Convergence

The Convergence of Economics and Socio-Psychology in Ted

I saw two TED talks this evening and while they were on different subjects, there were some interesting things in common. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SOQduoLgRw

The other was: https://www.ted.com/talks/nick_hanauer_the_dirty_secret_of_capitalism_and_a_new_way_forward/transcript?language=en

If you have the time to watch both there are going to be some things you are likely to disagree with. The first video I mentioned was actually the second one I watched and in some ways the most relevant to the present political atmosphere. The second one is about neo-liberal economics.

Both want to be optimistic and hopeful about human nature but face significant hurdles. For example, neo-liberal economics depends on the notion that people are fundamentally selfish. Why it is called neo-liberal economics is because of the interest in being liberal toward business by deregulation. Of course, our economic system isn't entirely neo-liberal and is more complex because of our political institutions in which all parties tend to regulate business in different ways to various ends.

And then there is the idea in the first video that religion is bound to an evolutionary need for groups. Both are interested in science and the basis of morality. Artists are generally people who are "open to experience". So as an artist I have to acknowledge I have a bias that tends to place me more in the liberal category, but I'm also a religious person and I believe God is an independent Being. Some of the examples that are included in the video also don't align with the practical application of religion across cultural adherents, instead, are represented in ideals as intertwined opposites.

This also got me to thinking about the "Big Bang" and how a singularity originates out of nothing. But, what you have here is a sort of invitation to understand a "matrix" of alternate possibilities. In the Big Bang, the question for a while was the dominance of matter over anti-matter. How is our socio-economic world view shaped? Are we winners and losers, or are we really cooperative beings? Or are we fundamentally selfish?

Interestingly, astrophysicists suppose the difference between matter winning over anti-matter came down to maybe one particle more of one than of the other. And here we are in the midst of the most divisive of political times in my memory. How do we see ourselves? One side or the other, a little bit of both? All mixed up and ready to go approaching just the right temperature for our own big bang. I have to tell you that over the last ten years my opinions have changed quite a bit. I went from being completely Conservative to the other side of the spectrum. Why?

I am an artist. I carry the Original Sin of being "open to experience". What a strange thing to eat fruit because of a desire for wisdom.