[ethanbond]

I have yet to encounter a phenomenon that’s best or only explained by mimetic desire. Even mimetic desire itself, AFAICT, is readily explained by less “exotic” reasoning: people try to distill information from other people’s actions when the environment isn’t readily providing that information itself.

This always come across as more of a hobbyhorse for people who try to cognition their way into bias-free cognition (and think they’ve done it).

> Bubbles shouldn’t exist. They represent anomalies that are irreconcilable with deeply enshrined beliefs in market efficiency and rationality.

The deeply enshrined beliefs are not true in practice and we have evidence out the wazoo to prove it. Why jump through hoops to explain a bad model?

[AnimalMuppet]

Does mimetic desire recurse? Do people believe in mimetic desire because they want to be like people who believe in mimetic desire, not because they actually believe it?

> > Bubbles shouldn’t exist. They represent anomalies that are irreconcilable with deeply enshrined beliefs in market efficiency and rationality.

> The deeply enshrined beliefs are not true in practice and we have evidence out the wazoo to prove it. Why jump through hoops to explain a bad model?

I think you said this a bit badly. Market efficiency and rationality are in fact a bad model, once you look closely enough. But they're jumping through hoops to explain the deviation from a bad model. Well, if the model is bad, no weird theory is needed to explain the deviation. The deviation is very simple - the model is bad.

I think I'm agreeing with you - the rational market is an approximate theory that clearly and visibly breaks down, and Girard's memetic theory is goofy and convoluted and is not needed at all to explain economic bubbles. I just think you stated it in a bit of a confusing way.