Feynman was a great human being but he was wrong to idealize the scientific process

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This post is in response to a video posted by Dennis Jensen on Twitter in which the legendary physicist Richard Feynman discusses the scientific process. Jensen is using it as some kind of attack on the science of climate change.
Feynman was indeed a great human being. But he was wrong to idealize the scientific process as some kind of mechanical process. It is a nice story but it does not concur with the facts. The facts are scientists are as susceptible to intimidation and political manipulation as any human being and thus will necessarily affect the ‘process’ to which he refers. Look at the work of Tesla, look at the ridicule faced by the pioneers of cosmology, microbiology, electromagnetism, plate tectonics, quantum theory etc. Far more common is group intransigence and vested interest. If it does operate it operates over generational time scales, and thus all of us are in the dark as to what will be proven ‘wrong’. I am reminded by a very insightful quote from Arthur C Clarke. “When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.”

Interesting market dynamics after US unemployment numbers

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On Friday, the US non farm payrolls data were released and the market results were very interesting and bears some very careful consideration. In short, US stocks (as measured by the broad indices like the S&P 500) fell, US bonds fell (in price, that is yields rose), the US dollar fell, and commodities (denominated in US dollars) fell. This is very puzzling as usually one asset class’s fall is matched by another’s rise.
We may well be seeing the next BIG theme evolving in the market – and that is the reversal of flows into US denominated assets.
I think it is generally acknowledged the the relative supremacy of the US in human affairs is on the wane and it follows from that that the extent of the US hegemony must, at some stage, wane. Recent “deer in the headlights” panic into the reserve currency has served to put that dynamic very much on the back burner. But the fundamentals cannot be ignored and as the US’ free lunch period comes to an end (and thus must be paid for) the reversal of those flows may well result in far greater volatility than many in the markets are prepared for.
The tide is finally turning and we may get to see the true extent of the ugly nature of those who have been bathing in the nude.

Do we need to restrict banks’ behaviour with comprehensive regulations?

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The quandary as I see it is, more rules and regulations just give banks and their supporters a smoke screen to hide behind and obstacles they can set up diversions around in complex and opaque ways.
Increasingly the veil is being lifted and there is a growing understanding that central banks are poorly suited to manage and manipulate the price of money and its supply. In fact we have known central planning to be a very poor way to run the production and distribution of good and services for decades, but for some reason we can’t see that the short comings of central planning extends to the market for money.
As was eloquently and concisely expressed recently, by Dan Amos for The Daily Reckoning
“Central bankers would no longer be viewed as superheroes! Just meagre servants, pegging the money supply to gold and letting the free market determine the price of money. After all, when in history has central planning worked better over time than the free market?”
if we jettisoned the whole farce that portrays central bankers manipulating the money markets for our collective good (and not the 1%) and adopt a gold standard.
That would instantly clip the wings of bankers and our bureaucratic masters in “control” central and clear the deck for transparent and self determined financial behaviour.

The Butterfly Has Flapped Its Wings

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I have been unwell these past few days. On the mend now, but until I am fully recovered I post a poem I wrote in 2007, just 2 days after the Bear Stearns sub prime laden bond fund failed. That to me was a critical event, the last grain of sand on a pile of sand that starts an avalanche.
The butterfly has flapped its wings,
The storm is now brewing.
“The game plays on,” the Joker smiles,
“Tis but “fro”ing and “too”ing.”
But don’t look now, the curtain call’s
Begun in sudden earnest
To fleece the crowd, to reap the wheat,
That tolls in a distant furnace.
There’s a twinkle is his eye,
As he reckons the fire’s next fuel,
He scours the suffering multitude,
And singles out a few.
He takes their pride, he takes their lives,
He takes their very souls
They preach the fallen gospel
And dig their grave-shaped holes.
The rest of us can’t simply be,
We are no longer resistant.
To the lure of the Sirens’ call,
We take our sides insistent.
“We see the Truth! The hallowed way!!”
Our hearts are pure and one.
As we put to death the sons of those
Who are the last to come.
What mockery! What farce!
What shameful acts belie,
Beneath the shadow of deception; – that glint in the Joker’s eye.
James Benjamin 24 June 2007

Climate change, financial crisis and non linear dynamics

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Over the years I have vacillated between being a climate change advocate, to skeptic, to confused and back again. That might be due to the promotion of poor information on some occasions but it has finally dawned on me it is because there is so much more to this issue than is currently being considered.
Much of the technological change and the theories upon which such change is built (not to mention those upon which the climate change advocates make their predictions and interpret data concerning their belief in the need for action) is the result of reductive heuristics. This process necessarily requires a breaking down of the issue into component parts – it necessitates a compartmentalisation of our world view and as a result, jettisoning the only approach that I feel has any hope of setting our world’s order back in balance.
The planet is in crisis on a number of fronts. Climate change is just one of several issues that threaten our global environment. There are also financial and economic crises threatening to erupt at the drop of a hat and are being held back only by extraordinary array of policies that just 5 years ago were unthinkable. Politically the world is becoming polarised and institutions at the very heart of our civilisation (like democracy) are at risk of being suspended to implement initiatives that we are unable to agree, at least democratically, we need. Spiritual beliefs are also in a state of flux as some of the world’s people mix the dangerous elements of religious dogma and politics together while sprouting eschatological warnings to their followers and others around the world.
Rather than seeing these as unrelated, complex stand alone problems, there is a perspective that sees them all as different aspects of a simple interconnected phenomenon. Unfortunately while this perspective DOES accurately describe how and why these problems have emerged, the prognosis and way forward for our world (and more importantly our worldview) is not encouraging.
Taking a more holistic approach requires identifying an over arching theme that underscores the progress of each of these issues and seek a common cause to that theme.
In colloquial terms the planet is “hotting up”, it’s getting faster and faster at a faster and faster rate. Global population of our species is growing exponentially along with many other important demographic and socio-economic indicators, as are the number of threatened species. We are approaching a tipping point that is probably more defined by its breadth of influence than its severity even though one struggles to contemplate as severe a global crisis. That is saying something. We need a new paradigm to transcend the limitations of past ideologies that belong to a less interconnected, even if a more technologically sophisticated, world.
In recent years a new approach to studying, modeling and understanding complex systems has emerged from an area of mathematics called non -linear dynamics. It has grown out of chaos theory and fractal geometry that posits highly complex behaviour and outcomes can be driven by simple deterministic processes, that extremely small changes (or errors) in one element of a system can drive outsized changes in other aspects of the system (or indeed overall systemic behaviour) and that errors of measurement in all systems is ubiquitous and unavoidable. It is an area of maths that is messy and uncertain like the real world, and it has shown us why it is wrong to have a mathematics that is precise and certain. We make foundational and fundamental choices and decisions based on a false sense of certainty that our precise and certain mathematics assumes. These fundamental decisions (or choices) get absorbed and buried into the very structure of our modes of production, distribution systems and way of life. Ultimately the certainty of our theories comes up against the inherent uncertainty of the real world and a catastrophic and existential blow is dealt to our modes of production, distribution systems and way of life.
So we have an out dated paradigm that hints at a common source of the fuel for the multi-dimensional crisis that looms on so many fronts, but there must be a tangible, real example of a decision made within that paradigm that has led to these outcomes. Such a decision must have had a significant role in setting the preconditions and dynamics for the emergence of these problems. What decision in the last 50 years has resulted in the explosion of global indebtedness, population growth, industrial production and pollution and inter and intra national inequality?
The decision by the United States to sever the fixed link between the world’s money systems and gold (the money system of antiquity) in 1971 seems a relative innocuous one. However, it has had a radically transformative impact on the performance of our global economy, our day to day lives and the global environment. It has meant that politicians have been able to avoid a number of potentially catastrophic economic downturns (the dynamics of which may have been laden with lessons we never took due to our desire to avoid the perceived potential catastrophe) by adding to the global money supply which in our modern system means our collective indebtedness to ourselves. Pulling the global economy back from the brink of a severe economic downturn has the effect of lifting GDP higher than it otherwise would have been, it prevents business from failing that would have otherwise failed, it maintains the demand for environmental development (or transformation) higher than it would otherwise have been, in short, it turbo charges the impact of our species on the planet. It is cumulative in the sense that each business cycle leaves the system more interconnected, more indebted, and more environmentally voracious. It also leaves the system more unstable and vulnerable to catastrophic collapse (and this is consistent with the predictions of complex systems theory, or complexity theory) as it has become clear that more debt is no solution to excessive debt, growing inequality through entitlement retrenchment and tax relief to the wealthy is no solution to the politics of envy that is clearly evident on both the national and international stage. As mentioned above, we are approaching a tipping point.
The resolution of this situation is thus extremely distressing. It revolves around the resetting of the financial system which cannot be achieved unilaterally, only collectively. And the consequences are similarly catastrophic. Any effort to address the symptoms of this underlying problem is futile as it stems from factors that go far deeper into our species’ psyche, into the essence of the certainty we would like the world to possess. Basically we have made our bed and now we have to sleep in it.