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Yew-Kwang Ng Quotes
born 1942 Australia
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.
Random Yew-Kwang Ng quote
8 quotes
With adequate safeguards and cautious preparation, genetic engineering could be used to relieve suffering and increase happiness by quantum leaps.
I myself regard enjoyment and suffering (defined more broadly to include milder pain and discomfort) as not only the most important, but ultimately the only important things.
But even now...throughout the world we still hold many such traditional beliefs which are similarly detrimental to happiness!
In my view...intrinsically, happiness is the only thing that is of value.
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.
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’.
Welfare Economics: Towards a More Complete Analysis (2004)
Though […] feelings are subjective to the sentient concerned, they exist objectively. That my toothache is subjective to me does not make it non-existent.
In fact, from my daily experience, observation, and conversation, I know that all people (including ordinalist economists) have this ability, except that economists heavily brainwashed by ordinalism deny it despite actually possessing it. This denial is quite incredible.