YouSaid · the spoken record

Russ Roberts

lines on the record: 119
first: 2022-08-05
most recent: 2022-08-05
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“You, Tim. It's a treat to talk to you. Look forward to doing it in person sometime as a person who aspires to perfection. You would be a great student at Shalom College. You need to work on your Hebrew So something to look forward to.”
2022-08-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #613: Russ Roberts on Lessons from F.A. Hayek and Nassim Taleb, Decision-Making Insights from Charles Darwin, The Dangers of Scientism, Wild Problems in Life and the Decisions That Define Us, Learnings from the Talmud, The Role of Prayer, and The Journey to Transcendence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But it's really the truth, and it has made me much smarter as well as reminding me how little I know. And since we talked earlier about NASA was Talib, one of my favorite quotes from him is that he cites it as a Venetian proverb. The farther from shore, the deeper the ocean. And the more you learn, the more you realize how deep the water is. There's a long way to go, long way to go.”
2022-08-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #613: Russ Roberts on Lessons from F.A. Hayek and Nassim Taleb, Decision-Making Insights from Charles Darwin, The Dangers of Scientism, Wild Problems in Life and the Decisions That Define Us, Learnings from the Talmud, The Role of Prayer, and The Journey to Transcendence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Definitely. Good goal. And for me, it's not just. I decided a long time ago That I wanted to be empathetic to my guests, that I would make a better show. It's the right thing to do. And I thought we'd make a better show. That was a very costly decision because it forced me to reevaluate a lot of things that I had believed or held as dogma. And I haven't changed so much, but I have changed some. And one of the things that's changed is that, as you say, you're forced to recognize your own limitations. I like to joke. That each week I get to interview a person smarter than I am and ask them dumb questions.”
2022-08-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #613: Russ Roberts on Lessons from F.A. Hayek and Nassim Taleb, Decision-Making Insights from Charles Darwin, The Dangers of Scientism, Wild Problems in Life and the Decisions That Define Us, Learnings from the Talmud, The Role of Prayer, and The Journey to Transcendence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And in theory, you should just be an arrogant. To use a Yiddish term, but. And you might be, Tim. I don't know you well, but I do speaking only for myself.”
2022-08-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #613: Russ Roberts on Lessons from F.A. Hayek and Nassim Taleb, Decision-Making Insights from Charles Darwin, The Dangers of Scientism, Wild Problems in Life and the Decisions That Define Us, Learnings from the Talmud, The Role of Prayer, and The Journey to Transcendence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Like that observation about humility because I feel being a podcast host has made me more humble. And I've had some success, not like yours, right? But I'm doing okay. You're doing okay.”
2022-08-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #613: Russ Roberts on Lessons from F.A. Hayek and Nassim Taleb, Decision-Making Insights from Charles Darwin, The Dangers of Scientism, Wild Problems in Life and the Decisions That Define Us, Learnings from the Talmud, The Role of Prayer, and The Journey to Transcendence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Like Tim Ferris's. I wish my book sold work like Tim Ferriss's. You're who we want to be, and yet you know what it's like. It's not that easy. And after a while, some of the thrills gets lulled. How do you say grown up?”
2022-08-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #613: Russ Roberts on Lessons from F.A. Hayek and Nassim Taleb, Decision-Making Insights from Charles Darwin, The Dangers of Scientism, Wild Problems in Life and the Decisions That Define Us, Learnings from the Talmud, The Role of Prayer, and The Journey to Transcendence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And it's your show so you can edit it out if you want, but you don't have to answer it We've been talking about stepping outside yourself. That's been a sort of sub-theme of this conversation as an example of the life well-lived. And you are a very successful person in multiple dimensions. You have an impact on the world through research you've been funding. I know about that because I keep an eye on you. Your podcast is phenomenally successful. Your books are phenomenally successful. You're charismatic, you're charming. How do you keep your head screwed on straight? Is it a challenge? We've been talking about this, right? You should be full of yourself. It would be totally normal for you to be completely full of yourself. Do you have anything you do to try to keep your feet on the ground and to stay sane? I don't think it's so healthy, by the way. Most of us aspire. I wish my podcast audience were bigger. I wish it was more.”
2022-08-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #613: Russ Roberts on Lessons from F.A. Hayek and Nassim Taleb, Decision-Making Insights from Charles Darwin, The Dangers of Scientism, Wild Problems in Life and the Decisions That Define Us, Learnings from the Talmud, The Role of Prayer, and The Journey to Transcendence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Being there and listening, but I think for non religious people there's something there even when it's not religious. It's spiritual, whatever you want to call it.”
2022-08-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #613: Russ Roberts on Lessons from F.A. Hayek and Nassim Taleb, Decision-Making Insights from Charles Darwin, The Dangers of Scientism, Wild Problems in Life and the Decisions That Define Us, Learnings from the Talmud, The Role of Prayer, and The Journey to Transcendence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“When we gave birth, she did most of the work, pretty sure. When she gave birth, those moments are not just like, oh, that was really fun. I'll pick it even more trivial ones. Great musical performances. I've written about this, you know, watching next to normal. And I think her name is Rachel Bay Jones pour out herself in front of a 2000 strangers and expose herself emotionally as the character in that play and do it in a way that isn't just like, you don't feel like she's acting at all. You feel like she's giving you access to something that's in you too. Those moments, they're transcendent. They're part of something bigger than ourselves. So that's what I think of with prayer. I think a prayer is accessing those or trying to access those more frequently. And for me, it's tied in with the belief in God or a hope of God's...”
2022-08-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #613: Russ Roberts on Lessons from F.A. Hayek and Nassim Taleb, Decision-Making Insights from Charles Darwin, The Dangers of Scientism, Wild Problems in Life and the Decisions That Define Us, Learnings from the Talmud, The Role of Prayer, and The Journey to Transcendence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Dress. I'm sure you have too were you meet someone who's having a very bad time and you interact with them in a way that is not normal. You don't usually have people sharing incredibly personal things, but they do. They need to share it and they pour out their heart to you and you're there for them. And one of these moments for me is this person said, you don't want to hear this, do you? And I said, no, I do. I do. And the truth is, I didn't want to hear it, but I did. I was compelled, literally compelled. I wasn't going to go anywhere. I wasn't going to, I mean, part of me wanted to run away because it was so painful. It was such a heartache this person was sharing. Somebody I didn't know very well. And those moments, those handful of times in my life as a human being where I've encountered another human being either under duress or in joy, it's also in joy, the birth of my children shared where I was in privileged to be in the room with my wife.”
2022-08-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #613: Russ Roberts on Lessons from F.A. Hayek and Nassim Taleb, Decision-Making Insights from Charles Darwin, The Dangers of Scientism, Wild Problems in Life and the Decisions That Define Us, Learnings from the Talmud, The Role of Prayer, and The Journey to Transcendence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Constellations and stars at the horizon. I mean, I guess we goosebumps to think about it, to talk about it. It was... I don't remember if I woke everybody up or if I even stopped the car. I just, it was a little bit dangerous. I rolled down the window to get better sight. And I remember just I kept turning my head. I felt connected to something. Now, was I really connected to something? Am I imagining it? I don't really care, actually. I hope it's true that there's something greater than just nature and the material and my animal self. But there might not be. But I do feel it sometimes. And I think most of us have moments like that. Alan Leitman, the physicist, has a wonderful book on this. He's an atheist. But he talks about lying in a boat, looking up at the stars and how you feel something and it bothers him as a physicist. And he writes about this discomfort that he feels he's something transcendent there, something bigger than himself. So you can feel it out in nature. I have felt it many times, not enough, but many times in random encounters with human beings under”
2022-08-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #613: Russ Roberts on Lessons from F.A. Hayek and Nassim Taleb, Decision-Making Insights from Charles Darwin, The Dangers of Scientism, Wild Problems in Life and the Decisions That Define Us, Learnings from the Talmud, The Role of Prayer, and The Journey to Transcendence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“In California, taking the family, my wife and I are taking the kids to see it, the Shakespeare production outside in Santa Cruz, which is just really fun. You're in these red woods. And it's lovely. And it's been a long day. We've had a good time as a family, and we're driving back. And I think everybody's asleep with the car except me. We're driving back to Palo Alto. And I realize that to my left, it is such a dark night for some reason, and there's so little light pollution that the stars are as vivid as they are, say, Yosemite or the Negev, the desert here in Israel. These are the two places I've seen the best stars in my life. And they're luminous. They're not just like white dots. They're luminous. And you can see them all the way down to the ocean. I'm on the coast, so I'm coming up. I'm driving north on the coast. I can see.”
2022-08-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #613: Russ Roberts on Lessons from F.A. Hayek and Nassim Taleb, Decision-Making Insights from Charles Darwin, The Dangers of Scientism, Wild Problems in Life and the Decisions That Define Us, Learnings from the Talmud, The Role of Prayer, and The Journey to Transcendence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“A word that I find very difficult to think about, but I love the word it's imminent, not meaning soon, but sort of embodied in you, imminent I am A N E N T. And in the book that I'm working on someday, maybe, I talk about the handful of times when I've come into contact with that. And I'm sure you have too. The example I use is...”
2022-08-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #613: Russ Roberts on Lessons from F.A. Hayek and Nassim Taleb, Decision-Making Insights from Charles Darwin, The Dangers of Scientism, Wild Problems in Life and the Decisions That Define Us, Learnings from the Talmud, The Role of Prayer, and The Journey to Transcendence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'm teasing Try to answer that. I am trying to write a book on prayer, and since I became president of Shalem College, I was lucky to finish Wild Problems. I haven't made any progress on that prayer book since I got to Israel. It's kind of ironic. The Holy Land. But I think it comes back to the People who aren't religious, and by the way, I was not religious my whole life, so I had a part of my life where I was not praying regularly and where I was not keeping the Jewish Sabbath and where I was eating lobster and pork and showing it immensely. And I think not everyone, it comes back a little bit to the comment I made earlier about being tone deaf, but most people, I think. Can experience the transcend”
2022-08-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #613: Russ Roberts on Lessons from F.A. Hayek and Nassim Taleb, Decision-Making Insights from Charles Darwin, The Dangers of Scientism, Wild Problems in Life and the Decisions That Define Us, Learnings from the Talmud, The Role of Prayer, and The Journey to Transcendence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Definitely the most personal question anyone's ever asked me, Tim, but since we've been talking now for almost two hours, I feel like we're very close. So I'm going to try it.”
2022-08-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #613: Russ Roberts on Lessons from F.A. Hayek and Nassim Taleb, Decision-Making Insights from Charles Darwin, The Dangers of Scientism, Wild Problems in Life and the Decisions That Define Us, Learnings from the Talmud, The Role of Prayer, and The Journey to Transcendence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Exceeded some downtime. It's okay. Your hat's going to explode otherwise. But I do think for myself, whether it's for whatever reason, and I think for many people, we feel we can't desist from it. We have a job to do. And some of us, by the way, it's not all I have to build a house for a homeless person. Sometimes it just I have to grow. I would say that's even more of a, it's not the Talmud quote, but it's a different impulse that's not totally unrelated, which is don't just stagnate, which is a weird attitude in a finite life.”
2022-08-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #613: Russ Roberts on Lessons from F.A. Hayek and Nassim Taleb, Decision-Making Insights from Charles Darwin, The Dangers of Scientism, Wild Problems in Life and the Decisions That Define Us, Learnings from the Talmud, The Role of Prayer, and The Journey to Transcendence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“He takes the goal is to win. The goal is not to win. The goal is to distract yourself. It's terrible. I play too much chess. I think I do. But frivolous things. And certainly there is, by the way, a strong impulse in Judaism, and I assume other religions not to waste time. It's a precious thing. And you should be studying, learning, growing, contributing, doing good deeds. And yet watching a baseball game, how do you justify it? So, you know, I wrote it back and said, part of the reason I enjoy the occasional baseball game, which I don't watch a bunch of from Israel, because the time zone doesn't work so well. Part of the reason I like watching sports is that there's drama. It's about a human being and a set of human beings put in a cauldron of expectations and pressure and to watch them emerge successfully or to be to fail is like watching a great drama. That's one argument. Second is that”
2022-08-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #613: Russ Roberts on Lessons from F.A. Hayek and Nassim Taleb, Decision-Making Insights from Charles Darwin, The Dangers of Scientism, Wild Problems in Life and the Decisions That Define Us, Learnings from the Talmud, The Role of Prayer, and The Journey to Transcendence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Or curse me. Again, is it a blessing or a burden? I don't know. I like to think of it as a blessing. But how do you justify fooling around doing nothing, playing your 40th game of chess in a row because you can't sleep and you're compulsively watching your score on chess.com dwindle steadily through the night. I have a smart son that says, you know, when you lose two in a row, maybe stop playing”
2022-08-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #613: Russ Roberts on Lessons from F.A. Hayek and Nassim Taleb, Decision-Making Insights from Charles Darwin, The Dangers of Scientism, Wild Problems in Life and the Decisions That Define Us, Learnings from the Talmud, The Role of Prayer, and The Journey to Transcendence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I get to read 2,500 a year. I mean, in lifetime. So, you know, I always say pick them carefully, which I don't always live by. I read a lot of books that are either not always so interesting and I've gotten better at stopping when I was younger. I couldn't put down a book without finishing. It was a moral imperative, terrible habit. I got over that thing, thank goodness. But you have a limited number of books to read. And this listener said to me, how do you justify watching a baseball game? You know? And you could argue the same thing when you think about the tall move. It's not up to you to finish the work, but you're not free to desist from it. And while you're watching baseball, you're kind of desisting from it. So if you think of your life as having purpose and you're supposed to do stuff and accomplish, right, which again, I think I was both hardwired and culturally pushed to do by my parents. And I sing a lot of my dad because he's the one who drove home for me much more than my mom, who gave me other things, but not this.”
2022-08-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #613: Russ Roberts on Lessons from F.A. Hayek and Nassim Taleb, Decision-Making Insights from Charles Darwin, The Dangers of Scientism, Wild Problems in Life and the Decisions That Define Us, Learnings from the Talmud, The Role of Prayer, and The Journey to Transcendence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“He actually, I think, understands some of it, which is even better, and remembers some of it, which is even better But seriously, I have a lot of respect for Tyler. He's a great, great thinker and polymath. And somebody wrote me a fascinating email. They said, you know, I read what you wrote about reading. And one of the things I like to say is that if you read a book a week, which is a lot, you're going to read about 50 books a year. And if you're around for about 50 years of reading, maybe a little more, but it's 2,500 books. That's it. That's it. There's 100,000 books. I think maybe more. I don't even remember how many books are published a year. Maybe it's a million. It's a big number.”
2022-08-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #613: Russ Roberts on Lessons from F.A. Hayek and Nassim Taleb, Decision-Making Insights from Charles Darwin, The Dangers of Scientism, Wild Problems in Life and the Decisions That Define Us, Learnings from the Talmud, The Role of Prayer, and The Journey to Transcendence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I've always felt that to some extent. I don't know how much of it's genetic, how much of it's cultural the way I was raised. So that idea that you're not free to desist from it, you can think of it as a religious statement, but I don't think it's most people, there are plenty of non-religious people who have that same feeling. Sometimes they're called type A. I should be careful. Type A people who need to do stuff is not quite the same. Not quite the same. But the idea that you're supposed to do something of consequence, that you're not just here to enjoy yourself is a burden or blessing I've always somewhat felt. I don't want to be arrogant about it. I think it can easily take it as pretentious. It's interesting. You know, I had a conversation with Rench and Tyler Coward earlier. We did this episode on how we read our reading habits. And it was really fun to talk to Tyler's.”
2022-08-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #613: Russ Roberts on Lessons from F.A. Hayek and Nassim Taleb, Decision-Making Insights from Charles Darwin, The Dangers of Scientism, Wild Problems in Life and the Decisions That Define Us, Learnings from the Talmud, The Role of Prayer, and The Journey to Transcendence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Kind of embarrassing to talk about it actually. No one's ever asked me to expound on that It forces me to think about coming full circle to our earlier first thing we talked about, which was my dad. And I think many of us Raised to think that we have obligations. We have things we're supposed to do. Things we're supposed to pick up tasks.”
2022-08-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #613: Russ Roberts on Lessons from F.A. Hayek and Nassim Taleb, Decision-Making Insights from Charles Darwin, The Dangers of Scientism, Wild Problems in Life and the Decisions That Define Us, Learnings from the Talmud, The Role of Prayer, and The Journey to Transcendence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Even if you're not paying attention, skin in the game makes a difference because it weeds out, say, gamblers who are imprudent risk takers unless you bail them out. If you take out the skin in the game. But I've always said economists thought, oh yeah, you look at it, you take into account the effect, every economist would tell you this, but he made me appreciate that even if you're not paying attention, as long as you don't bail out losers, they'll be weeded out of the process. Nice point. Cool.”
2022-08-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #613: Russ Roberts on Lessons from F.A. Hayek and Nassim Taleb, Decision-Making Insights from Charles Darwin, The Dangers of Scientism, Wild Problems in Life and the Decisions That Define Us, Learnings from the Talmud, The Role of Prayer, and The Journey to Transcendence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Prophet encourages risk taking. The loss encourages prudence. So profit and loss encourage prudent risk-taking, not reckless risk-taking. If you bail out losers, you have taken away the loss and you get imprudent risk-taking. It's a bad idea. So economists understand this. We get it. But Talib taught me something I hadn't understood or appreciated about skin in the game, which is fascinating, which is that Let's say you don't pay attention to the fact that you've got skin in the game. You're oblivious. Economists like to argue people are rational. They take account of their gains. They take account of their losses. That's why they're prudent risk-takers if there's profit and loss. But what Tullet points out is that if you're really bad at something and you ignore the risks, you get taken out of the game. You're not in the pool anymore.”
2022-08-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #613: Russ Roberts on Lessons from F.A. Hayek and Nassim Taleb, Decision-Making Insights from Charles Darwin, The Dangers of Scientism, Wild Problems in Life and the Decisions That Define Us, Learnings from the Talmud, The Role of Prayer, and The Journey to Transcendence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Like right now, I'm 67. In 10 years, I'll be 77. So if I invest all my money in the S&P 500 and don't touch it for a decade, what's the worst thing that could happen? Well, the answer is something worse than has happened before. Possibly, and that is a possibility is so hard to remember for most people. Because really, really smart people make that mistake all the time. So that's a simple thing that I've learned from him. That's not dramatic. I'll give you one more, one of my favorites as an economist. So he has a book called Skid in the Game. Skin in the game is like the bread and butter of economics. So skin in the game means if I bear the costs of mistakes and I enjoy the fruits of my good decisions, that skin in the game, right? That's great. Fancy name for economists when they talk about this is incentives are aligned, but it means you got skin in the game. And, you know, Milton Friedman liked to say that capitalism is a profit and loss system.”
2022-08-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #613: Russ Roberts on Lessons from F.A. Hayek and Nassim Taleb, Decision-Making Insights from Charles Darwin, The Dangers of Scientism, Wild Problems in Life and the Decisions That Define Us, Learnings from the Talmud, The Role of Prayer, and The Journey to Transcendence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, if you're built in the house in Virginia, near the Potomac River, how high should you build it? And the answer some people would actually argue is that if you build it higher than that sign, you're safe. And you'd be wrong. Because the past is not necessarily a good predictor of the future. And we all know that. That's the most trivial, obvious thing. And yet, to take a financial example. Oh, well. The S&P 500, there's never been a 10-year period with a negative return. I don't even remember now. Whatever it is. Take all the different decades. And I don't mean 1920 to 1930, 1930 to 1940. I mean, 21 to 31, 22 to 32, 1923 to 1933. And you could look at all of those, and you could take the worst 10-year period. And you'd say, okay, so I'm...”
2022-08-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #613: Russ Roberts on Lessons from F.A. Hayek and Nassim Taleb, Decision-Making Insights from Charles Darwin, The Dangers of Scientism, Wild Problems in Life and the Decisions That Define Us, Learnings from the Talmud, The Role of Prayer, and The Journey to Transcendence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Place. There's a great sign, fantastic sign, not really a sign to stick on the Virginia side. You have to look up and you look up and it says, this is the high watermark of the Potomac River. So you're, I don't know, 150 feet above the Potomac River already. And then there's this post in the ground that goes up another 12 and a half, whatever it is, 15 feet. And that's the high watermark of the Potomac River. Hard to imagine it could flood to that level, but evidently it has. Let's take that as a fact.”
2022-08-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #613: Russ Roberts on Lessons from F.A. Hayek and Nassim Taleb, Decision-Making Insights from Charles Darwin, The Dangers of Scientism, Wild Problems in Life and the Decisions That Define Us, Learnings from the Talmud, The Role of Prayer, and The Journey to Transcendence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“A fabulous book. A lot of people's reaction to that book was oh, there's nothing new in there. And I could argue, I guess, as a PhD in economics, I had to take a bunch of statistics, what's called econometrics, the application of statistics, economic problems. You could argue I do everything in there, but I didn't know it in my bones. And that's a lot of what we're talking about today, which is how do you pay attention? And he taught me how to pay attention to some things out in the real world that I was totally unaware of in the moment. If he said to me later, did you realize, I'll take one, here's an easy one. If you go to Great Falls National Park, which is a fantastic park, very, maybe one of the finest nature experiences you can have very, very close to a large metropolitan area, it's just outside Washington, D.C. There's a site in Virginia and a side in Maryland. Both sides are interesting with great hikes along the Potomac River there. There's incredible waterfalls and turbulent waters. Very, very beautiful.”
2022-08-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #613: Russ Roberts on Lessons from F.A. Hayek and Nassim Taleb, Decision-Making Insights from Charles Darwin, The Dangers of Scientism, Wild Problems in Life and the Decisions That Define Us, Learnings from the Talmud, The Role of Prayer, and The Journey to Transcendence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I've been meaning to write an essay on this for a while because. Never systematically thought about it occasionally. You know, someone will say, Oh, he's so annoying, or I don't like him. And why do you have him on your show? It's against your philosophy of, and I try to have civil conversations with people I disagree with. And I'm very simple conversations with Nasim, by the way. He wrote a book. His first book was called Fool by Randomness.”
2022-08-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #613: Russ Roberts on Lessons from F.A. Hayek and Nassim Taleb, Decision-Making Insights from Charles Darwin, The Dangers of Scientism, Wild Problems in Life and the Decisions That Define Us, Learnings from the Talmud, The Role of Prayer, and The Journey to Transcendence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Some people are tone deaf and they cannot enjoy music the way a great musician can or even a mediocre musician. And other people have a great ear and all that music makes their heart sing all the time. And they live in a different world than the rest of us. And I think there's a whole continuum of music and religious slash spiritual practice that we inhabit that is personal, that is person specific. It's like I give you my favorite novel. You're going to love this. It didn't speak to me. That's what happens. And there's certain religious experiences or spiritual experiences, spiritual practices that don't speak to certain people because they're just not hardwired that way, I think. I don't know.”
2022-08-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #613: Russ Roberts on Lessons from F.A. Hayek and Nassim Taleb, Decision-Making Insights from Charles Darwin, The Dangers of Scientism, Wild Problems in Life and the Decisions That Define Us, Learnings from the Talmud, The Role of Prayer, and The Journey to Transcendence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Is that there's more to life than the emotional ups and downs and what we call fun or happiness? And there's a certain texture to life that comes, say, from being married or being a parent or moving to Israel or having a certain career maybe in a profession that makes you feel full and yourself. And that texture is to me a lot of what religious life is about. Again, not that different from many of the things we've been talking about. There are Friday nights where I wish I could do something I choose not to do more globally. But the overall impact as a effect on how I see myself and how I go through the world that I find meaningful. I don't think it's accessible to everyone. It's for me in my experience a little bit like music.”
2022-08-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #613: Russ Roberts on Lessons from F.A. Hayek and Nassim Taleb, Decision-Making Insights from Charles Darwin, The Dangers of Scientism, Wild Problems in Life and the Decisions That Define Us, Learnings from the Talmud, The Role of Prayer, and The Journey to Transcendence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So for me, it does rule out certain decisions that would otherwise you'd have to weigh. There's no doubt about that. But I think a lot of people think that a religious life is one that's free of doubt. Is a bunch of angels sitting around singing, strumming guitars, you know. Bunch of good Martin guitars singing some Kumbaya song. It's really not the main thing about religion that's attractive to me and maybe to other people because I have plenty of doubts, by the way, and I think most religious people in the modern era struggle with faith. I think it's a, I don't know, I shouldn't say most. Many do. For me, it comes back to what we talked about earlier. I didn't write about this in the book, but... It gives life a certain texture. And part of what I'm trying to say in that book, in Wild Problems.”
2022-08-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #613: Russ Roberts on Lessons from F.A. Hayek and Nassim Taleb, Decision-Making Insights from Charles Darwin, The Dangers of Scientism, Wild Problems in Life and the Decisions That Define Us, Learnings from the Talmud, The Role of Prayer, and The Journey to Transcendence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Religion is really interesting. Obviously, it's a fascinating part of human experience, both glorious and inglorious. I think people who aren't religious think it makes life easy in the way that you suggested the automaticity. Things are taken care of. And there is a piece of that, by the way. I keep the Jewish Sabbath. So if you say to me, I've got tickets to see Paul McCartney, who I don't particularly like, but I'd like to go see him. Not my favorite musician, but he's at the Meadowlands with Ed Bruce Springsteen's going to show up, which happened recently. I don't know if it was a Friday night or not, but if you said, you want to go, I'd say, oh, yeah, I want to go. Oh, it's Friday night. Oh, I can't go.”
2022-08-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #613: Russ Roberts on Lessons from F.A. Hayek and Nassim Taleb, Decision-Making Insights from Charles Darwin, The Dangers of Scientism, Wild Problems in Life and the Decisions That Define Us, Learnings from the Talmud, The Role of Prayer, and The Journey to Transcendence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Very, very demoralizing. There's a wonderful things about it. You face your mortality. Most of us, I think, had to reckon the fact, you know. Got my vaccine finally, it's like, oh, I felt like Superman. Oh, I forgot I'm still going to die. That stinks, doesn't it? But it forced you to remember that that you're going to die. You might die soon from COVID in a hospital on a ventilator or horrible way to go. And if you're lucky you don't get it, but you're still going to die. And I think for a lot of those two things, when's it going to end? And I am mortal. And I most of us, again, coming back to our theme of things you don't want to think about are easy not to think about the fact that we're going to die is not pleasant. Most of us push that one off. Those two things really wore us down. So what does that have to do with religion?”
2022-08-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #613: Russ Roberts on Lessons from F.A. Hayek and Nassim Taleb, Decision-Making Insights from Charles Darwin, The Dangers of Scientism, Wild Problems in Life and the Decisions That Define Us, Learnings from the Talmud, The Role of Prayer, and The Journey to Transcendence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“London or Berlin or Japan Not in the United States because the United States was pretty protected, but in these countries where day in, day out, your loved ones were dying and you don't know when it's going to end and you more than anything else. You just want, what do you want? Just give me a normal day where I don't have to be afraid. Don't have to worry that someone's going to die. So COVID gave us a tiny, thank God, relatively much smaller taste of that. And for most people, I thought for me, it was incredibly hard. It was like, when am I going to be able to fill in the blank? When am I going to have a norm? I just want a normal. I want to go out to a bar and see some friends and have a drink or go to a party or better go to a wedding or even go to a funeral, right? There are people who miss funerals, who miss weddings, who miss wonderful life events and couldn't participate. And so I think that really wore us down where a lot of us down.”
2022-08-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #613: Russ Roberts on Lessons from F.A. Hayek and Nassim Taleb, Decision-Making Insights from Charles Darwin, The Dangers of Scientism, Wild Problems in Life and the Decisions That Define Us, Learnings from the Talmud, The Role of Prayer, and The Journey to Transcendence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The bombing of London. Think about it every night. Sirens go off, you go down to the basement, you go down out the basement, you go down to the metro, the underground, excuse me, in London, or you go to some place of shelter, and you come back out, if you're lucky, your house is still there. And if you're not lucky, your house is gone. And maybe somebody died who you cared about. And can you imagine that night after night after night? And after a while, you'd say, you know, it's really hard. But the hardest part of it is I don't know when it's going to end. If you just tell me when it's going to end, I can handle it. Just give me the arrival date. What's the ETA of peace? And of course most wars, they think, oh, it'll be over in a week. Civil war, it'll be over in a week, two weeks, month. Most wars drag on as hard as COVID was. And again, it's embarrassing to compare it to war. Can you imagine what it was like to be in...”
2022-08-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #613: Russ Roberts on Lessons from F.A. Hayek and Nassim Taleb, Decision-Making Insights from Charles Darwin, The Dangers of Scientism, Wild Problems in Life and the Decisions That Define Us, Learnings from the Talmud, The Role of Prayer, and The Journey to Transcendence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I've been very lucky. I got COVID about a month ago for the first time. It was really unpleasant. I was in bed for three days. I didn't have any energy. And I was tired for another 10 days. Beat, just beat. But I had a lucky. I didn't end up on a ventilator. I didn't die. It was a bad flu in the Omicron phase here. But for two years, especially when I was in the United States before I came here, I had a, I think for most of us, it was a very unusual life experience. It was a little bit... So war, we think back, say,”
2022-08-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #613: Russ Roberts on Lessons from F.A. Hayek and Nassim Taleb, Decision-Making Insights from Charles Darwin, The Dangers of Scientism, Wild Problems in Life and the Decisions That Define Us, Learnings from the Talmud, The Role of Prayer, and The Journey to Transcendence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Weird physical setting. It's almost all paved. It's this weird cobblestone, ancient stone. There's stones over here in the old city that were carved out two thousand years ago to build things. And they're still there. And there's walls from 600 years ago, from Crusader times. Go to England, it's old. England makes the United States look brand new. We have history of the United States 1776. You go to England, it's like, we have no history. Come to Israel. It's like, England has no history.”
2022-08-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #613: Russ Roberts on Lessons from F.A. Hayek and Nassim Taleb, Decision-Making Insights from Charles Darwin, The Dangers of Scientism, Wild Problems in Life and the Decisions That Define Us, Learnings from the Talmud, The Role of Prayer, and The Journey to Transcendence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Center here for the three great Abrahamic religions. You have the political tensions that rivet the world, and you also have modern life and great food. And it's really small. Not just the old city. I mean, the old city is tiny. Israel is really small. If you look at Israel on a map,”
2022-08-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #613: Russ Roberts on Lessons from F.A. Hayek and Nassim Taleb, Decision-Making Insights from Charles Darwin, The Dangers of Scientism, Wild Problems in Life and the Decisions That Define Us, Learnings from the Talmud, The Role of Prayer, and The Journey to Transcendence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So behind me, which is just watching this on YouTube, you can see is a shade. If we raise that shade and you stood at that window, you are about two miles from the old city of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount where you can see the dome of the rock. A great Muslim shrine, and the temple mount is a great Jewish shrine where the western wall is the hotel as it's called in Hebrew. And sometimes I look down on that, I can see from my office, sometimes I look down on that, and I am moved because it's bizarre. It's so small. It is so small and it feels like it's the center of the universe sometimes, meaning everything is over dramatized here. You say everything matters. Everything seems consequential. The poet said that Jerusalem is a port city on the sea of eternity. So you have this credible spiritual.”
2022-08-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #613: Russ Roberts on Lessons from F.A. Hayek and Nassim Taleb, Decision-Making Insights from Charles Darwin, The Dangers of Scientism, Wild Problems in Life and the Decisions That Define Us, Learnings from the Talmud, The Role of Prayer, and The Journey to Transcendence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Almost the same headlines, there's almost the same headlines every day. Terrorist attacks awarded in such and such a place. Iran heats up. New government coming, elections next month, and then my favorite 14-year-old girl finds Roman coin in Casaria that shows existence of so-and-so's Herod's rule at whatever time. Everything here matters. It's so consequential to be here as part of the Jewish experience. So that's a lot of it for me. Pretty fun too, by the way. I don't mean to downgrade the fun part. Jerusalem's an amazing city, and it's got much more interesting as a place to live in the last 20 years. It's very nice”
2022-08-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #613: Russ Roberts on Lessons from F.A. Hayek and Nassim Taleb, Decision-Making Insights from Charles Darwin, The Dangers of Scientism, Wild Problems in Life and the Decisions That Define Us, Learnings from the Talmud, The Role of Prayer, and The Journey to Transcendence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Definitely both. If this had been in, say, Bosnia, I don't think I'd have done it, they chanced to lead a small liberal arts college in Bosnia wouldn't appeal to me. It may be kind of interesting, but the downside would have been significantly large enough that I would have said no to it. So a lot of it was the farmer's chance to contribute, a chance to have been talking about coming back to Jerusalem for 2,000 years since the Second Temple was destroyed. And the fact that in my lifetime we have a Jewish state is amazing and I am very proud and it's exhilarating to me to be part of it. There's so many day-to-day moments here. It's hard to explain what it's like to live here in the following sense. If you open up an Israeli newspaper on any day.”
2022-08-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #613: Russ Roberts on Lessons from F.A. Hayek and Nassim Taleb, Decision-Making Insights from Charles Darwin, The Dangers of Scientism, Wild Problems in Life and the Decisions That Define Us, Learnings from the Talmud, The Role of Prayer, and The Journey to Transcendence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Of new things, but really it was is this what we're meant to do? You know, you can put a divine Twist on that, but it doesn't. I think a lot of non religious people have a similar feeling about their life. Is this what I'm called to? Is this what, why I'm here? And we both felt that this was part of why we were here is to take this opportunity if we could do it well, if we could be successful at it. And so that verdict isn't in yet, but it's been an amazing first year.”
2022-08-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #613: Russ Roberts on Lessons from F.A. Hayek and Nassim Taleb, Decision-Making Insights from Charles Darwin, The Dangers of Scientism, Wild Problems in Life and the Decisions That Define Us, Learnings from the Talmud, The Role of Prayer, and The Journey to Transcendence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Of this job. You know, my wife was in America was a high school math teacher, fabulous math teacher, but she was thinking about doing something different. So for her, this was going to be a transition time anyway. So we focused on whether we would like this job. And by we, it was literally we in the sense that my wife had been an administrator as well. And as it turns out, most of the things that she was challenged by as a minister, I'm challenged by as administrator too. People are kind of similar. You know, there's issues of management and getting along with other folks and ego and normal human interaction. So she's an incredible advisor for me in this job. She's my right-hand person, obviously. And she cares about this mission. If she didn't, I don't think we would have done it if she didn't care about education and this kind of purpose. I think she thought it would be good for me. I think she saw that. She thought it was a chance for her to explore.”
2022-08-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #613: Russ Roberts on Lessons from F.A. Hayek and Nassim Taleb, Decision-Making Insights from Charles Darwin, The Dangers of Scientism, Wild Problems in Life and the Decisions That Define Us, Learnings from the Talmud, The Role of Prayer, and The Journey to Transcendence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Obviously, I don't mean to make too much fun of cost benefit. Obviously, we spend some time thinking about is this going to be fun? Are we going to like it? But that wasn't the only thing in the calculus. You know, we have friends here, but we have friends where we've been living for 18 years and we miss them. Our children are spread out all over the world. I have a daughter in London, a son in California, a son in Maryland. We have a son, and we have a son in Australia. I said, I hate that. We have children in all those places. So one argument was, well, Israel's far from all of them, but so is wherever we live. So it's okay. We spent a pretty serious amount of time talking about Purpose.”
2022-08-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #613: Russ Roberts on Lessons from F.A. Hayek and Nassim Taleb, Decision-Making Insights from Charles Darwin, The Dangers of Scientism, Wild Problems in Life and the Decisions That Define Us, Learnings from the Talmud, The Role of Prayer, and The Journey to Transcendence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Tell you a little bit about it. It was actually funny. It was in the middle of it. It's very vivid to me because it was the middle of COVID. And most Sundays during COVID, we spent walking along the Potomac River. We had to be outside. Often it was miserably hot as it is outside the Potomac River in July and August and June even. And sometimes September and anyway, it's warm in D.C. area. I have vivid memories of us walking along and talking about whether we did something similar to what Darwin did.”
2022-08-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #613: Russ Roberts on Lessons from F.A. Hayek and Nassim Taleb, Decision-Making Insights from Charles Darwin, The Dangers of Scientism, Wild Problems in Life and the Decisions That Define Us, Learnings from the Talmud, The Role of Prayer, and The Journey to Transcendence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Shipped here when we found a place to live, and we moved Tesra. And it's It's stricken from fire hose. It's, you know, people say to me, so how's it going? You settling in? No or not settling in, we are foreigners, we are immigrants, and we're living in the Middle East, where we've never lived before. It's a Jewish statement. It's in the Middle East. It's culturally different than many places where lots of Jews live. So it's fascinating. It's an incredible life experience. And the work part is amazing. And it's, you know, an adventure, incredible adventure.”
2022-08-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #613: Russ Roberts on Lessons from F.A. Hayek and Nassim Taleb, Decision-Making Insights from Charles Darwin, The Dangers of Scientism, Wild Problems in Life and the Decisions That Define Us, Learnings from the Talmud, The Role of Prayer, and The Journey to Transcendence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Listen to Acon Talk, you find out that I'm increasingly interested in questions of what the life well lived. And we've been having that conversation for the last hour and a bit, actually, not explicitly, but that's really what we're talking about. What is the life well lived? How do we flourish as human beings? So that's at the center of the intellectual mission of this college, and also to turn out leaders who will go on to have impact on the country, which I like and think that's a good thing. And I care a lot about education. And the bottle of education we represent here is small seminars of people exploring great texts together, respectfully, in open inquiry. So how could I say no? And the only answer really was if my wife didn't want to come, we wouldn't come back to earlier conversation, but she thought it would be a great adventure. And so we jumped. We sold our house. We put our stuff in storage to be.”
2022-08-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #613: Russ Roberts on Lessons from F.A. Hayek and Nassim Taleb, Decision-Making Insights from Charles Darwin, The Dangers of Scientism, Wild Problems in Life and the Decisions That Define Us, Learnings from the Talmud, The Role of Prayer, and The Journey to Transcendence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But I had no interest in moving here. That's a crazy idea. But I got offered this job, and the job is leading this college that has a core curriculum in Greek philosophy, Jewish thought, the Quran, the New Testament, Shakespeare, Western history, and then you can either major in two things when I got here now three. But the philosophy and Jewish thought are Middle Eastern and Islamic studies and learn Arabic. That's the whole place. And I thought, that's nice. I'm glad Israel has a college like that. It's a good thing. But I'm not interested in working for him, of course. That'd be a crazy idea. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that.”
2022-08-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #613: Russ Roberts on Lessons from F.A. Hayek and Nassim Taleb, Decision-Making Insights from Charles Darwin, The Dangers of Scientism, Wild Problems in Life and the Decisions That Define Us, Learnings from the Talmud, The Role of Prayer, and The Journey to Transcendence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It off of this shop to be president of this college. I'm Jewish. I've always liked Israel. I've been here a dozen times. I actually lived here as a teenager when my dad's company sent him here to look at an Israeli company as a possible partner merger or acquisition. So I like Israel. It's nice. Great place to visit. I've always enjoyed it. I care about it. I think it's important. I think it's great that the Jewish people have the state.”
2022-08-05 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #613: Russ Roberts on Lessons from F.A. Hayek and Nassim Taleb, Decision-Making Insights from Charles Darwin, The Dangers of Scientism, Wild Problems in Life and the Decisions That Define Us, Learnings from the Talmud, The Role of Prayer, and The Journey to Transcendence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT