Sublime

When Donald Trump claimed that he used his own money to finance his primary campaign, he was really declaring, to the chagrin of his party leadership, that he was not to be part of Washington’s massive network of intertwining patron–client relationships.

Each of the systems interacts with its environment in a game-like way: sequences of action (“moves”) occasionally produce payoff, special inputs that provide the system with the wherewithal for continued existence and adaptation.

Any view of financial systems must recognize that they are ecosystems, linking agents, stocks, and flows. Just as an ecosystem ecologist is focused on the cycling of crucial elements like carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus, so too might a “financial ecologist” focus on the sustainable cycling of crucial elements like capital, labor, and financial

What’s really happening within each city is a massive exchange of information across social and economic networks of people and organizations, all taking place on a complex infrastructural landscape of buildings, roads, pipes, and wires. For the most part there is no maestro; the properties of cities emerge from countless interactions of millions