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 {{Quote|“I should explain that in the Soviet scientific community in those days, mechanistic determinism held sway over all other approaches. Researchers believed that the natural world was governed by the iron law of cause and effect. This mentality was a product of the political environment.”
 :— Cixin Liu, ''Ball Lightning''}}
 A running theme in the [[JC]] is the distinction between top-down and bottom-up of organisation models.
+The financial services world is currently in the swoon of a passionate love affair with [[data]], [[technology]] and the [[algorithm]]. [[Thought leader]]s perceive an inevitable, short, path to a [[singularity]] where everything can be planned, everything calculated, everything provisioned, and reliance on on irrational, costly, inconstant, error-prone  [[meatsacks]] will finally be indefensible. [[This time is different]]; a we have before us a future of [[technical unemployment]] and unlimited leisure. The challenge is going to be figuring out what to do with all our spare time.
-The top down models are basically “[[modernist]]” in the sense of Le Corbusier — view organisations as [[complicated]] machines, ultimately directed and controlled by a homunculus sitting at the bridge in a kind of  [[Cartesian theatre]]. [[Form]]al design is important, and follows (centrally determined) function; the better regimented the parts of your contraption and the more efficient it is, the better it will navigate the market, which modernism regards basically as an infinitely complicated mathematical problem. Shortcomings in engineering and technology mean we cannot (yet) fully solve that problem and that humans are still needed to make sure the machine operates as effectively as it can, but the further humans in the organisation get from that central executive function, the more they resemble a maintenance crew: their task is simply to ensure the orderly functioning of the plant. They are expensive and inconstant: the largest risk to the organisation is their error, thus the strategic direction of an organisation’s development is to eliminate where possible the need for human intervention. Where that is not possible, human activity should be constrained by rigid guidelines and policies to reduce the probability of mishap, and monitored and audited to record and correct those errors that do happen top prevent them happening again. To the modernist, malfunction and [[human error]] are overarching business risks.
+The [[JC]] is a crusty old refusenik, and while that is in great part a function of self-interest — he ''is'' an irrational, costly, inconstant, error-prone [[meatsack]] — there are broader metaphysical considerations at play. Before we mortgage our futures to the machine, it is worth nutting through them.
+====[[Modernism]]====
+The top down models are basically “[[modernist]]” in the sense of Le Corbusier’s urban planning.  They view organisations as [[complicated]] machines, ultimately directed and controlled by a homunculus sitting at the bridge in a kind of  [[Cartesian theatre]]. [[Form]]al design is important, and follows (centrally determined) function; the better regimented the parts of your contraption and the more efficient it is, the better it will navigate the crises and opportunities presented by the environment in which it operates — the market. Modernism regards the market — for all practical purposes — as an infinitely complicated mathematical problem: hard, but ultimately calculable.  Modellable. So when the model turns out not to work, the answer is to develop it.
+Thus Basel I was 20 pages, Basel II, 60 pages, Basel III 400 pages. We are asymptotically tending to to perfection.
+These shortcomings in engineering and technology mean we cannot (yet) fully solve that problem. But we should prioritise the algorithm, and deploy humans in its service. We still need humans to make sure the machine operates as best it can, but the further humans in the organisation get from that central executive function, the more they resemble a maintenance crew: their task is simply to ensure the orderly functioning of the plant. As technology advances, human agency can be progressively decommissioned.
+The modernist narrative focusses on what it can see, which is the content of its own model. Its baseline is immediate, costless performance of the program. Positive variance from this baseline is not possible: as with a Newtonian equation, real world performance means an inevitable loss of energy and increase in entropy: the goal is to lose as little energy as possible. Human operators create a great deal more entropy than machines. If the only measurement is flawless performance of an algorithm, humans must be worse at it then machines. There is no credit given to insight, diagnosis, creation of alternative models or narratives comma because in the the modernist framework, there is no such thing as a valid alternative model. Economics is a kind of applied physics. There is no room for alternative facts.
+{{Quote|“Economists have a kind of physics envy.”
+:—{{author|Rory Sutherland}}
+If it is true that there is no possibility of besting the algorithm then it stands to reason: [[meatware]] is expensive and inconstant: the largest risk to the organisation is human error, thus the strategic direction of an organisation’s development is to eliminate where possible the need for human intervention. Where that is not possible, human activity should be constrained by rigid guidelines and policies to reduce the probability of mishap, and monitored and audited to record and correct those errors that do happen top prevent them happening again. To the modernist, malfunction and [[human error]] are overarching business risks.
+This worldview is one that appeals to many people in business management. Personally I find it it desolate. But desolation, of course, is no aargument against it if it is correct.
+====[[Pragmatism]]====
 Bottom-up models are, for want of a better world, “[[Pragmatism|pragmatic]]”. They see the organisation as a constantly changing organism operating with incomplete, ambiguous information in an environment that is also constantly in flux. To survive, firms must respond dynamically and imaginatively to unpredictable, non-linear interactions in the environment which is constantly shape-shifting into new configurations in unexpected, and unexpectable, ways. For a pragmatist, practical control must be exercised at the points where the organisation interacts with its environment. A firm should have talented, empowered, well-equipped people — [[subject matter expert]]s — to handle those interactions. Those in the central management function have a holistic view of the environment and can provide aspiration and tools to the [[subject matter expert]]s, but real decision making is done by those experts at the edges, not the the [[management function in the middle]].