The Beauty of Economics

Economics is beautiful.

In humanities today, we watched a video that explored why humans think somethings are beautiful. We all the different theories about how biologically, some faces are more attractive than others because they "suggest" different qualities. However, that doesn't explain why a flower or mountain is pretty. We're not going to reproduce with nature. What science has found is that things that are beautiful have order. Often times it's so subtle that we miss it, but our brains are trained to search for patterns. Also we like things that are in proportion like ourselves. Let me explain. The body is arranged (mostly) according to the golden mean: 1:1.618. In application, the shorter length is to the longer length as the longer length is to the shorter plus the longer(3:5;5:8). We see this in shells, fish, flowers, faces, arms, etc. and we build buildings and paint paintings with those same proportions in the dimensions. It all goes back to God. God mad man in His own image, with His own proportions. God is a being of order. God is beauty.

So why do I say economics is beautiful? Economics is order, not proportion, but it takes complex actions and situations and makes sense and rationality out of it. I could also argue that it can bring people closer to Christ so thus, is beautiful. People who understand economics repent and forgive. Why? They know that sunk costs are irrelevant; they can't change their past actions, they can only make the best choice for the best future possible from the present point. If you did a bad thing, stop, move on and make the best choice you can. If someone hurt you, you can't change that, it's in the past. Make the best possible choice.

Economics also teaches that it's rational to be partly ignorant. Some may say "God says to learn as much as you can and study it so economics is leading you away from God". Economics also says seek and learn, but stop once it would cost you more to get the information than what the information is worth. I apply this to gospel knowledge to mean "don't go disobeying the Lord so that you can know what it feels like to lose the Spirit" and other similar things as well as "don't lock yourself away to read and study and let the rest of life pass you by". Remember that the law of diminishing returns applies to studying as well; the second hour spent studying history yields less than the first and by the sixth, you'll probably get more knowledge by switching to studying biology. There will come a point in our existence when information will be very easy get. God reached that point a very, very, very long time ago.

I forever will believe that economics is beautiful. It brings order to world and makes sense of almost everything including why we should draw near unto Christ. For those things among many, I love that lovely science.