Put two big time academic names together and you have a recipe for instant stardom; the joint blog by Gary Becker and Richard Posner launched today. Naturally, I'll be watching the blog with considerable interest, as neither contributor is known to shy away from provocative ideas.
I do wonder if it's such a good idea to have comments on this particular blog, however, as one would expect the extremely high name recognition of the two authors to draw all sorts of individuals looking to gain 15 seconds of online fame by making nuisances of themselves; allowing trackbacks would have been enough to provide people with the opportunity to give feedback, without inviting the nuisance factor that comes with open comments and high traffic. Here's hoping that people are intimidated enough at the thought of making fools of themselves that the comments section turns out to be worth reading (vain hope, I know).
I would prefer if their model was a little more dialogical, like 2blowhards before Freidrich left.
And the dual opinion format might work better next week if what they have to say is distinguishable from the other, even if they are talking past each other. Or at least contrast said line of reasoning with objections, anticipated or in print.
Posted by: Shai | December 06, 2004 at 04:10 AM