From the Vault | A Chat With Tyler Cowen
This episode of Books for Men features an edition of “From the Vault”—a segment where I share an episode from my previous podcast, It's Not What It Seems. This is a great chat I had with Tyler Cowen, author of Stubborn Attachments, The Complacent Class, Talent, and many more. Listen for more! (Original publish date: 11/11/18.)
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Welcome back to Books for Men, a podcast to inspire more men to read and bring together men who do. So, this week I'm doing another edition of From the Vault, and it features a conversation that I had with Tyler Cowen back in 2018. And although it was five years ago, I think it really holds up well and potentially is even more important today than it was back in 2018. Perhaps maybe some of the things that we talk about in the episode only deepen in terms of importance. So our conversation was centered around his book at the time, Stubborn Attachments: A Vision for a Society of Free, Prosperous, and Responsible Individuals. But we cover a lot of topics and ones that are extremely important, both as individuals striving to live a prosperous free life and as well as collectively as a society. I think that they go hand in hand, obviously.
(01:12)
Now you don't have to agree with everything that we talk about in the podcast, but I think that as we discuss in the actual conversation, being able to entertain ideas that you don't agree with is essential to living a free, prosperous life and probably essential for our society as a whole. So Tyler makes the case that you should probably be listening to and reading things you disagree with a lot more than you are reading or listening to things that you do agree with. And that happens pretty early on in the conversation. And we talk about a lot of different things, all of which, as I've already mentioned, have an extremely high level of importance still to this day and probably will forever. So just really briefly before we jump into the conversation, I did just want to mention why I'm sharing this conversation with you and why now, one, this is kind of a superficial reason.
(02:13)
It was the most listened-to episode on my previous podcast, It's Not What It Seems. So I thought that would be a fun thing to share with you. Why was it the most listened to? I don't know. You'll have to listen to it and find out. But secondly, Tyler is somebody who I still read, listen to, and follow on a regular basis. So, both his blog, Marginal Revolution, as well as, his podcast Conversations with Tyler, a regular consumer of both, and for good reason because without any kind of hyperbole, he's just a brilliant, brilliant thinker. And even if you don't agree with the things that he thinks, he still just communicates in such a precise, practical manner and has such a vast amount of knowledge that spans over so many industries and subsets of life that it's really fascinating and just he's somebody who I respect a lot, and that's why not only was it an honor to have the conversation with him on my previous show, but I figured it would be a great conversation to re-share with my new audience on Books for Men.
(03:22)
And on that note, since there will not be any kind of ending or wrap-up at the end of this conversation, I just want to remind you, if you enjoy this conversation or this episode, please remember to share it with friends, family members, and other people that you think might like it. Word of mouth is everything when you're trying to spread awareness. And with this podcast specifically, it's inspiring more men to read and bringing together men who do. And the book that we talk about in today's episode, stubborn Attachments is a short one. It's only 160 pages, but it's very, very impactful and may open your eyes to a completely different vision and a completely different worldview, much of which we'll discuss in this episode. Additionally, I want to remind you if you're a regular listener, to please follow rate, review, or any of that good stuff on whatever podcast platform you listen to this on because it goes a long way in helping other people find the show.
(04:17)
Lastly, like always, for more information, you could always visit books for men.org where you can also sign up for the monthly newsletter, which is a wrap-up of all of the episodes, complete with links, full book and author information, all the best quotes and newsletter only book recommendations. All right, so now that we've got that out of the way, without further ado, here is my conversation with Tyler Cowen from my previous podcast, It's Not What It Seems. It was originally published on November 11th, 2018, but as I've already mentioned, I think it has really held up and I think it's just as applicable today. With that said, I hope you enjoy it.
Douglas Vigliotti (05:03)
Tyler Cowen, welcome to the show.
Tyler Cowen (05:05)
My pleasure.
Douglas Vigliotti (05:06)
Yeah, I'm really honored to have you on the podcast. I've been a big reader of your work over the last few years. Both with your books and your blog, Marginal Revolution, you're undoubtedly one of the great thinkers of modern times. But believe it or not, the thing that always amazes me more is that no matter what question gets asked to you, no matter the complexity I've heard get asked to you ever, you always end up answering with incredible precision. So I want to touch on that shortly, but we're definitely going to chat about your brand new book, Stubborn Attachments: A Vision for a Society of Free, Prosperous and Responsible Individuals, a book that's really about how we should be moving forward and perhaps why we can't be so stubbornly attached to the fast, right? So it offers not only a unique vision but a framework for decision-making. I'm really excited to share it with everyone, but as I mentioned, before we jump in, I have to ask you a couple of questions that have been stewing for a while. Maybe this first is a little rudimentary, but going back to answering those questions with precision, is there anything that you do or have done in the past that helps you communicate so efficiently?
Tyler Cowen (06:13)
Public intellectuals should think of themselves more like athletes that they need to train every day, that they need to practice, that they should write every day for hours that they should devote to their spare time to try and improve some part of their routine. So I think of myself as having really, since about age 14, and now I'm 56, just every day worked on trying to explain things better, to understand more deeply, to read more quickly, whatever it is I might need to do or give a better talk. And if you just work on those things every single day, and I mean Christmas, I mean your birthday, I mean Sunday, at some pace you'll get better. And one of the themes of my book is the idea of compounding returns. But compounding returns apply also to your knowledge and to your life.
Douglas Vigliotti (06:56)
That's interesting. So I, I've heard you talk about the value of compound learning, and I'm a huge supporter in this. I often call it continuous learning. And from your perspective, what does that provide you that otherwise wouldn't be provided if you didn't compound learn over time?
Tyler Cowen (07:10)
When you compound returns, your knowledge builds upon your knowledge or economic growth builds upon the economic growth of the past. It's like having money in a savings account that is paying you 10% a year rather than 1% a year. It's nice in any one year, but after say 60 years of investing, it's a huge, huge difference. So if you're thinking about your own self-improvement, try to be on tracks where you're getting better virtually every day, but also your own interest is being maintained. So your enthusiasm, your passion, they're working for you, not against you, and always quit a little early when there's still something you want to do, and that means the next day you'll be hungry to get back to it.
Douglas Vigliotti (07:49)
I love that. So always, always leave them wanting more, right?
Tyler Cowen (07:52)
Leave yourself wanting more.
Douglas Vigliotti (07:54)
Yeah, that's a good one. I like that. Another thing that I've heard you talk about quite a bit, and I've actually heard you say this is the key wisdom of our time knowing how and when to defer. So my question is, do you still believe that if yes, why? And of course, if not, then why not?
Tyler Cowen (08:11)
Of course, most people know more than you do about many things and figuring out whom you should ask to whom you should listen, and how to judge the quality of their responses. I sometimes talk with my foodie friends and they're out looking for a restaurant and they'll argue about food and what dish is better than which other dish. And I say, look, this is ultimately sociology. The real knowledge is figuring out who is the right person to ask and then judging whether or not they gave you a reliable answer.
Douglas Vigliotti (08:39)
Do you have any criteria on who you ask for food recommendations?
Tyler Cowen (08:42)
Depends on the country I'm in. If I'm in, say, East Asia, if you ask men, you get a very different answer than if you ask women say, and dining is often sexually segregated, say in a country like South Korea. So it depends on what you're looking for. In many countries asking men in the age bracket, say 40 to 55, they can be the best group to ask because they're most likely to eat out often.
Douglas Vigliotti (09:05)
Okay, okay. I guess that makes sense. So do you have a favorite place where you're from that you dine at more often than others?
Tyler Cowen (09:10)
Oh, absolutely. I live in Northern Virginia. I just ate at my favorite Thai restaurant called Elephant Jumps and in the world, I love to eat in Mexico, Singapore, Tokyo, Sicily, and many, many other places.
Douglas Vigliotti (09:24)
What's the best cuisine that someone's never tried that they should try?
Tyler Cowen (09:27)
Probably Sicilian if you haven't had it. That to me is the best food in Europe, Sicily in Italy, but it's different from Italian food. It's more medieval, it's sweeter, it has more fragrance, and it's more like Arabic cuisine in some ways. That's something really quite different if you don't know it.
Douglas Vigliotti (09:43)
I'm going to have to note that. So we'll shift gears a little bit and there's a looming problem that I think you articulate well in one of your previous books, the Complacent Class, and it's really talking about our matching culture and the culture of matching that we've developed. Perhaps we can correlate it to food, right, to cuisine because there are certain things, technology, and whatnot that seem to match us with the right food and whatnot. But it's something that I'm definitely writing about right now and I'm actually writing about it in a similar context in my next book. And the fact that it prevents us from engaging with people that are not like us reading stuff that we don't agree with, prevents us from deferring something that we just hit on. And this for me is a huge problem. So do you think that this matching culture promotes another concept that I've heard you talk about called devaluing and dismissing, which is something that I feel is a really, really big issue that we're experiencing today? And feel free to add more context or catch up with the listener on either concept. Sure. But do you think one promotes the other?
Tyler Cowen (10:48)
Let me take those in order. In terms of matching culture, I think there's too much internet dining right now. So a place becomes well known on the internet, it gets good Yelp reviews wherever, and then everyone flocks there. And this has led to a world where there's a cycle where good places burn out very quickly, and they're also hard to get into when they're at their peak. If this was a slower cycle of acceptance and praise, I think most people, including the restaurants, would be better off. You ask about devalue and dismiss. I feel we do this so much on the internet. So you follow people on Twitter and you see their worst sides, you see some of their less tolerant claims or some of their mistakes, and it's very easy, especially if you disagree with them to play what I call devalue and dismiss like, oh, person X said that, I can't listen to him, can't listen to her. And then you dismiss them. But it's actually the people who often offend you the most where you have the highest marginal value of learning because maybe you've learned less from them before or their sources or inspirations are foreign to you. So I often say to my students, look for the people who offend you, who are smart, and try to learn more from them. And if they're still offending you, that's kind of a sign you're on the right track.
Douglas Vigliotti (11:58)
Do you have anything that you do to benchmark whether you are going to tune out to something at all?
Tyler Cowen (12:05)
Well, if someone just doesn't have content, but I think you need to realize that people who please you in every way, they probably are wonderful, but you're, you've already been learning from them for quite a while, so precisely the people who seem to you to be making big mistakes don't always take that as a reason to put them out of your feed or defriend them on Facebook. It can be an even positive signal. It means somehow the world or you already have been neglecting them.
Douglas Vigliotti (12:33)
That was another thing that I've, I've definitely heard you talk about in the past, which I found was I found it. It's very hard for me to do this. I've heard you say something to the tune, that's why it’s valuable.
Tyler Cowen (12:44)
Exactly.
Douglas Vigliotti (12:46)
So, I've heard you say something to the tune that you've, you enjoy reading books that you don't agree with more than ones you do agree with.
Tyler Cowen (12:53)
That's correct. Because the ones I agree with, again, they're fine books, but I tend to know a higher proportion of what's in them.
Douglas Vigliotti (13:00)
Yeah. So how do you get through it? I mean, I don't know. I feel like it's so, I think I read a great deal. I mean, you probably, you definitely read more than I do, but I mean I read probably a book a week, 50, 60 books a year. I don't know how many books I could read that I just eminently disagree with.
Tyler Cowen (13:15)
Well, it should be most of them. So look for markers of quality such as good reviews from some people, but not others or a book that has won the National Book Award, or Pulitzer Prize, a lot of those are very good. In economics, we have Nobel Laureates. When markers of quality and offensiveness come together, I would just say cultivate detachment. The returns to detachment are underrated because it helps you learn from this great diversity of sources.
Douglas Vigliotti (13:40)
So, explain that detachment. Go a little bit deeper into that for me.
Tyler Cowen (13:44)
I have a book in my pile right now it's by Eric Foner. It's on the underground railroad in 19th century America. Now, Eric Foner was a Marxist, so possibly he'll say things in this book, which offend me, maybe not, but it's certainly plausible that he will, I just need to keep on going. Eric Foner was extremely well-informed. His books are excellent. They're full of information. They do have perspectives I don't agree with. I want to read more, Eric Foner, basically.
Douglas Vigliotti (14:11)
I was going to ask you, is there a book that you have read recently that has deeply offended you, but you've learned a lot from?
Tyler Cowen (14:17)
Well, my Twitter feed, I would say half of the tweets in it on any given day offended me. People who have exaggerated opinions about politics in either direction, that offends me, but somehow I've sampled the feed as a whole and with enough detachment to get through it. And I feel I learn a lot of books are not that offensive. If you read fiction, probably that's not offensive. Current affairs books are more likely to offend you. The best books to read are history books. Overall, they're most likely to have a lot of information even when you disagree or if they're wrong.
Douglas Vigliotti (14:49)
I probably think too that you're reading a lot of history. There are probably a lot of differences in social norms from time to time. So there are probably things that they talk about in these books that would be deeply offensive to certain people if they're in today's day and age.
Tyler Cowen (15:04)
I was just reading about James Polk and how during the Mexican American War, he just took revenue from Mexico and used it to keep on funding the war because Congress wouldn't give him the money he wanted. Now that's outrageous, but no one knows that anymore. It turned out not to matter. So there's a lot of things going on today. Maybe they're outrageous, but by reading about the past, you get a better perspective.
Douglas Vigliotti (15:27)
I like that. That's interesting. You had made value to anyone who was over-exaggerated on the left or the right. I think that's one of the true values in your recent book, Stubborn Attachments, where I think you're really challenging both sides of the fence. I think you're really challenging both the left and the right, and you have some really strong articulations in the book, some strong points, and I really enjoy the fact that it challenges both sides personally. So let's take some time and go through 'em. I think there's an overarching principle that you use to guide us in stubborn attachments, and it's almost like you've really tried to simplify a really, really complex thing and use sustainable economic growth as our north star and then wealth, correct, and then wealth plus as our metric to define it. So if we're going to have a north star, this is how we define it. So I think giving a good overview, a good solid overview as what they are. And how did you come to this conclusion and why did you come to this conclusion would be a great starting point to talk about the book.
Tyler Cowen (16:24)
I would first summarize the book by talking about who I offend, and that's what readers in a sense ought to really want to know. I offend the left wing by saying economic growth is typically more important than redistributing wealth and growth will do a better job of redistribution. But I offend the right by saying having a sustainable environment is all important as well, and that these should be two pieces of the same puzzle. The key messages of the book are future, the future matters much more than we think. We shouldn't be myopic, we should value the heroic and big thinking. And the way to really get somewhere is to have an economy that gives you compound returns and grows at a higher rate over time. I was in China 30 years ago and it was just bicycles and smelly pig carcasses and a lot of poverty. And then I was there a few months ago and it's gleaming skyscrapers and a pretty large middle class, and that's economic growth. America has done the same, even a small difference in growth rates over time, compounds, it leads to a big difference in final outcomes. That's like the short elevator speech of my book.
Douglas Vigliotti (17:32)
So not to detract from the book, but you had mentioned why you would offend the left, why you would offend the right, do you think we're in an environment now, do you think we're creating an environment now where really smart people are now afraid to actually voice their opinions on these really important topics because of being outcasted or the way that technology has moved and the amount of noise that exists in society today? Do you think we're creating this environment unknowingly?
Tyler Cowen (17:57)
I see voluntary self-censorship more and more. I see it on social media, I see it in academia, I see it with CEOs and I see it in journalism, but I think we know we're doing it. We're just walking closer to the cliff and everyone's a bit afraid to deviate from that.
Douglas Vigliotti (18:14)
Yeah, but why do you think that is? I mean, I know why it is actually. I guess my question is, why do you think it is? Because it's pretty clear that people that aren’t voicing their opinion, there are such hard lines on what is appropriate and what isn't, that it becomes very hard to create content or voice your opinion in that manner. But I guess my question is how do we move forward from that?
Tyler Cowen (18:36)
I think that some of the problem is that social media increase the pressures for conformity because if you slip up or maybe you say something that's right, but others don't like it can go viral and be used against you. I think people step forward and say what they think and have courage, this idea of courage is probably the best way around it. And I think we're seeing people do that. And in fact, often those people are too offensive. But I see the norm-shifting kind of viral social media storms against people that might have crushed them two years ago. They're surviving them these days. So I think the norm is actually right now improving.
Douglas Vigliotti (19:11)
I think one of the big things that I know I think about on a pretty regular basis, I actually just published an article on this topic and it's the quantity versus quality. And I think no matter what you are doing, if you're doing it in quality, kind of like to what you were saying before in regards to the book that you were just reading …
Tyler Cowen (19:29)
Eric Foner or the other one?
Douglas Vigliotti (19:31)
Eric Foner, so it's quality. And so as long as you're producing quality content, it's the content. Not that it doesn't matter as much. I think the problem that we've run into is that we think we can go deep by using 280 characters. We think we can go deep by creating bad content and poor-quality content. And what that creates is this noisy environment where people that should be speaking out, who can create quality don't because of all this other bad quality, but the just mass amounts of quantity that are coming out in short videos, short texts, short, all this short-form content that is just not thought through and the ideas don't sit long enough. I liken it to this idea, the business idea of a race to the bottom.
Tyler Cowen (20:23)
Send me your piece by the way. I'd like to read it.
Douglas Vigliotti (20:24):
Yeah, definitely I will. So, it's a race to the bottom where information, that's where we're at. The same thing in a business where one company undercuts the next until nobody wins. We're in that same environment with information right now, and I think it's a really, really big problem. So not to go off on a tangent, but I think tying a bow on what you were saying is as long as we're creating quality content that should triumph over whether it's offensive or not offensive because there's been thought put into it the reason why the person is producing what they're producing.
Tyler Cowen (20:56)
If we have enough leaders who speak up with quality content, I strongly believe that side of things will win.
Douglas Vigliotti (21:03)
I really, really like that. So sorry for dominating the conversation there for a moment. No, no, it's important. It really leads to an essential question that we've kind of been going around the bush about here a little bit. And it's how much do we value the future and how much do we value the present? And I think this is something that you touch on in the book because it's all about moving toward the future. So don't, not enough talking. Why don't you talk about how should we decipher between what's more important, the future and the present?
Tyler Cowen (21:31)
Well, many of our most important decisions concern the more distant future. And a lot of it is simply are we leaving high-quality institutions to future generations? But some of it is more concrete. Are we saving enough? Are we investing enough for the future? Are we building enough infrastructure? Are we making our environment sustainable? And in all of those areas, especially in the United States, we tend to be too myopic, but the costs of those bad decisions when they arrive will be just as real as suffering in the present day. So I'm arguing in the book that people should be less myopic and look toward the more distant future and take this long-time perspective and that that's the preachy part of the book. Basically, telling people myopia is one of the major problems we face, but we can get over it by sheer active will in the book.
Douglas Vigliotti (22:22)
I believe you describe it with discounting, right? You're defining it. And I think that's always a really important thing. And that's another thing we're producing quality content. If we're giving something a North Star, we have to be able to define it with something. And so I think you do a good job with, maybe you can explain the discounting, how discounting works to evaluate bigger picture decisions in terms of importance to the future.
Tyler Cowen (22:44)
Economists use these numbers, which as you said, they call discount rates. And a typical discount rate may be five, seven, or 10%. And it just means if something happens a year later, it's worth five, seven, or 10% less. And then if it happens decades later, it's really worth much, much less because you're discounting it, say that 7% for every year. When individual businesses do this, it might make financial sense for the business. But when we as a society do it with entire lives and all of what we're trying to build, that's when it's a major mistake that we basically start consuming our own social capital, we eat into our norms and we're not leaving a good enough future for our descendants.
Douglas Vigliotti (23:27)
On a policy level, what's something more actionable that we could do in the near future that would enable us to look into the distant future?
Tyler Cowen (23:35)
Of the wealthy nations? The United States has about the lowest savings rate. Our performance on infrastructure is highly variable, but often a little pathetic. If you just look at, say the subway system in New York, you want to open that new Second Avenue line. Well, they started planning that in 1972 and it just opened about a year ago. That's crazy. Most important, in what has been our most populous city, people don't care very much about climate change. We should take more serious action there. We should spend more money subsidizing basic science research and development just as individuals. We should be bolder, more ambitious, less complacent. So those would be some of the concrete implications of what I'm saying.
Douglas Vigliotti (24:18)
And so, I think that's something that you've been on for a while now with great stagnation and then both, and then again with the complacent class, which is kind of this idea of loss of dynamism, where we're, we are complacent. Have you moved off that at all or is that something that you're, you still think we're, we're not being as dynamic as we should be, so to speak?
Tyler Cowen (24:40)
I still think if you go back to the 1920s or thirties, American productivity growth measures at being around 3% a year. Lately, it's measuring as being at around 1% a year, a third of what it used to be. Yet we have so many more scientists, universities, PhDs, nonprofits, and philanthropists, and we're doing one-third of the productivity now. Surely something is wrong with that picture. That's my basic message. I want to issue a wake-up call about what is wrong with that picture.
Douglas Vigliotti (25:09)
One of the other big things, not to keep moving backward, but it just reminds me of something that you talked about in the complacent class in regard to matching culture, is that we have this situation where everybody, even on a socioeconomic level is being matched with each other, not just technology, but from the aspect, from a socioeconomic standpoint, people are matching with each other. So the investment banker isn't marrying the girl next door anymore, and the girl next door isn't marrying the investment banker, she's marrying the boy next door. And so it creates this effect that where people aren't moving around as much. And so what's also plays into the detraction in our investment in transportation and infrastructure and all that. So I don't know, I think this is all intertwined with each other. If you were going to do something tomorrow, where would you make major investments today?
Tyler Cowen (25:54)
I think the cultural dimension comes first. People first need to realize there's an actual problem. America has become quite complacent. One of the nicer aspects of the Trump presidency is that it has woken people up that something is wrong. You don't have to agree with Trump about many or most things, or maybe not even anything, but you can no longer just sit back in your chair and say, well, everything's fine. All is developing smoothly. We can stay on this trajectory forever. No matter what you think of Trump, you now realize your previous assumptions about the world were wrong. There's something healthy about this. We're moving cross country across state lines at 50% less than the rate we used to move. Social mobility is way down compared to say the middle of the 20th century. Large numbers of males are in situations with their skills where they're just not going to have very good lives, and America is losing its global leadership,
Douglas Vigliotti (26:50)
If I'm hearing you correctly, the best next action isn't in any form of investment. It's cultural.
Tyler Cowen (26:58)
Culturally now, I think our government is making a lot of big mistakes. I would change those things, but you can't just wave a magic wand. Government responds to voters and the culture and people need to have a clearer sense of what is wrong and why we are less bold and less innovative than we think we are. The tech sector's great, but it's given people the illusion that everything America does is innovative. But you look at most parts of the economy, safe flying airplanes, it's barely changed in 50 years.
Douglas Vigliotti (27:26)
The same thing with the train system.
Tyler Cowen (27:28)
Oh, they're worse in many ways. You know, ride Amtrak, Washington to New York, or Connecticut to New York. In some ways, that was a better experience 40, 50 years ago.
Douglas Vigliotti (27:38)
Yeah, that's funny. What do you think some of the big major pitfalls are then right now for a prosperous future? I mean, if we're kind of talking about where we are currently, what are some things that we just can't avoid moving forward?
Tyler Cowen (27:51)
Well, I think for the United States, our main pitfall is to continue to tell ourselves either A, everything is fine, or there are two versions of that. One is like, well, everything would be fine if we just got rid of Trump. Or the other version is, well, everything would be fine if we could just defeat the liberals or the left or whatever. But they're all variants of the same disease, namely that we're close to a track where everything is fine and we are deeply in debt in terms of governmental debt, unfunded state pension liabilities, personal debt, household debt, and corporate debt. And there's not actually any wonderful plan for paying that back. And as I said, we have a very low savings rate and we are investing less in science in some important ways. Progress in science seems to be slowing down, not acknowledging those truths is the biggest mistake we could make.
Douglas Vigliotti (28:41)
Okay, so there are two directions that I want to go with this because I think it leads perfectly into something that you talk about in the book embracing radical uncertainty. And I think neither side is willing to do that. And maybe as an overview, what is radical uncertainty, but more importantly, how should that be applied to our decision-making? Because I think that's where the true interesting ideas that you express in the book are how this radical uncertainty should be applied to how we make decisions moving forward.
Tyler Cowen (29:11)
I want people to apply radical uncertainty to their own temperaments. So look, we all have our views. I'm not trying to tell people they shouldn't have views, I have my views, but if you look at most of your views and you say, well, the chance that one's right is 99%, I mean, something's wrong. All these smart people disagree with you, you're not right. 99% of the time, most of our views should be like, well, I hold this view and that's probably right, like 53%, 53 to 47, not 99 to one. So I want people to see their own views in terms of 53 versus 47 or 56 versus 44, they would be more rational. They'd be a lot more tolerant. We would be much, much less polarized politically. That would be a big plus so that people should be epistemically humble and focus on what they can agree upon and realize that other people out there on average are as good as they are.
Douglas Vigliotti (30:04)
I love that. Epistemically humble. That's a great one.
Tyler Cowen (30:07)
But it’s hard to pull off. We all every day are wanting to leap to a 99% chance that we're right.
Douglas Vigliotti (30:13)
I mean, I think uncertainty, that's another thing that I find myself thinking about a lot lately. Especially because as a society, we crave certainty. So much. Want to talk about compounding? This is the fact that we have an innate aversion to ambiguity and this desire for more and more certainty. And the fact that we have all these people who are so certain about their outcomes and about everything that they're doing, it's like a breathing ground for charlatans and people that are looking to trick you with all these fake outcomes. It's just a tough thing to stomach. But I think you have this principle of the book that it's a good North Star in this context, and it's the principle of roughness, right? All outcomes should be roughly the same in importance. Can you talk about that a little bit?
Tyler Cowen (30:58)
I give an example, say you're debating who's better, Mozart or Beethoven or Beatles or Bob Dylan. And again, you may have your view, but you should recognize a lot of judgments. There's a big gray area. One smart person could think Mozart's better than Beethoven, and another smart person could think the opposite, and neither is wrong. So I'm trying to teach people there is room for these gray areas. And one implication of that concretely is we should focus politically on what we can agree upon. And the one thing we ought to be able to agree upon is this idea of leaving quality institutions and a high stock of savings and investment and good government for the succeeding generations. That's part of the pitch of the book.
Douglas Vigliotti (31:40)
I think that's one of the big issues that we're seeing right now politically, is everyone thinks that whatever happens is the end of the world, no matter what the outcome is, it's not good enough for anybody. And what you're pointing out is that embracing radical uncertainty should in fact mean that you realize that it doesn't really matter what the outcome is because we have to look towards the more distant future because according to your thesis really is what we're trying to achieve again is sustainable economic growth. And so, I think that that becomes a really hard thing because it's not right in front of us.
Tyler Cowen (32:16)
And we also are tending to think no leader is good enough because you see all the blemishes say on social media, so people become cynical. That actually makes corruption more likely rather than less likely. And you have in many countries, not just the US, but around the world, just extremely unpopular politicians, political middles or centers falling apart views, splintering in not always healthy ways.
Douglas Vigliotti (32:41)
Yeah. And so do you see any positive, I know this could be a very dicey question, but do you see anything that is very positive with the current administration? Where you're like, this might suit us well?
Tyler Cowen (32:54)
Oh, I absolutely do. First, let me say at the beginning, I was not a supporter and I still am not a supporter and I don't expect to be a supporter come the next election. But I feel Trump actually has cut back on the amount of regulation of the economy. Not all of that has been good, but much of it has been good. And just through kind of sheer out outrageousness and disruption, he has woken a lot of people up to the fact that not everything is fine in the world. And I don't think that was really his intent, but possibly that will be his greatest contribution. But I think also on some issues talking with North Korea, I don't think they're ever going to get rid of their nuclear weapons, but Trump said we should talk with North Korea. It's probably he was right. There's not going to be some magical easy solution the way he claims, but I would give him credit for that. So there've been some actually quite good things from this administration, even though again, there are too many things I find offensive. I'm just absolutely not willing to endorse it.
Douglas Vigliotti (33:50)
Yeah, I think sometimes there's something to be said for naivete and it sometimes has that adverse effect. You walk into something not understanding it quite well, and by that very nature, you're doing things that other people wouldn't do in the same situation because they just don't think it's possible. Or to the second point you made there. I think that's another huge thing that you hit on as a philosophical point in the book we have to start valuing right and wrong. I'll let you speak about it. It's your book. I think you refer to it as common-sense morality and utilitarianism and use that kind of as the basis, but I'll let you talk about it.
Tyler Cowen (34:24)
Especially in academia, there's a moral philosophy often of relativism that either no one can say what's right or wrong, or everyone has a different vantage point and there's not any correct answer to matters of value. And in my book, Stubborn Attachments, I argue against moral relativism. I mean, there is a right answer. We can find it over a long enough period of time. It will be better, not literally for everyone, but for almost everyone. And what I call common sense morality, which is maybe just what your parents or grandparents would tell you are the right things to do. Work hard, save money, don't lie, be conscientious, and do the right thing. That's good advice basically, in most cases, and I try to stick up for common sense morality, and I say more people following common sense, morality will help us get to this call of long-run value maximization, and that this is objectively right to do.
Douglas Vigliotti (35:23)
On the contrary, there's utilitarianism, right? Which is you're basically, always, doing what just makes sense. It's kind of a blend of both.
Tyler Cowen (35:33)
Now usually I like utilitarianism, but I'm not a pure utilitarian. I think there are some things we shouldn't do, even if they create more happiness than pain. So if you had some audience of alien beings who would derive great pleasure from watching an innocent baby be tortured, do you weigh off their pleasure against the pain of the baby? I would say no. It's simply wrong to torture the baby or not going to do that. So the title of the book, Stubborn Attachments, means I think the two stubborn attachments should be first some idea of human rights, which we consider to be objectively correct. And second, we really obsess over maximizing the rate of sustainable economic growth. They're the two things I want us to be stubbornly attached to.
Douglas Vigliotti (36:14)
And so, it's funny when I first saw the title, I thought that you were referencing that we have stubborn attachments to the past.
Tyler Cowen (36:20)
Well, we do too. And so the title's deliberately ambiguous.
Douglas Vigliotti (36:23)
I like that. I like that there's a little ambiguity.
Tyler Cowen (36:25)
A trend in titles today. You make them too much kind of for stupid people. And then you have this long subtitle with 16 words where you try to appeal to every category of book buyer. And I tried to create a title that would not be either of those. And so I call the book Stubborn Attachments, which is may maybe intriguing, but not totally clear what the book is about. And then it's a vision for a society for free, prosperous, and responsible individuals, which is kind of the core of the content.
Douglas Vigliotti (36:54)
Yeah, I like this. When we end here, I would share it on air, but I want to share the title of my next book with you, and I want to get some feedback on it. With that being said, I do have kind of a question that I feel you might have been asked before. What advice would Tyler Cowen today give Tyler Cowen just starting his career?
Tyler Cowen (37:13)
I don't know if this counts as advice. I think advice is usually counterproductive. I think the Tyler Cowen of today would ask the younger Tyler Cowen for advice, what are the things I'm going to forget? Tell me about them now so I can remember them. But I think I would just say, look, it's going to work out fine for you many things in your life and kind of the track you're on. I would encourage myself, I guess, to stay on it.
Douglas Vigliotti (37:36)
Are there any long-term principles that you would say to yourself, hey, these are things that I would try to formulate my decisions around as I move through life?
Tyler Cowen (37:44)
Well, the thing I've done when people write books, I think they're often writing about themselves. I am actually pretty impatient. And the book is saying we should take a longer-term time perspective. So the way I do that is to find joy in the intermediate steps. So if it takes two years to write a book, work on enjoying writing, it's very hard to talk yourself into simply thinking the distant future matters as much as the present. But if you can enjoy investing your short-term and long-term instincts, then work together. And I would advise a lot of people, including my earlier self, to look for ways when you're impatient to enjoy the short-run things that are good for you in the long term.
Douglas Vigliotti (38:29)
I feel like that could be tricky at times. So, I told my brother, one time we were having a conversation, I said, I heard Tyler Cowen on a podcast the other day, and I think I finally figured out the one thing that I have in common with him.
Tyler Cowen (38:41)
Only one? (Laughing.)
Douglas Vigliotti (38:42)
Well, no, no, honestly, I think from an ideological standpoint, I think there are probably a lot of similarities. But from any other standpoint, maybe just one. So I heard you say, when I start writing a book, I just start writing it and I let the writing figure it out, and then I kind of go back and I change things, and that's kind of how I write as well. Do you still write that way, or did I misinterpret what you were saying?
Tyler Cowen (39:07)
No, no, that's exactly right. I still write that way, and it's because I'm impatient. I want to get to writing, and if I have to sit around with outlines for months, somehow I won't be as productive. So I probably waste a lot like writing things. I'll end up cutting or doing parts of drafts that are bad, but I like having momentum on my side. And if you just write something every day, it will pile up and you'll have a lot. And if you have to rewrite it a bit, edit it. I mean, you'll still have something. So I'm a big advocate of anyone who's a writer to write every single day.
Douglas Vigliotti (39:38)
Yeah, there we go. We have two things in common. I try to write every single day.
Tyler Cowen (39:42)
Not try. No, my advice is not to try to write every day. My advice is to write every single day.
Douglas Vigliotti (39:48)
Hey, you gave me the advice to write every day. I said I try to write every day. See, there we go. Maybe we don't have it in common. This has been great. So I know that you're tight on time today, so I'm going to ask you four final questions. But before I do, obviously I'll want to give you a chance, do you have a final ask of the audience, the best place to connect with you, and all that good stuff?
Tyler Cowen (40:10)
I'm on Twitter at Tyler Cowen. That's C O W E N. I'm happy for people to email me. You can Google my name Tyler Cowen email. My email is online. It's on my blog Marginal Revolution where I've blogged every day for 15 years, which means I've written every day. I also write for Bloomberg twice a week. And I have a podcast series called Conversations with Tyler. The very last episode was with Paul Krugman and coming out next to Eric Schmidt of Google. So that would be a start, but that's plenty, of course.
Douglas Vigliotti (40:42)
See how efficient that was? That's what I'm talking about. Remember I started the conversation. That's super-efficient.
Tyler Cowen (40:47)
Precise, you said?
Douglas Vigliotti (40:48)
Yeah, precision. Oh, wow. See, you have a good memory too. So here are the four final questions. You ready?
Tyler Cowen (40:52)
Ready.
Douglas Vigliotti (40:57)
What's one piece of advice you wish that you'd never hear somebody give again?
Tyler Cowen (41:00)
In general, I think advice is overrated. Most people don't take it when advice is exchanged. It's part of some generalized anxiety alleviation mechanisms. So I would like people to deconstruct the advice, the giver, the receiver, and ask in which ways has my anxiety needed alleviating. And to do that directly and to save advice for very specific things, like if someone gives you directions to a restaurant, right? That's a kind of advice. That's great. So I think advice is overrated and think in terms of communicating with that doesn't involve so much advice. Figure out if what you're saying is anxiety alleviation instead of real advice at all.
Douglas Vigliotti (41:40)
That's enlightening. And it's funny, my qualm sometimes with advice is that going back to the whole certainty thing is that everyone is so certain about what they're saying, that I have this philosophy that'll be talking about a little bit in my next book, which is anytime you're faced with too much certainty, you challenge it.
Tyler Cowen (41:57)
Yes.
Douglas Vigliotti (41:58)
You challenge certainty because one or two things happen. Either they can't articulate the downside of their advice, and you don't want anybody who can't articulate the downside of their advice because there's always a downside to their advice, or they haven't thought about it. And if they haven't thought about it, that's just as bad because that means they're not considering it at all. So you always challenge too much certainty. So your thoughts there go hand in hand with that. I love that.
Tyler Cowen (42:23)
And often parents and even managers, give advice just to feel they've done everything possible, but not actually to have an impact so they don't feel bad themselves. If you want to influence people, introduce them to new others, that's way more effective than advice.
Douglas Vigliotti (42:37)
Yeah, I'm a recovering advice giver. It's hard. It's hard because people come to you and they ask for it, and then when they ask you for advice, you almost feel an obligation to give it. And then it's like, wait a minute, should I even be giving advice on this? Because I don't even have this figured out myself. It's almost like the reverse halo effect. Okay, next question. So what's one quote or motto you live your life by?
Tyler Cowen (42:58)
Be comfortable with messiness. I present that in my TED talk. Don't make everything into a nice, neat bundle. Don't think your life is a story or a narrative. Realize a lot of things don't make sense. And nonetheless, go forward.
Douglas Vigliotti (43:12)
Love it. What's one book that's impacted the way you think?
Tyler Cowen (43:18)
Reading Plato's dialogues. When I was like 13, 14. The idea is that philosophy is a conversation, that it's a discourse, that it's back and forth. At the end of the dialogues, you're usually not sure who really was right and who was wrong. That had a massive impact on me, and it still does.
Douglas Vigliotti (43:35)
Has that helped at all with disagreement with you being able to deal with disagreements? Cause I feel like any time you have any kind of philosophical conversation or any conversation for that matter, there are always disagreements that arise.
Tyler Cowen (43:47)
I hope it's helped, but I'm not sure I'm the one to judge it because I see all these other arrogant people who think they're great at disagreeing and maybe they're not.
Douglas Vigliotti (43:56)
So, I do have one more question, but I feel like I need to ask you this. What's a way that helps you disagree with people?
Tyler Cowen (44:01)
Cultivating detachment and writing the blog for 15 years? We have open comments. Numerous people insult me every day. They think they're getting under my skin, they're actually doing me a huge favor. I would encourage them to continue because it means I'm actually very open to being criticized. And after what I read in my own comments section, a lot of stuff just doesn't bother me, and I'm able to learn from the critics who have useful things to say.
Douglas Vigliotti (44:26)
Yeah, and it's almost like they're forcing you to look at it from another angle. And then the last question, what's the one thing that you want to tell the world, it's not what it seems?
Tyler Cowen (44:37)
Well, most things aren't what they seem, but anyone who thinks they can tell you how it all really is. I would just say be suspicious. But that also means being suspicious of yourself and trying to cultivate this diversity of sources of information, instruction, and also inspiration.
Douglas Vigliotti (44:57)
So, create an environment around you that specializes in different things. Is that what you're saying?
Tyler Cowen (45:01)
That is truly diverse. And, I don't mean ethnic diversity, but certainly, that's included, gender diversity of course, but just true intellectual, spiritual, and emotional diversity. Surround yourself and try to draw from that.
Douglas Vigliotti (45:17)
Yes. I don't think I could have picked a better way to end it. This is a podcast to inspire open-mindedness, and if that isn't a piece of non-advice that we should follow, then I don't know what is. So, Tyler Cowen, thank you so much for coming on. Your book, Stubborn Attachments: A Vision for a Society of Free, Prosperous, and Responsible Individuals was a really, really enlightening read. I hope everybody goes out and grabs a copy because as I told you before we started this, it might have been a tougher sell, but maybe it should have been called Cowen-ism.
Tyler Cowen (45:49)
And thank you very much for doing this. I really appreciate it. And let's stay in touch.
Douglas Vigliotti (45:53)
Absolutely. Thank you so much.
