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Eric Carroll

@cstross
Remember the junk bond crisis?

It seems like "if it can be abused, someone will abuse it" is the Iron Law of unregulated capitalism.

Why should any complex system that has no negative feedback loop not be like this?

Coupled systems with no corrective negative feedback loops are inherently unstable & tend towards coupled positive feedback until destruction.

This is imo the first principle error of neoliberalism.

The system cannot be the governor. Basic general systems theory.

19 April at 12:46 | Wall-to-wall | Open on cosocial.ca
2 comments
MatthewToad43

@EricCarroll @cstross Tobin tax (tax on all financial transactions to discourage speculation). Tobin disavowed it eventually, but it greatly reduces the most serious abuses, especially the tendency to pump money into things that will inevitably become illegal sooner or later (unless so much money is pumped in that they buy the regulator).

19 April at 13:23 | Open on climatejustice.social
Eric Carroll

@cstross
> It’s a deadly combination — people who try to use easy data to justify making decisions when they don’t know the first thing about a product, because they’re too busy numberfucking & datafucking to try to make number bigger, results in every one of these companies getting worse.

I called this driving a spreadsheet. No clue of the actual business, just optimize easy to measure metrics.

I am changing that to number & data fucking & The McNamara Fallacy.

Perfection.

@cstross
> It’s a deadly combination — people who try to use easy data to justify making decisions when they don’t know the first thing about a product, because they’re too busy numberfucking & datafucking to try to make number bigger, results in every one of these companies getting worse.

I called this driving a spreadsheet. No clue of the actual business, just optimize easy to measure metrics.

19 April at 14:24 | Open on cosocial.ca
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