TED: Ideas Worth Spreading: Ideas as a main Source of Wealth

[keirsey]

Good ideas are growing faster than a single person can handle. But that is good.

Economist Alex Tabarrok argues free trade and globalization are shaping our once-divided world into a community of idea-sharing more healthy, happy and prosperous than anyone's predictions.

Alex's Talk.

[Quinta]

This one is really optimistic. But in a sense, this is just what is happening at this board. It's free to join, from all over the world, the idea of temperament, so that it can benefit everyone.

I've sometimes wondered what distinguishes the growth that is good from destructive growth. Cancer, deserts spreading and pollution are examples of destructive growths. One thing, is that there is diversity in healthy growth.

[keirsey]

I've sometimes wondered what distinguishes the growth that is good from destructive growth. Cancer, deserts spreading and pollution are examples of destructive growths.

This is a question, which I have been working on for awhile. I have different answer, which is not exactly politically correct. My first pass on this question is that the notions of "good" and "bad" are blunt (or Hegelian binary) and too imprecise to be useful. On the other hand, putting subjective adjectives on "growth" and "decay" are important. And in my work, I am trying to explicate the relationships between growth and decay (where decay is a kind of growth and growth is a kind of decay.) Joseph Schumpeter is one person who I take the lead from. Although, I generalize on Schumpeter's analysis and apply physical, chemical, biologic, and evolutionary metaphors to better characterize different kinds of growth and decay.

One thing, is that there is diversity in healthy growth.

This is not clear to me that "diversity" is a requirement for "healthy" growth, nor that "diversity" is not part of decay (or maybe "bad" growth). This is a very interesting issue. I like the broaching of the subject. Particularly, what is "healthy growth" -- what does that mean in the abstract. How can you distinguish that from "unhealthy growth"?

The book Hypersea was one of the main books that opened my eyes to the complexity of birth, growth, equilibrium, decay, and death. Because one does not have a vested interest in things, one can divorce oneself from value judgments with the concepts of "good" and "bad." So now I see, for example, pollution in a different light, often I see pollution as good.

When the white eagle of the North is flying overhead
The browns, reds and golds of autumn lie in the gutter, dead.
Remember then, that summer birds with wings of fire flaying
Came to witness spring's new hope, born of leaves decaying.
Just as new life will come from death. -- Graeme Edge "The Dream" Moody Blues

[Quinta]

I've been hesitating before attempting to respond to your challenge, as I see you have been studying this complexity for a long time and in depth, while I have just been thinking a bit.

Quinta wrote:
One thing, is that there is diversity in healthy growth.

This is not clear to me that "diversity" is a requirement for "healthy" growth, nor that "diversity" is not part of decay (or maybe "bad" growth). This is a very interesting issue. I like the broaching of the subject. Particularly, what is "healthy growth" -- what does that mean in the abstract. How can you distinguish that from "unhealthy growth"?

And now that makes me think, and contradict what I wrote about diversity: What about grass, what about snow.. and what about the binary structures in data programming? Still, these are examples from the concrete world, and you are asking for abstract reasoning, not just an abstraction..

What made me think of this, was learning about cancer cells, versus healthy cells. Then you can add that healthy cells die when their time is up, while cancer cells continue growing (correct me if I'm wrong!) Saying that, you have one example of positive decay as well.

I haven't gotten further than that I look to nature for seeing principles of life.