I guess from their point of view Americans who voted for Mr. Trump have behaved
in a positive way. The question is why have so many people in America voted
against their economic self-interests for a guy that ruins it all. Why do
working class voters want tax cuts for the super rich of the Mar-a-Lago club in
the first place? UC Berkeley sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild argues in her
book "Strangers in Their Own Land" that Trump supporters voted for him and
against women like Hillary Clinton & Kamala Harris because they share the
experience of a "deep story" which goes like this: despite years and years of
hard work, patient and orderly 'waiting in line', and great personal sacrifice,
the rewards of the American Dream just over the brow of the hill remain out of
reach, especially for older white male blue-collar workers. For decades, they
had been patiently waiting for a rise in their paychecks, better jobs and
better life opportunities which did not come. They now feel that others (such
as blacks, women, and immigrants) are cutting in line and receiving rewards
without either the same work performance or the same patient and orderly
conduct.http://blog.asjournal.org/the-deep-story-of-the-white-american-south-or-strangers-in-their-own-land-2016-by-arlie-russell-hochschild-part-i/This
deep story is similar to the one that the far-right AfD party in Germany uses
to deceive people (whose members I find just as disgusting as Donald Trump).
Arlie Russell Hochschild says people in the red states find the "deep story" so
appealling that they vote for the one that says it is true - even if it is not
really true. But as an American you know better than me if Arlie is right or
not. -J.
-------- Original message --------From: Marcus Daniels <[email protected]>
Date: 5/4/25 5:29 PM (GMT+01:00) To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity
Coffee Group <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] agent-based macroeconomic
model I struggle to think of what kind of crisis might change the behavior of
Americans in a positive way. The U.S. had a million deaths from COVID-19 and
the result was to elect an administration that wants to cast doubt on lipid
nanoparticles for delivery of mRNA and cripple what has been the engine of the
innovation in biomedical innovation in the world, the NIH. Maybe a 75%
fatality rate? Marcus From: Friam <[email protected]> on behalf of
Jochen Fromm <[email protected]>Date: Sunday, May 4, 2025 at 3:19 AMTo: The
Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[email protected]>Subject: Re:
[FRIAM] agent-based macroeconomic modelYes, I agree that sustainability is the
key and that "Technological progress should enable us to reduce our
environmental footprint while increasing our capacity to meet human needs.
Clean energy technologies, circular economies, and efficient material use are
essential components of this future". Yes, definitely. Unfortunately we are not
on this path at all. The US under Trump is on the fast track in the opposite
direction. If the World3 "Limits to Growth" model is correct and there will a
widespread collapse of civilization in the middle of this century, then every
other economic model becomes insignificant. There have been multiple attempts
to validate the World3 results in the last decades, and the results are always
the same: the model is valid and relevant, we are still in the "business as
usual" scenario, and society as we know it will collapse soon. One of the
latest papers ishttps://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jiec.13442 I
believe the collapse has already started under Trump. Trump is to America what
Dieselgate was to Volkswagen. Faced with insurmountable obstacles - creating a
clean car based on fossil fuels to meet increasingly sharp environmental
regulations - Volkswagen which was addicted to building Diesel cars started to
cheat. Dieselgate was the result: a disaster for the company. George W. Bush
said the US is addicted to oil. Faced with insurmountable obstacles after peak
oil has been reached (the point where global oil production reaches its maximum
rate, after which it will begin to decline irreversibly), the country has
elected a person who embraces cheating as a way of life, as his niece wrote in
her book "Too much and never enough". We are witnessing the disastrous results
in realtime. He is a disaster for the country.-J. -------- Original message
--------From: Pieter Steenekamp <[email protected]> Date: 5/4/25 10:23
AM (GMT+01:00) To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
<[email protected]> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] agent-based macroeconomic model The
*World3 Limits to Growth* model, developed in the early 1970s and made famous
through the Club of Rome’s report, is a well-known example of how internal
conceptual frameworks are externalized and explored through computer modeling.
In this case, the authors constructed a systems dynamics model to simulate
long-term global trends in population, resource consumption, industrial output,
and pollution. Their primary aim was to communicate a particular vision of the
future: one in which exponential growth in a finite system inevitably leads to
overshoot and collapse unless proactive changes are made.What is often
overlooked, however, is the degree to which the conclusions of such models are
shaped by the assumptions built into them—assumptions that may not always be
made explicit. In the case of the *Limits to Growth* model, one of the most
critical assumptions underpinning its projections is that technological
development during the period from 1900 to 2100 will not proceed rapidly enough
to fundamentally change the dynamics of resource availability and consumption.
In other words, the model implicitly assumes that no breakthrough technologies
will emerge in time to mitigate the depletion of key resources or to radically
improve the efficiency and sustainability of industrial activity.This is a
crucial point, because the validity of the model’s most dramatic
conclusions—such as widespread societal collapse by the late 21st
century—hinges heavily on that assumption. If, in contrast, technological
innovation does accelerate and lead to the discovery or creation of new
resources, energy sources, or modes of production, then the trajectory of
global development may look very different from the model’s projections.I
freely admit that I do not know whether this key assumption is ultimately
correct. No one can say with certainty what the pace or direction of
technological progress will be over the next 75 years. However, based on
historical trends and current trajectories, I am inclined to believe that the
assumption is too pessimistic. In my view, it underestimates humanity’s
capacity for innovation and the accelerating feedback loop between knowledge,
technology, and problem-solving.Of course, we must acknowledge that the Earth's
natural resources are finite. At some point—whether decades or centuries from
now—this finitude will impose constraints on economic and population growth.
That said, the timing and severity of these constraints depend heavily on how
we define and access resources. Technological advancements can dramatically
alter both. For instance, materials once considered scarce or inaccessible can
become viable through improved extraction techniques, recycling, or even
synthesis. Similarly, previously unusable energy sources may become dominant
through innovation, as was the case with oil in the early 20th century.To
illustrate this point more concretely, consider the domain of energy. Energy is
foundational to almost every aspect of economic growth and societal
development. If we are able to develop clean, scalable, and abundant sources of
energy, many other constraints—such as water scarcity, food production, and
even material shortages—can potentially be addressed. Sam Altman and others
have argued persuasively that the combination of abundant energy and advanced
intelligence systems (even if narrow and artificial) could usher in an era of
material abundance.It is important to clarify what is and isn’t meant by this.
I am not referring to fantastical technologies that violate the known laws of
physics. I am speaking of plausible, science-based advances that are already in
development or on the horizon. Nor am I invoking some vague notion of sentient
or “real” artificial intelligence. The kind of AI I have in mind is the narrow,
task-specific form we see today—tools that, while limited, are increasingly
capable of solving complex problems, optimizing systems, and accelerating
scientific discovery when combined with human ingenuity.Nor should this vision
be interpreted as a license for ecological destruction. On the contrary, I
argue that the path to abundance must be rooted in sustainability.
Technological progress should enable us to reduce our environmental footprint
while increasing our capacity to meet human needs. Clean energy technologies,
circular economies, and efficient material use are essential components of this
future. One promising example is the development of thorium-based nuclear
reactors, such as the one currently being built in China. These reactors offer
the potential for abundant, safe, and low-waste energy—possibly serving as a
bridge until nuclear fusion becomes a practical reality.In sum, the *Limits to
Growth* model is a valuable intellectual exercise and a cautionary tale. It
highlights the risks of unchecked growth in a finite system. However, its
conclusions are not inevitable. They are based on a set of assumptions, the
most consequential of which concerns the pace of technological development. If
one believes that innovation will stagnate, then the model presents a sobering
and perhaps accurate warning. But if one believes—as I do—that human creativity
and technological capacity will continue to grow, then a more optimistic future
is plausible.Ultimately, the debate over such models is less about data than it
is about belief—about how we weigh uncertainty and how we envision the future.
I do not claim certainty in my outlook. Rather, I argue that we should be
cautious in drawing fatalistic conclusions from models that may underestimate
the transformative power of innovation. No one can guarantee that a future of
abundance awaits us. But likewise, no one can confidently assert that it does
not.In that uncertainty lies both the risk and the opportunity of our time. On
Sat, 3 May 2025 at 07:46, Jochen Fromm <[email protected]> wrote:Nice model!
Not bad. One aspect we could try to model is the distribution of supply chains
in a globalized world. In 2021 the average gross income in the US was about
70,430, in Taiwan 21,689, in China 11,890, in India 2170, and in Myanmar 1,140.
Supply chains of companies in a world where income differs so much will
obviously end sooner or later in low income countries. Typical supply chain
lines for Apple are for instance Apple (California) > TSMC (Taiwan) > Factory
(Guangdong Province, China) or Apple (California) > Foxconn (Taiwan) > Factory
(Henan Province, China). How are supply chains affected if transportation costs
rise or tariffs are imposed? What would cause a world-wide economic crisis in
such a model and how would it look like? One of the most famous models on a
global scale is the world3 model from the Club of Rome. Brian Hayes decided to
rewrite the world3 model in Javascripthttp://bit-player.org/limits The article
is
herehttps://www.americanscientist.org/article/computation-and-the-human-predicament-J.
-------- Original message --------From: Pieter Steenekamp
<[email protected]> Date: 5/1/25 7:48 PM (GMT+01:00) To: The Friday
Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[email protected]> Subject: [FRIAM]
agent-based macroeconomic model I made a very "quick and dirty" start on
developing an agent-based macroeconomic model.Posted about it on X:
https://x.com/pietersteenekam/status/1917995128678986170 , the post reads as
follows:Me: “Let’s understand global macroeconomic policy better.”Also me:
Builds a crude ABM with AI because economists can’t agree on tariffs.Is it
useful? Not yet.Is it cool? Heck yes.🔗
https://github.com/pieterSteenekamp/bottom-up-macroeconomics".- .-.. .-.. /
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