16: Tyler Cowen - The Revolution Will Not Be Marginalized: Difference between revisions

16: Tyler Cowen - The Revolution Will Not Be Marginalized (edit)

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 '''Tyler:''' Thank you Eric.
-'''Eric:''' When we were talking about what topics we could begin with, I didn't want to begin with economics, and you suggested “the Apocalypse” is a great place to start. The great benefit of this is that if we get past it, the rest of the conversation will be post-apocalyptic.
+'''Eric:''' When we were talking about what topics we could begin with, I didn't want to begin with economics – and you suggested “the Apocalypse” is a great place to start. The great benefit of this is that if we get past it, the rest of the conversation will be post-apocalyptic.
 '''Tyler:''' The Apocalypse itself is economics of course, but I was just thinking that virtually any good theory of politics needs some notion of the Apocalypse. Let’s say you thought the time horizon for the universe or a human civilization were potentially infinite. You would then be so concerned with minimizing existential risk, that nothing would get done. Whereas if you think “well, you know mankind has another 800 years left on earth on average and by that time probably will have blown ourselves up or an asteroid will come”, then you think “what glorious things can we do with those 800 years”, and it's quite a difference in perspective. So an infinite time horizon might actually choke off rational thought about political decision-making.