We're All Studying The Wrong Things

   (Commentary posted by Roger Erickson)



Or at least too much isolated detail, and too little context.

What'd Walter Shewhart say? "Data is meaningless without context."
Take our aggregate fiscal policy ... please!

The details in this essay by Bill Mitchell are depressingly astounding.

How Two Nations That Drove The Renaissance Eventually Joined At The Hip And Then Purposely Shot Both of Their Own Feet

I'll mention just one. "France was determined to stop Germany ever invading it again."

So, armed with that fixation, France ended up guaranteeing that German export industries would invade France, armed with THEIR fixation on a pegged Fx. And now they profess surprise.

Have A Steady Stream Of Changing Contexts

And Won't Explore Them Without Prejudice?*

Humans have been "Context Nomads" since before we were modern humans. Given that long habit, it is simply amazing that countries with such a history of brilliant physiologists, physicists and chemists can't figure out the rudimentary demands of the dynamic system we call a currency supply.

For heaven's sake! Amoebas figured this out a billion years ago! Even bacteria did. Just follow the damn operations, and keep them going, and evolving?

What should we be studying? How to systematically control the frictions that cause entire human cultures to take one giant step backward for every two aggregate steps forward.

Otherwise, how do we manufacture adaptive Public Purpose? Not just randomly diverted consent?


* We are Context Nomads: human nomads migrating through contexts with UNPREDICTABLE characteristics. Just explore without prejudice? Life is no more difficult than Kindergarten, where we first learn OBT&E.