In this unusual tag-team lecture Zak and Shermer debunk two myths: (1) Homo economicus: that “economic man” is rational, free and selfish and (2) that evolution and economics are based almost entirely on cutthroat competition and self-maximizing greed. In Zak’s Moral Markets and Shermer’s The Mind of the Market, the authors demonstrate that people are as irrational with money as they are in all other aspects of life, and that Alfred Tennyson’s characterization of competition in nature — “red in tooth and claw” — and the Gordon Gekko “greed is good” characterization of capitalism are woefully incomplete in understanding how evolution and economics works. (more…)
Concepts once purely fiction — robots, cyborg parts, artificial intelligence — are becoming part of everyday reality. Soon robots will be everywhere, performing surgery, exploring hazardous places, making rescues, fighting fires, and handling heavy goods. After a decade or two, they will be as unremarkable as computer screens are now in our offices, airports, and restaurants. Cyborgs will be less obvious. These additions to the human body — rebuilt joints, elbows, and hearts — are mostly inferior now. Soon we will cross the line between repair and augmentation, probably first in sports medicine and cosmetic alterations, then for anyone who wants to make a body perform better and last longer than it ordinarily could. Controversy will arise, but it will not stop our desire to live longer and be stronger than we are. Benford and Malartre are not afraid to speculate or to focus closely on surprising things already possible and being done. (more…)
