Markets in everything

 

Jonathan Keats -- a San Francisco-based experimental philosopher who has, over the years, sold real estate in the extra dimensions of space-time proposed by string theory (he sold a hundred and seventy-two extra-dimensional lots in the Bay Area in a single day) made an attempt to genetically engineer God.
That's from the March 15 New Yorker, p.23.  You;ll find some confirmations of that claim here.  His recent projects include pornography for plants and television for plants.

Related

  • There is undoubtedly an elusive quality to the gauge/string duality.  As well established as it is on technical grounds, it is just strange to have a fifth dimension that isn't really a dimension like the ones we know and love.  It's there not so much as a physical direction, but as a concept that describes aspects of the physics of four dimensions.  Ultimately, I'm not convinced that the six extra dimensions of string theory as a theory of everything will be more tangible than the fifth dimension of the gauge/string quality.

  • A few centuries ago, the ratio between the per capita income of the richest country and poorest country was maybe five to one.  Today it is maybe one hundred to one.

  • This Carlos Slim profile (so far the link is subscriber only), from the June 1 issue of The New Yorker, is fascinating throughout.  Here was my favorite bit:

  • I have never heard a market-oriented economist argue that a rise in the minimum wage boosts the demand for labor.  You might try this argument: "The government is certifying that these workers are worth this much.  The government is defining the market price.  Entrepreneurs will believe that price and hire workers in the expectation of finding an equivalent or even superior marginal product.  The government said that was the right price." 

  • Coming out in paperback, March 2010, for only $20.  You can pre-order now.

  • Yes I know the article is gated but I wanted to blog the link anyway, out of sheer enthusiasm.  It's a superb piece.  China Star is my favorite Fairfax restaurant and it's the #1 restaurant for GMU blogger lunches and debates (though one of us hates it; can you guess which one?  We make him go nonetheless).  It's also where we take job candidates, at least the ones we respect. 

  • Now it's dead, everyone else has been blogging it, and a few readers have been asking me what I think.On one hand, I believe that many complex financial products are a mix of inefficient shrouding and plain, outright trickery or even fraud.  In this regard I find it easy to see the merits of "plain vanilla" regulation.

  • What is being sold here?  Answer under the fold.  Sold on Broadway and Mercer in NYC.  Hat tip: Shruti Rajagoplan.

  • From "Avatar" to "Lord of the Rings" plants are no strangers to playing big movie roles, but no one's ever shot a film the plants themselves can watch. Until now.In a New York art gallery, seven house plants have spent the last seven weeks watching "Strange Skies," probably the first travel documentary for a vegetable audience.The movie by conceptual artist Jonathon Keats consists of idyllic Italian skies recorded over a two-month period and condensed into a six-minute dawn-to-dawn span.

  • Yes, it is showing already in Leon, Nicaragua, as Bryan Caplan had predicted.  You should see it.  Cameron has absorbed a lot from Princess Mononoke.  The aliens don't seem to trade much or accumulate capital.  Like the Olympics ceremony in Beijing, it raises the bar for a lot of subsequent efforts.  The crowd seemed unmoved by the theme of "las indigenas."  It has interesting themes on disability and also the diversity of intelligences.  The three hours go by very quickly.  It's not perfect.  Peopl

 
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