Styler: What institutional failure or what personal quality lies behind that? What would that be? Why do we screw that thing up? I mean, singular identity is is one way of putting it. And there's a lot of corruption out there, and that's a big part of what you're rebelling against. Styler: Travel in different circles. Take them all seriously,. Don't let yourself totally compartmentalize them. Ask why there are contradictions and what it means....
Glen Weyl is an economist, researcher, and founder of RadicalXChange. He recently co-authored a paper that sets forth an ambitious strategy to respond to the crisis and mitigate long-term damage to the economy through a regime of testing, tracing, and supported isolation. In his estimation the benefit-cost ratio is ten to one, with costs equal to about one month of continued freeze in place.
Tyler invited Glen to discuss the plan, including how it’d overcome obstacles to scaling up testing and tracing, what other countries got right and wrong in their responses, the unusual reason why he’s bothered by price gouging on PPE supplies, where his plan differs with Paul Romer’s, and more. They also discuss academia’s responsibility to inform public discourse, how he’d apply his ideas on mechanism design to reform tenure and admissions, his unique intellectual journey from socialism to libertarianism and beyond, the common element that attracts him to both the movie Memento and Don McLean’s “American Pie,” what talent he looks for in young economists, the struggle to straddle the divide between academia and politics, the benefits and drawbacks of rollerblading to class, and more.
Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video.
Recorded April 20th, 2020 Other ways to connect