Paul Krugman: Nobel laureate, psychohistorian.

[randomness]

From http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/30/who-are-you-calling-dense/, posted yesterday:

"Asimov, and specifically the Foundation trilogy, was my great inspiration; I became an economist because I wanted to be a psychohistorian, saving civilization through the mathematics of human behavior."

Comments

[achinhibitor.livejournal.com]

Reminds me of

As an adolescent I aspired to lasting fame, I craved factual certainty, and I thirsted for a meaningful vision of human life--so I became a scientist. This is like becoming an archbishop so you can meet girls. -- Matt Cartmill

The advance of economics into a technology that can save civilization has been relatively slow. (Though Manmohanomics in India has proved to be one of the greater boons to human well-being.)