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Abstract

To introduce Keynes’s Treatise on Probability in a short time I shall emphasize its remarkable scholarship; its debt to Russell’s logicism; and its pervasive scepticism about the possibility of applying mathematics to its subject. I then briefly consider the departure from logicism due to Frank Ramsey, and Keynes’s own generous, if unconvinced, reaction to Ramsey’s criticisms.

A workshop to commemorate the centenary of publication of Frank Knight’s "Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit" and John Maynard Keynes’ “A Treatise on Probability”

This workshop is organised by the University of Oxford and supported by The Alan Turing Institute. For further details and regular updates, please visit the official event website

About the event

The year 2021 marks the centenary of two monumental publications in economics and probability theory, namely Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit by Frank Hyneman Knight and A Treatise on Probability by John Maynard Keynes.

In Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit, Knight put forward the vital difference between risk, where empirical evaluation of unknown outcomes can still be applicable, and uncertainty, where no quantified measurement is valid but subjective estimate. In A Treatise on Probability, Keynes argued that the concept of probability should be about the logical implication from premises to hypotheses, in contrast to the classical quantified perspective of probability.

The fundamental uncertainty proposed in both works has then deeply influenced the development of economic and probability theory in the past century and it still resonates with our lives today, considering the ups and downs that the world economy is experiencing.

This workshop is a tribute to their invaluable legacy.

Speakers:

Professor Dr Francesca Biagini, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich

Professor Sara Biagini, LUISS Guido Carli

Professor Simon Blackburn, Trinity College, Cambridge

Professor Dr Paul Embrechts, ETH Zurich

Professor Itzhak Gilboa, HEC Paris

Professor Lars Hansen, University of Chicago

Professor Fabio Maccheroni, Bocconi University

Professor Massimo Marinacci, Bocconi University

Professor Marcel Nutz, Columbia University

Professor Shige Peng, Shandong University

Professor Dr Frank Riedel, Bielefeld University

Professor Ross Emmett, Arizona State University

Organizers:

Sam Cohen, Lars Hansen, Tomasz R. Bielecki, Igor Cialenco, Mike Tehranchi and Haoyang Cao

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One very important thing to understand in the conversation about online speech is that there are many different kinds of online communities, big and small, and they all have their own needs when it comes to rules and governance. This fact is a key element of a new book, Governable Spaces: Democratic Design for Online Life by media studies professor Nathan Schneider, and this week Nathan joins the podcast to talk about how democracy does (and doesn't) manifest in online communities.

The Western world is in a crisis of democracy - but we learn a lot of our principles from the ways we interact online and the internet is essentially a feudal space that gives absolute power to a few and robs the many of agency. Nathan Schneider suggests that if we were able to shape a more liquid democracy online, our experience of generative interactions would spill over into the outer world. Has to be worth a try, right? So how do we do it?

As we spend increasing amounts of our time, energy and emotional bandwidth online, so we are increasingly exposed to what passes for democracy online. And then we internalise the inherent autocracy and are at risk of exporting this to the real world. So what can we do to change things? What's democracy for in the first place and how can we experiment with increasing the scope and scale of agency and accountability so that we can build trust in the processes that define our lives.

Nathan Schneider is a professor of media studies at the University of Colorado Boulder, where he directs the Media Economies Design Lab and the Masters program in Media and Public Engagement. The book that drew me here is 'Governable Spaces: Democratic Design for online life', - which you can buy as a paper copy, but you can also download for free. He has also written 'Everything for Everyone: The Radical Tradition that is Shaping the Next Economy', 'Thank you Anarchy: Notes from the Occupy Movement' and God in Proof, the Story of a Search from the Ancients to the Internet. He's edited other books about crypto and co-ops, writes numerous articles and his blog posts are essential reading. He serves on the boards of Metagov, Start.coop, and Waging Nonviolence. Follow his work on social media at @ntnsndr or at his website

In essence, discovering Nathan has been like discovering the well of life... He's deeply enmeshed in that liminal space where the best of human technologies meet the leading edge of digital technologies and he brings to it the sense of deep wonder, humility and humour that I've only otherwise met in meditators or contemplative mystics. I feel I only scratched the surface of his thinking in this conversation and would dearly like to go back for a second round, but only after I've re-read everything he's written - and dived into some of the online spaces. In the meantime, as a taste of what's possible, please do enjoy this podcast.

00:00 Introduction: Setting the Stage

00:51 Welcoming Nathan: Personal and Professional Background

02:07 Defining Democracy: Ideals and Challenges

05:04 Historical Perspectives: Governance and Social Structures

13:21 Online Spaces: Implicit Feudalism and Governance

29:54 Silicon Valley's Influence: Power and Politics

33:32 The Importance of Democratic Structuring

34:14 Coralyn Ada Emke's Fight for Codes of Conduct

35:09 The Spread and Impact of Contributor Governance

35:30 Exploring the Contents of a Code of Conduct

36:32 Addressing Harm and Governance Systems

37:13 Building Governable Stacks

38:45 The Role of Cooperative Governance

39:50 Challenges of Scaling Democratic Practices

40:35 Indigenous Perspectives on Separation and Power

42:55 The Complexity of Governance Algorithms

43:54 Embracing Plurality in Governance

46:33 The Role of Cooperative Economies

47:06 Local vs. National Scale in Governance

49:02 Investing in Locally Governed Technologies

50:12 The Importance of Local Problem Solving

50:47 Governance in Online Spaces

54:26 Attention Economies in Governance

57:21 The Multiplicity of Democratic Systems

58:27 Final Thoughts and Resources

59:15 Core Principles of Democracy

Nathan's website https://nathanschneider.info/

Governable Spaces https://nathanschneider.info/books/governable-spaces/

Everything for Everyone https://nathanschneider.info/books/everything-for-everyone/

Thank you, Anarchy https://nathanschneider.info/books/thank-you-anarchy/

University of Colorado Media Economies Design Lab https://www.colorado.edu/lab/medlab/

MetaGov https://metagov.org/

After Jason talked about his side project last week, he tells us he had to abandon Stripe checkout and did something else instead, and Chris announced he just did a Stripe Checkout video for GoRails this week. Joining us on today’s episode...

Beginner friendly if listened to in order! For anyone interested in an educational podcast about philosophy where you don't need to be a graduate-level philosopher to understand it. In chronological order, the thinkers and ideas that forged the world we live in are broken down and explained.

Cornel West—a self-described intellectual freedom fighter influenced by the Baptist church, American transcendentalism, the Black Panthers and European philosophy—seeks to revive the best of liberalism, populism and democratic socialism. In this talk, West teaches that racial division fosters the poverty, paranoia, fear and distrust that undermine our nation's democratic process.

Cornel West, professor of Afro-American Studies and Philosophy of Religion, Harvard University

04/27/2001

On July 15th, 2021, Third Place Books was thrilled to welcome Becky Chambers—author of the Hugo Award-winning Wayfarers novels—for the release of the first book in her new Monk & Robot series, A PSALM FOR THE WILD-BUILT. She was joined in conversation by Sarah Gailey, the bestselling author of Magic for Liars and, most recently, The Echo Wife.

Purchase the book from Third Place Books: https://www.thirdplacebooks.com/book/9781250236210

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About A PSALM FOR THE WILD-BUILT. . .

Hugo Award-winner Becky Chambers's delightful new series gives us hope for the future.

It's been centuries since the robots of Panga gained self-awareness and laid down their tools; centuries since they wandered, en masse, into the wilderness, never to be seen again; centuries since they faded into myth and urban legend.

One day, the life of a tea monk is upended by the arrival of a robot, there to honor the old promise of checking in. The robot cannot go back until the question of "what do people need?" is answered.

But the answer to that question depends on who you ask, and how. They're going to need to ask it a lot.

Becky Chambers's new series asks: in a world where people have what they want, does having more matter?

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Becky Chambers is a science fiction author based in Northern California. She is best known for her Hugo Award-winning Wayfarers series. Her books have also been nominated for the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the Locus Award, and the Women's Prize for Fiction, among others. Becky has a background in performing arts, and grew up in a family heavily involved in space science. She spends her free time playing video and tabletop games, keeping bees, and looking through her telescope. Having hopped around the world a bit, she’s now back in her home state, where she lives with her wife. She hopes to see Earth from orbit one day.

Hugo Award-winning and bestselling author Sarah Gailey is an internationally published writer of fiction and nonfiction. Their nonfiction has been published by Mashable and The Boston Globe, and they won a Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer. Their fiction credits include Vice and The Atlantic. Their debut novella, River of Teeth, was a 2018 finalist for both the Hugo and Nebula Awards. Their bestselling adult novel debut, Magic For Liars, was published in 2019.

Kim Stanley Robinson at The Interval: The legacy of Ursula K Le Guin lives beyond the page
 in generations of writers who have learned from her. She used fantastic fiction to imagine ideals for the real world. Kim Stanley Robinson, her student 40 years ago and now a celebrated science fiction writer himself, reflects on Le Guin the teacher, 
her impact on his work, and how she changed the world.

Kim Stanley Robinson is an American novelist, widely recognized as one of the foremost living writers of science fiction. His work has been described as "humanist science fiction" and "literary science fiction." He has published more than 20 novels including his much honored "Mars trilogy", New York 2140 (02017), and Red Moon due out in October 02018. Robinson has a B.A. in Literature from UC San Diego and an M.A. in English from Boston University. He earned a Ph.D. in literature from UCSD with a dissertation on the works of Philip K. Dick.

Ursula K Le Guin was one of the greatest imaginative writers of all time. Her science fiction and fantasy stories (as well as children's books, poetry, essays, and many other genres & forms) have sold millions of copies, earned dozens of awards, and stayed constantly in print. Her honors include six Nebula awards, seven Hugos, and the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. In 02003 she became the 20th writer ever to receive the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America's Grand Master award. She passed away in January 02018.

Le Guin's book of essays No Time to Spare: Thinking About What Matters won a 02018 Hugo award and the 02017 collected edition of her Hainish Novels and Stories recently won a Locus award. A documentary entitled Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin will debut in 02018.

The philosopher Kohei Saito speaks to Eric Newman and Kate Wolf about his book “Slow Down: The Degrowth Manifesto.”...