Understanding Social Interactions is Difficult

To begin with, we don’t have a good theory of social behavior from which to start.
—David Weinberger, discussing the difficulties of taking enormous amounts of data and and using it to predict the future of the world.  December, 2011. “The Machine That Would Predict The Future.”  Scientific American.  Pages 52-57.

On December 17, 2010, Mohamed Bouazizi, a street vendor in the small Tunisian town of Sidi Bouzid, set himself on fire in a protest against the local culture of corruption.  That singular act set into motion a popular revolution that burned across the Arab world, leading to uprisings that overthrew decades of dictatorial rule in Egypt, Libya, and beyond, upending forever the balance of power in the world’s most oil-rich region.

What model would have been able to foresee this?

—David Weinberger.  December, 2011. “The Machine That Would Predict The Future.”  Scientific American.  Pages 52-57.

Somewhat defending Barney Frank

I want to roll the dice a little bit more in this situation towards subsidized housing.
—Senator Barney Frank, chairman of the Financial Services Committee in 2009.  This remark was made on September 25, 2003, as reported by The Wall Street Journal on November 29, 2011 (Editorial: The Barney Frank Era).

I am not saying Barney Frank played no role in the housing bubble and subsequent recession, but economics does not predict that a subsidy in a good will cause a bubble in that good. Look in any economics textbook, and it will assert that house subsidies should result in more houses being built than is [socially] desirable, but that equilibrium with a subsidy is just as stable as an equilibrium without the subsidy.

Of course, there is no economic narrative that allows economics to predict when a bubble will occur, but unless Senator Frank was spreading false information about the future value of houses, he cannot be blamed for the bubble.

I should also like to add that, while I do not share Senator Frank's politics, I have seen him on TV many times, and believe that he has more respect for American democracy than anyone else. When others complain about the squabbling that goes on in Congress, only Mr. Frank and George Will (what a pair!) raise their heads to remark that that is exactly what Congress is supposed to do. If you want political stability with no debate among political leaders, it can only be found in a dictatorship.