Econometricians, Financial Markets and Uncertainty: An Anthropological View

"It is clear that Zaka the Malagasy thinks David the American’s questions to be absolutely bizarre. It simply does not make any sense to him. Despite being educated he does not even think to ascribe to chance a numerical estimate."

I start getting the suspicion that I'm being played. Do Malagasies not gamble? He goes on with,

"But when Graeber asks what the chance of the bus turning up is or whether the cops will notice that he is parked illegally, these estimates are not objective. They are entirely mystical."

Those estimates are not mystical. They're not backed up by good data and they're not really objective, but "mystical" is absolutely the wrong word. The probability of a bus arriving in the next five minutes can certainly be quantified, as a single number.

On the other hand, it is also true that much of "econometrics", economics based on numbers rather than the even-worse grand theories of the universe, are not backed by the solid grounding that bus arrivals are. Things like GDP (or GNP; I can't remember the current term) or Black–Scholes do not have any real evidence of existence and are certainly "mystical".

I see imagine the "performativity" aspect is going to be a hoot, too.

http://www.businessweek.com/finance/occupy-wall-street/archi...