Thermodyneconomics

People keep bringing up the idea of whether or not economics is "zero sum", and it certainly makes a difference: if the economy is zero sum and one person becomes rich, then others have been made poorer as a result. If, on the other hand, the net wealth is increasing, then it's possible (though not guaranteed) that someone can become rich without making others poor.

In practice, free market folks often accuse those to their left of falling into the fallacy of thinking the economy is zero-sum, and this is embodied by the 99% movement and calls for wealth taxes, but I think both sides are guilty of fallacies. Certainly, if we take a long enough view, then it's abundantly clear that net global wealth does increase: the world is far wealthier today than it was a hundred or a thousand years ago, without question. But these are long timescales. How can we reason about shorter timescales?

Thermodynamics is primarily about the idea of heat, and how it flows from one system to another. It provides for different ensembles, each with their own rules of whether heat is invariant or not. If we equate heat with wealth, I believe we can find some interesting parallels. Typically one starts with the idea of total heat being invariant, and then define one of the systems to be very big and call it the "surroundings", and this leads to the "canonical ensemble" in which heat can actually enter and leave. One could take it further and compare particles to people in a "grand canonical ensemble" but I'm not quite ready to go that far. So let's say the economy is a canonical ensemble, where the total heat/wealth is free to increase or decrease over time. So what does a partition function map to? I have no idea, and will have to think more about it.

There are many types of reactions in which heat, particles, temperatures, volumes, etc, may change. One type of reaction we all learn about in introductory thermo classes is known as adiabatic. An adiabatic reaction is one in which no heat is transferred, such as expanding/compressing a perfectly-insulated (so no heat can escape) piston. A more practical, though slightly more confusing, example is a very fast reaction, such as gas rushing out of a punctured high-pressure container, which cools down because adiabatic expansion decreases temperature. This reaction is adiabatic because it takes place more quickly than the heat can transfer. Interestingly, you can also achieve adiabaticity with a very slow reaction, but that's something else entirely.

So we've seen that on very short timescales, systems are effectively adiabatic. In the same way, on very short timescales, the economy really is zero-sum. When we hear news stories that "XX trillion dollars of wealth were wiped away today", that's nonsense, because in a 24-hour timeframe, the economy is zero-sum. In this case, it wasn't even a transfer of wealth from one person to another, but a realization that the wealth never actually existed in the first place (there's likely an analogue to virtual particles here). However, when one person suddenly (i.e. adiabatically) becomes very rich in actually realized gains, it generally does mean that somebody else lost. Winning and losing is certainly an important part of capitalism, which isn't inherently problematic, but it does mean that some care should be paid to the systems that are in place, and we should try to understand exactly how the wealth is moving.

Where does wealth come from? Technological advancement is certainly important here, from the innovators who come up with the ideas, to the entrepreneurs who fund them, to the workers who make them happen. When an entrepreneur becomes wealthy, there may be some "zero-sum" component to it, but generally most of the short-term gains are unrealized, and it takes much longer for the real wealth to show up. So outrage against this wealth seems counterproductive. Given these analogues, it seems to me that the issue is with the bankers and speculators, whose wealth is presumably coming from ordinary people. So the challenge is this: how do we realign incentives to arrest this flow without negatively impacting legitimate investment in innovation?

Prismatic Melodies

Slate upon the midnight sky
Part curtains grand before my eye
Unveiling framed the radiance of the moon.

How vast beyond the silver shade
Unfolds a palette soft as suede
Replete with stars so infinitely strewn.

And in my mind I travel there
To meet the one whose brush so fair
Imbues the night with brilliance riv'ling noon.

When I arrived I did behold
Prismatic melodies of old
Dissolve behind the painter gone so soon.

And yet I know that by some grace
Someday I'll look upon that face—
The one who painted stars and space—
And as my fleeting steps retrace
I know I'll taste that same chromatic tune.

Another Brick in the Wall

It's been a while since I've written, but I've been working through some thoughts lately, and I figured they were worth sharing. I've been trying to work out what it looks like to trust God to provide, rather than trying to take care of everything my own way, and it's puzzled me for a while.

Tonight at Bible study, we talked about unanswered prayer, which led naturally to the topic of anxiety, among others. And while there are a lot of ways in which my anxiety has decreased since I've been a Christian, I think maybe the possibility of unanswered prayer has done just the opposite (obviously it wasn't an anxiety before). But where does this anxiety come from?

Let me cast it yet another way, in terms of relationships. In a passage I read in Harry Potter tonight, Harry and the crew walk into Hogwarts and Professor McGonagall asks him to come to her office, and there's a remark that she tended to evoke feelings that he had done something wrong, even though he hadn't in this case. Or another fictional situation: the main character in the movie Lars and the Real Girl can't deal with any physical contact from anyone - he instantly recoils from anything. In both these situations, the characters are bracing themselves against other people. When Harry gets called, he braces against the possibility of being scolded, because it's happened in the past. There's an implicit backstory that Lars had probably also been hurt in the past, causing him to brace against any contact from anyone. Moving to real life, I've found that I brace myself in different ways against different people. With closer, more trusted friends, I am more open. My defenses are let down, and these friends are able to see more of "the real me" (though never its entirety). With newer friends, I tend to be more guarded, not knowing what to expect.

With authority figures (manager, pastor, etc), I have an automatic authority brace that kicks in, similar to Harry in the example. Even if a particular authority figure hasn't ever reprimanded me, and even if I'm unaware of any lapse, I still wonder if there's something I've done wrong. Will my boss fire me today, or will my pastor rebuke me for something or other? I don't know if this paranoia is at all normal, or where it comes from if it isn't, but any time I have a one-on-one conversation initiated by such a person, even against all rationality I brace against the possibility so that, in the event that it does happen, I'm less affected by it. But the cost is that I've erected a wall. I'm always guarding something and it's a hindrance to any true fellowship.

Romantic relationships suffer the same thing. One of the end goals, in my mind, of such a relationship is to ultimately end up with fewer walls than I have with even my best friends, and ideally none at all. But tearing down walls is a slow and difficult, and sometimes painful, process; and in the context of a romantic relationship, there are unique walls that don't even particularly apply elsewhere. I can be comfortable with my close friends as friends because I can reason they have absolutely no reason to spurn me. There's no limit to the number of friends they can have, other than those imposed by time commitments. The likelihood of a close friend just deciding at any point that we shouldn't be friends anymore is pretty small, so it's relatively low-risk to let those guards down. But in the end, you can only have one spouse. And even more in today's culture we have a mindset that we must absolutely pick the right one. So while I may get along great with a significant other, it's not at all unreasonable that at some point one person or the other will decide for some reason that this isn't the right relationship and end it. My natural reaction to this possibility is again to brace against it. Now all my interactions with a significant other are guarded against this, and ironically drive them away by my unwillingness to lower my guard.

Back to rationality. It's not difficult to see that these walls provide minimal benefit in the best case, and are dangerous in the worst case. The alternative is that I'll be taken by surprise sometimes. I won't be ready for the breakup, or the rebuke, or the firing (well, hopefully that one at least doesn't happen). I assume when I talk to someone who has some sort of power over me (economic, spiritual, interpersonal) that they will not exercise it. I trust them not to. By extending this trust, the relationship is deeper and more fulfilling. (The difficulty here is that a good friend will indeed call me out if I'm in the wrong, setting a "bad" precedent on the surface, which is beyond the scope of this post to deal with.)

Full circle. I deal with the Lord in exactly the same way. Again, as one who has power over me, I instinctively keep my guard up in interacting with Him. Moreover, because we interact not only as Lord and subject but also as Lover and beloved, the relationship suffers from my neuroses on both counts. While I know in my head that under no circumstance will my God abandon me, I brace against the possibility that He wants to "see other people". While I know in my head that the Lord gives good gifts to those He loves, I brace myself against the possibility that I'll end up with the short straw. While I know in my head that if He refuses me something I have my heart set on it follows that He has something even better in mind, yet I still brace against it simply because in my limited imagination I can't picture what could possibly be better.

So how do I tear down the wall? How do I trust? How do I give people the benefit of the doubt (or stop doubting, in the case of God)? Work. Conscious effort. Prayer. Faith. Hope. Love. At the root of all these walls is insecurity and anxiety. But God says "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." The perfect guard is already there - I don't need to build it myself.

Where were you?

Where were you when I was ambushed on the road?
Where were you when I was attacked, unarmed?
Where were you when I was outnumbered by thousands?
Where were you when I was pierced by flaming arrows?
Where were you when I was beaten and bruised?
Where were you? Where were you? Where were you?

I gave you boots and prepared you, yet you did not run.
I gave you an indestructible sword, yet you left it sheathed.
I gave you a horn and ten thousand legions, yet you sounded it not.
I gave you a shield, yet you had no faith in it.
I gave you a helmet and only thus did you not perish.
I was there: it was I who saved you.
I am here, tending to your wounds.
I will be with you always.

Two Are Better Than One

Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work: If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up! Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone? Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.

-- Ecclesiastes 4:9-12

And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worth of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.

-- Colossians 1:9-10