Reminds me of the Euro. Was blessed as such a grand simplifying project by academics and technocrats in the late 90s, and critics were often dismissed conspiracy theorists.

Various people still love the Euro. Mostly though it is those that can pack up their laptop and credit card and work from anywhere with a internet connection. Oh and the businesses trading across EU's internal borders.

The crazy part is how those nations with the biggest problems right now are those that followed the Euro requirements most closely. While the biggest offender is the one swinging the punishment stick...

Economists in particular seems to have a willful blindness to feedback loops.

"Understanding economics well impedes an understanding the economy." -- Yanis Varoufakis

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5AUAIzciLE#t=1355

Well-known economist (public speaker and author) Ha-Joon Chang [0] says something very similar, here is the "RSA animate" short version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdbbcO35arw

My version: The deeper you go with your models the more you lose sight of the big picture, until you end up with crazy sophisticated mathematical models - that don't model reality (meaning not even relevant reality, apart from small well-defined sub-problems).

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ha-Joon_Chang

Interesting, i didn't know there was still new RSA animates made.

I just wish he would wise up regarding EU...