From: Joi Ito

From: Joi Ito To: Jeffrey Epstein <[email protected]> Subject: Re: Date: Sun, 07 Jun 2015 12:55:42 +0000 Not your old age question? -) It's like Jeopardy except that Watson won't have the answer. One of my faculty, Cesar Hidalgo, recently wrote a book called "Why Information Grows". http://www.amazon.corn/Why-Information-Grows-Evolution-Economiesidp/0465048994 I haven't read it yet, but I've had some conversations with him. He's trying to approach it from a physics perspective and agues that life is "information" and "order". Not sure this is right. "What is economic growth? And why, historically, has it occurred in only a few places? Previous efforts to answer these questions have focused on institutions, geography, finances, and psychology. But according to MIT's antidisciplinarian Cesar Hidalgo, understanding the nature of economic growth demands transcending the social sciences and including the natural sciences of information, networks, and complexity. To understand the growth of economies, Hidalgo argues, we first need to understand the growth of order. At first glance, the universe seems hostile to order. Thermodynamics dictates that over time, order--or information--will disappear. Whispers vanish in the wind just like the beauty of swirling cigarette smoke collapses into disorderly clouds. But thermodynamics also has loopholes that promote the growth of information in pockets. Our cities are pockets where information grows, but they are not all the same. For every Silicon Valley, Tokyo, and Paris, there are dozens of places with economies that accomplish little more than pulling rocks off the ground. So, why does the US economy outstrip Brazil's, and Brazil's that of Chad? Why did the technology corridor along Boston's Route 128 languish while Silicon Valley blossomed? In each case, the key is how people, firms, and the networks they form make use of information. Seen from Hidalgo's vantage, economies become distributed computers, made of networks of people, and the problem of economic development becomes the problem of making these computers more powerful. By uncovering the mechanisms that enable the growth of information in nature and society,Why Information Grows lays bear the origins of physical order and economic growth. Situated at the nexus of information theory, physics, sociology, and economics, this book propounds a new theory of how economies can do, not just more, but more interesting things." > On Jun 7, 2015, at 6:51 AM, jeffrey E. [email protected]> wrote: > my age old question . if LIFE is the answer , what is the question, what set of problems are living systems solving for? > -- > please note > The information contained in this communication is > confidential, may be attorney-client privileged, may > constitute inside information, and is intended only for > the use of the addressee. It is the property of EFTA00855129 > JEE > Unauthorized use, disclosure or copying of this > communication or any part thereof is strictly prohibited > and may be unlawful. If you have received this > communication in error, please notify us immediately by > return e-mail or by e-mail to [email protected], and > destroy this communication and all copies thereof, > including all attachments. copyright -all rights reserved EFTA00855130