1 00:00:00,160 --> 00:00:02,840 Welcome to Keith Knight, Don't tread on anyone in the 2 00:00:02,840 --> 00:00:05,440 Libertarian Institute. Today I will be talking with 3 00:00:05,440 --> 00:00:08,960 Doctor Brian Kaplan, economist at George Mason University to 4 00:00:08,960 --> 00:00:12,840 discuss his book Self Help is Like a Vaccine. 5 00:00:12,840 --> 00:00:16,400 Dr. Kaplan, where is the best place for people to purchase 6 00:00:16,400 --> 00:00:18,560 this book? Actually it's an Amazon 7 00:00:18,560 --> 00:00:22,040 exclusive, so the best and only place is Amazon. 8 00:00:22,880 --> 00:00:25,000 Terrific, I highly recommend the book. 9 00:00:25,000 --> 00:00:27,360 I have a number of things I'd like to go over. 10 00:00:27,840 --> 00:00:32,000 Can you please explain the concept of There is no such 11 00:00:32,000 --> 00:00:36,120 thing as a free lunch to me? Like I'm 10 years old and I've 12 00:00:36,120 --> 00:00:41,240 never heard of it before. All right, there's no such thing 13 00:00:41,240 --> 00:00:44,760 as a free lunch. It's a slogan which is not 14 00:00:44,760 --> 00:00:48,120 literally true. But anyway, the idea of is it if 15 00:00:48,200 --> 00:00:51,200 it is in the real world, normally in order to go and get 16 00:00:51,200 --> 00:00:53,480 any additional thing that you want, you've got to give up 17 00:00:53,480 --> 00:00:56,640 something else, right? It's probably made made famous 18 00:00:56,640 --> 00:00:59,400 by Milton Friedman, although I think it actually came from 19 00:00:59,680 --> 00:01:02,400 Einlein's Moon is a Harsh Mistress, if I remember the 20 00:01:02,400 --> 00:01:06,320 history correctly, and it's just saying that it seems too good to 21 00:01:06,320 --> 00:01:07,800 be true. It probably is. 22 00:01:07,800 --> 00:01:12,320 If you want to change your life, it's not going to be just 23 00:01:12,320 --> 00:01:14,880 getting more of everything you want, it's going to be having to 24 00:01:14,880 --> 00:01:18,680 make at least some sacrifice. If you're playing your cards 25 00:01:18,680 --> 00:01:21,400 right, of course the sacrifice is less valuable than what 26 00:01:21,400 --> 00:01:25,240 you're getting. The reason that I think this is 27 00:01:25,240 --> 00:01:28,040 so important is maybe in the last week or so I have heard 28 00:01:28,040 --> 00:01:32,240 both Democrats and Republicans say healthcare we that should be 29 00:01:32,240 --> 00:01:35,240 free, childcare should be free, education should be free, 30 00:01:35,240 --> 00:01:38,800 college should be free, housing as well as food stamps should be 31 00:01:38,800 --> 00:01:40,840 free. So when it comes to the concept 32 00:01:40,840 --> 00:01:42,320 of opportunity. Food should be free. 33 00:01:42,320 --> 00:01:44,640 I guess foods be odd if food stamps weren't free. 34 00:01:44,640 --> 00:01:46,440 It's like here's some help now pay me for it. 35 00:01:48,720 --> 00:01:53,920 So if you could just walk the average voter through what they 36 00:01:53,920 --> 00:01:57,040 are actually saying, assuming, well, government can just print 37 00:01:57,040 --> 00:01:59,080 the money, as the modern monetary theorists like to 38 00:01:59,080 --> 00:02:03,680 remind us. Is this an actual like loop in 39 00:02:03,680 --> 00:02:08,600 the matrix that we found this traveling opportunity to Narnia 40 00:02:08,720 --> 00:02:11,600 where we could make it free? You print the money, you 41 00:02:11,600 --> 00:02:14,600 increase the money supply. What is the opportunity cost of 42 00:02:14,600 --> 00:02:17,760 all these free things? Yeah, I think probably the best 43 00:02:17,760 --> 00:02:22,080 way of thinking about it is to, you know, agree and amplify, 44 00:02:22,080 --> 00:02:23,320 say, all right, yeah, you're right. 45 00:02:23,320 --> 00:02:25,200 Your health care should be free. Education should be free, food 46 00:02:25,200 --> 00:02:26,960 should be free. Everything should be free. 47 00:02:26,960 --> 00:02:29,400 Everybody should get everything they want for no money. 48 00:02:29,880 --> 00:02:32,840 And at this point, I think you'd have to be pretty deluded not to 49 00:02:32,840 --> 00:02:35,560 say, well, there could be some problems with that. 50 00:02:35,760 --> 00:02:39,160 Oh, like, what? Like if everybody gets 51 00:02:39,160 --> 00:02:43,160 everything they want for free, then why work? 52 00:02:43,440 --> 00:02:47,200 And if people don't work then what's going to actually be 53 00:02:47,200 --> 00:02:50,880 available for purchase? It really does get to the point 54 00:02:50,880 --> 00:02:55,440 where if everything is free, then you shouldn't expect the 55 00:02:55,440 --> 00:02:58,520 total amount of stuff available to be more than a rounding 56 00:02:58,520 --> 00:03:02,000 error. That's is a nice way of thinking 57 00:03:02,000 --> 00:03:04,800 about it. Also like the reason why people 58 00:03:04,800 --> 00:03:08,240 work is generally to get stuff. That's also the way that stuff 59 00:03:08,240 --> 00:03:12,200 comes to exist. If you make everything free, 60 00:03:12,200 --> 00:03:15,680 then you are basically just going in that opposite direction 61 00:03:15,680 --> 00:03:18,200 to the maximum degree. And then the question is, yeah, 62 00:03:18,200 --> 00:03:19,600 but why couldn't this one thing be free? 63 00:03:19,600 --> 00:03:22,560 It's like, well, why should we make this the exception? 64 00:03:22,920 --> 00:03:26,880 Why does that make sense? Now in terms of deeper 65 00:03:26,880 --> 00:03:30,960 economics, the key point is that when something is free, then 66 00:03:30,960 --> 00:03:34,040 people will consume things that they do not appreciate very 67 00:03:34,040 --> 00:03:36,320 much, right? I always like to give the 68 00:03:36,320 --> 00:03:40,920 example of some elderly relative who gives you like a a Ming vase 69 00:03:40,920 --> 00:03:44,040 for Christmas. You're not allowed to resell it. 70 00:03:44,280 --> 00:03:47,160 It's worth like $1,000,000, but you're five years old. 71 00:03:47,160 --> 00:03:51,760 So it is wasteful to go and give someone something really 72 00:03:51,760 --> 00:03:53,840 expensive that they do not appreciate. 73 00:03:54,160 --> 00:03:57,400 And that is what we standardly see when there are government 74 00:03:57,400 --> 00:03:59,640 giveaways. This is most obvious for 75 00:03:59,640 --> 00:04:01,640 healthcare. A lot of that stuff is crazy 76 00:04:01,640 --> 00:04:05,960 expensive and if it really is free then people will go and use 77 00:04:05,960 --> 00:04:10,120 treatments they do not value all that much and would be willing 78 00:04:10,120 --> 00:04:13,680 to go without without actually feeling all that bad about it. 79 00:04:15,400 --> 00:04:19,640 Is it fair to summarize social desirability bias as when the 80 00:04:19,640 --> 00:04:22,880 truth sounds bad, people lie? Yeah, totally. 81 00:04:23,040 --> 00:04:24,320 It's a good one. Sentence summary. 82 00:04:24,680 --> 00:04:30,920 So I want to give you a genuine statement that I, in the last 83 00:04:30,920 --> 00:04:33,800 week or so since I've been reading the book, have really 84 00:04:33,800 --> 00:04:36,800 wanted to say to people, but it's not professional. 85 00:04:37,120 --> 00:04:40,440 I want to see if you could help me find a way to say this 86 00:04:40,440 --> 00:04:43,240 without lying. I'm going to New York and a 87 00:04:43,240 --> 00:04:48,000 relative said, oh, I'd love for you to come and visit me. 88 00:04:48,000 --> 00:04:50,200 This guy's been disrespecting me for 10 years. 89 00:04:50,200 --> 00:04:53,040 And I said I don't want, I don't want to see you when I'm in 90 00:04:53,040 --> 00:04:55,720 town. Is there a way I could say that 91 00:04:55,960 --> 00:05:01,360 when without sounding terrible? I'd probably go with, oh, we'll 92 00:05:01,360 --> 00:05:04,640 see. Literally true. 93 00:05:05,720 --> 00:05:06,720 Yeah. By the way, when you asked the 94 00:05:06,720 --> 00:05:08,400 first question about the free lunch, I thought you were going 95 00:05:08,400 --> 00:05:09,760 to go in a totally different direction. 96 00:05:09,760 --> 00:05:12,640 I thought it was going to be. We all know there's no such 97 00:05:12,640 --> 00:05:16,320 thing as a free lunch. So how can all of these self 98 00:05:16,320 --> 00:05:19,560 help ideas be actually work? What am I giving up? 99 00:05:19,560 --> 00:05:23,480 And my answer was going to be, you know, normally there's not 100 00:05:23,480 --> 00:05:25,720 such a thing as a free lunch, but actually there's a bunch of 101 00:05:25,720 --> 00:05:27,320 free lunches. There's just a lot of things 102 00:05:27,320 --> 00:05:30,120 that people are doing where they are wasting resources. 103 00:05:30,120 --> 00:05:32,520 And if they would just change the way that they're doing, they 104 00:05:32,520 --> 00:05:35,760 could actually have a better life without have without giving 105 00:05:35,760 --> 00:05:38,760 anything else up. I mean like the simplest example 106 00:05:38,760 --> 00:05:42,840 from the first day of econ is if you're sitting in a bad movie, 107 00:05:42,840 --> 00:05:45,440 just get up and walk out. That's a free lunch. 108 00:05:45,440 --> 00:05:49,600 You get your time back and you avoid watching a movie you don't 109 00:05:49,600 --> 00:05:52,920 even like. So there are in fact free 110 00:05:52,920 --> 00:05:56,280 lunches in the world while economist main job is telling 111 00:05:56,280 --> 00:05:59,520 people that they don't exist. That's an overstatement. 112 00:05:59,520 --> 00:06:03,920 It's poetic license. The real truth is usually people 113 00:06:03,920 --> 00:06:06,160 are not correct to think that are round. 114 00:06:06,160 --> 00:06:08,360 But on the other hand, if you keep your eyes open, you will 115 00:06:08,360 --> 00:06:12,560 find all kinds of opportunities to get a better life without 116 00:06:12,560 --> 00:06:16,120 having to give up anything other than you. 117 00:06:16,760 --> 00:06:20,480 You might say, other than the pride of admitting that up till 118 00:06:20,480 --> 00:06:22,160 that point you've been making a mistake. 119 00:06:23,160 --> 00:06:27,080 That is a big one though. Isn't that a big opportunity 120 00:06:27,080 --> 00:06:30,640 cost and risk to your ego and reputation that you have to 121 00:06:30,640 --> 00:06:31,520 bear? So it's. 122 00:06:31,560 --> 00:06:33,160 Still not the way that I put it is. 123 00:06:33,240 --> 00:06:36,040 Look, do you, don't you want to be the kind of person that 124 00:06:36,200 --> 00:06:38,200 starts being right when you learn something? 125 00:06:38,760 --> 00:06:45,600 And so I consider it very pro ego to to be the kind of person 126 00:06:45,600 --> 00:06:49,560 who says I'm figured out another way to make things better. 127 00:06:49,760 --> 00:06:52,640 I'm just so good at this. Wow, I found another 128 00:06:52,640 --> 00:06:56,840 improvement, another free lunch. Man, I'm great at finding these 129 00:06:56,840 --> 00:06:59,040 free lunches. And what a fool I would be not 130 00:06:59,040 --> 00:07:01,600 to take advantage of everything I'm figuring out because it's 131 00:07:01,600 --> 00:07:04,640 just so awesome. So yes, a lot of people are held 132 00:07:04,640 --> 00:07:09,400 back by their foolish pride. This is actually the real 133 00:07:09,400 --> 00:07:13,720 meaning of Emerson's quote. A foolish consistency is the 134 00:07:13,720 --> 00:07:16,520 hobgoblin of little minds. He didn't say consistency, he 135 00:07:16,520 --> 00:07:20,440 said a foolish consistency. And by that he meant continuing 136 00:07:20,440 --> 00:07:22,960 to do things the way you did them in the past, even though 137 00:07:22,960 --> 00:07:25,000 you have discovered that you've been making a mistake. 138 00:07:26,680 --> 00:07:30,560 Very nice. OK, I got a few more social 139 00:07:30,560 --> 00:07:36,520 desirability ones for you. Co worker asks you out to dinner 140 00:07:36,560 --> 00:07:39,560 and you just want to say no I don't want to meet you for 141 00:07:39,560 --> 00:07:41,520 dinner. Not because I'm busy, I don't 142 00:07:41,520 --> 00:07:44,080 enjoy your company. What's a nice way to say that? 143 00:07:46,480 --> 00:07:51,040 Let's see. I mean, you're depending upon 144 00:07:51,040 --> 00:07:52,280 you. So of course a lot of times it's 145 00:07:52,280 --> 00:07:54,200 vague and then you can just go, but you know, the timing is 146 00:07:54,200 --> 00:07:55,600 vague and then you say, oh, we'll see. 147 00:07:56,720 --> 00:08:00,640 So there's that one there. There's a oh, not tonight, 148 00:08:01,880 --> 00:08:04,080 right? Which is totally true, yes. 149 00:08:04,080 --> 00:08:08,040 I'm not doing it tonight. And then actually one of the 150 00:08:08,040 --> 00:08:11,400 better parts of lightness norms is after you get a couple, not 151 00:08:11,400 --> 00:08:13,360 tonight. It is considered rude to keep 152 00:08:13,360 --> 00:08:15,680 asking. So I think I would go with that. 153 00:08:15,680 --> 00:08:20,520 Not tonight. Finally, if someone says I did 154 00:08:20,520 --> 00:08:24,920 not like that book you wrote or recommended to me, what is a 155 00:08:25,240 --> 00:08:28,440 polite way to say it without lying? 156 00:08:28,440 --> 00:08:30,360 This is in reference to I'm sorry I didn't say. 157 00:08:30,680 --> 00:08:34,200 There is a chapter where you talk about the importance of 158 00:08:34,360 --> 00:08:38,480 using the word can't with care. Don't say, oh, I can't make it. 159 00:08:39,120 --> 00:08:42,600 You don't have access to a car, your legs are broken, you can't 160 00:08:42,600 --> 00:08:45,600 travel means you have different priorities and that's fine. 161 00:08:45,880 --> 00:08:48,480 But there is it. It is a little annoying when 162 00:08:48,480 --> 00:08:52,640 people say I cannot do something when they do similar things. 163 00:08:52,640 --> 00:08:55,400 So that's why we come up with this. 164 00:08:55,560 --> 00:08:59,080 What do you say when you don't like the book that someone wrote 165 00:08:59,080 --> 00:09:02,320 or recommended to you? Yeah, I mean, the easiest thing 166 00:09:02,320 --> 00:09:06,440 is of course not to say anything at all. 167 00:09:07,800 --> 00:09:11,880 Silence is not a lie. If the person does keep pushing, 168 00:09:12,280 --> 00:09:24,400 then I would probably just say switch from words to noises. 169 00:09:25,600 --> 00:09:29,640 The reason that I didn't once have a colleague who just kept 170 00:09:29,640 --> 00:09:34,200 hassling me. And finally, I did say like, in 171 00:09:34,200 --> 00:09:35,840 particular just to at least try it. 172 00:09:36,040 --> 00:09:38,520 And and I just say, yeah, it's not my cup of tea. 173 00:09:41,680 --> 00:09:44,120 Like, like you still got quite, quite angry. 174 00:09:44,960 --> 00:09:49,200 I mean, my honest reaction was your book is an insult to me 175 00:09:49,720 --> 00:09:52,880 after talking to you about how wrong what you're saying is. 176 00:09:52,880 --> 00:09:56,160 For 10 years you showed no sign that you would ever listen to a 177 00:09:56,160 --> 00:09:59,640 word I had said. It wasn't even like you had some 178 00:09:59,640 --> 00:10:03,040 reply to my criticism. You just acted like I hadn't 179 00:10:03,040 --> 00:10:07,520 even spoken to you. That is a terrible affront to my 180 00:10:07,520 --> 00:10:09,720 personage. That's kind of what I was 181 00:10:09,720 --> 00:10:12,480 feeling, but I just went with not my cup of tea. 182 00:10:13,760 --> 00:10:18,080 Well, the the reason I ask is there is a great Thomas old 183 00:10:18,080 --> 00:10:20,920 quote of if you want to help people, tell them the truth, If 184 00:10:20,920 --> 00:10:23,280 you want to make yourself feel good, tell them what they want 185 00:10:23,280 --> 00:10:26,680 to hear. And sometimes I feel like, you 186 00:10:26,680 --> 00:10:29,760 know, I really wish someone would have told me the truth a 187 00:10:29,760 --> 00:10:32,000 lot earlier in life. We're going to get into my 188 00:10:32,000 --> 00:10:37,240 specific example, but don't you ever feel like, gosh, I could 189 00:10:37,240 --> 00:10:40,800 really help this person, but in your case, you had helped him 190 00:10:40,800 --> 00:10:43,320 for 10 years. Sometimes I feel like it's 191 00:10:43,360 --> 00:10:48,280 better to be the voice of reason to bring a horse to water, so to 192 00:10:48,280 --> 00:10:51,080 speak. Yeah, you totally. 193 00:10:51,080 --> 00:10:54,800 So like as a parent, you are very mindful of I don't want to 194 00:10:54,800 --> 00:10:58,040 crush this child, I don't want to hurt them so much. 195 00:10:58,360 --> 00:11:02,800 And then it's a question of how can I be honest without doing 196 00:11:03,000 --> 00:11:06,040 grave psychological harm to the child? 197 00:11:06,760 --> 00:11:11,440 I think it's almost all in tone. It's almost all in tone. 198 00:11:11,520 --> 00:11:13,840 It's all in tone. Good lesson. 199 00:11:14,400 --> 00:11:16,760 Almost all you know, there's, there's more to it than that. 200 00:11:17,120 --> 00:11:20,200 You know, like another thing is positive framing of saying let's 201 00:11:20,200 --> 00:11:23,000 focus on what you are good at. Since you're not going to be a 202 00:11:23,000 --> 00:11:25,240 mass, you're not going to be a mass * all right. 203 00:11:25,240 --> 00:11:27,240 So like let's, you know, these are the things that you are 204 00:11:27,240 --> 00:11:29,160 really good at. That's another good approach. 205 00:11:29,160 --> 00:11:34,480 But a lot of it is just not saying like you suck at math, 206 00:11:36,040 --> 00:11:38,680 but rather this isn't your strength. 207 00:11:39,360 --> 00:11:41,440 This isn't your strength. That's a good one. 208 00:11:41,600 --> 00:11:45,520 Division of Labor. What did Robin Hanson teach you 209 00:11:45,520 --> 00:11:48,760 about the medical field? One of your citations is an 210 00:11:48,760 --> 00:11:52,600 article from him Cut Medicine in Half, not asking you to remember 211 00:11:52,600 --> 00:11:54,760 the specifics. What is the general lesson you 212 00:11:54,760 --> 00:11:56,520 learned from Robin Hanson about the medical? 213 00:11:56,520 --> 00:12:00,080 Field Before I met Robin, I just took for granted the 214 00:12:00,080 --> 00:12:03,000 conventional view that a large majority of the rise in life 215 00:12:03,000 --> 00:12:07,160 expectancy and human health over the last century is due to 216 00:12:07,160 --> 00:12:11,840 better medical care. What Robin did is showed me that 217 00:12:12,560 --> 00:12:16,400 almost no one who has looked at the data seriously will agree 218 00:12:16,400 --> 00:12:18,200 with that. There's basically debate between 219 00:12:18,200 --> 00:12:22,360 people saying it's a modest effect and people saying it's 220 00:12:22,360 --> 00:12:24,600 hard even to find a modest effect. 221 00:12:25,200 --> 00:12:27,360 It is puzzling as to what's going on. 222 00:12:27,360 --> 00:12:30,120 Like, how could that really be? But just to give you a feel for 223 00:12:30,120 --> 00:12:34,480 what kind of evidence that there is, early on people noticed, you 224 00:12:34,480 --> 00:12:37,160 know, like that richer people live longer. 225 00:12:37,480 --> 00:12:40,200 All right. And once modern medicine started 226 00:12:40,200 --> 00:12:44,160 to be available, the they very quickly said, OK, the reason has 227 00:12:44,160 --> 00:12:47,280 got to be that richer people have better access to modern 228 00:12:47,280 --> 00:12:49,760 medicine. But then there were some early 229 00:12:50,040 --> 00:12:52,920 natural experiments, like for example, I think early on in the 230 00:12:52,920 --> 00:12:55,800 British hill service, the high ranks got medical care provided 231 00:12:55,800 --> 00:12:57,120 as part of their compensation package. 232 00:12:57,120 --> 00:12:59,600 The low ranks didn't. And then they say, OK, while 233 00:12:59,600 --> 00:13:01,120 they're living longer, we know why. 234 00:13:01,440 --> 00:13:03,920 Then they extended this free medical care to everyone in the 235 00:13:03,920 --> 00:13:07,120 British civil service and the gap in life expectancy, if I 236 00:13:07,120 --> 00:13:12,520 recall, did not shrink at all. And they're like, that's 237 00:13:12,520 --> 00:13:15,200 strange. How could it not shrink at all? 238 00:13:15,800 --> 00:13:19,240 Then we have seen very similar things where with the extension 239 00:13:19,240 --> 00:13:22,760 of socialized medicine, universal healthcare in general, 240 00:13:22,760 --> 00:13:26,280 we have not seen much of A shrinkage, if any shrinkage in 241 00:13:26,280 --> 00:13:28,800 the life expectancy gap between rich and poor. 242 00:13:29,320 --> 00:13:32,680 So, you know, it says, well, then what else could it be? 243 00:13:33,840 --> 00:13:37,520 And then you start actually really thinking, right, And 244 00:13:37,520 --> 00:13:40,320 there's things like, well, there's, you know, better access 245 00:13:40,320 --> 00:13:43,160 to food and sanitation. And then it's like, huh. 246 00:13:43,160 --> 00:13:46,640 Yeah. But when did when did access to 247 00:13:46,640 --> 00:13:49,880 food become the, like, cease to become an important difference 248 00:13:49,880 --> 00:13:52,320 in rich and poor? And then when you start pushing 249 00:13:52,320 --> 00:13:55,200 further, it's like, well, let's go into the real socially 250 00:13:55,200 --> 00:13:58,640 undesirable stories, like more responsible behavior. 251 00:13:59,640 --> 00:14:05,680 Oh, yeah, that's a big one. So just taking care of yourself. 252 00:14:05,680 --> 00:14:10,400 So diet and exercise just avoiding violence for males 253 00:14:10,400 --> 00:14:12,400 turns out to be a notable factor. 254 00:14:12,680 --> 00:14:14,560 You know, drug and alcohol consumption. 255 00:14:15,120 --> 00:14:19,960 If I remember correctly, the the gap in life expectancy between 256 00:14:19,960 --> 00:14:23,280 rich and poor and the US has actually risen a lot in recent 257 00:14:23,280 --> 00:14:27,360 years, probably driven by opioids and other deaths to 258 00:14:27,360 --> 00:14:29,440 despair. Kind of stuff that you'll get 259 00:14:29,440 --> 00:14:35,840 from Case and Deaton. On page 19, you discuss your 260 00:14:35,840 --> 00:14:40,040 experiences with doctors. I'm curious, when we're trying 261 00:14:40,040 --> 00:14:46,400 to really develop a hypothesis or a valid intellectual position 262 00:14:46,640 --> 00:14:52,000 on a person or field group of people, how can we differentiate 263 00:14:52,000 --> 00:14:55,000 between anecdotal evidence and solid theories? 264 00:14:56,360 --> 00:15:00,000 Yeah, that's a good question. And what I would say is 265 00:15:00,080 --> 00:15:02,520 literally, it's pretty easy. It's like anecdotes are like 266 00:15:02,640 --> 00:15:05,280 different stories than things that you've seen with your own 267 00:15:05,280 --> 00:15:07,400 eyes. And then we, you know, 268 00:15:07,440 --> 00:15:11,040 systematic evidence is where we've got nationally 269 00:15:11,080 --> 00:15:14,360 representative statistics. But a lot of the thing that I've 270 00:15:14,360 --> 00:15:19,240 been telling people is that in many ways, first hand experience 271 00:15:19,240 --> 00:15:22,720 is a more reliable guide to how the real world works than the 272 00:15:22,720 --> 00:15:27,680 media 'cause the media is really taking the most exaggerated, 273 00:15:27,680 --> 00:15:30,920 unrepresentative, but dramatic incidents and then trying to 274 00:15:30,920 --> 00:15:32,960 make everyone think and talk about them all the time. 275 00:15:33,360 --> 00:15:36,280 So while yes, it is good to check your first hand experience 276 00:15:36,280 --> 00:15:38,680 against nationally representative statistics, and 277 00:15:38,680 --> 00:15:42,840 yet first hand experience is overall quite reliable, 278 00:15:43,480 --> 00:15:47,880 especially compared to the news Things like, so you're worried 279 00:15:47,880 --> 00:15:51,240 about terrorism, right? How many cases of terrorism is 280 00:15:51,240 --> 00:15:52,160 you? Have you ever witnessed with 281 00:15:52,160 --> 00:15:56,880 your own eyes? 0 Right now, if you go to the 282 00:15:56,880 --> 00:16:00,080 data, you'll find that your experience is actually quite 283 00:16:00,120 --> 00:16:03,000 normal because hardly anyone's experienced any of this stuff. 284 00:16:03,440 --> 00:16:05,840 And the reason why the media is talking about it is not because 285 00:16:05,840 --> 00:16:07,760 it is something that a reasonable person would ever 286 00:16:07,760 --> 00:16:11,840 worry about, but rather because they are terrifying people in 287 00:16:11,840 --> 00:16:19,680 order to get clicks. When it comes to doctors, you 288 00:16:19,680 --> 00:16:24,560 had said that doctors specialize in finding a name for the thing 289 00:16:24,560 --> 00:16:26,680 you have and costing tons of money. 290 00:16:27,600 --> 00:16:29,720 This was very shocking to me as well. 291 00:16:30,280 --> 00:16:33,280 I thought, well, doctors, this is a scientific it's not like, 292 00:16:33,280 --> 00:16:35,440 you know, politics where there's opinions. 293 00:16:35,680 --> 00:16:39,360 This is an objective field. Why is it that doctors have 294 00:16:39,360 --> 00:16:44,080 completely succumbed to, I mean, maybe the same exact thing that 295 00:16:44,360 --> 00:16:46,360 everyone else does? What was it about the medical 296 00:16:46,360 --> 00:16:48,000 field that made you start questioning it? 297 00:16:50,800 --> 00:16:54,360 So like, Robin was the one that got me really thinking about it 298 00:16:54,360 --> 00:16:58,240 seriously because he was able to point me to actual research on 299 00:16:58,520 --> 00:17:01,840 what in fact is the share of the rise in human health is 300 00:17:01,840 --> 00:17:04,400 attributable medicine. And at minimum it's grossly 301 00:17:04,400 --> 00:17:07,079 overstated. It's nowhere close to 100%. 302 00:17:08,079 --> 00:17:10,880 But then once he had me thinking, I did start paying 303 00:17:10,880 --> 00:17:13,800 more attention, just realizing a lot of what doctors were saying 304 00:17:14,119 --> 00:17:18,240 was either stuff that was just obvious, like, you should lose 305 00:17:18,240 --> 00:17:20,480 weight. It's like, did you need to go to 306 00:17:20,480 --> 00:17:23,079 medical school to know something like that? 307 00:17:23,599 --> 00:17:28,319 Or just repeating popular nostrums, like you should be 308 00:17:28,319 --> 00:17:31,200 eating more vegetables. Like, well, so do you read 309 00:17:31,200 --> 00:17:34,120 research on the effect of diet on human health? 310 00:17:34,120 --> 00:17:38,000 And do you actually know how hard it would be to even know 311 00:17:38,000 --> 00:17:42,680 that thing, since we can't do experiments on human beings for 312 00:17:42,680 --> 00:17:45,880 both practical and legal reasons, You can't go and 313 00:17:45,880 --> 00:17:49,200 actually make one person have a diet for 30 years and have 314 00:17:49,200 --> 00:17:51,480 another one do a different diet and then compare the two. 315 00:17:53,240 --> 00:17:56,480 So there's a lot of that. Let's see, I'll be in the. 316 00:17:56,480 --> 00:17:59,760 And also, I did have a few unpleasant problems, usually 317 00:17:59,760 --> 00:18:02,360 involving pain. And I noticed that doctors just 318 00:18:02,360 --> 00:18:05,200 didn't really have much of anything for me other than a 319 00:18:05,200 --> 00:18:06,600 name. So my feet hurt. 320 00:18:06,600 --> 00:18:09,200 Wow, that's plantar fasciitis. All right, great. 321 00:18:09,200 --> 00:18:12,160 Now what can we do about it? I did have one Doctor Who went 322 00:18:12,160 --> 00:18:14,960 and gave me a prescription strength painkiller and when I 323 00:18:14,960 --> 00:18:18,320 read the actual chemical formula I realized it was equivalent to 324 00:18:18,320 --> 00:18:25,160 two non prescription pills. So like, yeah, that was quite 325 00:18:25,160 --> 00:18:27,880 sleazy on your part. Now, to be clear, I mean, the 326 00:18:27,880 --> 00:18:31,520 thing about doctors is that the range of what they do is 327 00:18:32,080 --> 00:18:35,040 shocking. So doctors do everything from 328 00:18:35,040 --> 00:18:39,080 the magic of cutting open a woman with twins that are not in 329 00:18:39,080 --> 00:18:43,080 the correct position, opening her up, getting the babies out, 330 00:18:43,280 --> 00:18:45,160 stitching her up, and she's fine. 331 00:18:45,480 --> 00:18:47,440 So I saw that with my own eyes, too. 332 00:18:47,440 --> 00:18:51,320 It's like, all right, there's some doctors who can do amazing 333 00:18:51,320 --> 00:18:56,320 things where it's like, I just don't think that things would 334 00:18:56,320 --> 00:18:58,840 have worked out otherwise. At least it's like really high 335 00:18:58,840 --> 00:19:00,600 risk. But on the other hand, there are 336 00:19:00,600 --> 00:19:04,480 doctors who basically just go and tell you to eat vegetables 337 00:19:04,480 --> 00:19:07,000 and don't be fat, and that's what you're paying for. 338 00:19:07,400 --> 00:19:09,680 And then there's the ones that just give you names for your 339 00:19:09,680 --> 00:19:13,720 problems without having any actual practical remedy for your 340 00:19:13,720 --> 00:19:16,280 problems. Although I think the main point 341 00:19:16,280 --> 00:19:19,480 of that chapter in particular was, well, I found doctors to be 342 00:19:19,480 --> 00:19:22,840 useless for pain. I found paying very careful 343 00:19:22,840 --> 00:19:26,480 attention to my behavior and what I'm doing to aggravate the 344 00:19:26,600 --> 00:19:31,160 pain to be highly helpful. So, and I have had some crazy, 345 00:19:31,160 --> 00:19:35,080 horrible amounts of pain without any obvious cause. 346 00:19:35,080 --> 00:19:38,520 But I have found that just paying very close attention to 347 00:19:38,520 --> 00:19:41,000 exactly what I'm doing, what makes the pain go up and down, 348 00:19:41,000 --> 00:19:44,920 and then avoiding doing those things to be really helpful. 349 00:19:44,920 --> 00:19:47,880 And you know, I'll say like I've cured 99% of my problems and you 350 00:19:47,880 --> 00:19:51,080 knock on wood. Yes, very nice. 351 00:19:51,320 --> 00:19:55,800 The reason that I have become a little obsessed with this is 352 00:19:55,800 --> 00:20:00,880 this is the first time that you and I ever had a conversation. 353 00:20:01,160 --> 00:20:05,880 Now you will see this is Doctor Kaplan and I discussing open 354 00:20:05,880 --> 00:20:08,520 borders, the science and ethics of immigration. 355 00:20:08,880 --> 00:20:13,560 I weighed this much. At one point I was 290 lbs and I 356 00:20:13,560 --> 00:20:17,600 was listening to doctors very closely, obeying what is 357 00:20:17,600 --> 00:20:20,640 referred to as the USDA food pyramid. 358 00:20:21,000 --> 00:20:26,440 That is what got me to that level, listening to doctors. 359 00:20:26,680 --> 00:20:29,840 I also listened to a Doctor Who was kind enough to give me an 360 00:20:29,840 --> 00:20:33,640 Adderall prescription, which of course turned me into a drug 361 00:20:33,640 --> 00:20:35,720 addict for four years. Again, my fault. 362 00:20:35,720 --> 00:20:38,800 However, they're the ones with the fancy degrees you'd think 363 00:20:38,880 --> 00:20:40,880 might be a little more productive. 364 00:20:41,080 --> 00:20:45,720 So two of the worst things that I've ever had were the result of 365 00:20:45,720 --> 00:20:49,320 listening to people who I'm told I should blindly obey. 366 00:20:49,520 --> 00:20:52,320 That's why I appreciated that section so much. 367 00:20:52,320 --> 00:20:53,880 Didn't. Those food pyramid doctors tell 368 00:20:53,880 --> 00:20:55,400 you to reduce your calories at least. 369 00:20:56,440 --> 00:21:01,480 They said you could eat, you should eat less and exercise. 370 00:21:01,720 --> 00:21:06,200 The problem with this is it is the equivalent of telling drug 371 00:21:06,200 --> 00:21:09,640 addicts and Alcoholics the solution is to stop using drugs, 372 00:21:09,720 --> 00:21:13,080 stop using alcohol, you're a gambler, stop gambling. 373 00:21:13,400 --> 00:21:15,920 Yes, technically it's a a solution. 374 00:21:16,200 --> 00:21:20,400 However, it's not within a foreseeable reach of a person 375 00:21:20,400 --> 00:21:23,960 who's so deep into something that's really difficult to get 376 00:21:23,960 --> 00:21:25,600 out of. It's the. 377 00:21:26,320 --> 00:21:31,160 I would start with all right, cut back your calories 5%. 5% 378 00:21:31,200 --> 00:21:34,800 you know I even I was eating so much bread and pasta not knowing 379 00:21:34,800 --> 00:21:36,320 that bread and pasta made me fat. 380 00:21:36,320 --> 00:21:38,560 I thought it was only soda and sweets or something. 381 00:21:40,360 --> 00:21:44,200 I was working a job at Walmart where I was walking 8 hours a 382 00:21:44,200 --> 00:21:47,080 day so I was getting plenty of exercise. 383 00:21:47,360 --> 00:21:49,720 I'd never really cut back on the food, but when you're always 384 00:21:49,720 --> 00:21:51,120 hungry you don't know what to do. 385 00:21:51,400 --> 00:21:54,600 And then I found the carnivore diet just on YouTube. 386 00:21:54,960 --> 00:22:01,480 YouTube gave me more of a more of a health education then all 387 00:22:01,480 --> 00:22:03,160 the doctors I spoke with and I went. 388 00:22:03,200 --> 00:22:04,560 Hey, you did your own research, Keith. 389 00:22:05,800 --> 00:22:10,640 Literally it was just watching a ton of YouTube videos, taking 390 00:22:10,640 --> 00:22:13,520 notes and saying what are the correlations between all these 391 00:22:13,520 --> 00:22:16,480 video recommendations. Once I heard something about 10 392 00:22:16,480 --> 00:22:21,080 times, then I put a check next to it and that's what what what 393 00:22:21,080 --> 00:22:23,240 I came across. Yeah, the research word that I 394 00:22:23,240 --> 00:22:24,760 think you're looking for is satiation. 395 00:22:26,040 --> 00:22:29,600 Satiation. So basically there are diets 396 00:22:29,600 --> 00:22:31,760 with the same number of calories and yet some of them will just 397 00:22:31,760 --> 00:22:33,280 make you feel a lot more full than the others. 398 00:22:34,040 --> 00:22:37,720 So yeah, my friend Jim Schneider, who is a voracious 399 00:22:37,720 --> 00:22:41,000 reader and has a whole book on health economics called The 400 00:22:41,000 --> 00:22:43,760 Seven Deadly Sins. Anyway, one of the main things 401 00:22:43,760 --> 00:22:48,160 that you that is useful to learn about diet is calories are the 402 00:22:48,160 --> 00:22:50,880 crucial direct variable. But in terms of getting your 403 00:22:50,880 --> 00:22:53,280 calories under control, it is very helpful to go and find out 404 00:22:53,280 --> 00:22:55,680 what calories fill you up and which calories don't, because it 405 00:22:55,680 --> 00:22:58,440 is not the case that 1000 calories of every kind fill you 406 00:22:58,440 --> 00:23:02,000 up equally. And I think that's what's going 407 00:23:02,000 --> 00:23:04,240 on is that meat is actually very satiating. 408 00:23:04,800 --> 00:23:07,920 There's a bunch of other things though also, like a regular 409 00:23:07,920 --> 00:23:11,920 potato with no salt or butter is very satiating for calorie. 410 00:23:12,560 --> 00:23:16,600 It's carbs, but partly it's just so bland that you eat it and 411 00:23:16,600 --> 00:23:19,240 you're like, OK, I'm just don't feel like eating anymore if this 412 00:23:19,240 --> 00:23:24,200 is all I've got. Yes, I totally agree. 413 00:23:24,200 --> 00:23:28,240 Satiation, See, it's something I understood just with pattern 414 00:23:28,240 --> 00:23:30,120 recognition. I didn't really understand it 415 00:23:30,120 --> 00:23:32,360 intellectually, but that's my thing. 416 00:23:32,400 --> 00:23:36,800 OK, You talk about individual solutions versus social 417 00:23:37,400 --> 00:23:39,840 revolutions. In other words, when people look 418 00:23:39,840 --> 00:23:43,920 at a problem, poverty exists. Why is it that people are so 419 00:23:43,920 --> 00:23:46,920 addicted to focusing on social changes they could only 420 00:23:46,920 --> 00:23:50,520 microscopically have a differential effect on, and they 421 00:23:50,520 --> 00:23:53,720 seem almost allergic to solutions which are actually 422 00:23:53,720 --> 00:23:56,760 under their control? For example, whenever I hear 423 00:23:57,320 --> 00:24:00,560 society is racist and sexist and the poor just get poorer. 424 00:24:00,720 --> 00:24:04,040 So until we completely overthrow the system, there's nothing we 425 00:24:04,040 --> 00:24:07,160 can do in the interim. Right. 426 00:24:07,160 --> 00:24:09,200 I mean, fortunately I will say most people are not into 427 00:24:09,200 --> 00:24:11,880 revolution. That's a good news because 428 00:24:11,880 --> 00:24:15,360 revolutions almost always end in a horrifying bloodbath and 429 00:24:15,360 --> 00:24:19,440 things are get much worse still. What the inner psychology is, 430 00:24:20,160 --> 00:24:23,360 you know, a lot of it is the same impulse that you have with 431 00:24:23,360 --> 00:24:26,880 religion where you want to get some big world view and feel 432 00:24:26,880 --> 00:24:31,160 like that makes you important, feel like you got answers to the 433 00:24:31,160 --> 00:24:34,440 big questions. And so anytime someone has a 434 00:24:34,440 --> 00:24:40,480 solution of that kind, it does satisfy this desire to be at one 435 00:24:40,480 --> 00:24:44,400 with the universe in, in some sense, like I'm part of a great 436 00:24:44,400 --> 00:24:47,440 cause. Whereas when you talk about 437 00:24:47,440 --> 00:24:50,400 individual solutions, then that is engaging a very different 438 00:24:50,400 --> 00:24:53,800 mindset. It's one where it is demanding 439 00:24:53,800 --> 00:24:55,840 in a sense a lot more of you 'cause it's saying, look, 440 00:24:56,240 --> 00:24:59,560 repent, repent, you know, change what you're doing, right? 441 00:24:59,560 --> 00:25:03,760 Don't just go and say we need to have society change, which is 442 00:25:03,840 --> 00:25:06,240 pretty much equivalent to nothing's going to happen on 443 00:25:06,240 --> 00:25:08,640 your end. Rather, it puts the ball back in 444 00:25:08,640 --> 00:25:15,440 your court as to why there are so few people that are just 445 00:25:15,440 --> 00:25:17,760 focused primarily on individual solutions. 446 00:25:18,200 --> 00:25:20,840 Yeah, yeah. I think about the concluding 447 00:25:20,840 --> 00:25:23,760 speech of the movie Scent of a Woman, where Al Pacino just 448 00:25:23,760 --> 00:25:26,040 says, you know, like, like I always knew the right way, but 449 00:25:26,040 --> 00:25:30,680 it was too damn hard. It like it is hard in many ways 450 00:25:30,680 --> 00:25:36,000 to go and improve your behavior. And especially a lot of what has 451 00:25:36,000 --> 00:25:39,080 to happen with self help is you have to temporarily make your 452 00:25:39,080 --> 00:25:41,600 problem even worse or make your suffering even worse in order 453 00:25:41,600 --> 00:25:44,120 for it to get to get better. Think about someone who just has 454 00:25:44,120 --> 00:25:45,520 no friends and they're miserable. 455 00:25:46,040 --> 00:25:47,960 All right. And what is the advice? 456 00:25:47,960 --> 00:25:52,200 Like, you've got to go and risk rejection by trying to meet more 457 00:25:52,200 --> 00:25:54,000 people. It's like, I'm already really 458 00:25:54,000 --> 00:25:55,600 sad. I don't want to be really sad 459 00:25:55,600 --> 00:25:57,920 plus get rejected. So yeah, I'm sorry. 460 00:25:57,920 --> 00:26:00,520 There's no other path to something better. 461 00:26:01,000 --> 00:26:03,720 So there is that. Is that like a lot of times when 462 00:26:03,720 --> 00:26:05,920 someone has a big problem, things have to get worse before 463 00:26:05,920 --> 00:26:11,640 they get better? So when it comes to what can 464 00:26:11,800 --> 00:26:16,720 individuals do to increase their income, we can say, well, the 465 00:26:16,720 --> 00:26:19,240 state should be doing AB and C, OK. 466 00:26:19,680 --> 00:26:22,000 I'm sure they're going to get on top of it immediately. 467 00:26:22,200 --> 00:26:25,800 What is it that listeners can do today if they want to have an 468 00:26:25,800 --> 00:26:27,760 increased income? Right. 469 00:26:28,440 --> 00:26:29,840 All right. So I think in the book I've got 470 00:26:29,840 --> 00:26:32,600 a chapter on what's called the First Law of Wing Walking. 471 00:26:33,160 --> 00:26:36,680 This comes from the early days of aeronautics when acrobats 472 00:26:36,680 --> 00:26:40,120 would get on flying planes and do acrobats do acrobatics. 473 00:26:40,560 --> 00:26:44,000 The first law of wing walking is don't let go of what you're 474 00:26:44,000 --> 00:26:46,760 holding on to until you're holding on to something else 475 00:26:46,800 --> 00:26:50,240 first, right? This is a very important piece 476 00:26:50,240 --> 00:26:52,200 of advice for career advancement. 477 00:26:52,880 --> 00:26:55,600 Do not quit your job and try to find a better job. 478 00:26:55,600 --> 00:26:58,720 That is a bad idea. Instead, hold on to whatever 479 00:26:58,720 --> 00:27:02,400 your current job is, almost no matter how unsatisfactory it is, 480 00:27:02,680 --> 00:27:05,240 and then start looking around for something better. 481 00:27:05,600 --> 00:27:07,520 Often you can use the connections that you have on 482 00:27:07,520 --> 00:27:09,800 your job to find something better, but also just keep your 483 00:27:09,800 --> 00:27:12,520 eyes peeled. This isn't just something where 484 00:27:12,520 --> 00:27:16,920 you've got a safety net. It is also true and confirmed in 485 00:27:16,920 --> 00:27:20,400 a number of bodies of evidence, that employers prefer to hire 486 00:27:20,400 --> 00:27:24,800 the currently employed because they are nervous about possible 487 00:27:24,800 --> 00:27:28,160 problems with the unemployed. It's what economists call 488 00:27:28,160 --> 00:27:30,400 adverse selection. So yeah, so quitting your job 489 00:27:30,400 --> 00:27:32,320 and then trying to find something from scratch is just a 490 00:27:32,320 --> 00:27:34,840 bad idea. But also, you know, feeling 491 00:27:34,840 --> 00:27:36,360 sorry for yourself is a bad idea. 492 00:27:36,560 --> 00:27:39,520 Instead, be looking around now important to understand by the 493 00:27:39,520 --> 00:27:42,200 way, that there's a lot of ways to improve your job that don't 494 00:27:42,200 --> 00:27:44,160 mean your income goes up. You're just looking around for 495 00:27:44,160 --> 00:27:45,560 something that is a better match for you. 496 00:27:46,240 --> 00:27:51,080 One of my very favorite books for self help is called Why Men 497 00:27:51,080 --> 00:27:53,480 Earn More. It's a self help book for women 498 00:27:53,480 --> 00:27:55,640 about how to go and get a better job. 499 00:27:56,320 --> 00:27:59,400 What the book has is 25 different sacrifices that men 500 00:27:59,400 --> 00:28:01,760 make to get more money. Things like work the night 501 00:28:01,760 --> 00:28:05,320 shift, go and do a more dangerous job, work alone. 502 00:28:05,840 --> 00:28:07,920 All right. Now when I was reading it, 503 00:28:07,920 --> 00:28:10,560 though, I was realizing, sure, these are these are all good 504 00:28:10,560 --> 00:28:13,400 piece of advice for women about how to make more money, But it's 505 00:28:13,400 --> 00:28:16,680 also just as good advice for men to realize, hey, do you really 506 00:28:16,680 --> 00:28:20,040 want to go and have these jobs that you don't like in order 507 00:28:20,040 --> 00:28:22,600 just to get a bit more money? Maybe you should go and be more 508 00:28:22,600 --> 00:28:26,480 like women and choose jobs based upon satisfaction or personal 509 00:28:26,480 --> 00:28:28,440 satisfaction rather than income alone. 510 00:28:28,840 --> 00:28:32,800 So that is a standard thing for men to do is to heavily 511 00:28:32,800 --> 00:28:36,160 prioritize income. And I'd say that, at least for a 512 00:28:36,160 --> 00:28:42,240 lot of guys, that's a mistake. So more dangerous jobs being 513 00:28:42,240 --> 00:28:47,760 open to more opportunities in dangerous fields that explains 514 00:28:47,760 --> 00:28:51,840 the male female wage gap these. Explains a lot of it. 515 00:28:51,840 --> 00:28:55,640 These are 25 things that are characteristics of jobs that men 516 00:28:55,640 --> 00:28:59,320 do relative to women, and all of them do predict higher income 517 00:28:59,320 --> 00:29:03,760 for pretty obvious reasons. And what explains the Asian 518 00:29:03,760 --> 00:29:08,440 white income gap where Asians are at the top of the incomes? 519 00:29:08,440 --> 00:29:12,440 I think since 1969 Japanese Americans surpassed white 520 00:29:12,440 --> 00:29:14,200 Americans. Right. 521 00:29:14,560 --> 00:29:17,920 So in the data, we'll definitely see that just higher Asian 522 00:29:17,920 --> 00:29:22,360 education explains a lot of it. I, I'm not sure if it's actually 523 00:29:22,360 --> 00:29:25,880 been done, but it is that's related. 524 00:29:25,880 --> 00:29:28,440 Research has been done anyway, so a lot of it is also probably 525 00:29:28,440 --> 00:29:31,200 the Asians are more likely to do high earning majors like STEM. 526 00:29:32,480 --> 00:29:35,040 As to what else is going on, or alternately you could say yes, 527 00:29:35,040 --> 00:29:38,280 but what explains why they're getting more education or why 528 00:29:38,280 --> 00:29:41,720 they're focusing on STEM? Then I'd say there's two things. 529 00:29:41,720 --> 00:29:46,480 So one is there is good, though not bulletproof evidence that E 530 00:29:46,480 --> 00:29:49,080 Asians have moderately higher Iqs than whites. 531 00:29:49,520 --> 00:29:56,240 So that'll give them some boost. And then secondly, there is very 532 00:29:56,720 --> 00:29:59,640 hard to deny observational evidence, although I don't know 533 00:29:59,640 --> 00:30:03,040 of any good data that confirms that, just that Asians have 534 00:30:03,520 --> 00:30:05,200 markedly higher conscientiousness. 535 00:30:05,200 --> 00:30:08,000 They just have better worth that work ethics more focused. 536 00:30:08,720 --> 00:30:10,680 They're just willing to put up with more boredom. 537 00:30:10,680 --> 00:30:14,320 So I mean, I get like, I guess I would say that, you know, the 538 00:30:14,320 --> 00:30:17,240 kind of evidence that I would focus on just to show that 539 00:30:17,480 --> 00:30:21,640 Asians do do in fact have higher conscientiousness would just be 540 00:30:21,640 --> 00:30:24,640 behavioral saying things like Asians are a lot less likely to 541 00:30:24,640 --> 00:30:27,080 have non marital births. Asians are a lot less likely 542 00:30:27,080 --> 00:30:29,560 lesion males are a lot less likely to be out of the labor 543 00:30:29,560 --> 00:30:33,400 force. Asians are less likely to go and 544 00:30:33,400 --> 00:30:35,560 have serious substance abuse problems. 545 00:30:36,920 --> 00:30:39,600 So I mean, those are all in a sense, you could say, well, 546 00:30:39,600 --> 00:30:42,360 that's kind of circular. Like I don't think it's that 547 00:30:42,360 --> 00:30:44,440 circular. It's just saying that these are 548 00:30:44,440 --> 00:30:49,640 things where it's very easy to do it or not do it based upon 549 00:30:49,640 --> 00:30:51,520 just what your internal preferences are. 550 00:30:51,920 --> 00:30:55,200 So I mean, I say it's no more circular than saying that if you 551 00:30:55,200 --> 00:30:58,360 want to see whether it will like what people's preferences and 552 00:30:58,360 --> 00:31:00,640 food are, look at what they eat at a buffet, right? 553 00:31:02,400 --> 00:31:06,240 Because that's where all options are equal of the same price. 554 00:31:06,240 --> 00:31:08,920 And then say, what did you put on your plate and how high did 555 00:31:08,920 --> 00:31:10,240 you stack the food on that plate? 556 00:31:11,600 --> 00:31:15,640 Yeah, I went to three colleges in Arizona and Arizona. 557 00:31:15,640 --> 00:31:19,040 Maybe in the at the college level there's a little more, 558 00:31:19,200 --> 00:31:25,680 maybe 15% of the students are Asian, but 95% of the library 559 00:31:25,840 --> 00:31:29,560 was Asian. So it's definitely behavioral. 560 00:31:30,600 --> 00:31:33,560 OK, two more things. What I've noticed, but I have 561 00:31:33,560 --> 00:31:36,640 very limited knowledge in this area, is the two things that 562 00:31:36,640 --> 00:31:39,560 I've seen people do to increase their income without having to 563 00:31:39,560 --> 00:31:42,080 get a new job is show up on time. 564 00:31:42,360 --> 00:31:46,720 Because people not showing up was the biggest issue in my last 565 00:31:46,720 --> 00:31:51,840 two jobs #1 cause of getting fired and requesting training. 566 00:31:52,200 --> 00:31:56,040 There are people who don't know that if you request training, 567 00:31:56,200 --> 00:31:59,840 there are opportunities for you to get more income at your 568 00:32:00,080 --> 00:32:05,720 current job. Is that just racist patriarchy 569 00:32:05,720 --> 00:32:08,760 of me to think that those two possibilities are within our 570 00:32:08,760 --> 00:32:10,840 reach? Or is that really something we 571 00:32:10,840 --> 00:32:14,000 can do? Seems extremely sensible and I 572 00:32:14,000 --> 00:32:16,200 would add make friends with the boss. 573 00:32:16,640 --> 00:32:19,960 Make friends with the boss. Which you might say, so it's 574 00:32:19,960 --> 00:32:22,840 just trying to appeal. Nepotism was like, no, because 575 00:32:23,560 --> 00:32:26,400 the a crucial part of making friends with the boss is to be a 576 00:32:26,400 --> 00:32:30,400 good employee, to try to help them do their job. 577 00:32:30,400 --> 00:32:33,120 Because the life of a boss is actually not easy. 578 00:32:33,560 --> 00:32:38,440 They are balancing a lot of complaints and back talk and 579 00:32:38,440 --> 00:32:41,000 just difficulty with figuring out where to place people. 580 00:32:41,000 --> 00:32:44,240 And if you have a can do attitude and clearly indicate 581 00:32:44,240 --> 00:32:46,880 you were there to help, that almost instantly makes you their 582 00:32:46,880 --> 00:32:51,040 friend. Yeah, I remember my first job 583 00:32:51,040 --> 00:32:54,440 when I was 14. I was a landscaper, and my 584 00:32:54,440 --> 00:32:56,080 friend and I started our own business. 585 00:32:56,080 --> 00:32:58,160 And I said, finally, we're our own boss. 586 00:32:58,160 --> 00:33:01,080 We just call the shots. All the power is ours. 587 00:33:01,480 --> 00:33:04,960 Well, every customer had competing interests, and the 588 00:33:04,960 --> 00:33:07,560 customers were the bosses. It was even worse. 589 00:33:08,040 --> 00:33:12,880 I do not envy my boss at all. You say that kids are a 590 00:33:12,880 --> 00:33:13,920 consumer. Good. 591 00:33:14,080 --> 00:33:19,480 What does that mean? Means is that the key reason 592 00:33:19,480 --> 00:33:23,040 that people do have kids and that it makes sense to and then 593 00:33:23,040 --> 00:33:25,920 why you would want to have kids is that they're fun, they're 594 00:33:25,920 --> 00:33:29,120 companions, you do stuff with them right There is this long 595 00:33:29,120 --> 00:33:32,680 standing idea that maybe that's true now, but for most of human 596 00:33:32,680 --> 00:33:35,600 history people had kids to get help on their farms. 597 00:33:36,800 --> 00:33:38,760 This argument really makes very little sense. 598 00:33:38,760 --> 00:33:42,760 Just imagine being a farmer in the year 1000 AD and it's like 599 00:33:42,760 --> 00:33:44,560 Gee, I really want to get some help on my farm. 600 00:33:44,960 --> 00:33:49,040 Plan A is to take some money and hire a competent adult to assist 601 00:33:49,040 --> 00:33:52,440 me. Plan B is to have a baby with my 602 00:33:52,440 --> 00:33:56,200 wife, which incapacitates her for a couple of years, and then 603 00:33:56,200 --> 00:33:59,960 go and feed and care for this baby for a bunch of more years 604 00:33:59,960 --> 00:34:02,080 when he is totally incapable of working. 605 00:34:02,280 --> 00:34:05,240 Then put all the effort into training the kid and then hope 606 00:34:05,240 --> 00:34:08,120 that when he gets old enough to actually do a good job, he 607 00:34:08,120 --> 00:34:12,199 doesn't just go off on his own. Obviously the first strategy is 608 00:34:12,199 --> 00:34:13,679 a way better way to get a worker. 609 00:34:13,960 --> 00:34:16,280 And it's like, so then why were people having kids? 610 00:34:16,560 --> 00:34:19,480 It's like the same reason why lions have kids, right? 611 00:34:19,800 --> 00:34:22,960 Evolution, evolution. They have kids because of 612 00:34:22,960 --> 00:34:26,120 evolution. Animals that just say of what 613 00:34:26,120 --> 00:34:31,560 use is this pauper to me? They don't have kids and then 614 00:34:31,560 --> 00:34:35,440 their genes die out. So human beings are evolved to, 615 00:34:35,440 --> 00:34:39,320 of course, want sex, but also in addition to want kids. 616 00:34:40,040 --> 00:34:42,960 Some people don't like kids very much, but a lot of other people 617 00:34:42,960 --> 00:34:45,600 do get great meaning and joy from their children. 618 00:34:46,000 --> 00:34:49,000 And my advice to people is if you're thinking about having 619 00:34:49,000 --> 00:34:52,679 kids, well, actually how it tried babysitting a kid and meet 620 00:34:52,679 --> 00:34:55,320 some kids. I mean, I don't mean I am amazed 621 00:34:55,320 --> 00:34:56,760 by people say, Oh, I want to have six kids. 622 00:34:56,760 --> 00:35:00,080 Like, do you know any kids? And like, no, well, I think you 623 00:35:00,080 --> 00:35:02,240 should meet some kids first. That would actually be a good 624 00:35:02,240 --> 00:35:04,320 idea. Now there is the old saying, 625 00:35:04,400 --> 00:35:07,120 which is completely true. It's different and better when 626 00:35:07,120 --> 00:35:11,760 they're your kids, but still I would say that first see how 627 00:35:11,760 --> 00:35:13,920 much you like taking care of somebody else's kids and then 628 00:35:13,920 --> 00:35:16,080 think, OK, my kids, I will enjoy them. 629 00:35:16,960 --> 00:35:20,240 Three out of throw on a scale of one to 10, like 3 better. 630 00:35:21,640 --> 00:35:24,320 So it's not like if you don't like other people's kids, you 631 00:35:24,320 --> 00:35:25,920 love your own. It's more like if you like other 632 00:35:25,920 --> 00:35:27,520 people's kids, you'll really like yours. 633 00:35:29,200 --> 00:35:34,320 There is an author, David Benatar, who says in a book 634 00:35:34,320 --> 00:35:38,000 better never to have been sentient beings are harmed when 635 00:35:38,000 --> 00:35:42,000 they are brought into existence and it is therefore wrong to 636 00:35:42,240 --> 00:35:44,840 procreate. This is his anti natalism 637 00:35:45,040 --> 00:35:47,520 philosophy. What do you have to say to this 638 00:35:47,520 --> 00:35:50,680 worldview? That people should not reproduce 639 00:35:50,840 --> 00:35:54,760 because human beings, while being terrible parasites to the 640 00:35:54,760 --> 00:35:58,800 environment, also experience pain and it's not worth bringing 641 00:35:58,800 --> 00:36:02,560 people into existence. Yeah, Benatar is an extremely 642 00:36:02,560 --> 00:36:06,080 smart, yet crazy and dogmatic philosopher, right? 643 00:36:06,240 --> 00:36:08,760 Just to understand where he's coming from, he actually does 644 00:36:08,760 --> 00:36:12,040 have the position that you should not consider net 645 00:36:12,040 --> 00:36:15,400 happiness. You should not go and say, I had 646 00:36:15,400 --> 00:36:16,920 some pain, but I also had some good stuff. 647 00:36:16,920 --> 00:36:19,360 The good stuff exceeded the bad stuff, therefore it's good to be 648 00:36:19,360 --> 00:36:21,760 alive. Instead, he wants to only look 649 00:36:21,760 --> 00:36:24,640 at gross suffering and say, if gross suffering is greater than 650 00:36:24,640 --> 00:36:27,000 0, then you're better off never existing. 651 00:36:27,000 --> 00:36:30,480 All right, there's a bit more to it than that, but that is a fund 652 00:36:30,520 --> 00:36:33,560 his fundamental premise. And I'll just say like, that is 653 00:36:33,640 --> 00:36:38,800 absolute madness to say, like, well, I stubbed my toe today, 654 00:36:38,800 --> 00:36:40,760 therefore it would have been better if the day hadn't 655 00:36:40,760 --> 00:36:44,160 happened. What the is wrong with you? 656 00:36:44,520 --> 00:36:47,960 Like, a lot of great stuff happened and the package is not 657 00:36:47,960 --> 00:36:49,440 good enough for you. Oh, no, you shouldn't judge the 658 00:36:49,440 --> 00:36:50,840 package. You should just judge the 659 00:36:50,840 --> 00:36:55,280 negative part of the package. It was like, yeah, that's 660 00:36:55,320 --> 00:37:01,160 absurd, Absolutely ridiculous. There's also an argument that 661 00:37:01,160 --> 00:37:05,000 Benatar has that. Well, look, you when you create 662 00:37:05,000 --> 00:37:08,720 a life, you are causing them to have some suffering and you 663 00:37:08,720 --> 00:37:11,160 never got their consent. All right. 664 00:37:11,160 --> 00:37:13,840 And again, this is part of the story about why you shouldn't do 665 00:37:13,840 --> 00:37:16,040 the net. It's like, look, I can't go up 666 00:37:16,040 --> 00:37:19,240 to you and then step on your foot and then give you $1000 and 667 00:37:19,240 --> 00:37:22,520 then and then walk away and say I'm I've done the right thing, 668 00:37:23,160 --> 00:37:24,920 right? So, and even though you value 669 00:37:24,920 --> 00:37:28,960 $1000 more, the story goes like I needed your consent to go and 670 00:37:28,960 --> 00:37:30,440 step in your foot. It's not enough to give you a 671 00:37:30,440 --> 00:37:33,560 package that is good. I also have to say, Keith, may I 672 00:37:33,560 --> 00:37:35,560 step on your foot in exchange for $1000? 673 00:37:36,000 --> 00:37:38,880 Obviously with a baby you can't get that consent. 674 00:37:38,880 --> 00:37:42,920 And therefore, again, the story is you are doing something that 675 00:37:42,920 --> 00:37:47,040 is morally wrong to hear. I am very happy to invoke the 676 00:37:47,040 --> 00:37:49,600 concept of hypothetical consent, Right? 677 00:37:49,600 --> 00:37:51,560 And it's like, well, but would you have consented? 678 00:37:52,040 --> 00:37:54,400 Now, there are important limits on hypothetical consent. 679 00:37:54,400 --> 00:37:58,800 Namely, if you can easily get real explicit consent, then get 680 00:37:58,800 --> 00:38:03,280 it. However, if for some reason it 681 00:38:03,280 --> 00:38:07,040 is just not doable, or the cost is enormous, then hypothetical 682 00:38:07,040 --> 00:38:10,680 consent makes a lot of sense. For example, if you see someone 683 00:38:10,680 --> 00:38:14,040 is passed out from a heart attack, you can't get their 684 00:38:14,040 --> 00:38:17,560 consent explicitly. And this is where it is totally 685 00:38:17,560 --> 00:38:21,240 reasonable to say it is super likely they would consent to 686 00:38:21,240 --> 00:38:23,880 being revived. Now if the person had a giant 687 00:38:23,880 --> 00:38:27,120 shirt on or you know, his shirt on with giant letter saying if I 688 00:38:27,120 --> 00:38:30,920 get a heart attack, absolutely do not revive me, then I would 689 00:38:30,920 --> 00:38:32,920 say all right, maybe there's an issue here. 690 00:38:32,920 --> 00:38:37,080 But otherwise, or if they had actually told you, if I ever get 691 00:38:37,080 --> 00:38:40,680 a heart attack I don't want to be revived, I refuse consent to 692 00:38:40,680 --> 00:38:43,080 revival, then there's a moral issue. 693 00:38:43,080 --> 00:38:47,080 But otherwise, no. And the same obviously goes for 694 00:38:47,080 --> 00:38:49,840 having babies. We can't get their consent 695 00:38:49,840 --> 00:38:53,960 before it happens, but we do know that almost everyone would 696 00:38:53,960 --> 00:38:55,720 get would give consent if they could. 697 00:38:55,720 --> 00:39:00,160 And that's plenty of moral justification for creating a 698 00:39:00,160 --> 00:39:03,680 life. I love the chapter that people 699 00:39:03,680 --> 00:39:06,560 should check out. Doctor Kaplan says, all right, 700 00:39:06,560 --> 00:39:09,840 giving someone $100 Beth seen as a nice thing to do. 701 00:39:10,040 --> 00:39:13,040 Giving someone life, is that a nice thing? 702 00:39:13,240 --> 00:39:15,760 Well, that's actually really complex. 703 00:39:16,600 --> 00:39:21,920 I just love this book so much. You discuss merit good, such as 704 00:39:21,920 --> 00:39:25,240 the opera or education. What is a merit good? 705 00:39:26,160 --> 00:39:28,960 All right, this is a concept that economists came up with 706 00:39:29,000 --> 00:39:32,440 really kind of reinventing the wheel of what ideas that are 707 00:39:32,440 --> 00:39:34,920 already in velocity. But anyway, it's basically it's 708 00:39:34,920 --> 00:39:38,600 a good where even if the person receiving it doesn't appreciate 709 00:39:38,600 --> 00:39:41,280 it, it still is wonderful that it exists. 710 00:39:41,880 --> 00:39:44,760 All right, so philosophers might talk about intrinsic value or 711 00:39:44,760 --> 00:39:47,720 something like that. Economists had to multiply 712 00:39:47,720 --> 00:39:49,160 vocabulary, so we call it a merit. 713 00:39:49,160 --> 00:39:51,720 Good. This is an explanation that 714 00:39:51,720 --> 00:39:54,880 economists will give like, well, so we subsidized opera. 715 00:39:54,960 --> 00:39:57,880 Sure, people could pay for it if they wanted it, but opera is 716 00:39:57,880 --> 00:40:02,120 just so freakishly awesome, even if people don't appreciate it, 717 00:40:02,120 --> 00:40:05,080 that we should do it and hope that maybe it's free. 718 00:40:05,080 --> 00:40:07,640 People will come to their senses and realize how great it is. 719 00:40:10,040 --> 00:40:15,840 You recommend frugal living as opposed to financial assistance 720 00:40:15,840 --> 00:40:18,680 when it comes to monetary well-being? 721 00:40:19,680 --> 00:40:22,720 This is in opposition to quite a bit of what I hear. 722 00:40:22,880 --> 00:40:25,200 It's that, well, people need more money. 723 00:40:25,200 --> 00:40:27,120 People need more financial assistance. 724 00:40:27,360 --> 00:40:30,320 The vice president came out and said, I'm going to start funding 725 00:40:30,320 --> 00:40:33,080 more small businesses. I'm going to start giving people 726 00:40:33,080 --> 00:40:35,680 a $25,000 tax credit on buying a house. 727 00:40:35,920 --> 00:40:39,800 Why is it people should focus more on frugal living as opposed 728 00:40:39,800 --> 00:40:43,320 to financial assistance? Well, from a self help point of 729 00:40:43,320 --> 00:40:47,280 view, the main point obviously is you can't change the amount 730 00:40:47,280 --> 00:40:48,480 of money the government hands out. 731 00:40:48,480 --> 00:40:51,360 I guess you'd go and apply for more programs, but basically 732 00:40:51,360 --> 00:40:54,360 that's set by somebody else. So then the question is, what 733 00:40:54,360 --> 00:40:57,280 should you be doing in order to go and help yourself? 734 00:40:58,040 --> 00:41:03,040 What I say is that if in particular you, you have a 735 00:41:03,040 --> 00:41:07,160 philosophy saying that material goods aren't that important and 736 00:41:07,160 --> 00:41:09,840 quality of life is what counts. I said, look, you don't have to 737 00:41:09,840 --> 00:41:12,200 wait for government. You don't have to wait for a 738 00:41:12,200 --> 00:41:14,640 revolution. Just start doing it right now. 739 00:41:14,960 --> 00:41:20,040 You can indeed go and just consume less and then use the 740 00:41:20,040 --> 00:41:24,880 savings to either allow you to get a easier job or a job that's 741 00:41:24,880 --> 00:41:27,640 more pleasant, right? Or you can even just go and 742 00:41:27,640 --> 00:41:29,440 start saving. So eventually you don't need to 743 00:41:29,440 --> 00:41:32,400 work. Really the point of that piece 744 00:41:32,400 --> 00:41:37,720 was to say anyone who sort of glorifies the simple life, it's 745 00:41:38,040 --> 00:41:40,280 like you, this is something you don't have to wait for. 746 00:41:41,320 --> 00:41:44,400 Now, I would also add, I think they know there are a lot of 747 00:41:44,400 --> 00:41:47,400 people who work really hard and they spend a lot of money on 748 00:41:47,400 --> 00:41:48,880 stuff that they don't enjoy very much. 749 00:41:49,320 --> 00:41:54,400 And I would tell them just as a friend, like, I think you should 750 00:41:54,400 --> 00:41:57,920 really think more about what you're spending money on. 751 00:41:57,920 --> 00:42:01,240 And if you don't actually get joy out of it, then stop doing 752 00:42:01,240 --> 00:42:02,920 it. You can then take that money and 753 00:42:02,920 --> 00:42:05,600 save it. You can use that either in the 754 00:42:05,600 --> 00:42:09,360 short run or maybe over the longer run to actually have a 755 00:42:09,400 --> 00:42:12,040 better life in terms of what kind of work you do. 756 00:42:13,360 --> 00:42:17,080 I think that is so true. I have gotten more joy out of 757 00:42:17,120 --> 00:42:22,680 low cost spending money on travel and just I've stopped 758 00:42:22,680 --> 00:42:25,240 going out to dinner just because it's just not worth it. 759 00:42:25,240 --> 00:42:28,080 I just invite people over to my place. 760 00:42:28,320 --> 00:42:31,720 I mean the bills that you rack up between drinks and all the 761 00:42:31,720 --> 00:42:35,880 food, I think going out to eat is just a huge 1 for me. 762 00:42:37,000 --> 00:42:39,480 Yeah, yeah, sort of. My rule is I only go to 763 00:42:39,480 --> 00:42:43,160 restaurants that cook food that I am not good at making myself. 764 00:42:43,640 --> 00:42:46,160 Yeah. And of course it also has to be 765 00:42:46,160 --> 00:42:48,440 good, right? So, but like, but just to go and 766 00:42:48,440 --> 00:42:50,600 spend money for an average mediocre restaurant? 767 00:42:50,600 --> 00:42:52,160 No way. Like it's got to be great. 768 00:42:53,000 --> 00:42:56,720 Oh, and and especially drinks 'cause they're almost pouring 769 00:42:56,720 --> 00:43:01,120 the same bottle that I could get at Winco or Total Wine. 770 00:43:02,760 --> 00:43:08,560 What is rent seeking? And seeking is a name that 771 00:43:08,720 --> 00:43:12,320 economists have given to something that almost everybody 772 00:43:12,320 --> 00:43:15,760 knew about before. It's basically spending 773 00:43:15,760 --> 00:43:20,720 resources in order to get RE, in order to get a a larger share of 774 00:43:20,720 --> 00:43:23,960 a fixed pie of resources, right? So the classic example is 775 00:43:23,960 --> 00:43:25,840 lobbying the government. You aren't going and creating 776 00:43:25,840 --> 00:43:27,360 value. Instead, you go and lobby the 777 00:43:27,360 --> 00:43:30,480 government and you try to get a bigger piece of the government's 778 00:43:30,480 --> 00:43:34,960 giveaways for yourself. The key inside of the idea is, 779 00:43:35,240 --> 00:43:38,160 selfishly speaking, rent seeking often really pays off. 780 00:43:38,680 --> 00:43:42,120 You say, hey, why don't I go and just try to go and grab a bigger 781 00:43:42,120 --> 00:43:46,360 share of that fixed pie. But from a social point of view, 782 00:43:46,560 --> 00:43:50,160 rent seeking is a bad thing because if all resources were 783 00:43:50,160 --> 00:43:52,880 going into trying to get a larger share of a fixed pie, 784 00:43:53,200 --> 00:43:57,080 then the amount of pie available would be quite small. 785 00:43:57,080 --> 00:43:59,920 Or really, principal could just go down to 0. 786 00:44:00,520 --> 00:44:04,800 This is kind of what the worst civil wars look like is you have 787 00:44:04,800 --> 00:44:07,360 people murdering each other over a can of corn. 788 00:44:10,640 --> 00:44:14,120 On page 39 you discuss preferences versus meta 789 00:44:14,120 --> 00:44:16,520 preferences. What is the difference between 790 00:44:16,520 --> 00:44:18,960 these two? All right, so this is a concept 791 00:44:18,960 --> 00:44:21,880 that philosophers invented and economists went and borrowed 792 00:44:21,880 --> 00:44:24,680 very eagerly. The idea is like, you could have 793 00:44:24,680 --> 00:44:28,640 a preference for eating a big plate of pasta, but you could 794 00:44:28,640 --> 00:44:32,240 also have a higher level preference to not do that, 795 00:44:32,880 --> 00:44:34,840 right? There's the internal struggle. 796 00:44:34,840 --> 00:44:37,560 Like on the one hand, I really want to drink, On the other 797 00:44:37,560 --> 00:44:39,320 hand, I don't want to be an alcoholic. 798 00:44:39,320 --> 00:44:44,080 Their intention, all right? Now, this has been a big part, 799 00:44:44,080 --> 00:44:47,760 especially of behavioral economics saying that, look, a 800 00:44:47,760 --> 00:44:50,480 lot of government regulation, especially paternalistic 801 00:44:50,480 --> 00:44:54,000 regulation, it actually is really very sensible because 802 00:44:54,240 --> 00:44:57,120 it's just government helping people to realize their true 803 00:44:57,120 --> 00:44:59,120 preferences, their meta preferences. 804 00:44:59,920 --> 00:45:01,840 I have a lot of things to say about this. 805 00:45:02,080 --> 00:45:05,200 I don't have a fundamental logical objection to it. 806 00:45:05,560 --> 00:45:09,400 I'll just say that I think the concept is grossly over applied 807 00:45:09,840 --> 00:45:13,440 in many ways. Most obviously, look, if you 808 00:45:13,440 --> 00:45:16,520 really have this conflicting preference and meta preference, 809 00:45:16,520 --> 00:45:19,720 and if the meta preference is really stronger, there is a nice 810 00:45:19,720 --> 00:45:22,840 website calledstick.com that will allow you to solve your own 811 00:45:22,840 --> 00:45:24,480 problem without any government at all. 812 00:45:24,920 --> 00:45:27,720 This is a website where you make a contract with someone else 813 00:45:27,920 --> 00:45:31,560 where you have to pay money if you don't follow through on your 814 00:45:31,560 --> 00:45:34,360 own plan. A classic example. 815 00:45:34,360 --> 00:45:36,320 I think the founders of the website, they were both 816 00:45:36,320 --> 00:45:40,120 overweight and they both did a a deal with each other where they 817 00:45:40,120 --> 00:45:42,960 said we will go and both be losing weight. 818 00:45:43,200 --> 00:45:49,160 And whoever loses more weight will receive $1.00 or $10 per 819 00:45:49,160 --> 00:45:52,440 pound of extra weight loss compared to the other. 820 00:45:52,760 --> 00:45:55,720 And so it's like a bet, like I'm betting I can lose more weight 821 00:45:55,720 --> 00:46:00,160 than you and I my winnings will be $10 times the the difference 822 00:46:00,160 --> 00:46:02,640 between the amount of weight that the two of us have lost. 823 00:46:03,800 --> 00:46:06,440 What's striking is let's see. Have you heard of stick.com, 824 00:46:06,480 --> 00:46:09,480 Keith? You said STICK. 825 00:46:10,160 --> 00:46:12,520 There's an extra K, so it's stick with an extra K at the 826 00:46:12,520 --> 00:46:14,880 end. That's why it says something 827 00:46:15,160 --> 00:46:16,400 totally. Different. 828 00:46:16,400 --> 00:46:17,800 You never heard of it, right? No, no. 829 00:46:18,320 --> 00:46:20,480 So, you know, like it's a reasonably successful minor 830 00:46:20,480 --> 00:46:25,600 website, but what's notable is that it is not Google, it's not 831 00:46:25,600 --> 00:46:28,960 Facebook, it's not a big website, nor are there any other 832 00:46:28,960 --> 00:46:35,000 websites that are similar that are super successful, which I 833 00:46:35,000 --> 00:46:39,880 say shows that in fact, most of what are supposed to be meta 834 00:46:39,880 --> 00:46:42,680 preferences that people are just struggling to realize. 835 00:46:42,680 --> 00:46:44,680 But somehow freedom doesn't let them. 836 00:46:45,160 --> 00:46:47,440 Freedom does let you go and realize your matter preferences. 837 00:46:47,440 --> 00:46:50,720 The real story is that most people do not want to change. 838 00:46:52,080 --> 00:46:54,800 They what it what they call their meta preferences are 839 00:46:54,800 --> 00:47:00,720 rather primarily a smokescreen or defense mechanism where you 840 00:47:00,720 --> 00:47:03,760 go and say, look, I mean, I, I really love my family so much. 841 00:47:03,760 --> 00:47:06,280 I just feel terrible about how my drinking is affecting you, 842 00:47:06,280 --> 00:47:08,880 but I just can't stop. Oh, poor me. 843 00:47:08,880 --> 00:47:14,000 It's like, or you value your drinking more than you value the 844 00:47:14,000 --> 00:47:17,520 welfare of your family. Actions speak louder than words 845 00:47:18,040 --> 00:47:21,440 and that is my main take. So if you really did have a meta 846 00:47:21,440 --> 00:47:24,280 preference, you could solve the problem without without any help 847 00:47:24,280 --> 00:47:26,520 from government. The fact that hardly anybody 848 00:47:26,520 --> 00:47:30,280 does, I say, shows that mostly this concept does not apply in 849 00:47:30,280 --> 00:47:35,560 the real world. There is a great contradiction 850 00:47:35,600 --> 00:47:38,720 between most of what we hear with both Democrats and 851 00:47:38,720 --> 00:47:42,200 Republicans. They say if there is something 852 00:47:42,200 --> 00:47:45,200 you disagree with about the federal government, you think 853 00:47:45,200 --> 00:47:48,000 they're violating your freedoms, you talk it over, you engage in 854 00:47:48,000 --> 00:47:50,280 deliberative democracy, you vote. 855 00:47:50,480 --> 00:47:55,000 And this is how you really sort of reorganize things. 856 00:47:56,000 --> 00:48:00,240 But if there is a potential foreign threat from China or 857 00:48:00,240 --> 00:48:04,120 Russia or Iraq or Yemen or Afghanistan, we need to declare 858 00:48:04,120 --> 00:48:08,080 war and justify mass violence, especially against civilians. 859 00:48:08,320 --> 00:48:10,920 It's totally fine if Kaiser Wilhelm ends up living in the 860 00:48:10,920 --> 00:48:13,680 Netherlands for the rest of his life, so long as we get those 861 00:48:13,680 --> 00:48:16,880 Germans you have. This is the blatant appeasement 862 00:48:16,880 --> 00:48:19,320 contradiction. When our domestic government 863 00:48:19,320 --> 00:48:21,840 violates our freedoms, you got to talk it over. 864 00:48:21,960 --> 00:48:25,280 Don't get aroused when it comes to foreign governments. 865 00:48:25,320 --> 00:48:28,800 If there's even a potential we might have to nuke Beijing if 866 00:48:28,800 --> 00:48:32,840 they go into Taiwan. You discussed this in the Weekly 867 00:48:32,840 --> 00:48:36,480 Dominant Strategy section along with the benefits of 868 00:48:36,560 --> 00:48:39,640 appeasement. What is your thesis on the 869 00:48:39,640 --> 00:48:42,360 Weekly Dominant strategy and benefits of appeasement? 870 00:48:43,520 --> 00:48:46,520 I mean just to back up. So I think you are exaggerating 871 00:48:46,520 --> 00:48:49,480 how opposed to appeasement most governments are. 872 00:48:49,800 --> 00:48:52,220 They usually just use a different word which is de 873 00:48:52,220 --> 00:48:55,080 escalation. So appeasement is terrible, but 874 00:48:55,080 --> 00:48:57,800 de escalation that's good. It's like it's just different 875 00:48:57,800 --> 00:49:01,680 words for the same thing. But anyway, I do have this essay 876 00:49:01,680 --> 00:49:05,120 called My Life of Appeasement, where start off with this idea 877 00:49:05,120 --> 00:49:08,000 that appeasement never works. Appeasement never works. 878 00:49:08,000 --> 00:49:10,600 As soon as you appease, they just ratchet up their demands 879 00:49:10,600 --> 00:49:11,880 and it just gets worse and worse. 880 00:49:11,880 --> 00:49:13,840 And you never should have given them to the 1st place. 881 00:49:14,320 --> 00:49:17,720 And I say like, yeah, open your eyes. 882 00:49:17,960 --> 00:49:21,880 Think about what you did today. Were you ever treated unfairly 883 00:49:21,880 --> 00:49:23,440 by any human being? Today? 884 00:49:23,880 --> 00:49:27,400 Most people say, yeah, OK, yeah. Or what did you do about it? 885 00:49:27,640 --> 00:49:29,640 Yeah, like, nothing. All right. 886 00:49:29,680 --> 00:49:32,360 Why not? And is it just because you were 887 00:49:32,360 --> 00:49:35,840 an idiot, or is it because if you had escalated until you got 888 00:49:35,840 --> 00:49:38,480 what you wanted, you didn't think it would actually work 889 00:49:38,480 --> 00:49:41,800 out, right? And that's the truth is that 890 00:49:42,160 --> 00:49:45,440 escalation is playing with fire. And usually when there's a 891 00:49:45,440 --> 00:49:48,960 conflict, it is better just to go and humor people and give in. 892 00:49:49,280 --> 00:49:52,160 I'm not saying never go and assert yourself, but I'm saying 893 00:49:52,160 --> 00:49:56,040 that appeasement is really underrated and often contrary to 894 00:49:56,040 --> 00:49:58,160 the story that as soon as you appease, once people ratchet up 895 00:49:58,160 --> 00:50:01,920 their demands, like in the real world, what you usually see is 896 00:50:02,080 --> 00:50:05,600 someone makes some demand, which seems unreasonable to you, you 897 00:50:05,600 --> 00:50:07,400 give it to them and that settles the issue. 898 00:50:08,120 --> 00:50:10,320 If someone bumps into you and they seem annoyed and you say 899 00:50:10,320 --> 00:50:12,960 you're sorry and they'll say, oh, OK, no problem. 900 00:50:13,240 --> 00:50:14,960 That's the that's what usually what happens. 901 00:50:15,160 --> 00:50:17,600 It's very rare that they then pull their grocery cart back and 902 00:50:17,600 --> 00:50:20,720 shove it back into you again and say apologize again, sucker. 903 00:50:21,240 --> 00:50:24,400 That's not the way that things actually often work. 904 00:50:25,280 --> 00:50:27,680 And in particular, the more you think about it, the more you 905 00:50:27,680 --> 00:50:31,120 realize, look, is it possible that what I'm thinking of as 906 00:50:31,120 --> 00:50:33,880 unfair didn't seem unfair to that other person? 907 00:50:33,880 --> 00:50:35,400 What would a neutral observer think? 908 00:50:35,640 --> 00:50:38,440 Maybe I'm the one that's being hypersensitive rather than them 909 00:50:38,440 --> 00:50:41,880 being insensitive. These are all good questions to 910 00:50:41,880 --> 00:50:44,600 ask. And I say that in real life, in 911 00:50:44,600 --> 00:50:46,880 general, most people would be better off with more 912 00:50:46,880 --> 00:50:49,600 appeasement. You just think about people that 913 00:50:50,080 --> 00:50:52,440 do not practice appeasements. Where are they? 914 00:50:52,560 --> 00:50:55,200 Heavily overrepresented? And I'll say, yeah, jail, 915 00:50:56,320 --> 00:50:59,040 they're not Easers are heavily represented. 916 00:50:59,360 --> 00:51:01,600 These are people who went pushed, pushed back. 917 00:51:02,240 --> 00:51:03,920 Sometimes it gets them what they want. 918 00:51:03,920 --> 00:51:07,800 But in the long run, they're doing 10 years in prison, right? 919 00:51:07,800 --> 00:51:11,080 They would have been way better off if they had been a lot less 920 00:51:11,080 --> 00:51:15,680 macho and it just went and said, oh, sorry, my mistake. 921 00:51:16,040 --> 00:51:19,520 Even if it were you, even if you might really think, well, it's 922 00:51:19,520 --> 00:51:23,000 not really my mistake, but yes. And then yes, the same thing of 923 00:51:23,000 --> 00:51:25,720 course holds true for countries and in actual international 924 00:51:25,720 --> 00:51:28,120 relations, of course, countries again, appease each other all 925 00:51:28,120 --> 00:51:30,600 the time. Appeasement is basically the 926 00:51:30,600 --> 00:51:34,120 word that you throw out when you are determined not to appease 927 00:51:34,360 --> 00:51:36,960 and you want to pretend like it's always a good idea, rather 928 00:51:36,960 --> 00:51:39,800 than something where you've got to go and think hard about the 929 00:51:39,800 --> 00:51:45,600 facts. On page 62, you say money has 930 00:51:45,600 --> 00:51:50,760 little effect on happiness, mentioning that you could have a 931 00:51:50,760 --> 00:51:54,880 great thing happen to you yet. Before long, however, hedonic 932 00:51:54,880 --> 00:51:58,120 adaptation kicks in. All right, so money has little 933 00:51:58,120 --> 00:52:02,080 effect on happiness. What does have a big effect on 934 00:52:02,080 --> 00:52:04,640 happiness? What can I do to increase the 935 00:52:04,640 --> 00:52:07,240 likelihood that I will experience happiness in my life? 936 00:52:07,720 --> 00:52:11,600 Yeah, the number one by far is spending more time with people 937 00:52:11,600 --> 00:52:16,320 whose company you enjoy, right? So that means getting a romantic 938 00:52:16,320 --> 00:52:18,840 partner that works for you, getting friends that work for 939 00:52:18,840 --> 00:52:21,120 you, getting a job that works for you. 940 00:52:21,640 --> 00:52:24,320 Most people like their jobs, but the main thing they like about 941 00:52:24,320 --> 00:52:26,280 it is getting to work with the other people. 942 00:52:26,640 --> 00:52:30,240 There's some great stuff on what a what a big ticket lottery 943 00:52:30,240 --> 00:52:32,560 winners do. Most of them go back to their 944 00:52:32,560 --> 00:52:35,200 jobs after they go and have a spending spree. 945 00:52:35,200 --> 00:52:37,860 And the main reason that they don't is just that their Co 946 00:52:37,860 --> 00:52:39,560 workers don't treat them the same anymore. 947 00:52:40,160 --> 00:52:42,640 Yes. So overwhelming importance is 948 00:52:42,880 --> 00:52:47,560 good human relations. That is the very top score. 949 00:52:47,560 --> 00:52:51,240 Something that it requires work but it's totally doable. 950 00:52:51,720 --> 00:52:54,920 Also I would start there again since I am an economist and I do 951 00:52:54,920 --> 00:52:56,640 think a lot about material wealth. 952 00:52:57,800 --> 00:53:01,640 A lot of the reason why money doesn't actually in the data 953 00:53:01,640 --> 00:53:03,760 have have very much effect on happiness that people are not 954 00:53:03,760 --> 00:53:07,560 spending it in very good ways. There's a lot of people who go 955 00:53:07,560 --> 00:53:10,960 and put money down on things like a new car or granite 956 00:53:10,960 --> 00:53:14,320 countertop where we've got very good evidence that people very 957 00:53:14,320 --> 00:53:16,880 quickly get used to these things and stop enjoying them. 958 00:53:17,320 --> 00:53:20,720 On the other hand, they spend, they are a lot more a lot more a 959 00:53:20,960 --> 00:53:23,160 lot more reluctant to go and spend on things where they 960 00:53:23,160 --> 00:53:26,600 clearly do make people happier. Things like paying for tolls to 961 00:53:26,600 --> 00:53:31,560 get out of congestion, paying ASL cleaning lady to go and do 962 00:53:31,560 --> 00:53:34,800 and clean your house so you don't have to, you know, so, you 963 00:53:34,800 --> 00:53:37,320 know, get avoiding drudgery, right? 964 00:53:37,320 --> 00:53:41,600 But also going back to human beings going and spending money 965 00:53:41,600 --> 00:53:44,440 doing things that you enjoy with the people's company you enjoy. 966 00:53:44,440 --> 00:53:48,080 So, I mean, I do know a few people actually like traveling 967 00:53:48,080 --> 00:53:51,680 alone, but that is unusual. Most of the joy travel is you 968 00:53:51,680 --> 00:53:53,960 get to do it with a person whose company you enjoy. 969 00:53:55,720 --> 00:54:00,240 On page 66, you talk about the importance not of betting, but 970 00:54:00,240 --> 00:54:04,760 especially a person's betting record being an indication of 971 00:54:04,760 --> 00:54:12,080 their reputation when it comes to market actors and consumer 972 00:54:12,080 --> 00:54:13,880 well-being and employee well-being. 973 00:54:14,120 --> 00:54:16,800 What do you think is in the driver's seat for consumer 974 00:54:16,800 --> 00:54:18,360 well-being and employee well-being? 975 00:54:18,640 --> 00:54:21,600 Market reputation or state regulators? 976 00:54:23,040 --> 00:54:24,520 Sorry, I'm not sure I understand the question, Keith. 977 00:54:26,600 --> 00:54:30,240 So there's basically 2 theories that I have seen. 978 00:54:30,360 --> 00:54:34,800 The free market advocates say the reason that we have good 979 00:54:34,800 --> 00:54:37,800 products and services, the reason we don't see 100% of 980 00:54:38,000 --> 00:54:41,360 people earning minimum wage is competition, reputation. 981 00:54:42,000 --> 00:54:45,680 Other people say it's OSHA and it's the New Deal policies. 982 00:54:45,800 --> 00:54:49,120 What is in the driver's seat when it comes to the wealth and 983 00:54:49,120 --> 00:54:51,920 great things we see today? Is it reputation? 984 00:54:51,920 --> 00:54:53,280 Something else? I get it. 985 00:54:53,320 --> 00:54:54,040 All right. Yeah. 986 00:54:54,040 --> 00:54:57,040 So business reputation is overwhelmingly more important 987 00:54:57,040 --> 00:54:59,560 than anything that government does, obviously. 988 00:54:59,920 --> 00:55:02,480 And you don't have to be an ideologue, you don't have to 989 00:55:02,480 --> 00:55:04,480 have any philosophy. You don't have to go and study 990 00:55:04,480 --> 00:55:07,480 economics. Just look at your own first hand 991 00:55:07,480 --> 00:55:11,800 experience. How often in your entire life 992 00:55:12,040 --> 00:55:14,360 have you ever had a bad experience with a business and 993 00:55:14,360 --> 00:55:16,520 contacted a regular regulator about it? 994 00:55:17,640 --> 00:55:20,320 I don't care how progressive you are, the answer is probably 0. 995 00:55:20,600 --> 00:55:24,280 How often have you ever filed a lawsuit again? 996 00:55:24,280 --> 00:55:26,720 Zero. How often have you, on the other 997 00:55:26,720 --> 00:55:29,120 hand, just gone and returned a product you didn't like? 998 00:55:29,880 --> 00:55:33,720 Yeah, everybody does that. How often have you gone and just 999 00:55:33,720 --> 00:55:36,000 complained to the business and said that it wasn't 1000 00:55:36,000 --> 00:55:38,120 satisfactory? Yeah, everybody does that. 1001 00:55:38,480 --> 00:55:40,160 And why does everybody do these things? 1002 00:55:40,240 --> 00:55:42,680 Because they totally demonstrably work. 1003 00:55:43,040 --> 00:55:46,520 And on the other hand, why not contact regulators and file 1004 00:55:46,520 --> 00:55:49,400 lawsuits? Because that is a total Hail 1005 00:55:49,400 --> 00:55:52,720 Mary pass. It would be amazing if that got 1006 00:55:52,720 --> 00:55:56,560 you anywhere, right? The truth is that businesses are 1007 00:55:57,040 --> 00:56:00,920 hyper concerned about what their customers think and feel. 1008 00:56:01,200 --> 00:56:03,960 And really all you need to do most of the time in order to get 1009 00:56:03,960 --> 00:56:06,720 better treatment is to speak up. Does not mean that it is always 1010 00:56:06,720 --> 00:56:10,080 great. The we all like we've all been 1011 00:56:10,080 --> 00:56:13,760 on the consumer service, our customer support line for 1012 00:56:13,760 --> 00:56:16,280 Verizon or something like that, like oh this is terrible. 1013 00:56:16,680 --> 00:56:20,320 The reason why it registers as terrible is that the system 1014 00:56:20,320 --> 00:56:22,480 almost always works. And then every now and then 1015 00:56:22,480 --> 00:56:25,280 there's some screwed up part where you are totally 1016 00:56:25,280 --> 00:56:28,080 frustrated, right. So, but on the other hand, 1017 00:56:28,080 --> 00:56:30,720 imagine if every time something went wrong, you called up the 1018 00:56:30,720 --> 00:56:33,040 regulator. Then it wouldn't just be that 1019 00:56:33,040 --> 00:56:35,400 you'd be frustrated two or three times a year, Then you'd be 1020 00:56:35,400 --> 00:56:37,920 frustrated every time you had a problem because calling up 1021 00:56:37,920 --> 00:56:41,920 regulators or filing lawsuits is just a terrible approach. 1022 00:56:42,560 --> 00:56:46,920 Normally I would say that in markets, if there is one part of 1023 00:56:46,920 --> 00:56:49,760 the free market that isn't actually giving you good 1024 00:56:50,000 --> 00:56:53,800 service, the solution is just to find a different pressure point 1025 00:56:53,800 --> 00:56:57,600 and push there, right? So this summer I had a horrible 1026 00:56:57,600 --> 00:57:00,920 hacking experience on Expedia. Expedia wasn't helpful. 1027 00:57:00,920 --> 00:57:02,640 The airlines involved weren't helpful. 1028 00:57:02,960 --> 00:57:07,720 But guess who was helpful? Can you guess, Keith? 1029 00:57:08,400 --> 00:57:11,960 Yeah, gosh, I can't remember the name. 1030 00:57:11,960 --> 00:57:15,040 I worked with these people. Would it have been Webroot? 1031 00:57:15,560 --> 00:57:18,160 No, no, no, no, no. So something much simpler. 1032 00:57:18,160 --> 00:57:21,440 It was my credit card company. Oh, credit card company solved 1033 00:57:21,440 --> 00:57:25,000 the problem for me. So Expedia wouldn't wouldn't go 1034 00:57:25,000 --> 00:57:27,080 and refund my money. They wouldn't go and fix the 1035 00:57:27,080 --> 00:57:30,360 horrible problem. The but I just we just went to, 1036 00:57:30,360 --> 00:57:32,760 we didn't even have to call the credit card company actually 1037 00:57:32,760 --> 00:57:36,280 just go to the website. We go and dispute the dispute, 1038 00:57:36,280 --> 00:57:41,160 the relevant charges and we and the problem was just solved 1039 00:57:41,160 --> 00:57:42,400 itself. That was it. 1040 00:57:43,880 --> 00:57:46,720 Very good. Thinking, and by the way, this 1041 00:57:46,720 --> 00:57:48,720 is actually another way the reputation works. 1042 00:57:50,400 --> 00:57:53,600 You probably know, but maybe you don't actually. 1043 00:57:54,240 --> 00:57:57,880 So going and disputing a charge on your credit card is highly 1044 00:57:57,880 --> 00:57:59,600 effective. Credit card companies almost 1045 00:57:59,600 --> 00:58:02,400 always take your side even against a very large business. 1046 00:58:02,880 --> 00:58:07,560 So like, that is your last line of defense, and it totally 1047 00:58:07,560 --> 00:58:09,840 works. Anytime you're worried, maybe 1048 00:58:09,840 --> 00:58:12,960 you'll be taken advantage of. So for example, I remember like 1049 00:58:12,960 --> 00:58:17,280 27 years ago when I was moving down to Virginia, I was kind of 1050 00:58:17,280 --> 00:58:19,840 concerned because I'd heard some horror stories about movers 1051 00:58:20,080 --> 00:58:22,160 going and giving you a low price. 1052 00:58:22,400 --> 00:58:27,160 And then once all the stuff is in the truck, they go and say, 1053 00:58:27,160 --> 00:58:29,120 yeah, well, before we can actually bring it to your house, 1054 00:58:29,120 --> 00:58:31,640 you're going to have to pay us another $700.00 or something 1055 00:58:32,080 --> 00:58:33,720 anyway, but pay with credit card. 1056 00:58:33,920 --> 00:58:37,120 And then if that happens, what you should do is say, fine, I'll 1057 00:58:37,120 --> 00:58:38,560 pay it. And then as soon as you got 1058 00:58:38,560 --> 00:58:40,760 yourself back, then you instantly call the credit or 1059 00:58:40,760 --> 00:58:43,240 contact the credit card company, go to the website and dispute 1060 00:58:43,240 --> 00:58:46,160 the charge and say what they did and you almost certainly get 1061 00:58:46,160 --> 00:58:49,760 your money back. Free market regulation. 1062 00:58:49,800 --> 00:58:53,360 I love it. On page 99 you say you love 1063 00:58:53,360 --> 00:58:56,480 education, yet you are very critical of the schooling 1064 00:58:56,480 --> 00:58:57,800 system. Why is that? 1065 00:59:00,160 --> 00:59:03,200 Let me just back up. So I'm the kind of person who 1066 00:59:03,480 --> 00:59:07,200 has just loved reading and ideas from the earliest age. 1067 00:59:07,200 --> 00:59:09,880 I am a professor. The stuff gives great meaning to 1068 00:59:09,880 --> 00:59:14,520 my life. And yet when school say that's 1069 00:59:14,520 --> 00:59:16,440 what we do, that's why we're so great. 1070 00:59:16,440 --> 00:59:19,800 That's why we deserve all kinds of support from government and 1071 00:59:19,800 --> 00:59:22,120 philanthropists. This is where I really do have 1072 00:59:22,120 --> 00:59:27,160 to roll my eyes, because like, what you are giving is just a 1073 00:59:27,160 --> 00:59:32,360 hollow shell of actual curiosity, of actual love of 1074 00:59:32,360 --> 00:59:35,000 learning. What really goes on in almost 1075 00:59:35,000 --> 00:59:39,160 all education is you've got a bunch of conscripts, the 1076 00:59:39,160 --> 00:59:42,120 students who don't want to be there, who find it boring, 1077 00:59:42,400 --> 00:59:48,240 listening to a teacher that is not actually exciting or 1078 00:59:48,240 --> 00:59:50,760 motivating. And then often the material 1079 00:59:50,760 --> 00:59:52,560 itself, it's like, all right, we're going to learn all the 1080 00:59:52,560 --> 00:59:55,920 state capitals or whatever. It's like that's not something 1081 00:59:55,920 --> 00:59:57,320 that's really important to learn. 1082 00:59:57,320 --> 00:59:59,680 It's not something that would enrich my understanding of the 1083 00:59:59,680 --> 01:00:02,840 human experience. So what I say is education is 1084 01:00:02,840 --> 01:00:05,840 great if it has all the right ingredients, if you got students 1085 01:00:05,840 --> 01:00:10,080 that want to be there, professors who are masters of 1086 01:00:10,080 --> 01:00:13,960 and passionate about their subject, and if the subject is 1087 01:00:13,960 --> 01:00:15,840 actually something that really matters. 1088 01:00:17,760 --> 01:00:20,240 I do add, of course, that there can be something that's very 1089 01:00:20,240 --> 01:00:22,800 boring and the students are bored and the press are not 1090 01:00:22,800 --> 01:00:26,880 exciting and it's worth teaching it because it's a saves lives or 1091 01:00:26,880 --> 01:00:29,040 it gets buildings built. There's a lot of stuff that's 1092 01:00:29,040 --> 01:00:31,000 just practical and it's not very fun. 1093 01:00:31,320 --> 01:00:33,160 Like, you know, like if I met someone who just said like, I'm 1094 01:00:33,160 --> 01:00:36,720 just fascinated by plastics, like really all right. 1095 01:00:36,960 --> 01:00:39,080 But like most people work in those industries or not, it's 1096 01:00:39,320 --> 01:00:43,080 they provide a useful service and then the education is self 1097 01:00:43,080 --> 01:00:47,280 justifying because it teaches people how to do a useful thing. 1098 01:00:47,280 --> 01:00:50,920 But if you're doing it for its own sake, that's where I'd say 1099 01:00:50,920 --> 01:00:54,480 we need to have high quality. And regular school just has rock 1100 01:00:54,480 --> 01:00:58,320 bottom quality. Even very top schools usually 1101 01:00:58,600 --> 01:01:03,040 just suck. The only clear exception I know 1102 01:01:03,040 --> 01:01:06,080 is the University of Chicago, where the students there I have 1103 01:01:06,080 --> 01:01:10,200 seen with my own eyes. They are just crazy motivated 1104 01:01:10,200 --> 01:01:14,000 and the faculty not perfect, but still unusually good. 1105 01:01:14,280 --> 01:01:17,920 And yeah, they do focus on bigger questions, but other than 1106 01:01:17,920 --> 01:01:20,920 University of Chicago, I don't know of any real institution 1107 01:01:20,920 --> 01:01:24,800 where they just have this great love of learning and curiosity. 1108 01:01:26,920 --> 01:01:33,200 On page 68, you discuss the concept that there are widely 1109 01:01:33,200 --> 01:01:37,640 accepted views today which were seen as insane a short time ago, 1110 01:01:37,920 --> 01:01:41,760 and this could give us some optimism with regard to terrible 1111 01:01:41,760 --> 01:01:45,080 things that are happening today. If we'd like to radically change 1112 01:01:45,080 --> 01:01:48,240 public opinion, what are some of the best examples you could 1113 01:01:48,240 --> 01:01:51,800 think of of views that are widely accepted today, which in 1114 01:01:51,800 --> 01:01:54,800 previous generations would have seen absolutely insane? 1115 01:01:55,840 --> 01:01:58,360 Start with religious toleration. You can't have two religions in 1116 01:01:58,360 --> 01:02:00,800 one country. They'll all kill each other, all 1117 01:02:00,800 --> 01:02:01,960 right? And you got that one. 1118 01:02:01,960 --> 01:02:05,120 You got general free speech. You can't just let people say 1119 01:02:05,120 --> 01:02:08,400 what they want to say. It'll destroy society, right? 1120 01:02:08,400 --> 01:02:11,760 And then you obviously slavery, like, you can't just let them be 1121 01:02:11,760 --> 01:02:13,480 free. Like, think about what will 1122 01:02:13,480 --> 01:02:16,800 happen. So yeah, those are obvious ones. 1123 01:02:19,600 --> 01:02:24,440 Could you imagine being in America in 1860 or something 1124 01:02:24,440 --> 01:02:27,480 like and it's like 3.9 million people. 1125 01:02:27,680 --> 01:02:30,680 Yeah, definitely freedom's better than slavery. 1126 01:02:31,040 --> 01:02:33,400 Well, none of them have an education. 1127 01:02:33,400 --> 01:02:37,160 What's going to happen? We have this wolf by the ears, 1128 01:02:37,160 --> 01:02:40,920 so to speak. It would be a little scary. 1129 01:02:40,920 --> 01:02:44,240 I'm not justifying slavery or Jim Crow or anything that 1130 01:02:44,240 --> 01:02:48,320 violates a non aggression principle, but you can see that 1131 01:02:48,320 --> 01:02:51,720 there really are costs as well as benefits to these things. 1132 01:02:51,960 --> 01:02:54,240 Yeah, I mean, someone who was really confident, workout great. 1133 01:02:54,240 --> 01:02:57,400 I would say. It's like, why are you so 1134 01:02:57,400 --> 01:03:00,480 confident? And someone who knew history 1135 01:03:00,480 --> 01:03:03,880 would even say, yeah, you know what happened when the when when 1136 01:03:03,880 --> 01:03:07,160 slavery was ended in Haiti, Genocide of the white 1137 01:03:07,160 --> 01:03:09,600 population, right. With the exception of like a few 1138 01:03:09,600 --> 01:03:12,320 Poles, there were some Polish soldiers who fought with the 1139 01:03:12,320 --> 01:03:14,160 Haitian revolutionary, so they got spared. 1140 01:03:14,520 --> 01:03:16,880 But it really was a giant genocide. 1141 01:03:17,400 --> 01:03:20,960 So like, doesn't it like not always does it work out, but 1142 01:03:20,960 --> 01:03:24,560 still like it worked out way better than definitely. 1143 01:03:25,640 --> 01:03:29,000 And for for the Haitian population, it didn't exactly 1144 01:03:29,000 --> 01:03:31,480 turn into Singapore for the people. 1145 01:03:31,480 --> 01:03:32,760 Who got their freedom? As well. 1146 01:03:33,200 --> 01:03:36,160 Yes. On page 72 you talk about 1147 01:03:36,200 --> 01:03:41,160 examples of the masses today being verifiably wrong even 1148 01:03:41,160 --> 01:03:43,040 though they have access to the Internet. 1149 01:03:43,320 --> 01:03:47,120 You use an example with a gentleman who had a bet with his 1150 01:03:47,760 --> 01:03:52,240 friend on the Wall Street Journal supporting open borders. 1151 01:03:52,240 --> 01:03:56,160 Yes, thank you. What are some examples today of 1152 01:03:56,200 --> 01:03:59,800 the masses are verifiably wrong about something? 1153 01:04:00,680 --> 01:04:02,160 Wow. I mean, where do you even start? 1154 01:04:02,160 --> 01:04:04,200 I mean, you could just do like, you know, crime rates. 1155 01:04:04,200 --> 01:04:05,560 What's happening with crime rates? 1156 01:04:05,880 --> 01:04:08,560 Or you could do racial differences in crime rates. 1157 01:04:08,560 --> 01:04:12,240 That's one where I think people would realize the direction, but 1158 01:04:12,240 --> 01:04:15,680 just not the magnitude. So you'll have something like 1159 01:04:16,040 --> 01:04:18,640 murder rates for blacks would be 7 or 8 times the white 1160 01:04:18,640 --> 01:04:21,120 population. So that's just, you know, one 1161 01:04:21,120 --> 01:04:24,840 random thing, you know, like, so you know, bigger issues like how 1162 01:04:24,840 --> 01:04:27,080 much have living standards risen over the last century? 1163 01:04:28,200 --> 01:04:31,600 How much richer have poor countries gotten in the last 30 1164 01:04:31,600 --> 01:04:36,120 years? So these are really obvious 1165 01:04:36,120 --> 01:04:40,160 things that's and yet people are quite shocked by. 1166 01:04:40,440 --> 01:04:44,080 Here's another one inspired by Alex Epstein's fossil Fossil 1167 01:04:44,080 --> 01:04:47,760 future. Total number of deaths from 1168 01:04:47,760 --> 01:04:50,240 adverse climate events over the last century. 1169 01:04:52,240 --> 01:04:55,960 It's gone from being really high to basically 0 fact. 1170 01:04:57,400 --> 01:05:00,880 On page one O 5 you discuss make work bias. 1171 01:05:00,880 --> 01:05:05,120 What is that? Make work bias is evaluating the 1172 01:05:05,480 --> 01:05:07,840 performance of an economy based upon employment rather than 1173 01:05:07,840 --> 01:05:10,920 production. Very understandable during a 1174 01:05:10,920 --> 01:05:13,160 period of high employment. And yet if you step back, it's 1175 01:05:13,160 --> 01:05:16,120 like, well, we could just create a bunch of jobs by having people 1176 01:05:16,120 --> 01:05:17,440 dig ditches and fill them up again. 1177 01:05:17,440 --> 01:05:21,560 That won't make us rich. And yes, make work bias is a 1178 01:05:21,560 --> 01:05:26,560 standard argument for locking obsolete technologies and 1179 01:05:26,560 --> 01:05:30,480 business models into place. You can see it definitely with 1180 01:05:30,480 --> 01:05:32,960 protectionism where there's another country that just gotten 1181 01:05:32,960 --> 01:05:34,880 better at doing something than your country. 1182 01:05:35,200 --> 01:05:37,640 Well, let's go and save those jobs anyway. 1183 01:05:37,640 --> 01:05:40,360 Bunch of people who are producing little value. 1184 01:05:40,640 --> 01:05:43,520 Let's just protect their jobs and make the rest of society go 1185 01:05:43,520 --> 01:05:45,840 and pay so that they don't need to go and find something else to 1186 01:05:45,840 --> 01:05:49,760 do. It's it is a very tempting idea 1187 01:05:49,760 --> 01:05:52,640 and yet, when you think about it, a terrible one. 1188 01:05:54,680 --> 01:05:58,400 What is the iron law of? I've only read this word, I've 1189 01:05:58,400 --> 01:06:01,120 never said it out loud. What is the iron law of 1190 01:06:01,240 --> 01:06:03,800 pedagogy? Yeah, Good. 1191 01:06:03,800 --> 01:06:05,360 Yeah. So pedagogy or pedagogy? 1192 01:06:05,360 --> 01:06:07,280 I think. I think I've heard it both ways, 1193 01:06:07,320 --> 01:06:08,520 as they say. OK, Yeah. 1194 01:06:08,720 --> 01:06:10,880 So the iron law is a pedagogy, right? 1195 01:06:10,880 --> 01:06:13,080 So iron law is a pedagogy. All right, first of all, 1196 01:06:13,280 --> 01:06:16,200 students learn only a small fraction of what you teach. 1197 01:06:17,920 --> 01:06:20,760 Anyone who's ever taught students knows this to be true. 1198 01:06:20,760 --> 01:06:23,840 Like I've said this 10 times. How come you still don't know 1199 01:06:23,840 --> 01:06:26,920 it? A lot of students don't know it. 1200 01:06:27,160 --> 01:06:30,960 You know, next iron law of pedagogy, Students retain only a 1201 01:06:30,960 --> 01:06:34,120 small fraction what they learn. You go and look at what the 1202 01:06:34,120 --> 01:06:36,720 students knew on the day of the exam and it's like, all right, I 1203 01:06:36,720 --> 01:06:39,400 guess it's something. Come and ask them the same 1204 01:06:39,400 --> 01:06:41,960 questions again in a few months, like they've forgotten it all. 1205 01:06:41,960 --> 01:06:45,080 What the hell, right? And then the Third Point, 1206 01:06:45,280 --> 01:06:48,960 students apply only a very small fraction of what they remember. 1207 01:06:49,520 --> 01:06:53,000 Even if a student learns it, even if they remember it when 1208 01:06:53,000 --> 01:06:55,320 the rubber meets the road and they have an opportunity to 1209 01:06:55,320 --> 01:06:57,800 apply it in the real world, they usually don't. 1210 01:06:58,240 --> 01:07:01,960 You could use the Pythagorean theorem when you are figuring 1211 01:07:01,960 --> 01:07:05,320 out measurements for your house, but most people will just go and 1212 01:07:05,320 --> 01:07:07,680 do the measurements and will not use the Pythagorean theorem. 1213 01:07:07,880 --> 01:07:09,680 And you say, wait, what's that Pythagorean theorem again? 1214 01:07:09,680 --> 01:07:13,040 Oh, yeah, it's the C is equal to sqrt a ^2 + b ^2. 1215 01:07:14,160 --> 01:07:16,880 Well, you realize you were just doing a diagonal of a right 1216 01:07:16,880 --> 01:07:18,280 angle, so you could have done that. 1217 01:07:18,280 --> 01:07:22,080 And yeah, most people don't. And then I think you can add a 1218 01:07:22,160 --> 01:07:26,320 fourth iron law to pedagogy, which is that most people are 1219 01:07:26,320 --> 01:07:32,760 very, most people are very bad at applying, transferring the 1220 01:07:32,760 --> 01:07:35,520 way, whatever knowledge that they can apply in a narrow case 1221 01:07:35,520 --> 01:07:37,720 to any broader case. Right. 1222 01:07:37,720 --> 01:07:40,760 And this is all just the way the world works. 1223 01:07:41,040 --> 01:07:45,200 If you teach students in MIT then you might not have to 1224 01:07:45,200 --> 01:07:48,320 experience the bitterness of this so often, but if you just 1225 01:07:48,320 --> 01:07:52,440 get down one step from the very best students in the world, then 1226 01:07:52,440 --> 01:07:57,040 you will see it is really hard to teach anybody anything of any 1227 01:07:57,040 --> 01:08:01,080 value. So if I just want to be the 1228 01:08:01,080 --> 01:08:07,240 greatest economist of all time and I want to learn and then 1229 01:08:07,240 --> 01:08:11,640 maybe teach myself, how would I go about learning such a thing? 1230 01:08:11,640 --> 01:08:14,920 And what advice would you want to give my teacher to make sure 1231 01:08:14,920 --> 01:08:17,920 that I become the greatest economist of all time? 1232 01:08:18,960 --> 01:08:20,920 Yeah, I mean, depending on where you are, but honestly, I always 1233 01:08:20,920 --> 01:08:23,200 tell people start with textbooks they've got. 1234 01:08:23,200 --> 01:08:25,399 There's a lot of screwed up stuff in textbooks, but still, 1235 01:08:25,399 --> 01:08:29,279 it gives you a quick overview of the field and will get you 1236 01:08:29,279 --> 01:08:32,840 thinking, if you have a critical mind at all, about what parts of 1237 01:08:32,840 --> 01:08:37,600 the textbook are more and less compelling in terms of how the 1238 01:08:37,600 --> 01:08:40,000 teacher can go and help you. I mean, most of it is 1239 01:08:40,000 --> 01:08:42,160 motivational. We're all to say, look, you've 1240 01:08:42,160 --> 01:08:44,240 got to make it fun. Make it funny. 1241 01:08:44,520 --> 01:08:46,520 Don't take yourself so seriously. 1242 01:08:47,080 --> 01:08:48,920 Sell your field. Sell your field. 1243 01:08:48,920 --> 01:08:51,840 Be like always be telling your students this is what economics 1244 01:08:51,840 --> 01:08:54,000 illuminates in the real world. This is something from real 1245 01:08:54,000 --> 01:08:56,600 life, something from your own experience that you will 1246 01:08:56,600 --> 01:08:59,200 understand better as a result. Of course, most students, 1247 01:08:59,200 --> 01:09:00,920 there's just no way of reaching them at all. 1248 01:09:00,920 --> 01:09:04,800 So hard truth. But this is how you do the best 1249 01:09:04,800 --> 01:09:09,720 that you can. On page 111 I'm keeping an eye 1250 01:09:09,720 --> 01:09:11,279 on the time. I know you got to go in 5 1251 01:09:11,279 --> 01:09:15,279 minutes. Page 111 you have an objection 1252 01:09:15,279 --> 01:09:20,680 to egalitarianism focusing on grade merit verse income merit. 1253 01:09:20,920 --> 01:09:24,080 Can you walk us through what egalitarianism is? 1254 01:09:25,120 --> 01:09:28,479 Because I think it is straw manned a lot and what your 1255 01:09:28,479 --> 01:09:32,040 objection is to egalitarianism? Yeah, well, simple version of 1256 01:09:32,040 --> 01:09:35,040 egalitarianism is if you're going to eat that candy, you 1257 01:09:35,040 --> 01:09:36,359 have to share it equally with everyone. 1258 01:09:37,240 --> 01:09:40,600 You bring it up for everyone. Everyone can get 130th of your 1259 01:09:40,600 --> 01:09:42,359 chocolate bar or something like that. 1260 01:09:43,080 --> 01:09:45,240 All right, so that's the simplest version. 1261 01:09:46,120 --> 01:09:48,040 I would say. It's not a straw man to say that 1262 01:09:48,040 --> 01:09:51,760 a lot of people just think that the more equal things are, the 1263 01:09:51,760 --> 01:09:56,560 better, no matter what. Right now, if you are something 1264 01:09:56,560 --> 01:09:59,680 that is handing out grades and the question is, so should I 1265 01:09:59,680 --> 01:10:01,640 just give the average grade to every student regardless of 1266 01:10:01,640 --> 01:10:04,560 their work? You might say, well, this will 1267 01:10:04,560 --> 01:10:07,160 give bad incentives or whatever. All right, so I suppose there 1268 01:10:07,160 --> 01:10:09,840 are new incentives and just a matter of I could either give BS 1269 01:10:09,840 --> 01:10:11,920 to everyone or I could give ACE to the students that know the 1270 01:10:11,920 --> 01:10:15,160 material and CS to the ones that don't really know the material. 1271 01:10:15,720 --> 01:10:16,960 All right, what should I do then? 1272 01:10:17,320 --> 01:10:21,120 And I say, look, I would just think it's wrong to go and give 1273 01:10:21,120 --> 01:10:25,080 the same grades to people who know different amounts of stuff. 1274 01:10:25,080 --> 01:10:28,080 I'd say the people that have learned the material have done 1275 01:10:28,080 --> 01:10:30,880 well and they just, they have earned their As and they're 1276 01:10:30,880 --> 01:10:33,400 entitled to them and it doesn't really matter what the 1277 01:10:33,400 --> 01:10:36,200 consequences are. And on the other hand, the 1278 01:10:36,200 --> 01:10:38,600 people that don't know the material, like they deserve 1279 01:10:38,600 --> 01:10:42,480 those low grades, like they didn't learn it and so they do 1280 01:10:42,480 --> 01:10:45,680 not merit those higher grades. I'd say a lot of people are 1281 01:10:45,680 --> 01:10:48,280 comfortable with this, but then it like even very left wing 1282 01:10:48,280 --> 01:10:50,960 professors are not comfortable giving A's to students that 1283 01:10:50,960 --> 01:10:53,600 never showed up. And then it's like, well, why 1284 01:10:53,600 --> 01:10:55,880 don't we think about the economy in the same way? 1285 01:10:56,280 --> 01:10:59,720 Like, it's just not right that someone that really produced a 1286 01:10:59,720 --> 01:11:03,280 lot of value got would get paid the same amount of someone that 1287 01:11:03,280 --> 01:11:06,120 didn't. And never mind the incentive 1288 01:11:06,120 --> 01:11:08,840 effect, which is also important, but even without the incentive 1289 01:11:08,840 --> 01:11:12,000 effect, shouldn't someone that did better actually get the 1290 01:11:12,000 --> 01:11:14,640 rewards? You can also think about this as 1291 01:11:14,640 --> 01:11:18,640 like at the Olympics, should everybody get a medal, right? 1292 01:11:18,760 --> 01:11:20,880 And you know, and furthermore, to say, well, you don't really 1293 01:11:20,880 --> 01:11:22,800 deserve your gold medal cause your parents really helped you. 1294 01:11:22,800 --> 01:11:25,520 It's like, you know, it's true. My parents helped me and I 1295 01:11:25,520 --> 01:11:27,120 couldn't have gotten here without my parents, but I'm 1296 01:11:27,120 --> 01:11:29,080 still the fastest runner on earth. 1297 01:11:29,080 --> 01:11:31,120 Give me my gold medal. I deserve it. 1298 01:11:32,080 --> 01:11:35,440 Oh please don't give the world gold medal inflation. 1299 01:11:37,120 --> 01:11:40,920 How can I differentiate between a good economist and a bad 1300 01:11:40,920 --> 01:11:44,960 economist? Well, there is the classic line 1301 01:11:44,960 --> 01:11:48,800 from Henry Hazlett saying that a bad economist only thinks about 1302 01:11:49,000 --> 01:11:51,520 the effects in the short run and only the immediate facts, 1303 01:11:51,520 --> 01:11:54,320 whereas a good of an economist thinks about the more distant 1304 01:11:54,320 --> 01:11:55,960 effects and the effects in the long run. 1305 01:11:56,400 --> 01:12:00,640 I think that's a pretty good way to start, although actually I 1306 01:12:00,640 --> 01:12:05,120 think I would probably say it differently and rather say, 1307 01:12:05,120 --> 01:12:09,200 look, a a good economist is one that scrupulously avoids social 1308 01:12:09,200 --> 01:12:12,600 desirability bias, that makes a strong effort not to go and 1309 01:12:12,600 --> 01:12:16,960 sugarcoat the truth, doesn't try to figure out a way to make the 1310 01:12:17,000 --> 01:12:19,800 results socially acceptable, and instead just describes the world 1311 01:12:19,800 --> 01:12:23,920 really bluntly as it is. You know, my view is most of the 1312 01:12:23,920 --> 01:12:27,680 value additive economics is that it is the one social science 1313 01:12:27,920 --> 01:12:32,400 where there is a strong tradition of just speaking very 1314 01:12:32,400 --> 01:12:36,440 candidly, no matter how offensive what we're saying is 1315 01:12:36,440 --> 01:12:39,280 to the rest of the world. And that's why we make a lot 1316 01:12:39,280 --> 01:12:42,280 more progress in understanding the human condition than other 1317 01:12:42,280 --> 01:12:46,160 fields where they've got tools that are good, but they're just 1318 01:12:46,160 --> 01:12:49,560 handcuffed by their own fear of offending other people. 1319 01:12:51,920 --> 01:12:55,600 So I have heard the line so many times since the debate that 1320 01:12:55,600 --> 01:12:59,240 Americans are as divided as ever, as if there wasn't a civil 1321 01:12:59,240 --> 01:13:02,200 war or the Kent State shootings of OK. 1322 01:13:02,240 --> 01:13:06,240 So the point is, people think this is a really bad situation. 1323 01:13:06,240 --> 01:13:10,600 We got on our hands. What is something you would say 1324 01:13:10,600 --> 01:13:13,360 if you were the Martin Luther King Junior of today? 1325 01:13:13,600 --> 01:13:17,520 What is a message you would give to Americans in hopes of 1326 01:13:17,720 --> 01:13:22,680 unifying them in a positive way? That's common, that would lead 1327 01:13:22,680 --> 01:13:24,120 to peace? Because I'm afraid the only way 1328 01:13:24,120 --> 01:13:28,160 they can unify us is war against China or war against Russia. 1329 01:13:28,960 --> 01:13:31,280 Seems like the only thing we have in common is we fought 1330 01:13:31,280 --> 01:13:33,000 those National Socialists together. 1331 01:13:33,360 --> 01:13:36,600 So what is a message you would give to the masses to unify 1332 01:13:36,600 --> 01:13:39,320 blacks, whites, men, women, Americans? 1333 01:13:39,840 --> 01:13:43,440 This is going to sound crazy, but I'm just going to go back to 1334 01:13:43,520 --> 01:13:44,960 the book before the one we're talking about. 1335 01:13:44,960 --> 01:13:47,640 Build, BB, build. Finally, here's the message that 1336 01:13:47,640 --> 01:13:50,680 all that we need to talk about Let's deregulate housing. 1337 01:13:50,880 --> 01:13:53,920 Housing is crazy expensive. Government strangled it, and if 1338 01:13:53,920 --> 01:13:58,000 we would just go and deregulate housing, it would lead to 1339 01:13:58,680 --> 01:14:01,240 massive economic growth, rising living standards, lower 1340 01:14:01,240 --> 01:14:04,800 inequality, lower poverty, lower crime, more babies. 1341 01:14:05,040 --> 01:14:08,760 Let's just put aside all these other arguments and just get 1342 01:14:08,760 --> 01:14:13,000 together and take a flamethrower to the building code and the 1343 01:14:13,000 --> 01:14:17,920 land use regulation. That is what IA message that is 1344 01:14:17,920 --> 01:14:20,800 totally constructive. And as I argue in Bill baby 1345 01:14:20,800 --> 01:14:24,320 build, both liberals and conservatives, people of all 1346 01:14:24,320 --> 01:14:28,080 ideological views who are at least a little reasonable should 1347 01:14:28,080 --> 01:14:32,600 be able to agree on this. And it's a big project to go and 1348 01:14:32,600 --> 01:14:36,200 get rid of height restrictions, multi family restrictions, 1349 01:14:36,200 --> 01:14:38,960 minimum lot size, parking regulations, historic 1350 01:14:38,960 --> 01:14:41,640 reservation regulations, just to get rid of all this stuff. 1351 01:14:42,000 --> 01:14:45,520 It's a massive project, would take a lot of time, and 1352 01:14:45,520 --> 01:14:48,760 something that we could all do together for our own reasons, 1353 01:14:49,240 --> 01:14:52,680 which from our own philosophical views makes sense. 1354 01:14:53,200 --> 01:14:56,240 I don't think I could actually sell this, but in terms of an 1355 01:14:56,240 --> 01:15:01,200 idea that deserves to be a common goal that we can agree on 1356 01:15:01,200 --> 01:15:04,720 and without agreeing on the rationale, agree on the 1357 01:15:04,720 --> 01:15:09,240 destination, I think housing deregulation is a great one. 1358 01:15:10,520 --> 01:15:13,240 Thank you to everyone for watching the Libertarian 1359 01:15:13,240 --> 01:15:15,880 Institute and Keith Knight Don't tread on anyone. 1360 01:15:16,000 --> 01:15:20,840 The book is self help is like a vaccine essays on better living. 1361 01:15:20,840 --> 01:15:25,120 Find it exclusively at Amazon. Doctor Kaplan, thank you so much 1362 01:15:25,120 --> 01:15:27,520 for your time. Thank you very much and $12.00 1363 01:15:27,520 --> 01:15:29,560 for the paperback and 999 for the ebook. 1364 01:15:29,840 --> 01:15:33,480 Despite tons of abide inflation, I have not raised the price. 1365 01:15:34,320 --> 01:15:35,840 Worth every penny.