Economics and/or the Meaning of Life.

serious voice - here is my girlfriend
Melissa sitting just off camera eyes old something that surprised me about you when we first got together was the fact that you were interested in economics and think I think stereotypically people who are interested in languages and religion may not be the most economically oriented people the people who care about money or finance and you know this type of and let me just say one of the social context in which this emerges and becomes obvious is for example that her dad can't push me around about economics right and my own father when he was alive could not push me around about economics I think many people your family dynamic whether you're talking about politics or your own personal life actually the younger generation being pushed around by the older generation because of the assumption that the older generation knows more about economics I think it's actually a common theme I think it's a common family dynamic but yeah that was that was probably one of the most striking situations in which you noticed it but it's true also just living in an apartment of me and walking around there's a lot of commentary about yeah as we walked around different places in the world one of your comments the USA is invest now you know places that look really rundown you know just as a joke you say that but you know it's not so much a joke because often we should see her where we were living we were first together I was really commenting a lot and how the economy was changing there they were building a new railroad that was there were things fundamentally changed with the economy and I was often saying look invest now because we know what's gonna happen here that is true it's actually when we were first together it wasn't a joke maybe some other time like when we were in Detroit that's true I just want to say maybe it's not so much a joke because so much of your life has been about places that are basically economic disasters yes you know you were you spent a lot of time in Laos and Cambodia places that are notoriously impoverished and you know you actually chose to live in poverty you know you had that you had many options I think when you were first starting University what you wanted to study certainly moving to Cambodia was not the most obvious option at the end of options other than that yeah I mean this is an anecdote of yours but I wanted to share it because I found it interesting and it relates to this topic you after you graduated from university you used to do lectures at high schools yes so just to be clear this wasn't a very long period in my life but in Canada there was a special program to make sure that other religious groups were represented within the Catholic schools and Christian schools so they would pay someone who was a Buddhist to give lectures on history of Buddhism they would I think they'd all say in do they pay some number of people like that to come in and give some kind of representative lecture at that time I already had the credentials to go and represent Buddhism so yeah that I forget moves maybe six lectures like with something like that wasn't a huge number right it wasn't some vast lecture - yeah it was an interesting experience right when I was at the end of my my BA the University of Toronto yeah yeah so definitely I think a valuable experience for somebody that's just graduating from University and they paid in cash beginning I was he that the Canadian school board system did pay me for those lectures unlike unlike the lectures that give them on YouTube but hey yeah so the anecdote you shared with me the other day was that a student in your class she heard that you had been to Italy oh yes sure she just asked just demanded yeah maybe she thought I looked Italian is I don't know why she was Italian yeah but I would go on and she was really surprised that you were planning to go live right I was crying the venetie Cambodia etc at that time already right yeah she said you've been to Italy don't you want to live in a DeLorean you know like thinking that it's paradise right but you instead chose to live in a place that is I mean I'm not saying yes he is the best in terms of economics but it's better but I had I had a question from a student in the audience and she did regarded to Lea's paradise and the question was why wouldn't you want to go live a month with olive oil in Italy or something yeah so I just think this is an interesting aspect of your character that you've chosen to live in impoverished and also that when you began studying at University your intention was to study economics but not for the typical reason that people would study economics so that that's the way in which it makes sense is you can say that what I did at the end of University was actually very similar to my aspirations at the beginning so when I enrolled in economics what I was interested in was the philosophy of poverty and I was interested in doing work linked to post-war reconstruction the emergence out of poverty and kind of post-war and devastated conditions and one of the examples I was interested in was South Korea now I would not have said this in these terms at the time but it's interesting I've heard many people say this after visiting South Korea including the YouTuber an Sen it was actually a big turning point his life when he moved to South Korea and I forget there was another youtuber recently I heard it was an American oh yeah yeah was a left-wing extremist who's left-wing anarchist extremist and he said that for him this turning point was going to South Korea and realizing he had been raised with the doctrine that America was the greatest country in the world and he got to South Korea to decide it's not true so South Korea for me was an example of a country that had very recently and very rapidly emerged from poverty and it created a society that was at least as good as Canada probably better in every way that matters including most obvious to me the level of education I found to be higher than Canada the things I cared about seem to be better in South Korea than in Canada and I was interested in the mystery of why can South Korea do that and not Cambodia or not yet Cambodia hasn't done it yet you know Cambodia has not bounced back yet and indeed also the why South Korea and not Canada why South Korea not Detroit why South Korea not Ireland you know today Ireland is actually quite affluent but at that time Ireland was you know and it's still in a reconstruction phase itself and so on so that questions to the philosophy of poverty and I mean you know if you if you want to make a difference in the world do you want to make a difference catering to the rich and wealthy and working at the top or do you want to make a difference at the bottom just pragmatically it seems almost inevitable the people will focus it at the bottom one way or another if you're sincere about making a difference in the world I mean there are exceptions I've said this in the channel before if you want to do something like environmental science it's kind of inevitably elitist it involves catering to elites and expensive research and expensive lobbying for government policy and so on but I felt most of the things I cared about you know they had to do with the poor in poverty and in these questions so yeah in that sense what I did at the end of university was I should put someone who I did the beginning but at the beginning I enrolled in economics looking for the philosophy of poverty and instead what I found were you know I said at the time I mean I remember I said this to my parents and I said this to kind of anyone who would listen I said only now that I've been in the department of economics do I understand you know who buys roof and all so roof and all was an illegal drug used at that time for to date for date rape to drug women and take advantage them I was like you know I could never imagine who it was that would do this before but I found myself in the classroom with people I considered utterly despicable nobody else was there for the philosophy of poverty people were there to get rich quick to get an imaginary job as a stockbroker you know financier investment advisor probably their idea of that was based on watching movies from the 1980s the firm which glamorized the life of a stockbroker it's you know not they're gonna get nobody else was in the classroom with those intentions and the intentions of the professors are also pretty awful the quality of English spoken was abominably low I was often in classes where you know at least 30% of the students spoke Chinese is the first language and the teaching assistant could really couldn't speak English there were new immigrant from China or Korea themselves there were a lot of things obviously wrong with it and also what was presumed was that everyone was already beginning this course at a very high level of mathematical ability I had not gained in high school or from my parents or what-have-you they weren't going to teach you math they were just going to punish you for not already knowing university level economics math the the equation side of it so it was a really bad situation of family so thing but above all else it just philosophically morally ethically the the purpose of Education they were giving you I had nothing to do with my reasons for studying economics and I should clarify this does not have to do with the difference between macro and micro economics it doesn't I'm genuinely interested in micro economics also and that distinction really comes from John Maynard Keynes and the Keynes in view of economics it's like everything else it's kind of an unreal and self-serving distinction but you know microeconomics meaning how particular businesses work or particular segments the economy so to give an example why is it that almost no clothing is made in America anymore that's that's a micro economic problem right you know why is it that Americans almost all the clothes they wear are imported from China or Bangladesh or India or even Europe but remarkably little of American the mercury a small percentage of American clothing is made in factories in there remarkably small percentage of textiles wouldn't even get into that so maybe maybe just one stage of the process now that that's all very interesting me too but my approach is it's fundamentally humanitarian and outlook like I'm interested in that for humanitarian reasons I'm interested me in the world a better place and obviously if you in a room full of people who are I mean at that time it was day trading in tech stocks and stuff was crap like that stupid get-rich-quick schemes and how to flip houses on the real estate market or some you know if these are the dominant passions if this is the purpose of Education and so on er this is what the the credential is full and then I guess the other great fascination was the extent to which computers could now analyze the behavior of the stock market and people can convince themselves it's like gambling you know people can convince themselves they've figured out the system you know the the secret relationship between the numbers when there's a computer doing analysis of the stock market not admitted ASIS is important so yeah it was you know I was in the wrong place for all the right reasons I found myself in economics in a department economics where my motivations had nothing to do with the teachers or the students there however economics as a science as a social science mean I mean that I'm not there's no sarcasm my part when I talk about economics is so it is it is a science and also economics is a philosophy and economics as a kind of theater of political critique that was a tremendously meaningful part of my life before I start University like already at high school and it remained a tremendously important part of my life during University and after I never gave up on it and it never gave up on me so you can imagine if you just have a you know kind of sophisticated education and economics you really do understand the basics for one thing you're immune to many of the fads of left-wing andy ology that have coming on i'm also immune to the fads of right-wing ideology you may not have noticed in a channel you know ridiculous ideas about libertarianism and stuff and find laughable so you know it helps you in that way negatively but this this of course also made me very different from the average person who majors in buddhism you know the average person who meditates in the size of the study that dharma you know the way in which i understood I mean again just as just in simple terms what had happened in Vietnam Cambodia and Laos after World War two or something any but any example how I understood what happened in India under the British Empire the sense of economic realism and being able to do economic analysis for any in every period of history and scrutinized things that way that made me really different from the people around me and he these theaters of research or academic endeavor made me different the other people in Asian Studies at UVic another interesting contrast this is jumping at many many years back when I was married to an anthropologist I was with her Arno's with other people in departments of cultural anthropology and I was at a much higher level of economic literacy in economic analysis than they were so again their their discipline was anthropology but as you can imagine very often what they wanted to deal with were economic abstractions and generalizations and so on so yeah it's I mean again I just read a book in front of you just literally today I read a new textbook that came out in economics I'm still really interested in economics well even the book reviews I did on Bernie Sanders or something it shows me cross-examining what's going on in terms of current economic theory and philosophy and the way in which that's packaged into economic critique critique of what's going on politically and proposals for new policy packages try to make the world a better place I never lost my interest in that and it's simply it's remained a tremendously meaningful and rewarding part of my life and let's be all the way well let's be all the way real about us be honest about it that's not sure of Buddhism Buddhism didn't remain meaningful in my life that way you could say that about other specific velocities I don't feel the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer was tremendously meaningful in my life long-term interesting at a certain time in my life for certain reasons and then you move on and that's it but I mean I've read innumerable books of philosophy and I've studied many chapters of history that really just have a kind of very limited significance or meaning in my life and you know you build up some sophistication by studying one period of history after another one culture after another so on and so forth but nevertheless yeah economics you know it could be called kind of the queen of the sciences this way because it's it's the science the kind of rules over all the other sciences and pervades the discussion of all the other sciences I mean even but to give an example that comes up here we often discuss things in nutritional science or even in psychology where you have to come to the answer to this question isn't unknowable it's just unknown because the research would cost millions of dollars and wouldn't wouldn't be rewarding and so on so in that sense also economics shapes the other research that gets done and doesn't get done it shapes what messages get promoted whether through advertising or by the government and propaganda and which don't that sense of you know economic expediency shaping the world around it over the world around us it shapes the way history is written it shapes what gets remembered and what gets forgotten and so and so forth so the profit motive tugging a human nature and every which way yeah it's it's been one of the most meaningful parts my life and I it's also interesting mean I think the first thing I said I think you can appreciate that too I think that the study of economics allows us to stand up to our own parents I was true within my own unique family your family is totally different but I think it I think it matters very often as young adults or whatever we have to stand up and justify why some venture and other is worth the money or the decisions we have to make or whatever I mean being able to give a robust you know explanation of what you're doing and why in terms of economics again both microeconomics and macroeconomics I think is it's it's important in our own lives in that way - yeah I love that response I credit you with my my introduction to economics really I never took an economics class in university and of course I think it is a flaw in the American education system that you are not that students are not required to take even like a personal finance course but in reality economics governs everything in our lives and it's both visible and invisible every day whether you know it's your choice to just you know to be able to see the economics and everything or how everything is is you know right yeah it's all intertwined well I mean you know with money what is the yeah why did Napoleon invaded right now you know of course racism is an ass religion is an aspect but a little bit more paradoxical than you might at first think if you look into that Napoleon actually openly promised to convert to Islam he was going to become Muslim so he could be the Emperor of Egypt that was pre-planned he changed his name to Napoleon Ali not making this up you know you could use words like Orientalism the idea of going there and doing archaeology and turning up mysteries in the past which they did I mean that wasn't that wasn't a complete illusion but yes very fundamentally you have to understand in terms of economics what was the idea that the French Empire would become wealthier and also that they would make the British Empire a poor there's this competition between empires that was what you know that was what drove it you know so many many of these things there there's a fundamental economic rationale even if it's completely false even was a ridiculous delusion that's me understand that has to be understood to flip forward a hundred years or more yeah I guess with more than hundred years why did France try to conquer and colonize Cambodia ridiculous notion but of course I mean you know kind of by whether you deal with it first or last the answer is gonna be the ineluctable answer is going to be economics even if even if you want to talk about other ideological categories like racism and so on they matter to some extent too but it's gonna begin and end I think with economics yeah the queen of the sciences yeah I guess I could say just to talk a little bit on that point it's true we grew up you know I'm completely different opposite spectrums you know your parents have a very far left ideology her father is basically a stereotypical Donald Trump supporter yeah yeah right wing I worked hard for my money you know right and he was always you know for me I felt like he was like then I'm sorry you know I don't want to speak badly it was like kind of like the mr. krabs stereotype of like you know things those about money you know this is a reference to the cartoon spongebob like life is about money legs money and be an adult means earning money and supporting yourself supporting a family right and of course like part of me wanted to fight back against and I just never cared you know I just didn't feel myself motivated by money you know I thought myself motivated but it's something something else in my life you know like I wanted something more than money so that was kind of like the introduction with with my intro economics was basically like okay enough to survive and you know do whatever whatever else you you want you want to do what if your life that's meaningful so yeah I don't know it is it is nursing that you grew up in this far left setting environment well I think - so in my culture I mean I come from Canada but very similar to the northern United States Alize there's an assumption that anyone on the left will be sort of pointedly ignorant about economics like they're almost intentionally and over-the-top ignorant about economics left wingers they love to throw up their hands and pretend that like the stock market just doesn't make any sense like you know interest rates just don't make it it's just incomprehensible and and therefore capitalism is gonna collapse because it's just so hard to understand that's like you know if you spent just two weeks studying this stuff do you really think what what do you think's already to understand like textbook economics or how to play the piano and to play the piano well is that minimum 100 hours of practice I don't know come up with your own estimate but you know I don't know if you can get over your sense of aversion and fear a hundred hours would be a long time this study you know really it's the history of economics you learn from you know obviously to also pick up some of the jargon and principles and understand when in what context that jargon was invented and what purpose it served and maybe now today we used the term differently and assumptions have shifted it's as you say it's not emits a science you want to understand in that kind of diachronic historical fashion a science with shifting assumptions but this is even true of medical science by the way you know the meaning of the word bile has changed bolita the concept of the humors of the body and so on the meaning of the assumptions about blood pressure and fiber in your diet we use the same terms but they're used in a different way as time goes on but anyone more dramatically obviously within a thirty year period what what's done in economics really changes but yeah when I was with my blond ex-girlfriend so she's been referred to she was my girlfriend we really got serious in the last year in the university when I was a normal age University student decades ago but you know I think she definitely had the assumption that I was a left-wing person who came from a left-wing family and that I would therefore share in this sort of self-righteous incomprehension and anything to do with business anything to do with the stock we're just just pretending to be too pure to care about business and very evil capitalism right and scoffing well actually an example I mean some people are left to finally give this up but when I was a kid this is Emma Corman just scoffing at the idea that deficits matter the debt matters that government responsibility for how much that is oh oh they only only some kind of right-wing fundamentalist could possibly imagine that the government going bankrupt is a problem oh you know as if there's any limit down which money the government could spend so yeah I mean I think a good comparison would be the way some right-wing people definitely now in the United States of America many right-wing people just profess their total in comprehension of ecology of environmentalism oh oh as if as if anyone could possibly try to quantify how much air pollution there is or how much pollution there is in rivers and try to control it the whole world suddenly they get real unscientific when it when we're moving into a science that's contrary to their you know their ideological objectives so yeah there's something similar there with left-wingers and yeah the surprise was so my blonde girlfriend we were together for many years I forget but you know gradually she learned to really respect like whoa your understanding of economics is kind of like a key that unlocks a lot of kind of practical mysteries around us yeah I mean she lived with me in several totally different cultural settings you know Hong Kong bizarre economic situation Thailand and then we moved to Laos together yeah we also have been tell one together extras you know and you know each of those and kind of making different observations and analyses of what's going on now and how that reflects what's happened over the last 50 years so Melissa also is now been with me for years and everywhere we go there's this kind of analysis of what's what's going right and what's going wrong that's right yeah recently we we met with your mother and she asked me did I like Thailand well you know it's a very broad question right and I ended up saying it was an interesting experience being in Thailand because it's both the most impoverished place that I've seen in the mostly in the most wealthy economy but you know I I grew up in the Detroit area I mean I got to see once I got to see a real economic disaster growing up so one what one might think that I would have more interest in economics you got to see that economic theory has real-world consequences interests yeah right yeah you know I I really appreciate that this aspect of your character this this interest in economics and I think like you're blond ex-girlfriend said then it really does hold the key to many of the problems in society that seem incomprehensible or seem confusing for a lot of people um and I think like what I experienced before just like hating money or like hating the fact that I needed to earn money I think this is a very immature childish kind of view of things like that you know I just I wish you know I can live on the basics basics provided and like you know because I'm not an extravagant person I think we both agree on this what kind of I'm a cheapskate you know like so yeah I just say it moving beyond it being just something like oh I hate money I love money rather instead saying money is this thing that right is the key to well I say this there's a difference between saying earning money is the meaning of life and saying the study of money right is meaningful and exposes to you what's going on around you in life you know if it was your understanding of when we first got here when we're first coming to sorry I said here we first got the Taiwan you know there was this incident where the farmers were giving away cabbage for free yeah right so in a simple sense like this it's really meaningful to study okay what's going on in agriculture where you're living and how does that shape the world around you so when we Melissa and I live together in Yunnan China and right away you notice is this really strange economy linked to agriculture they farm some crops like coffee they form strawberries and you know the strawberry economy for one month of the year the town is completely drowned in strawberries and there are none boom and bust and you know you see the way the mango market shifts you know there's some times when they're importing mangoes exporting mangoes and yeah you know in this way as I say yeah did the study of money the study of where money comes from where it goes and how the economy around you functions it is very very meaningful but that doesn't mean that I think earning as much money as possible is the meaning of my life or anyone's life really okay yeah I think it was really interesting and I appreciate that you recorded it after my suggestion okay guys so I'll give the link below the video Melissa does have our own YouTube channel really uploaded to now but no I think in the Mustad I think you're gonna see some new videos on Melissa's channel to check it out Hema Dan