The major TED conference wrapped up late last week. And now the videos start to roll out. Above Bill Gates (to quote TED) “unveils his vision for the world’s energy future, describing the need for miracles to avoid planetary catastrophe and explaining why he’s backing a dramatically different type of nuclear reactor. The necessary goal? Zero carbon emissions globally by 2050.”
Lessig on Political Corruption in America
Public confidence in the U.S. House and Senate is at an all-time low, and, after last week’s Supreme Court decision, it’s bound to sink even lower. On January 19th (the day before the decision), Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig returned to Stanford and highlighted the degree to which “institutional corruption” — in the form of lobbyists and corporate influence — pervades Congress, dictates legislation, and brings large sums of money to campaigns and, yes, even representatives’ personal bank accounts. (Roughly 50% of U.S. Senators become lobbyists, working for industries they once assisted politically, and earn substantial incomes.) The talk, accompanied by a rapid fire PowerPoint presentation, runs a solid hour and details various instances in which lobbyists have shaped unfathomably bad legislation. Happily, the talk also ends with Lessig outlining possible solutions. Policy changes can offer some answers. But, a lot of it comes down to this: getting the passive privileged to rein in a corrupted elite.
Note: To see Lessig’s immediate response to the SCOTUS decision, look here.
Jared Diamond Explains Haiti’s Enduring Poverty
Jared Diamond, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Guns, Germs & Steel (and Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed), offers some timely thoughts on why Haiti, once a fairly prosperous country, has sunk into enduring poverty — a condition not comparatively shared by its neighbor on the same island, the Dominican Republic. According to Diamond, Haiti’s environmental conditions offer a partial explanation. But you will also find clues in the country’s language, and in the legacy of slavery that has shaped Haiti’s economic relationship with Europe and the US. This interview — quite a good one — aired this morning in San Francisco. You can listen to it below, or access it via MP3, iTunes or RSS Feed.
Understanding Financial Markets
Robert Shiller, who predicted the stock market crash earlier this decade and the bursting of the housing bubble in 2008, has a unique understanding of the financial markets and behavioral economics. In this free course provided by Yale University, Shiller demystifies the financial markets and explains “the theory of finance and its relation to the history, the strengths and imperfections of such institutions as banking, insurance, securities, futures, and other derivatives markets, and the future of these institutions over the next century.” It’s a course for our shaky financial times. The first lecture appears above, and the full course can be accessed on YouTube, iTunes and Yale’s web site. The course is also listed in our meta collection of Free Courses and our targeted selection of Free Economics Courses.
Peter Singer on Greed & Wall Street Excesses
Peter Singer, an Australian-born philosopher who teaches at Princeton, created the animal rights movement back in the 1970s, and, more recently, launched a campaign to end world poverty. One can’t contemplate poverty without also considering greed, and that brings us to the clip above. Interviewed in 2009, Singer suggests that greed drives us biologically (as does social collaboration fortunately). Greed helps us survive and innovate. But there is also a point where it becomes pointless and pathological, and that’s what we have witnessed in the financial world. Greed brought us Bernie Madoff. But it has also brought us (my inferences) bankers who create a catastrophe one year and take record bonuses the next. And it has brought us to the point where our country has dangerously slipped off of its democratic moorings. Lloyd Blankfein, this clip is for you. Thanks Ted for sending this one along.
Looking for free philosophy courses? Visit the Philosophy section of our Free Course collection.
What Would MLK Say About the USA Today?
What would Martin Luther King Jr. think about America in 2010? Few would know better than Clayborne Carson, the Stanford historian who directs the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute. In this talk, Carson describes MLK’s likely thoughts about America during the Great Recession. King cared deeply about economic justice, and it’s clear that King wouldn’t have looked unambivalently upon the inequalities that the financial meltdown made so glaringly obvious. Next week, the U.S. will celebrate King’s birthday and bankers will collect their record-setting bonuses …
Note: Clayborne Carson is currently holding Open Office Hours on Stanford’s Facebook Page. Be sure to visit. Also, Professor Carson has taught an online course that you can freely download. It’s called African-American History: Modern Freedom Struggle, and you can find it on YouTube and iTunes. It’s also the first course that appears in our collection of Free Courses.
Faith and Globalization: Tony Blair Teaches at Yale
After he left office in 2007, Tony Blair went across the pond and spent time teaching at Yale. Exit Prime Minister Blair. Enter Professor Blair. During the 2008-09 academic year, Blair and Miroslav Volf co-taught “Faith and Globalization,” a course designed to help students understand the two intertwined forces shaping our world. In some ways, religion is the real focus here, and it is Blair’s argument (above, for example) that “If you cannot understand the world of faith, whether you are in business, or in public affairs, or in politics, then you actually cannot understand the world.” The full course can be accessed on iTunes, and we have also added it to our large collection of free courses from top universities. For more information on this course, please visit Yale’s Faith and Globalization website and also be sure to access Yale’s Open Course initiative.
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Behavioral Economics and Underwater Mortgages
What if people behaved like banks? Or, more precisely, what if individuals holding “underwater” mortgages stopped following the social norms of ‘personal responsibility’ and ‘promise-keeping’ and instead acted like capitalist players in a free market? Most would dump their sinking mortgages and walk away. That’s the finding of Brent White, a law professor at the University of Arizona, who has published a new paper called “Underwater and Not Walking Away: Shame, Fear and the Social Management of the Housing Crisis.” (PDF) The bottom line is that homeowners and banks play by two different sets of rules. Main Street accepts the “emotional constraints … actively cultivated by the government, the financial industry,” and they hold the bag. Wall Street acts in its own self interest and gets a fresh start. The only thing they have in common these days are (you guessed it) guns.
Just for the record: I’m not advocating a position here, and I don’t hold an underwater mortgage…
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