Why Information Grows
by Cesar Hidalgo · first published 2015
80% recommend20% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Ambitious, coherent tour linking information theory, entropy, the emergence of life, evolution and economic growth; well suited to readers curious about big-picture ideas and how order arises.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
"Why do some nations prosper while others do not? Economists usually turn to measures such as gross domestic product or per capita income to answer this question, but interdisciplinary theorist Cesar Hidalgo argues that we can learn more by measuring a country's ability to make complex products. In Why Information Grows, Hidalgo combines the seemingly disparate fields of economic development and physics to present this new rubric for economic growth. He believes that we should investigate what makes some countries more capable than others. Complex products-from films to robots, apps to automob
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…sense advice we take for granted and could do better with) - Seveneves (Longggggg, but really worth it. Shame about the ending) - The Virgin Banker (Really good read, how a bank came into being) - Why information grows (Great read, could of been half the length, would recommend) - Babylon Revisited (Meh) - Money: the Unauthorised Biography (Simplistic history of money before and after coin. Good) - Hellbent (Enjoyed…
on “Ask HN: Books you read in 2018?” ↗Why Information Grows: The Evolution of Order, from Atoms to Economies - César Hidalgo (2015) Fantastic read that gave me a new way to understand the world.
on “Ask HN: Favorite nonfiction books of 2018?” ↗You may like Why Information Grows by Cesar Hidalgo. The principal behind it is called Economic Complexity. It is based on the applications of network and graph theory using export data of a country, region or city as a proxy to its productivity…
on “Ask HN: What Are You Learning?” ↗Why Information Grows is probably the best one I read this year. It's fairly ambitious and sets out to link information theory, the emergence of life, evolution and economic growth all in one coherent story. It doesn't quite…
on “YC's 2015 Reading List” ↗Why Information Grows - Cesar Hidalgo (https://books.google.com/books?id=J88_CQAAQBAJ) Best book I've read in recent memory. Changed my understanding of the world and (maybe) our place in it. The Information - James Gleick…
on “Ask HN: Favorite nonfiction books of 2018?” ↗Entropy, energy and life was the topic of a very interesting book I read in the last two days: “why information grows” by Cesar Hidalgo. If you are interested on this topic it’s a must read!
on “Entropy and Life” ↗In the same vein as “The Information” you might enjoy Cesar Hidalgos “Why Information Grows” https://www.amazon.com/dp/0465096840?crid=W41QXVYZQMRM&keywo... where he takes a physicists view on information with a bent towards economics
on “Ask HN: Which books have made you a better thinker and problem solver?” ↗…substrates at different levels of the shared graph. To me, that’s a much better and deeper explanation that connects the dots, and offers more predictive power about what’s next. Highly recommend the book Why Information Grows to anyone whose interest is piqued by this.
on “AI could be the end of the digital wave, not the next big thing” ↗Scale by Geoffrey West and Why Information Grows by Cesar Hidalgo both support on the idea that we need a lot of people to have a high standard of living. They come at it from different angles, but agree that (large) social networks are crucial for…
on “The Economics of Falling Populations” ↗John Cochrane is not the first person to think of the economy as the transfer, flow and storage of knowledge. See this book: https://www.amazon.com/Why-Information-Grows-Evolution-Econo... The author of this book not only thinks about the economy in terms of knowledge but he relates it to information theory and entropy.
on “Free Solo and Economic Growth” ↗