I agree. The first article was interesting when it was talking about control theory, but the hard pivot to economics and politics at the end turned the article from potentially informative to a disingenuous appeal to authority.
The author clearly knows a lot about control theory, but this seems to have led to an idea that he knows a lot about everything. This is a theme I see all too frequently in people who list “systems thinking” as one of their areas of expertise (like this author).
I have the benefit of the doubt and read the second article looking for perhaps some actual modeling and references to econ literature, but he merely refers to a couple papers and then admits that his model was home-grown and will be simpler. Some parts of it might be right, but this has too many elements of “I’m an expert in one thing therefore I’m qualified to talk about everything” for me.
The author clearly knows a lot about control theory, but this seems to have led to an idea that he knows a lot about everything. This is a theme I see all too frequently in people who list “systems thinking” as one of their areas of expertise (like this author).
I have the benefit of the doubt and read the second article looking for perhaps some actual modeling and references to econ literature, but he merely refers to a couple papers and then admits that his model was home-grown and will be simpler. Some parts of it might be right, but this has too many elements of “I’m an expert in one thing therefore I’m qualified to talk about everything” for me.