Yanis Varoufakis — Utopian science fictions legitimising our current dystopia – 2019 Taylor Lecture, Oxford University

Big! We really need to be talking about this and examining assumptions and presuppositions that act as hidden assumptions. Yanis is a systems thinker.

The Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages, Oxford University, kindly invited me to deliver the 2019 Taylor Lecture on 12th February 2019. I chose the topic of Realistic Utopias versus Dystopic Realities – my aim being to highlight the manner in which really-existing capitalism is marketed as a utopian science fiction that has nothing to do with… really-existing capitalism. Behind this elegant utopian mathematical the powers-that-be hide a dismal dystopia that is failing humanity in a variety of ways.…

The emperor has no clothes.

Pure capitalism and pure socialism are both based on utopian thinking. They are ideal rather than real, based on models whose stipulated assumptions are not achievable in the real world given existing conditions. It is questionable whether those conditions could ever be met. 

This doesn't imply, however, that more ideal society as a functional utopia is not achievable by getting from here to closer to there, that is, getting from where we are now to where would like like to be and doing so realistically through iteration and incrementation. This is an evolutionary process in a complex adaptive system characterized by reflexivity and emergence, hence, affected by synergy with the implication of uncertainty. Conversely, trying to impose an ideal structural system constructed from assumptions is folly.

Utopian science fictions legitimising our current dystopia – 2019 Taylor Lecture, Oxford UniversityYanis Varoufakis

Amusing Essay on the Confluence of Discourse and Reality - It's Relevant to Public Policy

Commentary by Roger Erickson

"What if I get outed for who I am: an intellectual empty shell?"
Every profession is a conspiracy against the laity
The discussion goes on about opinion, certainty and doubt. This is apparently how literature majors approach evolution and network theory - i.e., top-down vs bottom-up.

The 2 groups eventually converge to similar concepts, yet cannot understand one another when they eventually arrive at the same thought! (Like Walter Shewhart said, data is meaningless without context. Turns out semantics is too!)

The top-down group doesn't understand abstract modeling and the bottom-up crowd doesn't appreciate the variance inherent in semantics (they both live in isolation from one another's context). Does that sound like the 1%-economists vs the 99%, or what?

1% to 99% - "To grow,  you must slim down enough to work harder (for us)."

99% to 1% - "To grow, we must first eat adequately. Quit hoarding all the food!"

Yes, it can help to hear opinions from the 1%. Yet it helps even more if everyone's opinions are informed of actual, ongoing operations - i.e.,. bottom-up details. Long term, only the 99% can survive, so always stick with the bottom-up side. That's the real meaning of supply-side economics, consumption drives supply. Opinion, like data and semantics, is meaningless without FULL context, which means all data, operations, opinions, inter-dependencies, and ongoing outcomes - all mixed together. There are a very FEW opinions (about 1%?) saying that we're running out of fiat. Fine. However there's far more variance in capitalism than anyone appreciates. Sample all the opinions before firming any of them.

Here's the abstract approach to all the literature semantics.  No component in any system is physically capable of mirroring all the data that defines that system, or that system's options. System options can only be explored, never exhausted, since multiple new options are spawned for every option explored! That's the Traveling Entrepreneur's Task. The only solution is endless practice - aka, we need EVERYONE'S opinion, and selection of novel patterns from that feedback, ASAP!

In literature terms, to help shape a culture of hundreds of millions of nitwits, it takes every form of storytelling imaginable, all at break-neck speed. Consider Chekov checked off. Now, given we have fiat, can we just get on with exploring all those group options that are piling up?