All I've seen of the new film Limitless is a Wikipedia page and a few trailers. The premise is a (false) urban legend that humans only use a small fraction of their brains and the movie revolves around a character who is able to overcome this limitation through the use of a magic pill. What else can he do after taking such a pill besides consume and pursue massive amounts of power and money? If he did anything else, it wouldn't make Hollywood-sense so he does and the movie has gotten solid reviews.
I wanted to comment on a particular aspect of the film and what I find to be a troubling misperception/growing reality in our society, that is the view that finance and markets house the most intellectually gifted individuals and that there is a correlation between intelligence and success in trading markets.
The main character in Limitless starts trading stocks and given that he is a super genius, of course he is able to make money! This is a misconception that pervades our society and we attach a level of intellectual respectability to successful money managers in the same way we do to people like Nobel-prize winning scientists and engineers. If you're a brilliant maths student, the lure of a posh City/Wall Street job and all its rewards is often too strong to pass for a cramped classroom in a middle-of-the-road university. Why?
First, there is no correlation between intelligence and market success. Some of the smartest people produce the worst returns and many of the least intelligent succeed spectacularly. So why does the perception persist and why does it make more sense for a Hollywood film to depict a super genius as making millions by trading stocks than at a Vegas blackjack table or by developing profitable proprietary products like cancer-fighting drugs? One could argue that intelligence does correlate because many of the most successful market strategies involve the spotting of trends. But simply spotting trends in the markets does not guarantee success in the way that spotting trends at the blackjack table does.
My guess is society has glorified finance because most people simply don't understand it and because it has made a lot of people fabulously wealthy. The intuitive response is 'I don't understand how that guy is making so much money but he must be pretty smart.' The perception feeds itself as more smart people give up the sciences and other areas to pursue opaque riches themselves.
Therein lies the bigger issue within the false correlation between intelligence and success in markets. Finance has become the most lucrative and glittering part of our economy. Sure this film, and popular culture in general, play a part by glorifying vacuous displays of wealth and celebrity but the larger issue is a real structural problem with our overall economy.
Maybe that guy can take that pill and instead of day trading, figure out a way to grow the overall economy? Direct capital to where the right businesses and people can gain access to it as well as aid the economy to run more efficiently? That's what I would do. Besides, if I really were a super genius and sat in front of a trading terminal, I might be tempted to turn it off!
Interesting reading:
Obama Goes South, Jorge G. Castañeda, Project Syndicate.
The Small Tunisian Town that Sparked the Arab Revolution, Mathieu von Rohr, Der Spiegel.
The collapse of the old oil order, Michael Klare, Le Monde.
1 comment:
Spot-on post. A few years ago, there was a movie about a yuppy super genius who also was lucky at blackjack, called "21." The protagonist wanted to go to medical school, "maybe" to invent cures for cancer, but then couldn't because of the cost, and then lost his mind for blackjack.
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