YouSaid · the spoken record

Bryan Caplan

lines on the record: 162
first: 2022-10-20
most recent: 2022-10-20
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“It is awesome. Thanks for coming out here. This is the first time that I've actually had you right in my office while interviewing. So as great as Dwarca is over Zoom, he's even better in real life. So all people must try to meet Dwarkesh. Cool guy, positive person. Thank you, buddy.”
2022-10-20 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Bryan Caplan - Feminists, Billionaires, and Demagogues · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Right so I have the saying where I said, Look, I haven't really won until I have turned every enemy into a friend. That may seem quixotic. Yes, I know it's quixotic, but that is what I am trying to do. That's what's in my mind. Of course, you've got to first admit that there's a disagreement before you can begin trying to change someone's minds and make them feel good about it. But that really is my dream.”
2022-10-20 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Bryan Caplan - Feminists, Billionaires, and Demagogues · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And then as I watched my daughter growing up, I felt like, no, no, I've got to write this essay. I'm going to do it for her. It's the actual first essay is called, Don't Be a Feminist A Letter to My Daughter. That is how I frame it. This is not an angry essay. Like I said, I'm not an angry person. I'm not mad at feminists. Rather, I want to especially help my daughter, but anyone who's in the same boat as her, I would be thrilled to go and help them as well. And honestly, right? So like I said, this is not a typical lawyerly book where all I do is just try to come up with as many arguments in my favor as I can and ignore everything against me. This is one where I really am trying to grapple with the truth. And I can honestly say this. My dream is not to upset any reader. Like in my dream world, everyone on earth would read my stuff and everyone would be happy after reading it. Everyone would be smiling. Everyone would be feeling grateful.”
2022-10-20 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Bryan Caplan - Feminists, Billionaires, and Demagogues · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Would not have been possible at all without totally awesome. And yes, so the books that we've been talking about are both available on Amazon. So there is How Evil Are Politicians, Essays on Demagoguery? And then there is Don't Be a Feminist Essays on Genuine Justice. By the time you get the podcast, both books will be available. They're real cheap, only $12. And I have not raised the price despite inflation. I've been thinking about why not and what's the economic theory behind that. And then the e-book's just $9.99. So the difference between these two books, so these books are both collections of my very best essays from 2005 to 2022. But don't be a feminist has a totally all new lead essay, one that actually for years I was kind of too nervous to write.”
2022-10-20 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Bryan Caplan - Feminists, Billionaires, and Demagogues · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's so easy to say you didn't do it. It was your team that did it. It's like, I made my team. That's what a leader does as they take people that were good in themselves and they fuse them together and they make them great. And maybe self serving, but it's plausible.”
2022-10-20 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Bryan Caplan - Feminists, Billionaires, and Demagogues · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That actually is not crazy. I don't know. I don't know about it. But to go and just say we know that that's not true seems pretty dogmatic to me. And again, in the case of Amazon, also striking that what is the second best thing to Amazon? You can say it's a natural monopoly, not true in any other retail that I know of. So people say like Alibaba, I tried looking at that one. Like, what is this, John? It's a Chinese understandable. But shouldn't they be?”
2022-10-20 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Bryan Caplan - Feminists, Billionaires, and Demagogues · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Which I think does actually mean that for the really big businesses, it's not totally clear that it would have happened anyway. Now, like if you broaden it and just say, well, would e-commerce have happened? Yeah, e-commerce would have happened. Would there be like one store that was bigger than the others? Yeah. But is it possible the second best thing to Amazon would have been like one-tenth as good?”
2022-10-20 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Bryan Caplan - Feminists, Billionaires, and Demagogues · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“History is less historically contingent, but we actually do have a lot of evidence that the quality of entrepreneurship and management varies a lot from country to country”
2022-10-20 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Bryan Caplan - Feminists, Billionaires, and Demagogues · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Imagine if your family was out in some rural village, and it's like the Indira Gondiera. And like you don't hear about dot com billionaires and anything, and then in terms of just inspiring a generation, I think the billionaires are inspiring a generation of movers and shakers. And if they were, and if their earnings were greatly taxed, I think this would really put a debt in it. I think anytime people speak ill of them, that's putting a dent in it. Really just, in a way, like if you want billionaires to make less money, praise them to the skies so that more people enter and drives down the rewards down the rewards for doing what they do. So anything this tournament theory does make a lot of sense. This is a story about like, why do you pay the CEO so much more than all the next level down? Is he really that much better than the second best guy? And it's like, look, this isn't just incentivizing the CEO. It's incentivizing everyone who's there, right? Who could plausibly tell themselves maybe one day me. So there's that. The other thing is actually going back to the historical contingency.”
2022-10-20 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Bryan Caplan - Feminists, Billionaires, and Demagogues · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Right, so two things. One is in economics, we have something called tournament theory, and this says that it can be extremely socially valuable to go and have seemingly unreasonably large rewards for people that do something useful because it doesn't just incentivize the winner, it incentivize all the potential, it incentivizes all the potential winners, right? So billionaires are not just an inspiration to each other, right? It's not just, oh, I can get to be a billionaire, I'll do this thing and make the money. It is something that actually, I think fosters a whole culture of entrepreneurship. I mean, again, we've been hanging out in Austin, all over there. There's a whole bunch of people who are never going to be billionaires to our cash. But, you know, I've told people, like, Dorkesh, will Dorkesh ever be a billionaire? Probably not, but like 2%. Like Dworkesh is just a mover and a shaker, right? But if you like, I don't know where in India was your family from, actually?”
2022-10-20 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Bryan Caplan - Feminists, Billionaires, and Demagogues · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A lot to take care of just a lot of root causes of human problems. It is a one where basically it dethrones demagogues, right? Where there's all like, again, they'll still like demagogues, there's always a place for people like that. They'll be running cults. They'll be involved in religion. They'll be pundits. But this will be a world where there's just really no longer any government that you can get your hands on to go and cause horrible problems for the world. So it's one where the demagogues will sort of have lost their main line of employment and will have to get, if not exactly a real job, then at least a job that doesn't involve mass murder.”
2022-10-20 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Bryan Caplan - Feminists, Billionaires, and Demagogues · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And the second is one where we actually have competing police competing legal systems, competing court systems. It's one where if I had an hour, I could not convince anyone that disagrees, but I believe if he gave me an hour, I could convince you that it's not crazy, which is what I actually do whenever I talk about this stuff. I say, look, I have a really radical idea now. couldn't possibly convince a reasonable person in an hour. So I'm not going to try. What I'm going to try to do is convince you in an hour that this view, though, you still will think it's wrong is not crazy. All right, so if we don't have an hour to talk about it, but I think that this is the best, especially in long term, like if we could get to this equilibrium, it's the best equilibrium to be in. It's one where it basically once and for all solves a whole lot of problems with international war. It diffuses nationalism. It's something that...”
2022-10-20 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Bryan Caplan - Feminists, Billionaires, and Demagogues · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So since this is Lunar Society, I'll stick my neck out for anarcho-capitalism and say that this is really the best system if we can figure out a way of doing it. So there's no government like no government. I realize I may be completely blowing all of my credibility, but you can just go and Google what I have to say about it. People sometimes say, you know, Brian, are you an anarchist? And I'll say, well, not the crazy kind, right? And but what I mean by this, I'm not someone who thinks you've just pressed a button and got rid of the government, the things would be good. I think it'd be a total disaster. Rather, what I think is that there is another equilibrium that is totally doable if people realize that it's totally doable.”
2022-10-20 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Bryan Caplan - Feminists, Billionaires, and Demagogues · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, I'm not always angry, not even close. But I mean, honestly, I will say there's almost only one thing that really makes me angry, and that's people being angry, right? So I do have secondary anger, but I have very little primary anger.”
2022-10-20 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Bryan Caplan - Feminists, Billionaires, and Demagogues · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm just worried I would completely flip out. So I just like, I'm too concerned. If I started yelling at this person, I probably wouldn't just give him one or two cutting insults. I'd probably be screaming at him like a lunatic. So probably I better just keep on the sunny side of life and not even try anger because I'm just not good at it.”
2022-10-20 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Bryan Caplan - Feminists, Billionaires, and Demagogues · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, on the positive level, just someone having good manners and being friendly with me goes a really long way. I mean, honestly, this isn't something that I'm trying to overcome. The thing that I'm trying to overcome is more being really friendly to people who are not friendly to me. So, yeah, I guess that the main thing is like when people are just very personally rude and unpleasant to like, I think I still think intellectually that the best thing to do is to turn the other cheek and just try to, if not win them over, to at least win observers over with how much more reasonable and fair I am. But yeah, like my instinctive reaction is just to yell back at them. I mean, I will say that that instinctive reaction just gets weaker and weaker over time because I am someone who is so uncomfortable with anger. And part of it is, well, it's not really my personality, but a lot of it is just the feeling if I ever got angry, I just don't know where I would draw the line.”
2022-10-20 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Bryan Caplan - Feminists, Billionaires, and Demagogues · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, it's easier for me to on the positive level where people often say, well, you shouldn't be talking to that guy. He's a terrible person. He said certain things. And I'll say, yeah, but he was really nice to me.”
2022-10-20 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Bryan Caplan - Feminists, Billionaires, and Demagogues · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But again, these are all things where you can go and like I'm from California. I remember being a kid being told only three minutes in the shower, come on, chop, shop.”
2022-10-20 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Bryan Caplan - Feminists, Billionaires, and Demagogues · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, but that's different from drinking water, right? So no matter how poor you are normally only a very tiny fraction of the water that you use is drunk, most of it would be for bathing or for washing clothes, a little bit for cooking, probably more for cooking than for actual drinking.”
2022-10-20 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Bryan Caplan - Feminists, Billionaires, and Demagogues · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Okay, okay. I was thinking about the US, yes, yes. But even there, like, can it really be that there's anywhere in China so poor that the main use of water is for drinking? Or these farmers?”
2022-10-20 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Bryan Caplan - Feminists, Billionaires, and Demagogues · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, sure, Yeah, seems like a silly argument because we don't have to go and raise the price of water up to the level where a few people die of thirst. It's just like that, you know, so basically you could go and multiply the price by a factor of 10 or 100 and people will still be drinking all the water that they want. They'll just be taking quicker showers or they'll be farming will be happening in different parts of the country, that kind of thing.”
2022-10-20 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Bryan Caplan - Feminists, Billionaires, and Demagogues · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And you say, well, that's stupid. Like, we only subsidize a handful of agricultural products, but they're all available. And it's like, well, but that's already one step deeper than most voters ever have done or ever will do.”
2022-10-20 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Bryan Caplan - Feminists, Billionaires, and Demagogues · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Interest groups to not go and try to pass some overall change in US tax law or something like that. They said, look, that's going to be determined by public opinion. That's not the kind of thing I can affect. Maybe I can go and get a sentence change somewhere on page 1037 of the tax code. Maybe I could get that, right? So I say most of the policies that we have are ones that are supported by the general public. And you really have to look at details to see cases where interest groups are getting something that is actually unpopular with the public. So, you know, like even things as seemingly straightforward as farm subsidies, economists say, oh, well, obviously most people don't want to go and pay those, but farmers get it. Yeah, think again. We look at public opinion, farm subsidies are actually very popular. And if you ask people that are non-infarm states, like, why do you want farm subsidies? Usually they just give very pro-social reasons like, I want to make sure there's enough food.”
2022-10-20 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Bryan Caplan - Feminists, Billionaires, and Demagogues · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, because Mansur was mostly wrong. Oh, really? Say more. Public opinion is much more important for policy than interest groups contrary to what Manser Olson said. If you really look at what interest groups do, normally they're trying to work in the fine print.”
2022-10-20 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Bryan Caplan - Feminists, Billionaires, and Demagogues · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Lobbying has very positive effects overall for housing. And actually, also for immigration, I think a lot of the main reason why we have as much immigration as we do is that there's a bunch of corporations that are pushing for it.”
2022-10-20 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Bryan Caplan - Feminists, Billionaires, and Demagogues · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's very rare to be enthused about building stuff. And yet we need places to live. We need places to work. We need places to shop. And on the other hand, there's a bunch of angry people whenever you try to build something. We call them Nimby so have an endless series of complaints. So traffic, parking, the character of the neighborhood, like pollution, on and on, every possible complaint. So the main, like the reason why stuff gets built is that there are developers who probably do not really sincerely believe that they're heroes, but just come and say, hey, well, like we make our money building stuff, we provide jobs, income through the community, let us build stuff. Please, please, please, please, please, please, please. And that is, I think, the main reason why. So having constructive interest groups, again, economists mostly talk about interest groups as being bad, but yeah, thinking about housing, think that...”
2022-10-20 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Bryan Caplan - Feminists, Billionaires, and Demagogues · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So there's that then also just having a better leadership class probably matters to, you know, like probably there's a high correlation between the quality of leaders and the quality of the public, but not in every case. So that's another thing to look for. See, and then something else, just having, you know, having constructive interest groups, like for example, I have a pet theory. So I'm working on a book on housing regulation. My pet theory is that if we're not from lobbying from developers, basically zero things would be built in America. Because building things has almost no demagogic appeal. There's almost no one who emotionally gets a tear in their eye when they see a skyscraper go up or a new housing development.”
2022-10-20 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Bryan Caplan - Feminists, Billionaires, and Demagogues · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So kids get angry and they want blood. And so more affected societies are ones where people are suppressing these atavistic desires to really just turn society into a total bloodbath. So there's that something else of, so like starting the public opinion, I do think the public opinion obviously matters a lot in democracies. Even most dictatorships that public opinion matters a lot. Dictators, they demagogue, right? They try to go and win the people over normally, right? It's easier because the people that would be the rivals are dead or imprisoned or terrified. So that sort of lets you weaponize the demagoguery. And I'm the only one that gets to say I'm anointed by God. So that kind of thing. But even dictators generally want to be liked by their population. It makes ruling easier, right? Then you only have to terrify 10% of the population into obedience instead of 90%.”
2022-10-20 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Bryan Caplan - Feminists, Billionaires, and Demagogues · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Just in also in these better function societies, while people's political views are not terrible, if you go and propose something really awful, then normal people will say, no, I don't think that's such a good idea to go and murder all the billionaires. Maybe tax them at 90%, but murder them, that's too far. Whereas in most societies, you say that stuff and then the cackling with glee. Yeah. You know, let's strangle the last billionaire in the intestines of the last right-wing talk show radio host. Ah, right, that is more of the human attitude, which again is like just think about how kids are, and I say the way that the kids are, this is shows us what adults are feeling but hiding.”
2022-10-20 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Bryan Caplan - Feminists, Billionaires, and Demagogues · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But it's like science say nuke Pakistan preemptively nuke a nuclear power? Like, what do you think is going to happen? All right. So we don't, like, so that kind of just true, fanatical. Sociopathic bloodthirsty horrible stuff. It's common in a lot of societies, but”
2022-10-20 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Bryan Caplan - Feminists, Billionaires, and Demagogues · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah. So it's not on fire, so there's that. But still, there is the interesting question, right? So what's going on with the exceptions? So few things, right? So one is I think that rich prosperous people societies generally have less crazy electorates. The political ideology of the society is just not as terrible as in other places. And it's like, well, it seems pretty bad. All right, well, there's still not many people going saying we want to go and murder half the population. And you go to other societies and there's actually people like that. Yeah, a friend of mine was in India and he actually saw a pro-nuke Pakistan rally. All right, I assume this is not normal in India. Have you ever seen a pro-nuke Pakistan rally?”
2022-10-20 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Bryan Caplan - Feminists, Billionaires, and Demagogues · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The natural socialist, yeah, yeah, moderate national socialist Rarquesh, that's what I said, right So, there's a few things going on. So, first thing is just remember well, usually we don't have this. So the norm is not peaceful, prosperous societies throughout human history. The norm is impoverished and warprone societies. So always keep that in mind if you're saying, well, gee, but things are okay now. I mean, often think of this as the lookout the window test and like, you know, Dork caches it out. Is it on fire out there? We're not going to turn the camera, but I think that listeners will believe that it is not on fire.”
2022-10-20 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Bryan Caplan - Feminists, Billionaires, and Demagogues · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Most people will either say, Oh, you gave me what I wanted, good, end of story, or maybe they'll go and periodically tax you with another demand, which is annoying, but is still much better than losing a friend or contact.”
2022-10-20 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Bryan Caplan - Feminists, Billionaires, and Demagogues · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Because politics is so based upon demagoguery, which means that small symbolic concessions are often all they need to go and thump their chests and say I am a great leader. Think about Indonesia for like 30 years refuses to give up East Timor's half of one insignificant island. But for all these decades, they're thumping their chest and saying we couldn't possibly do that, no. Like that will lead to total collapse, you know, like endless nonsense. All right, fine, we'll give it away. And they give it away. Now, it wasn't good for East Timor, but the whole thing was a disaster, but still probably it's pretty bad. But there are that really is the case, as everybody knows in real life, that many conflicts can be avoided by giving another person what they want. And if you say that they'll just escalate their demands infinitely, there's a few people like that, but most people do not infinitely escalate their demands. Instead,”
2022-10-20 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Bryan Caplan - Feminists, Billionaires, and Demagogues · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“For the next, yeah, well, yeah, that's what the Hawks on both sides are always saying. Sometimes the right, sometimes the wrong, say they're wrong about half the time. So yeah, I mean, like that basically is an argument that is true some of the time, but is just not at all reliable. Again, like often what happens when you give in is people say, oh, well, I thought these people were completely unreasonable and we could never make a deal with them, but it turns out they're not so bad. So we can now de-escalate and get back to peace. That happens too. People are saying, you couldn't do that with Hitler. Yeah, I know you couldn't do that with Hitler. Hitler was terrible just to say the most controversial thing of this podcast. Hitler was not a person that you could negotiate with any long-term success, but hardly any world leaders are Hitler, almost all of them actually can be negotiated with. And often what they want is so trivial.”
2022-10-20 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Bryan Caplan - Feminists, Billionaires, and Demagogues · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, overall, I am a big believer in contingency. There are, again, of course, it does vary. So things like was economic growth going to happen one way or another starting in 1800. Yeah, that, I think, was not so contingent. It didn't happen in Britain because basically there's just too many things going on. There's a bunch of different scientific breakthroughs with obvious economic applications. There's a bunch of countries where they have a business class that's interested in making more money and trying these ideas out. So I think that was something where you can say it was quite inevitable. On the other hand, for almost anything involving major wars, like I say, like almost all major wars could be avoided by one side giving in.”
2022-10-20 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Bryan Caplan - Feminists, Billionaires, and Demagogues · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To rush out So that one I know the details really well, and I'll give like 99% without Lenin, even with all the other Bolsheviks, it wouldn't have happened. Because, like, I actually know the facts. So, Raid Richard Pipes, the Russian Revolution, the whole rest of the Bolshevik party was planning on us taking part in the parishual government. And then Lenin shows up and reads them the Riot Act, and he is so much intellectual status. And I don't know what he had, but anyway, the whole group was against him and he just reads the Riot Act, and they all say, yes, sir, Lennon, we're ready for revolution. And so without Lenin, like that would just not have happened. You'd say, well, maybe some years later something similar would have happened. Again, if you know the facts, like the whole revolution was based upon a tiny number of fanatics seizing power because they had 2,000 guys following orders in a country where no one else was following orders. If you just waited a little while, like whatever other forces would have rebuilt and there would have been no hope for this tiny minority of lunatics to take over.”
2022-10-20 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Bryan Caplan - Feminists, Billionaires, and Demagogues · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So let's see, I've really got to go through the glorious revolution. That one actually, my understanding is that it really was a real revolution and that people at the time tried to portray it as totally peaceful, but actually really was not. So that one maybe. Actually, so I mean, if you were to go and do the first Russian Revolution against the Tsar in February, the one that replaced the Tsar with the first democratic government of Russia, it's like, well, that one probably would have worked out okay if it hadn't been for Lenin. So it didn't work out, but it had potential.”
2022-10-20 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Bryan Caplan - Feminists, Billionaires, and Demagogues · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Argument, yeah. I mean, I mean, my view is that it is this British based anti-slavery movement that's really key, which then does spread to the colonies. I think it probably would have spread stronger, actually. And furthermore, of course, the British have a much better record on getting rid of slavery peacefully. Now, it would have cost so much more to do it in the US because there were so many slaves, so it's complicated. Right, let's see So, but again, I'm still trying to come back to like the best revolutions. Again, the other one, something you have are more of coups than revolutions. So I think coup against the Muslim Brotherhood is not great, but still, yeah, yeah. So better than letting those fanatics take over.”
2022-10-20 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Bryan Caplan - Feminists, Billionaires, and Demagogues · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Really best example. Of course, a lot of people want to do the American Revolution, but I'm not a fan of that. So what could I do?”
2022-10-20 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Bryan Caplan - Feminists, Billionaires, and Demagogues · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The one that's right. So, this is one where there's the cheesy thing of picking something that I don't really consider revolution and then saying other people do. So the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe. You could call it a revolution. I don't think it really was because it was just way too peaceful to count. So if you'll count that, then that is very likely the best example of a revolution. But again, what you really want is like a bloodbath. I mean, in terms of wars, so like if I will say the Korean Wars, I think the best record basically saved two-thirds of a country and turned out great. And we sort of have a reasonable counterfactual for how awful it would have been in North Korea. But again, that's, so North Korean propaganda might claim us a revolution, which, but that's, again, it was a civil war, not a revolution. In terms of what would be the...”
2022-10-20 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Bryan Caplan - Feminists, Billionaires, and Demagogues · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Is that if someone promises something they do more for you, say, liar? No, it's not you. I wasn't a liar. I did what I said and I also did more.”
2022-10-20 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Bryan Caplan - Feminists, Billionaires, and Demagogues · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know I do write that. I think that is actually an important trait for leadership. I mean, here's an interesting thing. I don't think Tyler will in any way see this as a negative. On the one hand, he often, he does like to impishly say, ah, well, you have to be dishonest to get things done and so on. And yet his own leadership style is ultra honest and it's based upon everyone, not just in advance believing that thinks something is going to be good for them, but after the fact coming away and saying, wow, that was really leadership. He went and actually left people left the deal years later feeling like things worked out. So, you know, like integrity and honesty. So while we can easily come up with hypotheticals where they're bad and a leader, right? Again, I think the real thing is the old saying of underpromise over deliver, right? Don't promise more than you're really willing to do. And then try to exceed expectations. That I would say is a trait of a leader, but I'd say that's not dishonest.”
2022-10-20 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Bryan Caplan - Feminists, Billionaires, and Demagogues · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Now the other the honesty one This is one where a lot of politicians say like you have to be dishonest to get things done. I mean I would say that there's this whole literature on credibility saying no like what you really want is to be honest and in a very credible way such that when you say I'm going to do something in 20 years people believe you so again I think that's a lot of what you would have needed for effective decolonization would be to have people there of ironclad honesty look when they say look I am not leaving just because there are terrorist attacks you know like I'm willing to give up 100,000 British soldiers to terrorist attacks before we walk out so and like and when I say it I mean it”
2022-10-20 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Bryan Caplan - Feminists, Billionaires, and Demagogues · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Let's see. So kindness toward strangers. I mean, sort of sort of kindness towards strangers beat firsthand, like being like a homeless guy. Yeah, meaning again, my guess is that most effective altruists, they are people who would like to give to homeless people, but they just realize that it's not a good use of the money. And so I think those are people they sort of have to suppress their desire to give to the homeless.”
2022-10-20 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Bryan Caplan - Feminists, Billionaires, and Demagogues · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And those people, I think, actually, like if any of them ever got power, I think they would actually generally be good leaders. Again, of course, they need some experience too, but basically that is the right profile for a good leader, someone who is very caring, but at the same time is very logical.”
2022-10-20 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Bryan Caplan - Feminists, Billionaires, and Demagogues · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Those are the worst. Now, if you have a very conventional moral view where the only thing that you judge people by is how caring they are, then yeah, I think those people make bad leaders. If you have an effective altruism view, however, where like it's not just feeling a lot of caring emotions, it's being very committed to thinking clearly about the best way to get good results. Then I'll say those people are the heroic people in my view.”
2022-10-20 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Bryan Caplan - Feminists, Billionaires, and Demagogues · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Definitely not the worst people. So, I mean, like, you know, again, the very worst people are people who come to power self-consciously want to commit mass murder.”
2022-10-20 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Bryan Caplan - Feminists, Billionaires, and Demagogues · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Be a good might have been a good therapist, something like that. Someone who had a lot of sympathy for other people but not a reasonable person.”
2022-10-20 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Bryan Caplan - Feminists, Billionaires, and Demagogues · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Gandhi, like he was an apostle of nonviolence, good for that, but he was also to someone who was so dominated by wishful thinking and just trying to pretend like it was not like that pogrom should not be expected and after the transition and they totally were reasonably expected just like a lot of pie in the sky nonsense that he preached and yeah so like you know he's not like himself a mass murderer he's just like a very gay a touchy feely person who should be nowhere near any import decision”
2022-10-20 · Dwarkesh Podcast · Bryan Caplan - Feminists, Billionaires, and Demagogues · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source