The Secretariat of Prosperity - What Should I Do?

5min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

There really were three parts to the question that hare interwoven. When she doesn't know that odyseus has come back, there's a hundred and eight suitors. And then the secretary problem was, how should i decide? Cause if i hire one, there may be a bunch of others in the pool. The harmony observation goes in kind of a different direction, even though it seems related. But my point in the book is that this is a totally misleading way of thinking about hiring or marrying people. First, wl eu don't care about getting the best person; we just want someone who can live with us for life.

Waze and Google Maps tell us the best way to get to where we're going. But no app or algorithm can tell us whether we should head there in the first place. To economist Russ Roberts, the reason is simple: Humans are dynamic and aspirational beings. When it comes to making life's big decisions, from what to study to whom to marry or whether to have a child, it's not always us doing the deciding, he argues, but rather the people we want to be. Join the host of EconTalk, the president of Shalem College, and the author of the new book Wild Problems: A Guide to the Decisions that Define Us, as he speaks with friend and EconTalk favorite Michael Munger about why the traditional economic models for decision making can lead us astray--and why life should be less about solving problems than embracing possibilities.