What I've been reading

Superfreaknomics released last week, I got lucky and got the book from library last weekend. Is the book controversial? Yes, depending on who you are and how flexible are you with your "beliefs" when the facts change.

In their first book - Freaknomics, the duo faced the wrath of the Right with their crime reduction theory. This time, left are flaying them for proposing this simple fix to stop global warming. They chronicle story after story to back the theory on how sometimes the simplest solution are responsible for averting or fixing the greatest of disasters. All this buildup of-course was for the global warming chapter. Geo-engineering sounds like a great idea, Al Gore et al should stop critizing and put this theory to a rigorous test instead of exchanging sound bites since literally there is nothing to be lost (compared to trillion $$ proposal). The sad part if Geo-engineering works, then the bad habits of humans aren't going to change and worse it vindicates them.

The final chapter about Keith Chen's research was my favorite. Monkeys are people too chapter starts with Adam Smith's quote ("Nobody ever saw a dog make a fair and deliberate exchange of one bone for another with another dog. Nobody ever saw one animal by its gestures and natural cries signify to another, this is mine, that yours; I am willing to give this for that.), which I believe is very wrong (earlier post) but to my disappointment they finally deduce that Mr.Smith was right. It's about time we start thinking "outside the Ape". Mr.Smith might be right about Humans (and Apes) but his analogy (dogs) was wrong.

Levitt and Dubner are bully economists making tons of mullah but what makes them special is their positive externality called "Altruism".
The greatest discovery from this book is Nathan Myhrvold and his company Intellectual Ventures.