Conversations with Tyler 2025 Retrospective

Help us keep the conversations going in 2026. Donate https://mercatus.donorsupport.co/page/cowenconvos26?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=shownotes&utm_campaign=eoy26 to Conversations with Tyler today. On this special year-in-review episode, Tyler and producer Jeff Holmes look back on the past year on CWT and more, including covering the most popular and underrated episodes, why single-subject deep dives made for some of the best conversations this year, the biggest AI surprises and how LLMs changed the show's production function, what happened with the Magnus Carlsen episode, listener questions on everything from hotel selection to AI x-risk discourse, Tyler's serene acknowledgment that uncontrollable laughter is something he has neither experienced nor desires, reviewing his pop culture picks from 2015, and a dispatch from Muscat, Oman. Read a full transcript https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/conversations-wi%E2%80%A625-retrospective/ enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video https://youtu.be/7PfAkGErxS0 on the new dedicated Conversations with Tyler channel. Recorded November 5th and December 15th, 2025. Other ways to connect Follow us on X https://twitter.com/cowenconvos and Instagram https://www.instagram.com/cowenconvos/?hl=en Follow Tyler https://twitter.com/tylercowen on X Follow Jeff https://x.com/Jeff_Holmes on X Sign up for our newsletter https://mercatus.tfaforms.net/5060931 Join our Discord https://discord.gg/JAVWP7vTxt Email us: [email protected] mailto:[email protected] Learn more about Conversations with Tyler and other Mercatus Center podcasts here https://www.mercatus.org/podcasts. Timestamps 00:00:00 - Favorite episodes of the year 00:12:08 - AI's impact on the show 00:15:05 - The lost Magnus episode 00:17:13 - Tyler's #1 hotel amenity 00:18:40 - Tyler's growing influence and thoughts on tariffs 00:21:15 - AI x-risk discourse 00:26:22 – Copying Tyler's interview style 00:28:50 - Tyler's lack of joy 00:32:55 - How well ChatGPT answers as Tyler 00:35:15 - Tyler's 2015 movie picks 00:40:44 - Tyler's 2015 book picks 00:45:00 - Tyler's 2015 music picks 00:48:16 - Most popular episodes and thoughts on Oman Photo Credit: Kevin Trimmer

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:04Tyler Cowen?

  Hi listeners, this is Tyler. Thanks to your support, Conversations with Tyler is celebrating 10 incredible years. We've brought you over 250 conversations with some of the world's sharpest minds, from Margaret Atwood to Steven Pinker to Sam Altman and countless others. Together, we're making the world wiser and more appreciative, one episode at a time. But here's the thing, we can't do this without you. Your tax-deductible contribution keeps these conversations coming. New episodes every other week, sometimes more often than that, full transcripts, live shows, and listener meetups. And to thank you, we've got some amazing donor benefits if you can give before January

• 0:48Tyler Cowen?

  1, 2026. At $50, get exclusive 10th anniversary swag and a signed message from me. At $750, sponsor a transcript. $1,500 gets you into a virtual Ask Me Anything with me. Donate $25,000 and you'll get a private one-on-one dinner in the DC area with me. Every dollar matters. Please head to the link in the show notes to learn more and make your contribution today. Thank you for listening and for helping to make this podcast possible. Conversations with Tyler is produced by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University,

• 1:33Tyler Cowen?

  bridging the gap between academic ideas and real-world problems. Learn more at mercatus.org. For a full transcript of every conversation, enhanced with helpful links, visit conversationswithtyler.com.

• 1:52Speaker 01

  Hello and welcome to the 2025 retrospective episode where we review the past year in conversations with Tyler. We answer your listener questions. We review Tyler's pop culture picks from 2015 and generally have the conversation I want to have. My name is Jeff Holmes. I'm the lead producer of conversations with Tyler and I'm joined, of course, by Tyler himself. Tyler, welcome.

• 2:14Tyler Cowen?

  Hello, Jeff. Happy to be here.

• 2:16Speaker 01

  So Tyler, at the end of last year's retrospective, you said, let's do more episodes.

• 2:21Tyler Cowen?

  That's right, and we did.

• 2:22Speaker 01

  And we did. So this year, this episode, the last of the year, is the 36th episode that we've released this year. That's the most we've ever done. In fact, our official release schedule is two episodes per month, but this year we've managed to make it three episodes per month, de facto.

• 2:39Tyler Cowen?

  And we have Marginal Revolution podcast.

• 2:41Speaker 01

  And you have the Marginal Revolution podcast, which right now is in season two, and you've recorded six episodes this season. And of course, you're doing podcasts all the time generally. That's a lot.

• 2:52Tyler Cowen?

  It is. That's good.

• 2:53Speaker 01

  And looking at this-

• 2:54Tyler Cowen?

  I promised you we would do more.

• 2:55Speaker 01

  And you delivered. Looking at the list, though, do you think there was a, did that come at the cost of quality, or do you feel good about this roster of guests?

• 3:02Tyler Cowen?

  I thought it was a very good year. I won't say who, but out of the 36 whatever, I thought maybe three were not great and the others were, you know, good through excellent. So I was quite happy. I don't feel I get the credit for that. It's the guests. But nonetheless, it's a pretty good record.

• 3:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. Now, let's go in and see how the audience agreed with you. Now, to get a peek behind the scenes, we're recording this a little bit earlier in the year than we usually do. So I'm going to ask for your predictions for most popular episodes, but then we're going to check back in and a little coda closer to the end of the year and we'll actually review top episodes. So wait till the end of the episode for top episodes. But right now, sitting where we are now, what do you think will be the most popular episodes of the year?

• 3:48Tyler Cowen?

  I'll predict a clear winner will be Sam Altman, which was released the morning we're recording this by a considerable margin. But of course, we'll see.

• 3:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think that's a safe bet and we do know what the releases will be through the end of the year. Now, we'll review most popular episodes later when we actually have the numbers. But in terms of your perception of underrated episodes, we don't know what's popular yet. So underrated is just your taste and my taste. What do you think was underrated this year?

• 4:17Tyler Cowen?

  Well, Johnny Steinberg was one of my favorite episodes. I thought all of his answers were deep and thoughtful.

• 4:22Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 4:22Tyler Cowen?

  And it was good to focus on South Africa. My guess would be it did normal traffic, but nothing above that.

• 4:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. Any other picks?

• 4:30Tyler Cowen?

  My guess is Ian Leslie on John and Paul and the Beatles did somewhat above average.

• 4:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:35Tyler Cowen?

  That's truly a popular culture topic, but that was very good. Annie Austin, the YouTuber, you referred him to me. One of my three or four favorite episodes for the year. I have no idea how that one did, but I thought it was excellent and magical at times.

• 4:49Speaker 01

  Austin did, Austin did well. Still one of my underrated picks for the year. That actually was born out of last year's retrospective. A listener asked a question about video games. I referenced one of Austin's videos. He got in touch. People sent him the clip. And he's helped us on our new YouTube channel because as it turns out, a popular YouTuber appearing on your YouTube channel is very good for you.

• 5:12Tyler Cowen?

  That's great.

• 5:13Speaker 01

  But I love that conversation because I felt like that could have gone south very easily, but Austin, I think, was up for the challenge. And it looked like you two had a lot of fun during that, that conversation.

• 5:24Tyler Cowen?

  I don't think it could have gone south easily. I think it was preordained that it was going to be very good because he's willing to talk and he's smart and he'll say what he thinks.

• 5:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:33Tyler Cowen?

  So it just is not going to go wrong.

• 5:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:35Tyler Cowen?

  David Robertson, the classical music conductor, probably way less popular than average, but he was very good and I quite liked the episode.

• 5:43Speaker 01

  I think this year, looking over the episodes, one of the observations I would make is that the single subject episodes were actually some of the best this year. So if you think of David Commons on Saudi Arabia, Lopez on Buddhism, Sajin on the Great Depression, Castor, Richard II, Henry IV, Ted Schwartz on neurosurgery, Ogilvy on pandemic response, the ones where there's more of a singular focus where it's just, let's pick this person's brain about the thing they know well.

• 6:10Tyler Cowen?

  That's right.

• 6:10Speaker 01

  Those were great episodes. So if you're looking for a heuristic this year, that's not a bad one. Is just go for the episodes that are just singularly focused on that person's expertise. Otherwise, Dan Wong, the back and forth there, a little bit of sparring. In the MR comments, people were eager to hear more pushback on his thesis. And I think you delivered on that, on that desire.

• 6:31Tyler Cowen?

  And as you'll hear, Dan and I went on for one hour 40 minutes. Which was my testament to the fact that I thought it was consistently interesting.

• 6:38Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 6:39Tyler Cowen?

  And the Donald Lopez one on Buddhism, not released as we're speaking, but one of my favorites of the year. He just had excellent answers to all questions and spit it out immediately. No BS.

• 6:50Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 6:51Tyler Cowen?

  And the ones where it's a single topic, I learn more from the prep because I know what to prepare. Where some of the other, like the Steven Pinker episode was good, but I already know Steven Pinker. We already recorded with him. I didn't really have to prepare Steven Pinker. I can just show up and be myself and it's pretty good, right?

• 7:11Speaker 01

  Yep. Yeah. And that may be what I'm responding to and listening to it as well is

• 7:18Speaker 01

  you're having that person on because that topic interests you and that person is one of the best on that topic. And so hearing your enthusiasm, just hearing what a very smart, curious person wants to know about that topic is notable of itself. And just listening to what kinds of questions is Tyler asking about Buddhism or Saudi Arabia?

• 7:39Tyler Cowen?

  So maybe we'll do more of those, but they are much harder preps, like the Buddhism prep. That was a good four or five months for me.

• 7:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:46Tyler Cowen?

  I'm very glad I did it, but I couldn't do that for every episode.

• 7:49Speaker 01

  And what do you take away? So you finally, you did all the prep. You've done a lot of reading and background research. You talked to one of the best thinkers on it. After that, what do you walk away remembering or what sticks with you?

• 8:02Tyler Cowen?

  How violent Buddhism is, that Buddhism is shrinking somewhat, that it's not what most people think, that what I would call American Buddhism, while itself interesting and to many people appealing, is not actual Buddhism. And I had some knowledge of those beforehand, but now much more detailed, much more vivid.

• 8:22Speaker 01

  Yeah. Another one, my last pick for underrated, and I know I've given a lot this year, but John Ametschi, I really enjoyed that one. I think some people thought, well, it's not deep enough. He doesn't, it's not, he's giving kind of. You know, kind of maybe like TED-like answers on leadership. It's like something all smart people believe, but it's not rigorous enough or something like that. But I enjoyed his stories on life in the NBA. He also, as you noted, has one of the best podcast voices of any guest we've had on the show. But just hearing his perspective on things, he's clearly a very smart guy, was good on his feet, I thought. And so if you skipped that one because either you didn't know anything about him or you

• 9:02Speaker 01

  didn't care about the NBA, or maybe you think leadership, quote unquote, is bunk, a lot of that described my priors going into it and I still loved it.

• 9:11Tyler Cowen?

  It's one where you need to listen rather than read the transcript. Another very good one, it's not out yet, but Gorav Kapadia. Most people haven't heard of him. I think I said once, Gorav, you're either the most underrated unknown person or the most unknown underrated person. And I'm not sure which, or maybe both. And he's an investor in New York City. And that was excellent.

• 9:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. The last thing I'll say on this is I felt like especially in the last, nothing against people earlier in the year, but the last part of the year, the releases here, that a lot of hits.

• 9:45Tyler Cowen?

  And Cass Sunstein, very, very good. He was really up for it and felt challenged and decided he was going to do his very best and he did. And I think people might neglect that one because there's a lot of Cass out there, but they shouldn't. It's like Cass at his very, very peak and it's a great episode. And he and I also went well over the hour, which again is a testament.

• 10:07Speaker 01

  Yeah. That fits my single subject thesis too. Cass on liberalism, I didn't expect that one to be as good as it was. And I was engrossed and hooked by it. As someone who reads a lot of Cass, he's obviously been on the show before. And in Mercatus, we're steeped in classical liberalism all the time, but hearing his perspective, I felt like I got a lot new out of that episode.

• 10:29Tyler Cowen?

  And it was important that we went up to Cambridge, Mass to do it with him. And later, I think it was the same evening, but later that trip, I got to visit their house, which is a famous historic house. I don't want to give away where it is, but that was a real treat for me to see where they live. Revolutionary War House, I'll just say.

• 10:49Speaker 01

  Oh, very nice.

• 10:49Tyler Cowen?

  Yeah.

• 10:50Speaker 01

  So that was a lot. I don't want to damn the others by faint praise, but I do think this, I do think this year was a really good, a really good year. And also, I, I will say, I think almost all of the ones we mentioned were not top five, top 10 episodes by listener popularity. So

• 11:07Tyler Cowen?

  And what predicts being top five or top 10?

• 11:10Speaker 01

  This year, we'll see when the final tally is made, but this year it's more about name recognition coming in. We don't, we don't have the eclectic kind of top five list this year. When you get into the top 10, it's a little more eclectic, but it's the big names.

• 11:23Tyler Cowen?

  Yeah.

• 11:24Speaker 01

  You know, it's going to be Sam Altman. It's going to be the big names.

• 11:27Tyler Cowen?

  Yeah.

• 11:28Speaker 01

  All right.

• 11:28Tyler Cowen?

  But even who are the big names is a little hard to say, right? Like Ezra Klein, big name, right?

• 11:34Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 11:34Tyler Cowen?

  But I'm not sure who are all the big names. Lee Silver, big name, right? That was a good episode. Ezra is good.

• 11:40Speaker 01

  And I don't think there's a negative correlation. I think, I think some of the big names have been really good conversations as well, but we're not in the Dwar Kesh Patel territory of he, he will say that his most popular episodes tend to be the more obscure.

• 11:55Tyler Cowen?

  Right.

• 11:55Speaker 01

  For whatever reason, at least this year, that's not, that's not our experience. Okay, let's move on to listener questions. So first one from Patrick McKenzie, past guest on the show. What are the biggest surprises in AI this year and the biggest changes to the Tyler Cowen at all production function as a result of AI this year?

• 12:17Tyler Cowen?

  Maybe the biggest surprise in AI was how good the O3 model was, which I called AGI at the time. Maybe tongue in cheek, but I also meant it, that it can't do every job, but the old definition of AGI, that it's just as good as human experts is largely true. So I don't know if it was a shock, but by that point you were more or less expecting it, but had it come one year later, that would not have been a surprise either. So just how much better reasoning models got from say, oh, one, uh, to me was somewhat of a surprise, but otherwise mostly the lack of surprises was the surprise. Things that's kept on going.

• 12:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:56Tyler Cowen?

  It's been a great progress. They used to think there were two Rs in strawberry and now they know there's three and, and their spare time, they win gold medals at Math Olympiad.

• 13:05Speaker 01

  Mm hmm. To broaden the question to the production of the show itself. I don't think AI has been transformational this year. I assume that's what Patrick was referring to when he asked about at all.

• 13:15Tyler Cowen?

  No, it's helped us do many more episodes. So if you take Donald Lopez, the Buddhism caller, maybe I read 30 books on Buddhism, which is a fair number, but I had so many GPT queries on Buddhism and I saved a few hundred dollars and a lot of time and I could just get right to the point and learn what I wanted to know. And we could not have done as many episodes as we did had it not been for large language models. So it did change the production function.

• 13:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. Things in terms of editing and producing the show beyond the interview and the prep, there have been marginal improvements. There are things that make editing a little easier, these machine learning algorithms that allow you to do a pass the episode and get rid of ums and ahs and things like that. Those have been around for a while. They're getting better. It can definitely help brainstorm and find new guests and people who would be good for specific things, like who would be good for a live show. There is some prompting techniques that you have to use there because it will tend to regurgitate very well-known names, but and

• 14:14Tyler Cowen?

  Who's it saying we should do? Do you remember?

• 14:16Speaker 01

  Well, I suppose to its credit, it depends on how you look at it, but it tends to suggest people who have been on the show. So, so one thing it doesn't do by default is it suggests a lot of people who have already been on the show. The other thing is it will go for names like that aren't necessarily bad, but, but aren't exactly what we're looking for or perhaps feasible. So like it'll say like, oh, you should do Oprah Winfrey or something like that. And we're always looking for this. To go back to the Dorkesh point of you're looking for someone for live events, you're looking for someone who can draw a crowd, but who isn't just completely overexposed as well and will say nothing. So

• 14:54Tyler Cowen?

  We would not say no to Oprah, right?

• 14:55Speaker 01

  But we would not say no to Oprah. Another listener question that somewhat related to that, because last year we talked about Magnus and getting Magnus on. A listener asked, what's going on with the Magnus episode? Can you give us the, the story there?

• 15:10Tyler Cowen?

  I had a very good dinner with Magnus. That was great. He said he wanted to do it. His wife had a baby with, I would call imperfect timing. I'm not saying it's imperfect for them and the baby, but imperfect for us.

• 15:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:22Tyler Cowen?

  There's a good chance it will still happen, but I'm going to just wait till I feel they're a bit settled with that.

• 15:27Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 15:28Tyler Cowen?

  I don't know how long that should be and we'll try again and I give it 50 50.

• 15:32Speaker 01

  Okay. Yeah. So we did get very close to the Magnus CWT. You put out the MR post of what should I ask Magnus?

• 15:39Tyler Cowen?

  And I'm sure the episode will be great, having now met him.

• 15:42Speaker 01

  Who are the other top chess players or just chess players that you would like to have on?

• 15:46Tyler Cowen?

  Caruana is very well spoken and very thoughtful and philosophical. And I think at some point we can get him.

• 15:53Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 15:53Tyler Cowen?

  Some of them are, to me, just annoying.

• 15:57Tyler Cowen?

  So.

• 15:58Speaker 01

  What makes them annoying?

• 15:59Tyler Cowen?

  Their voices, their personalities, their narrowness.

• 16:03Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 16:03Tyler Cowen?

  Not at all true of Magnus or Caruana. Magnus was very impressive, how many different topics he can speak well about off the top of his head.

• 16:10Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 16:11Tyler Cowen?

  And Caruana is himself a first rate podcaster.

• 16:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:15Tyler Cowen?

  And Vishy Anand was wonderful.

• 16:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:17Tyler Cowen?

  But I'm not sure the list, we've had Kasparov, of course, also. I'm not sure the list runs that much longer.

• 16:22Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 16:23Tyler Cowen?

  You wouldn't say no to Gukesh because he's world champion, but I'm not sure how good he would be.

• 16:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:28Tyler Cowen?

  He might be very good, but he is 19 and

• 16:30Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 16:31Tyler Cowen?

  not that experienced in other things, one would presume.

• 16:35Speaker 01

  Mm hmm. All right. Next question from Sean Young, friend of the show. Who's the next guest you'd be open to flipping the script with and have them ask you the questions? We did one with Patrick Collison many years ago where he interviewed you.

• 16:49Tyler Cowen?

  Well, anyone who I think would be good at that. So many, many guests, like who has an interest in doing it, or maybe they don't want to be interrogated themselves. That's okay. So yeah, I'm very open to that. Ideas are welcome.

• 17:01Speaker 01

  Okay. So send in your pitches if you, if you want to interview Tyler. All right. Next question from Pete. How does Tyler pick hotels? He's written a lot about how he picks restaurants, but not how he picks hotels.

• 17:13Tyler Cowen?

  Well, most of my travel is connected to events and the hotel is chosen for me. Not a complaint. They're typically better than what I would choose for myself. What I actually care about is, is there a swimming pool? Are there enough outlets in the room that I can plug everything in? At this point, that's almost always a yes, but even five years ago, there were no guarantees there. Is the pillow sufficiently flat? Most of the rest I don't care about. Oh, can I figure out how to operate the shower and turn off all the lights? That's getting harder, not easier.

• 17:44Speaker 01

  Are you able to assess that pre-booking?

• 17:47Tyler Cowen?

  No.

• 17:47Speaker 01

  Or just by the chain, you you kind of go by brand?

• 17:50Tyler Cowen?

  I think if I wrote a detailed prompt for GPT, in fact, it could. I just haven't gotten to that yet. But the hotels I pick for myself are not fancy enough that I have trouble operating the shower and turning off the lights. It's the ones that are chosen for me and then I'm just stuck, even though they'll be incredible along other dimensions.

• 18:10Speaker 01

  The pool is news to me is that just you do a daily constitutional or go for your ablutions in the pool? What's that about?

• 18:17Tyler Cowen?

  I'll swim every day if I'm away from home, if I have a pool.

• 18:20Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 18:20Tyler Cowen?

  Absolutely.

• 18:21Speaker 01

  So that's your gym in essence is not the gym, but the pool.

• 18:24Tyler Cowen?

  I will go to the gym if there's no pool, but the pool to me is more than 5X more valuable than the gym. The gym is boring. The pool I enjoy.

• 18:31Speaker 01

  All right. Next question from Rodney Tickle. As he's grown in influence, has he had to become less honest or more cautious?

• 18:40Tyler Cowen?

  Well, you all listen to the podcast and you see 10 years of data. So maybe I should ask all of you that. To me, it feels the same, but I do observe in others when they fool themselves. They don't always know. So when I was recording with Alison Gopnik, I accused her of laboring under delusions. And I actually don't think I would have said that 10 years ago. So maybe in some ways I'm more honest. She was to not, I took her to be denying the heritability of IQ, by the way, if you're wondering about the context. And I got upset. Maybe I shouldn't have gotten upset, but actually I feel I should have gotten upset.

• 19:14Speaker 01

  It was something you definitely pressed her on. I know as a, as a listener, I did not feel like you got upset, but you definitely pressed her more than, than you usually do. Usually you move on.

• 19:24Tyler Cowen?

  That's right. Yeah. And it just seemed so egregiously off to me. And it is her field, right? If someone else said that, oh, whatever, but it's the main thing she works on.

• 19:36Speaker 01

  Do you feel like you have people around you who can hold your feet to the fire?

• 19:42Tyler Cowen?

  When you say around me, some of my colleagues and immediate family, but I think this is becoming a larger problem overall. Yeah.

• 19:51Speaker 01

  Because people want something from you?

• 19:52Tyler Cowen?

  Yeah, they want something from you. Or they just observe others keeping their distance and they follow that lead and become more afraid, even if they want nothing from me. Maybe that's even more common.

• 20:03Speaker 01

  All right. Next question, user Xmas835 on Twitter. What will cause the US to change course on tariffs?

• 20:13Tyler Cowen?

  Well, the Supreme Court started hearing today, the Trump case, and by the time you're all listening, we'll know the answer. But in the betting market, I think it's 87% right now, they'll rule against Trump.

• 20:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:25Tyler Cowen?

  And it sounds like they will. I haven't looked through the materials yet, but that would be my best guess. Probably it'll all be done and over with by the time you're listening to me.

• 20:35Speaker 01

  They're working on Plan Bs and Cs as we speak. We don't know how it will turn out.

• 20:40Tyler Cowen?

  No, some of those will work. Other national security arguments, the tariffs will not disappear. But the idea that you can just put a tariff on Canada and chocolate from Madagascar because Trump said so, I do think that's likely to go away and soon.

• 20:54Speaker 01

  As I understand it, the crux of the argument is that from the Trump side is that tariffs are just a form of regulation. It's not a tax, it's regulatory policy.

• 21:02Tyler Cowen?

  Good luck with that. There's a lot of American history suggesting the contrary.

• 21:06Speaker 01

  All right. Next question from David Golden. What would allow a more productive dialogue about AI risks? Watching him and people like Z talk past each other is depressing.

• 21:19Tyler Cowen?

  It should be depressing. I've said for quite a while now, the people who are more worried about AI risk than I am should try to go through peer review and develop a literature. And the whole point of having a literature is you see what are the critical questions or what are not the critical questions. As far as I can tell, they still refuse to do this, even after what is now a fair number of years. So other than repeating the point that they ought to do that, I don't know what else to say. Market prices are not. Predicting what they claim either. So if peer review is not with you and market prices are not with you, even the super forecasters are for the most part not with them. I would just say, you know, burden of proof is on them and they ought to get their act together.

• 22:04Speaker 01

  But why do they have to do it in this traditional academic way where they have to become part of the literature and go through peer review? Since so much of this, it's fast paced and so much of this discourse is happening online through essays and social media, why put that burden on them that they have to go into this more traditional form of?

• 22:21Tyler Cowen?

  Well, they should do both. They've already done the other, right? But peer review is super useful. You have things where there's a deliberate exchange of, does this argument succeed or not? Where people scrutinize it very carefully, not just some weird blog commentators. And it works for every other science. It's worked for climate change. What we've learned from climate change is that the arguments for, to call it warming is an oversimplification, but to say warming for now, they really do hold up with a lot of different sources of support. But the claim that the costs of global warming are going up, that's a much weaker claim. And by running everything through the wringer, while those will all still continue

• 23:02Tyler Cowen?

  to be revised, that's what we've learned. It's super valuable. And we would not have gotten there with weird blog commentators. We needed refereeing and peer review and it does take longer. But again, these arguments have been around a while. I think Ellie Eezer, I'm guessing that was 15 to 20 years, he's been saying this?

• 23:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:20Tyler Cowen?

  So I've even said to some philanthropists, you should support this as a project. It's not that expensive. I volunteered to do some refereeing for free. I'm still waiting for the phone to ring, to use the proverbial metaphor.

• 23:34Speaker 01

  So there's a new service out, a new AI service that, and I can't think of the name of it.

• 23:39Tyler Cowen?

  Refine?

• 23:40Speaker 01

  Refine, the one that gives peer comments?

• 23:42Tyler Cowen?

  That's right.

• 23:43Speaker 01

  Is that, is that a potential way for, obviously they need to put it in the format of a paper, not necessarily, but.

• 23:50Speaker 01

  Would that be a step in the right direction of at least getting a kind of fine tuned LLM to give those kinds of referee remarks or feedback?

• 23:59Tyler Cowen?

  I haven't used Refine yet, but I strongly suspect the answer is yes. Or if it's not their product, someone else will do the equivalent soon.

• 24:06Speaker 01

  Okay. All right, well, we've

• 24:08Tyler Cowen?

  You need a research paper in research paper format, I suspect. You just ask Refine, again, I haven't used it. Oh, what do you like or dislike about this blog post? While interesting, it's not what I'm asking for. There's some truth to Brian Kaplan's claim, don't trust individual papers, trust literatures. And the spontaneous order sort of wisdom embedded in a literature is just sorely lacking here.

• 24:32Speaker 01

  Yeah. So you've offered a referee and you've talked to philanthropists. Is it just about somehow encouraging or subsidizing the creation of that literature? Or do you think there's, I mean, what is the binding constraint there?

• 24:46Tyler Cowen?

  I genuinely don't understand it. I suspect some of the key figures just don't want that kind of scrutiny. And I'm not sure the peer reviewing would be that kind to their ideas. Now, they are sincere in their belief. So on one level, they think it will come out fine. But at some other level, I think their lack of trust in the method is reflecting a kind of insecurity about the arguments. Yes.

• 25:11Speaker 01

  All right. Next question from Virat. In a future world where Neuralink type devices can instantly upload data to our mind and impart us with world's knowledge, what is valuable? The experience of getting to know or the knowing itself? The journey or the destination? Is it even valuable? What's after? We know all. And they clarify that this is assuming that Neuralink devices are much more advanced than they are now, that it can literally just kind of implant the world's knowledge in your brain.

• 25:39Tyler Cowen?

  That world seems very distant to me. I don't have intuitions about that world. A world where, say, people who have problems with paralysis can do very useful things through Neuralink? That's not distant.

• 25:53Tyler Cowen?

  But the rest, I don't know. It's a metaphysics, it just may not even be true. But I would make the general point, the process is super important. That just something like writing where LLMs can write well, but that you need to be writing all the time, that should never go away. It's a simpler example, more tractable. I strongly believe there in the process for humans and not just the outcome.

• 26:15Speaker 01

  All right. Next question from Naveen Mishra. Why haven't more people copied your interviewing style?

• 26:22Tyler Cowen?

  Well, why should they? Like, for one thing, it might not be good. Second, it requires a great deal of preparation. Not just on-the-spot preparation, but like the lifetime of having read a lot in broad number of areas. And, uh, yeah, it's just difficult. So I'm not sure the returns to them are that high. Why should they do it?

• 26:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, we believe in pluralism. I let a thousand flowers bloom. I think you have your style. It's not for everyone. Some people are very turned off. I mean, it's a joke of the show that we call it Conversations with Tyler, and it's more like, you know, a grilling by Tyler in many cases. I think one thing maybe that has become more of a a convention that people adopt is the super-specific first question. You're known for that.

• 27:08Tyler Cowen?

  And get into the point quickly.

• 27:09Speaker 01

  In a way, this is, um, what I've reflected on this year has also been that that lends itself very well to video and YouTube. So.

• 27:17Tyler Cowen?

  Good.

• 27:18Speaker 01

  So one of the things that the algorithm, you know, if we talk to Austin about this, he would tell us that when he crafts a YouTube video, one of the things you learn very quickly is you just need to get to the point. You need to get right into it. And then, of course, they have tricks of how they keep the user engaged throughout. But intros, things like that are just death. And so for you, that's been an instinct you've had. And in a weird way, you're kind of ahead of the game on, as a YouTuber.

• 27:46Tyler Cowen?

  I think there's another point here that for someone to adopt some version of my style, they both need to be strong enough intellectually to be a guest, but also deferential enough to want to be a host. And there's many, many, like, super impressive people who are great guests. But the idea that they take the guest hat off and just become the interviewer doesn't interest them at all. And I think it's a weird personality quirk of mine that I like to do both or can do both or will do both. And that severely limits the number of people who will have my style. And then if a guest comes back to me and says on something, well, Tyler, what do you think? I do typically have something to say, whether or not they or all you listeners like it.

• 28:31Tyler Cowen?

  But I do have something to say. And that's important, an important part of the style, even though it's not always that frequent.

• 28:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. All right. Next question from Jump Free Tuckins. When was the last time you had uncontrollable laughter and what caused it?

• 28:49Tyler Cowen?

  Probably the correct answer is never, like literally never in my life.

• 28:54Speaker 01

  Oh, Tyler. Never, never.

• 28:57Tyler Cowen?

  Why should it be uncontrollable? Like, things just aren't that funny. Like, how good can something taste? Like, take the best sushi I've ever had, which is quite good. Things can taste a bit better than that, but not much. So funniness is a maximum. It does not bring me to uncontrollable laughter, and that's just the equilibrium.

• 29:16Speaker 01

  Well, this is consistent with how you presented yourself before, where you've talked about how you feel like you don't have the extreme highs and lows of other people. You're much more of a steady middle kind of person. So either displeasure or pleasure, you don't get the extremes as much. But I guess I'm.

• 29:32Tyler Cowen?

  Isn't uncontrollable laughter in some ways a kind of displeasure?

• 29:37Tyler Cowen?

  I don't know, since I've never had it.

• 29:38Speaker 01

  I mean, in the sense that sometimes, you know, tickling, if you get tickled, that can sometimes you're laughing, but you want it to stop.

• 29:47Tyler Cowen?

  Right.

• 29:49Speaker 01

  No, I think what that's getting at is those times where something has just so metaphorically tickled you that you, and usually it's with another person. I think that's.

• 30:00Tyler Cowen?

  Not gonna happen. Sorry.

• 30:02Speaker 01

  Oh, that makes me a little sad.

• 30:04Tyler Cowen?

  Maybe just you're not funny enough. Have you considered that?

• 30:07Speaker 01

  Oh, shots fired, Tyler. Oh, my gosh.

• 30:09Tyler Cowen?

  I don't mean you, but like you, collective humanity.

• 30:11Speaker 01

  Okay, collective you. All right.

• 30:13Tyler Cowen?

  I heard Louis CK Live, which is the funniest show I've ever heard. And I laughed quite a bit, but I was not close to uncontrollably laughing.

• 30:23Speaker 01

  Do you have any theory? As to why that is, because it's not. When that happens, it's again, it's usually about something you and another person are experiencing together that you've realized you've had the same thought or same experience and it's just.

• 30:39Tyler Cowen?

  I suspect it's heritable with apologies to Alison Gopnik.

• 30:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. This is very consistent. On one hand, I should not be surprised at all by that answer, but I still would think that there would be some time in your life, even as a kid, where something would just tickle you. And I'm surprised. I mean, you love.

• 30:57Tyler Cowen?

  It's possible. I can't rule it out, but I don't recall it.

• 31:00Speaker 01

  Okay. All right. On our Discord, Fuzzy Bunny asks, how has the comment section on marginal revolution changed your views on regulation? They meant this a little tongue in cheek, but that's the question.

• 31:14Tyler Cowen?

  They mean regulation of internet content?

• 31:17Speaker 01

  I think it's a comment on just MR commenters in general and their general tenor. And maybe, maybe so. Maybe it is about, has it changed your views on speech on? I don't know. Interpret as you will.

• 31:30Tyler Cowen?

  If some big tech company, you know, Meta formerly Facebook decides they want to take content down, I'm not like, ooh, boo hoo, free speech. I'm like, yes, you know, it was probably terrible. I don't think it's censorship. They own the platform. It's up to them. If they don't want to put someone up saying lemon meringue pie is great, I'm like, yes, lemon meringue pie is not great. That's fine. You spread the truth and it just doesn't bother me at all.

• 31:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:58Tyler Cowen?

  And if I delete someone, I'm like, yes, you know.

• 32:02Speaker 01

  You do.

• 32:02Tyler Cowen?

  There've been some people recently, they'll just like say something about Trump, which is well within any previous guidelines. I just look at it, roll my eyes, like this is not going to make any of the conversation better and I'll just delete it.

• 32:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, yeah, maybe we take that view of regulation, regulation slash moderation. We do a fair amount in marginal revolution. Think it makes the experience better, the discourse better. Does that generalize in any way to you? Do you have lessons that you take to that that you would apply to other domains?

• 32:34Tyler Cowen?

  Well, we should be very tolerant of more dominant suppliers doing the same thing. And again, people used to say, well, there's nowhere to go but Facebook. It's just not true and it's less true than it was when people used to say it.

• 32:46Speaker 01

  All right. Okay, let's try this experiment. Thomas Marbson says, ask him which of the other questions AI will provide the same answer when asked to answer as Tyler Cowen and then do it to see if he gets it right. So of those previous listener questions, which one do you think AI will do the best job asking? And we'll do, we'll do a test and see how it goes. So do you remember what the questions were?

• 33:11Tyler Cowen?

  No, I don't.

• 33:13Speaker 01

  So grown in influence, more honest or cautious, how you pick hotels, change course on tariffs.

• 33:21Tyler Cowen?

  Change course on tariffs.

• 33:22Speaker 01

  All right, let's ask the change course on tariffs question.

• 33:24Tyler Cowen?

  Especially, you know, there can be a lag like it needed to have read the internet this morning. And it depends when you asked it. But if it's read the internet this morning, it ought to give the same answer as I did.

• 33:35Speaker 01

  So we just asked ChatGPT to answer as you. Now, I will say that ChatGPT immediately put the disclaimer on that it can't write as Tyler Cowen, but it will provide a crisp economist's eye answer with similar vibe. So what will make the US change course on tariffs? It provides 10 reasons. One, inflation that voters can trace to tariffs. Two, administrative bottlenecks become the story. So in other words, problems at the ports, compliance costs. Three, a grand bargain tied to security. Four, recession plus employment insurance politics. Five, corporate America unifies, especially outside of big tech. Six, agriculture feels boxed out. Seven, a carbon deal reframes the border.

• 34:20Speaker 01

  Eight, Mexico, Vietnam, India bargains. Nine, legal or budget constraints bite. 10, symbolic win, the White House can sell. Okay, it didn't pick up the Supreme Court at all.

• 34:30Tyler Cowen?

  Too thorough.

• 34:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. Didn't pick up the Supreme Court at all, but which of those, which of those 10 reasons is closer, closest to you, do you think?

• 34:39Tyler Cowen?

  I would dismiss the carbon answer. The others are all factors. But keep in mind, we're asking it about the delta. What will change? They're all things that have been in place. I think what also has changed, and we're speaking the day after the election results, where the Democrats won a lot by more than expected. Is this will motivate the Republican Congress to stand up to Trump more and be more resistant, and that too can account for the delta in addition to the Supreme Court decisions.

• 35:06Speaker 01

  All right, let's move on to 2015 pop culture picks.

• 35:12Tyler Cowen?

  Okay.

• 35:13Speaker 01

  So, as you mentioned earlier in the, in the show, this is actually the 10th anniversary year of Conversations with Tyler. We started in April 2015. So this is the first year you're giving pop culture picks when the show was a thing. Now, we only did maybe four episodes that year. It was very sporadic at first, but this might be the first year where CWT starts to actually inform some of the picks. So let's start with movies. You start by saying, I thought this was the worst year for movies since I have been watching them. In fact, I think you could multiply this year's good films by two and still have the worst year for movies in a long, long time.

• 35:50Tyler Cowen?

  That's still true. Put aside pandemic weirdness, but it's, I went back and looked at the list. It was an awful year for movies. There's very little on it that just stuck with me.

• 35:59Speaker 01

  All right. So let's run through it. So you said, here's, here are some of the ones I liked. One American Sniper.

• 36:06Tyler Cowen?

  Clint Eastwood, good movie, pretty good. But there's a lot of Clint Eastwood. And when I go to my grave, it won't be one of the three or four that are the most important. But it was a good movie.

• 36:16Speaker 01

  Get the Trial of Vivienne on Salem, Gonsalum?

• 36:20Tyler Cowen?

  Yeah. About Orthodox Judaism. Hasn't, fun movie, hasn't stuck with me.

• 36:27Speaker 01

  Ex Machina, Alex Garland movie.

• 36:30Tyler Cowen?

  It's become seminal, but when I saw it, I felt it was a bit thin. But now, of course, it's an important film. That's okay. Maybe it should be, but it's a good movie. It's not a great movie.

• 36:40Speaker 01

  Inside Out. You say it seemed splendid at the time, but hasn't stuck with me.

• 36:44Tyler Cowen?

  A lot of Pixar seems worse, even the great classics. I never sit around and think, oh, I'd love to see Toy Story again, though at the time I loved it.

• 36:53Speaker 01

  Well, I have to say, given our earlier discussion about belly laughs, it's not surprising to me, a movie about your inner turmoil, your inner emotions being in competition with each other is not resonating with you much after you see it. All right. Number five, Red Army.

• 37:09Tyler Cowen?

  That I loved. It's a 70-minute documentary about the Soviet hockey team. And you could say it's a minor achievement, but it was the best movie that year that I know of.

• 37:21Speaker 01

  Meru, a documentary about climbing very high mountains and human motivation.

• 37:25Tyler Cowen?

  Behavioral economics on the screen. Good.

• 37:29Speaker 01

  And you say it should win a Cass Sunstein Award. What does that mean? I didn't.

• 37:32Tyler Cowen?

  Well, behavioral is referring to behavioral economics and different reasons why people do things. But Cass used to have an award for the best movie each year on behavioral econ. And that's why I was referring to Cass in that context.

• 37:45Speaker 01

  Does he need to update that award for liberalism now?

• 37:48Tyler Cowen?

  That's an excellent question. He should start it. I don't think he's done it for movies for a while. Not that I can recall. Best movie for liberalism each year. Cass should do it.

• 37:57Speaker 01

  All right, Cass. Gauntlet is thrown. All right. A Brilliant Young Mind. X plus Y is the title of the original UK release.

• 38:06Tyler Cowen?

  I don't remember. Well, it's from Taiwan, right?

• 38:08Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 38:09Tyler Cowen?

  Vanished.

• 38:09Speaker 01

  Grandma, starring Lily Tomlin.

• 38:12Tyler Cowen?

  Vanished.

• 38:13Speaker 01

  The Martian by Andy Weir. So I hesitated there because The Martian, the book, I think, came out the year before. It was pretty fast.

• 38:21Tyler Cowen?

  Right.

• 38:22Speaker 01

  The movie.

• 38:23Tyler Cowen?

  And he was a great guest. Good movie.

• 38:25Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 38:25Tyler Cowen?

  But again, not as good as a lot of other science fiction movies. Just a good movie.

• 38:31Speaker 01

  About Ellie.

• 38:33Tyler Cowen?

  Iranian movie has aged very well, and that director has stayed of significance. So that maybe has gone up a bit in stature, but it's not his best movie. A Separation is his best movie.

• 38:46Speaker 01

  Macbeth. Macbeth. Macbeth. I turned it into, I don't know where that that dialect comes from. Macbeth, this is the version starring Michael Fassbender, Marion Cotillard.

• 38:58Tyler Cowen?

  It was good, but in general, I prefer to read Shakespeare rather than see it on the screen. I just process it better when it's on the page. No fault of the movie. My favorite Shakespearean movie, I guess, is Chimes at Midnight, which takes great liberties with Shakespeare. And that's Orson Welles, of course.

• 39:13Speaker 01

  Carol. This is the.

• 39:15Tyler Cowen?

  Yeah, good. But there's no movie where, when we get to the fiction books for the year, which maybe we'll do shortly. But you have Submission by Huldbeck, and you have, what, the final volume of Ferrante, like in one year? Oh, my goodness. And what's the movie equivalent to those?

• 39:32Speaker 01

  Right.

• 39:33Tyler Cowen?

  With all due respect, Red Army is not in the same league as those novels.

• 39:37Speaker 01

  Sicario.

• 39:40Tyler Cowen?

  Good movie, but I don't know, it feels like a tired theme by now. Plenty of movies about drug gangs and the like.

• 39:45Speaker 01

  Sicario is probably the one that people talk about the most.

• 39:48Tyler Cowen?

  It is, but I don't think it's great. I think it's just good.

• 39:51Speaker 01

  There's good, it's, you know, some very good sequences. Mustang.

• 39:55Tyler Cowen?

  Not even sure.

• 39:57Speaker 01

  This is set in a remote Turkish village, depicts the lives of five young orphaned sisters and the challenges they face growing up in a conservative society.

• 40:06Tyler Cowen?

  Oh, that's good. It's a good movie. Yeah. Now I remember.

• 40:08Speaker 01

  Anomalisa, Anomalisa? This is the Charlie Kaufman movies.

• 40:13Tyler Cowen?

  Yeah.

• 40:14Speaker 01

  I've totally forgot this existed.

• 40:15Tyler Cowen?

  None of them have aged well for me.

• 40:17Speaker 01

  Blind Norwegian movie. It's about someone who she's losing her eyesight in midlife.

• 40:25Tyler Cowen?

  That year for books was so, so good and for movies, so, so miserable.

• 40:29Speaker 01

  All right, then let's, I take the hint, Tyler. Let's move on. The last one you mentioned is Diary of a Teenage Girl for the record, but let's move to books. Let's start with nonfiction. You list something like 28, 27 or 28 nonfiction books this year. So let's, I'm just going to run through them and you stop me if you have something to say.

• 40:49Tyler Cowen?

  The best was the Robert Toombs book about English history. Since that blog post, so many people have come to me and said, can you recommend to me other books like the Robert Toombs book, which is a sign it really hit people in a good way. So that was probably the clear winner for best book of that year and everyone should read it. It's just a book about English history, utterly compelling.

• 41:12Speaker 01

  Has Toombs done much since then?

• 41:14Tyler Cowen?

  I don't know. I don't, I think he had one other book. I'm not sure. I should check.

• 41:18Speaker 01

  It's called The English and Their History.

• 41:20Tyler Cowen?

  That's right. Great title.

• 41:21Speaker 01

  So let me run through these. You can stop me if you, if you have anything to say. So Mastering Metrics: The Path From Cause to Effect by Ingrist and Stefan Pischka.

• 41:30Tyler Cowen?

  An incredible achievement, but it's not a book in the sense that you read it, right?

• 41:35Speaker 01

  Danny Rodrick, Economics Rules, CWT guest.

• 41:39Tyler Cowen?

  Mercantilism to me looks worse than it did 10 years ago, now that I have to live under it.

• 41:46Speaker 01

  Richard Thaler, Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics, speaking of Cass Sunstein.

• 41:51Tyler Cowen?

  There should be more books about economics and economists, and that was a good one.

• 41:55Speaker 01

  Garrett Jones, The Hive Mind.

• 41:56Tyler Cowen?

  Garrett's my colleague. That book is still cited a lot in places like The Economist. It's held up very well, and I think it's become a seminal work. So I'm glad I picked it.

• 42:08Speaker 01

  Scott Sumner, The Midas Paradox.

• 42:11Tyler Cowen?

  I think Scott is correct that the biggest problem in the Great Depression was the deflationary pressures. Andrew Ross Sorkin and I talked about that in our episode from this year. And a very thorough book that Scott worked on for something like 20 years.

• 42:27Speaker 01

  All right. I will not go through the rest of the list, but you do say the ones that you think are the best are Ashley Vance's book on Elon Musk.

• 42:37Tyler Cowen?

  All the more important, right?

• 42:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:39Tyler Cowen?

  Elon has remained a force, to say the least.

• 42:41Speaker 01

  You also really like Charles Moore's book, Biography of Margaret Thatcher. It's called Margaret Thatcher: At Her Zenith in London, Washington, and Moscow, Volume Two of the biography.

• 42:50Tyler Cowen?

  One of the best biographies of the last 10 years. For many people, it's too detailed, to be clear, but just quality of book, it's unbelievable.

• 42:58Speaker 01

  And then Frank McLean, a book on Genghis Khan.

• 43:01Tyler Cowen?

  I might say the book on Han Sen, I would put in its place. It's just more contemporary. But yeah, there are so many good nonfiction books that year, and I didn't have to stretch to get to 28 to be listed. It's a better list. This year's list will be fine, but that year's list was better. I hope it's not a trend.

• 43:20Speaker 01

  All right.

• 43:20Tyler Cowen?

  I fear it is, by the way.

• 43:22Speaker 01

  Let's move to fiction. You thought it was a stellar year for fiction, as you've previously mentioned. So you mentioned Michelle Huibek, Submission. That's been, that's come up many times on CWT as well.

• 43:35Tyler Cowen?

  The most classic work of fiction of the last 20 years, I would say. And it's, you can think of it as a work of nonfiction in a, in a sense. It's a work of philosophy. Not quite predictive, not quite normative, a weird combination of them both. Everyone refers to it. It rewards rereads, and it's just incredible. And it's short for all that.

• 43:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:57Tyler Cowen?

  But there's more to it than you think on the first read. I would just tell everyone that.

• 44:01Speaker 01

  You said in the post that you read it in German first because that was the first way you could get your hands on it.

• 44:06Tyler Cowen?

  It was out in German before English, and I was in a rush. So I do that sometimes.

• 44:11Speaker 01

  All right. Did you reread it in English, though, you said?

• 44:14Tyler Cowen?

  Yes, and it completely holds up.

• 44:17Speaker 01

  Larry Kramer, The American People.

• 44:20Tyler Cowen?

  Has not stuck with me.

• 44:21Speaker 01

  The Seventh Day by Yu Hua.

• 44:24Tyler Cowen?

  How do you spell the author's name?

• 44:26Speaker 01

  H U A. Y U H U A.

• 44:29Tyler Cowen?

  Has not stuck with me. The Widower is a great book, the one from Singapore. I mentioned that. And Dowd, sort of from France, from Algeria, The Retelling of Camus.

• 44:38Speaker 01

  The Marisol.

• 44:39Tyler Cowen?

  Has become a classic.

• 44:39Speaker 01

  The Marisol Investigation.

• 44:41Tyler Cowen?

  Yeah. So you have three, like, classic books that year. Two, like, mega classic, beyond belief, quality and important.

• 44:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:49Tyler Cowen?

  And then some other good ones.

• 44:51Speaker 01

  All right. Let's move on to music. You say, this isn't, you just called this post "The Year in Recorded Music", and you'd say, "Here is some of what I listened to. A big chunk of rap and R&B centered around Kanye West, Frank Ocean, Kendrick Lamar, Drake, and D'Angelo, among others."

• 45:10Tyler Cowen?

  It was a peak time for that kind of work, right?

• 45:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:12Tyler Cowen?

  Fantastic time to be listening to it. Kanye, of course, has taken other courses. But yeah, that's when I should have been listening to that music, and I was.

• 45:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, you say we're actually, Marvin Gaye is gone, but we're actually living in a second golden age. Enjoy it.

• 45:26Tyler Cowen?

  But not anymore. It's over. So D'Angelo passed away this year.

• 45:29Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 45:30Tyler Cowen?

  Kanye went crazy or something, whatever you want to call it. Kendrick Lamar, it's still quality product, but it doesn't feel fresh to me these days. It's just like, oh, some more of that. The last CD was 78 minutes. Maybe we'll get another 78 minutes. Okay, you know?

• 45:44Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 45:44Tyler Cowen?

  So yeah, it's over. Maybe now it's country western. I'm not sure.

• 45:49Speaker 01

  Maybe. Number two, Kamasi Washington's The Epic was the jazz album I've enjoyed the most.

• 45:55Tyler Cowen?

  Yeah, again, held up very well.

• 45:58Speaker 01

  The Big Box Set of the Year, which you might otherwise not think of buying, is Hula Land: The Golden Age of Hawaiian Music.

• 46:04Tyler Cowen?

  People don't listen to it anymore. I don't know why. It's just fun. It's super accessible. And it also feels and sounds different.

• 46:13Speaker 01

  From Syria, I'll again recommend Dabka, Sounds of the Syrian Huron, Howron, I'm not sure if I'm saying that right, and Omar Suliman, both highly worthwhile.

• 46:23Tyler Cowen?

  Self-recommending, as they say.

• 46:25Speaker 01

  In classical music, my picks would be Matthew Bingleston's Skriabin Piano Sonatas. Did I say that right?

• 46:31Tyler Cowen?

  Yeah, I know Matt, and he and I correspond sometimes. He's also an avid Magnus Carlsen fan, and he recorded what I think are the best versions of the Skriabin Piano Sonatas. And I heard him play them live in some weird place, like up in Michigan, just like in a piano store. But I had an incredible seat, and it was one of my better musical experiences, flat out.

• 46:51Speaker 01

  You also recorded some new podcasts with Rick Rubin this year, where you took him through, he did a traditional, a sit-down interview with him, but you also DJed a set of choral music for him.

• 47:02Tyler Cowen?

  That's right.

• 47:02Speaker 01

  What did you learn putting that together for Rick? And what did, what did he take away from it, based on your conversations with him?

• 47:09Tyler Cowen?

  When you go through something all at once, even if you know most of it already, you do reevaluate it. So how good the 20th century was for choral music, which is maybe not everyone's intuition, how much religious music was made in the 20th century, how much classical music never, in fact, declined, would be some of my key conclusions. Helped me understand Rick better. So he just loves Palestrina and Arvo Part, and that makes sense. There's a purity to that sound. They're not like actually my personal favorites. I want more rhythmic choral music, or something more strange sounding. But that blend between the two of us, he wanting the pure, I'm always wanting something weirder sounding, I thought

• 47:52Tyler Cowen?

  made that a very good podcast. It was one of the things I did this year that I'm happiest about.

• 47:57Speaker 01

  All right. So we are going to end this part of the retrospective right here, but listener, never fear, we're going to be right back. We're just going to take a break after recording, but we'll record a new segment with Tyler, close to the end of the year, so that we can review the actual most popular episodes of the year, and do a few other things. So stick around, we'll be right back. All right. And Tyler, we are back. For the listener, no time has passed, but for us, several weeks have passed, and we are now in completely different countries and indeed continents. Where in the world are you, Tyler?

• 48:29Tyler Cowen?

  I am nine hours later than you are. I'm in Muscat, Oman, which is a lovely place. In some ways feels Mediterranean and maybe it's the most relaxed part of the Persian Gulf. It's very beautiful. It has these white alabaster buildings, blue sky, mountains in the background, medieval castles and the ocean, all in one view.

• 48:50Speaker 01

  Why do you say most relaxed?

• 48:52Tyler Cowen?

  People here seem happier, not that uptight. Politically Oman is never in the news. I would say overall that's a good thing. I've only been here a day, but that's my immediate impression. Easygoing.

• 49:05Speaker 01

  And you're coming from two conferences we've had in India, the Emergent Ventures and Political Economy Conference that Mercatus hosts in India. Is Oman your first stop after those conferences? Or what else is on your itinerary?

• 49:19Tyler Cowen?

  I was in another conference at Goa, which was wonderful, and it's from Goa that came to Oman. There's actually a direct flight Goa to Oman. It's a bit more than two hours, but the two places are remarkably close.

• 49:34Speaker 01

  Anywhere after Oman?

• 49:37Tyler Cowen?

  Home, I hope, through Dubai or else.

• 49:41Speaker 01

  Very good. Okay, so the reason we're talking now is because when we recorded the first part of the retrospective, we didn't actually know what the top episodes of the year would be. We had some sense, but we didn't know yet. And we also are currently running an end of year campaign. And so listeners had a chance up through yesterday to get to donate to get a shout out on the podcast. And we want to thank those folks who gave to the campaign. If you're listening to this before the end of the year, there's still time. You all have been very generous so far. We very much appreciate it, but there is still time to give if you're so inclined. But Tyler, let's go to the top episodes then. So you guessed, the morning we recorded, the Sam Altman episode was releasing. You guessed that would be the top episode of the year.

• 50:26Speaker 01

  It was. Sam Altman was the top episode of the year. Very good. You also claimed, you also later said you thought Ezra Klein would be in the top. He was number two. Number three, four, we'll, we'll do through 10. And I know you don't have the list of episodes in front of you, but any other names jump out at you is, is what you would think top episode. I think you also threw out Silver, which is correct. He's in the top five, but any other names you think in the top 10, top five?

• 50:54Tyler Cowen?

  You know, I think a lot of the episodes, as you've told me, have broadly similar levels of listenership. A lot of people have written me about the Dan Wong episode. So that's still running, you could say, and fairly live, but I predict that will end up doing quite well. Other than that, it's all a blur to me. I think they'll all do well, pretty well. And it's not clear to me why one would do better than the other, other than Ezra Klein, Nate Silver, and of course, Sam Altman.

• 51:21Speaker 01

  Yeah. Let's run through them then. So number one was Sam Altman, number two Ezra Klein, number three Stephen Pinker.

• 51:28Tyler Cowen?

  Okay. Yeah. So we're just doing celebrity here, right?

• 51:32Speaker 01

  Yes. Number four.

• 51:33Tyler Cowen?

  I forgot about Pinker, but it makes sense. He's number three.

• 51:36Speaker 01

  And I don't think you'll be surprised by four, David Brooks. That was our 92 NY.

• 51:40Tyler Cowen?

  Okay, yes.

• 51:40Speaker 01

  Mm hmm. Nate Silver.

• 51:42Tyler Cowen?

  So there's market failure here. The famous people are getting more fame. This is the Matthew effect. I thought one of our purposes was to counteract this trend.

• 51:52Speaker 01

  It is, it is. And I apologize. I prostrate myself before you and ask for your forgiveness and the listeners forgiveness that we're not doing a better job getting relatively undiscovered people in the top 10. It gets a little bit better in the, the bottom five. So five is Nate Silver, six is Jack Clark. Okay. You know, Jack Clark.

• 52:13Tyler Cowen?

  Okay. So it's six in a row.

• 52:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:15Tyler Cowen?

  Celebrity value.

• 52:16Speaker 01

  But number seven.

• 52:17Tyler Cowen?

  Saying they weren't very good episodes. They were. But still, it's striking.

• 52:22Speaker 01

  But number seven, David Commons.

• 52:25Tyler Cowen?

  Really?

• 52:26Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 52:27Tyler Cowen?

  Did Saudi Arabia start listening to David? What happened?

• 52:31Speaker 01

  I don't know why, but that episode came in number seven. That was a very pleasant surprise for me. David is definitely-

• 52:38Tyler Cowen?

  I liked that episode a lot, but I thought it would be about the least popular of the whole year.

• 52:44Speaker 01

  Number seven for the year. So if you haven't listened to the David Commons episode, which covers the region Tyler is in Saudi Arabia specifically, check it out because people really turned out for that one.

• 52:55Tyler Cowen?

  That's good.

• 52:56Speaker 01

  Number eight, Blake Scholl.

• 52:59Tyler Cowen?

  Okay, not surprising.

• 53:01Speaker 01

  Number nine-

• 53:02Tyler Cowen?

  Again, a bit of celebrity.

• 53:04Speaker 01

  A bit of celebrity, not as much of a household name, but definitely well-known in the kind of CWT crowd. Number nine, Annie Jacobson.

• 53:14Tyler Cowen?

  Okay, that makes sense to me, actually.

• 53:18Speaker 01

  And number 10, John Arnold.

• 53:20Tyler Cowen?

  Not surprising. Uh, John is known in a few different groups of people, and I suspect that boosted him.

• 53:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:28Tyler Cowen?

  And it was a very good episode.

• 53:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, so we had one truly, we can still at least take some consolation in the fact that we had one truly surprising person in the top 10, that being David Commons. And we'll see next year if we can get a more eclectic top 10, but this is in keeping uh, with the pattern of the past few years as well.

• 53:53Tyler Cowen?

  Do we have differential data on whether people listen to the celebrities all the way through?

• 53:59Speaker 01

  We could see. I think for us right now, it'd be different probably if we included YouTube, which I don't count YouTube in these yet. So one disclaimer, this is the first week of podcast downloads. So I'm looking in the first week, so some episodes maybe take off after the first week, but that tends to be pretty predictive. And then I am not yet looking at YouTube. I suspect popularity would decrease watch time or listen time on YouTube podcasts. I don't think, I think they're positively correlated. So the more popular ones tend to have perfectly good listen time as well.

• 54:35Tyler Cowen?

  Yeah.

• 54:36Speaker 01

  All right, you're traveling about one Mercatus scholar, Saleem Firth, had a question. He submitted late, but I told him we were recording this, Koda, and he wanted to ask you. He wants to know how you spend your time on, let's do planes first and then cars. Like when you've got time to kill in planes and cars, what are you doing?

• 54:54Tyler Cowen?

  Pretty simple in planes. I'm pretty much always reading. I'll spend some time keeping up with my email if there's Wi-Fi on the plane. But it's 80, 85% just reading books. And that works well for me. I don't mind being on planes and driving. I don't really have long drives at the moment anywhere. So say I'm driving to school, I'll listen to satellite radio almost all, if I'm with someone, I'll just talk to the person.

• 55:24Speaker 01

  Are you ever in?

• 55:24Tyler Cowen?

  And that's it.

• 55:25Speaker 01

  Are you ever in long car rides where you're not, where you're not driving? You know, coincidental road trip kind of thing where you're in the car for maybe more than three, you know, two, three hours more at a time?

• 55:37Tyler Cowen?

  Not in the last 10 years. I mean, never. So I might be on the train, which is identical to being on the plane. But if I'm driving, I'm driving. I don't like listening to podcasts while I drive or anything audio. So that means music. And again, it's pretty simple. There's really not any variation there.

• 55:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. And what are you hoping to see in Oman? How long are you there for a couple of days, you said?

• 56:04Tyler Cowen?

  Three days total. I've never been here before. And I've been to quite a bit of the Gulf region and wanted to see the place I haven't seen. Oman, Lake Yemen, you know, was a civilization in the proper sense. In a way, a lot of the other Gulf states were not. So there's a grand and glorious past here. You know, Oman controlled Zanzibar in the 19th century or part of it. What's in the National Museum is beautiful and very impressive. And people don't think much about Oman, but it's an important place. So why not go see it? It's comfortable, it's quite safe, plenty of people speak decent English.

• 56:47Tyler Cowen?

  There's no hassles associated with being here, the weather's gorgeous. It's not a food country. I've had some good food, but you don't come here for the food. I would say that. You come here to see Oman. And again, for scenery, it's gorgeous.

• 57:02Speaker 01

  All right, with that, let us turn to our shout outs. These are the people who donated above a certain amount. They get their name shout out and we're going to thank them in person right now. That's Alexander Walsh, David Kemp, Alexander Zook, Eric Ward, Dennis Sheehan, Clifford Sosin, Jordan Mayer, Huey Long, Alexander Zorneki, Chet Korkos, Roger Fisher, Mia Shapiro, Charles Marsh, Michael Lumpkin, Hal Sider, Owen Gromen, Matthew Melchion, Leslie Spencer, Manny Roman, Derek Cullenan, Michael Stubble, Christopher Peng and Paul Shapiro. Thank you all very much for donating. We really appreciate your listenership.

• 57:44Speaker 01

  In general, I said this before, but the response to the campaign this year has been really awesome. So I want to say thank you to all the listeners who donated, but also just people sending in notes of how much they've enjoyed the show. They're sending me their top and bottom episodes sometimes as well. But I enjoy hearing all of it, so thank you all very much.

• 58:05Tyler Cowen?

  I thank you all as well. It's very important to me personally that I'm able to continue doing this. So I'm extremely grateful.

• 58:12Speaker 01

  All right. And before we close, let me shout out the people who are a part of the core CWT production function, all the people who work on the show. That's Dallas Floor, Sam Alberger, Luis Abrigo, Kendra Straderman, Katie Jester, Jen Whistler, Karen Plant, Sidney Gordon, Haley Larson, Mary Haran, Ashley Schiller, and many others at Mercatus who have contributed in small ways this year. So thank you all very much. Thank you Tyler, of course, and we look forward to another year and indeed a second decade of conversations with Tyler.

• 58:44Tyler Cowen?

  Everyone on staff is tremendous. I thank you all personally and keep up the great work. You too, Jeff. Let's not forget you.

• 58:52Speaker 01

  Let's not forget me. All right. Enjoy your trip and I'll see you in the office when you're back.

• 58:58Tyler Cowen?

  Take care. Bye.

• 59:03Tyler Cowen?

  Thanks for listening to Conversations with Tyler. You can subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. If you like this podcast, please consider giving us a rating and leaving a review. This helps other listeners find the show. On Twitter, I'm @TylerCowan, and the show is @TylerCowanConvos. Until next time, please keep listening and learning.