Causes of the Crisis

That is the name of a new blog that, well, offers top-notch current economics knowledge for free. The blog is the result of a special issue on the economic crisis by the magazine/journal Critical Review. These economists offer enough material to write a couple of books while, at the same time, venting about their current existential crisis. Highly free recommended read, indeed.

Create Your Own Learning Experience

I recently finished reading Tyler Cowen's new book “Create your Own Economy.” The book explores many of the issues covered in this blog. It’s very constanteducationish. Actually, the book’s title can be misleading. It doesn’t refer to the creation of an economy as in “develop a new business” but to our modern capacity to build our own stories from different bits and sources. The author marvels at the mind-boggling amount of information available on Internet by way of studying autistics’ particular cognitive profiles. Cowen informs us that autistic people are extremely good at gathering and organizing information. Because Internet's demands so much from our capacity to gather information, we non-autistics should appreciate and learn from autistics’ cognitive strengths. Moreover, Cowen asserts that society’s neuro-diversity is an asset, not a disability. Certainly, we all have become more efficient at information collection and processing; we classify information faster and more coherently than any time in the history of human beings. In addition, our “daily self-assembly of synthetic experiences” creates a unique cultural stream that enriches our internal mental existence. Consider Constant Education as a partial description of your humble blogger’s internal cultural stream. In the end, Cowen recommends that we cherish the tools available on-line because they will make us both smarter and happier. Amen.

Political Weather

A fantastic aspect of our modern times is that everyone can be an informed political forecaster. The insider knowledge that in the past was obtained within a tight-knit network of informants in high-ranking government offices and organizations is now readily available on Internet. For example, you can now access the (U.S.) tax-funded Institute for National Strategic Studies’ annual Global Strategic Assessment. You can also freely read Eurasia Group’s Top Ten Risks of 2009. Nonetheless, before you put your money where your mouth is, make sure you read this article by Philip Tetlock, who is the author of the excellent Expert Political Judgment.

Edifying Editing

I recently read this excellent article (thanks to Marginal Revolution) by California Institute of Technology's R. Preston McAfee on what makes a good editor. Prof. McAfee provides lots of good (and free!) advice on both editing and writing.