November 21, 2024 • 38 mins
Nate and Maria talk through the game theory of how moderate Republican Senators are likely to react to Trump’s controversial cabinet nominees. Then, they discuss the new “Guardian Caps” the NFL has approved to lower the risk of concussion – and explain why most players are deciding not to wear them.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Hey, the election's over. We tried not to overdose on
it too much, but we are genuinely curious what you
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(00:43):
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at pushkin dot fm. That's risky Business at Pushkin dot fm.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Welcome back to Risky Business, a show about making better decisions.
I'm Maria Kannakova and.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
I'm Nate Silver.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
So today on the show, we are going to revisit
a Trump's cabinet picks. I say revisit because last week
we talked about the first cabinet picks and they've gotten
a little bit more extreme since then. So we're going
to go into the game theory of the confirmation process
in the Senate, what it means to cooperate and defect,
and how we think these confirmations might play out.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
And then let's turn to the NFL where guardian caps
are now being compared on the field. These are things
that look a little gofy but protect you from concussions
much more effectively than a helmet alone. Very few players
are wearing means despite their medical benefit. We'll talk about
why and what the game theory equilibriums are there.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
So let's get into it and start with your favorite topic,
Nate politics. Even though the elections are now behind us,
that does not mean we get to abandon the politics.
Fe you are not allowed to retire. We are still
talking about what's going to happen with this future administration
Trump two point zero. You know, last week when we
(02:19):
were talking about cabinet picks, one of the first picks
was Marco Rubio, and you know, we we talked about
that and it seemed like, okay, you know, this isn't
that bad. That seems that seems reasonable. Maybe the rest
of the cabinet will be quite reasonable as well. And
then obviously the day in a few days after we taped,
a bunch more nominations were released that were a little
(02:41):
bit more eyebrow raising in multiple instances. So let's talk
about those nominations, and let's talk about the process for
confirming them, how we think that's going to play out,
and what the decision game tree looks like for those
Senate Republicans who might be in a position to make
a difference. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Cool, Yeah, Maria, I took a little break with my
partner and the cat skills. You a nice time. We
maybe took a hike. We are on the edge of
maybe hiking too far, too fast without enough water, So.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Talking about negative ev decisions, Nate, you should have read
one of the first posts I made on the Leap
about the risk taking calculus when one goes hiking. But
you're here, so it all worked out, But don't do
it again.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
Once you're ninety five way to the tap and you
can't turn back, can you?
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Yes? You can, absolutely, you can absolutely turn back even
when you are ninety eight percent of the way there.
You can, and you should. This is how accidents and
accidental deaths happen. And I love you, Nate, and love
your partner, and I want to see both of you
healthy and back in New York City.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
It would have been a relatively cool way to if
you're going to die right on top of a mountain
and the catskills anyway, I.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
Would give a very moving speech at your funeral.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Not able to escape politics, obviously, and the first big confrontation,
the first big test of Trump's will is these confirmation
picks of cabinet secretaries that might be a little unconventional,
and that's.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
The understatement of the moment.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
There are four that I think really are drawing the
most attention, which are at my gates AREFK Junior, Pete Hegseth,
and Tulsi Gabbard. Can tell you a story about Tulsi Gabbard,
who is alleged by Democrats to be like a in
the sphere of Russian influence.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Yeah, let's hear story time.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
In twenty twenty, we went to New Hampshire and this
is just before the pandemic kind of shuts regular campaigning down.
A group of US five thirty eight ers and we
a little habit of like showing up unannounced at campaign
offices just to see what they're up to. It was
a cute little technique. And then I think some of
(05:01):
the campaigns got smart. At the Biden office, by the way,
it was totally empty except for the figures Skater Christi Yamaguchi.
That was interesting. At the Mayor Pete office. You know,
the instantly recognized us and like tried to usher us out.
Very organized. But Telsea Gabberd has this giant empty office
and the only clerk or employee there had a thick
(05:24):
Russian accent. I'm just saying this actually happened. Uh, just
a little data point there.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
I love it that that is good story time. I
didn't know where that uh, where that story was going
to go, but but that's that's good story time. Yeah.
So these when I say eyebrow raising, I meant eyebrow raising.
So obviously Telsea gabbert we we know that there are
rumors of Russia loving her. You've got our kid, Junior,
(05:53):
which is the one that I am really worried about.
We talked a little bit last week about the potential
harm that could come to science during a Trump administration,
and this just seems to highlight that that the potential
harm is probably is going to be actual harm. So
I think that, you know, we have people being put
(06:17):
up for appointments where either they have no qualifications or
they have anti qualifications in things that are actually going
to stop very important research from happening for at least
four years, probably longer, because we know that the ramifications
of this can really well, the.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Average cabinet pic I think is measured in days. That
is true.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
You know what, You know what, Nate, I actually didn't
think of that that you've given me hope for the
first time in a week. We do know from his
last administration that yes, the average tenure of some of
his picks is not long. So that's good.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
So there's that just for a baseline. If you get
at polymarket O, the bending sites are similar. I consult
for poly Market. Gates has a thirty percent chance of
being confirmed, Tulsa Gabberd's seventy nine percent, RFK seventy six percent,
and Pete Haggs seventy six percent as well. I'm trying
to wonder if I'd take over under on those seventy.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
Okay, so Gates is the only one that they are
thinking as an underdog right now.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Yeah, Gates is the one where you have and now
he can start to get in the game theory where
you have like a lot of leaked reports of Republicans saying,
oh everybody in the sentence against him. There are dozens
of picks against him, but the fact that, like you
don't have senators by name kind, they're saying, oh, everybody
else is against them. They're not saying I am against him.
(07:42):
They're saying other people my vote against him. So now
we start to get in the game theory here where
I have no doubt. First of all, Gates is seen
as a loose cannon, as I minished lots of rumors
of sexual and drug related promiscuities and infidelities and generally
being a difficult colleague. Right, so I have no doubt
(08:03):
that in a a private vote, what's the term of
looking for a vote, an anonymous vote, that Gates and
maybe even all these people would go down. Right. The
issue is that is that if you oppose Trump, then
Trump can try to kind of like nuke you from
from orbit. So to do a basic math check here, Republicans,
(08:28):
assuming that David McCormick wins in Pennsylvania, some networks haven't called.
It doesn't seem to me like there's a path back
for Bob Casey, but there will be a recount. But
assuming fifty three, you have two Lisa Murkowski and Susan
Collins who have repeatedly defied Republicans Susan Collins is up
for re election in twenty twenty six in what's now
(08:50):
a pretty blue state, Ma, Ma, and all the all
the liberals who like taxes, actually main doesn't particually high taxes, right,
they kind of moved to Maine, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont,
staying very blue. She's in a very difficult race, and
so she's not going to vote for any of these,
I don't think. And Lisa Rakowski, I assume has shown
enough willingness to defy Trump in the past that she
won't either. But still Republicans have, uh, you know, fifty
(09:14):
three fifty one. They only need fifty because Jade Vance
is the vice president, so they can afford to lose
one more. And so who are the two more that
will vote to oppose? And the answer is, I've been
trying to do some data work on looking at the
partisan loyalty and the ideology of different Republican senators. Like
(09:35):
there's not like an obvious like third name. Before you
would have said you need a fourth name too, right
before you would have said Mitt Romney. But Mitt Romney's
been replaced by actually a relatively moderate Republican in Utah
name I think John Curtis, let me dibble, Chick, it
is John Curtis. You have some newcomers like McCormick and Pennsylvania,
(09:56):
and you would think in the long term, I mean,
he you know, he won the race if he does
win by zero point three points or something of Pennsylvania's
a swing state, but it's six years out until his
next re elect and these kind of younger, newer Republicans
tend to be very conservative. It's quite generational where where
(10:18):
you know, the traditional kind of Chuck Grassley's of the
world are the types who will who will stand for
order in the US Senate and think the Senate needs
to play an important role. But the younger guns tend
not to. They to say, well, I'm just gonna be
Trump Trump, Trump, and then you know, maybe when reelection
maybe not right. Tom Tillis in North Carolina, I believe
(10:40):
he's up to reelect in twenty twenty six as well.
That's the other race that Democrats will really target. He
has shown more streaks of moderation. Lindsey Graham on paper
is more of an institutionalist Senate candidate, but he seems
to I don't know, I'm not sure what I'm trying
to imply here, But Lindsey Graham seems very reluctant to
(11:02):
defy Trump. And there's a lot of revenge motivated politics,
like Democrats this or that other bad thing. Right now
it's our turn. And so you know, John Thune, the
incoming majority leader, might be one canny for some of these,
but there's not like there's not like an obvious third
and fourth strikes.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
Yeah, And I think that when we're talking about the
game theory, right, we're we're looking at a decision matrix
where you look at kind of the payoff structure. Right,
if we think about it in terms of a prisoner's dilemma,
which this kind of is, you can cooperate, right, so
you vote with the Republicans or you defect, which means
that you join kind of the Democrats in opposing some
(11:44):
of these picks. And then but we if we look
at the incentives, I think that in the immediate time horizon,
the disincentive to defect is so ridiculously strong, right because
we what do we know about Trump? We know he's
vindictive as fuck, right, Like he does not like it
when people go against him. He's going to be president
(12:06):
and he has a lot of authority, and we have
already seen during his presidency and in the last four
years that people say a lot of shit about him
in private and then they still go and support him
in public. Right, they are completely two faced in this.
And if you think about this kind of as like
a time horizon, right, like you're gonna like shit's going
(12:30):
to hit the fan with Trump much sooner than you
will be padded on the back and said you did
the right thing for our country. Right. It's kind of
like climate change if you think about it, right, They're
like these abstract incentives like I stood up for democracy,
like I stood up for not you know, putting a
potential Russian operative or someone who's anti science in a
position of science. Blah blah blah. It's very abstract for
(12:53):
it versus I'm going to get punished, like bad things
are going to happen to me, and you know, I'm
going to really feel it if I step out of line.
And so I just I do not see that there
will be kind of this wave of Republicans breaking ranks,
Like I think that there's even a good chance that
Matt Gates is going to get confirmed.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Yeah, I mean, you know, the one pushback is I
wonder if if we're being proper about the prisoner's element,
I actually think that like defection actually is voting for
these picks.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
Okay, I guess that's the We can frame it either way,
and like then you'll just flip my arguments. But why
is defection voting?
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Because cooperation is from the perspective of the prisoners, who,
in this I guess somewhat literal sense, are Republican senators, right.
I don't think that they think that Matt Gates being
Attorney General would be good for the Republican Party. It
would necessarily even be good for Trump. I mean, he's
(13:55):
politely described as a as a loose canon, high risk
of scandals, to high profile position, of playing into every
critique that Democrats have. And now all of a sudden,
we're in an anti incumbent moment, and now Democrats gonna
be pushing back in twenty twenty six, I mean, the
the you know, if they pick up those two sentencets
(14:16):
I mentioned in Maine and North Carolina, then it's forty
nine point fifty one and they have opportunities two years
later to then take back the Senate. If there's a
president Gretchen Whitmer or Jos Shapiro or Raphael Warnock in
twenty twenty eight and the House where Democrats almost won
the House this time, I would have to imagine in
(14:38):
a midterm year their favorite to pick up the House.
And that means that, like they can throw a big
wrench in Trump's agenda and do a bunch of investigations
and whatever else. So they want to they want to
cooperate with one another, but individually, their incentives are to defect.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
Right.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
If you're not Alow, he's the weird case because he's
kind of in this electoral zone, right, But if you're away, so.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
You're gonna you're flipping. You're flipping what I said, And
I actually agree that that makes sense, that the that
the labels of cooperation into action should change. And it's
funny that it's funny that you say that because I
actually thought ahead of time. I was like, wait, which
ones are the co operators and which ones are the defectors.
It wasn't clear cut to me, But I think your
argument makes a lot of sense. So basically what we're saying, though,
(15:23):
is that the incentives are basically for all of the
Republicans to defect.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
We'll be right back after this message now, and the
person it's the elemit. You can't communicate these guys, can
(15:52):
you know? So yeah, one way to do it might
be to say all of us are going to vote
against them, right, or a very large number of us,
and so therefore if you want to try to primary
thirty of us, then then go right ahead, right right.
You know what probably happens usually in the modern day politicians, presidents,
(16:15):
I should say, or set up majority leaders don't like
to bring votes to the floor in lest they think
they can win. Right, So maybe the answer is, like
there is some pretense for why Gates drops out conditional
upon him being nominated in the floor, then I guess
he's probably a favorite. I mean, look, I I don't know.
(16:37):
I think it's just like with the other three, you
can kind of I think our k juniors wacky. I think,
you know, I worry, I'm boring. I worry most about
the vaccine stuff, even though he's kind of said, oh,
I won't fuck with vaccines too much. I mean there's
a long track record of I also, you know, I
(16:58):
part of me wondering strategically whether Gates is like a
sacrificial lamb to say, Okay, you get this one scalp, right,
but you better not fuck with me on the rest
and the kind of like an exploit implicit equilibrium there,
and that.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
That really sucks because not only is RFK junior, not
only is he anti vaccine, but he has also said
during his campaign that he wanted to pause all funding
and all research and of infectious disease period to give
it a rest, Like, dude, we didn't do well during
(17:35):
the first pandemic. This is not this is not gain
of function research. This is just general research into infectious
disease that does not seem like a good thing to do,
right to just pause all of that funding. We know
that fetal cell research is going to stop like this,
These are really really important things that have really big
consequences for public health and for the future. And I
(17:58):
just like, to me, that's an incredibly like if Matt
Gaetz is a sacrificial lamb, then we have some scary
picks ahead of us, right, including that including putting, you know,
the pentagon in the hands of someone what are his qualifications? Right,
Like this is this is to me, it's a little
bit it's it's not a little bit, it's a lot
(18:19):
bit frightening to think about that. But I think, you know,
I just do not see how the game theory works
for anything other than confirmation at the beginning, and and
that you know, maybe Matt Gates has withdrawn, right, like
maybe that doesn't actually ever come before the Senate, like
as you suggest, might might end up happening. But if
(18:43):
the other ones all get confirmed, like, this is going
to be a pretty scary administration.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Yeah. I mean the other thing you think about is
whether there are any Republicans who don't care because they
plan to retire. Mitch McConnell is an interesting one, another
one who has had some health issue. Has been in
office for one, two, three, five seven terms. Now his
intent is unknown as to whether he's running in twenty
twenty six or no. I mean, look, I think politicians
(19:09):
are ninety eight percent craven opportunity. Yeah, right, he won
the popular vote, right, I mean, he improved his margin
and like all but two or three states or something
like that, right, and so, but I don't know. And
(19:31):
it is a repeated game in the sense that Trump
will do other things that they don't like and like
if you kind of have to, like if you capitulate.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
Now, I think you're you're kind of lining yourself up
to capitulate, They're right.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
Yeah, No, I mean I think you're supposed to like throw.
I mean, like I believe in this and things and life.
I mean, if you kind of roll over for somebody,
then they kind of correctly assume that you'll roll over
the next time. And it's often best to like draw
a line in the sand early if you're playing in
like I mean, you know, one thing a lot of
a lot of players do is is and it's gonna
(20:04):
be dangerous actually, right, But like you know, if it's
the first hand of the tournament and uh, and you
raise and get three bets, so a player re re raises,
you know, most humans, most poker players, psychologically, the first
time it happens, you're more likely to get a call
or even a four bet. It's harder to get that
(20:26):
kind of aggressive action through the first time. People look
at as a proxy for future aggression, so intuitively they
I think probably under understand that.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Yeah, no, I think I think that's right. I'm just
remembering this one tournament where I played where a new
guy came to the table. I three bet him and
he just ripped it for like eighty big lines than
someone else three bet him, and he did the exact
same thing over. I don't think anyone three bet.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Him again, like the last hand of the day or
the last hand before a break, right, people kind of
want to go and break do whatever they're going to do.
But then you're like, Okay, you're fucking exploiting me, right, bathroom,
and now you're three betting me, and so fuck you
them all in.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
I'm wondering, you know, one of the things you said
that was intriguing to me that it seems like a
long shot. But I'm curious whether you actually think it
might happen, Like, do you think that there's like a
scenario where Republicans can get like thirty people to defect right,
where it can be like a I don't think so.
Like I think there are just too many people who
believe in Trump and who and who actually like you know,
(21:32):
don't don't want to defect but or cooperate. How likely
is a scenario like that?
Speaker 2 (21:42):
I mean, they certainly haven't shown much backbone in the past,
and in some ways Trump has like more of a
mandate than he. I'm like, I think the equilibrium might
actually be that like that gates get sacrificed and the
others go through, you know, and then they can say, okay,
well we do aligned somewhere, right, we do relign and
(22:02):
gates are just so unacceptable on many different yeah levels
and kind of almost almost care and tease like a
either a circus act or an administration that really kind
of overreaches and it becomes like harder to rain Trump
in later. And I don't know, I don't talk to
Republican or Democratic senators for that matter, right, I mean,
(22:23):
if you hear reporters who do, they're like, well, in private,
they're pretty reasonable.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
Well exactly in private, Like you have to do that
shit in public, Like it doesn't count if it's in private.
I have to say, like that's it only counts if
you actually publicly then do it and put your money
where your mouth is. It's like it's like people who
can confidently to go back to poker very quickly. It's
like the you know players on stream who always know
(22:48):
what the correct thing to do is right and who
confidently say, oh, you have to call here, you have
to race here, you have to show if you have
to do this, you have to do that right the
chat experts. And then when you get them into that
spot playing live without seeing the cards, all of a sudden,
all of that expertise goes out the window and they
have zero dollars in earnings as opposed to the people
(23:09):
they're criticizing. So if you do things from a you know,
backseat driver, I don't know how many other analogies.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
I can what they can also get.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
Through in there, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
What they can also do is draw lots right where
the let's say the fifteen Republican senators who are somewhat
reasonable go into a room and they have it's like
the NBA a lottery, right, and they pick thirteen names
and the final two have to just effect from Trump on.
Everything's knowing they'll be. But the way it works, you
(23:42):
have little favors. Right. Maybe let's say, uh, you know,
let's say that one of them is from Tennessee, and
then you know, the senator from I know, Jim Rish
from Idaho gets the last draw. They're like, how would
you like to be the president of the University of Tennessee?
Jim Rish GYGA football team.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
Now the impressions are coming out. I love it.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
They should draw the should and one of them should
be the fall Guide. You know, there are benefits to
being the one outlier Republican maverick.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
With that, let's take a short break and switch to
actual quarterbacks and talking about football. So, the NFL has
just announced that players are allowed to wear guardian caps
(24:39):
when they're playing footballs. So a guardian cap, it's like
this padded thing that you put over your helmet that
will lower the risk of concussion. They're already being used
during practices and now players can wear them during games
as well. But a lot of players, the vast majority
of players, in fact, the vast vast majority of players
(25:01):
are not wearing them. And so I want to talk
about what that decision calculus is, Like, why would you
not where something that you know is going to make
the game much safer for you and that is going
to improve your long term health outcomes?
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Yeah, I mean some of my input on this or
inside of this. So from my book, I interviewed a
friend of mine who's a former NFL player named Dave Anderson,
and really good guy now runs a sports data company,
and you know, he described the culture of the NFL
where it really is a and I like football, not
(25:40):
trying to be a prude here, right, but it really
is like an almost warlike environment, right where it's like
next man up and careers are short. And also you know,
you have good data on like quarterbacks and a few
other positions, but for the most part, all the alignment
right are it's hard to evaluate, and so if you're
(26:00):
seen as not being tough, then then you might not
get that next opportunity, right, And he's like, yeah, there
are guys who like are you know, who are these
guys who are you know, big gracious football players. But
if you're not willing to get in there and like
get your head knocked around, then then then they'll you'll
(26:23):
be bypassed.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
Right, absolutely, absolutely. I think that this macho culture has
a lot to do with it, and a lot to
do with the reluctance to adopt something that is clearly
beneficial for you. By the way, speaking of psychology, names matter,
words matter. Who the hell decided to call these guardian caps? Right,
I'm wearing a guardian cap, you know, like my little
(26:45):
grandmother cap that's guarding my head. Like call them something
manly and macho, right, Like, I don't know, we can
think about much better names that would make people want
to adopt them more than Guardian cap. But that's just
an aside. So I think that that what you're saying
is absolutely true. We do have this culture. And by
(27:06):
the way, I've seen some football games, like football's fun
to watch, part of me doesn't want to see it
because like every time someone gets hit on the head,
you know, every time someone's neck snaps, I just want
to close my eyes, you know, and just say, oh
my god, concussion. No no, no, no no. But yeah,
I understand it's a fun game to watch, but you know,
gladiatorial contests used to be fun too, where people actually died.
(27:31):
And to me, like this is this is the continuation
of that people have loved blood sports and watching people
get hurt and watching people go at each other, having
people play war on the field over and over and over.
This is not something that's new to America, Like this
is this is something that I think has been an
(27:52):
ingrained part of culture. I just wish that, you know,
we would actually understand why it's so incredibly important to
to try to to try to go back on that.
You remember a few weeks ago, Nate, we were talking
about the value of a human life. Right, what was
that number that you seem to have at the tip
(28:15):
of your finger. Ten million. So when people tell me that,
you know, football players their salaries are, you know, way
too high, I'm like, no, actually, the salaries are just
right and sometimes too low, because they are literally just
taking a flyer on their life, on their future, sanity,
(28:36):
on their brain function, on They're taking years off of
their life because a lot of these, you know, repeat
concussions are going to mean that you die ten years sooner,
twenty years sooner, that your healthy years are just completely reduced.
So yeah, they should be paid these insane premiums because
they are leveraging their health and their life for your
(28:57):
viewing pleasure. And I just wish that we could get
past that culture and understand, you know, the importance of
protecting these players and not forcing them to make that choice. Right,
instead of saying you can wear Guardian caps, why doesn't
the NFL go and say from now on, this is
the new helmet, right, this is the new regulation helmet
(29:17):
that everyone wears.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
And by the way, at first yet the name and
then at first I thought it was like, when I
first heard about it was guardian cups, and I wonder
if you got extra protection for your manhood and how
that would be different. Maybe that's funny. I mean the
other thing about these helmets or cups caps.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
Excuse me, right, if they didn't even call them a helmet,
they called them a cap, please continue.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Right, You look, they look a little weird, right, I mean,
they're they're raw form. They kind of it's like turtle
shell look, and then you can kind of like drape
like the team's logo over it, but like so it
stands out and kind of everybody is kind of saying, Okay,
there's a guy who's taking extra protection, right, I mean,
you know, so some places will say that, like I
don't like the way it feels, and you know, if
(30:04):
the compromises performance, then then whatever, right, I mean, you know,
I mean, if it's true that a purchect performance, then
there's something there. But I think it's more that it
looks Yeah, it looks like this is the sport. It's
not the most progressive culture, and you're selecting for people
who were selected for for their aggression and tolerance for risk.
(30:27):
Because every position in the field except perhaps a kicker
and a punter are undertaking significant risk every time they
take the field, right, And I mean you you know,
a huge percentage of players are going to face a
severe injury at some point in their careers. It's kind
of normal, unfortunately. And like one of the things Dave
(30:48):
Anderson told me is that, yeah, if I text my
being a play for the Houston Texans, mostly if I
text my chet group of like human group chat excuse me,
of Houston Texans buddies who played golf with or fans
football with or whatever, then probably half of them are
not really in great shape right now. Right, they can't
do normal things that are normal forty something formerly healthy
(31:10):
athletic male would do, and like, so they're already kind
of like making this sacrifice. Yeah, so look, I mean
I think, you know, the equilibrium is probably that the
NFL has to like mandate maybe certain positions wear it
or rookies after a certain date where it and also
work kind of technology to make it more esthetically pleasing.
(31:33):
I'm sure there's been resources poured into that.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
Right, absolutely, absolutely, And I do think that though that
the mandate has to be it has to come from
the top, Otherwise I don't see this change happening, and
we already, by the way, see the players wearing them
during practices, and I don't think there's any impact on performance, right,
So everyone wears them during practice, and your eye will
get used to it. It's going to stop looking goofy.
(31:57):
Just think for a second, like try to visualize different
sports uniforms. A ton of sports look goofy if you
just think about it in the abstract. But we're used
to seeing it, so it looks it looks totally normal, right,
It just looks like the uniform for that sport. So
I think that, you know, two years from now, people
won't remember. Let me give you another example, skiing, right,
(32:18):
So downhill skiing, no one used to wear helmets. So
I started skiing when I was four years old, and no,
but not a single helmet to be seen, right, Everyone's
just wearing hats. Then you start seeing a few people,
very early adopters wearing helmets after research came out became
clear you know how important it was, how much it
could protect you. And my family was actually incredibly early
(32:41):
on that we basically immediately got helmets, and I never
wanted to wear one because I looked silly, right because
none of the other kids were wearing them, but we
did anyway, and now you can't. Every single person on
the mountain wears helmets, right Like, there's if you're the
person who's not wearing a helmet, you look like a
dumbass and people are like, who is this absolute idiot
(33:02):
not wearing a helmet when everyone knows that you have
to wear a helmet? And this happened in a decade,
right like it was actually incredibly short when you think
about it, from everyone just wears your winter hat to
every single person wears a helmet, So these changes are
absolutely possible, and it doesn't it no longer looks goofy.
(33:23):
In fact, you look like an idiot for doing something different.
So I'm willing to bet that if we see a mandate,
we're going to start seeing you know that we will
no longer even notice and be like, oh, you know,
look how silly that looks. And we know that there
are sports that have huge risk injuries, huge potential for
(33:44):
concussions where the concussion rate is actually incredibly low, such
as racing. Right so Formula one happening in Las Vegas
in a few days, race car drivers those collisions. Holy shit, right,
Like you would think that these guys would just like
have concussions all the time. No, because they have these
crazy helmets that not only protect their heads, but protect
(34:05):
their necks and protect them from kind of that sort
of whiplash that is what actually causes concussions a lot
at the time. So you have these things that we see,
we have the technology, we know how to do it,
we know how to protect people, and yet there's this,
just as you pointed it out, we're coming full circle.
There's kind of this macho false bravado that makes it
(34:29):
seem not manly to protect yourself. I hope that we're
able to kind of turn that around because I want
people to be able to enjoy sports. I want people
to be able to enjoy football, and I want these
players to have good lives and healthy lives ahead of them.
You know. I don't want them to have to mortgage
their marriages, their children, their future, everything just to bring
(34:53):
some people pleasure for a few years.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
Now. Look, I mean again, self selected for muchismo population,
and like you know, a kind of common theme of
the show is that behaviors that seem irrational aren't necessarily irrational,
I you know, because it's kind of how you define
rationality and if you lose the prestige or but yeah,
(35:17):
I look, I mean, you know, if you have some
prominent players too who are like, I'm a unimpeachably cool
NFL player and now I'm wearing this thing, right, then
then that might change things a little bit. It's not
like they're you know, in hockey. I mean, you know,
some of these guys have like golden locks and the
(35:37):
good looking guys, and they were afraid of decreasing their
marketability right when the helmets came in and and but
in football, you already don't really see the guy's face, right,
they already have have a helmet on, and like it
just seems kind of weird that, Like, I mean, so
obviously from the league's perspective, why is there no mandate?
I mean, because the NFL is incredibly resilient and popular,
(36:03):
you know. But like the part of what's happened to
is I think kind of football had gotten more like
kind of you know, there were risks that liberals were
worried about concussions in the NFL, and that kind of
like died down a little bit. I think because football
occupies this unique place in American society where people like
it precisely because it's violent, and precisely because like it's
(36:26):
this proxy for kind of like risk taking. But yeah,
don't I don't know.
Speaker 1 (36:31):
Yeah, Well, we'll see what happens. But I hope that
I hope that the tides are shifting and that we
will see change in the coming years. By the way, Nate,
while you and I were talking, Trump said that he
was going to be nominating medmet Oz to oversee Medicare
and Medicaid, who will be working closely with RFK juniors.
(36:53):
And we have this dystopian RFK and doctor OZ combination.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
I don't know. I feel not available for anything.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
Yeah to me, wow, like I this is not a
reality that I could have predicted.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
I mean, it kind of is pretty I mean, watched
a lot of TV.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
That's I guess that's true. I guess that's true. Let's
see what happens next week. But these uh, these picks
are getting more and more absurd, and the qualification levels, yes,
being on TV seems to actually be a very high qualification.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
Do you remember the ad that Mimute OZ runs about
complaining about the price of Crude Tae.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
Yes in the grocery store completely. I do remember that ad,
and I think we should all start rewatching it, rerunning
it to try to get people to to understand what's
happening that cruditay Ad Wow, what it Well? We we
started with the cabinet, let's end on this absurdist note,
(37:59):
and now all I can think about are crud de
te and doctor us. Let us know what you think
of the show. Reach out to us at Risky Business
at pushkin dot FM. Risky Business is hosted by me
(38:23):
Maria Kondakova.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
And byb Nate Silver.
Speaker 1 (38:26):
The show is a co production of Pushkin Industries and iHeartMedia.
This episode was produced by Isabel Carner. Our associate producer
is Gabriel Hunter Chang. Our executive producer is Jacob Goldstein.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
If you like the show, please rate and review us
so all the people can find us too. And if
you want to listen to an AD free version, sign
up for Pushkin Plus for six, ten and nine a month.
You would access to AD free listening. Thanks for tuning in.
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Hey, the election's over. We tried not to overdose on
it too much, but we are genuinely curious what you
want to hear from us on Do you want more politics?
Do you want more sports? You want more poker, you
want more AI? Do you like the interview segments with guests?
Do you like when Marie and I disagree? Or do
you like more agreement? Or what is working for you
and what isn't. We would like you to send us
(00:43):
an email with feedback to Risky Business all one word
at pushkin dot fm. That's risky Business at Pushkin dot fm.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Welcome back to Risky Business, a show about making better decisions.
I'm Maria Kannakova and.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
I'm Nate Silver.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
So today on the show, we are going to revisit
a Trump's cabinet picks. I say revisit because last week
we talked about the first cabinet picks and they've gotten
a little bit more extreme since then. So we're going
to go into the game theory of the confirmation process
in the Senate, what it means to cooperate and defect,
and how we think these confirmations might play out.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
And then let's turn to the NFL where guardian caps
are now being compared on the field. These are things
that look a little gofy but protect you from concussions
much more effectively than a helmet alone. Very few players
are wearing means despite their medical benefit. We'll talk about
why and what the game theory equilibriums are there.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
So let's get into it and start with your favorite topic,
Nate politics. Even though the elections are now behind us,
that does not mean we get to abandon the politics.
Fe you are not allowed to retire. We are still
talking about what's going to happen with this future administration
Trump two point zero. You know, last week when we
(02:19):
were talking about cabinet picks, one of the first picks
was Marco Rubio, and you know, we we talked about
that and it seemed like, okay, you know, this isn't
that bad. That seems that seems reasonable. Maybe the rest
of the cabinet will be quite reasonable as well. And
then obviously the day in a few days after we taped,
a bunch more nominations were released that were a little
(02:41):
bit more eyebrow raising in multiple instances. So let's talk
about those nominations, and let's talk about the process for
confirming them, how we think that's going to play out,
and what the decision game tree looks like for those
Senate Republicans who might be in a position to make
a difference. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Cool, Yeah, Maria, I took a little break with my
partner and the cat skills. You a nice time. We
maybe took a hike. We are on the edge of
maybe hiking too far, too fast without enough water, So.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Talking about negative ev decisions, Nate, you should have read
one of the first posts I made on the Leap
about the risk taking calculus when one goes hiking. But
you're here, so it all worked out, But don't do
it again.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
Once you're ninety five way to the tap and you
can't turn back, can you?
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Yes? You can, absolutely, you can absolutely turn back even
when you are ninety eight percent of the way there.
You can, and you should. This is how accidents and
accidental deaths happen. And I love you, Nate, and love
your partner, and I want to see both of you
healthy and back in New York City.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
It would have been a relatively cool way to if
you're going to die right on top of a mountain
and the catskills anyway, I.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
Would give a very moving speech at your funeral.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Not able to escape politics, obviously, and the first big confrontation,
the first big test of Trump's will is these confirmation
picks of cabinet secretaries that might be a little unconventional,
and that's.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
The understatement of the moment.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
There are four that I think really are drawing the
most attention, which are at my gates AREFK Junior, Pete Hegseth,
and Tulsi Gabbard. Can tell you a story about Tulsi Gabbard,
who is alleged by Democrats to be like a in
the sphere of Russian influence.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Yeah, let's hear story time.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
In twenty twenty, we went to New Hampshire and this
is just before the pandemic kind of shuts regular campaigning down.
A group of US five thirty eight ers and we
a little habit of like showing up unannounced at campaign
offices just to see what they're up to. It was
a cute little technique. And then I think some of
(05:01):
the campaigns got smart. At the Biden office, by the way,
it was totally empty except for the figures Skater Christi Yamaguchi.
That was interesting. At the Mayor Pete office. You know,
the instantly recognized us and like tried to usher us out.
Very organized. But Telsea Gabberd has this giant empty office
and the only clerk or employee there had a thick
(05:24):
Russian accent. I'm just saying this actually happened. Uh, just
a little data point there.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
I love it that that is good story time. I
didn't know where that uh, where that story was going
to go, but but that's that's good story time. Yeah.
So these when I say eyebrow raising, I meant eyebrow raising.
So obviously Telsea gabbert we we know that there are
rumors of Russia loving her. You've got our kid, Junior,
(05:53):
which is the one that I am really worried about.
We talked a little bit last week about the potential
harm that could come to science during a Trump administration,
and this just seems to highlight that that the potential
harm is probably is going to be actual harm. So
I think that, you know, we have people being put
(06:17):
up for appointments where either they have no qualifications or
they have anti qualifications in things that are actually going
to stop very important research from happening for at least
four years, probably longer, because we know that the ramifications
of this can really well, the.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Average cabinet pic I think is measured in days. That
is true.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
You know what, You know what, Nate, I actually didn't
think of that that you've given me hope for the
first time in a week. We do know from his
last administration that yes, the average tenure of some of
his picks is not long. So that's good.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
So there's that just for a baseline. If you get
at polymarket O, the bending sites are similar. I consult
for poly Market. Gates has a thirty percent chance of
being confirmed, Tulsa Gabberd's seventy nine percent, RFK seventy six percent,
and Pete Haggs seventy six percent as well. I'm trying
to wonder if I'd take over under on those seventy.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
Okay, so Gates is the only one that they are
thinking as an underdog right now.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Yeah, Gates is the one where you have and now
he can start to get in the game theory where
you have like a lot of leaked reports of Republicans saying,
oh everybody in the sentence against him. There are dozens
of picks against him, but the fact that, like you
don't have senators by name kind, they're saying, oh, everybody
else is against them. They're not saying I am against him.
(07:42):
They're saying other people my vote against him. So now
we start to get in the game theory here where
I have no doubt. First of all, Gates is seen
as a loose cannon, as I minished lots of rumors
of sexual and drug related promiscuities and infidelities and generally
being a difficult colleague. Right, so I have no doubt
(08:03):
that in a a private vote, what's the term of
looking for a vote, an anonymous vote, that Gates and
maybe even all these people would go down. Right. The
issue is that is that if you oppose Trump, then
Trump can try to kind of like nuke you from
from orbit. So to do a basic math check here, Republicans,
(08:28):
assuming that David McCormick wins in Pennsylvania, some networks haven't called.
It doesn't seem to me like there's a path back
for Bob Casey, but there will be a recount. But
assuming fifty three, you have two Lisa Murkowski and Susan
Collins who have repeatedly defied Republicans Susan Collins is up
for re election in twenty twenty six in what's now
(08:50):
a pretty blue state, Ma, Ma, and all the all
the liberals who like taxes, actually main doesn't particually high taxes, right,
they kind of moved to Maine, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont,
staying very blue. She's in a very difficult race, and
so she's not going to vote for any of these,
I don't think. And Lisa Rakowski, I assume has shown
enough willingness to defy Trump in the past that she
won't either. But still Republicans have, uh, you know, fifty
(09:14):
three fifty one. They only need fifty because Jade Vance
is the vice president, so they can afford to lose
one more. And so who are the two more that
will vote to oppose? And the answer is, I've been
trying to do some data work on looking at the
partisan loyalty and the ideology of different Republican senators. Like
(09:35):
there's not like an obvious like third name. Before you
would have said you need a fourth name too, right
before you would have said Mitt Romney. But Mitt Romney's
been replaced by actually a relatively moderate Republican in Utah
name I think John Curtis, let me dibble, Chick, it
is John Curtis. You have some newcomers like McCormick and Pennsylvania,
(09:56):
and you would think in the long term, I mean,
he you know, he won the race if he does
win by zero point three points or something of Pennsylvania's
a swing state, but it's six years out until his
next re elect and these kind of younger, newer Republicans
tend to be very conservative. It's quite generational where where
(10:18):
you know, the traditional kind of Chuck Grassley's of the
world are the types who will who will stand for
order in the US Senate and think the Senate needs
to play an important role. But the younger guns tend
not to. They to say, well, I'm just gonna be
Trump Trump, Trump, and then you know, maybe when reelection
maybe not right. Tom Tillis in North Carolina, I believe
(10:40):
he's up to reelect in twenty twenty six as well.
That's the other race that Democrats will really target. He
has shown more streaks of moderation. Lindsey Graham on paper
is more of an institutionalist Senate candidate, but he seems
to I don't know, I'm not sure what I'm trying
to imply here, But Lindsey Graham seems very reluctant to
(11:02):
defy Trump. And there's a lot of revenge motivated politics,
like Democrats this or that other bad thing. Right now
it's our turn. And so you know, John Thune, the
incoming majority leader, might be one canny for some of these,
but there's not like there's not like an obvious third
and fourth strikes.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
Yeah, And I think that when we're talking about the
game theory, right, we're we're looking at a decision matrix
where you look at kind of the payoff structure. Right,
if we think about it in terms of a prisoner's dilemma,
which this kind of is, you can cooperate, right, so
you vote with the Republicans or you defect, which means
that you join kind of the Democrats in opposing some
(11:44):
of these picks. And then but we if we look
at the incentives, I think that in the immediate time horizon,
the disincentive to defect is so ridiculously strong, right because
we what do we know about Trump? We know he's
vindictive as fuck, right, Like he does not like it
when people go against him. He's going to be president
(12:06):
and he has a lot of authority, and we have
already seen during his presidency and in the last four
years that people say a lot of shit about him
in private and then they still go and support him
in public. Right, they are completely two faced in this.
And if you think about this kind of as like
a time horizon, right, like you're gonna like shit's going
(12:30):
to hit the fan with Trump much sooner than you
will be padded on the back and said you did
the right thing for our country. Right. It's kind of
like climate change if you think about it, right, They're
like these abstract incentives like I stood up for democracy,
like I stood up for not you know, putting a
potential Russian operative or someone who's anti science in a
position of science. Blah blah blah. It's very abstract for
(12:53):
it versus I'm going to get punished, like bad things
are going to happen to me, and you know, I'm
going to really feel it if I step out of line.
And so I just I do not see that there
will be kind of this wave of Republicans breaking ranks,
Like I think that there's even a good chance that
Matt Gates is going to get confirmed.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Yeah, I mean, you know, the one pushback is I
wonder if if we're being proper about the prisoner's element,
I actually think that like defection actually is voting for
these picks.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
Okay, I guess that's the We can frame it either way,
and like then you'll just flip my arguments. But why
is defection voting?
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Because cooperation is from the perspective of the prisoners, who,
in this I guess somewhat literal sense, are Republican senators, right.
I don't think that they think that Matt Gates being
Attorney General would be good for the Republican Party. It
would necessarily even be good for Trump. I mean, he's
(13:55):
politely described as a as a loose canon, high risk
of scandals, to high profile position, of playing into every
critique that Democrats have. And now all of a sudden,
we're in an anti incumbent moment, and now Democrats gonna
be pushing back in twenty twenty six, I mean, the
the you know, if they pick up those two sentencets
(14:16):
I mentioned in Maine and North Carolina, then it's forty
nine point fifty one and they have opportunities two years
later to then take back the Senate. If there's a
president Gretchen Whitmer or Jos Shapiro or Raphael Warnock in
twenty twenty eight and the House where Democrats almost won
the House this time, I would have to imagine in
(14:38):
a midterm year their favorite to pick up the House.
And that means that, like they can throw a big
wrench in Trump's agenda and do a bunch of investigations
and whatever else. So they want to they want to
cooperate with one another, but individually, their incentives are to defect.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
Right.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
If you're not Alow, he's the weird case because he's
kind of in this electoral zone, right, But if you're away, so.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
You're gonna you're flipping. You're flipping what I said, And
I actually agree that that makes sense, that the that
the labels of cooperation into action should change. And it's
funny that it's funny that you say that because I
actually thought ahead of time. I was like, wait, which
ones are the co operators and which ones are the defectors.
It wasn't clear cut to me, But I think your
argument makes a lot of sense. So basically what we're saying, though,
(15:23):
is that the incentives are basically for all of the
Republicans to defect.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
We'll be right back after this message now, and the
person it's the elemit. You can't communicate these guys, can
(15:52):
you know? So yeah, one way to do it might
be to say all of us are going to vote
against them, right, or a very large number of us,
and so therefore if you want to try to primary
thirty of us, then then go right ahead, right right.
You know what probably happens usually in the modern day politicians, presidents,
(16:15):
I should say, or set up majority leaders don't like
to bring votes to the floor in lest they think
they can win. Right, So maybe the answer is, like
there is some pretense for why Gates drops out conditional
upon him being nominated in the floor, then I guess
he's probably a favorite. I mean, look, I I don't know.
(16:37):
I think it's just like with the other three, you
can kind of I think our k juniors wacky. I think,
you know, I worry, I'm boring. I worry most about
the vaccine stuff, even though he's kind of said, oh,
I won't fuck with vaccines too much. I mean there's
a long track record of I also, you know, I
(16:58):
part of me wondering strategically whether Gates is like a
sacrificial lamb to say, Okay, you get this one scalp, right,
but you better not fuck with me on the rest
and the kind of like an exploit implicit equilibrium there,
and that.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
That really sucks because not only is RFK junior, not
only is he anti vaccine, but he has also said
during his campaign that he wanted to pause all funding
and all research and of infectious disease period to give
it a rest, Like, dude, we didn't do well during
(17:35):
the first pandemic. This is not this is not gain
of function research. This is just general research into infectious
disease that does not seem like a good thing to do,
right to just pause all of that funding. We know
that fetal cell research is going to stop like this,
These are really really important things that have really big
consequences for public health and for the future. And I
(17:58):
just like, to me, that's an incredibly like if Matt
Gaetz is a sacrificial lamb, then we have some scary
picks ahead of us, right, including that including putting, you know,
the pentagon in the hands of someone what are his qualifications? Right,
Like this is this is to me, it's a little
bit it's it's not a little bit, it's a lot
(18:19):
bit frightening to think about that. But I think, you know,
I just do not see how the game theory works
for anything other than confirmation at the beginning, and and
that you know, maybe Matt Gates has withdrawn, right, like
maybe that doesn't actually ever come before the Senate, like
as you suggest, might might end up happening. But if
(18:43):
the other ones all get confirmed, like, this is going
to be a pretty scary administration.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Yeah. I mean the other thing you think about is
whether there are any Republicans who don't care because they
plan to retire. Mitch McConnell is an interesting one, another
one who has had some health issue. Has been in
office for one, two, three, five seven terms. Now his
intent is unknown as to whether he's running in twenty
twenty six or no. I mean, look, I think politicians
(19:09):
are ninety eight percent craven opportunity. Yeah, right, he won
the popular vote, right, I mean, he improved his margin
and like all but two or three states or something
like that, right, and so, but I don't know. And
(19:31):
it is a repeated game in the sense that Trump
will do other things that they don't like and like
if you kind of have to, like if you capitulate.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
Now, I think you're you're kind of lining yourself up
to capitulate, They're right.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
Yeah, No, I mean I think you're supposed to like throw.
I mean, like I believe in this and things and life.
I mean, if you kind of roll over for somebody,
then they kind of correctly assume that you'll roll over
the next time. And it's often best to like draw
a line in the sand early if you're playing in
like I mean, you know, one thing a lot of
a lot of players do is is and it's gonna
(20:04):
be dangerous actually, right, But like you know, if it's
the first hand of the tournament and uh, and you
raise and get three bets, so a player re re raises,
you know, most humans, most poker players, psychologically, the first
time it happens, you're more likely to get a call
or even a four bet. It's harder to get that
(20:26):
kind of aggressive action through the first time. People look
at as a proxy for future aggression, so intuitively they
I think probably under understand that.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Yeah, no, I think I think that's right. I'm just
remembering this one tournament where I played where a new
guy came to the table. I three bet him and
he just ripped it for like eighty big lines than
someone else three bet him, and he did the exact
same thing over. I don't think anyone three bet.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Him again, like the last hand of the day or
the last hand before a break, right, people kind of
want to go and break do whatever they're going to do.
But then you're like, Okay, you're fucking exploiting me, right, bathroom,
and now you're three betting me, and so fuck you
them all in.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
I'm wondering, you know, one of the things you said
that was intriguing to me that it seems like a
long shot. But I'm curious whether you actually think it
might happen, Like, do you think that there's like a
scenario where Republicans can get like thirty people to defect right,
where it can be like a I don't think so.
Like I think there are just too many people who
believe in Trump and who and who actually like you know,
(21:32):
don't don't want to defect but or cooperate. How likely
is a scenario like that?
Speaker 2 (21:42):
I mean, they certainly haven't shown much backbone in the past,
and in some ways Trump has like more of a
mandate than he. I'm like, I think the equilibrium might
actually be that like that gates get sacrificed and the
others go through, you know, and then they can say, okay,
well we do aligned somewhere, right, we do relign and
(22:02):
gates are just so unacceptable on many different yeah levels
and kind of almost almost care and tease like a
either a circus act or an administration that really kind
of overreaches and it becomes like harder to rain Trump
in later. And I don't know, I don't talk to
Republican or Democratic senators for that matter, right, I mean,
(22:23):
if you hear reporters who do, they're like, well, in private,
they're pretty reasonable.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
Well exactly in private, Like you have to do that
shit in public, Like it doesn't count if it's in private.
I have to say, like that's it only counts if
you actually publicly then do it and put your money
where your mouth is. It's like it's like people who
can confidently to go back to poker very quickly. It's
like the you know players on stream who always know
(22:48):
what the correct thing to do is right and who
confidently say, oh, you have to call here, you have
to race here, you have to show if you have
to do this, you have to do that right the
chat experts. And then when you get them into that
spot playing live without seeing the cards, all of a sudden,
all of that expertise goes out the window and they
have zero dollars in earnings as opposed to the people
(23:09):
they're criticizing. So if you do things from a you know,
backseat driver, I don't know how many other analogies.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
I can what they can also get.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
Through in there, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
What they can also do is draw lots right where
the let's say the fifteen Republican senators who are somewhat
reasonable go into a room and they have it's like
the NBA a lottery, right, and they pick thirteen names
and the final two have to just effect from Trump on.
Everything's knowing they'll be. But the way it works, you
(23:42):
have little favors. Right. Maybe let's say, uh, you know,
let's say that one of them is from Tennessee, and
then you know, the senator from I know, Jim Rish
from Idaho gets the last draw. They're like, how would
you like to be the president of the University of Tennessee?
Jim Rish GYGA football team.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
Now the impressions are coming out. I love it.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
They should draw the should and one of them should
be the fall Guide. You know, there are benefits to
being the one outlier Republican maverick.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
With that, let's take a short break and switch to
actual quarterbacks and talking about football. So, the NFL has
just announced that players are allowed to wear guardian caps
(24:39):
when they're playing footballs. So a guardian cap, it's like
this padded thing that you put over your helmet that
will lower the risk of concussion. They're already being used
during practices and now players can wear them during games
as well. But a lot of players, the vast majority
of players, in fact, the vast vast majority of players
(25:01):
are not wearing them. And so I want to talk
about what that decision calculus is, Like, why would you
not where something that you know is going to make
the game much safer for you and that is going
to improve your long term health outcomes?
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Yeah, I mean some of my input on this or
inside of this. So from my book, I interviewed a
friend of mine who's a former NFL player named Dave Anderson,
and really good guy now runs a sports data company,
and you know, he described the culture of the NFL
where it really is a and I like football, not
(25:40):
trying to be a prude here, right, but it really
is like an almost warlike environment, right where it's like
next man up and careers are short. And also you know,
you have good data on like quarterbacks and a few
other positions, but for the most part, all the alignment
right are it's hard to evaluate, and so if you're
(26:00):
seen as not being tough, then then you might not
get that next opportunity, right, And he's like, yeah, there
are guys who like are you know, who are these
guys who are you know, big gracious football players. But
if you're not willing to get in there and like
get your head knocked around, then then then they'll you'll
(26:23):
be bypassed.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
Right, absolutely, absolutely. I think that this macho culture has
a lot to do with it, and a lot to
do with the reluctance to adopt something that is clearly
beneficial for you. By the way, speaking of psychology, names matter,
words matter. Who the hell decided to call these guardian caps? Right,
I'm wearing a guardian cap, you know, like my little
(26:45):
grandmother cap that's guarding my head. Like call them something
manly and macho, right, Like, I don't know, we can
think about much better names that would make people want
to adopt them more than Guardian cap. But that's just
an aside. So I think that that what you're saying
is absolutely true. We do have this culture. And by
(27:06):
the way, I've seen some football games, like football's fun
to watch, part of me doesn't want to see it
because like every time someone gets hit on the head,
you know, every time someone's neck snaps, I just want
to close my eyes, you know, and just say, oh
my god, concussion. No no, no, no no. But yeah,
I understand it's a fun game to watch, but you know,
gladiatorial contests used to be fun too, where people actually died.
(27:31):
And to me, like this is this is the continuation
of that people have loved blood sports and watching people
get hurt and watching people go at each other, having
people play war on the field over and over and over.
This is not something that's new to America, Like this
is this is something that I think has been an
(27:52):
ingrained part of culture. I just wish that, you know,
we would actually understand why it's so incredibly important to
to try to to try to go back on that.
You remember a few weeks ago, Nate, we were talking
about the value of a human life. Right, what was
that number that you seem to have at the tip
(28:15):
of your finger. Ten million. So when people tell me that,
you know, football players their salaries are, you know, way
too high, I'm like, no, actually, the salaries are just
right and sometimes too low, because they are literally just
taking a flyer on their life, on their future, sanity,
(28:36):
on their brain function, on They're taking years off of
their life because a lot of these, you know, repeat
concussions are going to mean that you die ten years sooner,
twenty years sooner, that your healthy years are just completely reduced.
So yeah, they should be paid these insane premiums because
they are leveraging their health and their life for your
(28:57):
viewing pleasure. And I just wish that we could get
past that culture and understand, you know, the importance of
protecting these players and not forcing them to make that choice. Right,
instead of saying you can wear Guardian caps, why doesn't
the NFL go and say from now on, this is
the new helmet, right, this is the new regulation helmet
(29:17):
that everyone wears.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
And by the way, at first yet the name and
then at first I thought it was like, when I
first heard about it was guardian cups, and I wonder
if you got extra protection for your manhood and how
that would be different. Maybe that's funny. I mean the
other thing about these helmets or cups caps.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
Excuse me, right, if they didn't even call them a helmet,
they called them a cap, please continue.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Right, You look, they look a little weird, right, I mean,
they're they're raw form. They kind of it's like turtle
shell look, and then you can kind of like drape
like the team's logo over it, but like so it
stands out and kind of everybody is kind of saying, Okay,
there's a guy who's taking extra protection, right, I mean,
you know, so some places will say that, like I
don't like the way it feels, and you know, if
(30:04):
the compromises performance, then then whatever, right, I mean, you know,
I mean, if it's true that a purchect performance, then
there's something there. But I think it's more that it
looks Yeah, it looks like this is the sport. It's
not the most progressive culture, and you're selecting for people
who were selected for for their aggression and tolerance for risk.
(30:27):
Because every position in the field except perhaps a kicker
and a punter are undertaking significant risk every time they
take the field, right, And I mean you you know,
a huge percentage of players are going to face a
severe injury at some point in their careers. It's kind
of normal, unfortunately. And like one of the things Dave
(30:48):
Anderson told me is that, yeah, if I text my
being a play for the Houston Texans, mostly if I
text my chet group of like human group chat excuse me,
of Houston Texans buddies who played golf with or fans
football with or whatever, then probably half of them are
not really in great shape right now. Right, they can't
do normal things that are normal forty something formerly healthy
(31:10):
athletic male would do, and like, so they're already kind
of like making this sacrifice. Yeah, so look, I mean
I think, you know, the equilibrium is probably that the
NFL has to like mandate maybe certain positions wear it
or rookies after a certain date where it and also
work kind of technology to make it more esthetically pleasing.
(31:33):
I'm sure there's been resources poured into that.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
Right, absolutely, absolutely, And I do think that though that
the mandate has to be it has to come from
the top, Otherwise I don't see this change happening, and
we already, by the way, see the players wearing them
during practices, and I don't think there's any impact on performance, right,
So everyone wears them during practice, and your eye will
get used to it. It's going to stop looking goofy.
(31:57):
Just think for a second, like try to visualize different
sports uniforms. A ton of sports look goofy if you
just think about it in the abstract. But we're used
to seeing it, so it looks it looks totally normal, right,
It just looks like the uniform for that sport. So
I think that, you know, two years from now, people
won't remember. Let me give you another example, skiing, right,
(32:18):
So downhill skiing, no one used to wear helmets. So
I started skiing when I was four years old, and no,
but not a single helmet to be seen, right, Everyone's
just wearing hats. Then you start seeing a few people,
very early adopters wearing helmets after research came out became
clear you know how important it was, how much it
could protect you. And my family was actually incredibly early
(32:41):
on that we basically immediately got helmets, and I never
wanted to wear one because I looked silly, right because
none of the other kids were wearing them, but we
did anyway, and now you can't. Every single person on
the mountain wears helmets, right Like, there's if you're the
person who's not wearing a helmet, you look like a
dumbass and people are like, who is this absolute idiot
(33:02):
not wearing a helmet when everyone knows that you have
to wear a helmet? And this happened in a decade,
right like it was actually incredibly short when you think
about it, from everyone just wears your winter hat to
every single person wears a helmet, So these changes are
absolutely possible, and it doesn't it no longer looks goofy.
(33:23):
In fact, you look like an idiot for doing something different.
So I'm willing to bet that if we see a mandate,
we're going to start seeing you know that we will
no longer even notice and be like, oh, you know,
look how silly that looks. And we know that there
are sports that have huge risk injuries, huge potential for
(33:44):
concussions where the concussion rate is actually incredibly low, such
as racing. Right so Formula one happening in Las Vegas
in a few days, race car drivers those collisions. Holy shit, right,
Like you would think that these guys would just like
have concussions all the time. No, because they have these
crazy helmets that not only protect their heads, but protect
(34:05):
their necks and protect them from kind of that sort
of whiplash that is what actually causes concussions a lot
at the time. So you have these things that we see,
we have the technology, we know how to do it,
we know how to protect people, and yet there's this,
just as you pointed it out, we're coming full circle.
There's kind of this macho false bravado that makes it
(34:29):
seem not manly to protect yourself. I hope that we're
able to kind of turn that around because I want
people to be able to enjoy sports. I want people
to be able to enjoy football, and I want these
players to have good lives and healthy lives ahead of them.
You know. I don't want them to have to mortgage
their marriages, their children, their future, everything just to bring
(34:53):
some people pleasure for a few years.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
Now. Look, I mean again, self selected for muchismo population,
and like you know, a kind of common theme of
the show is that behaviors that seem irrational aren't necessarily irrational,
I you know, because it's kind of how you define
rationality and if you lose the prestige or but yeah,
(35:17):
I look, I mean, you know, if you have some
prominent players too who are like, I'm a unimpeachably cool
NFL player and now I'm wearing this thing, right, then
then that might change things a little bit. It's not
like they're you know, in hockey. I mean, you know,
some of these guys have like golden locks and the
(35:37):
good looking guys, and they were afraid of decreasing their
marketability right when the helmets came in and and but
in football, you already don't really see the guy's face, right,
they already have have a helmet on, and like it
just seems kind of weird that, Like, I mean, so
obviously from the league's perspective, why is there no mandate?
I mean, because the NFL is incredibly resilient and popular,
(36:03):
you know. But like the part of what's happened to
is I think kind of football had gotten more like
kind of you know, there were risks that liberals were
worried about concussions in the NFL, and that kind of
like died down a little bit. I think because football
occupies this unique place in American society where people like
it precisely because it's violent, and precisely because like it's
(36:26):
this proxy for kind of like risk taking. But yeah,
don't I don't know.
Speaker 1 (36:31):
Yeah, Well, we'll see what happens. But I hope that
I hope that the tides are shifting and that we
will see change in the coming years. By the way, Nate,
while you and I were talking, Trump said that he
was going to be nominating medmet Oz to oversee Medicare
and Medicaid, who will be working closely with RFK juniors.
(36:53):
And we have this dystopian RFK and doctor OZ combination.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
I don't know. I feel not available for anything.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
Yeah to me, wow, like I this is not a
reality that I could have predicted.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
I mean, it kind of is pretty I mean, watched
a lot of TV.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
That's I guess that's true. I guess that's true. Let's
see what happens next week. But these uh, these picks
are getting more and more absurd, and the qualification levels, yes,
being on TV seems to actually be a very high qualification.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
Do you remember the ad that Mimute OZ runs about
complaining about the price of Crude Tae.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
Yes in the grocery store completely. I do remember that ad,
and I think we should all start rewatching it, rerunning
it to try to get people to to understand what's
happening that cruditay Ad Wow, what it Well? We we
started with the cabinet, let's end on this absurdist note,
(37:59):
and now all I can think about are crud de
te and doctor us. Let us know what you think
of the show. Reach out to us at Risky Business
at pushkin dot FM. Risky Business is hosted by me
(38:23):
Maria Kondakova.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
And byb Nate Silver.
Speaker 1 (38:26):
The show is a co production of Pushkin Industries and iHeartMedia.
This episode was produced by Isabel Carner. Our associate producer
is Gabriel Hunter Chang. Our executive producer is Jacob Goldstein.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
If you like the show, please rate and review us
so all the people can find us too. And if
you want to listen to an AD free version, sign
up for Pushkin Plus for six, ten and nine a month.
You would access to AD free listening. Thanks for tuning in.
Hosts And Creators
Maria Konnikova
Nate Silver
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