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July 04, 2005
Fighting befuddlement
We spent much of the weekend busily reading Freakonomics - a book which has got a lot of people thinking, and might well convince you of the merits of legal abortion and seriously challenge what little faith you might have in real estate agents.
One of the assertions made by the freakonomist himself, Steven D. Levitt, is that the Internet addresses the problem of information asymmetry that has allowed those who have knowledge to exploit the public.
While that may be so in the US, we have our doubts about whether it's a phenomenon that's much in evidence in Australia. We've got Whirlpool, which, as we've often said, is a marvellous resource for broadband customers. But it seems to us that we don't have anything like the resources that are available to the American, or British, or European individual.
This New York Times story, for instance, on how to protect yourself from data theft includes several resources that we're pretty sure aren't duplicated here. What we have, instead - predictably, given the record of our Federal authorities - are "scoping" strategies.
One reason for the shortage of useful information in Australia may be that we lack the network of community and privately-supported foundations that do so much good work in the US. Could it be that we don't have a structure to foster their growth?
On the other hand, maybe we're entirely wrong, and there's lots of useful stuff out there that help us defend ourselves against confusion, befuddlement and outright lies. Any suggestions?
Posted by cw at July 4, 2005 11:50 AM
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Comments
What an interesting book Freakonomics is. Using economic methods to answer sociological questions.
They are not making judgements, just reporting what the data says. While you may not agree with all their conclusions, what reading Freakonomics will do is make you think and question things a bit more. And that has to be a positive thing.
If interested, its available at City Library in Melbourne.
Posted by: brendon h at July 4, 2005 09:35 PM
Remember some time back you were perplexed about Google's robotic choice of wa**ing machine ads? Even stranger: your link to the Whirlpool forum directs the reader to www.whirlpool.com/home.jsp
Is this a mild example of what vexes Mr Levitt?
Posted by: DaveH at July 5, 2005 07:32 AM
Oh dear. Obvious befuddlement on our part. We left the ".au" off whirlpool.net
Posted by: cw at July 5, 2005 09:33 AM