"Persecution is not an original feature in any religion; but it is always the strongly marked feature of all religions established by law. Take away the law-establishment, and every religion re-assumes its original benignity." - Thomas Paine

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"The ECLS data show no correlation, meanwhile, between a child’s test scores and the amount of television he watches. Despite the conventional wisdom, watching television apparently does not turn a child’s brain to mush. (In Finland, whose education system has been ranked the world’s best, most children do not begin school until age seven but have often learned to read on their own by watching American television with Finnish subtitles.)" - Freakonomics

"Rational choice assumes that displacement occurs only under certain conditions. That is to say that all things considered, the criminal may not think that the benefits justify displacement. For example, in 1960 the steering columns of all cars in Germany were equipped with locks and the result was a 60 per cent reduction in car thefts. Whereas, in Great Britain only new cars were so equipped with the result being crime was displaced to the older unequipped cars. However, no evidence exists to suggest that an obscene phone caller will begin a career as a burglar... People are, without knowing it, being controlled the entire time they are in a Disney theme park. The entire environment is designed to encourage adherence to a set of rules and policies deemed desirable by Disney. The measures are invisible until one violates the policy. This system of facilitating compliance mirrors one of the opportunity-reducing techniques cited by Clarke as a component in situational crime prevention." - RONALD V. CLARKE

[One book on the ultimatum game] One of her African subjects jovially remarked: ''I will be spending years tryong to figure out what this all meant.''

"Milton Friedman and George Solow didn't really like each other. One time, at a conference, while Friedman was giving a presentation, George Solow got up and said, 'You know what your problem is, Milton? You're obsessed with the money supply. Now, I'm obsessed with sex, but you don't see me writing papers about it.'"


Maskin: Put it this way. I don't see much reason why being a good poker player would make you a good game theorist or vice versa.

Parlor games like poker or chess are actually immensely complicated. In fact, they are so complicated that, except in highly simplified versions, they really can't be analyzed very well using game theoretic methods. The best chess players, for example, would probably learn little by studying game theory. They practice an art rather than a science...

With some exceptions such as auctions, Nash equilibrium has been a tool more for theoretical work, that is, for making theoretical predictions (whether in economics, political science, or biology) than for highly practical applications. And economic theorists don't make much use of computers even now. As a theorist, my principal use of the computer is for word processing.

Hurr hurr