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When people’s income are low and at the survival, starvation level, then having enough to eat just to survive is very important. But once you are bey… - Yew-Kwang Ng
" "When people’s income are low and at the survival, starvation level, then having enough to eat just to survive is very important. But once you are beyond the survival, and some level of comfort, then recent happiness studies show that further increase in consumption in income is not that important to increase your happiness. And hence in my view, the more important issue...would be environmental economics. Because we are facing an environmental problem, which could become a catastrophe for the world. It could cause global extinction. Then that means that helping the world to survive — to overcome say the climate change crisis — in my view this is the most important area in economics.
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About Yew-Kwang Ng
Yew-Kwang Ng (Chinese: 黄有光; born 1942) is a Malaysian-Australian economist. Ng is a Professor of Economics at Fudan University, Shanghai, and a Distinguished Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia. He has published in a variety of academic disciplines and is best known for his work in welfare economics.
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Alternative Names:
Huang Youguang
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Professor Yew-Kwang Ng
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Additional quotes by Yew-Kwang Ng
[W]hile the problem of interpersonal comparability of utility is a tricky one, it is not insoluble in principle. It is conceivable that, perhaps several hundred (or a thousand) years from now, neurology may have advanced to the stage where the level of happiness can be accurately correlated to some cerebral reaction that can be measured by a ‘eudaimonometer’. Hence the definition of social welfare [in terms of the sum total of individual happiness] is an objective definition, although the objects are the subjective feelings of individuals.
As there are many areas of inadequate optimization (departures), and resource limitation and information costs prevent the rectification of all these departures, the pursuit of a more desirable future through either private effective altruism or governmental policies is subset to the challenge of the second-best theory (where the presence of uncorrectable distortions complicates the pursuit of desirable policies elsewhere through interdependence)...Despite the nihilistic implication of the second-best theory on the impossibility of piecemeal welfare policies...the third-best theory shows that the government or effective altruists may increase at least the expected welfare by focusing on areas of serious inadequate optimization, taking into account the indirect effects if information allows.
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With adequate safeguards and cautious preparation, genetic engineering could be used to relieve suffering and increase happiness by quantum leaps. Our short-term prospect here would be the eradication of many genetic handicaps. The medium-term prospect could be the reduction of the proportion of the neurotic and depressed personality. The longer-term prospect might be the dramatic enhancement of our capacity for enjoyment. All these have to be done with extreme caution. The reason we should be very cautious is not so much to avoid sacrificing our current welfare (which is relative small in comparison to that in the future with brain stimulation and genetic engineering) but to avoid destroying our future.
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