Mr. Dijkstra, you are my hero. CS people know him because of his Narcissistic tendencies, most notably naming an algorithm after himself. I mean, who names anything after themselves?
Well, to the point, Dijkstra had the EWD manuscripts, and in one, EWD 1036, he notes something I have been wondering about myself for years…
We are hardly less primitive: why do we persist here in answering the telephone with the most unhelpful “hello” instead of our name?
Economists are.
Economists can study pirates though. Peter T. Leson from George Mason University has published two papers and is working on a third legitimately studying pirates from an Austrian Economists perspective. (Actually read this link on Austrian Economists if you want a more concise explanation.)
An-arrgh-chy: The Law and Economics of Pirate Organization (which I haven’t had a chance to read yet)
Pirational Choice: The Economics of Infamous Pirate Practices. (which I am in the process of reading and which is very good)
and the work in progress:
The Invisible Hook: The Hidden Economics of Pirates, History’s Most Notorious Criminals – Abstract (this abstract makes this paper look to be the best of the three…and it’s short for your poor attention spans)
What do the words in the title have in common? Well the first three are obvious but cucumbers make sense once you have read The Last Hero