Market impact

Michael Sandel is hosted by TED to give the following talk concerning market influence and impact on civic life.

This talk describes how an increasing number of the aspects of life are marketized, meaning they are being evaluated for their monetary weight and then private interests can purchase advantages in those aspects. He gives a couple of examples, which need no repetition by me, and these should be news to most people. They exemplify how a certain distortion is introduced by this take over. What Michael is trying to convey here, amongst other things, is the question of whether or not this change has impact on motivation in a positive sense.

Now I did a piece on motivation almost two years ago analysing the idea superficially and making some minor connections to other issues. But I think a relevant answer backed by scientific studies to the question posed above, is the one supplied by Daniel Pink in this lecture:

It is clearly stated that the findings seem to indicate that monetary rewards seem to give a sugary rush to completing simple and mechanical tasks, whereas the exact same rewards inhibt critical thinking in creative tasks.

So when Michael Sandel asks the question whether a monetary reward for reading a book is a good idea, science seems to counter-propose whether we think reading a book is related to mechanical or creative thinking. If we simply think it is about turning pages and memorising knowledge, then we are branding the reader a vessel for the knowledge of others, not an individual with creative abilities to process ideas and improve upon them.

And as Michael rightly points out - we do not know the long term effects on the motivation towards reading, if curiosity gets replaced by monetary goals as the motivator for reading and absorbing perspectives.

My guess would be: The sooner in life we introduce money as life support to people, the sooner we motivate them to stop thinking creatively and start thinking mechanically.

Fukushima 2013

Reading through a handful of articles all stating the same thing, I finally decided to go with this one, seeing how well sourced it is concerning statements. This article takes the rather pessimistic viewpoint that a nuclear crisis on the scale of the Cuban missile crisis is imminent.

- Some 400 tons of fuel in that pool could spew out more than 15,000 times as much radiation as was released at Hiroshima.

- Former Ambassador Mitsuhei Murata says full-scale releases from Fukushima “would destroy the world environment and our civilization. This is not rocket science, nor does it connect to the pugilistic debate over nuclear power plants. This is an issue of human survival.”

If this is true, then the article, written in late september, says that the official statement is that about 60 days remain before this Unit 4 will ignite and start a fuel fire. Such a fuel fire would apparently damn our atmosphere, which in turn ruins the air, the oceans and the positive effects of the sun, effectively choking the planet to death. And just to drill it in, in case you have previously been categorising this issue in your mind as a Japanese issue:

- Chernobyl’s first 1986 fallout reached California within ten days. Fukushima’s in 2011 arrived in less than a week. A new fuel fire at Unit 4 would pour out a continuous stream of lethal radioactive poisons for centuries.

If radiation from Chernobyl in eastern Europe can reach California in ten days, then compare that with the current issue where we face an amount 15,000 times greater. It should be clear to you, that this is a global issue, and should therefore concern you. This is why it is damaging that the offical story is indeed that it is just a japanese issue.

To broaden this discussion I will point out that this is a very dangerous way of categorising issues, and at the same time it is quite resemblant of how issues are indeed categorised. Issues like these are clearly of global concern, and should therefore not be a national problem to solve. When an issue concerns more than just one nation, the nation becomes a hinderance in finding a solution. National pride and economics are the causes of this, and they pull in opposing directions. Some market theories unquestionably labels issues like this as a positive force in the market in that it provides investment incentive to a large degree. Funneling public funding into private institutions working to compete for a solution to the issue. But the mere time frame alone should clarify how crippling this is to a creative and functional solution. There is a very good reason why it has come down to this narrow time frame now, with a crisis that started in 2011. That is the level of thinking associated with the solution is thoroughly handicapped by the framework enforced on the debate.

The fault lies in presupposing that every issue that ever enters our reality is a democratic one. Sometimes precision is needed, which assumes an undermining of all bureaucracy in order to minimize collateral damage.