We had an interesting discussion about prostitution at last night's Ideas Cafe.
We were not so much discussing the legality of prostitution but more about the source of stigma society associate with prostitution and the origin of some of our attitudes towards sex.
Both Shula and Rafi felt sex is no different than other bodily needs like the need for food. We can have sex with someone we love and that would be like having a meal and good conversation with someone you love. This will be quite different than the experience of getting a fast food meal just to satisfy hunger. People should be able to have the same choice with sex as they do with food.
Bruce said that while we talked about consenting adults, prostitution inevitably involved unsavory elements like pimps who draw underage girls into the business with drugs. These girls get to hate their customers and yet have to demean themselves to keep servicing these customers.
Shula felt that this is the result of the criminal element much like what is happening to illegal drugs. Where prostitution is legal and protected, it should be no different than other jobs where some workers also do not like their customers.
Bob said that he had heard people in prostitution saying their profession being not that different than stay at home housewives years ago before it became common for both spouses to go out to work.
Christiana said that she is taking a course in developmental psychology now and that women's behaviour by definition has to be shaped by the need for eighteen years of child raising when having sex for procreation. She was brought up by conservative parents who told her to not let go of her virginity easily as it is a precious thing.
Christiana also mentioned that she knows someone who is a stripper who enjoys the attraction she gets and the easy living she can make compared to other jobs. It fits the high school career days message of do what you like as a career.
Bruce also brought up the point that as social animals, we need intimacy and also can only handle a limited number of social connections without feeling the lack of intimacy in large groups. Shula and Rafi said that having multiple sex partners are still within the limited social connections described. It is no different than having a family of ten or more siblings in the older days and the siblings still relate to each other compared to the typical two per family today.
Rafi's final argument is that we should not be setting laws just to protect a small number of people at the margins while infringing the freedom of the masses.
I can see Shula and Rafi's arguments but I can also see the difficulty of changing long established social norms and the complications that this new attitude towards sex will bring. However, our attitude towards gender differences, sexual orientation, and even our acceptance of gambling casinos continues to change.
The discussion brought out the fundamental change in the function of sex for procreation to sex for recreation. Decades after the birth control pill, we are still dealing with the adjustments. Shula and Rafi's point is that being parents and being sex partners are two different things.
Can our society make that change?
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Morality without god?
Continuing on thoughts of atheists as well as John Lennox's book on the religious side, are we capable of being moral without god?
The atheists claims that religion cherry picks what they want for morality and attribute it as coming from god.
The religious claims that science can do a lot towards explaining the physical world but is completely inappropriate when it comes to establishing what is good or evil.
The atheists claims that good people do good things and bad people do bad things, only religion can cause good people to do bad things. Their examples are the 9/11 hijackers who are university educated people thinking they are serving the Islamic god and the crusaders thinking they are serving the christian god. They were all killing for a religious cause.
The religious claims that atheists dictators like Stalin and Mao killed thousands.
Here, the atheists rebuttal is that Stalin and Mao did not kill because of atheism but they were bad people doing bad things, not good atheists killing in the name of atheism as the crusaders and 9/11 hijackers.
From Lennox book, I can now see that the religious claim is not that Stalin and Mao kill on theist issues but actually that it is the lack of god as the cosmic policeman and guardian of morals that led Stalin and Mao to commit their killings. If atheism is widely accepted, then more Stalin and Mao types may be emboldened to commit killings with the idea that there is no god to punish them and no final judgment that they have to answer for.
It seem obvious that even if there is a god, Stalin and Mao were not convinced that they have to face judgment. So advancing atheism would not have made a difference there, but would it encourage more Stalin and Mao like dictators?
High minded atheists believe we should be moral for humanity's sake rather than because there is a god to make them moral. But even they lock their doors and live in a society where there is law enforcement to keep them safe. Not just the trust of others to behave morally like them.
Does wanting a benevolent supernatural god make it so?
Even if having an all knowing god and policeman is good for us, it does not mean this god exists. Stalin and Mao knows this. We may use Santa Claus to motivate a young child to behave but none of us would expect this to work on Stalin and Mao.
Should we continuing deluding ourselves with an adult version of Santa Claus in the hope of stopping more future Stalins and Maos?
Wishing just does not make it so.
Human behavior covers a wide range. There are highly moral and independent among us as well as selfish individuals trying to take advantage of others or the system when not monitored. We need policeman and enforcers to handle these selfish individuals but the policeman themselves need to be monitored by society as a whole. Moral leaders can distinguish themselves with their thoughts and opinions by the democratic public.
As to whether we need a god to be a source of our morals, the Chinese and other Asian countries have had a long history of sourcing their morals and cultural values from Confucius teachings. His disciples never claimed him to be a deity, but here is enough acceptance and government support to make this the basis of social morals for a large portions of the world population for thousands of years.
True, there is still ancestor worship for those who want special favours from the heavens but the social moral code is set on a scholar's thinking.
We can debate as to whether Confucius teachings are the right basis for morals but the example of morality without god is already shown.
It can be done, we can have morals without a supernatural god.
The atheists claims that religion cherry picks what they want for morality and attribute it as coming from god.
The religious claims that science can do a lot towards explaining the physical world but is completely inappropriate when it comes to establishing what is good or evil.
The atheists claims that good people do good things and bad people do bad things, only religion can cause good people to do bad things. Their examples are the 9/11 hijackers who are university educated people thinking they are serving the Islamic god and the crusaders thinking they are serving the christian god. They were all killing for a religious cause.
The religious claims that atheists dictators like Stalin and Mao killed thousands.
Here, the atheists rebuttal is that Stalin and Mao did not kill because of atheism but they were bad people doing bad things, not good atheists killing in the name of atheism as the crusaders and 9/11 hijackers.
From Lennox book, I can now see that the religious claim is not that Stalin and Mao kill on theist issues but actually that it is the lack of god as the cosmic policeman and guardian of morals that led Stalin and Mao to commit their killings. If atheism is widely accepted, then more Stalin and Mao types may be emboldened to commit killings with the idea that there is no god to punish them and no final judgment that they have to answer for.
It seem obvious that even if there is a god, Stalin and Mao were not convinced that they have to face judgment. So advancing atheism would not have made a difference there, but would it encourage more Stalin and Mao like dictators?
High minded atheists believe we should be moral for humanity's sake rather than because there is a god to make them moral. But even they lock their doors and live in a society where there is law enforcement to keep them safe. Not just the trust of others to behave morally like them.
Does wanting a benevolent supernatural god make it so?
Even if having an all knowing god and policeman is good for us, it does not mean this god exists. Stalin and Mao knows this. We may use Santa Claus to motivate a young child to behave but none of us would expect this to work on Stalin and Mao.
Should we continuing deluding ourselves with an adult version of Santa Claus in the hope of stopping more future Stalins and Maos?
Wishing just does not make it so.
Human behavior covers a wide range. There are highly moral and independent among us as well as selfish individuals trying to take advantage of others or the system when not monitored. We need policeman and enforcers to handle these selfish individuals but the policeman themselves need to be monitored by society as a whole. Moral leaders can distinguish themselves with their thoughts and opinions by the democratic public.
As to whether we need a god to be a source of our morals, the Chinese and other Asian countries have had a long history of sourcing their morals and cultural values from Confucius teachings. His disciples never claimed him to be a deity, but here is enough acceptance and government support to make this the basis of social morals for a large portions of the world population for thousands of years.
True, there is still ancestor worship for those who want special favours from the heavens but the social moral code is set on a scholar's thinking.
We can debate as to whether Confucius teachings are the right basis for morals but the example of morality without god is already shown.
It can be done, we can have morals without a supernatural god.
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Faith
Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and others have been branded the "new atheists" by the religious side. These new atheists are directly challenging religion's place in our thinking and their established position in our society as well as our acceptance of their claims.
The new atheists assertion is that religion rely on faith from their followers to accept what religion teaches them. To the atheists, faith is defined as "belief without evidence" whereas the scientific approach is always evidence based and science is always ready to update its thinking when new evidence differs with the current scientific theory.
I was recently given a book written by John Lennox who argues from the religious side against the new atheists. Lennox even quoted Mark Twain saying that "Faith is believing what you know ain't true".
However, through Lennox, I can see the religious argument that we all need faith.
Lennox argues that science's so call evidence based approach rely on one fundamental assumption that there is order in this world and that the world as we experienced today and before will continue to behave as it has in the past.
While the sun seems to rise every morning in our experience, there is actually no proof or basis to claim that it will continue to do so tomorrow. Therefore we, and indeed, even scientists, are relying on faith that the sun will rise tomorrow. They can repeat their experiments to confirm their theories but there is no guarantee that the next time they perform the experiment, it will give the same results.
From a completely different source, Nassim Taleb, the author of "The Black Swan" and predictor of the 2008 financial crisis, talked about not being able to confirm a theory by doing more experiments. We can look at any number of white swans and not conclusively say that all swans are white. But one sighting of a black swan will dispute the white swan theory.
Similarly, Taleb talked about what we can learn from the turkey:
"Consider a turkey that is fed every day. Every single feeding will firm up the bird's belief that it is the general rule of life to be fed every day by friendly members of the human race.......On the afternoon of the Wednesday before Thanks giving, something unexpected will happen to the turkey. It will incur a revision of belief."
(I understand that Taleb got this from Bertrand Russell who used a chicken for his example.)
This is typically the problem of knowledge by induction. There may be traps that we do not yet know until we come up to it.
Therefore Lennox concluded that even the atheists need faith to carry on with their lives. They are just denying this as we all take for granted the faith of expecting the earth to go on as it always had.
I can see Lennox's point.
However, we do have to recognize that we do not strap ourselves down to our beds every night in case we somehow lose gravity while we sleep and we ended up flying off our beds.
Between the black and white of having or not having faith, there is the gray area of conducting our life based on the probable.
Having faith that gravity will exert itself in the next second seems to me a much better bet than expecting the water to turn into wine in the next second or have manna dropping from heaven.
Life is not about black and white but more the weighing of the probabilities.
Besides, we tend to give science a bad name for revising what they claim previous. It is important to realise that science have not actually changed anything in terms of how things are but only in how we understanding of it. Our understanding is constantly being updated as we know more.
It is like getting closer and closer to a destination when we travel, we get more and more detail. What seemed like a dessert from afar may actually have lush oasis as we get closer.
It almost seem to me that we need two different words for faith. One for expecting things to continue as the scientist and atheists assume and a different word for believing in miracles and other rare or nonexistent happenings.
The atheists claim from David Hume is that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof or evidence" before one can believe the eye witness or the messenger still stands for me.
The new atheists assertion is that religion rely on faith from their followers to accept what religion teaches them. To the atheists, faith is defined as "belief without evidence" whereas the scientific approach is always evidence based and science is always ready to update its thinking when new evidence differs with the current scientific theory.
I was recently given a book written by John Lennox who argues from the religious side against the new atheists. Lennox even quoted Mark Twain saying that "Faith is believing what you know ain't true".
However, through Lennox, I can see the religious argument that we all need faith.
Lennox argues that science's so call evidence based approach rely on one fundamental assumption that there is order in this world and that the world as we experienced today and before will continue to behave as it has in the past.
While the sun seems to rise every morning in our experience, there is actually no proof or basis to claim that it will continue to do so tomorrow. Therefore we, and indeed, even scientists, are relying on faith that the sun will rise tomorrow. They can repeat their experiments to confirm their theories but there is no guarantee that the next time they perform the experiment, it will give the same results.
From a completely different source, Nassim Taleb, the author of "The Black Swan" and predictor of the 2008 financial crisis, talked about not being able to confirm a theory by doing more experiments. We can look at any number of white swans and not conclusively say that all swans are white. But one sighting of a black swan will dispute the white swan theory.
Similarly, Taleb talked about what we can learn from the turkey:
"Consider a turkey that is fed every day. Every single feeding will firm up the bird's belief that it is the general rule of life to be fed every day by friendly members of the human race.......On the afternoon of the Wednesday before Thanks giving, something unexpected will happen to the turkey. It will incur a revision of belief."
(I understand that Taleb got this from Bertrand Russell who used a chicken for his example.)
This is typically the problem of knowledge by induction. There may be traps that we do not yet know until we come up to it.
Therefore Lennox concluded that even the atheists need faith to carry on with their lives. They are just denying this as we all take for granted the faith of expecting the earth to go on as it always had.
I can see Lennox's point.
However, we do have to recognize that we do not strap ourselves down to our beds every night in case we somehow lose gravity while we sleep and we ended up flying off our beds.
Between the black and white of having or not having faith, there is the gray area of conducting our life based on the probable.
Having faith that gravity will exert itself in the next second seems to me a much better bet than expecting the water to turn into wine in the next second or have manna dropping from heaven.
Life is not about black and white but more the weighing of the probabilities.
Besides, we tend to give science a bad name for revising what they claim previous. It is important to realise that science have not actually changed anything in terms of how things are but only in how we understanding of it. Our understanding is constantly being updated as we know more.
It is like getting closer and closer to a destination when we travel, we get more and more detail. What seemed like a dessert from afar may actually have lush oasis as we get closer.
It almost seem to me that we need two different words for faith. One for expecting things to continue as the scientist and atheists assume and a different word for believing in miracles and other rare or nonexistent happenings.
The atheists claim from David Hume is that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof or evidence" before one can believe the eye witness or the messenger still stands for me.
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Spirituality
We discussed spirituality at a cafe last night.
There was a number of definitions thrown around as to what spirituality is. I find it difficult to define spirituality in terms such as "energy", "spirit", "soul" as these terms in themselves are illusive and difficult to grasp so definitions built on these terms are also illusive.
Even putting spirituality as something that gives our life meaning becomes difficult as we try to debate what is the "meaning" for life.
So I am back to my understanding of spirituality as an emotional feeling that there is a bigger design, or even a supernatural being behind what we are observing. That there is something we don't quite understand happening behind what may be rather superficially simple.
Vivianne mention events that are coincidental, or synchronicity in timing arousing our suspicion of this bigger scheme behind things. Magnificent vistas such as sunrise, sunsets, clouds parting after a storm, also make us wonder if something or someone is responsible for this.
Steve mentioned that spiritual feelings are intensely personal and it becomes less and less so when shared or compared with others, especially those who may not share the same views.
This may be why a lot of people these days claim to be spiritual but not religious. They feel the possible existence of a supernatural being to explain what they are feeling but this personal version of the supernatural being does not quite fit the model proposed by any of the established religions.
If we accept that humans are
1. curious,
2. tends to use their past experience to build models and form explanations of what they observe in the present,
3. likes to use these models to predict future events,
then it follows that coincidence and impressive images begs explanations of some kind.
Sometimes, they hit it right.
Other times, the real reason require much more observations and experimentation to get to the real reason.
It is so obvious that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. No wonder it took a long time to figure out that it is the earth that revolves around the sun.
It is so obvious that water flows down when not contained, of course the earth has to be flat to hold that water and so we won't fall off.
But we can't wait. We want that reason now.
Emotional responses are our quick take of the situation, then a judgement of whether it is a good or bad situation. We need this in the amygdala part of our brain to make a quick decision to fight or flee.
Fast response is preferred over considered deliberation for this.
Spirituality is our emotional response to something we want to explain, and we feel that we are close to an explanation.
The gods must be responsible for the bad weather as ancient Greek sailors would have to think. Not until we have the telegraph when we can get timely weather information from locations close by that a storm is coming do we understand that weather systems actually move around and not localised just to punish some poor soul.
Something as colossal as earthquakes and floods must be commanded by the gods. Even in modern times we have some religious people blaming these natural disasters on people not behaving.
That is the other part about us, we want to impart intentions to what we see. Bob thinks Mary is not returning his call because she is upset with him when it could be that the phone is not working, she is busy, or any number of other reasons. We seem to want intention as the first explanation. We even personalise "mother earth" so as to get some intention on how the earth reacts.
Is it possible that spirituality is just our emotional quick response to coincidences and impressive vistas, and that these responses require cold hard analysis rather than a quick answer (that can be so satisfying but wrong?)
For the people who continue to believe that natural disasters are an act of god, they are condemning god to be a merciless being as it is not possible for that god to make sure all the people hurt by that disaster is worthy of the suffering inflicted.
And for those who feel spiritual but not religious, they are forming their own model of the supernatural to explain what they observe. It is so subjective and personal that many adjustments are required to fit this model to established religion that the adjusted model no longer relates to the persons emotions.
Is this the reason why there are so many versions of the christian god?
Personal models can be ideal and not subject to reality or other people's spiritual models. Religion needs to accommodate the common features of most people's spiritual models and inevitably, not appeal to some others. The fact that religion claims to be the truth also makes it difficult to adjust to changing times. Truths are not suppose to change with time.
Accommodating all these spiritual models and explaining today's events with 2000 year or older "truths" is not a task that I envy.
There was a number of definitions thrown around as to what spirituality is. I find it difficult to define spirituality in terms such as "energy", "spirit", "soul" as these terms in themselves are illusive and difficult to grasp so definitions built on these terms are also illusive.
Even putting spirituality as something that gives our life meaning becomes difficult as we try to debate what is the "meaning" for life.
So I am back to my understanding of spirituality as an emotional feeling that there is a bigger design, or even a supernatural being behind what we are observing. That there is something we don't quite understand happening behind what may be rather superficially simple.
Vivianne mention events that are coincidental, or synchronicity in timing arousing our suspicion of this bigger scheme behind things. Magnificent vistas such as sunrise, sunsets, clouds parting after a storm, also make us wonder if something or someone is responsible for this.
Steve mentioned that spiritual feelings are intensely personal and it becomes less and less so when shared or compared with others, especially those who may not share the same views.
This may be why a lot of people these days claim to be spiritual but not religious. They feel the possible existence of a supernatural being to explain what they are feeling but this personal version of the supernatural being does not quite fit the model proposed by any of the established religions.
If we accept that humans are
1. curious,
2. tends to use their past experience to build models and form explanations of what they observe in the present,
3. likes to use these models to predict future events,
then it follows that coincidence and impressive images begs explanations of some kind.
Sometimes, they hit it right.
Other times, the real reason require much more observations and experimentation to get to the real reason.
It is so obvious that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. No wonder it took a long time to figure out that it is the earth that revolves around the sun.
It is so obvious that water flows down when not contained, of course the earth has to be flat to hold that water and so we won't fall off.
But we can't wait. We want that reason now.
Emotional responses are our quick take of the situation, then a judgement of whether it is a good or bad situation. We need this in the amygdala part of our brain to make a quick decision to fight or flee.
Fast response is preferred over considered deliberation for this.
Spirituality is our emotional response to something we want to explain, and we feel that we are close to an explanation.
The gods must be responsible for the bad weather as ancient Greek sailors would have to think. Not until we have the telegraph when we can get timely weather information from locations close by that a storm is coming do we understand that weather systems actually move around and not localised just to punish some poor soul.
Something as colossal as earthquakes and floods must be commanded by the gods. Even in modern times we have some religious people blaming these natural disasters on people not behaving.
That is the other part about us, we want to impart intentions to what we see. Bob thinks Mary is not returning his call because she is upset with him when it could be that the phone is not working, she is busy, or any number of other reasons. We seem to want intention as the first explanation. We even personalise "mother earth" so as to get some intention on how the earth reacts.
Is it possible that spirituality is just our emotional quick response to coincidences and impressive vistas, and that these responses require cold hard analysis rather than a quick answer (that can be so satisfying but wrong?)
For the people who continue to believe that natural disasters are an act of god, they are condemning god to be a merciless being as it is not possible for that god to make sure all the people hurt by that disaster is worthy of the suffering inflicted.
And for those who feel spiritual but not religious, they are forming their own model of the supernatural to explain what they observe. It is so subjective and personal that many adjustments are required to fit this model to established religion that the adjusted model no longer relates to the persons emotions.
Is this the reason why there are so many versions of the christian god?
Personal models can be ideal and not subject to reality or other people's spiritual models. Religion needs to accommodate the common features of most people's spiritual models and inevitably, not appeal to some others. The fact that religion claims to be the truth also makes it difficult to adjust to changing times. Truths are not suppose to change with time.
Accommodating all these spiritual models and explaining today's events with 2000 year or older "truths" is not a task that I envy.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Money
Last night we discussed money, the root of all evil?
I was going to discuss greed and how it may be different from ambition.
We talked a bit about altruism, balancing the priority of achieving personal independence versus helping others.
However, the discussion quickly moved to reactions to government bailouts of the economic crisis, how money no longer connects to producing what we need in life and consumerism that is leading to the rapid depletion of our resources.
Gerhardt mentioned that as a child, he had to help his father with farm work, how he could see food being produced and there was sense in work and money. Later on, as he worked in the computer field and had share options, he saw his assets swing wildly with stock market valuations of his shares and his computer efforts no longer gave him the connectedness he had with his childhood farm work.
He called the financial problems two years ago as voodoo economics where everyone was chasing after some mathematical formula with no visible improvement to the benefit for the world. Everyone was out there to try to take advantage of someone else until the whole system falls apart and the government was forced to bail out the financial system with everyone's money while the financial industry continue to distribute big bonuses.
Rafi acknowledged that with experience we can now see that the US financial system should have had more regulation. However, the US system is still the most efficient system around. This efficiency may need to be compromised with regulation to provide more stability or to reduce the disparity between the high and low income earners but these are all choices we have to make.
Both Shula and Rafi pointed out that mathematics represent reality and financial derivatives serve a real purpose in our economy.
Dan pointed out that we are all involved in this and we also need to recognize our part in this. He used the example that when he buys insurance, he usually do not read the pages of fine print that goes with the insurance policy. Strictly speaking, it is his negligence for not doing so when he finds that he is not covered because of some of the conditions described in the fine print.
So when mortgages were given to people who obviously could not afford it but were counting on rising house prices to bail them out, should the home buyer or the government that push for more home ownership have some responsibility? We all blame the mortgage lenders for lending indiscriminately, but in a free society where we are all responsible for our decisions, do we have some responsibility for defaulting on something we cannot afford?
This is were it occurred to me on defining how much regulation we need for a free enterprise society. Regulation is required where it is impractical for the participants to determine the risks involved in the agreement they make.
So we need to regulate banks and insurance companies because we do not want to have to make a full study of the financial health of these entities as to whether they can honor their obligations before we deposit our money with them or buy an insurance policy from them. It is not practical for us to do "due diligence" on them and continue to do it while we have money deposited with them or an insurance policy from them. That amount of care belongs to investing stock in these companies but not as a customer of these companies.
Commerce will grind to a halt if we have to do this kind of "due diligence" before using their services. So even though we generally operate on a "buyer beware" free society, regulation is required to protect customers as well as to facilitate commerce.
More regulation offers more protection but also makes the regulated company all behave the same and stops them from doing innovative variations without additional risks as the nature of regulation is to not do anything that is different.
The combination of complexity that lull us into deferring our responsibility to others, the drive to more efficiency through less regulation, and the initial wild profits from an inflating housing bubble all contributed to us ending in a spot called the financial crisis.
Complexity is here to stay. We better figure out how to handle it.
I was going to discuss greed and how it may be different from ambition.
We talked a bit about altruism, balancing the priority of achieving personal independence versus helping others.
However, the discussion quickly moved to reactions to government bailouts of the economic crisis, how money no longer connects to producing what we need in life and consumerism that is leading to the rapid depletion of our resources.
Gerhardt mentioned that as a child, he had to help his father with farm work, how he could see food being produced and there was sense in work and money. Later on, as he worked in the computer field and had share options, he saw his assets swing wildly with stock market valuations of his shares and his computer efforts no longer gave him the connectedness he had with his childhood farm work.
He called the financial problems two years ago as voodoo economics where everyone was chasing after some mathematical formula with no visible improvement to the benefit for the world. Everyone was out there to try to take advantage of someone else until the whole system falls apart and the government was forced to bail out the financial system with everyone's money while the financial industry continue to distribute big bonuses.
Rafi acknowledged that with experience we can now see that the US financial system should have had more regulation. However, the US system is still the most efficient system around. This efficiency may need to be compromised with regulation to provide more stability or to reduce the disparity between the high and low income earners but these are all choices we have to make.
Both Shula and Rafi pointed out that mathematics represent reality and financial derivatives serve a real purpose in our economy.
Dan pointed out that we are all involved in this and we also need to recognize our part in this. He used the example that when he buys insurance, he usually do not read the pages of fine print that goes with the insurance policy. Strictly speaking, it is his negligence for not doing so when he finds that he is not covered because of some of the conditions described in the fine print.
So when mortgages were given to people who obviously could not afford it but were counting on rising house prices to bail them out, should the home buyer or the government that push for more home ownership have some responsibility? We all blame the mortgage lenders for lending indiscriminately, but in a free society where we are all responsible for our decisions, do we have some responsibility for defaulting on something we cannot afford?
This is were it occurred to me on defining how much regulation we need for a free enterprise society. Regulation is required where it is impractical for the participants to determine the risks involved in the agreement they make.
So we need to regulate banks and insurance companies because we do not want to have to make a full study of the financial health of these entities as to whether they can honor their obligations before we deposit our money with them or buy an insurance policy from them. It is not practical for us to do "due diligence" on them and continue to do it while we have money deposited with them or an insurance policy from them. That amount of care belongs to investing stock in these companies but not as a customer of these companies.
Commerce will grind to a halt if we have to do this kind of "due diligence" before using their services. So even though we generally operate on a "buyer beware" free society, regulation is required to protect customers as well as to facilitate commerce.
More regulation offers more protection but also makes the regulated company all behave the same and stops them from doing innovative variations without additional risks as the nature of regulation is to not do anything that is different.
The combination of complexity that lull us into deferring our responsibility to others, the drive to more efficiency through less regulation, and the initial wild profits from an inflating housing bubble all contributed to us ending in a spot called the financial crisis.
Complexity is here to stay. We better figure out how to handle it.
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