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Oliver Beige
Oliver Beige

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Milton Friedman and the surprising rationality of trees

In one of the most famous essays of 20th century economics, one of its most famous protagonists offers an astounding hypothesis on tree growth, just to dismiss it out of hand. Indeed, the dismissal is understood to be mutual between author and reader, as it sets up the author’s intellectual tour de force. — Even if the premise is wrong, the conclusion can still be correct as long as it is congruent with the empirical findings. There is no such thing as a false assumption, even if it is as outlandish as positing that trees are rational actors. …

Economics

6 min read

Milton Friedman and the surprising rationality of trees
Milton Friedman and the surprising rationality of trees
Economics

6 min read


Dec 23, 2022

Bayesian belief propagation in heterogeneous networks

Bayesian belief propagation is a powerful concept used in machine learning and the social sciences to understand complex problems involving probabilistic inference in groups. It is particularly useful in heterogeneous networks, where the nodes and edges represent different types or characteristics. This article explains how Bayesian belief propagation works, and discusses its role in the emergence of filter bubbles.

Bayesian Inference

3 min read

Bayesian belief propagation in heterogeneous networks
Bayesian belief propagation in heterogeneous networks
Bayesian Inference

3 min read


Nov 13, 2022

The (increasingly) blurry boundary between digital and physical

In the words of internet pioneer Marc Andreesen, software will inevitably eat the world. “The world" in this case is the world of physical products, and “software" is any kind of digital representation that can emulate or replace this product. A very prominent example of this prediction is the replacement…

3 min read

The (increasingly) blurry boundary between digital and physical
The (increasingly) blurry boundary between digital and physical

3 min read


Nov 13, 2022

A single truth without a single source

Thinking about decentralized systems means thinking about how an organization can agree upon what it holds to be true and how this relates to the actual ground truth. — Centralized “truth” A “single source of truth” is a concept from information science, but it’s so universal that it can be applied to a whole variety of scenarios and organizations. It means that whenever participants disagree about the state of the world, or a particular aspect of it, a designated participant gets…

Blockchain

4 min read

A single truth without a single source
A single truth without a single source
Blockchain

4 min read


Sep 7, 2022

How we think about decentralized systems

“Decentralization" is a popular term used to bracket a set of interrelated technologies including blockchain, crypto tokens, NFTs. It’s also a fuzzy term that has been used in subtly different ways in different disciplines throughout history, so the question “what is a decentralized system", or, more to the point, “is…

Decentralization

3 min read

How we think about decentralized systems
How we think about decentralized systems
Decentralization

3 min read


May 9, 2022

On coordination and coordination games

A few notes on coordination, adaptation, and the role of institutions. — “Both the organization theorist Chester Barnard and the economist Friedrich Hayek took adaptation to be the main purpose of economic organization, but with differences.” — Oliver Williamson Nobel Lecture Coordination has become an increasingly important C-word in business and economics, based on the emerging realization that not all economic activity…

Coordination

4 min read

On coordination and coordination games
On coordination and coordination games
Coordination

4 min read


Jul 27, 2021

Decentralization, accountability, and shared sources of truth.

In 1991, social scientist and Nobel laureate Herbert Simon invited us to participate in a somewhat alien-sounding thought experiment. Imagine an extraterrestrial observing human behavior with a special telescope. Instead of showing us as we are, the telescope allows the observer to recognize social structures: organizations appear as green blobs, interactions between organizations as a network of red lines between the blobs.

Blockchain

5 min read

Decentralization, accountability, and shared sources of truth.
Decentralization, accountability, and shared sources of truth.
Blockchain

5 min read


May 31, 2021

An IBM 650 in the basement of the business school — a history of computing and economics at Carnegie GSIA

In 1956, the fledgling Graduate School of Industrial Administration (GSIA) at Carnegie Institute of Technology received an IBM 650 computer to use jointly with the engineering and the mathematics departments. In the coming years, this acquisition led to a number of research activities which not only produced multiple economics Nobel Prizes and Turing Awards, but also two very distinct, somewhat incompatible economic frameworks: bounded rationality and rational expectations.

Carnegie Mellon

4 min read

An IBM 650 in the basement of the business school — a history of computing and economics at…
An IBM 650 in the basement of the business school — a history of computing and economics at…
Carnegie Mellon

4 min read


Jan 19, 2021

On pathfinding

One of the intriguing aspects of venture building is the contrast between two very different types of engagement: the creation of new potential opportunities and the cutting off of those opportunities that, after some probing, don’t appear viable. — The two steps of venture building These two types require two very different modes of work. In operations research they are known as “branch and bound”. Within an established company, “research” and “development” are typically two separate organizations within overall product R&D.

Entrepreneurship

3 min read

On pathfinding
On pathfinding
Entrepreneurship

3 min read


Jan 11, 2021

Will architecture learn to dance? The future of commercial real estate.

I was recently asked what the most obvious long-term effect of the “whiplash of 2020” was. My answer was that every social change we’d usually expect to unfold within twenty years would suddenly only take five. — In the famous technology adoption curve popularized by Geoffrey Moore, new ideas often linger for ten or more years in the segments reserved for innovators and early adopters: people enamored with technology and willing to put up with its drawbacks.

Future Of Work

2 min read

While architecture learn to dance? The future of commercial real estate.
While architecture learn to dance? The future of commercial real estate.
Future Of Work

2 min read

Oliver Beige

Oliver Beige

707 Followers

I write about how technology shapes the world we live in.

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