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Jonah Lehrer is a contributing editor at Wired. He's also written for The New Yorker, Seed, Nature, and the New York Times and is a contributor to Radiolab. He's the author of Proust Was A Neuroscientist. His new book is How We Decide.
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Posted on: October 28, 2008 8:48 AM, by Jonah Lehrer
Comes courtesy of David Brooks:
This [financial[ meltdown is not just a financial event, but also a cultural one. It's a big, whopping reminder that the human mind is continually trying to perceive things that aren't true, and not perceiving them takes enormous effort.
For more, see here.
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People believe what they want to believe. We all wanted to believe that we could all get rich, own our own house, drive a Ferrari and be respected without any effort, or talent or knowledge or skill.
When a society or individual takes out more than it puts back, then somewhere there are societies and individuals putting back more than they are taking out. And while the former is considered "clever and admired" its not going to stop. At the moment we are just stealing from our global capital of 100 billion years of mineral accumulation. No-one is putting back.
Nice, innovative use of suare brackets....
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Comments (3)
Nice, innovative use of suare brackets.
But seriously, I think the issue is more that too many people have been telling people what they want to hear for so long that they think that this is their choice, their right, even. Now there is the classic example of a 'reality check'.
It seems there is a universal here; that the longer you put a thing [reality[ off, the harder it bites.
Posted by: eddie | October 31, 2008 2:27 PM