Economy featured

Ashley Hodgson: “The New Enlightenment and Behavioral Economics”

By Nate Hagens, originally published by The Great Simplification

February 14, 2024

Ashley Hodgson

(Conversation recorded on November 28th, 2023)

On this episode, Nate is joined by Ashley Hodgson, a professor in behavioral economics, where she offers a perspective on the superorganism and what she calls ‘The New Enlightenment’. By taking a wide-lens look at the way our human systems work, we can see the incentives and structures that push power towards consumptive, short-sighted, and destructive pathways. How could we ‘rejigger’ these systems to be more aligned with values and goals conducive to supporting humans long into the future? What are the natural laws that inherently depreciate systems – and how might we think about counteracting them? As we enter a world where the perpetual growth we’ve come to expect is no longer possible, how can we lean into the creativity and ingenuity required when thinking about new economic paradigms?

About Ashley Hodgson

Ashley Hodgson is an Associate Professor of Economics and a YouTuber.  She teaches Behavioral Economics, Digital Industries, Health Care Economics, and Blockchain Economics.  Her YouTube channel, The New Enlightenment, explores topics related to economics, governance, and epistemics – that is, the determination of truth and validity – in a world of social media and increasing power concentration.

Show Notes & Links to Learn More

PDF Transcript

00:00 – Ashley Hodgson works + info, Youtube Channel

Videos for Further Learning:

The New Enlightenment 

Why does the human superorganism have cancer? 

01:55 – St. Olaf College

04:40 – Behavioral Economics

05:05 – Superorganism + Ashley on the Superorganism

07:00 – David Laibson, Daniel Kahneman

07:40 – Game Theory

11:11 – Drop in the bucket problem, incentive structures

12:05 – Collective action problem

15:43 – Old Enlightenment

17:18 – System Depreciation

18:00 – Peter Turchin + Ashley’s review on Peter Turchin’s “End Times”

18:39 – Surplus and status/hierarchy, power law distributions

19:27 – Cyclical history

19:54 – Elite Overproduction, Mass Immiseration

21:01 – Reality Roundtable #7 on Poverty

21:20 – ALICE Household

22:38 – Mean vs Median income in the US

23:07 – Matthew Principle

24:58 – Plutocracy

25:11 – Cantillon Effect

32:02 – Frankly Series

34:54 – Salience

36:49 – New Deal, World War II Effects

37:30 – Human’s unique moral mechanisms

42:32 – Youth and in-person social skills

42:44 – Jonathan Haidt + TGS Podcast

43:50 – Blockchain, Bitcoin

46:05 – Different economic systems beyond capitalism and socialism

46:44 – Feedback Loops

48:25 – Creative Destruction of Institutions

1:03:07 – The Great Simplification Episode 100

Nate Hagens

Nate Hagens

Nate Hagens is the Executive Director of The Institute for the Study of Energy & Our Future (ISEOF). Allied with leading ecologists, energy experts, politicians, and systems thinkers, ISEOF assembles roadmaps for understanding how human societies might adapt to lower-throughput lifestyles.

Nate hosts the podcast The Great Simplification, where he has conversations with experts in energy, ecology, government, technology, and the economy to provide a systemic view of the world around us.

After ten years in finance, Nate left Wall Street to study the interrelationships between energy, ecology, and economics—and the implications for human futures. He was the Managing Editor of The Oil Drum, one of the most respected websites for analysis and discussion of global energy supplies and implications of the upcoming energy transition.

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Howard
Howard
2 years ago

I thought this was one of your best shows and I listened to it all, the psychological impact of our monetary driven economy is of great interest to me and should be to all. However, it did not seem like you recognized the leverage point in the system, which I think is the money. If we are going to think about the psychology of the economy we have to look at the money. monetaryalliance.org
“Since the dawn of times, monetary systems have been shaping the flows of human activity in every realm of endeavor; food production, education, health, business etc., by determining how we value, apply and exchange our creativity, and the fruits of our labor. It is for this reason the most influential of all human-made systems.” – Bernhard Lietaer

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