God complex

Tim Harford has a talk up on TED that highlights the difference between the “god complex”, that affliction that we usually ascribe to someone who consistently asserts that their opinion is automatically above those with whom they may disagree, and the practical use of trial and error.

When i went to look up a more concise definition of the god complex i found myself having a huge belly laugh because the last sentence of the description said that the term god complex does not appear in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; made me wonder if it might someday be found there.

The problem with the god complex is that no matter how complicated a problem is if you have an infallible belief that you are right you could be really wrong. This means that you eliminate all consideration for alternative roads to a mutually beneficial result because you are right and everyone else hasn't a clue. i would imagine all of us could find ourselves exhibiting god complex characteristics at some point during our lives.

Tim talks about the problems with trying to do anything using a defined set of criteria that does not involve trial and error. He claims that without trial and error nothing can be created. He advises us that the world is so complex there is no right answer but many answers and that it is imperative to use some humility when getting to those answers.

His dream is to have teachers work with children not only to get the right answer but to acknowledge our ignorance and to teach them that you don’t always know the answer. He claims that trial and error are the very philosophy of the universe.

He goes on to reflect on problems. When we encounter a problem and that problem is complex then you will need a complex solution. Trial and error gives you the courage and willingness to pursue different courses of action understanding that you might be wrong initially but eventually you may find the correct answer or solution.

Having an absolute belief that your way is the only way can lead to enormous mistakes. Resistance to change is not always beneficial to the final outcome. Learning from mistakes the way chemists did when they finally hit upon the strategy for making antibiotics changed health care as we know it.  The chemists learned from their original failures, they modified their experiments and tried again and again and again until they reached their goals.

Today in the political arena we have a lot of god complex types running roughshod over our economy. They don’t seem to understand that they represent all of us, the wealthy, the corporations, the middle class and the poor. They haven’t set out any future goals that impact all of us positively.

The surplus that Clinton left is GONE, the temporary tax holiday to use up the surplus has pushed us into recession. Taxes need to be reinstated; more tax holidays will not improve our condition. The god complex belief that a lower tax creates jobs needs to find its place in the trash heap of bad ideas, its time to move on as a nation and try a different method. These guys running the show today are going to ruin the country if we don’t stop them and it is you the little guy who will feel it more than the big guys.

Booman over at booman tribune had this to say yesterday.

The Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 have reduced the revenues taken in by the treasury by slightly more than the cost of the ten-year war on terror in Afghanistan and Iraq. In other words, if we hadn't cut taxes early in the last decade, we could have paid for those wars completely. On the other hand, if we hadn't committed either blunder, we'd have nearly three trillion dollars to pay down the debt or make investments in our country. What's going on now is an aggressive effort to make middle class people pay for the wars, with interest included. If rich people had paid their taxes over the past decade, we wouldn't be in this position. What we're doing today is filling the hole created by Bush's tax cuts. So, for example, we're going to cut spending on education and transportation and research to make up for the fact that Steve Forbes didn't pay tens of millions of dollars in taxes over the last ten years.

So Stop supporting bad ideas. 

Reducing taxes does not produce jobs.

Spending cuts do not produce jobs, they eliminate jobs.

Trickle down is really trickle up.

See ya next week.