The Not Unreasonable Podcast David Wright

Tyler Cowen is an economist, author, podcaster, venture and philanthropic sponsor. Tyler is one of my intellectual heroes, this is his third appearance on this program and we'll be anchoring this discussion around his new book *Talent: How to Identify Energizers, Creatives, and Winners Around the World* co-authored with Daniel Gross. 

Tyler blogs at marginalrevolution.com (I've been reading it every day for about 15 years) and hosts the only must-listen podcast in my player: Conversations with Tyler. Tyler is an inspiration!

In the show we talk about:
* Why the book deserves to succeed in a moral sense
* Is Tyler moving away from academia? 
* What do I think the main connection is between Tyler and Daniel and how it informs this book?
* What is the goal of writing this book?
* What is the most important academic result... (ironic, I say!)
* Why should Tyler's podcast guests be scared? 
* Is bias good or bad?
* The list of tools available to those in power law businesses has grown!

Book link:
https://www.amazon.com/Talent-Identify-Energizers-Creatives-Winners/dp/1250275814

show notes: https://notunreasonable.com/?p=7478
youtube link: https://youtu.be/mr2jrM0fkt0

Howard Kunreuther is the foremost authority on applying behavioral economics to unlikely, high consequence events. I remain astounded that Howard's teachings are not part of the educational canon for all insurance professionals. This is important stuff!
In this episode we discuss:
* Cognitive bias and how it impacts society generally and insurance in particular
* How we might overcome cognitive bias in our decision making
* Prioritization of risk
* How politics really is the mediating force for discussing risk
* Does voter irrationality give us cause for hope? 

show notes at:
http://notunreasonable.com/?p=7470
youtube link:
https://youtu.be/wxSsddUAIFU

Social science is brutally hard to do well. I once got a guest to admit there has been no progress on it ever and another one to say that moral progress is literally impossible. I think there's a deeper link to morality and social science than most so this is depressing stuff for me. This episode was part of an effort of mine to get back to first principles. But, uh.. what ARE the first principles of social science? Enter Robin!

Robin Hanson is Associate professor of Economics at George Mason University and is back for his second appearance to talk about social science of very distant (in every possible sense of the term) societies. We have aliens, we have future humans, we have simulations. Robin speculates about things he can see today, things he thinks might happen in a century or two and even what might be going on in 1 million CE and perhaps beyond. 

As a frame for the show I think of it as trying to reason about what is permanent about social life by thinking of things that are weird and distant. Robin immediately disagrees with my premise and we go from there. We always learn from Robin Hanson, people!

Show notes: https://notunreasonable.com/?p=7460
Youtube link: https://youtu.be/oYCEo3LnGFE

Stan McChrystal retired as a 4 Star General in the US Army and has since founded the McChrystal Group, written four books and launched a podcast. Stan is one of the world's foremost scholars and practitioners of leadership and in this conversation we focus on his latest book, Risk: A User's Guide. As I say in the interview, I think this is Stan's most straightforward how-to guide on leadership and we dig very deeply into the nuanced and fascinating connection between leadership and uncertainty, including:
* What the history of military tactics can teach us about social progress
* How hard is it to manage Special Forces? Why might it be different than other branches of the military?
* When and why is Stan skeptical of using data to make decisions?
* How does uncertainty reduction help you judge a leader? 
* How do we use morality to help guide us through uncertainty? Who are the best at this in the military?
* What kind of information is toxic to decision making?

And more! Show notes at:
https://notunreasonable.com/2022/01/26/stan-mcchrystal-on-risk-and-leadership/

GA Bartick teaches people how to sell an underappreciated skill with very general applications. GA wrote a book called Silver Bullet Selling and in this conversation we talk about
- how small organizations should scale their founders
- Has sales changed over time
- What is different about your industry?
- How to make an emotional connection
- How insurance is different!
- Big ticket vs small ticket sales
- Sales books are exemplary training manuals. How to teach, how to train?
- Is sales training generating results? How do we know?
- Do we hate practicing sales more than anything else?
- Does sales training change your life?

Show notes at:
https://notunreasonable.com/?p=7336

Scott Sumner is the Ralph G. Hawtrey Chair of Monetary Policy at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and blogger at themoneyillusion.com and econlog and author of two books: The Midas Paradox and more recently, The Money Illusion. 
Scott came to prominence because his work on the Great Depression (published in Midas Paradox) gave him analytical superpowers for understanding the Great Recession in real time in 2008 and 2009 and beyond and in retrospect. We've seen the monetary policy establishment move closer and closer to the views Scott has been trying to talk them into for over ten years. 
Scott is one of those people who understands some very deep things about a very challenging subject. We can all learn from Scott!
In the conversation we cover:
- How might he design crypto monetary policy?
- What matters more, revenue or wages?
- Where does monetary policy end and fiscal policy begin?
- Why isn't the fed more politicized?
- How does Monetary Policy really work? How are inflation expectations set and how do they really matter?
- NGDP targeting and how Scott's view has changed on it 

Show notes:
https://notunreasonable.com/2021/11/26/scott-sumner-on-monetary-policy/