WEBVTT NOTE 37. Our Miracle of Pentecost 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.000 Can ideas be owned? 2 00:00:04.000 --> 00:00:07.800 Our Miracle of Pentecost 3 00:00:07.800 --> 00:00:11.800 My inbox served up the following email just now. 4 00:00:11.800 --> 00:00:16.720 I mention I have 62 years and are of Swiss nationality. 5 00:00:16.720 --> 00:00:22.440 I contact them in this way because I want to do something that would make me very important. 6 00:00:22.440 --> 00:00:26.920 And this argument that worries him so much is make a gift of my good fortune. 7 00:00:26.920 --> 00:00:32.160 They are still conscious of my actions, despite the short time I have left to live, certainly 8 00:00:32.160 --> 00:00:34.640 still on this earth. 9 00:00:34.640 --> 00:00:38.920 The email goes on in this way for 500 words. 10 00:00:38.920 --> 00:00:43.000 Obviously it's an email scam, and I would be a fool to go for it. 11 00:00:43.000 --> 00:00:48.200 But here is the thing – it was originally written in Italian. 12 00:00:48.200 --> 00:00:53.480 Thanks to a Google Labs feature that I have enabled on my email account, I can see a translation 13 00:00:53.480 --> 00:00:56.400 by clicking Translate This Message. 14 00:00:56.400 --> 00:01:02.640 Now, you might say that this is not that helpful, because the translation is vaguely broken. 15 00:01:02.640 --> 00:01:06.400 Consider that the message was probably written in some other far-flung language and then 16 00:01:06.400 --> 00:01:11.140 electronically translated several times until it finally came to me. 17 00:01:11.140 --> 00:01:15.260 Considering that, this is pretty impressive. 18 00:01:15.260 --> 00:01:17.380 Last month I received a message from Israel. 19 00:01:17.380 --> 00:01:19.120 It was written in Hebrew. 20 00:01:19.120 --> 00:01:23.140 I enabled the translation to see a very clear question. 21 00:01:23.140 --> 00:01:28.180 He wanted to translate a Mises.org article into Hebrew and was seeking permission. 22 00:01:28.180 --> 00:01:30.220 I answered in English. 23 00:01:30.220 --> 00:01:33.820 He received the message and translated my message into Hebrew. 24 00:01:33.820 --> 00:01:38.860 He wrote again in Hebrew and I translated this back into English. 25 00:01:38.860 --> 00:01:44.160 We did several rounds this way in a period of about one minute. 26 00:01:44.160 --> 00:01:47.780 Do you see what is happening here? 27 00:01:47.780 --> 00:01:53.720 For the first time in the history of the world, I am able to communicate with anyone in the 28 00:01:53.720 --> 00:02:00.460 world instantly, regardless of language, and they with me, regardless of language. 29 00:02:00.460 --> 00:02:05.420 The great barrier of all of human history has been overcome. 30 00:02:05.420 --> 00:02:10.360 The great divider of peoples, the cause of war, the root of social division and separation 31 00:02:10.360 --> 00:02:15.920 from time immemorial is being put to rest. 32 00:02:15.920 --> 00:02:19.100 Has there been a headline about this? 33 00:02:19.100 --> 00:02:26.840 Of course not, it's not even news, it is technology, buried inauspiciously in a tiny lab in a seemingly 34 00:02:26.840 --> 00:02:30.480 mundane piece of software. 35 00:02:30.480 --> 00:02:36.800 Not only does it not make history, it is not enough that people are inspired to tell others, 36 00:02:36.800 --> 00:02:42.000 it's just something that washes over us without notice. 37 00:02:42.000 --> 00:02:49.120 And yet, at any time, any place, through the whole of human history, if I had said that 38 00:02:49.120 --> 00:02:54.360 I had come up with a way for anyone to speak to anyone with understanding without the aid 39 00:02:54.360 --> 00:03:01.040 of knowing the language, I would have been called a liar or a miracle worker. 40 00:03:01.040 --> 00:03:05.960 If I had demonstrated that what I was saying really worked, I would have been regarded 41 00:03:05.960 --> 00:03:09.920 as some kind of magician or prophet. 42 00:03:09.920 --> 00:03:13.000 Google does this and no one seems to care. 43 00:03:13.000 --> 00:03:20.240 I mean, when this happened at Pentecost, it was news enough to make the pages of the Bible, 44 00:03:20.240 --> 00:03:25.160 specifically the second chapter of Acts. 45 00:03:25.160 --> 00:03:32.400 And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place, 46 00:03:32.400 --> 00:03:38.240 and suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled 47 00:03:38.240 --> 00:04:08.240 The Theory of Money and Credit 48 00:04:08.240 --> 00:04:38.240 The multitude came together and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language, and they were all amazed and marveled, saying to one another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galileans, and how here we every man in our own tongue wherein we were born, Parthians and Medes and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia and in Judea. 49 00:04:38.240 --> 00:04:47.820 and Cappadocia in Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia in Egypt and in the parts of 50 00:04:47.820 --> 00:04:55.600 Libya about Sibene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretes and Arabians, 51 00:04:55.600 --> 00:05:00.640 we do hear them speak in our tongues, the wonderful works of God, and they were all 52 00:05:00.640 --> 00:05:08.720 All Amazed, and were in doubt, saying one to another, what meaneth this? 53 00:05:08.720 --> 00:05:11.400 What meaneth this indeed? 54 00:05:11.400 --> 00:05:17.000 What we have in Google's Gmail translator roughly approximates this in the same way 55 00:05:17.000 --> 00:05:22.880 that a robot might approximate the movements and the behavior of a real person. 56 00:05:22.880 --> 00:05:30.380 It is not a miracle, it is technology, but technology can approximate miraculous things, 57 00:05:30.380 --> 00:05:37.300 And it does so often in our times, so often that we hardly take notice of it anymore. 58 00:05:37.300 --> 00:05:39.260 But we should. 59 00:05:39.260 --> 00:05:45.540 If we did, we might learn some things about the world, namely, the self-organizing capacity 60 00:05:45.540 --> 00:05:48.540 of free enterprise. 61 00:05:48.540 --> 00:05:51.980 Google is a private company. 62 00:05:51.980 --> 00:05:55.120 No one ordered this company to invent this technology. 63 00:05:55.120 --> 00:06:00.880 It did so and deployed it, because it is in the interest of the company to serve others. 64 00:06:00.880 --> 00:06:04.560 By serving others, it makes a profit. 65 00:06:04.560 --> 00:06:09.560 And it also profits in unpredictable ways, not by selling this particular service, but 66 00:06:09.560 --> 00:06:17.400 rather by giving it away to you for free, a seeming miracle, for free. 67 00:06:17.400 --> 00:06:22.160 There is no one on the planet who could have anticipated this, not one person. 68 00:06:22.160 --> 00:06:28.760 And yet, here it is, courtesy of the capitalism that everyone is so happy to hate and blame 69 00:06:28.760 --> 00:06:31.200 for all ills in the world. 70 00:06:31.200 --> 00:06:37.000 But look at reality – capitalism is bestowing blessings on one and all, and hardly ever 71 00:06:37.000 --> 00:06:39.560 gets the credit. 72 00:06:39.560 --> 00:06:43.840 And yet, perhaps, this is what we might expect. 73 00:06:43.840 --> 00:06:50.040 Recall what happens at Pentecost, when others have witnessed this miracle. 74 00:06:50.040 --> 00:06:56.640 Some people gathered around, suppose that they have been drinking too much wine. 75 00:06:56.640 --> 00:07:03.120 Then, and now, the crowds just don't get it. 76 00:07:03.120 --> 00:07:10.040 But history proceeds, miracle after miracle, driving progress forward, uplifting humanity, 77 00:07:10.040 --> 00:07:13.720 bringing glorious things to life on earth.