Understanding Society
Do we still need microfoundations?
Daniel Little | Chancellor of the University of Michigan-Dearborn, Professor of Philosophy at UM-Dearborn and Professor of Sociology at UM-Ann Arbor
Showing posts with label macro-scale. Show all posts
Showing posts with label macro-scale. Show all posts
Thursday, November 19, 2015
Daniel Little — Do we still need microfoundations?
Understanding Society
Do we still need microfoundations?
Daniel Little | Chancellor of the University of Michigan-Dearborn, Professor of Philosophy at UM-Dearborn and Professor of Sociology at UM-Ann Arbor
Thursday, August 22, 2013
Orienting Group Intelligence To Scale-Dependent Inter-Dependencies
Commentary by Roger Erickson
Why does this topic keep coming up? Because it seems to be one of our rate-limiting hurdles to pursuing return on coordination.
As an example, Bill Mitchell writes that "mainstream economics is defunct, and we should decommission teaching programs throughout the world and introduce new progressive approaches."
That's always somewhat true, of all disciplines. The concepts of group adjustment, cultural agility, national evolution and national Adaptive Rate all lead, inevitably, to consideration of the tempo for introducing such changes.
And, a similar concept is being heard from people in many, of not most, disciplines?
The whole world seems to be seeing what Max Planck noted back circa 1905.
[No idea whether he was the 1st to express this.]
Much of the difficulty in reconciling scale-related axioms arises from CONFUSING MICRO-SCALE WITH MACRO-SCALE INTER-RELATIONSHIPS.
Specialists - in all disciplines - keep demonstrating that uniquely different properties are expressed at every scale of every type of organization. Yet the bulk of most electorates don't hear or fully absorb this simple message.
One corollary is that we have zero predictive power. But seemingly unlimited adaptive power!
Perhaps that is a topic we would do well to better DEMONSTRATE to all kids. Say, by age 10, if not before. After all, how are we to accelerate the rate of our own cultural autocatalysis, without recognizing and fully appreciating the impact of scale-dependent inter-dependencies?
Perhaps that simple step would better prepare citizens entering all emerging disciplines, and make them more comfortable facing a lifetime of scaling organizational tasks.
It's one thing to make individuals aware of this obsevation. What group effects might become evident if most or all group members grasped this concept? Could we hope that the average politician wouldn't be so ignorant about emerging group dynamics and our ability to explore emerging group options?
How would YOU demonstrate this concept to 10 year old kids, so that they would own the solution, rather than just accepting it as ideology from adults? How can we teach kids that what they learn to expect in local interactions, does NOT predict what can be expected as larger-scale interactions constantly develop.
ps: If you could get that concept across to a 10-yr old, then maybe there'd be hope for Greenspan, Geithner, Rubin, Orszag and Summers. Maybe even David Walker and Peter Peterson!
Why does this topic keep coming up? Because it seems to be one of our rate-limiting hurdles to pursuing return on coordination.
As an example, Bill Mitchell writes that "mainstream economics is defunct, and we should decommission teaching programs throughout the world and introduce new progressive approaches."
That's always somewhat true, of all disciplines. The concepts of group adjustment, cultural agility, national evolution and national Adaptive Rate all lead, inevitably, to consideration of the tempo for introducing such changes.
And, a similar concept is being heard from people in many, of not most, disciplines?
The whole world seems to be seeing what Max Planck noted back circa 1905.
[No idea whether he was the 1st to express this.]
Much of the difficulty in reconciling scale-related axioms arises from CONFUSING MICRO-SCALE WITH MACRO-SCALE INTER-RELATIONSHIPS.
Specialists - in all disciplines - keep demonstrating that uniquely different properties are expressed at every scale of every type of organization. Yet the bulk of most electorates don't hear or fully absorb this simple message.
One corollary is that we have zero predictive power. But seemingly unlimited adaptive power!
Perhaps that is a topic we would do well to better DEMONSTRATE to all kids. Say, by age 10, if not before. After all, how are we to accelerate the rate of our own cultural autocatalysis, without recognizing and fully appreciating the impact of scale-dependent inter-dependencies?
Perhaps that simple step would better prepare citizens entering all emerging disciplines, and make them more comfortable facing a lifetime of scaling organizational tasks.
It's one thing to make individuals aware of this obsevation. What group effects might become evident if most or all group members grasped this concept? Could we hope that the average politician wouldn't be so ignorant about emerging group dynamics and our ability to explore emerging group options?
How would YOU demonstrate this concept to 10 year old kids, so that they would own the solution, rather than just accepting it as ideology from adults? How can we teach kids that what they learn to expect in local interactions, does NOT predict what can be expected as larger-scale interactions constantly develop.
ps: If you could get that concept across to a 10-yr old, then maybe there'd be hope for Greenspan, Geithner, Rubin, Orszag and Summers. Maybe even David Walker and Peter Peterson!
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