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Complex Systems with Patrick McKenzie (patio11)We live in a world where our civilization and daily lives depend upon institutions, infrastructure, and technological substrates that are _complicated_ but not _unknowable_. Author: Patrick McKenzie
We live in a world where our civilization and daily lives depend upon institutions, infrastructure, and technological substrates that are _complicated_ but not _unknowable_. Join Patrick McKenzie (patio11) as he discusses how decisions, technology, culture, and incentives shape our finance, technology, government, and more, with the people who built (and build) those Complex Systems. Language: en Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it |
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The magic spell that makes banks give you your money back
Episode 74
Thursday, 8 January, 2026
Patrick McKenzie (@patio11) reads his latest Bits about Money essay explaining why he “loves Regulation E more than any rational person does.” He explains how Reg E created a privately-administered legal system processing over 100 million complaints annually—dwarfing the formal U.S. court system—and why banks are now trying to avoid these obligations for Zelle's nine figure fraud problem.–Full transcript available here: www.complexsystemspodcast.com/the-magic-spell-reg-e/– Sponsors: MongoDB & FramerTired of database limitations and architectures that break when you scale? MongoDB is the database built for developers, by developers: ACID compliant, Enterprise-ready, and fluent in AI. Start building faster at mongodb.com/build Building and maintaining marketing websites shouldn’t slow down your engineers. Framer gives design and marketing teams an all-in-one platform to ship landing pages, microsites, or full site redesigns instantly—without engineering bottlenecks. Get 30% off Framer Pro at framer.com/complexsystems.–Links:Bits about Money, One Regulation E, Two Very Different RegimesFull version of "Doesn't Matter, That's Reg E": https://suno.com/song/173bbd67-92f7-4868-930f-efeca4b373c0–Timestamps:(00:00) Introduction(02:46) These newfangled computers might steal our money(12:45) The contractual liability waterfall in card payments(20:35) Sponsors: MongoDB and Framer(22:23) The contractual liability waterfall in card payments (continued)(23:47) Enter Zelle(25:46) Zelle is an enormous fraud target(32:23) Banks may attempt to extend the Zelle precedent(35:02) Reg E encompasses almost every technology which exists and many which don't yet
