Conversations with Tyler

Is a written dialogue the best way to learn from philosopher Agnes Callard? If so, what does that say about philosophy? Is Plato's Symposium about love or mere intoxication? If good people lived forev...

11 Apr 201859min

Martina Navratilova is one of the greatest tennis players of all time. No one has won more matches than her thanks to an astonishing 87 percent win rate in a long and dominant career. In their convers...

28 Mar 20181h 5min

Chris Blattman's made his career as a development economist by finding a place he likes and finding a reason to live there. Not a bad strategy considering the impact of the work he's done in Liberia, ...

14 Mar 20181h

If intros aren't about introductions, then what's this here for? Is not including one a countersignal? Either way, you'll enjoy this conversation — and that says a lot about you. This episode was reco...

28 Feb 20181h 5min

Is Matt Levine a modern-day Horace? Like Matt, Horace has a preoccupation with wealth and the law. There's a playful humor as he segues from topic to topic. An ability to read Latin. And many of Horac...

14 Feb 20181h 6min

At the beginning of their conversation, Tyler dubs Charles C. Mann a tlamatini, or 'he who knows things.' And oh, the things he knows, effortlessly weaving together, history, anthropology, economics, ...

31 Jan 201855min

Last year, Tyler asked his readers "What Is the Strongest Argument for the Existence of God?" and followed up a few days later with a post outlining why he doesn't believe in God. New York Times colum...

17 Jan 20181h 25min

Before writing a single word of his new book Artemis, Andy Weir worked out the economics of a lunar colony. Without the economics, how could the story hew to the hard sci-fi style Weir cornered the ma...

20 Des 201752min