Caveman Economics Part I

The concepts of economic systems can seem rather intimidating at first--supply and demand, unemployment, inflation, money supply, GDP growth, and so on, can seem comparable in complexity to computing jargon. This is not helped by our current government and media who seem to throw around vague economic concepts as if they have such great complexity that no mere mortal can dare to attempt to understand any of them (only our beloved “experts” can give us even a sliver of enlightenment). But economics is actually really simple. You see, a large economy like the US is simply made up of millions of individuals and corporations who interact on relatively simple terms. Economics happens when you go to Walmart and buy groceries or even a TV. Even if you were to be stranded on a deserted island, your very survival depends on economics, but in a vastly simpler, less interconnected way.

Once the grand economic concepts are brought down to the level of the solitary caveman, they are relatively easy to figure out. After figuring out how these concepts apply at the caveman level, you have a basis to scale that understanding upwards, seeing a large economy as simply a vast number of interacting cavemen. This is a calculus-style approach--understand the problem in one instance, and scale it up to a very large number of small instances. I plan this post to be the first in a series of posts using the Caveman Economics (calculus-style) approach to explain economic principles from the ground up.

I don’t remember when I discovered what I consider to be the foundational principle of economics, but it wasn’t in school. Somehow the textbooks seem to have missed the most important concept. This most important thing is that all economics is based on work. How can this be so? Let us take the Caveman Economics approach. Imagine you are marooned on a deserted island. Essentially, you have just been made a caveman. How does a caveman survive on an island with no-one around (think Castaway starring Tom Hanks)? Obviously there are certain needs that must be met. You will need water, food, and shelter. How do you go about obtaining these things? You will have to explore your new home to find a freshwater stream that you can drink from. You will probably then look for a cave near the stream, so that you don’t have to try to build something without tools. You will also look for some fruit or something that you can eat without having to cook it. That will get you through the first day. Every single thing you have to do to survive (even for just one day) requires work. If you don’t work, you won’t eat, you won’t sleep safely, you won’t drink; you will die. The Bible said this years ago: “If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat.” (II Thessalonians 3:10). Work is necessary for survival, and is thus the cornerstone of economics, because the first concern of economics is satisfying the needs of man.

Stay tuned for more Caveman Economics...

Song of the day: How B.o.b Airplanes relates to American Christianity

I enjoy poetry. I haven't always enjoyed poetry, but I have come to appreciate its significance as a means of symbolically communicating that which one cannot necessarily communicate with prose. But this post is not totally about poetry--it is about a song. I like song lyrics for some reason--maybe it’s because they are essentially poetry. But I think it is more because I like to engage with song lyrics--that is, ponder the meaning, intention and ramifications of the philosophy espoused by the lyrics. I see this as a legacy of my upbringing, where even the philosophical significance of a road-side billboard was free game to be called into question. For example, on seeing a billboard that said, “All you need is love,” my father might ask, “Is that statement true?” and for the next five minutes or so we would discuss the elements of truth and limitations of the statement, “All you need is love.” In a similar manner, I ponder within my own mind the elements of truth and limitations of song lyrics I hear.

Today’s song is B.o.B’s Airplanes. It’s a very romantic song, in the sense of romanticism--seeking to return to a better past. Whenever I hear this song, there is one line that catches my attention every time: “But nowadays we rappin’ to stay relevant.” This line comes from the following part of the song:

Somebody take me back to the days

Before this was a job, before I got paid

Before it ever mattered what I had in my bank

Yeah back when I was tryin' to get into the subway

And back when I was rappin' for the hell of it

But now a days we rappin' to stay relevant

I'm guessin that if we can make some wishes outta airplanes

Then maybe oh maybe I'll go back to the days

Before the politics that we call the rap game

And back when ain't nobody listened to my mix tape

And back before I tried to cover up my slang

But this is for the Cada, what's up Bobby Ray

So can I get a wish to end the politics

And get back to the music that started this s**t

So here I stand and then again I say

I'm hopin' we can make some wishes outta airplanes

Somehow I always think of American Christianity when I hear these lines. I think of television preachers and famous speakers; megachurches and seeker-sensitivism. And I want to go back to the days before church was a business. Before it ever mattered how many people sat in the pews on Sunday morning, or how much money came into the offering plate. Back when it didn’t matter whether you gathered in a school gym or a tall cathedral. Back when it was all about the truth and how God applied it to the heart.

You see, now a days, we preachin’ to stay relevant.  American Christianity has become largely all about covering up, not slang, but the offensiveness of its message. Seeker-sensitivism says that we can attract people to Christ. Unfortunately, the very message of the Gospel is offensive. To cover up its offense is to dilute it. Instead of diluting the truth, we need to speak the full truth in love.

With that said, though, “going back to the days,” is really a misnomer. Throughout church history, there have been those who have compromised the truth in their quest for outward results. Thus, “going back to the days,” even if it was possible, is not the real answer. The answer lies in “going back to the truth.” The truth is always with us in the Scriptures--no time travel necessary. There are churches in America that aren’t focused on numbers or statistics or a business model, but on faithfully proclaiming the truth in the Scriptures. Those are the places we need to go back to, because they will lead us back to the truth.

The Power of Words

I've been thinking a lot about words recently. I've come to believe that words have power. Words have power because they carry ideas, and ideas motivate actions. Words have the power to carry ideas because they carry meaning. Words are used by one person to communicate meaningful ideas to another person.

Today, however, our postmodern culture teaches us to use words vaguely. When we communicate, our words are less precise in meaning, and more steeped in connotation and innuendo than denotation and precision. We talk of feeling more, and thinking less.

Our culture today is addicted to social networking. It has become an almost sad irony that it is difficult to have a real face-to-face conversation with someone without them pulling out their phone at some stage to perform some social-networking function. And homework is always performed as a multi-task between writing the paper, and placing one’s two cents on that hilarious status that everyone is commenting on.

I am convinced that this social networking addiction is having an effect on our minds. I have read articles about how the way we use the web is changing the way we think. Think about the way you look for information on the internet. There isn’t much reading going on until you find what you are looking for. Until then, it is just skimming to find where to click. The same occurs, I think, with social networking.

Think about the general gist of most tweets or facebook statuses. Generally speaking, they probably end up being a random funny statement, followed by likes and witty comments in response. Everything is short, not much meaningful is exchanged, but everyone has a good laugh while staring at a screen.

This focus on the trivial and witty seems to be spilling over into real conversations. Think about the general pattern of your conversations with friends. Someone says something funny, and others respond in a series of witty comments. The pattern may just be a human pattern, but I think the spillover really shows in the triviality of those verbal exchanges. We have a good laugh, but in the end of the day, what have we really done? We have communicated meaningless trivia, rather than deep significance.

I have decided to focus on blogging as a way to train my mind away from the shallow trivia of status updates, and toward the deep thoughts that really matter. I hope that this focus will spillover into my conversations with others. I hope that by focusing on thinking more deeply, I will seek to talk about deeper things with others, and thus in turn encourage them to think and talk more deeply.

This is not to say that social networking is useless. I plan to use social networking as a tool to share the deeper thinking of my blog. But social networking is a tool, not a destination. I want to use it as the tool it should be, and keep ideas in their proper place.

The Importance of Calculus

Most people do not advance far in mathematics, and for that matter, do not care to. Often young people comment that they will never use calculus in their profession or in their daily lives. Even many older people will categorically state that they have never used any advanced mathematics in their lives since school. In saying this, however, they miss the intellectual effect of mathematics: mathematics provides a foundational bed of logic that enables a person to compute non-mathematical components in life.

Enter Calculus. Calculus offers us the concept of computing the ideal from a series of approximations. In calculating, for example, the area under a curve, one first thinks of a series of rectangles, the sum of whose areas gives an approximate figure of the area underneath that curve. This approximation is then extended to an imagined infinite number of rectangles (since the human mind, as finite, cannot wrap itself around infinity). By theoretically computing the infinite limit of this approximation, the exact, or ideal, value of the area can be computed. This concept of approximating the infinite or the ideal from the finite or approximate is very powerful.

Let us apply this mathematical concept to a seemingly non-mathematical field--Christianity. In the Christian life, we consider certain ideals--there is the law or standard expected of humans by God, which sinful human beings (and all are sinful) cannot hold to. There is also an example of the ideal, or perfect, Man, the God Man, Jesus Christ. He lived a perfect, that is, sinless, life on this earth, exemplifying to us the ideal (perfect) form of humanity. As Christians, we are called to live Christ-like lives--that is, lives that approximate the ideal form of humanity. In a sense, we are finite approximations to the infinite goodness of God. As approximations of the ideal Man, our objective is to make our approximation closer to the ideal, not to make ourselves look good, but to demonstrate how great God is, just as calculus, when applied to the real world, aims to make a sufficiently close approximation to the exact value.

How do we become closer approximations of the perfect God Man? We need to be empowered by the Spirit, we need to study the Word of God, and we need to learn from others’ more (or less) accurate approximations of Christ. Pursuing Christ-likeness is calculus in the truest sense; calculus of the most important kind.

I’ve Gotta Feeling that’s not Self Control

The purpose of art is to communicate that which we cannot communicate with words--our imagination. An artist uses his preferred medium to evoke in the imagination of the viewer the same emotions and ideas that he himself feels and believes. I can tell you that I am sad, but that does not communicate to you the sadness I am feeling. If, however, I sing a sad song, it evokes in you the same sadness I feel in me. This theory of art and imagination was expressed by Kevin T. Bauder, in his weekly article, In the Nick of Time, as a 10 part series entitled The Importance of Imagination.

This theory of art applies to The Black Eyed Pea’s “I Gotta Feeling.” I was recently listening to the song, when the main message of the song suddenly struck me in a way it never has before. I realized how the corresponding elements of the song communicate in harmony the emotions and ideas the performers desire to communicate.

When one listens to the song “I Gotta Feeling,” one is immediately presented with the driving theme--a simple sequence of chords that is repeated throughout the song, underlined by the driving bass line and beat. All of the musical elements contribute to cause the listener to want to move head and body. This desire to get mobile is an instinctual response--one doesn’t even really think about it--one just moves. It is almost a loss of control. This is the musical effect of the song.

It is also interesting to look at the intellectual message of the song, expressed in the lyrics. The main point of the song is the idea of losing control. This is echoed throughout the lyrics of the song, but especially in the line: “Lets go way out spaced out \ And loosing all control.” The lyrics correspond to the musical effect of the song--they quantify in words the concept that is communicated by the music.

The Bible contrasts starkly with this idea. In Galatians 5:22-23, self-control is one of the fruits of the Spirit. In Titus 1:8, self control is an attribute someone who is to be a bishop in the church must have. In 2 Peter 1:16 it is one of the things that is to be added to our faith so as to bring about fruitfulness in our knowledge of Christ. The opposite is expressed in 2 Timothy 3:3, where being without self-control is a mark of how men will be in the “perilous times” of the “last days.” It is clear that Scripture values self-control and sees a lack thereof as evil.

The contrast here is very evident. The message of The Black Eyed Pea’s “I Gotta Feeling” is clearly contrary to Scripture. It conforms us to the world, rather than transforming us to be more like Christ. It is exemplary of exactly that which Christians should leave behind. Choosing to follow Christ affects even our music choices, as hard a concept as that may be to understand. The music we choose should evoke in us emotions and ideas that are consistent with a Christ-like and Spirit-filled lifestyle.