Ideas Matter

No Flying Cars by 2000, but Driverless Cars by 2012

It's an amazing time to be alive. (If you're dead, I apologize. I don't mean to offend.) We aren't yet living the Jetsons yet, but we've got cars that drive themselves. (Wait, no, we do have flying cars.) Anyway, I'm still excited about what I see in the video above. Just wait: in ten years, we may see the flying car technology integrated with the driverless technology. So what are the impediments to implimentation?

Matt Ridley Dishes Up Rational Optimism

Are we going to run out of food, resources and green space? Does trade make one party worse off? Is inequality the root of the world's problems? Is the world going to overheat and cause catastrophe?

Matt Ridley answers these questions and more in the best writing on the relationship between resources, markets and well-being since Julian Simon. What's superb about Ridley's work is that he not only slays the doommongers with flair, but he explains the beautiful processes set in motion by people serving each other creatively.

So why are people so pessimistic?

Educating the World's Poorest -- Privately?

Turns out that when it comes to education, the slumdogs are the millionaires. This TEDx Glasgow talk will reward you for the time spent. And Pauline Dixon has done a great job communicating a research program undertaken with James Tooley whose work you may have heard of watching Free To Choose Network's The Ultimate Resource.

Your College is Part of a Cartel

This is an eye-opening talk. Most people don't realize that the U.S. system of higher education is in desperate need of reform. We take it for granted that these hoary old institutions need to be changed. But when one turns a business lens on higher ed, one comes to realize that the system is a cross between a guild and a cartel.

Blacks and Education: The Song Remains the Same

Milton Friedman once said that two of the most anti-black policies on the books were public education and the minimum wage. He said this in about 1978, only a few years before the above piece was created by Free To Choose Network President, Bob Chitester.

Walter Williams is a credible host in this 1982 video. And notice that little of what Prof. Williams is saying has changed. 

Shilling for NASA

Why must "dreaming" about science and space mean a government monopoly?

Neil deGrasse Tyson is a great guy and a great persona. Heck, he could be the next Carl Sagan. But I don't understand why he argues that NASA is a dreammaker -- i.e. why failure to fund NASA more than it's being funded somehow represents the drying up of dreams. I mean seriously: is he suggesting that Newt Gingrich is correct that we should be aiming for Mars with the same body that gives us the postal service, the Afghan War and Solyndra? Allow me another minute or so to slice up Tyson's shilling for NASA.

Should Government Regulate Monopolies?

Lynn Kiesling explains why the competitive process -- with the lure of big margins -- is far better than government interfering in the marketplace to break up a monopoly. Breaking up a monopoly can undermine innovation, Kiesling argues. Where competitors see an inpenetrable wall, innovators see opportunity. But when it comes right down to it, lasting monopolies aren't created by monopolists alone...

Kurzweil on the Not-so-distant Future

The stuff Ray Kurzweil is talking about is getting ready to hit the mass market. We're already seeing movement interfaces in game consoles like the Kinect for XBox. Eyewear displays are ready to hit as soon as the next calendar year. All these technologies might be on different tracks now. But they're getting ready to converge in really interesting ways.

Proof that Capitalism Rules

If you haven't seen this yet, you're living on Mars. But there is so much about this video that's cool, it's hard to know where to start. One thing is clear, though: the ad is proof that capitalism rules.

Stolen Childhood?

My wife is starting a new school. (Really, she is.) Some of her motivation comes from the kind of thing you're seeing in the trailer above. Some of her motivation comes from what you might have seen in The Cartel. It's abysmal. And it's got to change. It's time to criticize by creating. It's time for the rise of the edupreneur.