Your browser does not support the audio tag. Download: PDF | EPUB | MP3 | WATCH VIDEO All models are wrong; the practical question is how wrong do they have to be to not be useful. — George Box In science, there’s an inherent trade off between comprehensibility and realism. Realistic models tend to be intricate … even convoluted. But to be comprehensible, a model must be simple.

I chart the rise and fall of the Soviet Union, as measured by its share of world energy consumption.

The post The Soviet Experiment with Empire appeared first on Economics from the Top Down.

I look at the rise and fall of the British and US empires, measured in terms of their share of world energy consumption.

The post The Half Life of Empire appeared first on Economics from the Top Down.

Now seems like a good time to talk about fascism. In this post, I use linguistic data to probe the deep origins of fascist thought. And I gaze at the rising tide of fascist sentiment in anglophone writing.

The post The Deep Roots of Fascist Thought appeared first on Economics from the Top Down.

In this essay, I take a deep dive into the history of American plutocracy and its conspicuously Republican roots.

The post Partisan Politics and the Road to Plutocracy appeared first on Economics from the Top Down.

I test if the US housing crisis could be solved by taking money from the rich and handing it too the poor. Spoilers ... it would work.

The post The American Housing Crisis: A Theft, Not a Shortage appeared first on Economics from the Top Down.

Houses are getting more expensive. In this post, I look at the reasons why.

The post From Commodity to Asset: The Truth Behind Rising House Prices appeared first on Economics from the Top Down.

Efficiency isn't a tool for conserving energy --- it's a catalyst for technological sprawl.

The post A Tour of the Jevons Paradox: How Energy Efficiency Backfires appeared first on Economics from the Top Down.

It appears that I've been blogging for five years. Here's some obligatory navel gazing to celebrate.

The post Five Years of Economics from the Top Down appeared first on Economics from the Top Down.

Yes, the Bitcoin network uses loads of energy. But so does mainstream finance. So which system is more energy intensive? In this post, I do the math.

The post Is Bitcoin More Energy Intensive Than Mainstream Finance? appeared first on Economics from the Top Down.

I take a dive into the world of software and look at the problem of managing dependencies. From the Unix design, we've inherited many problems. Can we nix them with 'Nix'?

The post Nixing Technological Lock In appeared first on Economics from the Top Down.