COMPLEXITY
David Krakauer on Emergent Political Economies and A Science of Possibility (EPE 01)
Episode guests
Podcast summary created with Snipd AI
Quick takeaways
- Embracing multidimensional causality challenges traditional economic perspectives, moving beyond linear regression to understand complex systems.
- Reconciling individual moral beliefs with institutional mechanics in political economy emphasizes evidence-based, multifaceted perspectives to address inequalities.
Deep dives
The Importance of Embracing Complexity in Economic Modeling
Embracing the complexity of multidimensional causality in economic modeling is crucial, challenging the traditional one-dimensional perspectives. The podcast discusses the need to move beyond linear regression and embrace complex causality. Figures like Carna Hausman and Cesar Hidalgo have developed intricate product spaces to understand trade better, forfeiting some transparency to integrate complex causality effectively.
Challenges in Bridging Economic and Historical Narratives
The podcast delves into the challenges of reconciling individual moral beliefs with institutional mechanics in studying political economy. It traces the evolution of economic thinking from rigorous mathematics to the complexities of information processing and algorithmic approaches. The ideological dimensions and historical contexts of economic theories are explored, highlighting the need for evidence-based, multifaceted perspectives to address contemporary economic inequalities.
Navigating Uncertainties in Social, Political, and Economic Systems
The discussion emphasizes the importance of navigating uncertainties in social, political, and economic systems. By employing simulation and agent-based models, algorithmic thinking, and scaling theory, complex systems approaches offer insights into understanding emergent phenomena and analyzing distributions, inventions, and collective dynamics. The focus is on moving towards a more experimental, open-minded, and satisfactory approach to complex system analysis.
Philosophical Optimism Amidst Epistemic Uncertainties
The podcast concludes with a call for philosophical optimism amidst epistemic uncertainties. It advocates for a humility in acknowledging the insufficiencies of current economic models and the imperative to evolve political economy as a discipline. By integrating human psychology, collective intelligence, and scaling theory with a non-partisan outlook, the podcast encourages rethinking economic structures and embracing a new kind of science for a more inclusive and equitable future.
The world is unfair — but how much of that unfairness is inevitable, and how much is just contingency? After centuries of efforts to arrive at formal theories of history, society, and economics, most of us still believe and act on what amounts to myth. Our predecessors can’t be faulted for their lack of data, but in 2022 we have superior resources we’re only starting to appreciate and use. In honor of the Santa Fe Institute’s new role as the hub of an international research network exploring Emergent Political Economies, we dedicate this new sub-series of Complexity Podcast to conversations on money, power, governance, and justice. Subscribe for a new stream of dialogues and trialogues between SFI’s own diverse scholastic community and other acclaimed political economists, historians, and authors of speculative fiction.
Welcome to COMPLEXITY, the official podcast of the Santa Fe Institute. I’m your host, Michael Garfield, and every other week we’ll bring you with us for far-ranging conversations with our worldwide network of rigorous researchers developing new frameworks to explain the deepest mysteries of the universe.
In this episode, we talk with SFI President David Krakauer about the goals of this research theme and what SFI brings to the table. We discuss the legacy of long-standing challenges to quantitative history and mathematical economics, how SFI thinks differently about these topics, and a brief outline of the major angles we’ll explore in this sub-series over the next year-plus — including the roles of dimension, causality, algorithms, scaling, innovation, emergence, and more.
Subscribe to Complexity Podcast for upcoming episodes with an acclaimed line-up of scholars including Diane Coyle, Eric Beinhocker, Ricardo Hausmann, Doyne Farmer, Steven Teles, Rajiv Sethi, Jenna Bednar, Tom Ginsburg, Niall Ferguson, Neal Stephenson, Paul Smaldino, C. Thi Nguyen, John Kay, John Geneakoplos, and many more to be announced…
If you value our research and communication efforts, please subscribe to Complexity Podcast wherever you prefer to listen, rate and review us at Apple Podcasts, and consider making a donation — or finding other ways to engage with us — at santafe.edu/engage. You can find the complete show notes for every episode, with transcripts and links to cited works, at complexity.simplecast.com.
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Mentions and additional resources:
Emergent Political Economies and A Science of Possibility
by David Krakauer for SFI Parallax Newsletter, Spring 2022 Edition
Policing stabilizes construction of social niches in primates
by Jessica Flack, Michelle Girvan, Frans de Waal, and David Krakauer in Nature
Conflicts of interest improve collective computation of adaptive social structures
by Eleanor Brush, David Krakauer, and Jessica Flack in Science Advances
The Star Gazer and the Flesh Eater: Elements of a Theory of Metahistory
by David C. Krakauer in History, Big History, and Metahistory at SFI Press
The Cultural Evolution of National Constitutions
by Daniel Rockmore, Chen Fang, Nick Foti, Tom Ginsburg, & David Krakauer in SSRN
Scaling of Hunter-Gatherer Camp Size and Human Sociality
by José Lobo, Todd Whitelaw, Luís M. A. Bettencourt, Polly Wiessner, Michael E. Smith, & Scott Ortman in Current Anthropology
W. Brian Arthur on Complexity Podcast (eps. 13, 14, 68, 69)
Reflections on COVID-19 with David Krakauer & Geoffrey West (Complexity Podcast)
The Dawn of Everything
by David Graeber and David Wengrow at Macmillan Publishers
Mitch Waldrop speaks on the history of SFI (Twitter excerpts)
The Hedgehog and the Fox
by Isaiah Berlin
War and Peace
by Leo Tolstoy
On the Application of Mathematics to Political Economy
by F. Y. Edgeworth in Journal of the Royal Statistical Society
How Economics Became A Mathematical Science
by E. Roy Weintraub at Duke University Press
Machine Dreams
by Philip Mirowski at Cambridge University Press
All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace (TV series)
by Adam Curtis for BBC
Can’t Get You Out of My Head (TV series)
by Adam Curtis for BBC
The Collective Computation Group at SFI
Seeing Like A State
by James. C Scott at Yale Books
Uncertain times
by Jessica Flack and Melanie Mitchell at Aeon
At the limits of thought
by David Krakauer at Aeon
Preventative Citizen-Based Medicine
by David Krakauer for the SFI Transmissions: Reflections series
The uncertainty paradox. Can science make uncertainty optimistic?
by Stuart Firestein (SFI Seminar)
Editorial note: At one point DK mentions "John" Steuart but meant James Steuart, author of
An Inquiry Into the Principles of Political Economy
(a more thoroughly-indexed and searchable version can be found here)
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