Thursday, May 19, 2005
'The devil's in the headlines. Its God's truth that we find in the nuance.'
That's Paul Samuelsson. He's a professor of economics at MIT. I linked to a paper he wrote on a post a while back. Its a bland, boring economics paper that refutes in theory our current dogma that free trade is going to be mutually beneficial to all parties involved.
This probably should be important. After all, we've created a world structure based on free trade. One would assume that this structure was based on something more then just faith.
But in the absence of theory, what are we left with? Well evidence I guess, but we don't have that yet, we're still too much in the midst of it. So then, what are we left with? Faith?
Our trust that it is all going to be ok is based on faith.
And that's why we have to put it in the headlines. You gotta make'em believe it.
Friday, May 06, 2005
We've created a world that is far too complicated for our little minds.
If you look around at those most important issues that need to be addressed, in many cases they are just too hard to figure out. Even the people who are paid to figure these things out can't figure them out.
This can't be a good thing.
Here are two examples. Both are difficult to understand, are full of complexities and uncertainties and non-linearity's, and do not lend themselves readily to tidy conclusions.
The first is global warming. What struck me when I first started reading about the global warming debate was that there really is quite a bit of uncertainty about the whole thing. There is not necessarily uncertainty about whether the world is warming, that can be easily measured, but there is definitely uncertainty about how quickly it is warming, whether this warming is secular or cyclical, what the causes of the warming are, and how strong of an effect each of those causes has.
Its no fault of scientists. The problem isn't lack of research or resources. Its just a very complicated phenomenon. The weather is the result of so many disparate events, some of them reinforcing, some of them dampening, some of them difficult to measure, some not very well understood at all, and all of them difficult to separate from each other in a way that allows us to discretely analyze the problem so as to be intelligible to our minds.
Of course, the good scientists realize this. Their argument, and the one I am sympathetic with, is that such uncertainty is to be embraced, and that decisions should be made based on probabilities and the impact of potential outcomes. This is how you deal with things you don't know.
But the uncertainty can be wielded as a weapon. The skeptics use the uncertainty to discredit the idea entirely. They use uncertainty to advocate a continuation of the status quo. We don't know for sure, so why should we change?
But that debate is for another time. This post is about the complexity of our world, and how its just too complex for our little minds. Global warming is just one example of this.
The globalized economy is another.
I read a lot about economics. Its fun, and what makes it fun is that its so puzzling. Most economic problems that we face today have given rise to a number of conflicting theories regarding them and not much agreement as to which of the theories hold the most water. The phenomena are just too complex to understand.
Take for example the US current account deficit. This has the potential to be a major problem in the future. If you listen to some commentators, the correction of the current account deficit will lead to higher interest rates, a falling dollar, the slippage of an economy, a fall in house prices, and just general economic disorder all around.
If you listen to others, the current account deficit will benignly correct itself with a readjustment of exchange rates that will have little effect on consumers or businesses.
And you can argue the point back and forth till the cows come home. There is at least a degree of validity to the arguments on either side. So you won't get agreement. Hell, there isn't even agreement as to what the current account deficit is caused by. We have this thing happening that's causing more then 50 million dollars an hour to leave the US and we can't even agree on why.
The point is, the whole system is too complicated for us to understand and drawn definitive conclusions about. We've created a monster.
This is true on the macro-level, as I have just demonstrated, and it is true on the micro-level of each of our little lives.
We drive vehicles that most of us don't understand, take out mortgages based on interest rates we don't understand, work at jobs where we don't understand the consequences or outcomes of our work, elect politicians who make decisions on issues that we don't understand based on papers and research and graphs that we don't understand... I mean, if this isn't the friggin dark age, I don't know what is.
Its not the age of information, or technology, or any of that crap. Its an age of ignorance. An age of not understanding the world.
So tell me how we're supposed to control it?
Tuesday, May 03, 2005
I haven't been writing much because I'm too cold. I feel like death warmed over.
Its an icy chill that numbs me. It starts at my feet, seeping into my souls from cold, tiled floor, and it flows up through my veins to my skull. And there it holds claim to my mind.
When I try to push back it strikes me down with fear and apathy and that terrible truth that you just can't get past. The truth that it really doesn't matter either way.
You can't beat that argument or reason your way through. The best you can do is ignore it, and you can only do that when you have control of your mind.
When you don't have control of your mind you can't ignore it, and so it hollows every act and makes them easy prey to the hammers of apathy and fear.
Shattered potentials making a mess of my room.
So yes, there you go, but all that isn't really true, except by metaphor and even that is more conjecture then not.
I really just can't think of anything to say.
I think I read too much. It keeps me from thinking.
I can't really read and think at the same time. I can only do one or the other. So when I'm feeling lazy and frightened, when I hold myself captive, I read vorociously.
And that keeps me from writing, because I don't have a thing to say.
Hopefully I will soon.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
