--- title: Five Best Ideas of the Day: January 9 description: What oil prices mean for the Keystone XL pipeline, what the terrorists in Paris want, how 'Uber for freelancers' could change work and more. canonical: https://time.com/3661598/five-best-ideas-of-the-day-january-9/ author: TIME article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-01-09T17:01:10.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T05:06:19.230Z article:section: Ideas og:title: These Are Today's Best Ideas og:description: What oil prices mean for the Keystone XL pipeline, what the terrorists in Paris want, how 'Uber for freelancers' could change work and more. og:url: https://time.com/3661598/five-best-ideas-of-the-day-january-9/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: These Are Today's Best Ideas twitter:description: What oil prices mean for the Keystone XL pipeline, what the terrorists in Paris want, how 'Uber for freelancers' could change work and more. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Five Best Ideas of the Day: January 9 by [The Aspen Institute](/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute Jan 9, 2015 5:01 PM CUT by [The Aspen Institute](/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute Jan 9, 2015 5:01 PM CUT **1\.** [**Low oil prices change the math on the Keystone XL pipeline, but politics are still controlling the debate.**](http://blogs.cfr.org/levi/2015/01/07/what-low-oil-prices-mean-for-the-keystone-xl-pipeline/ "undefined") By Michael A. Levi at the Council on Foreign Relations **2\.** [**Terrorists are despicable, but they aren’t irrational. The Charlie Hebdo attackers were demanding censorship. The world shouldn’t give in.**](http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-01-08/dont-give-the-charlie-hebdo-attackers-what-they-want "undefined") By Stephen L. Carter in Bloomberg View **3\.** [**‘Uber for freelance work’ could have a huge impact on careers for the next generation.**](http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21637355-freelance-workers-available-moments-notice-will-reshape-nature-companies-and "undefined") By the Economist **4\.** [**Making community college free could trigger a new wave of economic growth and help improve access to education.**](http://time.com/3661629/obama-community-college-free/ "undefined") By Josh Wyner in Time **5\.** [**People who learn skills two or three at a time are much better at multitasking than people combining skills on the fly.**](https://hbr.org/2015/01/the-curious-science-of-when-multitasking-works "undefined") By Walter Frick in Harvard Business Review  [_The Aspen Institute_](http://www.aspeninstitute.org/ "undefined") _is an educational and policy studies organization based in Washington, D.C._ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3661598/five-best-ideas-of-the-day-january-9/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3661598/five-best-ideas-of-the-day-january-9/"},"headline":"Five Best Ideas of the Day: January 9","datePublished":"2015-01-09T17:01:10.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T05:06:19.230Z","description":"What oil prices mean for the Keystone XL pipeline, what the terrorists in Paris want, how 'Uber for freelancers' could change work and more.","url":"https://time.com/3661598/five-best-ideas-of-the-day-january-9/","keywords":["Innovation","al-Qaeda","Oil","Keystone XL","Censorship","Uber","Poetry","paris","terrorists","Oil prices","Charlie Hebdo"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"The Aspen Institute","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/innovation/","name":"Innovation"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3661598/five-best-ideas-of-the-day-january-9/","name":"Five Best Ideas of the Day: January 9"}}]}] ```