CSPI Podcast

Social Desirability as the Enemy of Truth | Bryan Caplan & Richard Hanania

May 23, 2022

01:38:19

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You're Your Best of Intentions, That I Know Know This

02:56

Is It Ugly Truths?

03:16

Why Academics Aren't Careerists

03:05

Introduction

3min

Economists Are Facing

3min

Why Academics Aren't Careerists

3min

Is the Fda Doing It's Alli?

2min

Are You a Lawyer?

2min

Is It a Thing We're Not Polite Yet?

2min

You're Your Best of Intentions, That I Know Know This

3min

The Demand for Asparagus Curve

4min

The Harms of Unemployment

3min

10.

The Evil Spinned Employment

3min

11.

Is There Flexibility in the Workplace?

3min

12.

Why Aren't There Any Programmers in the Bay Area?

5min

13.

You Don't Have to Be a Notsy

2min

14.

The Evidence on the Reaction of Drugs to Incentives

2min

15.

Drug Addiction

5min

16.

Is It Ugly Truths?

3min

17.

Is Everybody Else Evil?

3min

18.

You Like Steel Manning

5min

19.

Public Relations

2min

20.

Are You Judging People Too Harshly for Your Politics?

2min

21.

Were All Refuse to Be in the Room With a Politician

3min

22.

You Choose This Life

3min

23.

Do Your Adult Male Friends Have to Be Good Looking?

3min

24.

I Don't Care What Your Teeth Look Likend

6min

25.

Are They Going to Try to Crush Me?

3min

26.

Is There Statistical Discrimination Against Men?

5min

27.

Don't Be a Feminist, Essays on Genuine Justice

5min

28.

Public Choice Theory in the Illusion of Grants

5min

29.

What's Your Substack and Where to Find Me?

4min

30.

How to Build an Audience on Twitter

4min

Bryan Caplan is a professor of economics at George Mason University, a visiting senior scholar at the University of Texas at Austin, and the author of several books, including The Myth of the Rational Voter and The Case Against Education. He returns to the podcast to talk about his two new collections of essays released as books, Labor Econ Versus the World: Essays on the World’s Greatest Market and How Evil Are Politicians?: Essays on Demagoguery. The conversation centers around how much Richard and Bryan have in common when it comes to how they think through social and political issues, with a focus on Social Desirability Bias as a major hindrance to engaging in moral reasoning and discovering truth. Topics include:

How little effort most people put towards developing their most cherished political views

Why most politicians should be considered bad people

Why the first world poor can be considered morally blameworthy, particularly compared to those who live in developing countries

The demagoguery of feel-good policy ideas like raising the minimum wage

Bryan gives a teaser of his next collection of essays that will be released under the title Don’t Be a Feminist: Essays on Genuine Justice, discussing why, as the title suggests, he hopes his daughter does not become a feminist and turn against him. The conversation concludes with reflections on how podcasting and Substack have disrupted legacy media, and why that’s good for independent writers and journalists.

Bryan Caplan, “The Ideologues of GMU.”

Bryan Caplan, “Labor Econ Versus the World: Essays on the World's Greatest Market.”

Bryan Caplan, “How Evil Are Politicians?: Essays on Demagoguery.”

Bryan Caplan’s Substack

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