The need to get proactive:: IBM on ‘Complexity and risk’

I may not entirely agree with the conclusions but it is difficult not to agree with the IBM introductory problem statement…

It is little wonder that the services of firms such as IBM are so costly. Because they invest a huge amount in research such as this…only for it to fall on ‘deaf ears’, closed minds and lose out to blind faith in practices that few “on the inside” dare speak-out about or question. EVEN when preserving the status quo with artifice and lies… CREATES AMBIGUITY (A SOURCE OF COMPLEXITY), INCREASES RISK,  FEEDS VOLATILITY AND ADDS TO UNCERTAINTY…in an already VUCA WORLD! 

Naive Intervention – Part 1: From Antifragile to Models Behaving Badly

Max’s blogs are consistently, both thoughtful and thought-provoking…

Not all science suffers from naive intervention.

What physicists do differently to economists is that they learn from nature. They observe and measure and then a hypotheses is turned into a theory and then a model. It works when it predicts. In economics and business naive interventionists build a model and then turn it into a religion. There is neither proof nor validation and at best there is anecdotal evidence. But economy is a social science and not physics. Social systems are dealt with through biology. Theories of economy must follow the same natural dynamics of complexity that drive all biological systems. A biologist like E.O. Wilson can teach us more about economy than any theoretical economist can. Wilson said that Karl Marx was right about Communism. Marx just applied it to the wrong species. It does work fine for ants!

C4 Dispatches:: insurance industry – profit before people

The insurance industry, consistently, dispels the myth of “honour amongst thieves”. In this programme we see it through the lens of motor insurance BUT bad practice doesn’t stop there.

If you didn’t watch the programme…you should! Follow the link embedded in this picture (may only work in UK – sorry!).

For the sake of clarity, you may, also, wish to consider the definition of the word that the Office of Fair Trading used to describe the motor insurance industry: DYSFUNCTIONAL