em yourselves!"
upped his rates, but threw in a hex key-a.

Squirrel Grind [Common Meter]

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The squirrel's life 's an acorn hunt:
forage and hide the nut.
But a feeble mind requires that
it hide them by the glut.

Squirrel happiness is fragile
no cache is big enough
to be certain it'll make it through
should the winter get rough. 

Oh, give me the tardigrade life,
not a doubt it'll survive.
No food, no water, vacuum of space
and the thing 's still [bleeping] alive.

Rather than gathering plenty,
I'd rather need much less,
or, at least, not be so mindless
to hoard in great excess.

BOOK REVIEW: Introducing Game Theory: A Graphic Guide by Ivan & Tuvana Pastine

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Introducing Game Theory: A Graphic Guide (Introducing...)Introducing Game Theory: A Graphic Guide by Ivan Pastine
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Amazon.in Page

This book is meant to provide a non-mathematical introduction to the basics of game theory, using examples that make the subject readily intuitively grasped. With this objective in mind, the book does a great job. Game Theory is an interdisciplinary subject that seeks to explain behavior in strategic games, a strategic game is one in which all players make decisions that can influence the outcome of the game. Let’s clarify, using a literal “game.” In chess, it’s meaningless to ask what the best move is without considering what the opponent has done and is likely to do – i.e. one’s best move must always take into account what the other player has done. This is in contrast to games of skill or chance (like a running race or roulette, respectively,) in which one doesn’t really need to respond / adapt to what the opponent has done (or will do) in order to win.

The reason I mention using an example that is literally a game is that Game Theory is used in a wide variety of domains, from military to business strategy, most of which don’t involve “games” in the common use of that word. The book draws from many disciplines, usually the ones where the concept at hand was initially developed – e.g. nuclear weapons strategy or marketing. While the book is a bit more heavily loaded with examples from the business world, it doesn’t ignore contributions from other sectors. Many of the games discussed will be familiar to the general reader at some level from the outset (e.g. the Prisoner’s Dilemma, Chicken, Battle of the Sexes, etc.) but one should finish reading with a better understanding of ideas like payoffs, equilibria, efficiency, sequential play (v simultaneous,) and coordination – all of which are crucial to applied strategic decision-making.

If you are interested in a starter book about strategic decision-making, this one is worth reading.

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BOOK REVIEW: The Comic Book History of Comics by Fred Van Lente

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Comic Book History of Comics: Comics for AllComic Book History of Comics: Comics for All by Fred Van Lente
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Amazon.in page

As the title suggests, this is a history of comic books and graphic novels that is presented in the form of a comic book. This book turned out to be more fascinating than I expected (and, obviously, I thought it would be interesting enough to start reading it in the first place.) The added fascination, of all places, came from the economics nerd in me (I thought that guy was dead, but apparently not.) You may wonder what economics has to do with the history of comics, but it turns out that there was a long period of learning about how the unique characteristics of comic books should influence how they were most lucratively sold. At first, comics were sold just like other magazines, but eventually people realized that the fact that these periodicals told serialized stories (and that they were potentially collectable) made them a very different kind of product. And there were booms and busts along the way.

It’s not just economists who might find something surprisingly interesting in this book, there is a colorful discussion of intellectual property law as it pertained to comics. (As well as the more visceral human-interest story of the artists who created characters that made executives and actors billions of dollars, while said artists eked out a living.) Long-story-short, this book isn’t just for those interested in how artistic styles changed, or how various popular characters came to be, though those subjects are touched upon as well. It looks at the history of comics from many angles. One learns a little about the unique Japanese, Brazilian, Mexican, and African comic book markets, and one even sees how comic books played a roll in international relations. While it’s mostly an industry (macro-)level look, there is discussion of a few who individuals who changed the industry (e.g. Alan Moore.)

This is a quick read, but packed with interesting information for those of us who are basically interested in everything. It’s well drawn as well. Check it out.


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