I was

supposed to go in the very first

session and I had a plan and that plan

was I'd do Ted I'd see

Vancouver I'd chill out I'd get this

thing done then I'd relax I'd listen to

other people's speeches rob their best

ideas bring them home and sound

incredibly incredibly brainy and then

your man Chris Rings me last weekend he

says you know that last thing the first

thing why don't you go last I'm like oh

man and it brought to mind the words of

that great

American

philosopher Mike

Tyson who set of plans everybody has a

plan until they get a punch in the

face and of course you know doing the

last gig of Ted

it's not about the pressure that's not

the problem the pressure isn't the

problem the problem is the

sobriety but the speeches have been

amazing right and if I could kind of

encapsulate them all it's really been

about as far as I can see the pace of

change and what that's doing to us

demographically politically socially

economically extraordinary stuff and I'd

now like to quote

from a great

liberal Democrat a friend of

Ted Vladimir

Lennon who said of change and crisis

that there are decades when nothing

happens and there are

weeks when decades happen and we're

living through those weeks you get that

feeling and it's really difficult to

know where to start to think about these

how do how do you this stuff now if I

was an American Economist or a Canadian

Economist or God forbid an English

Economist actually the nice thing is

they're not good at economics anymore

it's so beautiful isn't

it praise the Lord praise the

Lord but I'd come here armed with the

tools of my trade you know that the

graphs and the charts the mats and all

that good stuff but I'm an Irish

Economist so I'm only going to come here

armed with some lines and some verses of

poetry yeah there thank you very much

the poets in the corner were a small

minority no were perfectly formed now I

want to talk to you about a poem that

was written in
1919 called the second coming by WB

Yates our national poet and the fasc F

inting thing about crisis so 1919 100

odd years ago the fascinating thing

about crisis is that every

generation feels that their crisis is

the big one we're kind of narcissistic

about it right but every generation

experiences crisis every generation our

parents our grandparents they all did

how we deal with the crisis is the

definitive issue for Our Generation so

Yates is

sitting in Dublin 1919 he's trying to

make sense of the world right his world

is changing rapidly the German Empire is

over the Austrian Empire is over the

Ottoman Empire is over Ireland has

declared a war of Independence against

Britain which if you were a betting man

you wouldn't really give us not our side

you wouldn't have given us good odds and

the Yates is trying to figure out not

just what is happening but what is

likely to happen and he writes these

words and just listen to them and

imagine they were written

now the second coming turning and

turning in the widening gu the Falcon

cannot hear the falconer Things Fall

Apart the center cannot

hold mere Anarchy is loosed on the world

a blood dimmed tide is loosed and

everywhere the procession of innocence

is

drowned the best lack all conviction the

worst are full of passionate

intensity just let those words

lie Things Fall

Apart the best

people lack conviction the worst are

full of passionate intensity now this is

Yates writing 100 years ago and the

historical Rhythm and repetition is

clear I think to all of us but what

really interests me as an economist is

the contrast between what Yates the poet

was saying back then and what all the

economists the people who were employed

to think about the future were saying so

Yates

said the center will not hold three

years after he wrote this three years

three to four years musolini was in

power in Italy Stalin was on the

ascendancy in the Soviet Union and a

little small prepossessing man with a

mustache called Adolf Hitler had just

orchestrated a pooch in
Munich Yates was

right Yates was right and what were all

the economists saying back then the

people who were paid to think about the

future they were all saying oh don't

worry we'll go back to the gold stand

not all the vast majority we will go

back to the gold

standard we trade again Germany would

pay all its reparations and the first

world war will have been the war to end

all

wars how wrong could they

be so what's always bugged me is why did

the poet get things so right at a

Tipping Point and the economists get

things so wrong and I believe it is

because the poet the artist the musician

these types of people give themselves at

a Tipping Point the permission to think

unconventionally they see the world

differently do we value the

unconventional thinker do we and maybe

the best way to answer that question is

to go all the way back to school to the

place we begin to learn now just bring

yourselves

back to your school days remember

yourself at 13 just remember the person

you were you I remember the the

classroom I remember the teachers I

remember the building I remember the

break I remember everything I remember

the sports day I remember the whole

thing in fact there's a gang of five of

us whove hung around since you're in

school and those five Lads I was in

school with spent the entire of our

school years looking out the window they

just didn't get it they just didn't get

school at all and they've gone on to

have incredibly successful lives in

their own individual

ways but their intelligence their form

of intelligence was not recognized and

as we get older we realize the world is

full of various different intelligences

but back in school we only really

recognized one type of intelligence and

that was like the little kid who could

come in big wide-eyed kid right it come

in could absorb all this information

into his head or her head it open some

sort of weird compartment stuff it all

in stuff stuff stuff stuff stuff it all

in and then in early June when the

weather gets good in Ireland and I

presume it's the same all over the place

except for Vancouver right like be Jus

right that was the type of intelligence

we rewarded it's like getting a prize

for being a walking filing cabinet

right that's one intelligence it is an

intelligence but it's only one type of

intelligence and what about all the

other kids over here kids who didn't get

it all those other kids they weren't not

only recognized they intelligence was

smed

humiliated and

belittled my daughter is dyslexic she

hated every single day of school and as

a result of this system we have a

strange thing in our society where there

are thousands of incredibly clever

people who left school feeling stupid

but the coroller is also the case there

are many actually

quite stupid

people you know where I'm going who left

school feeling very very clever and

those kids when they were really good

kids they used to get the best marks in

school used to have a little star over

them right and of course the teacher

told them they were clever and the

priests and the nuns told them they were

clever and of course their mommy told

them they were clever right if you want

to get a sense of an Irish mommy an

Irish mommy is the sort of mother that

makes an American soccer mom look

unambitious I know I have one right I am

the son of a retired school teacher if

anybody else in the room is the son or

daughter of a school teacher we can form

a self-help group later on to deal with

our trauma right but those sort of kids

you know those sort of kids they do

extremely extremely well in school and

they do very very well in college and

then they get on to because they do very

very well they get on to you know the

The Graduate training programs and they

join the big Banks and they join the big

firms and they they they they they join

insurance companies they join the

consultancies and they're on the fast

track they're on the fast track

career-wise and something weird happens

as their career

progresses we like to think that we

surround ourselves with people who think

differently but we don't there's

something called confirmation bias we

actually surround ourselves with people

who confirm our biases and how this

works in instit
utions is the following we end up

employing people who think like us right

and like if you imagine an interview

process so the person goes into the

interview and there's a clever person

over here and there's a clever person

over no no you're clever oh GE no no

you're clever you're amazing oh you got

that great oh my God you went to that

University oh my God you're clever no

you're clever that's amazing I read that

paper you WR you're clever amazing just

f it just have the

job so the interview becomes by the way

I said fact

there

not the other

word Fe is a sort of a linguistic

version of a white lie okay it's used at

home now what actually happens is the

interview process just becomes like a

Tinder for people who can do Algebra

okay so they all go into the institution

and then what you get you get group

think because everyone's thinking the

same way and of course because these

people have always been the clever kids

with the right answer you know they

Define themselves so I'm the person with

right answer and what happens when

you're the person who's always is the

right answer it's very hard to be

wrong right so it breeds a sort of an

overconfidence and we know that

overconfidence and overconfident people

can really overestimate their

competences at critical moments the

thing comes from a thing called Dunning

Krueger in Psychology it's great story a

fellow goes into to rob a bank right in

America somewhere I think Pittsburgh

down there somewhere down there over

there right

someone in the '90s lad goes into rubber

Bank okay he runs into the bank the

security cards he's got no mask no

ballot laava no nothing right the

security camera looks at him and he

Winks at it and he Winks again a big

smile Hi how are you goes in holds up

the bank robs the thing goes off coppers

come in look at the

Securities see the gezer he just waves

the camera does anyone know him oh yeah

yeah he lives around the corner around

the second block down this sixth up

third floor copper say okay so they

arrive in boom boom boom on the door

your man's there I presume kind of

eating a takeaway or something and

copper said we want to bang you off for

the the bank robbery and he said how do

you mean the bank robbery he says no no

we've got you on camera for the bank

robbery we just want to bang you off

here we go he said how how do you mean

you got me for the bank look we got you

for the bank Robie he how but how did

you know he said how could you possibly

know I wore the

juice copper looks at him says what do

you remember when we were kids invisible

Inc

and you put lemon juice on the invisible

ink and you this is a true story and you

disappear your man covered him face with

lemon juice and he thought he was

invisible the overconfident

overestimating their competence now when

the psychologists thought about this

they actually did lots and lots of tests

and it's apparently it's true that this

is a thing in society and surprise

surprise the Dunning Krueger effect is

much more

prevalent in men than women who would

have

known shock horror right I I can see it

in my own family our son for example

comes home teenager after doing an exam

hasn't done a tap of work right comes in

the door and everyone in the family is

the kitchen say how did you do in your

exam right and he he says oh Jesus he

stop man no problem and he fails all the

time all the time so you see these

things and you that that again happens

and of course how this happens in

institutions is you get very

overconfident people very intelligent

can't make mistakes and we saw that in

the

2008 financial crisis 2008 the biggest

financial crisis the world has ever seen

and the vast majority of economists in

the fed the bank of England and the

European Central Bank and Wall Street

missed the whole thing in fact the Queen

of England went to the LSC about two or

3 months after the crash and she said if

you chaps were so clever how come none

of you saw this

coming and she was

right because they all were wearing the

juice the economics

juice right now JK GB very famous

Canadian Economist well galra said

something fascinating about the

conventional person he said when faced

with the choice between changing his

mind and finding the proof not to do so

the conventional man always gets busy

looking for the

proof and that's when we make big

mistakes at these critical moments

Leonard

con the Canadian poet put it differently

the same idea con said there is a

crack in everything and that is how the

light gets

in and what con was saying to us was

look for the cracks look into the cracks

that's where we'll see the big

picture so let's just leave Canadian

poet go back to an Irish

poet the words of the second coming

again our world right now

now turning and turning in the widening

gu the Falcon cannot hear the falconer

Things Fall Apart the center cannot hold

mere Anarchy is loosed on the world a

blood dimmed tide is loosed and

everywhere the procession of innocence

is drowned and why says Yates because

the best lack all conviction and the

worst are full

of passionate

intensity now apply that to our world

and if you at this Tipping Point say n

you know it's it's not my problem I lack

all

conviction right I go and watch baseball

or rounders or whatever that game is you

guys watched right but if you lack all

conviction what actually happens is the

worst people in our

society with their passionate intensity

their certitude their simple ideas they

will win the day at this Tipping Point

and they will win the day because the

best people back away from the

responsibility what y Yates was also

saying about the best people was the

following he was saying mandate the

best The Poets the

artists the

musicians because they are the people

who see the

possibilities they see the possibilities

because they see the world from a

different angle they have to be part of

the

solution so my my idea that I think is

worth spreading is the

following if you want to understand the

world a little bit more clearly listen

less to My Tribe the economists and

listen listen more to yates's tribe The

Poets thank you very

much thank

you thank you thank you very

much