Thank you for your concern and advice. But don't worry, I'm fine with criticism, as I don't expect everyone to agree with me, or even see value in the things I do.
I just object to personal accusations which are not specified, that's all...
I respect your opinion and your choice to criticise the presentation (and study).
But regarding your advice, that if one doesn't intend to engage in an ideologically charged debate, one should not start one, may I kindly point out that you started your comment with "it's just a bit condescending to have a Swiss fellow in Zurich conclude..." and ended with "Not fair play sir. Not at all fair play."
And in response to what you wrote below, that "if you have no opponents in a scientific argument, or you don't recognize their existence, it isn't science, it's dogma", I must honestly say that I share very different views on the subject. I don't see criticism as opposition.
Perhaps reading the study the talk was based on could have helped, before going all judgemental on me:
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0025995
You know, the study based on empirical data, detailing a methodology and building on previous work in the field?
Your comment excellently illustrates what I find is so terrible about these ideologically charged topics: the knee-jerk reaction that any research uncovering facts one disagrees with must have necessarily been done by people pushing an agenda. The simple insinuation that you would even suspect us of having an opponent, speaks volumes. Perhaps this is the exact reason why scientists have not been studying economic networks for so long. I doubt any scientist researching biological or technological networks would be accused of foul play, just for describing the structure and organization of the network.
In the context of complex systems, there are two competing philosophies: top-down and centralized vs. bottom-up and decentralized, the latter being the one giving rise to self-organization, structure-formation and emergence. Within this context I don't know what the reference to dialectics is even supposed to mean. But if you have insights here, I'm sure the research community would love to hear them.
The reason we emphasize the self-organization vs. conspiracy spin is due to a lot of media coverage and bloggers misrepresenting our study. "Illuminati proven by Physicists" and similarly juicy titles. This is why I said: "[...] we could easily reproduce the TNC network with a few simple rules. This means that its structure is probably the result of self-organization. It's an emergent property which depends on the rules of interaction in the system, so it's probably not the result of a top-down approach like a global conspiracy." Again, within this context I have no idea what the comment relating to the term planned really means. But I'm always happy to learn.
Mar 1 2013: "Putting the speaker's contradicting and self-serving opinion aside [...]"
It's comments like this I just don't find very helpful. I would be very happy to learn about potential contradictions and definitely need more help to understand the allegation about being self-serving. Apart from the last minute of the talk, I was not aware that I was expressing my opinion elsewhere, as I believe science is not about opinions...
3. Complexity and simplicity: The problem with many existing economic models is that they assume "the behavior of the whole system [to be] just an aggregated version of of the behavior of the individual. Almost per definition, complex systems do not behave like this." See:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21228425.400-to-navigate-economic-storms-we-need-better-forecasting.html and generally the notion of emergence.
Stephen Wolfram on simple rules giving rise to complex behavior in the 80s:
"Indeed, even some of the very simplest programs that I looked at had behavior that was as complex as anything I had ever seen." "It took me more than a decade to come to terms with this result, and to realize just how fundamental and far-reaching its consequences are."
4. Control: In the past, the issue of ownership giving control was often raised:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/bruceupbin/2011/11/21/the-147-companies-that-sort-of-control-sort-of-everything-full-list-revealed/
5. Physicists should not be meddling with economics (although Stefania is in fact an economist):
http://j-node.blogspot.ch/2011/08/network-of-global-corporate-control.html
At the end of the day, the value lies perhaps in potentially initiating a little paradigm shift in economic thinking: Consider the relevant real-world data and don't ignore the interconnectedness...
And if you haven' fallen asleep by now:
http://e-collection.ethbib.ethz.ch/eserv/eth:2007/eth-2007-02.pdf
;)
1. The study can be found here (open access):
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0025995
2. Or in a nutshell:
http://j-node.blogspot.ch/2011/10/network-of-global-corporate-control.html
http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-Organizing-Principles-Behind-Economy-Complex-Systems.php
3. The list of the top 737, including the 147 in the core (it's actually not 146, sorry):
http://ethz.focproject.net/viewer/tnc
4. And a visualization of the top 50:
http://takenspace.blogspot.ch/2011/10/corporations-that-control-our-modern.html
5. Recent follow up work by Stefania and Stefano:
DebtRank: http://physicsoffinance.blogspot.ch/2012/08/debtrank.html and widget: http://ethz.focproject.net:8080/widget
Network community structure: http://arxiv.org/abs/1301.2363
And now to some of the commonly voiced concerns.
1. Nothing new here: There is a big difference between suspecting the existence of a fact and in empirically demonstrating it. We are not aware of any existing study which actually gives hard evidence of what common wisdom has been alleging.
Indeed, what is new and has (to our knowledge) never been anticipated in the economics literature is the extremely high degree of interconnectivity of the top players. As mentioned, this could be bad for global financial stability:
http://www.nber.org/papers/w15611
2. The conspiracy thing: We simply claim that even such a specific structure (with a tiny but powerful core) can emerge naturally from the system dynamics (as we can demonstrate), without the aid of a covert coordination effort. Note however, that we don't address any larger issues (which might be implied by the title of the talk). On a side note, the talk was originally called "Decoding Complexity: The Organizing Principles Behind our Economy" but the people at TEDx Zurich uploaded it with the juicier title.
TEDCred score: +2.70 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.
A reply on Talk: James B. Glattfelder: Who controls the world?
Thank you for your concern and advice. But don't worry, I'm fine with criticism, as I don't expect everyone to agree with me, or even see value in the things I do.
I just object to personal accusations which are not specified, that's all...
Have a nice day,
james
A reply on Talk: James B. Glattfelder: Who controls the world?
I respect your opinion and your choice to criticise the presentation (and study).
But regarding your advice, that if one doesn't intend to engage in an ideologically charged debate, one should not start one, may I kindly point out that you started your comment with "it's just a bit condescending to have a Swiss fellow in Zurich conclude..." and ended with "Not fair play sir. Not at all fair play."
And in response to what you wrote below, that "if you have no opponents in a scientific argument, or you don't recognize their existence, it isn't science, it's dogma", I must honestly say that I share very different views on the subject. I don't see criticism as opposition.
With kind regards,
james
A reply on Talk: James B. Glattfelder: Who controls the world?
Perhaps reading the study the talk was based on could have helped, before going all judgemental on me:
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0025995
You know, the study based on empirical data, detailing a methodology and building on previous work in the field?
Your comment excellently illustrates what I find is so terrible about these ideologically charged topics: the knee-jerk reaction that any research uncovering facts one disagrees with must have necessarily been done by people pushing an agenda. The simple insinuation that you would even suspect us of having an opponent, speaks volumes. Perhaps this is the exact reason why scientists have not been studying economic networks for so long. I doubt any scientist researching biological or technological networks would be accused of foul play, just for describing the structure and organization of the network.
In the context of complex systems, there are two competing philosophies: top-down and centralized vs. bottom-up and decentralized, the latter being the one giving rise to self-organization, structure-formation and emergence. Within this context I don't know what the reference to dialectics is even supposed to mean. But if you have insights here, I'm sure the research community would love to hear them.
The reason we emphasize the self-organization vs. conspiracy spin is due to a lot of media coverage and bloggers misrepresenting our study. "Illuminati proven by Physicists" and similarly juicy titles. This is why I said: "[...] we could easily reproduce the TNC network with a few simple rules. This means that its structure is probably the result of self-organization. It's an emergent property which depends on the rules of interaction in the system, so it's probably not the result of a top-down approach like a global conspiracy." Again, within this context I have no idea what the comment relating to the term planned really means. But I'm always happy to learn.
Sigh...
A reply on Talk: James B. Glattfelder: Who controls the world?
It's comments like this I just don't find very helpful. I would be very happy to learn about potential contradictions and definitely need more help to understand the allegation about being self-serving. Apart from the last minute of the talk, I was not aware that I was expressing my opinion elsewhere, as I believe science is not about opinions...
A comment on Talk: James B. Glattfelder: Who controls the world?
3. Complexity and simplicity: The problem with many existing economic models is that they assume "the behavior of the whole system [to be] just an aggregated version of of the behavior of the individual. Almost per definition, complex systems do not behave like this." See:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21228425.400-to-navigate-economic-storms-we-need-better-forecasting.html and generally the notion of emergence.
Stephen Wolfram on simple rules giving rise to complex behavior in the 80s:
"Indeed, even some of the very simplest programs that I looked at had behavior that was as complex as anything I had ever seen." "It took me more than a decade to come to terms with this result, and to realize just how fundamental and far-reaching its consequences are."
4. Control: In the past, the issue of ownership giving control was often raised:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/bruceupbin/2011/11/21/the-147-companies-that-sort-of-control-sort-of-everything-full-list-revealed/
5. Physicists should not be meddling with economics (although Stefania is in fact an economist):
http://j-node.blogspot.ch/2011/08/network-of-global-corporate-control.html
At the end of the day, the value lies perhaps in potentially initiating a little paradigm shift in economic thinking: Consider the relevant real-world data and don't ignore the interconnectedness...
And if you haven' fallen asleep by now:
http://e-collection.ethbib.ethz.ch/eserv/eth:2007/eth-2007-02.pdf
;)
A comment on Talk: James B. Glattfelder: Who controls the world?
Please let me share some additional information.
1. The study can be found here (open access):
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0025995
2. Or in a nutshell:
http://j-node.blogspot.ch/2011/10/network-of-global-corporate-control.html
http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-Organizing-Principles-Behind-Economy-Complex-Systems.php
3. The list of the top 737, including the 147 in the core (it's actually not 146, sorry):
http://ethz.focproject.net/viewer/tnc
4. And a visualization of the top 50:
http://takenspace.blogspot.ch/2011/10/corporations-that-control-our-modern.html
5. Recent follow up work by Stefania and Stefano:
DebtRank: http://physicsoffinance.blogspot.ch/2012/08/debtrank.html and widget: http://ethz.focproject.net:8080/widget
Network community structure: http://arxiv.org/abs/1301.2363
And now to some of the commonly voiced concerns.
1. Nothing new here: There is a big difference between suspecting the existence of a fact and in empirically demonstrating it. We are not aware of any existing study which actually gives hard evidence of what common wisdom has been alleging.
Indeed, what is new and has (to our knowledge) never been anticipated in the economics literature is the extremely high degree of interconnectivity of the top players. As mentioned, this could be bad for global financial stability:
http://www.nber.org/papers/w15611
2. The conspiracy thing: We simply claim that even such a specific structure (with a tiny but powerful core) can emerge naturally from the system dynamics (as we can demonstrate), without the aid of a covert coordination effort. Note however, that we don't address any larger issues (which might be implied by the title of the talk). On a side note, the talk was originally called "Decoding Complexity: The Organizing Principles Behind our Economy" but the people at TEDx Zurich uploaded it with the juicier title.
...