James Surowiecki is now reviewing books in Foreign Affairs.

The fact that every country's experience is different does not mean that there are not deeper truths to be uncovered by looking at the experience of the world as a whole. But the truths thus far uncovered are relatively few in number and often limited in impact. So, yes, free trade is a good thing, subsidies to agriculture and official corruption are bad things, and so on. And policymakers should be aggressive in implementing those practices and policies that there is a good reason to think will work. But they also need to be cautious about taking theoretical pronouncements for reality, and they should be pragmatists rather than evangelists. After decades of misplaced certainty, it may be time to recognize the limits of our own knowledge -- at least if we want the state of the world to continue improving.

The Myth of Inevitable Progress

James Surowiecki on prediction markets.

Prediction markets function like futures markets, except that, instead of betting on the future performance of a company or a commodity, people can bet (often with play money) on things like election outcomes, current events, and product sales.

The collective intelligence of consumers isn’t perfect—it’s just better than other forecasting tools. The catch is that to get good answers from consumers you need to ask the right kinds of questions. And you need a critical mass of people to participate.

Nobody knows anything. But everybody, it turns out, may know something.

The Science of Success

Seoul is among the most relentlessly modern cities of Asia, with high-speed Internet and plasma TV sets. But an estimated 300 shamanistic temples nestle in hills less than an hour from the city center, and the clamorous ceremony known as gut (pronounced "goot") is a daily routine. The shamans offer a pig to placate the gods. They dance with toy guns to comfort the spirit of a dead child. They intimidate evil spirits by walking barefoot on knife blades.

In an election year, like this one, the most famous shamans are fully booked.

Many younger shamans maintain blogs on the Internet.

In the age of the Internet, Korean shamans regain popularity

The goal of forecasting is not to predict the future but to tell you what you need to know to take meaningful action in the present.

I assume this is a limited-time offer; soon the article will disappear behind the paywall.

Prediction is possible only in a world in which events are preordained and no amount of action in the present can influence future outcomes. That world is the stuff of myth and superstition.

Here are the rules:

Rule 1: Define a Cone of Uncertainty
Rule 2: Look for the S Curve
Rule 3: Embrace the Things That Don’t Fit
Rule 4: Hold Strong Opinions Weakly
Rule 5: Look Back Twice as Far as You Look Forward
Rule 6: Know When Not to Make a Forecast

Paul Saffo, on Six Rules for Effective Forecasting | HBR

For this trend, the "casualization of America", Ms. London blames not only women's laziness, but also the fashion industry. She cites a Marc Jacobs collection that came out in 1992 while she was working at Vogue. "Grunge became a revolutionary fashion statement: Everything was a little sloppy, a little homeless."

The Clothing of the American Mind

Aside from their celebration of endless diversity and tolerance, postmodern elites find it difficult to agree on the substance of the good life to which they aspire in common. What I find fascinating is that, apart from drinking beer and playing soccer (football), Europeans find it hard to define the virtues with which they identify.

Muslims do understand America. That is the problem! Perhaps Americans need to be a little more humble and self-critical. Not all the fruits of freedom are appealing.

We should not think of this realm of soft power in the same way in which we think about military power. The cultural balance of power is not a zero-sum game.

The question is whether there is a way of establishing values through reason and philosophical discourse without reverting to religion.

Fukuyama on the Challenge of Positive Freedom

It is my pleasure to welcome you to our new website, www.charlierose.com. I hope you enjoy this unique experience in the merging of television and the internet.

What we now bring you is a collection of 8,000 segments, over 6,000 guests and 3,600 program hours that currently date back to the 1994-1995 season of the show. This is the single largest enterprise of its kind currently available.

The New Charlie Rose.com

Richard Ogle has some ideas about ideas, though apparently he has never heard of memetics.

Since ancient times, people have believed that breakthrough ideas come from the brains of geniuses with awesome rational powers. In recent years, however, the paradigm has begun to shift toward the notion that the source of creativity lies “out there,” in the network of connections between people and ideas.

In this provocative book, Richard Ogle crystallizes the nature of this shift, and boldly outlines “a new science of ideas.” The key resides in what he calls “idea-spaces,” a set of nodes in a network of people (and their ideas) that cohere and take on a distinctive set of characteristics leading to the generation of breakthrough ideas. These spaces are governed by nine laws--illuminated in individual chapters with fascinating stories of dramatic breakthroughs in science, business, and art.

Smart World will change forever the way we think about creativity and innovation.

The introduction and part of the first chapter are available. After reading them, I can't say I'm planning to buy this book. The style strikes me as hokey. For example:

As will become evident, the successes of Dave Brubeck's "Time Out" and the iPod both exemplify the workings of network laws, demonstrating how the law of hotspots and the law of the fit get fitter lead to tipping points.

Ogle is clearly going after Gladwell's audience, but his vignettes, though considerably popularized, still seem a bit too academic. And many of his chapters are on well-trodden topics: relativity theory, DNA, cubism, printing with movable type, the personal computer, the Internet, the iPod. For each there is already a better book to read.

Smart World: Breakthrough Creativity And the New Science of Ideas

Soon enough, Presidential candidates will be talking about the need to break our dependence on foreign water. This is not a joke.

Americans spent more money last year on bottled water than on ipods or movie tickets: $15 Billion. A journey into the economics--and psychology--of an unlikely business boom. And what it says about our culture of indulgence.

If you do ask, if you trace both the water and the business back to where they came from, you find a story more complicated, more bemusing, and ultimately more sobering than the bottles we tote everywhere suggest.

If you bought and drank a bottle of Evian, you could refill that bottle once a day for 10 years, 5 months, and 21 days with San Francisco tap water before that water would cost $1.35.

Americans went through about 50 billion plastic water bottles last year, 167 for each person.

Marika is making a bowl of grog, a lightly narcotic beverage that is an anchor of traditional Fiji society.

After visiting 45 aboriginal settlements over the past ten months, the inquiry found violence and child sexual abuse rife in every one.

The report shocked Australia. Its respected authors, Rex Wild, a prominent barrister, and Pat Anderson, an aboriginal health-worker, blamed alcohol, drug abuse, pornography, unemployment and a breakdown of aboriginal culture and identity for the horrors they uncovered. Ms Anderson said alcohol was “totally destroying” families and communities. “Something needs to be done to curb this river of grog.”

Let's hope we get aboriginal punks (of the old school) and not aboriginal jihadists. Maybe they'll go straight edge.

Message in a Bottle

"The economies of the Middle East are the fastest growing in the world. So what do they do? They buy planes. But five years ago it was like, 'Who are these guys?'"

... modern Dubai seems built on hyperbole.

Halliburton is moving its headquarters from Houston to Dubai.

... the Mall of Arabia, the world's largest shopping mall.

"One of the issues becoming obvious in the aviation industry is that it is not about the United States anymore. It's an extraordinary shift in power."

See also:

Mubadala Development Co. and Lockheed Martin will create a UAE-based company to service Block 60 F16 fighter planes in the Persian Gulf emirate, an executive said Tuesday.

The UAE has begun to take delivery of 82 of Lockheed's latest Block 60 F16 fighters.

The objective is to diversify away from heavy reliance on oil and energy and to develop the sustainability of a broad-based economy for the fast-growing United Arab Emirates.

Emirates aims to redraw world aviation map