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October 21, 2003April 21, 2012 by Brendon J. Wilson

Brendon Sashimi

It’s been four days since I went under the knife at my dentist to have a gum graft performed. Ouch, right? Actually, it’s not so bad, but the experience has provided me with some time to think about two things: drugs and food.

First, the procedure: basically, the dentist removed a strip of gum from each side of my upper palate and then grafted it to the front of my lower gum line to cover an area of thinning gum. It was around the time that the dentist extracted the first strip of gum sashimi and passed it in front of my field of view that I got to thinking about the first topic: drugs. Let me be absolutely clear about this point: drugs are good. Very good. Thank god my mouth was completely frozen, rendering my lip a flabby, senseless, overly large uncooked sausage as far as I was concerned. It’s a little known fact that red-heads are more sensitive to pain, thus I had them dose me up real good before any snipping began. Unfortunately, the anesthetic only numbs the sense of touch, but not the sense of hearing, something I regretted while listening to my dentist’s scalpel rip into my upper palate through the amplified wonder that is bone-conduction.

All this talk of sashimi and sausages leads me to my second topic: food. As in, I haven’t really had any for four days. No solids, no citrus products, no alcohol, and nothing spicy allowed. Do you have any idea how much of my dietary regimen that eliminates? Just about everything! Surprisingly, I haven’t really found myself feeling that hungry, despite sustaining myself solely on chocolate shakes and soup. Weird. Though I did make the mistake of trying to eat a crouton in my soup at Bread Garden – it just about ripped my upper palate to pieces. Which brought me back to topic #1: drugs are good. Specifically, Extra Strength Advil. Sure, there’s a risk of a GI bleed, but I’m pretty sure that would hurt less than the crouton gouging globules of flesh from my upper palate. Right?

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October 18, 2003April 21, 2012 by Brendon J. Wilson

Change the World

In the midst of my current search for a job to serve as the basis of my Life after the MBA, one question has been weighing heavily on my mind: what is the best way to use my skills to do “the right thing”? I’m concerned my desire to “change the world” must seem suspiciously naÃ¯ve, like the glassy-eyed answer of a Miss Universe contestant. But it’s still worthy of consideration.

In The Wealth of Nations, economist Adam Smith proposed that an “invisible hand” guides the market towards the best course of action, based on individual’s motivation to increase their personal well-being. Individuals in the market exchange goods of their own volition based on the benefits they receive from buying and selling goods, and therefore everyone wins. In this context, “the right thing” would appear to be making anything for which people are willing to pay. Free market rules, right? By this logic, any job for which I can get paid must be worthwhile to society, so I should quit my worrying and move on.

It seems simple, but there’s something wrong with this picture: people buy a lot of stuff from which they don’t really gain any real benefit, prodded by misinformation, celebrity endorsements and general consumer lunacy. In short, Smith’s “invisible hand” would appear to be missing a finger or two, allowing unproductive transactions to slip through its grasp and into the market. In addition, the “invisible hand” model fails to value the side effects of transactions which cannot be easily monetized. For example: when I buy gas from a gas station, both I and the station owner gain a benefit – I get gas (and access to convenient transportation), and the owner gets money for his product. However, the side-effect of this transaction to the environment is an un-priced externality – hence, the system is inevitably unbalanced: I buy more gas than I might if I had to pay the “true” cost of gas production and combustion on the environment.

In the context of this example, I think I’d rather be the guy building new engine technology to eliminate those un-priced externalities than the guy selling the gas.