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Economists think differently. Let’s say you buy a bottle of water at a local store for $1. Let’s also say that for the sake of argument tax is already included so the financial cost of this bottle to you is exactly one dollar. To most people, that’s all there’s too it. You have a bottle of water more in your hand and one dollar less in your wallet. The shop keeper has one bottle less on his shelves and one dollar more in his cash drawer. End of story. But like I said, Economists think differently. Because what this view ignores is the opportunity cost involved in this transaction. (more…)

And it’s this contrast that I find problematic because he clearly assigned value judgments to each side. He described an on-going war between these two worlds and his express intent to proliferate the concept of free content even to at the moment entirely proprietary organizations (he specifically mentioned Microsoft). Disturbing to me was the prominence of black-and-white-thinking inherent in his approach, even more so considering that he was also talking about the need for diversity and variety as a precursor to success. I just have a hard time reconciling the martial and aggressive (“war&gdquo;, “battleground&gdquo;) way he used to describe his mission with the openness and pluralism he identifies as the foundation of the internet. Does the latter not imply that there proprietary and free organizations can co-exist striving individually or working together according to what each situation warrants? Or does pluralism end where ideologies come into play? To me, there’s no question that both free and proprietary approaches have their strengths and their weaknesses, that there is no silver bullet and that the most valuable arrangement is a system where organizations can employ the approaches that are most effective within the respective parameters without getting caught up in ideology and rhetoric.

What was even more random though was what happened this morning. I was making my way from the hotel to the tube but, when I arrived at the platform, the announcer was talking about delays on the line that takes me right to the office. So I walked back upstairs to take a different line which would also take me to the same place, but on a more roundabout way. As I was standing on this platform waiting for the train to arrive, nobody else but Dr. Lovett walked up to me again. I don’t know what the odds of that are and calculating that would probably make anyone’s head hurt. This time we had more time to chat since we were both waiting on the same train, plus we also got lost and went one station in the wrong direction, which meant spending more time waiting for the train to take us back. All in all we got about half an hour to catch up, which was really cool since I hadn’t been to TCU since graduation. I was telling him about my plans to come to TCU in September for the homecoming game though so I expect we’ll meet again at that time. I’m still very surprised at the randomness of it all and I can’t wait to see who else I will meet unexpectedly around here.

• March 16: Bill Maher: Americans Have Made Sacrifices
• March 23: Bill Maher: Don’t question my patriotism

Thanks to Miguel de Icaza for pointing these out.