From the page: “What we want is a huge system where the computational cost of each individual event is very small. And we want huge amounts of observational data to calibrate against them. And we want to build lots of models. Lots and lots.
The analogy to a continuum model in economics is obviously the agent model. The simulation thus needs make no assumptions of perfect information, price equilibrium, discount rates, anything. No approximation for the whole system is necessary and it seems likely that none is even possible. What we can model is how individuals make decisions in certain circumstances and see the large scale economic activities that emerge.
I’ve met a few people who both understand this much and indeed are pursuing it. Yet they are still hypnotized by the idiot passivity of the “neoclassicists” (H/T Erik Conway) and thus, think of economics as a branch of pure science,.
It is anything but. Economics is the most applied of sciences.”