Here I intend to write down what I think about in my free time, probably in very detailed form. Probably it will be Meta-Text of some sort around the topics of economics, information systems and climate change, -policy and -politics. This place is in some form a commitment device to me and a place to focus my attention and have a motivation to put down what I think. I find it helps me tremdendously, and hope it will be of some use to anyone reading.
About the name
The German word for computer science "Informatik" is an elliptical composition of "information" and "mathematics". My anglicised online name is a play on words and a self-positioning: I would not call myself a mathematician, but perhaps I am a kind of economist who works with information and applies economics to it.
About me
For some context, I was born in Germany on the 12.01.1988. in Ostwestphalen. After school and my civil service I studied for a really long time in Gießen, Hesse, mainly philosophy and social sciences, which I stopped shortly after my 30th birthday to study business informatics at the university of applied sciences in the same town.
Much of my time in philosophy was occupied with the history of the 20th century, the conflagration of Europe, and how German intellectuals in particular were trying to come to terms with what had been lost and how it had happened. A lot of my sympathies are with the Frankfurt School, Arendt and to some extent the realists in international relations.
Starting university during the GFC was really formative for me, and I tried to understand macroeconomics, monetary and fiscal policy by reading as much of the economics blogosphere as I could. It was a time before big social media and I am really nostalgic for that. At the same time, I was beginning to realise the implications of global warming and other environmental processes for the well-being of the human species on our wonderful planet. Studying a more general subject gives me the opportunity to work on these challenges, which I fully intend to do.
I am now almost finished with my degree, for which I worked for two years at the Fraunhofer IEE in Kassel on a project related to Reinforcement Learning in the context of energy markets, which is also be the subject of my thesis - I developed a package for internal research purposes together with a PhD student as a team of two most of the time.
About my mental models
I am often frustrated when reading texts on the internet because most people do not explain where their intellectual roots and mental models come from. I try to be as explicit as possible here, while still being concise. I certainly consider myself a progressive, but my main position, at least when writing here, is one of curiosity and scepticism. These lists are, of course, a result of my biography and contain discourses about which I have formed opinions, media I engage with, concepts I like to learn about and put into practice. I want to say that I am aware of the incoherence of many of these views.
Fundamentals, Philosophy, Ontology
Philosophy of Language: Pragmatist, Wittgenstein (late)
Consciousness: Functionalist but its’ complicated
Philosophy of science: I really liked the sociology of science branch after Kuhn
More Materialist than Idealist, so more Marx than Hegel, but… on a scale
Political Theory: Discorsi-Machiavelli, Parts of Arendt, Frankfurt School
Politics: Much more SocDem than I would like to admit to myself
Ethics: Probably the cop out of rule utilitarianism
How to be in the World: Le Guin: Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu
I’ve done Zazen and found it incredibly helpful
I also did lots of therapy which I found even more helpful
I linked wikipedia only here, if one has a need to dig deeper into one of those debates, the STEP is always a great place to start
Fictional Books
Terry Pratchett got me through my adolescence, his Humanism is probably most foundational for my personality. This podcast is a good start.
I do enjoy Haikus and Tankas, though I do not have enough of those
Max Gladstone and Ursula Le Guin are authors I’m starting to get familiar with
Podcasts
Music
Disciplines
Economics
Concepts:
Computer Science / Software Engineering
Mainly what I intend to do for a living and learned in my BA
Languages I …
I understand Machine Learning and AI is building induction machines, which I love, and I understand modeling as trying to build a map of the world
Concepts I love:
At the moment I am effectively working as a Research Software and Data Engineer, writing a python package for Reinforcement Learning creating synthetic Data of Agents’ interactions with historic data saved in a MongoDB as a backend.
One of my competive advantages over other SWEs is probably a result of my study, I do know a fair bit of IT-Project- and Knowledge Management and have a basic understanding of business processes and optimisation, as well as a certain empathy for all involved in those
Research Software Engineering, Open Science and Reproduceability: