FT: “What makes some people join religious organisations? It’s a pertinent question for our secular western world, where — with exceptions such as Poland — religion is largely on the decline. And it’s usually asked by atheists who can’t imagine why anyone would be so credulous, religious leaders who are desperately looking to reverse dwindling congregations or the genuinely curious. The economist Paul Seabright belongs in this last category; in The Divine Economy he proposes that we can understand religions and their appeal more fully through the lens of economics. Seabright has written a wide-ranging book, full of fascinating examples from the world’s many religions, reminding us that even though religion is in decline in western society, it’s thriving in many other places, including countries across Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America, as well as the Philippines, Indonesia, Bangladesh and Thailand. What’s the appeal, and why do some religions do better than others in the competition for our attention and, ultimately, affiliation and loyalty?”
NYTimes: “Across cultures…researchers found, songs share certain features not found in speech, suggesting that Darwin might have been right: Despite its diversity today, music might have evolved in our distant ancestors…“It shows us that there may be really something that is universal to all humans that cannot simply be explained by culture,” said Daniela Sammler, a neuroscientist at the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics in Frankfurt.”
The Generalist talks to Tyler Cowen: “AI will magnify parenting efficacy. Tyler expects the next generation to be partially raised by an “AI teddy bear” – a companion that acts as an extension of a child’s parents. This teddy bear will be nearly omnipresent, watching, teaching, and supporting. Parents may use it to good ends, accelerating their child’s development. But for the children of poor parents, being surveilled by a motivated, intelligent, poorly aligned AI could be catastrophic.” More: “The future may not be bright. The tech sector tends to be optimistic, believing in innovation’s ability to spur continuous progress. However, Tyler believes there are real reasons to suppose that the coming decades may be turbulent. War is increasingly frequent, and several geopolitical hotspots could boil over. When combined with massive technological breakthroughs, the result may be extreme turbulence, reminiscent of 17th-century England.”
Cato: “It is conventional wisdom that adding billions of people to the global economy must result in increased use and therefore greater scarcity of resources, but that is wrong. Resources have become significantly cheaper since 1980 relative to wages, thereby becoming much more abundant. Humans, especially those living in countries on the frontier of innovation, create new knowledge that allows us to grow our resources well beyond our consumption. Globalization allows this new knowledge to flow from the countries on the frontier of innovation to the “catch‐up” nations, leading to improved economic and environmental outcomes worldwide.”
: “Prices are threads stitching together the fabric of our economy. They guide countless producers, here and abroad, to meet the most urgent demands of countless consumers. Prices enable the economic coordination of millions of individuals—each with his or her own unique preferences, skills, and resources—with no need for a central planner. They direct entrepreneurs and innovators, signaling where opportunities lie and where resources are most needed. Prices are guardians of scarce resources, ensuring that these are allocated to their most valuable uses. Prosperity results from the encouragement given to the production of goods and services that people desire most…Prices and wages set on market dynamics reflect underlying economic realities and then send out a signal for help. Price controls only mask these realities, which inevitably worsens the economy’s ability to respond with what ordinary consumers and workers need.”
