A g. Jacobs will be coming on tecon talk, at least he's scheduled too, to talk about his new book called the puzzler which is about his obsession with puzzles. He says that when we're trying to invoke curiosity and get people curious, we really should be kind of trying to frame it as a mystery. And most fields of knowledge are our best seen as mysteries. The moment you get a piece of information that solves the puzzle, it's just, the curiosity goes right? It's killed. G. Jacobs: "It's like a bee stinging you and then killing itself"
Why are some people incurious? Is curiosity a teachable thing? And why, if all knowledge can be googled, is curiosity now the domain of a small elite? Listen as Ian Leslie, author of Curious, talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts why curiosity is a critical virtue, why it's now in dangerous decline, and why, when it comes to what sustains long-term fascination, mysteries beat puzzles every time.