In Game of Thrones, there's these high sex and they're supposed to be a parallel to the Catholics or something. So that is all this sort of logic of negative mimise. My book is Wild Problems, a guide to the decisions that define us. These big decisions define who we are. And so when we make those decisions, we shouldn't just look at the narrow utilitarian calculus. We should consider how it's going to affect how we see ourselves. Who we actually are, our essence. That's the central claim of my book. But I think George is kind of skeptical about that as a path of authenticity.
When the 20-year-old overachiever Johnathan Bi's first startup crashed and burned, he headed to a Zen retreat in the Catskills to "debug himself." He discovered René Girard and his mimetic theory--the idea that imitation is a key and often unconscious driver of human behavior. Listen as entrepreneur and philosopher Bi shares with EconTalk host Russ Roberts what he learned from Girard and Girard's insights into how we meet our primal need for money, fame, and power. The conversation includes the contrasts between economics and Girard's perspective.