Arthur wrote:
> Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite
> world is either a madman or an economist. -- Kenneth Boulding
Why is that not obvious to anybody who has taken the basic math
courses required for an undergrad degree in economics? Everything is
sigmoid.
At the risk of distracting us from more serious debate, I venture to
inject a bit of levity on where to begin when writing a paper on
economics or, for that matter, any academic paper, up to and including
a PhD thesis, on any subject.
From the Data Analysis Devices Application - Toolkit With
Integrated Tao (DADA-TWIT):
1. Everything is bell-shaped (Normally distributed)
2. Everything is sigmoid (Diminishing returns)
3. Everything is sinusoidal (Goes in cycles)
5. Everything is stochastic (Completely random and unpredictable)
6. Everything is fractal (It's turtles all the way down)
7. Everything is a metaphor (The Pomo option, for the math challenged)
None of these putative universals is true, of course, but you
can write a nice academic paper on almost anything by assuming
one of them and then demonstrating that the assumption is or is
not justified. If you can't spin a PhD thesis out of one of
these, you may need to invoke:
8. Shit happens (The Dada, holistic, artistic option)
--
Imafa Kinasso
Director, Ontic Research Knowledgebase (Lagos, NG)
Bridgewater Institute for Advanced Study
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