Glen Weyl, an economist and founder of RadicalXChange, discusses innovative strategies to combat COVID-19. He highlights a testing and isolation plan with a ten-to-one benefit-cost ratio, comparing the U.S. response to successes abroad. The conversation delves into pricing issues during the pandemic, the importance of engaging academia in public discourse, and modernizing education systems. Weyl also reflects on his ideological journey and the intriguing dynamics of personal identity.
55:50
forum Ask episode
web_stories AI Snips
view_agenda Chapters
menu_book Books
auto_awesome Transcript
info_circle Episode notes
insights INSIGHT
Testing Challenges
COVID-19 testing in America faces scalability issues due to supply chain coordination failures and slow regulatory adaptation to new testing technologies.
We need to make sure that people want to get tested and isolate, otherwise the plan will not succeed.
volunteer_activism ADVICE
Building Trust
Address the lack of trust, especially in the federal government, by empowering local governments and trusted businesses.
Draw on institutions with high trust to execute and communicate the pandemic response strategy.
insights INSIGHT
Test Accuracy
False negatives and positives in COVID-19 tests pose significant challenges due to disease prevalence and test administration issues.
Spit tests, while potentially less sensitive, may be more effective in practice due to reduced human error compared to nasal swabs.
Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode
In this influential book, Milton Friedman discusses the role of economic capitalism in a liberal society. He argues that economic freedom is a precondition for political freedom and advocates for limited government intervention. The book covers various topics, including the relation between economic and political freedom, the role of government in a free society, monetary policy, international trade arrangements, and the role of government in education. Friedman's work has been highly influential in economic theory and policymaking, and the book has been translated into eighteen languages and sold over half a million copies since its publication in 1962.
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.
Conversations with Tyler 
