#413: Tyler Cowen on Rationality, COVID-19, Talismans, and Life on the Margins

And I am recording I figure might as well record video. What did you have for breakfast? Today, Tyler. Smoked trout, green pepper, green grapes, and some cheddar cheese. Pretty close to my usual. It's an excellent breakfast. Green grapes. Wow, I love this. All right. Let me uh if you could tell me you

Yeah, this could be a question in the actual podcast, of course. It could. It could, yeah, it could definitely be a question. What's uh Why do you choose those items in that breakfast? Uh they s except for the grapes, they store pretty well. That's important. You can buy a week's worth at a time. Uh the trout gives you protein. It's probably either good for you or at least not bad for you.

And it's not something you're tempted to overeat. Like you just can't eat that much smoked trout in the morning. With no salmon, people can attack and not stop. Trout has a A self self limiting function. Yet it tastes good, right? It's a funny uh utility curve for smoked trout.

Okay, let me uh let me just listen to that for a second. At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. So then I'll do personal questions. No it is kinda. Yeah. cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal endoscalet.

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Slash Tim. Check it out. Yeah. Hello, boys and girls. This is Tim Ferris. Welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferris Show, where it is my job to deconstruct world class performers. I would consider my guest today one of those. To tease out the habits for teens.

thinking processes, practices, et cetera, that you can hopefully emulate or test in your own lives. My guest today is Professor Tyler Cowan. C O W E N that is Cowan. And his personal moonshot is to teach economics. or economics, we'll clear that up in just a moment, to more people than anyone else in the history of the world. And he might just succeed. In addition to his regular teaching at George Mason University, Tyler has blogged every day at Marginal Revolution for I want to say more than fifteen years now. That's incredible, helping to make it one of the most widely read economics blogs in the world. He's co created Marginal Revolution University, a free online economics education platform that's reached millions and will no doubt reach millions more. He is also a best selling author of more than a dozen books.

This man is an overachiever, a regular Bloomberg columnist and host of the popular Conversations with Tyler podcast. Where he examines the work and worldviews of underrated thinkers like Martina Navartilova, Neil Stevenson, one of my favorite writers, Reed Hoffman, and many more. His latest project is Emergent Ventures, a$5 million fund to support entrepreneurs who have big ideas on how to improve society. You can find him on the web. marginal revolution dot com conversations with Tyler dot com I highly recommend checking out and on Twitter at Tyler. Cowan. Tyler, welcome to the show.

Thank you, Tim. Happy to be here. And there are so many questions I want to ask. We have so many friends uh or at least I would say fans of your work in common, like Ryan Holliday. And you have been suggested and requested as a guest on this podcast for a very long time. Indeed.

Let's start with my my first question slash area of confusion, as you may have noticed, even in the introduction, I pronounced it differently several times. Do you say economics or economics? Probably I'm not consistent. But I don't think of myself as doing economics. I think of myself as doing a funny kind of philosophy

with the economy as the topic. So My goal isn't really to teach economics, it's to improve my own ways of thinking. And maybe people will learn some of that as I go along. Why use

Uh and I will flip flop here. Why use economics as the Vehicle. What makes that Interesting or useful. For examining thinking.

I'm stuck with it at this point, right? So I think the most efficient way of learning at the margin for most smart people is travel. And I try to travel a lot. But I don't necessarily try to talk other people. into becoming economists.

When I was a young kid, I was a chess player. And I was very good at chess, then I quit chess. And I took up economics. And that has made sense for me as a career. But in a way, I'm not emotionally that wedded to economics.

Right? I think of anthropology as a more fundamental way of thinking about humans. And economics indirectly is parasitical on anthropology. And we should all be doing more anthropology. And travel.

Could you explain what you mean by a parasitical on anthropology? So economics, the core insights are about incentives, right? The law of demand, price goes up, you buy less. That makes perfect sense. But in anything but the simplest context you have to ask How do people even understand what the price is?

So if a mother says to her kid, Oh, don't do that or you won't be allowed to play outside. You know, what is the real price? Does the kid really not get to play outside ever again? They get to play outside even more the day after. Who knows? It's about how people understand how they communicate with each other. And that is a kind of anthropology, sociology. Economics is embedded in those broader social sciences. So in my view, you need to be broad, read a lot, travel a lot. Kind of be a bit crazy.

I'm all for I'm all for the right kind of crazy. I I I think we will be examining and exploring some nooks and crannies that would qualify as if not crazy, at least weird. That's the hope, part of the hope for this conversation. And I want to come back to something you said or referenced, which was playing chess as a kid. So In the course of doing some research for this conversation

I came across something that said you also played for money. What did Playing chess. And or playing chess for money. from those experiences or what impact did that have on you?

Well, this may sound trivial, but first it taught me I could win, and second it taught me I could lose. And those are both very important lessons. And it also taught me I needed to be honest with myself about why I was either winning or losing. And that there were real stakes here. So I learned that like at age ten, eleven.

Uh that was a great background. And chess is not forgiving of excuses, right? It cultivates what I now call meta rationality. And you can't lie about how well you're doing. Not not in the medium term. You have a numerical rating, it's pretty accurate. Right? You win or you lose.

You can't say the sun got in my eyes more than once. Yeah. So Uh you have you have many phrases that no doubt we will be digging into or terms. Uh could you elaborate on meta rationality, please?

Or give other examples of metirrationality. A person is being metirational when he or she understands How smart or well informed he or she is in a given topic area. Meta rationality is is very hard to come by, in my view. So people typically do not defer to the views of experts when they ought to. Sometimes the expert might be wrong. If you're just but if you're just playing the odds, the expert is probably right.

So people are far too confident about too many things they shouldn't be so confident about. Meta rational people who are essentially impossible to find. But at the margin we can be a bit more meta rational. Uh they know to whom they should defer or how to find out the right answer. And

As someone who is self admittedly or self described Hyperlexic. A consumer of It would seem vast quantities. But certainly on some level curated.

quantities of information. How would you think about uh fr as an example, because you've also written for the New York Times a in two thousand thirteen about pandemics, to fight pandemics reward research. Now

One could argue that uh we're we're a little behind the eight ball with respect to current circumstances, but as we're recording this on Monday, March second. How do you yourself think about, for instance parsing information and sources related to something like Covid nineteen.

And I know that I'm using shorthand. But the the virus is is is sort of awkward to say, so I'll just use Covid nineteen as a placeholder for for this particular coronavirus that we're contending with. The returns. to understanding how to build a good Twitter feed are very high.

Yeah. And right now many of us should be building uh coronavirus Twitter feeds, right? And following a number of people like Helen Branswell. And then uh people need to trust you, so the returns to being ethical. And keeping confidences are high. And then other people will tell you things if you're at all known.

And then you need to be meta rational and judge, you know, which of them you should listen to more. Some of that might happen through WhatsApp. And then just at the end of the day, uh not to get too caught up in your own narrative, you need to be suspicious of stories. You can there's like the panic story, there's the it's all gonna be fine story. Probably the truth is somewhere in between.

But dominant moods or emotions tend to seize hold of us, even if we're very smart. And often smart people go wrong. 'Cause they're just better at feeding more information into their chosen mood. And then they're gonna likely to screw up. So it's this very careful balancing act across many dimensions. Mm.

How how do you cultivate Meta rationality. Particularly when hopefully taking into account incentives. Uh e because what I've noticed, for instance, is that

Among the friends I've spoken to who I all consider From the perspective an of an IQ test at least. intelligent pretty far on the right.

That they're The conviction with which they believe this is serious or not serious often uh corresponds in some fashion to how inconvenient or convenient it would be, or how much of a financial sacrifice believing it is serious and requires, say, self-quarantine or something like that. uh would uh would cost them from a business perspective. Uh how how can one cultivate the ability to remain

Meta rational. during times of duress or panic like this. And and I know that's a a very uh jumbled question. But I think You can probably Get what I'm grasping for.

Maybe a certain bit of obliviousness actually is useful. So you wanna be plugged in. But also somewhat detached. And so caught up in your own thing, your whole what did I have for breakfast this morning routine. When am I gonna get to shoot baskets next? Uh

that it actually distracts you from too much emotional involvement. Peter Thiel sometimes says you sort of want to embody opposites in yourself. in some ways. So this extreme involvement in the processing of information, but also a fair amount of detachment. Uh maybe is the best you can do if you can achieve that.

I think the returns to detachment have gone up a lot with Twitter. So Twitter's fantastic, but most people use it badly and they hate it and they criticize it and they waste time on it. But if you just use it as a truth generating mechanism and use Twitter search. And mostly ignore politics on it. It's wonderful. Mm-hmm.

Could you give an example h of of how you have used Twitter? in uh in in that fashion. Wha what type of truth might you type of try to generate or identify through Twitter and how would you go about it? Right now Twitter search is mostly better than Google search.

So take a topic you're interested in. Which in this case could be coronavirus, right? And just type it into Twitter Search every morning or every evening and see what pops up. And then you're not restricted to who it is you follow, which is always going to be limiting. You'll sample different opinions, see how people respond. You'll be led places by happenstance.

That's fantastic. We didn't have that fifteen years ago. Uh one of your most popular, if not the most popular post of yours in two thousand nineteen on your blog. Uh was how I practice At what I do. I believe that's the name of the of the blog post. Please correct me if I'm wrong. Uh

And To quote that blog post. You wrote recently one of my favorite questions to bug people with has been What is it that you do to train that is comparable to a pianist practicing scales? If you don't know the answer to that one, maybe you're doing something wrong or not doing enough. Could you elaborate on that, please?

Well say you're a social scientist or you're a writer or you give public talks. You are out there in some way all of the time. But if you look at people like say w what Kobe Bryant did or what Martin and Navar Telova did, They practice to an extreme degree, and that's how they got better. Martina was not world number one player.

Until She had an intense regime of proper practice. Kobe, the older he got, he realized he needed to practice more. Whereas a lot of top stars actually practice less. And they coast on reputation and

They have a guaranteed contract. So just every day. You want to be reading, you want to be talking, you want to be thinking, you want to be exercising. And do it. You know, at an intense a level as you can.

And just try to do that all day long. And that's practice. And you know, one hopes it will make you better. It's not for you to say, but you know, that's the hope. How do you practice your skills? What does what do scales look like for you?

Writing out large quantities of material, much of which I never use or publish, writing out different points of view which are not my own. is also a way of practicing. trying to talk to a very diverse set of people. In my case, not just academics. Uh not just people I went to high school with, say.

Uh listening to highly complex music, I think, is a way to keep your mind active. Uh Periodically reading serious fiction. I think of something people stop doing after they hit a certain age, maybe thirty or forty. But it forces you to be open to the complexities of how humans actually are.

I recommend that too. If someone listening were a uh nonfiction purists say they quit At twenty. And have not been reading fiction since

Particular fiction books. that you might recommend for someone to use as their re entry to the world of complex fiction? Or fiction overall. I would have to know their biography, but I would start with Harold Bloom's book, The Western Canon. which has a list and surveys a lot of his favorite works, a few of which are nonfiction, by the way.

And uh dig in there and just find what you love and pursue it. I think the greatest writer is Shakespeare. Uh it's not necessarily for everyone. And if you did not grow up writing and reading English, it's probably not for you. But that would be one story.

Henry Add. You know? When you say complex music, uh what does that mean to you? Uh Indian classical music I think i is phenomenal and grossly underrated. And it really forces you to be in a

Complexity mindset. Beethoven late string quartet, Bach The Art of the Fugue, Atonal Music, Arnold Schernberg, Uh some of the stuff people don't like and cursed at and think has wrecked music. I'm all for it, pretty much. It's just really, really hard. the sophistication of the hand percussion in classical Indian music. I I don't know much about other instruments, but the Sophistication of the hand percussion. Speaking as someone who's become very interested in hand percussion in the last few years is

mind blowing it із unbelievable how well developed the system of hand percussion is in classical Indian music, just as one example. It could be the best music in the world. And I wonder if it's not related to Indian preeminence in the world of tech. Hm.

That's that's that is that is definitely one I'll I'll have to chew on. I I like I like that as a thought exercise at the very least. You spoke to your writing. uh and your writing practice. What does your daily writing practice look like? If if it is indeed daily, I I make that assumption, but perhaps you're batching your writing. What does your writing process look like? It is daily in in almost religious manner. I write on Christmas Day, I write on Sundays. I write columns, blog posts.

Uh, I like to quit writing before I get tired of writing. That way I'm hungry to come back the day after. And the real enemy in writing is days where you get nothing written. If you write something every day, I don't care how

much or how little it is, it's going to add up. And over time you'll get more done each day. So just make it an absolute rule. The really important thing, it may not be writing for everyone, but just do it every day, get better at it every day. Don't take any excuses. Do it. What does your routine and setup look like? What time of day?

What uh what are the ingredients that for you constitute a writing session? What are the characteristics? I love having multiple offices to create variants in my physical environment. But usually I start at home. I have just an ordinary sofa. Next to a very good stereo and a lot of C Ds, some being Indian classical music.

And I just sit on the sofa and lean against the armrest. I I don't even know if I'm comfortable, but I'm so used to it. And I just write, and I end up back there at the end of the day. And in between I'm at You know, one of my two offices. Or if I'm on the road, you know, I'll write in a hotel room.

I've gotten very used to writing other places. I enjoy the change of pace. Somehow forces you to think new thoughts a bit. Do you do it first thing in the morning? Does the time of day vary? Uh what does the timing look like?

Almost always it's early in the morning. The first thing I do in the morning is check my email and eat breakfast, right? But after that I try to get to writing pretty quickly. So I think a lot of people peak Between say eight fifteen AM And maybe eleven thirty, eleven forty five. And those are my

Core writing times most, but not all days. And when you check email Do you have any rules or tactics that help you to avoid getting consumed or pulled into the vortex of of in of email to the extent that it It overtakes your writing time.

How do you think about that? Well, keep in mind email responding to emails is writing too. I once said to Patrick Collison. My business model is responding to my email. So I respond to a lot of email. I don't respond to it the second it comes in necessarily.

And I certainly don't in the morning. But there'll be a few things if only because of time zones. Or I do respond immediately. And email is how people are gonna tell me things often. So if I respond, I develop more and better relationships.

Uh I'm you could say I'm a fan of getting somewhat drowned in your email. But I think here's part of it. I try to stay A bit weird and obscure enough. Mostly

Quite smart people are writing me. And if I had too many not smart emails, I would feel I was doing something else wrong with what I'm writing. Ha ha W what will be the what will the symptoms be of you having crossed the line

Into over overexposed or making having made mistakes in your writing, I guess besides the email, but are there will will you know Will will the indication be just a a change in the ratio of smart to not so smart email, or are there other ways that you would recognize you've gone astray with your writing? Maybe too many people asking me to do political things. Would be a sign that I had done something wrong.

Uh that mostly doesn't happen. Uh the people emailing me being less smart or less to the point, that mostly doesn't happen. So I think I get a a pretty large number of very good emails each day or WhatsApp messages. And I like that. But you have to reciprocate, right?

Yeah. With your with your writing, do you do your drafting first drafts? In word in latex, in uh email composition. I know some people who do that in an actual Word pr uh like a WordPress editor or in a blog of some type.

How do you draft? I'm a software idiot, so If I'm writing a book or a column, I just use Microsoft Word. I'm still struggling to figure out how it works. If it's a blog post, I type it into WordPress. And I do find if I type into WordPress, I write different things. Then if I write on an open word document.

Uh recently I've been trying Google Docs. It's better for collaboration, but it's disorienting for me. Yeah. It doesn't feel permanent somehow. It feels like if a quasar explodes somewhere out there, the whole thing will go poof. And I'm nervous. But maybe that's good. It gets me to finish what I'm doing more quickly.

Now you have written about your own twelve rules for life. I wanted to ask you about two of them if you would be willing to to expand. So I'll I'll read them, but These are these are rule seven and twelve, respectively. And I'll read both and then you can dig into either. The first

Number seven. Learn how to learn from those who offend you. Number twelve. Every now and then and I'm gonna mispronounce things here probably, read or reread Erasmus, Montaine, Homer, Shakespeare, or Joyce's Ulysses. So that you do not take any rules too seriously. The human condition seems to defeat our orders our our attempts, excuse me.

Yeah. Alright, I would love for you to expand on On on either of those. You can choose whichever you'd like to talk about first. Well, part of the brilliance of those writers I listed is they're highly complex They

force you or induce you to see human motivation as very complicated. Uh they run against the grain of there being simple answers. And you really have to focus on them and give them full attention. So if you're dealing with them periodically. I think it's a good way to always stay fresh if that's a true open honest engagement.

Now the people who offend you, I mean Twitter's a great place to find them, right? People are so negative on Twitter. And either directly or indirectly, they're gonna be negative about you, whatever it is you do or are, or think. Someone's gonna dump on it and trash it. Those are the people where where you really need to look closely and say, What can I learn from this person? Do not play a strategy which I call devalue and dismiss.

'Cause you can point to flaws in their thought, right? Or their biography, like, oh you know, say what they've done wrong or they didn't say this right three years ago. And you can dismiss them. But they're at the margin really the ones you've got to learn from. Like for me, that's Paul Krugman. You know, he puts down so many people. Sometimes he puts down views I hold.

Uh you could say it offends me. But you know, I need to suck it up. You know, and just realize There's something I can learn from here. What have you learned from Paul? What would be

Or cultivated as a Result of performing this practice. Well, I would say a lot about regional economics. At the meta level, I've learned a lot about how to communicate, sometimes how not to communicate.

Uh I understand a particular point of view much better. Which I sometimes, but not usually Uh agree with. And uh he's one of the smartest economists out there, right? He has a Nobel Prize, like of course, my goodness, we should be learning from this person.

What what are Things that come to mind that you have changed your mind on in the last few years or the last year. Are there any any positions or beliefs or otherwise that you've you've changed your mind on? Or come to think differently about. Well one thing.

that I'm finding really striking is the number of different countries that have had demonstrations or sometimes even riots about their politics. And those are sometimes countries such as Chile. Which at least in regional terms are leaders are doing better than other places. Chile has actually seen declining income inequality. And yet millions of people in a not so well populated country are going to the streets.

So The sense of discontent out there is higher than I had thought. And I don't feel I've thought that through properly yet, but I'm definitely changing my mind. About the stability of

It seems like Uh what are your working Hypotheses. Uh uh uh

With respect to why that might be. I think one is the Martin Guri hypothesis that in a world with the internet we see everyone's flaws more readily. So you look at politicians or for that matter top thinkers. On social media.

Mostly they're not very impressive. And again you could play the devalue and dismiss strategy, but it means the citizenry ends up disillusioned. So the second point I think is that if you look at say the United States It has not in every way covered itself in glory over the last fifteen or twenty years.

And that disillusions people around the world, yet they don't know where else to turn because in my view, some version of Western liberal capitalist democracy is indeed the best system. People see China doing better. They don't necessarily want autocracy, so politics becomes more confusing. And then finally, I think we're seeing big shifts in the income distribution. where certain groups are seeing either stagnant or falling wages and this heightens their anxiety, and then they too become dissatisfied in politics, but they're not sure exactly where to turn. They tend to turn to politicians who promise them free lunches. But that's probably bad. Mm.

How how are you going to go about developing a better understanding or different perspectives related to This this observation, for instance, in Chile. What what is what do your next steps look like? Well, the most likely next step is failure, right?

Uh but going to Chile. would be one thing I would do. I've spent Maybe five weeks of my life in Chile, which is not a lot, but Enough that I have a sense of the place. I was recently invited back.

Uh I will try to find a way to get back. And then I will speak with people, but I also try to figure things out just by writing them down or writing them up. And uh if I just sit in the sa shower and sing, I don't really get anywhere. So I need to talk with people or give a talk or write something down. And that will probably be wrong, but that's like the draft that doesn't get out.

And then it will get better and like maybe sometimes it's okay. What percentage of what you write would you say ultimately gets published on The blogger elsewhere. just to give people an idea of what the pie chart to uh looks like with

Published, unpublished, and maybe there's There are other categories, but w what percentage would you say end up getting published somewhere? It's hard to measure because the things I discard I tend to rewrite them so much. Whether I've thrown them out or just rewritten them.

Uh I'm not sure how to classify it. Many hundreds of pages of unpublished stuff. And it's gonna stay that way. in in varying phases of completeness.

But it was necessary to get to other things. In in two thousand I wanna say two thousand three, so this is some time ago. Suspect things may have changed, but at the time I read that you were watching television only in Spanish. Sh

That was correct then. Yeah, how long a how for what period of time did you do that? Oh. Over a dozen years, and I still do it sometimes, but I found it a good way to learn Spanish. But a good way to have a window.

onto a group of concerns that I would not necessarily encounter in the rest of my daily life. So if you watch Spanish language news from Latin America or from Miami, but essentially from Latin America. you will just get a very different sense of what is important, what is interesting, what is dramatic. Very different sense of the role of the tragic. How families fit together, the importance of children.

Uh really shakes up your worldview. Uh but mostly I wanted to learn Spanish, but I became a bit addicted to it and I still do it when I have the time. I listen to the the Duolingo Spanish podcast sometimes for similar reasons, although it doesn't provide quite it does in some cases provide that sort of contextual temporal news. human interest uh human interest element. Uh but perhaps less so than breaking news.

Uh I left Premier Impacto on Univision. I still watch that sometimes. It's at five PM. For me it's channel fourteen. It's just fantastic. Yeah. What do you find to be the benefits of focusing on language acquisition or I suppose cultivation.

Well I only know two other languages is English, Spanish and German. Uh they force you out of your comfort zone. They make you realize what an idiot you are. You're always learning something. You get windows into how other people think. Uh I sometimes call it cracking cultural codes.

Spanish is great because it opens up a lot of different countries to you. German has some of the most profound writing and music, philosophy and culture of human history. Uh I wish I knew more. So I envy people who know

Many languages and people who have travelled, you know, to more and different places than I have. They're the people you should envy. Uh One of your many books. The complacent class.

Uh Now my my my read. And please correct me if I'm wrong, is that Uh You've you've argued that we've in some respects become a stagnant and cautious society.

if I'm actually sort of interpreting things correctly, and feel free to correct me. We innovate less, especially outside of the tech sector. Our incomes grow more slowly. We move around the United States at roughly half the rates we used to. We are now unable to pull off. Grand projects such as putting a man on the moon.

Almost all of the spending of our federal government is now locked in and Much of that, most of that going to the elderly. We're just a less dynamic society. People are crazy how they bring up their kids. No risk is to be allowed. People obsess over what kindergarten will my kid get into if they don't get into that kindergarten, my goodness all is lost. We are far more a society of credentials.

Which I regard as a huge negative. Uh All of that and more. What What can one do?

Is is are there any personal actions? that you would suggest to counteract or counterbalance in some fashion those societal trends. I mean of course that's more than just societal trend. There are actual government policies and so on. But what can the individual do if they listen to you say this and they agree with you? Are there any particular

Practices or steps or Recommendations. That you can't. So s Steve Levit, the free economics guy, he wrote a great paper. Where he took some people and he looked at their major decisions and for some of the people a coin was flipped.

And if the coin said they had to make a big change, they made the big change. And next post, the people who made the big changes. were happier than those who did not. So of course it depends on the person and on the context. But in general, read that Steve Levit paper, think about the coin flipping.

And more of the time make the big change. Of course it's a risk, right? Uh but it seems on average it pays off. question for you is the now those were big changes Determined by the flip of a coin.

Is that right? Right. Okay. How much of the happiness with the big change do you think was from making the big change or being absolved of the the buyer slash seller's regr regret equivalent, second guessing, in other words, a decision that you had to make on your own. I don't know, but if it's only the being absolved that matters. Well, treat me as the villain and you are hereby absolved from responsibility. Just say Tyler made me do it and go off and be happier. And the rest of society will do better do better as well.

What are some of the major decisions that you've made that have been extremely impactful in your life. I decided that I would really focus on the internet and giving away my output for free. And mostly stopping doing peer reviewed scholarly research and devoting all my time to blogging and online essays and online education in my podcast.

And that has gone phenomenally well for me. In retrospect it doesn't sound that scary. Uh I started blogging I think seventeen years ago. And the notion that I would do this every day for what is now almost seventeen years at the time was extremely weird. And I was doing well in my other endeavors. It wasn't

there was some kind of failure that needed to be patched up. But I just thought I mean to do this. I'm not gonna look back. Uh at first like no one paid any attention for years. I just kept on doubling down.

Happily. You know, in my oblivious fog. And it worked out great. So so I'm gonna push back a little bit on the oblivious fog. You're a smart guy. You didn't say I was a meta rational guy. You said I was a smart guy. Maybe I should be a venue. Well I was going to meta rational next. That was my second compliment.

How what was your decision making framework for For doing that. Seventeen years ago. So that places us around two thousand three, roughly. Right. How did how did you make that decision, which at the time to many very smart I will use the word smart here. Colleagues

Probably appeared Absurd. Uh How did you what was your decision making framework how or how did you think about making that decision? I'm not even sure I had a decision making framework. I think in a way I'm

dysfunctional as a decision maker at that level. I like did it for a day. I enjoyed it and I just Didn't stop doing it. And a very selfish, curious Greedy with information way.

And it was just became quickly impossible to to turn that ship around. So I thought well I've got to do more of this. And uh I mean I would hesitate to recommend my so called decision making process to anyone. Mm.

What was the the positive feedback loop on uh the daily experience that kept you going for years before it seemingly game. gain traction. What was it that appealed so much to you? For three or four years, like we had a few thousand readers, but it wasn't a thing

And it hadn't taken off. It was fine. And when I started I thought, oh, it would be awesome to have only five thousand readers, like some kind of utopian dream. Uh But I lost track of that and I just found I was learning things having to write all these posts. Like, oh, I need to learn this, I need to learn that. And then when I would write on it, I would change my mind.

So I thought well this is some form of progress. And again, just stuck at it. And then later like blogs became a thing. And even though Blogging has mostly disappeared. It's gone very well for us. We've

And uh We haven't like seen that kind of cut back in readership. Uh I think it's it's it's lost some of its newness sex appeal, but I would be astonished if long form or even not so long form writing, as long as it is of high quality for

considered of high quality for at least a few thousand people or even less I don't see that going away any time soon. I I know that there are other media any other forms of media that are more fashionable perhaps, but I'm certainly not concerned for the longevity of your

Readership. I think you'll be fine. How how how have you thought about branching out from the written word? And making decisions about that. Well, I do now a podcast every two weeks that's called Conversations with Tyler.

And that keeps me very busy and dominates a lot of my reading time. Uh You know, that's for free. It's not a business for me. It probably costs me some money. But I find I read much better. When I'm reading their work to go and interview them. So

Next I'll be doing uh Philip Tatlock. The guy who writes on prediction in super forecasters. That will force me to get my thoughts in order on those topics. After that I think it's Emily Saint John Mandel who wrote Station eleven, which coincidentally is a book about pandemics and she has a new book out.

I read fiction much better when I know I'm talking to the author himself or herself. Uh when I interviewed Martine and Navratilova, I had to learn a lot about the history of tennis. I read like fifty books on the history of women's and also men's tennis. That was fantastic. I wouldn't have absorbed them in the same way. If I wasn't going to be speaking to her. So I'm just keep on doing these podcasts. Again, totally dysfunctional decision making on my part.

Well we'll see. No, it's not bad. But it's not something I could explain or justify in terms of a model of rationality. Right. It's also low risk. in the sense that I mean the max downside risk of doing this is is very it would seem very low, whereas a lot of the benefits, as you said, putting a uh putting an incentive and deadline in place so that you immerse yourself in these topics and worlds that you might not otherwise

put so much energy into is is certainly a benefit. How did you prepare for Neil Stevenson? Because I've read Neil's books, and for people who don't know, you have Snow Crash, Cryptonomicon. You have many others. And these are These are not short books. These are in in fact incredibly long books in many cases. How did you prepare for That interview.

He was in some ways an easier than usual prep. Because there are many Neil Stevenson books I already had read. Which was a huge head start, just as you've read them. And then there were others that I simply cannot read. Like Anathem.

Which I suspect is brilliant, but I'm just not a good enough reader or not smart enough or not something to get through it. It just loses me. And I've tried at least twice. I tried again to prep for him, I couldn't read it. And it might be his best book.

So I just had to put that one down and I figure, well, this is Neil Stevenson. I'm just gonna talk to him about stuff. obvious usual questions about science and the future and technology, and he'll just be interesting. So that was I wouldn't say easy. But easier than many.

Where's people who know? a very direct thing, like Emily Wilson. She was the translator of Homer's Odyssey. I had to know Homer's Odyssey really, really well. Like that's what she does. I can't just blah blah blah to her about, you know, what do you think of Peter Thiel and the tech stagnation debate.

We talked. Eighty five percent about Homer's Odyssey. That was one of my hardest preps. Hm. She's wonderful, by the way, if you ever want to have her on. But it's really tough.

I spent months of my life preparing for her, and it was over in an hour. Yeah, that's uh it's better better ratio than the Olympics, I guess. Uh how are you preparing for the conversation about Uh Well, I suppose it's not gonna be limited to, but station eleven.

If I'm getting that that that right and pandemics. What do you what is what is how are you thinking about navigating that conversation and preparing for it? I watch her on YouTube. I read all of the interviews with her I can find online. Her two main novels I will read twice, and her earlier, less well known novels I've read once. And she's from Canada. I need to think about Canada, where she grew up in Victoria. uh what her literary inspirations are, ask her about those, reread books that she has read.

Think you know, I looked again at Michael Crichton's The Under Dramata Strain. She wrote a novel about a pandemic. Well, now I have to think about Pocccio as well, right? And you just have to like dig deep into all your resources. Like what have I got here? Yeah, we'll see how it goes. But she's a hard prep. You you have read I mean you and Patrick Collison are sort of birds of a feather here, uh for people who don't know, Patrick Collison of Stripe.

In that you are voracious readers and consume more books than the next ten people put together, the next ten high achievers put together, I think many would say. What are the books that you have gifted or recommended to people. Most That come to mind. I know that you have a huge

But what what books have you recommended most to others? Exploring fiction. uh or complex non fiction. What other books come to mind? If if any. I'm very suspicious about recommending books to people.

Because there's the risk they might listen to what you say. And if you're recommending to them the book that is not like the most valuable next book they should read. In a sense, you're wronging them. So I don't

I one thing I try to encourage people to do is to read more about music and the arts. Not a particular book, but I say take the creators you love. Whoever, whatever they may be. And read about them. If it's the Beatles, great. If it's Beethoven.

And really dig into What you might think of as your hobbies, but to read about them. In an intense way. And just think about like Beethoven. How did he manage his career? Like what were his productivity tricks? What did he do wrong? And think through some of the questions you've written and talked about at length.

But in the context of your cultural heroes. If it's like what do I tell people to read most often You know, I am not myself religious, but usually I'll tell my non religious friends they ought to go read the Bible. Mm-hmm. It's a wonderfully deep and brilliant book.

And uh Most non religious people, even most religious people barely know it. Or Shakespeare. If someone said they uh said to you they wanted to Become more meta rational.

If that were their objec their stated objective. Are there any resources you would point them to? Or practices. Again, I'd like to know where they are starting from. Uh

But spend some time sitting down with groups of people you don't usually sit down with. is my most likely recommendation. And that will depend on the person. So there's one colleague of mine, I'm telling him, you need to travel to some very poor countries And sit down and speak to some

very poor in terms of income individuals. And that's what I think he should do. Uh obviously if someone say grew up in the slums of Mumbai, that's probably not my advice, right? What if they were Well to do.

Manhattanite. Oh my goodness. Who felt like they were uh who felt like they were prone to confirmation bias due to various incentives they had. So they would

They've embedded themselves. in a position. They have stories they've believed. Maybe they're stories from their parents. Who knows? Yeah, what's the besides Spending time with someone who is uh from an income perspective poorer.

What what other advice might you have for such a person? Well, if you're a Manhattan I you actually will be in proximity to a fair number of poorer people. But I find on average Manhattanites tend to think the world comes to them. And I suspect this is a delusion of sorts. So people say, Oh, Silicon Valley's a bubble. Well, maybe, but people in Silicon Valley don't actually think the whole world

comes to them, they realize they're in a very special part of the world. And I think if Manhattanites would realize that more They would then just leave Manhattan. If only to the other boroughs. I mean try Staten Island, right? Don't go to Paris, don't go to London. Tri Staten Island, West Virginia.

Somewhere like Macedonia. And don't think all these things are already coming to you in Manhattan because they're not. You're getting a super filtered version of it. And uh you're just seeing a more Manhattan. Nothing wrong with that. I love Manhattan. Grew up in New Jersey. But uh A lot of remedial work probably needs to be done.

What what are you working on personally right now? Are there any particular problems or

Objectives that you've set out for yourself. Well, I'm writing a new book and it's on what do the social sciences know about spotting and evaluating talent. And I have a project, this Emergent Venture, as you referred to before. There's a a a fund of money. I give away

to individuals who are talented, or I hope they are talented. So Really just trying to get better at that and trying to get better at communicating what I know or think I know to other people. And that's very hard. There is no single really go to source.

On how to evaluate talent. People who have not yet succeeded, but maybe they will. Just pausing to think for a moment here. Learned. About

Interviewing. If uh let's just say from either pre podcast to right now or first What What have you learned about interviewing or how have you improved

As an interviewer ha and and and you can interpret that however you like, because there are many different types of interviewing. I'm not sure I've improved. Uh Hard for me to say. But I think getting people to talk about what they do actually do.

Tends to be good. Getting people willing to be weird, getting people to be conversational. Getting people to be engaged and passionate. The worst question is please tell us about your latest book. I try to start with something super specific, something they're shocked that I might know about them.

And then just, you know, dig deeper. How do you get them to be willing to be weird? Well most of them are weird to begin with, right? So That's like a big force on your side. Uh

Being weird yourself. Like Uh relaxes the environment. It makes it non threatening. Just signaling you're not there to, you know, screw them over, that you want to be there to be weird with them. And that you're actually doing this because you enjoy it.

And Usually it works, not always. Some people just like clam up. They think they're gonna get a government job someday. Try not to have them on, right?

What does weird? mean to you? How would you how would you define weird? Well, in a sense, it's the weird that is truly normal. It's how people actually are. Like what they really care about. Think about So in a sense, you're getting them out of the weird. The weird is the stage presence we put on and all the puffery and unwillingness to say what you really think, because my confirmation hearing, whatever.

So once you stop seeing the weird is actually weird, I think that's also a help. It's like this is natural. Let's just do it. And most people respond to that. I think. But you do many of these yourself, right? I do. I'm not convinced I know what I'm doing either. I I

Somewhat selfishly uh have surrendered to following personal interest in interviews with the assumption that if I find it interesting I have at least a guaranteed satisfied audience of one person. But uh I I I think I have a per t very particular personality that then imprints my approach to asking questions, but I'm okay with that. I don't uh have a desire to be anything other than

than who I am at the moment when it comes to asking questions, at least. Uh never have a guest on you don't care about, right? Yeah. It is a good rule. What other what ha what other rules have you developed? If any.

You mean in podcasting, conversing. Just get to the point immediately. Uh, the old saying, personality is revealed on weekends. I think you present a version of that in one of your books. Yeah. Uh what does the person do on weekends? Probably the same as what they do on weekdays, but bring out that side of them, right? And just asking the person, in essence, what are your open browser tabs right now? It's one way of getting at who they are. And the browser tabs don't lie, right?

Yeah. That is a great question. That is a really great question. So part of the reason that I might be asking this so that I can borrow and uh use in the future, but the future is now. So here we are, a few seconds after you just said that. What are some of the open browser tabs on your computer? Twitter is always open. WordPress for blogging is always open.

Uh several sets of email. Always open. WhatsApp. Always open. And then right now I will have typically five or six tabs to specific articles.

Which at the moment. Are all coronavirus. That's atypical. Usually they're more varied. But right now there's two big stories. There's the uh election campaign season. Which I hate following and don't really write about.

And coronavirus. So it's gonna be coronavirus. Yeah. Uh What are you what are you reading about coronavirus? This is of great interest to me. I've been f tracking it very closely for a few weeks. And

I know this is topical, but I d I do think that In a sense Uh There's a parallel to the expression, and I'm gonna butcher this and I'm afraid I don't know the attribution, but that adversity doesn't build character, it reveals character. And I do think that With the

Let's call it threat on one hand, panic on the other, and they're not totally separate. Everything going on with coronavirus, the challenges of parsing good from bad information, reliable from unreliable information. Yeah. logic or meta rationality that otherwise would go somewhat unnoticed day to day are becoming much more pronounced in a lot of people and many of them, and maybe present company included are not aware.

So h what are you uh What are you reading and how are you thinking about This this particular coronavirus. We're speaking in very early March. Yes. And it seems to me there are several distinct episodes. One is Wuhan, there's other parts of China, there's South Korea, Japan, Singapore.

Northern Italy, Washington State. Uh Princess Diamond cruise ship. And the different numbers from these separate locations, they don't really add up. No. So I'm I'm treating it like a Sherlock Holmes puzzle. Uh, how do we make sense of all of these

collectively comparing them to each other. So yes, of course there are data mistakes. But what's your theory of data mistakes where they all fit together? And I still actually don't find a way of making it add up. So I'm trying not to approach it as like a lecturer, like telling everyone, do this, don't do that, wash your hands.

Probably good advice. But it's a kind of puzzle. And to stay. Open about it. And see what it brings me.

And uh also see which of the responses are the best ones so far. Singapore is looking quite good, but Yeah, there's plenty of And the United States, it seems

has let the coronavirus get into its healthcare system. And had did nothing about it for six weeks in what could end up being really a kind of huge crime of omission. Yeah. You know, I'm struggling with with where to go with this because uh you know I I recognize we have a large audience Listening. How do you

How do you currently plan to Increase the resolution. on those puzzle pieces. Or to continue Informing yourself in such a way

That the picture becomes clearer and not more difficult. To make out. How d how do you think about information consumption?

There's more data every day and I will write out the puzzles as I find them. And try to think them through as I write them out and then get feedback. And I'm not sure where I'll arrive with this. One hopes, of course, it just goes away and the puzzles remain that. Puzzles That's seeming a bit less likely than it had been.

So I'm afraid to say I think we're gonna find out more than we wanna know. Yeah. I'm not really worried about that. Like If it all remains unresolved, I can just go away and celebrate. Right. Uh

Aside from I'm for instance, I mean Johns Hopkins has a very good daily newsletter Which uh I I would consider reasonably uncharged. Yeah. Uh you had mentioned someone on Twitter

Who you follow. And I'm blanking on the name. How do you spell that last name? Oh it's B R A N S W E L L, I believe. Are there any other particular sources of information uh or other people you are

following who you find to be Uh reasonably level headed about how they're Approaching and analyzing this. Uh, there's four or five. I don't remember their Twitter handles.

By memory, but you know. They're in the list of people I follow. If you just go through that, it will be pretty clear they are. Okay. Great.

I'm just sent a flood of useful information. Yeah. Arguably my main source. I don't mean to say I Trust it all, but

You cross check and you think and then you talk to people you know and you get a bit further. Yeah. Why did you Well, I'm also assuming then that this was your initiative, but why did you choose to

Uh create emergent ventures. How did that come about? You have a million projects. Why have another one and why this one? There's a whole world of philanthropy out there. And I think it's one of the least well functioning sectors of the American economy.

You can't blame it on government. It's not. It's not that heavily regulated, right? So much of it is bureaucratic and risk averse and people doing the same things. And I thought let's go back

Two earlier models. of giving from the Renaissance or the eighteenth century. Where in essence. There was no bureaucracy. One person who says yes or no.

Uh we don't ask anyone for a Vita. We don't ask anyone about credentials. Do you have a PhD? Whatever. It's basically fifteen hundred words. Tell us who you are and what's your story. And what you're gonna do. And people can use that.

We ask them like Tell us one value that you consider to be a value. We have that question. And uh we've now had about Eighty winners.

And uh We Got them a check, in essence. How many how many applicants are you vetting those eighty from? I think it's about

Eight hundred now. So Uh there are most The the rate of good applications is reasonably high. Maybe I'm lowering it just by talking about the program, but uh

We've had even though it's only about a year and a half old, we've had people go on to, you know, start companies, successful ventures. People uh end up in high positions in governments. Uh a lot are just travel grants for young people, people who are Say from ages. Fifteen, sixteen up to twenty.

Who get to meet mentors. Uh I hope it's changed the course of their lives. Those are often travel grants to Silicon Valley. Uh but it can be anywhere really. And uh there's uh

Two researchers at Dartmouth. They've created a kind of Wikipedia like structure that now contains Data about every Indian village. In essence. Not every village is filled in, but we have the capacity.

to create and store and use demographic data about every Indian village. This is a not for profit venture. I think it will greatly improve public health and policy making in India in the future. Uh there's a fellow who is starting a kind of charter city in in Zambia with Zambians. So uh

Many exciting things going on there. Young Indian woman, I think she just turned eighteen, uh starting a bus company. She's raised really quite a bit of venture capital. So for me it's a very exciting, rewarding thing to do. I'm paid nothing to do it. Uh the evaluator is me. There's no panel. There's no bureaucracy. It's thumbs up or thumbs down. And I think far, far more philanthropy should work this way.

W what will success look like or how how do you And it could be uh just a subjective feel, but How do you determine whether this program has been successful? Over what period of time?

So many people in philanthropy obsess over measurement. Yeah. end up tending to do the same thing. So I'm actually at my margin, somewhat anti measurement. I don't want everyone to be anti-measurement.

But my view is if I need to measure, you failed. Right. Mm. So if I supported uh Malcolm Gladwell, right? When he was a kid.

Uh Well, could I then measure how many books he sold? I I mean I I could try But it's like come on, it's Malcolm Gladwell. So If you need to measure, you failed.

So that's my simple rule. You know, we'll see. I may never know. What All of the many, many, many, many If you look at rather the post you've put out the

classes you've taught, the books you've written. What are some of the views that you currently hold or still hold Or perspectives that are most controversial, would you say? Meaning they just they they seem to kick the hornet's nest wherever that hornet's hornet's nest may be. What are what are some of the

views or beliefs that are are most Controversial. You know, in the world of twenty twenty where the two leaders of the two parties at the moment seem to be Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. I no longer know

What is a controversial view, in fact. I used to know what my controversial views were. I think in general We should do much more to boost the rate of economic growth. Uh devotee.

fewer resources to the elderly and much more to the young. and take more chances and travel more and learn other languages and be much much more interested in foreign cultures. I'm not sure those are controversial. Obviously not controversial with a sliver. of a particular demographic.

But I'm not sure many people really mean them either. So Mm. Maybe my most controversial view is it's no longer clear what our controversial views are. Yeah.

So I I would love to ask you because it's it's uh I I think easy intimidated by how much you do and uh uh certainly seemingly do very, very successfully. You you're you're able to digest sort of nonfiction pages and seconds and

Uh sort of aggregate data from disparate sources into coherent blog posts that influence Uh Millions of people.

ultimately and so on and so forth. I'd like to try to offset that with a a a discussion doesn't have to be long, but a discussion of a of a tough time or a failure. that you've experienced. And specifically If there is a favorite failure that comes to mind, meaning A failure you experienced which was very difficult at the time, or just a dark period that somehow

Set you up. Or contributed to Greater success later. If that makes any sense.

Yes, you know, I feel I've been very fortunate in life. And I think I have about the most even temperament. Of anyone I know. Uh like I literally Don't have unhappy days.

It would be hard to say I've had zero in life. Uh but I think I'm almost weirdly Never unhappy. In a way that's good for productivity, but maybe almost inhuman.

And to be a a little bit feared or or looked down upon. Or not thought well of. Uh I think that's a better way to think of me than to hear my like story of failure like A few years in graduate school, yes, I felt pretty lonely. I didn't have a girlfriend. I was like a nerdy kid.

That was bad for me. I mean that would be the best I could do, and that's like so cliched and kinda pitiful. I don't know like the big life setback tale. Um Not sure what that's supposed to be. Well that's fair answer. That's a weird answer, but it's it's weirder than it sounds, I would just say.

Have you always Been even killed in that Respect, is it just out of the womb that was your that was your your programming, or is that something that you developed over time? Uh both. I think that was my natural inclination.

And just as you mature, you become more that way. But I've always felt pretty happy. I suspect my peak happiness is well below that of most people. Uh hard to prove that or measure that. But intuitively when I see people very, very, very happy, it's quite strange to me. I feel, gee, I've never felt this.

But same when people are depressed. So I think my range is compressed. Uh In an unusual way. So

If for many people they strive to feel happy, or perhaps more accurately, to not feel unhappy. Right? And much of their decisions, many of their decisions and behavior are kind of governed or driven by that. Are there any feelings that you prefer not to feel? That come to mind.

I mean is is there something for you That is analogous to unhappiness for Other people. Well, I feel guilty about my numerous shortcomings when it comes to behavior. So for instance I think to eat animals raised under

Terrible conditions is wrong. But still mostly I do it. I've tried to improve. I've improved somewhat. But I'm reminded of that regularly. Uh by what other people do or right.

And I just think that's wrong. I think I fall short. Mm. I guess I at this point I have to conclude I'm too selfish to change it. So I feel bad about that. But it mustn't be that bad, right? And I feel bad that I don't feel worse about it as well. Got it.

You could always do more for charity, right? So That's another it's like never enough, is it? For people who wanted to Develop.

a greater a higher level of equanimity. I want to train myself. Yeah. In some fashion.

to be more like you, Tyler, in s in in so much as I don't experience at least the the the acute lows that perhaps I experience. Would you have any recommendations for for those people. Are there any particular

Any particular suggestions, reading, resources, anything whatsoever that would that would come to mind that you've seen help. Other people. Well, I'm not gonna say like go read the stoics. I mean Ryan Holliday can tell you that. No stoics are great. Ryan's got that covered. Yeah. Yeah. But I feel a bit the people in that position. It's like they want a kind of talisman, almost like a voodoo object.

Yeah. And I don't know if they really want to be More detached and dispassionate, or they just want the talisman. And maybe my advice would be to think through do you just want the talisman? That's fine. Don't feel bad about that. But like There's a really

cheap and easy way to buy the Talisman, like buy one of my books, read my blog, that's free. Yeah. Uh and you know, pat yourself on the back and go away and forget that was your original motive. If you really want to do it, I don't know. Probably uh the fact that you're asking. It's a signal that it's someone more in the talisman direction. Well, what is uh could you

Yeah. Elaborate on what you mean by talisman. Emily Saint John Mandel uh just tweeted, I think this morning that there's this risk of a pandemic with coronavirus and she wrote a novel about a pandemic that is really truly horrible, kills most people in the world, and she can't understand why her book is selling so many more copies now. I suspect people want to buy it.

As a kind of protection against the worst case scenario. Like they feel they faced up to it. They own it a bit. They control it. I think I used the voodoo analogy a bit earlier. And thus they're a bit safer. We we sometimes use comedy this way or see horror movies for similar reasons. And that's a talisman. You do it for a complex psychological reason to process an idea and be done with it.

And not necessarily to really incorporate what's there. And that's fine. I don't think we should look down on that. But You know, if someone asks, I mean if they Is this a talisman or do you want the real thing?

Well what would what would distinguish those two within the context of the question I'm asking? So I'll I'll uh I will just because you brought it up, mention, for instance, the Stoics. So I I do think that And we don't have to belabor this point, but the fact that I ask about resources Why would that indicate that I want a talisman or I'm seeking a talisman if I have found

the regular review and practice of, say, stoic principles to actually be of great benefit. much along the lines of uh cognitive behavioral therapy or something like that. So I I do think that has impacted how I relate to the world and relate to others in the world. So I would say that that has tremendous practical value. Sure, I'm pro talisman. But I think you know, it's like therapy. There's two reasons you might go to therapy. One is to feel you did something about your problem. And that could itself make you better.

And yeah, there's Your actual conversation with the therapist is useful. Both operate. There's nothing wrong with the talisman use of therapy. And with the stoics probably both operate. Uh

You know, great. The Talisman actually makes the stoics better, in fact. They're good for two things, not just one. Well, I guess I I'd I'd love for you to just elaborate on why that use that I described is

Well that could be real learning, right? But the the version of the talisman use of the stoics would be that ex ante, you feel a kind of personal and social anxiety that you haven't done enough to calm yourself. And maybe you're just never gonna be that calm. But your meta anxiety. About not having calmed yourself.

You can lower perhaps by buying and reading the stoics. Maybe you'll forget what they said on a test three years later. But at the end of the day you did something, you went through a process. You had a mastery over some part of your life. And you feel better and the anxiety's diminished.

Quite often. In addition to whatever you learn from them. Do you feel like you Have Uh

Such a Oh of course, sure. N no reason to think I'm any different. And a lot of the books I read Maybe if I felt some anxiety, oh there's this book out there, Tyler, you haven't read it yet, and I go read it. I'm not saying I learned nothing from the book. That's part of the enjoyment.

is the alleviation of the anxiety, right? Right. Sure. Oh yeah. Like I wish More of them had Wonderful, incredible content.

How do you choose your guests for your podcast? Uh uh Mostly the people I want to speak to and the people I wish to prepare for. So there'll be a lot of economics. Uh some public figures.

Uh people who have written novels, just people who know a lot. People who are what I call infavores, people who are intense or curious. Uh it helps if they're nearby, so I do all of mine face to face. A few of them are public events. So just like

Can this be pulled off is a big question. Doing Karim Abdul Jabar, that was a dream for me. I watched him when I was a kid play basketball. And I saw his last game in the NBA. I had a chance to do Kareem. How could I not do that? Trying to get William Shatner now. Probably it will fail.

I don't care who old he is. He's William Shatner. Who are other people? Who are other people on your dream list? Lion Eno, the British musician. I sent you.

I had an email forwarded to him. And I'm still waiting for him to respond. He strikes me as the kind of guy who might respond seven years after the invite. Most people it's like if you don't hear in a week, you figure it won't happen. This is Brian Eno. He could respond at any time with either a yes or a no. For for you, we talked a bit about the uh the Changes of perspective or changing your mind.

Uh on on uh anything. Yeah. And you mentioned I guess it was regional economics and we spoke about Chile. Uh are there any New behaviors.

that have been particularly beneficial for you that you've only started in the last Year or handful of years. Any particular new behaviors or habits that have Had I Non trivial impact on your life?

Uh it's hard to tell. I've spent more time uh with weights. As a form of exercise. I vaguely feel it's helped. I I don't have any measurement I could cite for you. And uh How have my behaviors changed in the last year?

Eating smaller portions of food? Which I think has helped. You know, my diet is just eat what you were gonna eat, but eat two thirds of it. Right. And I've had the discipline to make that work. You don't have to

Fuss over what you're gonna cut out, right? You just Divide by two thirds. And uh just trying to be kinder to people. Again, I'm not even sure I'm managing to try to do it, but That's like always a priority, or

Sometimes a priority. What is what does that look like being kinder to people? Or why why did that become Something of of focus for you. If you can be encouraging in a non trivial

Way. Uh it can really mean a lot to people. And it takes several kinds of effort. This effort in the moment. But also the skill.

sincerely have a sense of what would be the encouraging thing to say. And it seems to me that's greatly undersupplied in the world. And like some of the things that are undersupplied are just people telling other people what they're good at. Which happens plenty. But really kind of accurate, incisive. This is what you're good at and why.

Greatly under supplied. Supplying people, especially younger people, visions of what they could be. Uh. Greatly under supply. But you also

Wanna be better at it rather than worse, right? So making that more of a priority. And some of the grants I've given out through Emergent Ventures to younger people. I've also tried to give them a sense of the Of what I think they could be.

And I suspect that's more important in some cases than the grant. In a way it's complemented by the grant. In a way you're giving the grant so you can Package it with this vision. And the vision will matter.

And the grant makes the vision more vivid or more focal. Mm-hmm. Like they believe the vision because you spent real dollars on them. Yeah. That makes perfect sense.

I only have a few questions uh remaining really on my my my list, so to speak. Uh but I would love to explore anything, certainly that that I've I may have missed it. Uh this may sound like a cliched question and I'm I'm sure that uh You think you you think very deeply a l about a lot of things. If you could put

A message Quote. an image on a billboard, metaphorically speaking that were to reach billions of people. What might you put on that?

Billboard. If you wanted to impart something, convey something to billions of people, what you would say, assuming they all are able to read the same language, of course. Well social context is so important for messages. So as we just were saying, if you communicate to people a vision of what they could be

It needs to be packaged with some real behavior on your part, probably. To have impact. And I also, as an economist, tend to think very often the market works. So if I just put up on a billboard, like Tyler says do the right thing. I'm pretty sure that would be ineffective.

And if you look at billboards we actually have, like w what do you see on those billboards? The billboards I see a lot of them are advertisements for insurance. Some of them are don't drive drunk. You say bail bondsman? On billboards.

And suicide hotlines. So I guess I would study the market. And pick one of those four things like You know, buy this insurance, bail bondsman, suicide hotline, don't drive drunk. After studying the actual market.

Because I don't think I have some idea that's so scarce. But if it's on the billboard with no supporting social contacts that it will mean a damn. I think they go with the market. Well if we take if we take let's take a

More technologically uh advanced example. If you could have something pop up on everyone's iPhone. and stay there as the background for a day. Really the the the the point or the that I'm stretching for here is to get get getting large numbers of people to consider a statement or A

Prompt of some type. For a period of time. Uh so put it putting aside the billboard as form factor. Is there is there anything? That

You've got it. You can choose not to use it. But you have the option. of imparting something. Via The background of everyone's iPhones.

For a period of time. The people with iPhones, of course, I worry about much less. But I I would say this. I think the social returns to religion on average are fairly high. So

the religion most likely that people would accept in a particular area I would want the message to be messages. About that religion. So if it's the United States, that would often but not always be Christianity. Uh again.

That's not gonna work in every part of the world. But I worry Uh families are not having enough children. We're seeing depopulation in many countries. Religious families have more children. Religious people tend to be somewhat happier. So I would seek that the messages would make people more religious.

And you yet you yourself are not religious, but I suppose that is that is uh you wouldn't choose religion to make yourself happier because you have very few Unhappy days. But you yourself are not practicing religious I'm agnostic leaning toward atheists, so definitely not religious. Was not brought up religious. My parents were not religious.

But I look at the data. It seems religion. Yeah. The most effective way we have of carrying good ideas. And uh

At the margin I want to see more of that. I think also I you know, like I don't Do any drugs. I don't drink. So some people abuse drugs and alcohol. And religion there can help.

Uh So I don't have that. practical reason for needing more religion also. So let's say ten percent of people, you know, abuse Drugs or alcohol.

That's a pretty high percentage. And if you think the truly religious are less likely to That's a big expected gain. Hm. Well this has been this has been very fun for me. Is there anything that we have not explored that you would like to explore or discuss that I haven't brought up?

How do you restore lost focus? How do I restore lost focus? Uh I would say Cold exposure, exercise and having a routine that I do not deviate from.

So d most often for me if I feel a loss of focus, it is either Physiological. So it is There there's I'm not eating enough. I am low energy because I've had

Poor sleep for a period of days, something like that. Uh almost all of which can be remedied by Attention to Mm. But

basic elements of of my routine. So I would say that that that's my answer. If if I have deviated from routine, if I'm making too many decisions Each day. that should be replaced with some type of default answer, what I have for breakfast, what time I'm waking up. where I'm going to write or record, et cetera. That usually

Or I shouldn't say usually, but often contributes to a feeling. Of being unfocused. So it's it's when I abandon my Routines. the some of the elements of which would be

default meals and exercise and also cold exposure first thing in the morning. Uh restoring that order usually helps me. Do you think cold exposure is partly a placebo or talisman, or you think cold exposure works? You know, I It it depends in part what we mean by work. I I would s does it

Does it provide a jolt of adrenaline? And Other plausible physiological changes that seem to contribute to more alertness? Yes. I would say the answer is yes. could be talisman, and if by talisman we really mean placebo effect or the d desire to feel that we are doing something to address our problem rather than the

actual efficacy of Yeah. Sure, I mean I think placebo effect is everywhere. So uh uh just as n no SIBO effect can uh can affect things. But Uh

I can tell you that I find it personally helpful, but I I do think there are some uh certainly obvious and then not so obvious plausible physical mechanisms that could improve alertness when you put yourself into forty degree t forty degree Fahrenheit water for A a period of time. And do you fear ending up in an equilibrium where you say no to too many things? And how do you avoid that?

Or maybe you just think it's not a risk. What type of equilibrium do you mean? Where So we all are faced with many demands on our time and we have to learn to say no. Give a talk here, visit this.

Yeah. Whatever. So we we become very good at saying no. But it's quite easy to say no once you're good at it. It's like oh an email comes. No, no. And you end up saying no too much and you end up with too little serendipity in your life. In a way, you clearly would have had it age seventeen or even twenty three, or maybe twenty seven.

But how do you refresh the supply of serendipity? And keep the habit of saying no to the things you ought to say no to. I do that through friends who have broad and diverse social networks. And they are known friends of mine publicly. So they have broad social interactions and people will pitch them on things intended for me.

I like to I like my friends to feel there is a reputational Risk slash gain. to making introductions or suggesting introductions. And In that uh using that approach I have found that the introductions I end up agreeing to

Provide. more than enough serendipity for me and they come highly qualified. Uh and highly vetted. So I I than rely on a sort of more

Perhaps systematic approach or more tightly controlled approach to serendipity, which sounds Like an oxymoron almost. uh versus looking for serendipity, say in my inbox or Twitter feed. I do look at

Uh I prefer to be able to opt into serendipity as opposed to feeling like I'm being waterboarded with serendipity. I also get an absurdly high volume of inputs. So that could be reflective, as you said earlier, perhaps that I'm making mistakes further upstream. Uh but I'm not worried about equilibrium. I have more more than enough intellectual stimulation at this point.

And of a higher quality signal, for me at least. Do you worry that too many of your friends are highly successful people. Uh I don't uh mostly because I was only referring to my Publicly known friends.

I don't talk I don't talk about my non public friends publicly because I think that would be opening them to all sorts of problems that they don't want to have and I don't want them to have uh So I I don't worry about that. I have a lot of friends who are on the full spectrum.

Socioeconomically. And you know, you're talking about addiction earlier. I mean my best friend growing up was Oh well, until a few years ago, a fisherman. very low income and died of a fentanyl overdose. So he would certainly not map from a social or socioeconomic perspective On top of Any portion of the Venn diagram.

of the public friends that I have. So I don't worry about it too much. I also historically travel a lot and you know have spent time among the homeless in San Francisco, for instance, actually paid someone to give me a sort of day long immersion tour of like the underground sort of economics and

dynamics of the h of homelessness in San Francisco. As you said, you don't have to go to Mumbai. You can find it. Destitution and poverty and addiction right around the corner if you live in an urban center. So I I that There are plenty of things that I would say I worry about.

Um I I do think I probably lean towards the Rory Wart side of things on the sliding scale, but I don't worry about all of my friends being in one place or being well to do or successful in quotation marks. I don't worry about that one. Great.

Yeah. Any other any other questions? I'm happy to field questions. What's your favorite movie? Yeah. My favorite movie. Uh

I've watched different movies for different purposes. Uh I I would say th that uh Princess Bride The Princess Bride is very high up there. I think I think William Goldman is Just a genius screenwriter.

Uh Mo a lot of the movies that are my favorites of movies I've watched hundreds of times on repeat while writing. Uh Babe would be another one. I love that. Yeah. Those are two of my favorite movies. What's your favorite movie? Do or or some of yours?

Uh Ingmar Bergman movies as a whole would be my favorite part of cinema. Maybe scenes from a marriage. being my all time favorite of those.

But just Empire Strikes Back is a favorite movie too. It is. Yeah, it's a great film. It's a great film. Amelie, another film I love. Uh Spirited Away would be one of my absolute all time favorites. I love Miyazaki movies, all of them. Yeah. Spir spirited away, I just think has

There's a lot of metaphor and just uh Uh That I find reveals itself as you watch it more and more. So I've I've watched that movie a lot. Uh

And Those would be a few. Those would be a few that come to mind. And then there are a bunch of flicks you might expect I like, like the first Jason Born the Born Identity and all these movies that I got hooked on uh a long time ago and haven't been able to give up. Casino Royale, I think is an exceptional film. Uh you mean the later one, not the early David Niven one. The later one. Yeah, the later one. That's good. But uh I do enjoy

film and fiction as a respite from the problem solving default that I think is a constant for me with uh hyper rumination. And I think that's that that's very common in people who have suffered from, say, depression in the past, as I have fortunately no major episodes in the last

five or six years, which I can attribute to a few things, talisman or otherwise. But Uh or would attribute, I suppose, in that case. Um I

think the ability to For those people who are prone to hyper rumination. Which can often take the form of a obsession with the past in repetitive loops in the case of depression or

obsession with future scenarios in the case of chronic anxiety. I think that f I think that film and fiction R ha have high medicinal value. And let's say you could put your major commitments on hold, somehow freeze time in the life you're in. Mm-hmm. And take a year off and spend it somewhere.

Mm-hmm. Where would you choose and why? And then you just come back, you know. We we put it on pause and you come back to the life you have. Yeah. Does it have to be one location or can it be multiple locations?

It can be more than one, but you can't say everywhere, right? No, it wouldn't be. So it could be well travel down the Amazon or Right, that's multiple locations. It has to be one kind of thing. One plan. One plan. Uh Okay.

I would uh if it has to have some theme, I would say I would take a year ideally with my My beloved girlfriend. Alright. And perhaps a few close friends, if possible, to

uh walk some of the pilgrimage trails around the world. So the uh I've I've done a small portion of the Kumano Kodo in Japan. Yeah. The Camino de Santiago is of interest to me. Uh But extended

long duration walking. with a minimum of Necessities and material goods. for that year with a minimum of inputs, I think would be uh Be a tremendous way to spend a year.

And how much do you think we're alike versus being different? The two of us? Two of us, yeah. Wow, that's a great question. I Uh there's a sort of an asymmetry of information here because I I I uh I know less about you than I know about myself. My feeling is that we're quite important.

Yeah, there were I my feeling is that Based on I think we have many shared interests. Uh and Intellectual interests. I would say that.

Eminently more qualified. But the the topic of Of of meta rationality and metacognition. Uh which I realise are not exactly the same thing, but

S very interrelated. Uh those are of incredible importance to me. I think about them. our avenues of inquiry and interests are very similar. Sounds like our hardware is very different. Uh just in terms of like the soft the software that we have, I I think is very different. Um

But Uh I like those differences. I I think the world doesn't need more than one of me, that's for sure. So uh I I really revel in the in the differences. I would say uh

My impression I'd like to hear your answer, uh but my impression is we probably have uh perhaps even more similarities than we realize. I mean I do Uh I am a fan of uh alcohol and one might even say drugs on occasion. So we have that difference. Uh But

I think those may be Largely cosmetic. Uh in in some respect. Uh what's your impression? What's what's your what's your read?

I might be a bit more mono than you are. So something like drugs. If you Were a safe way to do it, probably there is. I still wouldn't do it. I would fear it would distract me from a kind of

program I've set for m myself. Although I'm not religious, I think of My mental structure is somehow more like Protestant. And mission driven. I suspect you're more competitive than I am.

Hm uh Maybe. I've tried to be less competitive over time. I've never tried to be less competitive, whether or not I should. But I just think I'm less competitive to begin with.

Yeah. That that could be true. That could be true. I I've Uh I think that Many of my

male role models growing up, sort of surrogate influences in that domain were coaches. And so I've I think honed much of well honed makes it sound all positive. Uh developed many of my behaviors and predispositions. Some I'm sure I'm aware of and some certainly I'm not.

Through the lens of competition. and receiving positive reinforcement when I win. So That I think has been a huge blessing and provided a lot from the perspective of achievement, but

Uh I I do think that conditioning can be very problematic. So uh I envy you. Uh

What do you find of most value in religion? Well, I I uh I think that Sort of presumptive for me to say and

I don't consider myself religious. But think a peace of mind uh with

Otherwise what would be considered unknowns. So frameworks for making decisions. Rules. That you don't have to come up with on your own. And An assurance

Of certainties with things like death, for instance. Which otherwise could be existentially overwhelming. to many people.

Oh, and you want to do these pilgrimages, right? That's striking. It sounds like there for time. Uh But that that's the one that you want to do all these pilgrimages. That's wonderful, but it's striking. That that's your plan for the year.

is something almost defined by its religious nature. Yeah, well I uh They are certainly, I think, for some people defined the pilgrimages are defined by some by their religious nature. I find religion Endlessly fascinating, though I myself would not self describe as religious. Uh

And I also find that I could perhaps get many of the same benefits of doing that if I walked the Appalachian Trail or the Or one of these other long defined paths. But I like the in built

Social interactions of stopping at inns or shrines, et cetera with Pit stops along the way for reflection. Uh So I I would say that I am more a naturalist or if I wanted to stretch and somebody said you have to choose a religion, maybe an a

Animist. Well, Miyazaki, if you love Spirited Away, right, that movie resonates with you for a reason. Yeah. Right. Th that I could still find tremendous value

In uh and contemplate the deep meaning that these paths have had for people during very tumultuous difficult times or times as all times are of great uncertainty. I find that

Uh I enjoy thinking about that. Um Even though I wouldn't

Sort of a Uh I don't ascribe to any Uh. Formal

religious group. Uh I took my daughter once to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. Yeah, we had a fantastic time and the social resonance of it. Did truly matter for us.

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And not to get too um you can tear this apart, feel free, but Yeah. I I feel like there's a there's a there's a sort of a residue or a an imprint that

is made when you have thousands or millions of people traveling the same path that uh whether it's a s just a story you make yourself Or otherwise there they're I I've I've found my experiences On those paths.

To be quite non ordinary. Yeah. And that that's that that could get into some pretty woo woo hand wavy territory really quickly, but suffice to say I just I've I've had very unusual experiences on on some of these

These pilgrimage paths. And I I find that intrinsically Uh interesting to explore. If you think about this interest in pilgrimages The large number of guests or people written about in your books that you relate to.

And then also your ability to quickly learn languages and master very idiosyncratic accents. And say Spanish and German. I mean, do you have a a sense in your own mind of how that all fits together? Like what's your unified theory of view? Because th those are three very striking things about you.

Yeah. And maybe you've explained them somewhere that I haven't seen or heard. But this is my chance, so I'm asking you. Yeah, so the the We have the pilgrimages, we have the language learning, and then the skill acquisition of sort of strange

Idiosyncratic. Eclectic. Things like horseback archery. But I I have your book here, Tools of Titans, and your other books. There's so many different people you talk to or correspond with. And you manage to enter into their worlds in some way.

Including on your podcast, of course. Yeah. So that's a skill. The pilgrimages and then the language. With highly idiosyncratic accents. Done almost perfectly, I might add.

Oh, thank you for that. Uh I But it's the mix of perfect and idiosyncratic that's unusual. Yeah.

Yeah, I would say that if if I had to come up with a unified theory of of Tim, I've never tried before, but Uh I'll take a stab at it and it might be very dissatisfying. Uh and I appreciate the questions, by the way. Uh Yeah.

Well, this is what I've been thinking about. Yeah, yeah. I think that Much like you have been. had certain software. Perhaps since the beginning.

That Enables you to be to to handle the world with a certain degree of equanimity. I think that my programming from the beginning has made me very sensitive. to

Stimuli. Uh I I think that as a kid I was very, very sensitive, not in the pejorative sense that I got upset about things easily, but rather If I were a scale, I wasn't a pound scale, my senses were more of a jewelry scale or something like that. Joule scale, excuse me.

When I was a kid I had some Terrible things happen to me. And I And they talk about Those more on a

future episode of the podcast we'll see. But suffice to say I learned to it was safer and better to numb myself and desensitize. And developed a lot of habits. I think competition was one, high pain tolerance related to that another.

that allowed me to kind of bludgeon my sensitivity into submission so that I could Achieve in the world and I know this is is a little long, but I'll I'll wrap it up. No, this is great. Which is

I think all of the things you described reflect a slow rediscovery and reopening of those sensitivities. And Uh I am

definitely at this point an introvert who can perform for short periods of time as an extro, but I find it exceptionally energetically costly. I know the thing I it goes introverts make the best extroverts. Yeah. Yeah.'Cause we're not really putting ourselves out there in a way. Yeah. Whereas the extroverts it there's so much social anxiety involved with like being on camera, being taped. Yeah, totally. So So I so I think that that sensitivity would uh would

would be the unifying The unifying uh if it's a unifying theory is just that I have my perceptual aperture is by nature very wide. I have a very wide perceptual aperture. So I notice things like inflection in Mandarin Chinese or inflection in

Greek or Turkish or languages that I might just study for a few weeks while I'm traveling, I I notice things that For whatever reason. se seem to only be noticed by a small percentage of, say, tourists in those places who are actively focusing on a language. And I can find a walk of a hundred miles.

Extremely interesting because I notice It's not dull to me precisely because I notice so many things around me. But there are environments in which uh if I'm noticing the details versus using these kind of two D Simpsons esque Avatars. Four.

things it can be very exhausting. Um So uh that that's my best stab at answering your question. I very much hope you write and talk more about this because I think it would be phenomenal. Thank you for that.

I appreciate it. I I expect I will be Writing a bit more about it. And um What about yourself? I mean I I know I know I'm just reflecting back a very good question, but I'd like to get some practice. What is what is your unifying theory? The unifying theory of Tyler. I think

Tyler is Quite curious. Uh Loves to collect information. Think of a

way, I'm more an information collector than economist or any other Single thing. Uh very even keeled. Maybe just somehow fundamentally difficult. For those reasons.

Uh Like hard hard to relate to? Hm. Uh definitely introverted. Uh but sort of always

Game for the next thing. And I think what I take from religion Is this Protestant notion? of having a personal project that you're obligated to see through. in a very serious way that I find quite American.

And not really found in Protestantism elsewhere, or even kind of like the Jewish version of that. I'm not Jewish. Uh but there's kind of a Jewish version of the American Protestant sense of obligation. uh that I find culturally powerful and appealing. And uh

I think not somehow being involved or engaged enough i is my danger in many things. But there's a kind of thinness. that I can grasp onto things or work with different people or make part of a project work.

That make me very productive and very flexible. And I can just kinda power through and keep on going and like just not ever stop. Or feel the need to or need distraction. And when I do art, music, theater, whatever To me it's all piling on. It's not escape.

From Something I'm doing that becomes too much. It's like intensification. So that's like part of my theory of Tyler. But I'm also convinced like we never know ourselves, right? Right.

Yeah. We really don't. And that's part of the great tragedy of life, but it also makes life interesting. Yeah. It's part of the great tragedy and also.

I suppose part of the great incentive to Find Find friends you can sit with who help you to discover more of yourself or develop more of yourself. Uh not necessarily to compensate. for being unable to know yourself completely.

Being a social creature and engaging with friends more deeply is is a relatively new thing in my life, I would say. since regaining some of the sensitivities that I'd lost. So I I find the In a sense the inability to know oneself completely uh a wonderful Driver.

Two facilitate more of those deep connections with others, at least for me. That's great. Yeah. And uh Go ahead. Go on.

Oh no, I was just gonna say I hope this uh I hope this is just the the the first of more conversations. I was gonna say exactly the same. So we are a bit more alike than we thought five seconds ago. Uh I really appreciate you taking the time, Tyler. This is this has been great and I I appreciate you Uh sort of Pushing at the edges a bit and making me think. Uh, which I which I always appreciate.

And I will in turn think about this all more a great deal, and I hope you do too. I will. I will. Uh, people can find you. at martialrevolution dot com Conversations with Tyler, the podcast, which I definitely recommend people take a look at. They can find you on Twitter at TylerCowen and I'll link to everything in the show notes at Tim.blog forward slash Podcast for people. You can find it very easily. Is there anything else you would like to mention before we wrap up? Just to thank you heartily and uh till whenever.

Alright, thank you so much. And uh to everybody listening and possibly watching. Thanks for tuning in. Watch out for your talismans. work on your meta rationality. And thanks for tuning in. Hey guys, this is Tim again. Just a few more things before you take off. Number one, this is Five Bullet Friday. Do you want to get a short email from me? Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little morsel of fun before the weekend? And Five Bullet Friday is a very short email where I share the coolest things I've found or that I've been pondering over the week. That could include favorite new albums that I've discovered. It could include gizmos and gadgets and all sorts of weird shit that I've somehow dug up in the world of the esoteric as I do. It could include favorite articles that I've read and that I've shared with

my close friends, for instance. And it's very short. It's just a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend. So if you want to receive that, check it out, just go to fourhourworkweek.com, that's fourhourworkweek.com all spelled out, and just drop in your email and you will get the very next one. And if you sign up, I hope you enjoy it. This episode is brought to you by ExpressVPN. I've been using ExpressVPN since last summer. I started using it as a full retail paying customer. I always test things before considering sponsors. And I find it to be a super reliable way to make sure that my data are secure and encrypted. You like how I said data are like a pump is asked but I like to ensure that my data are secure and encrypted. but to do so without slowing down my internet speed. If you ever use public Wi-Fi, at say a hotel or coffee shop where I often work, and as many of my listeners do, you're often sending data over an open network, meaning no encryption whatsoever.

One way to ensure that all of your data are encrypted and cannot be easily read by hackers or script keybees or whoever is by using ExpressVPN. And the onboarding process for ExpressVPN, meaning the sign-up flow, the use of the product is one of the best I've ever seen in my life. All you need to do is download the ExpressVPN app on your computer or smartphone and then use the internet just as you normally would. You click one button, in the ExpressVN app to secure 100% of your network data. It's kind of ridiculously simple and as many of you know I only recommend brand that I have researched and vetted Thoroughly, for me, of the many VPN solutions out there, ExpressVPN is one of the best on the market and I use it personally. Here are a few reasons why. First, privacy. ExpressVPN does not log your data. Lots of cheap or free VPNs make money by selling your data, believe it or not, to ad companies and so on.

ExpressVPN developed a technology called Trusted Server to prevent their servers from logging your information. Second, speed. Many VPNs slow your connection down or make your device seem sluggish just to a crawl. I've been using Express VPN for a while now, as I mentioned, and my internet speeds are blazingly fast. I don't even notice it. Honestly, I forget that it's even on. So that includes. when I connect to servers thousands of miles away or during travel, I can still stream HD quality videos with zero lag. The last thing that really sets ExpressVPN apart is how easy it is to use. As I mentioned earlier, unlike other VPNs, you don't have to input or program anything, you just start up the app, click one button,

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Tim. Visit expressvpn.com slash Tim to learn more. This episode is brought to you by NutraBullet. I have my Nutra Bullet about seven. feet away from me right now. I'm gonna be using it for a bunch of stuff. tonight and probably tomorrow night. Neutral Bullet is the affordable, easy to use, easy to clean. The easy to clean part is super important blender that was first recommended to me by entrepreneur Noah Hagen when I interviewed him for this podcast. And specifically what I asked him was, what is the purchase that you've made in the last say six months for$100 or less that has had the greatest

positive impact on your life and his answer was the Nutrible. Nutrible has sold more than 60 million units worldwide. You can start to do the math on that. It's pretty freaking bonkers. And once you've used one, it's easy to understand why it became so popular. With other blenders, cleanup can be a huge pain in the ass. Neutra Bullet makes it really, really, really, really simple. And if you're not familiar with the classic Nutra Bullet, it's effectively a single serve cup. that blends and then you flip it upside down, you detach it and you can Drink it. eat it, chug it down, right there. So

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