Patrick Collison Interviews Tyler
Religion = one of few remaining sources of durable cultural diversity in an increasingly connected world?
Sth. Fundamentally strange about religion, in a rewarding way
Bible = most strange, beautiful, most open to interpretation books there is
Shakespear, Jane Austen = very popular today
BUT - knowledge of the past is thinner
Secondary figures are getting lost; small number of things gets elevated (Beatles; Shakespeare)
Lost secondary figures = Russian novelists; Nietzsche
There’s a centralization of what we take from the past, b/c the present is so crowded
Submission by Houellebecq = fundamentally Straussian work; has secret readings; about weaknesses of French intellectual class
Must be read in European context
Interesting to study relatively recent developments
Recent religious developments seem weirder than older ones; but that’s arbitrary
Hegel: polytheism may not be conducive to political order
Persistence and determination for something you enjoy and believe in is very important
Marginal Revolution started in 2003; “I liked doing it, and we just kept on doing it”
Either it’ll catch on our we’ll realize we suck; “I think that’s a good attitude to have”
Nicer-looking websites are usually connected to advertising
We wanted to demonstrate that the merits were elsewhere
Now it’s a retro look, so we’re gonna keep it
10 years ago, it was a way to connect with younger people
Now, young people are much less likely to read, so it’s a way to connect with older people
There should be more blogs on important single-issue topics
Penal system reform; animal rights
Socially, they could have a big positive impact
Very hard to blog philosophy
Economics blogs work well b/c Econ has a common language, AND an empirical side that can be understood by non-specialists
Sociology lacks common framework
Philosophy lacks empirical side, and arguments take too long
Reading
Someone will ask “how long did it take you to read that book?”
I’ll say “52 years”
That’s the correct answer - I’m not a fast reader, I’m a very slow reader, you’re just mis-measuring the unit if you think I’m reading something quickly
“Serious readers probably finish too many books”
Biological intuition = be loyal to things
If you can discard it for parts your intellectual life w/o discarding for your personal life, then great
There are probably too many books
If your goal = to learn something, blog posts are often better than books
Books embody/store knowledge; they certify knowledge; those are important
As a means of communicating knowledge, once you’ve read a certain number of key earthquake, worldview-shattering books, books are way overrated
They’re actually a pretty weak, impotent way of learning new things (!?!??!)
Books that really change your mind are the best way to learn, but there’s only so many of those
After that - travel, meeting people helps you learn things in certain areas
***You should read more in clusters; pick an area from a time in history and read that, rather than reading a book
Something between blogs and books that ought to exist?
PDFs? I don’t know
Tyler: I respond, or try to respond, to every email I receive
“If my responses show the right temperament, people will show me everything I need to know
Email is underrated in my worldview
Overrated/Underrated
Effective altruism
Overrated by ppl who know what it is; underrated by entire rest of the world
Lots of giving isn’t very rational; if you try to make it too rational, in a cultural way, you’ll end up with less giving
Harvard = self-replicating cluster of creativity
If alums give Harvard $1 million, is that a bad idea?
I don’t know; effective altruists are sure it’s bad; too much pretense of knowledge in the movement
BUT I’m a big fan of it in the public sense
Flying cars
Will be dangerous for quite a while
Why does there need to be integration between flying and driving?
140 characters
Too many photos on Twitter
Ought to be a Pigouvian Tax on putting photos on Twitter (taxed with micropayments)
“Mostly I’m a Twitter fan”
Twitter
Underrated; Trump has shown how powerful it is
Not just some inferior FB
It’s extraordinarily powerful; it will stay important and powerful
It’s very, very underrated as a force for reshaping society
FB too confusing; “it’s like trying to work a very complicated microwave oven”
“I’m sensitive to the complexity of the visual field”
FB is subsidizing sociability too much
***It’s pulling away a lot of hidden, deep, implied subsidies to culture***
Our culture is, in some ways, weaker because we’re happier and more sociable
Ex: 7th grader won’t talk about their favorite band as much; they’re all just on FB
FB net good or bad for the world?
We don’t know yet
Utilitarian focused on happiness = probably good
Keynesian who cares about aesthetic worth of most significant contributions (ex: another Led Zeppelin), then it’s probably bad (“I have a little of that in me”)
Silicon Valley
Bay Area has been overrated until quite recently
Now it’s probably underrated
Diversity of businesses possible in the Bay will increase going forward
Washington DC
As a city to live in, it’s underrated; weather underrated
Stimulating intellectual/media capital; still highly livable; deer/fox on my lawn
Great ethnic food
No major downsides
Objectively
Strong work ethic
High level of talent; “creative monoculture”
Creative city in destructive ways
Surrounding counties shouldn’t be so wealthy
“I have a love/hate relationship with the city”
Love Northern Virginia much more than DC
Washington feels like a strange, bizarre place
Still acutely aware of its connection to ancient world (hardly anywhere else in America has that)
Done something nowhere else in the world has
Still single most important place in what is an improving world (!!!!!)
Stability
Underrated; but, there’s also a status quo bias
Western world takes stability for granted, b/c we’ve had it for so long
Macroecon model - you overweight your last 20/30 years
Since Reagan/fall of Berlin Wall, lots of good has happened, worst predictions haven’t come true
That’s what makes this a dangerous point in time
**We’re not geared toward risk-taking, imaginative thinking we need to stop this from being the next 1910**
I see a creeping deterioration of the belief in individual liberty as an important idea; rule of law; cosmopolitanism; general respect and decency are getting weaker
When the trend is in that direction, it could have a self-fulfilling momentum
Not sure Brexit will be a big deal economically, but it’s a strong cultural negative
Turkey, Russia, China are much less free; parts of Middle East up in flames
Those are major, major negatives at a cultural level that we’re underrating
Restrictive urban construction/land use regulations
“They’re terrible”
We should allow much more building; country should be much more like Houston/parts of Texas
BUT - I’m a slight contrarian on this lately
Bay Area might be one place where building restrictions make some sense
Most ppl want the restrictions
Bay Area is producing these amazing global public goods; taxes increases; “tax” of unwanted building could damage productivity
The general culture would change with more people
Florentine Renaissance would’ve been hurt by adding 50,000 people from Naples
This might be one place in world where we shouldn’t losing building restrictions
Tyler: I generally believe in increasing returns to scale of knowledge clusters
BUT you also need insulation; it’s both that makes a place special
Rhetoric of how open a place is, but it absolutely isn’t at the same time
Still in the “Great Stagnation”?
Probably, but wage growth was up in 2016
Integrating better manipulation of information with actual, real-world processes (linking of bits + atoms)
If all tech is is spinning more information, it’s great for the “infovores” (academics, journalists, tech ppl)
But lots of ppl are fine just watching network TV
**Real advantage = ease how molecules impact your body**
Ex: driverless cars could seriously help end the Great Stagnation
Highly we get it in next 20 years in some manner
AI, in broad sense, has developed more quickly than people thought (Average is Over predicted that in 2011)
Still figuring out how much we can apply that too
Each time, we’re positively surprised (still on “positively surprised” curve)
Stop reading bout tech/AI; keep a “molecules diary”; you’ll know the world is changing when your molecules diary gets really exciting
Health care costs have stayed reasonable recently
30% chance we’re on the verge of climbing out of the great stagnation right now
Important thing about contemporary world = how you manipulate your networks/clusters
No one is that good on Twitter/Blogs on their own
There’s an embedded algorithm on Twitter/Blogs; if you’re good at reading the system, that’s when you learn things, that’s extremely powerful
Every day I try to retrain myself to read the system
Every single day, I obsessively try to improve my reading of the system
My advice: downgrade the individuals; try to understand properties of the system better (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
Final number of tech clusters will be quite small: Bay Area, parts of China, Israel (smaller)
Tech clusters = fragile ecosystem
It’ll be close to the # of global financial centers
Regions of the Rust Belt might be neglected and become more empty
What’s the friendship value add?
Very important to keep yourself engaged and motivated
With friends, really try to be myself
Be willing to be weird
Let people self-select around that (rather than trying to make friends)
Friends give you companionship; common sense of purpose
Important to have positive ties with people even if you’re not “Friends” with a capital F
There’s a severity to starting a religion that’s quite difficult to pull off in the contemporary world
High barriers to entry for starting a religion
“To succeed, you’d have to be somebody who’s not at this talk”
America will have it’s current 2-party system for a long time to come
No major new/3rd party for foreseeable future
Could UBI increase culture/productivity? Future where creativity/culture stems from AI?
In chess, much of creativity stems from chess
Computer-composed music, art aren’t impressive yet; “at some point those molecules will impinge on me”
Guaranteed income could work in smaller markets (Australia; Denmark)
Smaller markets; life is less harsh; more collaboration; different work ethic; more cohesion
I’m an American exceptionalism
We have this unique vision: this extreme Puritanism - adopting personal projects that are work-based; obsessively seeing them through in a determined way
That’s extremely special; I never felt that living in New Zealand
“I don’t want it here; I’d rather keep that culture here; I think it’ll do that world more good; don’t think it’ll come here”
Mood affiliation
People who judge arguments by the mood of the argument
Ex: if argument is optimistic, it’s very likely to be correct
Instead: be a strict Bayesian: just b/c mood feels comfortable doesn’t mean it’s right
Lots of contemporary partisan debate is about moods
If someone isn’t condemning something w/right mood, you’ll reject the attached substantive claim (!)
Lots of Marginal Revolution work = teaching myself how to detach; unbundle things
Inter-temporal substitute moods; contain bundles of optimistic/pessimistic, tolerant/intolerant moods at the same time
Bay Area strikes me as having lots of pearl-clutching; perceiving itself as more tolerant than it is; that’s true of both coasts
**All cultures are oblivious**
US coasts think “we’re the cosmopolitan side of American culture
In reality - “You’re a uniquely brilliant, twisted, inward-looking monoculture. And I’m glad you are”
Religion is underrated; ppl in California overrate the efficacy of government
Ppl in Bay/California have unique advantages; you have the cluster; can get away with things like raising the minimum wage; the world isn’t made of clusters like that
*Be careful of overgeneralizing from your experience here*
LA has a sense of cosmopolitan openness; “What’s real there is so phony, what’s phony is so real; it’s always surprising me”
I love their diverse monoculture; “it’s my favorite part of this country” (??!!??)