This chapter delves into the speaker's unique experience with a wearable digital computer designed to predict roulette outcomes during their physics studies, exploring themes of randomness and the complexities of gambling. The narrative evolves into a discussion on the application of advanced modeling in economics, contrasting the risks of gambling with the more stable opportunities found in stock market investing.
Physicist J. Doyne Farmer wants a new kind of economics that takes account of what we've learned from chaos theory and that builds more accurate models of how humans actually behave. Listen as he makes the case for complexity economics with EconTalk's Russ Roberts. Farmer argues that complexity economics makes better predictions than standard economic theory and does a better job dealing with the biggest problems in today's society.