Tyler Cowen
Author of The Great Stagnation
Discussion
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tylercowen
@tylercowen · Professor, George Mason University
Hi, I'm Tyler Cowen, economist and blogger over at marginalrevolution.com and author of *Average is Over*. I'm also a professor at George Mason University, and I try to promote a philosophy of extreme curiosity and the consumption of a lot of information. I'm happy to engage on just about any topic in good taste...
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Ben Casnocha
@bencasnocha
How do you think your career and life would have been different if blogging, twitter, and digital media had be ubiquitous in your teens and 20's? Would you have still pursued an academic path or would you have become a full-time columnist/commentator/speaker earlier on? I seem to recall you saying at one point that you're glad the internet didn't exist early on in your life as it gave you the time to read the classics and develop a substantive base of knowledge.
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tylercowen
@tylercowen · Professor, George Mason University
@bencasnocha I am glad I was forced to live in "book culture" and "meat space' for my first forty years. Or maybe thirty-five years would have been enough. People these days have lost the sense of information being scarce, and counterintuitively that makes it harder for them to develop profound thoughts. It's like practicing chess by asking the computer right away, all the time, what the right move it. If I were starting today, probably I would not be an academic. The seductions of the on-line world would be too great, I am pretty sure.
Ben Casnocha
@bencasnocha
@tylercowen "It's like practicing chess by asking the computer right away, all the time, what the right move it." That's a profound analogy if true, and worth a blog post expounding on this! Practically, for those of us who didn't grow up in book culture, how do we revel in the upsides of the information-rich online world while still developing the capability to think big thoughts...Something to ponder.
Erik Torenberg
@eriktorenberg · Former Product Hunt
@bencasnocha @tcowen definitely wondering the same thing
Erik Torenberg
@eriktorenberg · Former Product Hunt
are you sympathetic with David Brook's claims in "The Road to Character" that (paraphrased) we need to have more moral and character education?
The bigger question: What does that look like?
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tylercowen
@tylercowen · Professor, George Mason University
@eriktorenberg It is hard to disagree with that claim, but I am not sure what it means. Most of that education comes from childhood, or from making mistakes in life. Teaching people supply and demand is hard enough.
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tylercowen
@tylercowen · Professor, George Mason University
@eriktorenberg the best way to "educate yourself," for most people at most stages in your life, is to make marginal adjustments in your peer group. That means more mobility along particular dimensions, including geographic. Yet in most ways our current mobility is going down.
Tyler Link
@tylerlink · Maker
In response to @namehra's question you said you'd move to Europe if you were 25 years old. Why Europe as opposed to say, Asia?
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tylercowen
@tylercowen · Professor, George Mason University
@tylerlink Europe is a more fundamental source for American and world culture, and there are lots and lots of countries really close together. You can learn a lot immensely quickly, and take in culture too. Ultimately I would then spend the rest of life exploring Asia, however.
Neville Mehra
@namehra
@tylercowen Let's say GMU offered to allow you to maintain your current position and salary, but work 100% remotely. So, you would earn in USD and could live anywhere. Where would you go? How would that answer change if you were 25 years old?
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tylercowen
@tylercowen · Professor, George Mason University
@namehra I would travel half the year. For a base, northern Virginia remains my number one choice. It is very comfortable and I have great colleagues. I like the weather too, even in the summer. The region has three good airports and lots of ethnic food. What else could one want?
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tylercowen
@tylercowen · Professor, George Mason University
@namehra at twenty-five years old I would go live in Europe, but still travel a great deal. In fact at age 23 I did go live in southern Germany for a year and loved the experience.
Dan Wang
@danwwang
@tylercowen What's the right age for living in Tokyo/Singapore? When should one leave Europe?
Haris H.
@kingharis
@tylercowen If forced to eat one cuisine for the rest of your life (in its prime territory), what would you pick?
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tylercowen
@tylercowen · Professor, George Mason University
@kingharis Indian or Chinese, at least if I have access to the real thing. Lots of vegetables, lots of variety. I don't think there are any other serious contenders, and of course in a way it is unfair for me to count those as "one cuisine," even though each is "one country."
Dan Wang
@danwwang
How much prepwork (which I guess means reading) should you do before you visit a place? How much of good travel is simple wandering around? Do you have a system for when you visit a new place? Can it all still be as meaningful if you're doing it alone and without a guide?
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tylercowen
@tylercowen · Professor, George Mason University
@danwwang It depends what your background is of course. But if you have a few months' time, why not devote them to that country or region? Music too, art, etc. But at my current margins I usually show up with zero or near-zero prep. Guides I don't like, they are too automatic and won't open up so easily. Meeting locals spontaneously is usually more interesting.
Justin Wehr
@j_wehr
David Foster Wallace: biggest strengths and weaknesses in your opinion?
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tylercowen
@tylercowen · Professor, George Mason University
@j_wehr Biggest weakness: not a good writer, see Megan McArdle's piece on him. I am sorry to say this, and I know he has his fans, but I just don't get it. I find it labored and not ultimately so brilliant. I nonetheless admire his reach and ambition.
Justin Wehr
@j_wehr
I could not find the McArdle article after a brief Googling. Can someone please point me to it?
Haris H.
@kingharis
Counterfactual: the US never builds the Interstate system. Are we better off today (more urbanization, railroads, less carbon dependence & its side effects) or were the gains from increased mobility large enough to offset costs? Will this still be true in 50 years? 100?
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tylercowen
@tylercowen · Professor, George Mason University
@kingharis Huge gains, most of all social. USA could never have been such a railroads country, just look at population density. Carbon is a global problem, we are only a small part of it. Think how backward the American south would still be today without interstates.
Tyler Link
@tylerlink · Maker
Choose one: Work 80 hours/week for $100,000/year or work 20 hours/week, make $20,000/year, and spend your time mostly as you please. Is this increasingly the choice most people with options will be forced to make going forward?
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tylercowen
@tylercowen · Professor, George Mason University
@tylerlink it depends on the nature of the work and where I can live. I think I would choose 20k in Mexico, if that is part of the choice set. but if it's my current work, well I've done 80 hours a week of it for less than 100k, when I was younger.
Tyler Link
@tylerlink · Maker
@tylercowen Thanks for answering. It seems like this dichotomy in the way one lives there life is becoming the norm. Do you agree?
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tylercowen
@tylercowen · Professor, George Mason University
@tylerlink more and more, high earners are working more, low earners are working less, see the research by Erik Furst. It is another form of the plague of modern segregation.