Conversations with Tyler
November 4, 2016 8:36 AM   Subscribe

Tyler Cowen is an economics professor and chairman / general director of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. Since April 2015, he has been hosting "Conversations with Tyler", lengthy, one-on-one podcast interviews with "thought leaders from across the spectrum — economists, entrepreneurs, authors and innovators. All have one thing in common — they are making an impact on the world because of their ideas." His latest is with Steven Pinker.

Upcoming schedule. Watch the live streams of each event at mercatus.org/live. Click here to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes.

Interviews
Audio, Video and a written Transcript of the interview are available at each link.

* Co-founder of PayPal and Palantir Peter Thiel on stagnation, the Bible, company names, chess, favorite TV shows, and the “Straussian Christ.” (April 6, 2015)

* Jeffrey Sachs (University Professor and Director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University) on the resource curse, why Russia failed and Poland succeeded, charter cities, Sach’s China optimism, JFK, Paul Rosenstein-Rodan, whether Africa will be able to overcome the middle income trap, Paul Krugman, Sach’s favorite novel, premature deindustrialization, and how to reform graduate economics education. (April 9, 2015)

* Luigi Zingales (economist and author) discusses Italy, Donald Trump, Antonio Gramsci, Google and conglomeration, Luchino Visconti, Starbucks, and the surprisingly high productivity of Italian cafés. (September 16, 2015)

* Harvard economist Dani Rodrik on premature deindustrialization, the world’s trilemmas, the political economy of John le Carré, what’s so special about manufacturing, Orhan Pamuk, RCTs, and why the world is second best at best. (October 15, 2015)

* Investment strategist Cliff Asness chats about momentum and value investing strategies, disagreeing with Eugene Fama, Marvel vs. DC, the inscrutability of risk, high frequency trading, the economics of Ayn Rand, bubble logic, and why never to share a gym with Cirque du Soleil. (November 18, 2015)

* Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on segregation, Islam, Harlem vs. LA, Earl Manigault, jazz, fighting Bruce Lee, Kareem’s conservatism, dancing with Thelonious Monk, and why no one today can shoot a skyhook. (February 2, 2016)

*Nate Silver (founder and editor in chief of FiveThirtyEight) on data, forecasting, My Bloody Valentine, the social value of gambling, Donald Trump and the presidential field, vacation advice, Supreme Court picks, the wisdom of Björk, and the most underrated statistic for finding good food. (February 3, 2016)

* Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt discusses morality, politics, disgust, free speech and intellectual diversity on campus, the enriching effects of LSD, antiparsimonialism, and why economists set all the interesting variables to zero. (March 28, 2016)

* Camille Paglia on the brilliance of Bowie, lamb vindaloo, her lifestyle of observation, why writers need real jobs, Star Wars, Harold Bloom, Amelia Earhart, Edmund Spenser, Brazil and why she is most definitely not a cultural conservative. (April 25, 2016)

* Former Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs Cass Sunstein on Star Wars, judicial minimalism, Bob Dylan, nudging, the Supreme Court, James Joyce, Hayek, and the merits of a ‘banned products store’ (June 22, 2016)

* Book reviewer Michael Orthofer on Why Fiction Matters. (How and why we should read fiction — particularly from abroad. July 27, 2016)

* Margalit Fox on Life, Death, and the Best Job in Journalism. (Fox has written over 1,200 obituaries for the New York Times. - August 24, 2016)

* Vox.com editor-in-chief Ezra Klein on Media, Politics, and Models of the World. Covers biases in digital media, politics, the morality of meat eating, and more. (October 6, 2016)

* Steven Pinker (cognitive scientist, psychologist, linguist, and popular science author) on the power of reason, but also the economics of irrational verbs, whether violence will continue to decline, behavioral economics, existential threats, the merits of aerobic exercise, photography, group selection, Fermi’s paradox, Noam Chomsky, universal grammar, free will, the Ed Sullivan show, and why people underrate the passive (or so it is thought). (November 2, 2016)
posted by zarq (16 comments total) 32 users marked this as a favorite
 
I seldom agree with any of Cowen's arguments, but I can't deny that there's an omnivorousness to his thinking that I find compelling. And he's a very good interviewer to boot.
posted by Cash4Lead at 8:53 AM on November 4, 2016 [9 favorites]


Of all the interview here, Margalit Fox is my favorite.
"I’m very often asked, “Oh, you write obits. You’re around death every day. Isn’t that depressing?” I must admit, when I started the job full-time in 2004, I worried about that a little bit going in.

To my great joy and great relief, I found out right away, it’s almost never depressing. For all of these reasons we’ve discussed, in an obit of perhaps a thousand words, when you’re writing about someone fascinating who did something really interesting, often really wonderful, maybe a sentence or two will be about the death. The other 98 percent of the story is about the life.

In a strange way, with rare exceptions, writing obits is a kind of very life-affirming thing to do — and also wonderful because my colleagues and I are paid to tell stories. It doesn’t get much better than that."

posted by zarq at 8:54 AM on November 4, 2016 [1 favorite]


He STARTED the series with Peter 'Count Duckula' Theil? He has my sympathy.
posted by oneswellfoop at 3:01 PM on November 4, 2016


The Steven Pinker interview is fantastic. Like all Tyler's interviews, it's all killer, no filler. Also, you can read the full text of the interview online without having to listen to the podcast (podcasts being among the least time-efficient ways of getting information).
posted by Modest House at 3:02 PM on November 4, 2016 [3 favorites]


Well I have to say I did not expect to read Peter Thiel's thoughts on theology. Or Hegel.
posted by atoxyl at 3:46 PM on November 4, 2016


Just a minute on the premise of this series. It’s been my view for years now that Peter Thiel is one of the greatest and most important public intellectuals of our entire time. Throughout the course of history, he will be recognized as such. I thought Peter would be absolutely the perfect person to inaugurate this series.
I thought I could stomach a bit of that one. I'm pretty sure I was wrong.
posted by brennen at 4:24 PM on November 4, 2016


Pinker needs to shut up about everything outside of linguistics and cog sci. Theil needs to shut up about everything. Yucko.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 6:52 PM on November 4, 2016


"Also, you can read the full text of the interview online without having to listen to the podcast (podcasts being among the least time-efficient ways of getting information)."

That's only true if you treat podcasts as a being mutually exclusive from other activities. If you're cleaning, riding a bike in a safe area, driving or walking then they're pretty darn efficient. Also, you can usually listen to them at 1.5x speed and be fine.

And surely History Channel Specials about Nazi Space Alien Pyramid builders are the least time-efficient way of getting information. Or documentaries about Vikings when they replay that same loop of 8 middle aged dudes lazily pretending to whack each other with swords.
posted by Telf at 7:52 PM on November 4, 2016 [2 favorites]


Those are not ways of getting information.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 8:22 PM on November 4, 2016


Tyler Cowen is also well known in the DC area for his Ethnic Dining Guide.
posted by saturngirl at 7:24 AM on November 5, 2016


The transcripts are great. The only one who is required listening is Camille Paglia. I like the part where Cowen asks her if there are any mistakes in Sexual Personae and she says something like since it took twenty years to find a publisher she had time to make it flawless.

Oh and I learned there is another four or five chapters that the publisher just clipped so it's only 700 pages.
posted by bukvich at 9:45 AM on November 5, 2016 [1 favorite]


Oof, Paglia's awful. This guy seems to specialize in interviewing awful people.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 5:27 PM on November 5, 2016 [2 favorites]


Paglia is far from perfect.

Many find her perfectly interesting.
posted by bukvich at 5:49 PM on November 5, 2016


A strange-colored bowel movement is also interesting.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 7:22 PM on November 6, 2016


I enjoyed the Peter Thiel interview, so I'll make time to read more. It'll be amusing if Trump actually nominates Thiel to SCOTUS like he suggested.
posted by jeffburdges at 5:19 AM on November 9, 2016


I found Steven Pinker mildly disappointing, but liked the Jonathan Haidt interview, which lead here and here.

I'll need to hold off for a bit, well those three jumped out as being interesting reads. If anyone else noticed any particular good ones then I'm curious, and might try listening instead of reading.
posted by jeffburdges at 9:20 PM on November 11, 2016


« Older Rise Up Remix   |   Why do Colleges have so much art? Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments