Simplifying Complexity – Details, episodes & analysis

Today we’re joined by Dani S. Bassett, J. Peter Skirkanich Professor at the University of Pennsylvania and External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute, and Perry Zurn, Visiting Associate Professor of Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Cornell University and Provost Associate Professor of Philosophy at American University.

In today’s episode, Dani and Perry explore the concept of curiosity.

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• Simplifying Complexity on Twitter

• Sean Brady on Twitter

• Sean Brady on LinkedIn

• Brady Heywood website

This show is produced in collaboration with Wavelength Creative. Visit wavelengthcreative.com for more information.

In our last episode, Professor Michael Batty from The Bartlett Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis at University College London explained the evolution of city planning and the fundamentals needed to understand city structures and models.

In today’s episode, Michael delves into various theories and laws for explaining urban systems, the role of different models in understanding and predicting city development, and the need to refine these models to facilitate better management of increasingly complex urban environments.

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• Simplifying Complexity on Twitter

• Sean Brady on Twitter

• Sean Brady on LinkedIn

• Brady Heywood website

This show is produced in collaboration with Wavelength Creative. Visit wavelengthcreative.com for more information.

Gerald Ashley is the Co-founder and Managing Director of St Mawgan & Co, a London-based strategy and risk consulting agency.

In today’s episode, Gerald explores the difference between risk and uncertainty, the challenges of managing them in the financial world, and how it can be powerful to split issues into either puzzles, problems, or messes.

Connect:

• Simplifying Complexity on Twitter
• Sean Brady on Twitter
• Sean Brady on LinkedIn
• Brady Heywood website

This show is produced in collaboration with Wavelength Creative. Visit wavelengthcreative.com for more information.

Nicholas Gruen is the CEO of Lateral Economics, Patron of the Australian Digital Alliance, and a Visiting Professor at Kings College London. 

In this episode, Nicholas discusses the limitations of traditional economic models and emphasises the importance of nuanced problem-solving. He advocates for critical thinking and an interdisciplinary approach to decision-making within complex economic systems, and asks if embracing another paradigm, in this case, complexity economics, is really the answer. 

Resources and links:

• Lateral Economics website

Connect:

• Simplifying Complexity on Twitter
• Sean Brady on Twitter
• Sean Brady on LinkedIn
• Brady Heywood website

This show is produced in collaboration with Wavelength Creative. Visit wavelengthcreative.com for more information.

J. Doyne Farmer is Director of the Complexity Economics programme at the Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School, Baillie Gifford Professor in the Mathematical Institute at the University of Oxford and an External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute.

In this episode, Doyne discusses his journey from chaos theory to complexity economics. He shares his experience developing agent-based models for the economy and talks about the importance of multidisciplinary work and applying complexity science principles to economics and climate change.

Resources:

• Purchase ‘Making Sense of Chaos: A Better Economics for a Better World’ here

Connect:

• Simplifying Complexity on Twitter
• Sean Brady on Twitter
• Sean Brady on LinkedIn
• Brady Heywood website

This show is produced in collaboration with Wavelength Creative. Visit wavelengthcreative.com for more information.

Continuing from our last episode, we’re joined again by Brooke Harrington, Professor of Sociology at Dartmouth College and Herbert Chang, Assistant Professor of Quantitative Social Science at Dartmouth College.

In this episode, Brooke and Herbert explore their research findings on the offshore financial system and discuss why policy interventions to date targeting wealth management have largely failed. They then explore how the findings of their research offer a way forward. 

Connect:

• Simplifying Complexity on Twitter
• Sean Brady on Twitter
• Sean Brady on LinkedIn
• Brady Heywood website

This show is produced in collaboration with Wavelength Creative. Visit wavelengthcreative.com for more information.

In today’s episode, we’re joined by Brooke Harrington, Professor of Sociology at Dartmouth College and Herbert Chang, Assistant Professor of Quantitative Social Science at Dartmouth College, to discuss the world of offshore finance.

You’ll hear about how using offshore finance is akin to eating at a restaurant and skipping out on the bill, and how Brooke trained to be a wealth manager to better understand how the industry works. Brooke and Herbert then discuss how they used the data from the Panama, Paradise and Pandora Papers to undertake quantitative research into the networks that make offshore finance possible.

Connect:

• Simplifying Complexity on Twitter
• Sean Brady on Twitter
• Sean Brady on LinkedIn
• Brady Heywood website

This show is produced in collaboration with Wavelength Creative. Visit wavelengthcreative.com for more information.

What role do cities play in driving economic progress?

In today’s episode, we’re joined by Luis Bettencourt, Professor at the University of Chicago and External Faculty at the Santa Fe Institute, who explains how cities allow us to do something magical - they allow us to specialise.

Resources:

• Luis Bettencourt on Simplifying Complexity - Cities as social reactors
• Geoffrey West on Simplifying Complexity - Scaling 3: Why companies die, but cities don't 

Connect:

• Simplifying Complexity on Twitter
• Sean Brady on Twitter
• Sean Brady on LinkedIn
• Brady Heywood website

This show is produced in collaboration with Wavelength Creative. Visit wavelengthcreative.com for more information.

How does a group of molecules transition into something that is life? And what do even mean when we say 'life'?

To explore the origin of life, we’re joined again by Sara Walker, Deputy Director of the Beyond Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science, Associate Professor in Earth and Space Exploration and Complex Adaptive Systems at Arizona State University, and External Faculty at the Santa Fe Institute.

Connect:

• Simplifying Complexity on Twitter
• Sean Brady on Twitter
• Sean Brady on LinkedIn
• Brady Heywood website

This show is produced in collaboration with Wavelength Creative. Visit wavelengthcreative.com for more information.

In today’s episode, we continue our conversation with Rory Sutherland, UK Vice Chairman of Ogilvy, where he discusses how our decision making, especially as consumers, while often appearing irrational, is actually the result of us deploying heuristics that have served us well in situations of low trust or when we don't have all the information.

Connect:

• Simplifying Complexity on Twitter
• Sean Brady on Twitter
• Sean Brady on LinkedIn
• Brady Heywood website

This show is produced in collaboration with Wavelength Creative. Visit wavelengthcreative.com for more information.