16: Tyler Cowen - The Revolution Will Not Be Marginalized: Difference between revisions
16: Tyler Cowen - The Revolution Will Not Be Marginalized (edit)
Revision as of 23:57, 9 February 2020
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'''Eric:''' Now Tyler, you have a sort of a portfolio of different ways of communicating with the world. Have you ever dragged Steven Pinker onto a podcast – which you do under “Conversations with Tyler” – or have you discussed his bizarre notion of optimism, on your famous economics blog “Marginal Revolution” which you do with your colleague Alex? | '''Eric:''' Now Tyler, you have a sort of a portfolio of different ways of communicating with the world. Have you ever dragged Steven Pinker onto a podcast – which you do under “Conversations with Tyler” – or have you discussed his bizarre notion of optimism, on your famous economics blog “Marginal Revolution” which you do with your colleague Alex? | ||
'''Tyler:''' My podcast “Conversations with Tyler” has an episode with Steven Pinker, and I sat him down in a chair the way you did with me and I said: “Steven, the cost of destroying the world by pressing a button is falling all of the time, every year. At some point it will only cost, say, twenty thousand dollars to take out a major city. How long do you think the world is actually going to last, given that the demand curve slopes downwards – when prices fall, people do more of things | '''Tyler:''' My podcast “Conversations with Tyler” has an episode with Steven Pinker, and I sat him down in a chair the way you did with me and I said: “Steven, the cost of destroying the world by pressing a button is falling all of the time, every year. At some point it will only cost, say, twenty thousand dollars to take out a major city. How long do you think the world is actually going to last, given that the demand curve slopes downwards – when prices fall, people do more of things, destructive weaponry is becoming cheaper – how can you be optimistic?”, I asked him. No good answer. I would say evasion. He said “well, my theory is not predictive, it's just a way of thinking about it [and so on]. | ||
'''Eric:''' So, it instantly falls apart. | '''Eric:''' So, it instantly falls apart. | ||