They appear to want some of the same things most of us want: recognition from their peers and communities and better lives for the people they care about. Being

Both are dynamic systems in which the selfish actions of countless individuals—whether they be cells or investors—lead to unpredictable consequences at the system level. In turn, these collective actions and consequences feed back to influence individual actions in endless cycles of adaptation and evolution.

some form of complexity theory is required if we are to understand many of the intimate, and patently uncertain, interactions found in modern society.

An easy way to avoid the unpleasant feelings of cognitive dissonance is to not discuss our beliefs with contacts who disagree, or to cease socializing with them altogether. As a result, our social circles become more homogeneous, and beliefs our former peers might have considered extreme are no longer challenged by anyone important to us. None

Also, in my own research on Tewa Pueblo origins, I’ve found that imagining the community as a garden, with women as corn plants and men as clouds, was central to the emergence of an intercommunity ceremonial system that supported permanent villages and community-level specialization

Conventional economics asks how agents’ behaviors (actions, strategies, forecasts) would be upheld by—would be consistent with—the aggregate patterns these cause. It asks, in other words, what patterns would call for no changes in microbehavior, and would therefore be in stasis or equilibrium.

The patron–client relationship always starts with a gift, and we know that there is no such thing as a free gift. If someone gives us a gift, then we are obliged to give something or do something in return. The gift giver becomes the patron of the gift receiver, who becomes the client.

These data make a strong case that, as human social networks grow, they necessarily lead to systems that require fewer resources per person, and produce more per person. In other words, the benefits of scale for human groups have always been there.

Markets are driven by the actions of countless individuals, each reacting to his or her whims, the weather, and the news of the day. Remarkably, just as with army ants, out of all our individual actions emerges a higher order, a set of prices that allows us to buy and sell whatever we may desire.