Grand unified books thread

[jimmy olsen]

I picked the most recently published book in the bibliography for that article and am 28% in so far.

Kriwaczek, P. Babylon: Mesopotamia and the Birth of Civilization. St. Martin's Griffin, 2012.

Pretty damn interesting in my opinion, but this is an area of which I knew extremely little, so I'll have to read a few more books to really judge it.

The author does get overly philosophical at times, the preface especially where he waxes on about the Iran-Iraq war and the 2003 invasion is a bit overblown.

I'm really interested in the 4000-3000BC period and the theorized theocratic command economy of Uruk, but obviously given the paucity of written records of the time there's not much to go on.

55% in now and have finally gotten to Babylon.

The Neo-Summerian Empire also practiced a command economy and we do have voluminous records of that. The author claims the bureaucracy was so thorough that it was far more efficient than 20th century command economies. Seems like a big claim. He offers examples of course, but no real explanations except that the people really believed in the leadership and the system. Perhaps the simplicity of such a primitive agrarian economy made it easier to carry out.

[Eddie Teach]

Did you use a calculator to find the exact percentage? 

[Syt]

I'm guessing he's reading on Kindle, which tracks your progress in percent like that.

[jimmy olsen]

I'm guessing he's reading on Kindle, which tracks your progress in percent like that.

Yup

[The Brain]

I picked the most recently published book in the bibliography for that article and am 28% in so far.

Kriwaczek, P. Babylon: Mesopotamia and the Birth of Civilization. St. Martin's Griffin, 2012.

Pretty damn interesting in my opinion, but this is an area of which I knew extremely little, so I'll have to read a few more books to really judge it.

The author does get overly philosophical at times, the preface especially where he waxes on about the Iran-Iraq war and the 2003 invasion is a bit overblown.

I'm really interested in the 4000-3000BC period and the theorized theocratic command economy of Uruk, but obviously given the paucity of written records of the time there's not much to go on.

55% in now and have finally gotten to Babylon.

The Neo-Summerian Empire also practiced a command economy and we do have voluminous records of that. The author claims the bureaucracy was so thorough that it was far more efficient than 20th century command economies. Seems like a big claim. He offers examples of course, but no real explanations except that the people really believed in the leadership and the system. Perhaps the simplicity of such a primitive agrarian economy made it easier to carry out.

Indeed. The inherent underutilization of information in a command economy is less detrimental in a simple agrarian economy where in principle one guy can know "all there is to know" about it. Obviously the guy doesn't know all there is to know, especially regarding the individual desires of the population, but the negative effect on the economy is much less than in a modern more complex economy.

[jimmy olsen]

I picked the most recently published book in the bibliography for that article and am 28% in so far.

Kriwaczek, P. Babylon: Mesopotamia and the Birth of Civilization. St. Martin's Griffin, 2012.

Pretty damn interesting in my opinion, but this is an area of which I knew extremely little, so I'll have to read a few more books to really judge it.

The author does get overly philosophical at times, the preface especially where he waxes on about the Iran-Iraq war and the 2003 invasion is a bit overblown.

I'm really interested in the 4000-3000BC period and the theorized theocratic command economy of Uruk, but obviously given the paucity of written records of the time there's not much to go on.

55% in now and have finally gotten to Babylon.

The Neo-Summerian Empire also practiced a command economy and we do have voluminous records of that. The author claims the bureaucracy was so thorough that it was far more efficient than 20th century command economies. Seems like a big claim. He offers examples of course, but no real explanations except that the people really believed in the leadership and the system. Perhaps the simplicity of such a primitive agrarian economy made it easier to carry out.

Indeed. The inherent underutilization of information in a command economy is less detrimental in a simple agrarian economy where in principle one guy can know "all there is to know" about it. Obviously the guy doesn't know all there is to know, especially regarding the individual desires of the population, but the negative effect on the economy is much less than in a modern more complex economy.

So, what you're saying is that we need a benevolent AI overlord that's tracking all our social media posts in order to know what everyone wants. 

[The Brain]

I picked the most recently published book in the bibliography for that article and am 28% in so far.

Kriwaczek, P. Babylon: Mesopotamia and the Birth of Civilization. St. Martin's Griffin, 2012.

Pretty damn interesting in my opinion, but this is an area of which I knew extremely little, so I'll have to read a few more books to really judge it.

The author does get overly philosophical at times, the preface especially where he waxes on about the Iran-Iraq war and the 2003 invasion is a bit overblown.

I'm really interested in the 4000-3000BC period and the theorized theocratic command economy of Uruk, but obviously given the paucity of written records of the time there's not much to go on.

55% in now and have finally gotten to Babylon.

The Neo-Summerian Empire also practiced a command economy and we do have voluminous records of that. The author claims the bureaucracy was so thorough that it was far more efficient than 20th century command economies. Seems like a big claim. He offers examples of course, but no real explanations except that the people really believed in the leadership and the system. Perhaps the simplicity of such a primitive agrarian economy made it easier to carry out.

Indeed. The inherent underutilization of information in a command economy is less detrimental in a simple agrarian economy where in principle one guy can know "all there is to know" about it. Obviously the guy doesn't know all there is to know, especially regarding the individual desires of the population, but the negative effect on the economy is much less than in a modern more complex economy.

So, what you're saying is that we need a benevolent AI overlord that's tracking all our social media posts in order to know what everyone wants. 

Benevolent is optional IMHO.

[jimmy olsen]

If it wasn't benevolent why would it care what we want?

[The Brain]

If it wasn't benevolent why would it care what we want?

Malevolence maybe? I don't know, I'm not advocating a command economy in the first place.

[Admiral Yi]

Knowing what we want is not enough for an effficient command economy.  Economics 101: demand is infinite.  You would also need to know the intensity of the want for each good or service, i.e. how long and hard you would be willing to work in exchange for it.

[jimmy olsen]

Knowing what we want is not enough for an effficient command economy.  Economics 101: demand is infinite.  You would also need to know the intensity of the want for each good or service, i.e. how long and hard you would be willing to work in exchange for it.

This is a good point.

I think it would be still be knowable by an advanced enough AI, but how would the Sumerian bureaucrats have threaded that needle? Perhaps because the needs involved were so basic?  People don't want to starve to death. They want the fields irrigated, house built, etc.

[The Minsky Moment]

If there existed the universal mind, that projected itself into the scientific fancy of Laplace; a mind that would register simultaneously all the processes of nature and of society, that could measure the dynamics of their motion, that could forecast the results of their inter-reactions, such a mind, of course, could a priori draw up a faultless and an exhaustive economic plan, beginning with the number of hectares of wheat and down to the last button for a vest. In truth, the bureaucracy often conceives that just such a mind is at its disposal; that is why it so easily frees itself from the control of the market and of Soviet democracy. But, in reality, the bureaucracy errs frightfully in its appraisal of its spiritual resources. In its creativeness, it is obliged perforce, in actual performance, to defend upon the proportions (and with equal justice one may say, the disproportions) it has inherited from capitalist Russia: upon the data of the economic structure of contemporary capitalist nations; and finally, upon the experience of successes and mistakes of the Soviet economy itself. But even the most correct combination of all these elements will allow only of constructing a most imperfect wire skeleton of a plan, and not more.

The innumerable living participants of economy, State as well as private, collective as well as individual, must give notice of their needs and of their relative strength not only through the statistical determinations of plan commissions but by the direct pressure of supply and demand. The plan is checked and, to a considerable measure, realized through the market. The regulation of the market itself must depend upon the tendencies that are brought out through its medium. The blueprints produced by the offices must demonstrate their economic expediency through commercial calculation. The system of transitional economy is unthinkable without the control of the rouble. This presupposes, in its turn, that the rouble equals itself. Without a firm monetary unit, commercial accounting can only increase the chaos.

Fun game: guess the author.
No cheating!

[Eddie Teach]

Obviously Shakespeare.

[Threviel]

Gorbachev?

[Barrister]

Fun game: guess the author.
No cheating!

I'm guessing a fairly lefty economist.

Keynes?