Tyler Cowen

Tyler and I talk about nearly everything. Transcript -- Timestamps (0:00:00) Intro (0:00:28) Identifying talent on Tyler’s podcast (0:03:48) Why are follow up questions overrated? (0:04:21) Tyler’s preferred guest career stage (0:05:16) Optimal frequency for recording podcasts (0:05:50) Tyler’s podcast prep (0:07:39) Importance of in-person episodes (0:09:56) What would Tyler ask Paul McCartney (0:10:16) When to read literature in translation (0:13:31) Tyler on Dostoyevsky and Nietzsche (0:15:39) Elena Ferrante and the importance of pseudonyms (0:17:17) Misreading literature (0:17:56) Will literature get better in the next 10 years? (0:19:21) Watching complex film (0:22:14) Enjoying art (0:23:08) Jonathan Swift and Peter Thiel (0:24:45) Crude comedy (0:25:28) Can we trust elites in the internet age? (0:26:44) Generational theories of politics (0:27:57) Religious thinkers and Tyler’s implicit theology (0:29:33) What did Tyler get from Plato at a young age? (0:30:51) Why are Shakespeare, Proust, and Melville in a league of their own? (0:31:32) Fernando Pessoa (0:31:59) Implications of demand sloping down (0:33:22) Innovation in governance structures (0:36:14) Should business leaders study the greats? (0:38:36) GDP growth from today’s AI models (0:40:35) LessWrong and worries about AI (0:41:46) Feminized societies in times of chaos (0:43:17) Fernand Braudel (0:43:52) Best argument against NGDP targeting (0:47:06) AI business models (0:48:19) What is a bubble? (0:49:33) Where are there too few Emergent Ventures applications? (0:50:09) Unsolved problems in economics (0:51:27) Immigration policy (0:52:56) If Tyler wasn’t an economist (0:53:50) Would Tyler go to Burning Man? (0:54:33) The MR Universe (0:55:32) Tyler’s equanimity (0:57:15) Tyrone (0:59:27) Joyce Carol Oates and Susan Sontag (1:04:45) Wasting time (1:04:54) Bach’s productivity (1:05:29) Competitors to MR (1:07:51) New Jersey and The Sopranos (1:11:56) Rapid fire - what Tyler learned from different people -- Links - Follow Tyler on X - Tyler's blog - Tyler's podcast - ⁠Unmasking Elena Ferrante⁠ - New Yorker on Joyce Carol Oates - Follow Dan on X - Subscribe to Undertone on ⁠YouTube⁠, ⁠Apple⁠, ⁠Spotify⁠, or ⁠Substack⁠ - Share anonymous feedback on the podcast: https://forms.gle/w7LXMCXhdJ5Q2eB9A