Free to Choose

about the fact that free markets help people to collaborate and have peaceful interactions. Milton Friedman:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6vjrzUplWU&feature=related

Bernstein on music at Harvard

metaphor is the powerplant of music, names the unnameable und communicates the unknowable:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14VhzlcSuT0

Research and fun

A very inspiring lecture by computer scientist Ivan Sutherland on the usage of shared computer time, the invention of the currency "yen" for trading computing time, and doing science in unusual places and making friends by scientific intellectual interactions:

http://www.computerhistory.org/events/index.php?id=1125352335/

Micro activities

Well, it can be argued that markets caused and will solve our climate change problems. From Fred Pearce in "The New Scientist":


"We need markets and social systems that make the coices for us. Humans shouldn't have to be experts at everything. I want my drains to work and my computer to function without knowing the details of exactly how they operate. This is why a carbon tax would be good. In Denmark we have a 180 per cent tax on cars. That means I've never owned a car. I cycle everywhere - not because I am especially good, but the system encourages me not to buy a car. All the same, the solution will come in the main, not from carbon dioxide taxes but from smarter technologies."