In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash

"I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."

"But," says Man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves that You exist, and so therefore, by Your own arguments, You don't. Q.E.D."

"Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.

"Oh, that was easy," says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.

- Douglas Adams

The financial markets often seem illogical, but it is with a certain amount of satisfaction that I note the Economist, that hoary-bearded sage of the Dismal Science, now admits that the whole shebang is just as faith-based as any apocalyptic religion. This all makes me wonder, how will the markets perform in the future? Information used to be rare and precious, and consensus was easier to create back when everyone was reading the same columns in the same newspapers. Now there is a confusing polyphony of loud opinion spiced with Damned Lies and Statistics. I don't pretend to know what things will look like going forward, but I suspect we are in for, at the very least, some interesting times.

Read more here: Faith and the markets via Economist.com

Dr. Not-So-Evil

Simon Baron-Cohen has been working his whole life to understand the scientific nature of what we call "evil," and he believes that the keystone to the phenomenon is a lack of empathy. Well, yes, I agree wholeheartedly. I have been telling this story through article after article, but each new one I post just makes me feel better about our chances as a species. YES, we are finally "getting it." Armageddon is optional. No ideology or doctrine contains us; we exist in a sea of influences both internal (genetic, metabolic) and external (cultural, environmental). The future is clearly in our hands, and we are capable of harnessing both the intelligence and the motivation to make it a good one.

The opposite of empathy is contempt. Baron-Cohen talks a lot about empathy, and in previous work Paul Ekman and John Gottman talk about the effects of contempt on relationships. Marriages may be full of conflict and yet still be successful and fulfilling to both parties, as long as empathy and respect exists between them. Once contempt creeps into a relationship, it has a tendency to expand until it destroys the fabric of it.

Empathy and contempt are both just concepts, but they are powerful ones and are no less influential for being incorporeal. A large, strong, and morally questionable person is able to coerce your body, so early in life you learn the social cues needed for detecting these people (and the places they might hang out) and avoiding them. Contempt has no physical existence, but it's just as big and powerful and unscrupulous. It sits inside your body, manipulating your endocrine system and making itself a comfy little nest in your reptilian brain - but like hanging out with any big, unpleasant, sweaty galoot, it's totally optional if you can but figure out how to get away.

Back when the human superorganism was much more loosely connected, contempt functioned to keep individual tribes and their memetic heritages safe against competition and extinction. There are too many of us now, and we are too closely connected. Vestigial contempt turns us against ourselves. Shake yourself loose, go take a shower, and go find someone nicer to hang out with!

Read more here: FEATURE-Scientist seeks to banish evil, boost empathy via Reuters.com, and here: Predictable Patterns of Marriage Breakdown via MentalHelp.net