Minecraft. That is all.

So, Minecraft is making the rounds. I took a quick look at it and promptly decided I would be obsessed with it. I have too much to say about it, so I won't even start (at least not yet), but let's just say it's the yin to my Dwarf Fortress yang.

Trembling Hand has its own little server puttering away here, so feel free to jump on. I'm taking five minute backups, so send me an email if you get griefed.

What EVE Can Teach Us About the Global Financial Crisis

Within the boundaries of this economy, there are countless opportunities for those who are willing to put time and effort into their career as pilots in EVE. Unemployment is not possible in EVE since all pilots, even those that have lost it all and have minimal entrepreneurial skills, can start again with what matches a bucket and shovel in real life. This also confirms an old and valuable lesson for real life economies; give people the chance to pursue their dreams and they will solve their own problems.

Another lesson to learn from EVE is the importance of trust. Within EVE you must build your trust with other pilots over a long period of time. However this trust is easy to break and is in fact consistently broken. This means that those who are able to maintain trust acquire the most valuable asset of all. Although EVE might be a harsher world when it comes to fraud and trust than real life the lesson which can be drawn from EVE is that without trust there will be no rebuildingof the world’s economies.

The leaders of the world must make certain that trust is not broken within their own country nor between nations. Without that trust there is no trade. Without trade everyone would have less and the world would fall into an unstoppable downward spiral.

EVE can teach world leaders how important trade is for any society, and how valuable trust is within them. EVE can teach all of us that by working together there is no obstacle that is too large for us to overcome – there are no bridges we can´t build.

This comes from EVE's trademark Quarterly Economic Newsletter, authored by Dr. Eyjólfur Guðmundsson, Lead Economist at CCP.

It possesses some sentiments that resonate well outside the cold space of New Eden. One is that trust is the very lubricant of cooperation. Trust can never be guaranteed, and there will always be those who seek to exploit others' trust for their own self-interested ends. That means cooperation involves risk. As another adage goes: ships are safe in harbour, but that's not what ships are for.

Trade is another big theme in EVE. Globalisation gets a harsh rap these days, but the fact is that the failures of globalisation are often due to the limits imposed on it by protectionist governments (i.e. basically all of them...) rather than letting globalisation unfold in a natural, if moderately regulated, way. The more trade we see across our small world, the better off everyone could be.

Then there's the sentiment of individual enterprise. Give the people the tools, and watch them build. However, on this note, EVE has it easy. There's no cost to providing pilots with their "bucket and shovel", unlike in the real world. This gives EVE a thermodynamics-defying boost that we lack, but the sentiment is sound. We should at least give every individual the opportunity to develop and employ their abilities - not only to reap the rewards for their own ends, but to promote the ends of all. Hayek, meet Marx.