Joe Walker hosts refreshingly in-depth conversations with founders, scientists, scholars, economists, and public intellectuals.
(Formerly ‘The Jolly Swagman Podcast’.)
Joe Walker hosts refreshingly in-depth conversations with founders, scientists, scholars, economists, and public intellectuals.
(Formerly ‘The Jolly Swagman Podcast’.)
Copyright: © 2023 Joe Walker
Robert Boyd and Peter Richerson are anthropologists based in America. Their partnership was central to the development of Dual-Inheritance Theory, a framework that applies Darwinian evolution to culture and explains how genes and culture have intertwined to shape our species.
This is their first ever joint interview.
Full transcript available at: josephnoelwalker.com/boyd-and-richerson/
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Lucy Turnbull is an urbanist, businesswoman and philanthropist.
She was the first female Lord Mayor of Sydney, from 2003-4.
From 2015-20, she was the inaugural Chief Commissioner of the Greater Sydney Commission, tasked with delivering strategic planning for the whole of metropolitan Sydney.
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Bryan Caplan is Professor of Economics at George Mason University. A bestselling author, his books include The Case Against Education, Open Borders, and Build, Baby, Build: The Science and Ethics of Housing Deregulation.
Full transcript available at: josephnoelwalker.com/bryan-caplan-155
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In this special episode, the tables are turned as I'm interviewed by a listener of the show, DJ Thornton from Sydney. We reflect on the progress of the show in 2023, what I learned from this year's guests, and what's in store for 2024.
Full transcript available at: josephnoelwalker.com
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At a time when the Enlightenment is under attack from without and within, I bring together two of the most thoughtful defenders of progress and reason, for their first ever public dialogue.
Steven Pinker is the Johnstone Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. I think of him as providing the strongest empirical defence of the Enlightenment (as seen in his book Enlightenment Now).
David Deutsch is a British physicist at the University of Oxford, and the father of quantum computing. I think of him as having produced the most compelling first principles defence of the Enlightenment (as seen in his book The Beginning of Infinity).
Full transcript available at: https://josephnoelwalker.com/153-deutsch-pinker-dialogue.
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Shruti Rajagopalan is an Indian-American economist. She leads the Indian political economy research program and Emergent Ventures India at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. She also hosts the Ideas of India podcast.
Full transcript available at: jnwpod.com
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What were the deep causes of the global financial crisis and great recession? Has unconventional monetary policy in the wake of the crisis done more harm than good? And should monetary policy target financial stability?
I discuss these questions and more with Indian economist and Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago Raghuram Rajan.
Raghuram Rajan was chief economist at the IMF from 2003 to 2006, and from 2013 to 2016 he was Governor of the Reserve Bank of India. As RBI Governor, he notably introduced India's inflation-targeting scheme, among many other achievements.
Full transcript available at: josephnoelwalker.com/151-raghuram-rajan
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Peter Singer is the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University. He is widely regarded as the world's most influential living philosopher.
Full transcript available at: jnwpod.com
Episode recorded on 26 April 2023.
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Peter Turchin is a complexity scientist and one of the founders of cliodynamics — a new, cross-disciplinary field that applies mathematics and big data to test historical theories.
Full transcript available at: jnwpod.com.
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Stephen Wolfram is a physicist, computer scientist and businessman. He is the founder and CEO of Wolfram Research, the creator of Mathematica and Wolfram Alpha, and the author of A New Kind of Science.
Full transcript available at: jnwpod.com.
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Katalin Karikó is a Hungarian-American biochemist. She is one of the inventors of mRNA technology.
Full transcript available at: thejspod.com.
Episode recorded on 15 February 2023.
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Richard Rhodes is an American historian and the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb.
Full transcript available at: thejspod.com
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Dr Ken Henry is an Australian economist who served as Secretary of Australia's Treasury from 2001 to 2011. He was instrumental in helping Australia avoid recession during the 2008 Global Financial Crisis — Australia was the only major advanced economy to do so.
Full transcript available at: thejspod.com
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Palmer Luckey is an American tech entrepreneur and billionaire. He has founded two companies: Oculus VR (acquired by Facebook for $2 billion in 2014), and Anduril (recently valued at $8.5 billion). He has been described as the real-life Tony Stark.
Full transcript available at: www.thejspod.com
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Daniel Kahneman is widely regarded as the most influential psychologist alive. He won the Nobel Prize in Economics (2002) for his work on judgment and decision-making under uncertainty, much of it done jointly with his late collaborator Amos Tversky. He is the author of the bestselling books Thinking, Fast and Slow and Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment (written with Olivier Sibony and Cass Sunstein).
Full transcript available at: thejspod.com
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In the long run, talent allocation is almost everything. But as a society, we're not actually very good at it. The question of how to reliably match people with jobs they are well suited for is one of the big unsolved problems of our times.
Joe catches up with return guest Tyler Cowen to discuss the art of identifying talent. Tyler is a professor of economics at George Mason University and host of the podcast Conversations with Tyler. He is also the co-author of a new book, Talent: How to Identify Energizers, Creatives, and Winners Around the World.
Full transcript available at: thejspod.com
Episode recorded: 18 May 2022.
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From language and writing to the Hindu-Arabic numeral system, computers and Adobe Photoshop, our species has a history of inventing tools for augmenting our own intelligence. But what comes next?
Andy Matuschak is a developer and designer. He helped build iOS at Apple, founded and led Khan Academy's R&D lab, and now works as an independent researcher investigating 'tools for thought' — that is, technologies that can transform human cognition and creativity.
Full episode transcript available at: thejspod.com
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How rational are we? How can a species smart enough to set foot on the moon also be prone to conspiracy theories that the moon landing was fake? Joe speaks with Steven Pinker to discuss rationality — and its opposite.
Steven Pinker is the Johnstone Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. He is a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, an elected to the National Academy of Sciences and one of Time‘s 100 Most Influential People.
Full episode transcript available at: thejspod.com
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Bayesianism, the doctrine that it's always rational to represent our beliefs in terms of probabilities, dominates the intellectual world, from decision theory to the philosophy of science. But does it make sense to quantify our beliefs about such ineffable things as scientific theories or the future? And what separates empty prophecy from legitimate prediction?
David Deutsch is a British physicist at the University of Oxford, and is widely regarded as the father of quantum computing. He is the author of The Fabric of Reality (1997) and The Beginning of Infinity (2011).
Full episode transcript available at: thejspod.com
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William Dalrymple is an acclaimed historian and writer.
Show notes available at: josephnoelwalker.com/138-afghanistan
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Richard Holden is Professor of Economics at UNSW. Steven Hamilton is an Assistant Professor of Economics at The George Washington University.
Full transcript available at: josephnoelwalker.com/holden-hamilton
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Ole Peters is a physicist and a Fellow at the London Mathematical Laboratory.
Show notes available at: josephnoelwalker.com/136-ergodicity
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Michael Sandel teaches political philosophy at Harvard University, where he is the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Government Theory. His course “Justice” is the first Harvard course to be made freely available online and on television and has been viewed by tens of millions of people around the world.
Full transcript available at: josephnoelwalker.com/michael-sandel
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Graham Allison is an American political scientist and the Douglas Dillon Professor of Government Harvard University.
Full transcript available at: josephnoelwalker.com/graham-allison
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Niall Ferguson is one of the world's most renowned historians. He is the Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and a senior faculty fellow of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard. He is the author of sixteen books, including most recently Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe.
Full transcript available at: josephnoelwalker.com/niall-ferguson
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John Hewson is a former Australian politician and was leader of the Liberal Party from 1990 to 1994.
Full transcript available at: josephnoelwalker.com/john-hewson
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John Kay is one of Britain's leading economists.
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John Horgan is a science journalist and Director of the Center for Science Writings at the Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, New Jersey. He was senior writer at Scientific American from 1986-1997 and is the author of the bestselling book The End of Science.
Full transcript available at: josephnoelwalker.com/horgan
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Graeme Davison is Australia's most eminent urban historian.
Full transcript available at: josephnoelwalker.com/graeme-davison
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Cheryl Misak is a Canadian philosopher and the author of Frank Ramsey: A Sheer Excess of Powers.
Full transcript available at: josephnoelwalker.com/misak
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Malcolm Turnbull was the 29th Prime Minister of Australia.
Full transcript available at: josephnoelwalker.com/malcolm-turnbull
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Andy Lee is one half of iconic Australian comedy duo Hamish & Andy.
Full transcript available at: josephnoelwalker.com/andy-lee
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Robert Skidelsky, FBA is a British economic historian. He is the author of a three-volume award-winning biography of British economist John Maynard Keynes.
Full transcript available at: josephnoelwalker.com/skidelsky
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Noam Chomsky is the father of modern linguistics and one of the most cited scholars in modern history. He is also one of the most influential public intellectuals in the world, having written more than 150 books.
Full transcript available at: josephnoelwalker.com/chomsky
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Sir Paul Collier is a British development economist. He is currently a professor of economics at the University of Oxford and was the Director of the Development Research Group at the World Bank between 1998 and 2003. Paul has authored numerous books, including The Bottom Billion, The Plundered Planet, and The Future of Capitalism. His latest book, co-authored with John Kay, is Greed is Dead: Politics After Individualism.
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Zach Carter is a senior reporter at The Huffington Post and the author of the New York Times bestseller The Price of Peace: Money, Democracy and the Life of John Maynard Keynes.
Full transcript available at: josephnoelwalker.com/zach-carter
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Robert Plomin is one of the world's leading behavioural geneticists. He is currently MRC Research Professor in Behavioural Genetics at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at King’s College London.
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Jack A. Goldstone is an American sociologist and is widely regarded as one of the world's leading experts on the subject of revolutions.
Full transcript available at: josephnoelwalker.com/jack-goldstone
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Mark Cuban is an American billionaire investor, entrepreneur and TV personality.
Full transcript available at: josephnoelwalker.com/mark-cuban
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Frank Wilczek won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2004 and is considered one of the world’s most eminent theoretical physicists.
Full transcript available at: josephnoelwalker.com/frank-wilczek
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Benjamin M. Friedman is widely recognised as one of the world's leading macroeconomists. He is currently the William Joseph Maier Professor of Political Economy at Harvard University.
Read the full transcript at: josephnoelwalker.com/ben-friedman
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Joe Henrich is Professor and Chair of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University. He is the author of The Secret of Our Success and The Weirdest People in the World.
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Sir Angus Deaton is a Nobel Prize-winning economist and coauthor of Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism.
Read the full transcript at: josephnoelwalker.com/deaton
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David Sloan Wilson is an evolutionary biologist.
Read the full transcript at: https://josephnoelwalker.com/atlashugged
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John Hempton is co-founder and Chief Investment Officer at Bronte Capital.
Selected links
Topics discussed
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Gerd Gigerenzer is a German psychologist and director emeritus of the Center for Adaptive Behavior and Cognition at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development.
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David Hirshleifer is a professor of finance and currently holds the Merage chair in Business Growth at the University of California.
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Vernon Smith won the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 2002. This is his second appearance on the show.
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Anne Goldgar is an historian and holds the Van Hunnick Chair in European History at the University of Southern California Dornsife.
Selected links
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Ed Glaeser is the Fred and Eleanor Glimp Professor of Economics at Harvard University.
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Martha Olney is an economist and Teaching Professor in Berkeley's Economics Department.
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Arlie Hochschild is one of the most influential sociologists of the 20th and 21st centuries.
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Tyler Cowen is an economist and public intellectual par excellence.
Show notes
Selected links
•Follow Tyler: Website | Twitter | Podcast | Blog
•Stubborn Attachments, by Tyler Cowen
•Ideal Code, Real World, by Brad Hooker
•Utilitarianism and Co-operation, by Donald Regan
•Peter Thiel interview, Conversations with Tyler
•The Great Stagnation, by Tyler Cowen
•The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth, by Benjamin Friedman
•Fully Growth, by Dietrich Vollrath
•'The Nobel Prize Isn't What It Used To Be', Bloomberg article by Tyler Cowen
•'Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey: 2020'
•Superintelligence, by Nick Bostrom
•A Tract on Monetary Reform, by John Maynard Keynes
•Indian Currency and Finance, by John Maynard Keynes
•Individualism and Economic Order, by Friedrich Hayek
•The Rise and Fall of American Growth, by Robert Gordon
Topics discussed
•If God is dead, life is absurd and there are no rules, why shouldn't we just commit suicide?
•Why should we care about the distant future?
•Does rule utilitarianism collapse into act utilitarianism?
•How can we make decisions at all without succumbing to moral paralysis and total uncertainty?
•Why isn't the epistemic critique fatal to consequentialism?
•Why didn't Tyler donate the proceeds of Stubborn Attachments to an effective charity?
•What is the Great Stagnation?
•Why was 1973 the breakpoint in western productivity growth?
•Is the Great Stagnation overdetermined?
•What metric would Tyler look at to determine whether the Great Stagnation had ended?
•When did Tyler first become cognisant of the...
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Dr Andrew Leigh MP is an economist and Federal Labor parliamentarian.
Show notes
Selected links
•Follow Andrew: Website | Twitter
•Reconnected, by Andrew Leigh and Nick Terrell
•Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville
•Bowling Alone, by Robert Putnam
•Disconnected, by Andrew Leigh
Topics discussed
•What has Andrew's experience of the pandemic been like? 7:54
•Andrew's vision for Australian society. 9:40
•What was it like to work under Robert Putnam? 12:27
•What are some of the big lessons Andrew learned from Putnam? 15:00
•What is Andrew's research system? 17:43
•What is 'social capital'? 18:12
•What is the story of the decline of social capital in Australia? 19:24
•Pushing back on the idea of social capital. 21:17
•Andrew's favourite examples of social entrepreneurship in Australia. 29:00
•Has the net effect of the digital world been to connect or disconnect us? 31:38
•Why are some organisations better at building social capital than others? 35:07
•How does Andrew think about religion? 36:40
•How can we increase social capital by using systems or design thinking? 41:37
•What impactful community organisation is no one building? 44:05
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Bethany McLean is an investigative journalist and contributing editor for Vanity Fair.
Show notes
Selected links
•Follow Bethany: Website | Twitter
•The Smartest Guys in the Room, by Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind
•'Is Enron Overpriced?', Bethany's March 5, 2001, article for Fortune
•'What Caused Enron?: A Capsule Social and Economic History of the 1990's', article by John Coffee
•Bad Blood, by John Carreyrou
•The Seven Signs of Ethical Collapse, by Marriane Jennings
•Spy The Lie, by Philip Houston, Michael Floyd and Don Tennant
•Saudi America, by Bethany McLean
•The Undoing Project, by Michael Lewis
Topics discussed
•How did Bethany become a journalist? 4:13
•How did Enron come to be Enron? 6:30
•How did Bethany see through Enron when most others were beguiled by it? 8:33
•What was the reaction to Bethany's original article expressing skepticism about Enron? 11:35
•Why was Enron an example of 'legal fraud'? 13:34
•How to spot the "dogs" dressed up as "ducks". 16:20
•What were the ultimate causes of Enron's collapse? 19:43
•How did so many smart people at Enron become so corrupted? 30:06
•Bethany's book recommendations. 32:42
•The fine line between frauds and visionaries. 34:56
•Self-deception. 41:56
•If Elizabeth Holmes succeeded, would the end have justified her means? 45:23
•Elon Musk. 46:54
•The truth about fracking. 55:14
•How does Bethany stay organised as a journalist? 57:17
•How does Bethany put questions to her sources? 58:36
•Balancing accuracy with narrative flair. 59:35
•Which factors help Bethany decide which facts to include in a story and which to omit from it? 1:05:40
•How to construct an effective narrative. 1:11:46
•What business model could scale up investigative journalism? 1:17:54
•How does democracy survive the eroding of journalism's traditional business model? 1:24:04
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Ian Macfarlane was Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia from 1996 to 2006.
Show notes
Selected links
•Follow Ian: Website
•The Deficit Myth, by Stephanie Kelton
•Macroeconomics, by William Mitchell, L. Randall Ray and Martin Watts
•'Indebted Demand', paper by Atif Mian, Ludwig Straub and Amir Sufi
Topics discussed
•Monetary policy. 4:44
•Modern Monetary Theory. 42:07
•Secular Stagnation and Indebted Demand. 1:11:10
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Eric Weinstein is a mathematician and the Managing Director of Thiel Capital.
Show notes
Selected links
•Follow Eric: Website | Twitter
•The Three Languages of Politics, by Arnold Kling
•'Opinions and Social Pressure', paper by Solomon Asch
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Vernon Smith won the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 2002. Show notes Selected links •Follow Vernon: Website •Rethinking Housing Bubbles, by Vernon Smith and Steven Gjerstad •'Debt Deflation: Theory and Evidence', address by Mervyn King •'Is the 2007 US Sub-Prime Financial Crisis So Different? An International •Historical Comparison', paper by Rogoff and Reinhart •'Global Household Leverage, House Prices, and Consumption', FRBSF Economic Letter by Reuven Glick and Kevin Lansing •'Dealing With Household Debt', chapter by the IMF •'The great mortgaging: housing finance, crises and business cycles', paper by Jorda, Schularick and Taylor •'Leveraged bubbles', paper by Jorda, Schularick and Taylor •'Housing and the Economy', 2019 speech by Guy Debelle •'Bubbles, Crashes, and Endogenous Expectations in Experimental Spot Asset Markets', paper by Vernon Smith, Gerry Suchanek and Arlington Williams •A Life of Experimental Economics, Volume I, by Vernon Smith •The example scenario of pessimists and optimists buying 100 identical houses is from House of Debt, by Amir Sufi and Atif Mian •'The Leverage Cycle', paper by John Geanakoplos •'Boys Will Be Boys: Gender, Overconfidence, and Common Stock Investment', paper by Brad Barber and Terry Odean •The Wisdom of Crowds, by James Surowiecki •'The Clinton Housing Bubble', WSJ article by Vernon Smith •''We're heartbroken': home in same family for 93 years passes in', 2018 The Daily Telegraph article •'Why are we so worried about household debt?',
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Avi Loeb is Chair of Harvard's Astronomy Department.
Show notes
Selected links
•Follow Avi: Website
•The Myth Of Sisyphus, by Albert Camus
•The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, by Thomas Kuhn
•'The End of Spacetime', public lecture by Nima Arkani-Hamed
•Rendezvouz With Rama, by Arthur C. Clarke
•'Glowing Auras and "Black Money": The Pentagon's Mysterious U.F.O. Program', NYT article (16/12/17)
•'2 Navy Airmen and an Object That "Accelerated Like Nothing I've Ever Seen", NYT article (16/12/17)
Topics discussed
•Avi's childhood growing up on a farm in Israel, and journey into academia. 5:16
•Avi's romance with philosophy, Satre, and Camus. 10:11
•When in their careers should scientists court risk? 15:24
•Albert Camus and The Myth Of Sisyphus. 21:10
•How does alien intelligence change the meaning of human existence? 24:50
•If there was no other intelligent life in the universe, would that make a god more likely? 34:51
•How far off is technology for 3D printing of...humans? 40:49
•What are the a priori odds of other intelligent life in the universe -- and how do we calculate them? 42:49
•Why is it so quiet out there? 47:25
•Space archaeology. 52:33
•Is space-time a doomed concept? 1:04:14
•How do we verify what happens beyond the event horizon of a black hole? 1:12:08
•The multiverse: bullshit or not? 1:17:25
•What could spacefaring aliens teach us about physics? 1:30:00
•'Oumuamua -- a possible interstellar spacecraft lurking in our solar system. 1:31:45
•The Pentagon UFO releases. 1:43:47
•Hostile aliens. 1:46:00
•The advantages of generalism. 1:54:43
•The meaning of life (42). 2:01:21
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Peter Doherty is an immunologist and winner of the 1996 Nobel Prize in Medicine.
Show notes
Selected links
•Follow Peter: Website | Twitter
•'I'm 79, I won the Nobel Prize and I don't give a s---', AFR profile of Peter Doherty
•Pandemics: What Everyone Needs To Know, by Peter Doherty
•The (in)famous Imperial College paper
Topics discussed
•Has Peter always not given a shit? 7:32
•Peter's odd high school experience. 9:00
•How the media report on science. 12:30
•What is the difference between a virus and a bacterium? 15:08
•How does a new coronavirus come into existence? 17:47
•What is Peter's area of expertise and what does he know about pandemics? 22:57
•What has the coronavirus pandemic taught us about the usefulness of epidemiological models? 25:20
•The politicization of lockdowns. 35:57
•The origins of America and Australia's cultural differences. 47:33
•Social media and political polarisation. 57:05
•In weathering the pandemic relatively well, was Australia lucky or were the epidemiological models too pessimistic? 59:56
•Can we just lockdown the vulnerable segment of the population, rather than the whole population? 1:03:52
•Is Peter optimistic about keeping a lid on the virus until a vaccine arrives? 1:08:25
•What do governments need to learn from the pandemic to be better prepared for the next one? 1:16:00
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Cameron Murray is a Research Fellow at the University of Sydney's Henry Halloran Trust. Ian Mulheirn is Executive Director and Chief Economist at the Tony Blair Institute.
Show notes
Selected links
•Follow Cameron Murray: Website | Twitter
•Follow Ian Mulheirn: Website | Twitter
•Tackling the UK housing crisis: is supply the answer?', 2019 report by Ian Mulheirn
•'Innovative Approaches to Reducing the Costs of Home Ownership', 2003 report by Joye and Caplin
•'The Australian Housing Supply Myth', 2019 paper by Cameron Murray
•'The Geographic Determinants of Housing Supply', paper by Albert Saiz
Topics discussed
•Why isn't a lack of supply the primary cause of high house prices? 14:40
•The role of interest rates. 18:46
•The tangled web of causality behind house prices. 36:42
•Narratives in housing markets: are they exogenous shocks or post hoc rationalisations? 41:40
•Where did the housing supply narrative come from? 46:41
•How would the UK government prop up its housing market if fundamentals deteriorated? 1:04:52
•Arguments in support of the housing supply myth. 1:05:48
•What makes for an intellectually defensible forecast of house prices? 1:29:17
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Matt Ridley is an author, journalist, biologist, and businessman. His books have sold over a million copies.
Show notes
Selected links
•Follow Matt Ridley: Website | Twitter
•How Innovation Works, by Matt Ridley
•The Origins of Virtue, by Matt Ridley
•Zero to One, by Peter Thiel
•Born Standing Up, by Steve Martin
•The Innovator's Dilemma, by Clayton Christensen
•'The Use of Knowledge in Society', essay by Friedrich Hayek
•Bad Blood, by John Carreyrou
•The Great Stagnation, by Tyler Cowen
•The Rise and Fall of American Growth, by Robert Gordon
Topics discussed
•When did Matt first come to understand the disturbing notion of selfish gene theory? 8:55
•How did Matt, a biologist, become so interested in innovation? 16:20
•The infinite improbability drive. 20:30
•What's the difference between innovation and invention? 24:05
•What do most people (wrongly) believe about how innovation works? 25:48
•Why innovation relies on collaboration. 33:53
•Innovation is the child of freedom. But what amount or types of freedom are sufficient to underpin innovation? 40:35
•Why does innovation thrive in fragmented political systems? 46:39
•Does unfettered economic freedom tend irresistibly towards monopolies? 50:37
•Antitrust enforcement: have we been doing enough? 1:02:44
•The relationship between uncertainty and innovation. 1:05:58
•Frauds and visionaries. 1:14:20
•Uncertainty and economics. 1:15:26
•Are we in the midst of a Great Stagnation? 1:26:40
•Can we escape stagnation? 1:40:30
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Mervyn King was Governor of the Bank of England from 2003 to 2013.
Show notes
Selected links
•Follow Mervyn King: Website
•Radical Uncertainty, by Mervyn King and John Kay
•The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, by John Maynard Keynes
•'Debt deflation: Theory and evidence', paper by Mervyn King
•The End of Alchemy, by Mervyn King
•Recollections of a Bleeding Heart, by Don Watson
•The Poverty of Historicism, by Karl Popper
•Obliquity, by John Kay
•'Truth and Probability', essay by Frank Ramsey
•Frank Ramsey: A Sheer Excess of Powers, by Cheryl Misak
Topics discussed
•Why did Mervyn choose to study economics at Cambridge? 11:06
•Keynes' General Theory. 17:41
•Debt-deflation. 23:58
•When Mervyn met Ben. 29:20
•Was Mervyn caught off guard by the Global Financial Crisis? 31:40
•Does stability lead to instability? 38:18
•The stability heuristic. 41:43
•What is radical uncertainty? 49:54
•How technology creates radical uncertainty. 1:04:57
•Why has the economics profession overlooked radical uncertainty -- and when did this blindspot begin? 1:13:10
•Narratives. 1:25:18
•What does it mean to be rational? 1:31:21
•Speculative bubbles. 1:40:25
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Russ Roberts is an economist and the host of EconTalk.
Show notes
Selected links
•Follow Russ Roberts: Website | Twitter
•EconTalk
•Macroeconomic Patterns and Stories, by Ed Leamer
•Fooled By Randomness, by Nassim Taleb
•Systemic Risk of Pandemic Via Novel Pathogens -- Coronavirus', paper by Joe Norman, Yaneer Bar-Yam, and Nassim Taleb
•'To philosophize is to learn how to die', essay by Montaigne
•How Adam Smith Can Change Your Life, by Russ Roberts
Topics discussed
•When and how did EconTalk begin? 8:55
•Has interviewing over 750 people made Russ a better or more effective person? 13:59
•How to really understand an idea. 32:00
•What has Russ learned from Nassim Taleb? 35:43
•The Precautionary Principle. 42:03
•The lockdown dilemma. 48:38
•The Precautionary Principle again. 1:11:52
•Is Russ afraid of death? 1:18:49
•What has Russ done to improve his craft as an interviewer? 1:27:18
•Where was Russ born and what did his parents do? 1:48:21
•Why did Russ study economics? 1:49:52
•Narrative economics. 1:51:13
•Who are the most important economists for non-economists to know? 1:57:12
•How does Russ think about what he does? 2:02:31
•Vipassana meditation. 2:06:26
•When would Russ recommend economics as an undergraduate degree? 2:17:18
•Adam Smith's distinction between being loved and being lovely. 2:21:14
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Malcolm Turnbull was Australia's 29th Prime Minister.
Show notes
Selected links
•Follow Malcolm Turnbull: Website | Twitter
•A Bigger Picture, by Malcolm Turnbull
•Malcolm's speech at the 2010 Deakin Lectures
•Malcolm's speech at the 2010 BZE Stationary Energy Plan launch
•'Condolence on the Death of Robert Hughes', 2012 speech by Malcolm Turnbull
•Malcolm's 2015 speech challenging Tony Abbott's leadership
•The Fiery Chariot, by Lucille Iremonger
•Reflections on the Revolution in France, by Edmund Burke
•The Case for Conservatism, by Quintin Hogg
•The Reluctant Republic, by Malcolm Turnbull
•Fighting For the Republic, by Malcolm Turnbull
•Constitutional Advancement in a Frozen Continent: Essays in honour of George Winterton
•'An Alternative Republic Proposal', Anne Twomey's 2015 article in the ALJ
•Skin in the Game, by Nassim Taleb
•Antifragile, by Nassim Taleb
Topics discussed
•Which of Malcolm's speeches is he most proud of? 9:52
•Malcolm's childhood. 12:51
•Burkean Conservatism. 20:20
•How do governments know when they're reforming too quickly or too slowly? 26:11
•Resolving the core tension in the Australian Republican Movement. 42:59
•Same-sex marriage. 48:48
•The Minority Rule. 52:19
•Is the Liberal Party philosophically tenable? 59:35
•How does Malcolm assess prospective tech investments? 1:04:24
•Malcolm's intellectual shift on China. 1:07:19
•Malcolm's struggle with depression and suicidal thoughts. 1:11:42
•Antifragility. 1:15:48
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Chris Edmond and Steve Hamilton are Australian economists.
Show notes
Selected links
•Follow Chris Edmond: Website | Twitter
•Follow Steve Hamilton: Website | Twitter
•'A Rush Back to 'Normal' Would Be the Blunder of the Century', WIRED's interview of Larry Summers
•'Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions to reduce COVID-19 mortality and healthcare demand', Imperial College London paper by Neil Ferguson et al
•'How the recession we have to have can be sharp but short', The Australian Financial Review article by Steve Hamilton and Stan Veuger
•'Coronavirus: payroll subsidy will save the economy', The Australian article by Chris Edmond and Bruce Preston
Topics discussed
•What happens to an economy when non-essential workers are told to stay home? 9:22
•The false choice between health and economic outcomes. 20:53
•How long do lockdowns need to last? 36:39
•Are Australia's lockdowns hard enough? 43:46
•What does pandemic-appropriate fiscal stimulus look like? 46:29
•Is this the end of surplus fetishism? 59:45
•JobKeeper. 1:06:44
•Will Australia see further rounds of stimulus? 1:19:21
•Is the financial economy healthy? 1:22:33
•Which one piece of advice would Steve and Chris give to the Australian Government? 1:26:26
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Chris Joye is Founder and Co-Chief Investments Officer at Coolabah Capital Investments. He is also a Contributing Editor with The...
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Andrea Crisanti is a Professor of Microbiology at the University of Padua. He is part of the research team that eradicated coronavirus in Vo, a town in northern Italy.
Show notes
Selected links
•Follow Andrea: Website
•Johns Hopkins University's coronavirus dashboard
•Data on testing by country
•Marc Lipsitch's 18 March STAT article
Topics discussed
•The Italian crisis. 8:22
•Why has Lombardy become an epicentre of coronavirus? 9:50
•How does the situation in Veneto compare to that in Lombardy? 11:06
•How did Andrea become involved in the Vo experiment? 11:51
•What is the process for identifying infection people in Veneto? 17:20
•What is the R0 for asymptomatic people? 20:25
•What is the strategy employed at Vo? 24:32
•Is there still time for Australia and the US to implement the strategy used at Vo? 25:21
•Does the Vo strategy need to be implemented in full in order to be successful? 28:05
•Why have some Asian countries been better at controlling the virus than Western countries? 28:47
•Is the Vo strategy scalable? 29:43
•How should we think about the prospects of future waves of the virus? 30:34
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Peter Singer is the world's most influential living philosopher.
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Yaneer Bar-Yam is a physicist and the founding president of the New England Complex Systems Institute.
Show notes
Selected links
•Follow Yaneer: Website | Twitter
•Endcoronavirus.org
•Dynamics of Complex Systems, by Yaneer Bar-Yam
•Making Things Work, by Yaneer Bar-Yam
•'Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19)', research by Max Roser and Hannah Ritchie
•Powers of Ten YouTube video
•'An Introduction to Complex Systems Science and Its Applications', 2019 paper by Alexander Siegenfeld and Yaneer Bar-Yam
•'The Architecture of Complexity', 1962 paper by Herbert Simon
•'Science and Complexity', 1948 paper by Warren Weaver
•'More is Different', 1972 paper by Phil Anderson
•Scale, by Geoffrey West
•Johns Hopkins University coronavirus interactive map
•'Systemic Risk of Pandemic via Novel Pathogens -- Coronavirus: Note', January 2020 note by Nassim Taleb, Yaneer Bar-Yam, and Joe Norman
•The Square And The Tower, by Niall Ferguson
•'Long-range interaction and evolutionary stability in a predator-prey system', 2006 paper by Erik Rauch and Yaneer Bar-Yam
•'Transition to Extinction', 2016 article by Yaneer Bar-Yam
•'Nonpharmaceutical Interventions Implemented by US Cities During the 1918-1919 Influenza Pandemic', 2007 paper by Howard Markel et al
•'Strategies for mitigating an influenza pandemic', 2006 paper by Neil Ferguson et al
•Join the fellowship of the doers: necsivolunteers@gmail.com
Topics discussed
•Yaneer's background and parents. 11:39
•Powers of Ten. 12:06
•Highlights from Yaneer's time as an MIT student. 15:29
•The role of chance in our lives. 21:28
•What is "complexity"? 25:42
•Complex systems. 30:23
•Emergence. 37:06
•Phase transitions. 44:26
•Self-organization. 49:48
•Universality. 55:12
•Applying complex systems science to the Arab Spring. 1:03:13
•Taking stock of the coronavirus epidemic. 1:12:47
•What is the current best estimate for th...
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Kevin Rudd was Australia's 26th Prime Minister and is the President of the Asia Society Policy Institute.
Show notes
Selected links
•Follow Kevin: Website | Twitter
•Mike Pence's Hudson Institute Speech (October 4, 2018)
•'The Sources of Soviet Conduct', 1947 article by "X" (George Kennan)
•Henry Kissinger's talk at Bloomberg's New Economy Forum (November 21, 2019)
•'Chinese Communist Party Influence at Australian Universities', lecture by Clive Hamilton
•'High Tide? Populism in Power, 1990 - 2020', report by the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change
•'Going to Extremes: Politics after Financial Crises, 1870 - 2014', paper by Manuel Funke, Moritz Schularick, and Christoph Trebesch
•'The Complacent Country', article by Kevin Rudd
Topics discussed
•Wuhan. 3:56
•What has the coronavirus revealed about the limits of the CCP's competence? 4:30
•Is the CCP underreporting coronavirus figures, as it did for SARS figures in 2003? 6:57
•Are China and the US in a new cold war? 8:44
•Would a new cold war have any hidden upsides? 11:56
•Chinese influence in Australian universities. 13:51
•How should Australia deal with Chinese influence? 17:58
•Cross-cultural communication between China and the West. 23:40
•How does the Left reformulate itself in the face of electoral defeats around the world? 27:51
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David Sloan Wilson is an evolutionary biologist.
This episode of the podcast is brought to you by Freelancer.com and by Blinkist. You can find the Blinkist deal exclusive to listeners of this podcast at www.blinkist.com/swagman.
Show notes
Selected links
•Follow David: Website | Twitter
•The Selfish Gene, by Richard Dawkins
•River Out Of Eden, by Richard Dawkins
•The Descent Of Man, by Charles Darwin
•Animal Dispersion In Relation To Social Behavior, by Vero Wynne-Edwards
•Adaptation And Natural Selection, by George C Williams
•'Reintroducing Group Selection to the Human Behavioral Sciences', 1994 paper by David Sloan Wilson & Eliot Sober
•The Meaning Of Human Existence, by E O Wilson
•'Gender and Politics Among Anthropologists in the Units of Selection Debate', 2014 survey by Yaworsky, Horowitz & Kickham
•The Man In The Grey Flannel Suit, by Sloan Wilson
•Sociobiology, by E O Wilson
•Governing The Commons, by Elinor Ostrom
•Animal Species And Evolution, by Ernst Mayr
•Simpson's paradox
•'The False Allure of Group Selection', Steven Pinker's Edge.org article
•'Understanding and Sharing Intentions: The Origins of Cultural Cognition', 2005 article by Mike Tomasello et al
•Dave's conversation with Jonathan Birch
•Darwin's Cathedral, by David Sloan...
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Eric Weinstein is a mathematician and the Managing Director of Thiel Capital.
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Ian Macfarlane was Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia from 1996 to 2006. He is the author of The Search For Stability and Ten...
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Amir Sufi is the Bruce Lindsay Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
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Dr Andrew Leigh MP is a member of the Australian federal parliament. He is currently Labor's Shadow Assistant...
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William Dalrymple is an acclaimed historian and travel writer. He lives nine months of the year on a...
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David Tuckett is a psychoanalyst, Professor, and Director of the Centre for the Study of Decision-Making Uncertainty at...
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Kate McClymont is Australia's most awarded journalist. An investigative reporter at The Sydney Morning Herald, she is famous...
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Robert J. Shiller is Sterling Professor of Economics at Yale University and one of the 2013 recipients of...
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Adele Ferguson is an award-winning investigative journalist best known for her work exposing misconduct and fraud in the...
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John Hempton is a renowned short seller and the Founder and Chief Investment Officer at Australian-based hedge fund...
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This is an episode about a rising superpower (China) and its ruler (Xi Jinping). It's also a conversation...
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This episode is about why housing busts cause recessions. Few understand their nexus better than Ed Leamer. Ed...
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The logic is inevitable: credit is as much a feature of housing bubbles as the moon is of...
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Bubbles are everywhere today — or so we're told. But what are they really? I speak with behavioural...
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Chris Joye manages $3 billion as the Co-Chief Investment Officer at Australian fixed-income manager Coolabah Capital Investments, and...
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Timur Kuran is a Turkish American economist.
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We all know that real estate is the best long-term investment for capital gains...
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I speak with Dean Baker, US economist and co-founder of the Center for Economic and Policy Research...
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I announce 'Housing Bubble Week' and share a speech I gave in Sydney in September 2018.
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Will MacAskill is an Associate Professor in Philosophy at the University of Oxford.
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Bret Weinstein came to public prominence as the professor at the centre of the 2017 Evergreen State College...
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This is a conversation with renowned moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt.
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Andrew Charlton is a Rhodes Scholar, economist, author and former prime ministerial adviser.
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Which US and Australian industries are the most concentrated? How did Standard Oil inspire the Nazis? Why are...
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Joe speaks with the 26th Prime Minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd. Kevin led Australia from December 2007 to...
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Joe speaks with former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, the man who defied Europe to save Greece -...
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Critical technological and societal changes of the last century have been spearheaded by entrepreneurs and the investors who...
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The universe is 13.8 billion years old and humans have existed for only 200,000 years. If that time...
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Most people want to help others with their career, but what's the best way to do that? Become...
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Brendan Eich is widely regarded as a 'Father of the Web'. He is the creator of JavaScript and...
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For thirty-seven years, Marc Cohodes has bet big money against bad companies. Due to his success, he is...
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Leonard Susskind is the Felix Bloch professor of Theoretical physics at Stanford University. He is widely regarded as...
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Harry Crane is a scholar who specialises in statistics and probability. He is currently a professor of statistics...
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In 2016, a Florida court delivered an astounding $140 million verdict against Gawker media for publishing a sex...
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