EconTalk

Philosopher and author Rebecca Newberger Goldstein discusses her new book, The Mattering Instinct, which argues that our lives are a quest to validate our inherent self-centeredness. Tracing this essential longing from physics and biology through to ethics and politics, she explains to EconTalk's Russ Roberts why material success alone can never satisfy our deep-seated need to matter. She describes the four ways people seek signifi...

If technology is ruining the art of conversation, maybe it can save it, too. Anna Gat--poet, screenwriter, playwright, and founder of Interintellect--talks with EconTalk's Russ Roberts on how she's reviving the French salon in the digital age. They discuss why authority, moderation, and clear formats make conversation freer, not more constrained. They also explore why one of the greatest of modern plays--Tom Stoppard's Arcadia--is ...

Psychologist Gerd Gigerenzer explains the power of intuition, how intuition became gendered, what he thinks Kahneman and Tversky's research agenda got wrong, and why it's a mistake to place intuition and conscious thinking on opposing ends of the cognition spectrum. Topics he discusses in this wide-ranging conversation with EconTalk's Russ Roberts include what Gigerenzer calls the "bias bias"--the overemphasis on claims of irration...

A world-class physicist makes a shocking claim: across 2,500 years and every kind of society, there has been a recurring moral exception carved out just for Jews--the idea that hurting Jews is, in some sense, legitimate. Most of the time, this doesn't erupt into pogroms. Instead, it lives as a background permission: a readiness to excuse, minimize, or rationalize hurting Jews when it does occur. Listen as Russ Roberts talks with Da...

Are we truly characters with agency, or are we just playing out our programming in the great video game of life? Contrary to those in his field who claim that free will is an illusion, neuroscientist Kevin Mitchell insists that we're agents who wield our decision-making mechanism for our own purposes. Listen as the author of Free Agents: How Evolution Gave Us Free Will explains to EconTalk's Russ Roberts why the debate between free...

 Can the promise of economic progress ever justify conquest, coercion, and control over other people’s lives? Economist William Easterly joins EconTalk's Russ Roberts to argue no--and to rethink what "development" really means in theory, in history, and in our politics today. Drawing on his new book, Violent Saviors: The West's Conquest of the Rest, Easterly explores how colonial powers and later regimes like the Soviet Union claim...

Journalist and author Sam Quinones talks about his newest book, The Perfect Tuba: Forging Fulfillment from the Brass Horn, Band, and Hard Work with EconTalk's Russ Roberts. Known for his reporting on the opioid crisis, Quinones turns to a more uplifting subject--the world of tuba players and high school marching bands. What begins as curiosity about an unusual instrument evolves into a moving exploration of how discipline, communit...

Will Storr talks about his book The Status Game with EconTalk host Russ Roberts, exploring how our deep need for respect and recognition shapes our behavior. The conversation delves into how we constantly judge others and compare ourselves to them, the pain of losing status, and the freedom of escaping judgment. Storr and Roberts discuss how status drives everything from workplace hierarchies to social media, and how aging can shif...

How is your brain like an ant colony? They both use simple parts following simple rules which allows the whole to be so much more than the sum of the parts. Listen as neuroscientist and author Gaurav Suri explains how the mind emerges from the neural network of the brain, why habits form, why intuition often knows before language does, and why our post-hoc explanations can mislead us. The conversation then grapples with free will a...

Why is it okay to take the little shampoo bottles in hotels home with you but not the towels? And what stops people from taking the towels? Listen as political scientist Anthony Gill discusses the enforcement of property rights with EconTalk's Russ Roberts. Backing up their observations with insights from Adam Smith, Friedrich Hayek, and our everyday lives, they argue that the unenforced norms surrounding trust, propriety, and mora...

What do Shakespeare, Hollywood storytelling, and military special operations have in common? They all excel at inventing new plans, or improvising when we're facing radical uncertainty. Listen as professor of story science Angus Fletcher tells EconTalk's Russ Roberts how we've misdefined intelligence, equating it with data--driven reasoning in place of what he calls "primal intelligence"--the uniquely human ability to think and pla...

What if math isn't about grinding through equations, but about training your intuition and changing how your brain works? Mathematician and author David Bessis tells EconTalk's Russ Roberts that the secret of mathematics isn't logic--it's the way we learn to see. He explains why math books aren't meant to be read like novels, how great mathematicians toggle between images and formal proofs, and why we need a third mode of thought--...

Quantitative, contrarian, and nuanced: these are the hallmarks of the Freakonomics approach. Hear journalist and podcaster Stephen Dubner speak with EconTalk's Russ Roberts about the 20th anniversary of the popular-economics book Dubner co-authored with Steven Levitt. They discuss how the book came to be, how the journey changed Dubner's life, and how it changed his thinking about various economics issues. The conversation includes...

What drives the seeming relentless dynamism of Tokyo? Is there something special about Japanese culture? Joe McReynolds, co-author of Emergent Tokyo, argues that the secret to Tokyo's energy and attractiveness as a place to live and visit comes from policies that allow Tokyo to emerge from the bottom up. Post-war black markets evolved into today's yokocho--dense clusters of micro-venues that turn over, specialize, and innovate nigh...

Status isn't fixed; it's transferred and "bestowed," shaping who gets resources, attention, and opportunity. So argues author Toby Stuart of UC Berkeley in his book, Anointed. He and EconTalk's Russ Roberts explore why hierarchies persist--reducing conflict, allocating scarce resources, and curating our overwhelming choices--and how endorsements, blurbs, and brands quietly steer our judgments, from bookstores to wine shops and art ...

Losing weight should be simple: eat less, exercise more. But according to author and health journalist Julia Belluz, it's complicated. Listen as Belluz talks with EconTalk's Russ Roberts about her new book, Food Intelligence. Belluz argues that a calorie is pretty much a calorie whether it's carbs or fat. Keeping calories under control is often harder than it sounds. The message isn't blame; it's agency with compassion: understand ...

Why are Super Bowl ads so good for launching certain kinds of new products? Why do we all drive on the same side of the road? And why, despite laughing and crying together, do we often misread what others think? According to bestselling author and Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker, it all comes down to common knowledge, or the phenomenon that happens when everyone knows that everyone else knows something. Hear Pinker and EconTalk'...

American manufacturing of aircraft during WWII dwarfed that of its enemies. By the end of the war, an American assembly line was producing a B-24 bomber in less than an hour. But that success was far from inevitable. Structural engineer and writer Brian Potter speaks with EconTalk's Russ Roberts about the logistical challenges of ramping up production from virtually nothing, and the incredible balance of precision and improvisation...

What makes some groups thrive while others crash and burn? According to organizational-behavior scholar Colin Fisher, the real villains are rarely individuals, but dysfunctional teams and organizations. Listen as he and EconTalk's Russ Roberts discuss the reasons for the free-rider problem and the importance of meaningful, well-defined tasks to incentivize synergy. They speak about why most team-building exercises are usually a was...