19 | Tyler Cowen on Maximizing Growth and Thinking for the Future

19 | Tyler Cowen on Maximizing Growth and Thinking for the Future

Economics, like other sciences (social and otherwise), is about what the world does; but it's natural for economists to occasionally wander out into the question of what we should do as we live in the world. A very good example of this is a new book by economist Tyler Cowen, Stubborn Attachments. Tyler will be well-known to many listeners for his long-running blog Marginal Revolution (co-created with his colleague Alex Tabarrok) and his many books and articles. Here he offers a surprising new take on how society should arrange itself, based on the simple idea that the welfare of future generations counts for just as much as the welfare of the current one. From that starting point, Tyler concludes that the most moral thing for us to do is to work to maximize economic growth right now, as that's the best way to ensure that future generations are well-off. We talk about this idea, as well as the more general idea of how to think like an economist. (In the second half of the podcast we veer off into talking about quantum mechanics and the multiverse, to everyone's benefit.) Tyler Cowen is the Holbert C. Harris professor of economics and General Director of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. He is the author of over a dozen books and many journal articles, and writes frequently for the popular press. His blog Marginal Revolution is one of the leading economics blogs on the internet. He is widely recognized for his eclectic interests, from chess to music to ethnic dining. Website Home page at George Mason Mercatus Center web page Marginal Revolution Marginal Revolution University Twitter Bloomberg Opinion columns Tyler Cowen's Ethnic Dining Guide Wikipedia page Amazon books

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53 | Solo -- On Morality and Rationality

53 | Solo -- On Morality and Rationality

What does it mean to be a good person? To act ethically and morally in the world? In the old days we might appeal to the instructions we get from God, but a modern naturalist has to look elsewhere. To...

1 Heinä 20192h 5min

52 | Frank Lantz on the Logic and Emotion of Games

52 | Frank Lantz on the Logic and Emotion of Games

Games play an important, and arguably increasing, role in human life. We play games on our computers and our phones, watch other people compete in games, and occasionally break out the cards or the Mo...

24 Kesä 20191h 4min

51 | Anthony Aguirre on Cosmology, Zen, Entropy, and Information

51 | Anthony Aguirre on Cosmology, Zen, Entropy, and Information

Cosmologists have a standard set of puzzles they think about: the nature of dark matter and dark energy, whether there was a period of inflation, the evolution of structure, and so on. But there are a...

17 Kesä 20191h 31min

50 | Patricia Churchland on Conscience, Morality, and the Brain

50 | Patricia Churchland on Conscience, Morality, and the Brain

It's fun to spend time thinking about how other people should behave, but fortunately we also have an inner voice that keeps offering opinions about how we should behave ourselves: our conscience. Whe...

10 Kesä 20191h 12min

49 | Nicholas Christakis on Humanity, Biology, and What Makes Us Good

49 | Nicholas Christakis on Humanity, Biology, and What Makes Us Good

It's easy to be cynical about humanity's present state and future prospects. But we have made it this far, and in some ways we're doing better than we used to be. Today's guest, Nicholas Christakis, i...

3 Kesä 20191h 54min

48 | Marq de Villiers on Hell and Damnation

48 | Marq de Villiers on Hell and Damnation

If you're bad, we are taught, you go to Hell. Who in the world came up with that idea? Some will answer God, but for the purpose of today's podcast discussion we'll put that possibility aside and look...

27 Touko 20191h 11min

47 | Adam Rutherford on Humans, Animals, and Life in General

47 | Adam Rutherford on Humans, Animals, and Life in General

Most people in the modern world — and the vast majority of Mindscape listeners, I would imagine — agree that humans are part of the animal kingdom, and that all living animals evolved from a common an...

20 Touko 20191h 38min

46 | Kate Darling on Our Connections with Robots

46 | Kate Darling on Our Connections with Robots

Most of us have no trouble telling the difference between a robot and a living, feeling organism. Nevertheless, our brains often treat robots as if they were alive. We give them names, imagine that th...

13 Touko 20191h 6min

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