Associative decline?

Via the TED blog today.

Economic troubles will trigger the decline of the free economy, collaboration, and open-source - including communities such as Wikipedia - and even, perhaps the blogosphere itself. People will be less likely to give away 'their intellectual labor on the Internet in the speculative hope that they might get some 'back end' revenue.

C'mon. Seriously? The idea that a burst bubble causes people to abandon collaborative efforts is pretty baseless. It is always in the best interest of efficient and curious people to work together and the internet has certainly revolutionized the amount of ways this is possible. Unless this crisis spells the death of homo rationalis, this will continue to be the case. The main point of 'intellectual labor' on the internet is not to get 'back end' revenue, it's to prove the viability of those who write psuedo-intellectual blogs (your authors included) and increase future utility.

Collaboration comes out best when times require sharing of information. At a time when everything else is falling apart, nothing should stop the openness of information on the internets.

The LHC and the END OF THE WORLD

Has the Large Hadron Collider destroyed the earth yet?

If you need further reassurance, here's how one physicist summed up the likelihood of humanity being inadvertently destroyed by a miniature black hole of our own making:

Look, it's a 10^-19 chance, and you've got a 10^-11 chance of suddenly
evaporating while shaving.

(HTs: Free Exchange and Chris Blattman)

Gimme a liter of cola

This map depicts all the nations in the world that don't use the metric system. Come on! Everybody knows the metric system is for nerds. Besides, America is in good company here - fight the power, Liberia and Burma!

(Hat tip, Frostfire Zoo)

IPE Journal

A couple good friends from LSE have started their own brand new blog. It looks great and will probably cover a lot of the same political economy issues we focus on here at z'geist. They already have a few posts up - I highly encourage you to check it out.

Zeitlinks

As I ponder my dissertation's depressing word count, here are some interesting comings and goings in the world of punditry/journalism aside from z'geist:

- The Economist's Free Exchange discusses the results of presidential prediction models, all of which featured so far have Mr. Obama winning with a probability of 50% - 99%. There's still time to take an Obama position in the prediction markets, like I mentioned earlier...

- In Thursday's FT, Warren Maruyama, general counsel to the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR), says it would be crazy to walk away from the WTO and Doha because there is no alternative. I'm fairly sure that when Bob Zoellick was USTR during this same administration, he couldn't stop gushing about the very glaring alternative: regional trade agreements. There's a valuable lesson to be learned here: the words of officials in controversial public positions (like trade negotiation) aren't even worth the paper the Doha draft agreement was written on

- Commodities are taking a killing, as oil's continued fall has initiated a broad sell off. Soaring commodity prices, particularly those related to food and energy, have been at the center of recent inflation concerns. Related: the top 20 mining stocks are collectively down $667 billion from recent highs; the top 20 oil stocks are down about $943 billion.

- If you've got time, read this analysis of the facts behind some of the energy policy options du jour.

Comment of the week

We here at Zeitgeist appreciate insight. We also really like humor. So without further ado, here's our comment of the week: Dave, on the origins of North America's work ethic:

The work ethic partly derives from the people who colonized North America: the northern European Protestants, Calvinists, 'Stiff-upper-lippers' and puritans of all stripes. One does not start up a farm in Iowa or Saskatchewan without some appreciation for 'good old-fashioned hard work.'
Granted, the French had a toe-hold briefly, but the 35hr workweek for soldiers proved disastrous.

TGIF

One of our favorite readers suggested we post this clip, and it's too funny not to share. Plus, it brings up an important point: chicks dig blogs (and, presumably, bloggers.) 

Have a great weekend, everybody. But keep checking in: Zeitgeist doesn't take weekends off.