Question: What are forces have shaped humanity?
Niall Ferguson: Greed and fear are pretty high up on the list.
It’s interesting though how complex human motivation is in shaping the process that we call history. There were people who were unquestionably actuated by greed, by the profit motive, when they crossed the Atlantic and began the process of colonization of the new world that ultimately produced, low and behold, the United States.
But there were also people who were convinced they were going to build a new Jerusalem whose motivations were primarily religious. And it’s striking to me how powerful those missionary impulses remain even into the 21st century.
People do behave in ways that are not simple profit maximizing. A lot of what gets done by non-governmental organizations today is analogous to what missionary societies were doing in the 19th century. It’s just that the motivations are secular in many cases, but not all, rather than religious. So there’s an interplay, to put it really simply, between economic motivations; but also on the other side, religious or ideological motivations if you prefer. That in itself is a simplification, because within that broad interplay of forces, individual motives can, in fact, be highly complicated and even irrational because human beings are not well designed by evolution to make careful calculations of probability. What we know from a lot of what has been done by behavioral psychologists how bad people are at assessing their own self interest; and how poorly they attach probabilities to future scenarios; and how readily they make snap decisions rather than weighing evidence.
So a really critical force – as important as the profit motive, as greed; as important as religion, ideology, and fear – is human stupidity. And in many ways, of the three I suspect that the central inability of the individual human being efficiently to calculate self-interest and accurately to attach probabilities to future scenarios – that is really the main driving force in history. And it is remarkable given the force of stupidity that there has been any material progress at all.
But then I console myself with the thought that, although we’ve made enormous leaps and bounds in the realm of economics, around science, we live longer, we live more comfortably, we have a better physical health during our lives. All of this is one of the most astonishing achievements of humanity. We have made life materially so much better, and most of that improvement happened in the last 100 years.
But before you get carried away and conclude that history is a progressive phenomenon, remember in the process we’ve done enormous harm to our environment, to other human beings who haven’t shared in the benefits, and we have developed the technology to destroy ourselves and all living things.
So that’s what I mean by human stupidity. I may be I’m putting it too crudely, but let me be more precise: about the human inability accurately to access future scenarios, and probabilities, and individual self interests.
Recorded on: Oct 15 2008
Discuss
Dalibor Nenadov on January 6, 2008, 8:24 PM
A funny take on a complex issue.
Dalibor Nenadov on January 7, 2008, 1:24 AM
A funny take on a complex issue.
Dean Perry on January 7, 2008, 4:40 PM
I suppose greed leads to stupidity.
Dean Perry on January 7, 2008, 9:40 PM
I suppose greed leads to stupidity.
Yoav Matalon on January 8, 2008, 2:34 AM
I guess selfishness is a form of stupidity%u2026 and an evolutionary necessity.
Yoav Matalon on January 8, 2008, 7:34 AM
I guess selfishness is a form of stupidity%u2026 and an evolutionary necessity.
Eileen Walsh on January 9, 2008, 2:23 PM
Stupidity defined as inefficient calculations of self-interest – it explains so much. This from an economist?!
Eileen Walsh on January 9, 2008, 7:23 PM
Stupidity defined as inefficient calculations of self-interest – it explains so much. This from an economist?!
Lord Jones on January 15, 2008, 9:56 PM
Spot on. Dr. Ferguson is a smart man.
Lord Jones on January 16, 2008, 2:56 AM
Spot on. Dr. Ferguson is a smart man.
Matt Rugg on January 19, 2008, 10:19 PM
Pertaining to the inability of people to make decisions based on sound probability, perhaps the good Professor should read “Gut Feelings, The Intelligence of the Unconscious” by Gerd Gigerenzer.
Christi Strickland on January 20, 2008, 6:57 PM
I don't believe that who we have been historically, defines who we are essentially.
As, the nature of life is much about adaptation, change, and constant evolution so it is the humans can continue to take in information from the environment and change and adapt and grow into new motives, ways of being, understanding, interacting, etc.. even collectively.
Personally, I don't see our greater folly as "stupidity" as it is stubborness – being too stubborn to take in the facts, see more clearly, extend our understanding of "self-interest" and allow ourselves to change and respond – as I assert is more our true nature.
Christi Strickland on January 20, 2008, 11:57 PM
I don’t believe that who we have been historically, defines who we are essentially.
As, the nature of life is much about adaptation, change, and constant evolution so it is the humans can continue to take in information from the environment and change and adapt and grow into new motives, ways of being, understanding, interacting, etc.. even collectively.
Personally, I don’t see our greater folly as “stupidity” as it is stubborness – being too stubborn to take in the facts, see more clearly, extend our understanding of “self-interest” and allow ourselves to change and respond – as I assert is more our true nature.
Ryan Oskin on January 30, 2008, 3:13 PM
Well I semi-agree with Christi, that we cannot be fully judge on our collective past. But I do think it gives us a pretty good picture of who we are. Although I agree with the adapting part. It is truly ironic that although we are so advanced and have came so far, we have left out huge problems that trouble us today. Stubbornness is stupidness in a sort of way that to be not stupid, you cannot be stubborn. I think now we have grown so much that we can finally attack the most obvious principles that plague us today.
Ryan Oskin on January 30, 2008, 8:13 PM
Well I semi-agree with Christi, that we cannot be fully judge on our collective past. But I do think it gives us a pretty good picture of who we are. Although I agree with the adapting part. It is truly ironic that although we are so advanced and have came so far, we have left out huge problems that trouble us today. Stubbornness is stupidness in a sort of way that to be not stupid, you cannot be stubborn. I think now we have grown so much that we can finally attack the most obvious principles that plague us today.
Hector Miguel Padilla on March 12, 2008, 8:03 PM
"HOPE WILL ALWAYS TAKE US FARTHER THAN FEAR"
Ernst Junger
Hector Miguel Padilla on March 13, 2008, 12:03 AM
“HOPE WILL ALWAYS TAKE US FARTHER THAN FEAR”Ernst Junger
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