Evolutionary Ideas and COVID-19 Controversies feat. Matt Ridley

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc | 8 November 2023 | 0h 56m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
Interview with Matt Ridley covering most of his books. Discusses the integral role freedom, idea exchange, and trade play in driving innovation; the concept of creative destruction and how it’s essential for large corporations to reinvent themselves to stay competitive or be allowed to cease to exist suddenly; the debate surrounding the origin of COVID-19, its implications for virology; the spread of false information in our interconnected world; and the impact of China’s rise on global innovation.

This site has many more interviews with Matt Ridley – my favourite author.

Posted on by

Discovering The True Potential of Human Senses feat. Jackie Higgins

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc | 6 October 2023 | 0h 41m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
Interview with Jackie Higgins about her book Sentient: How Animals Illuminate the Wonder of Our Human Senses. Discusses how culture impacts the way we perceive the world, examples of animals that have similar senses to ours, and studies that show how humans could refine their senses to be much more powerful than previously thought.

Posted on by

Understanding the Gender Wage Gap feat. Claudia Goldin

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc | 26 July 2023 | 0h 57m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
Interview with Claudia Goldin about her book Career and Family: Women’s Century-Long Journey Toward Equity. Discusses the history of the gender wage gap, how women’s place in the workforce has shifted over time, and what steps employers can take toward true pay and gender equity.

Posted on by

What’s The Right Amount of Democracy feat. Garett Jones

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc | 30 June 2023 | 0h 52m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
Interview with Garett Jones about his books 10% Less Democracy and The Culture Transplant. Discusses the true meaning of the word “democracy,” whether it’s better to have a well-educated elite calling the shots, and how migration can determine how prosperous a country will be.

See also other interviews with Garett Jones.

Posted on by

The Libertarian Roots of Cryptocurrency feat. Finn Brunton

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc | 28 June 2023 | 1h 02m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
Interview with Finn Brunton about his book Digital Cash: The Unknown History of the Anarchists, Utopians, and Technologists Who Created Cryptocurrency. Digs into the origin story of cryptocurrency, discussing how spammers and scammers were some of the earliest adopters of cryptocurrency, the American Libertarian roots in the movement, and the dark future cryptocurrency pioneers worried about.

Posted on by

The Religious Roots of Economics feat. Benjamin M. Friedman

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc | 5 June 2023 | 1h 02m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
Interview with Benjamin Friedman about his book Religion and the Rise of Capitalism. Discusses how the religious beliefs of the Enlightenment Age influenced the evolution of modern economic theory; how the Scottish Enlightenment, in particular, became a hub for social scientific thought; what the belief in Calvinism had to do with the rise of capitalism; and the correlation between economic growth and positive moral changes in society.

Posted on by

The New Science of Political Economy featuring James Robinson

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc | 26 April 2023 | 0h 49m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
Interview with James Robinson about his books Why Nations Fail and The Narrow Corridor, co-authored with Daron Acemoglu. Explores the correlation between inclusive political institutions and economic growth and prosperity and why the absence of state capacity in developing nations is a major contributing factor to their economic struggles. Highlights the necessity for a genuine debate on whether strong governments and effective state institutions facilitate or stifle independence and innovation.

See also the James Robinson interviews with The Good Fight and Social Science Bites and the Rocking Our Priors interview with Daron Acemoglu.

Posted on by

Combining Science and Technology for Growth feat. Joel Mokyr

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc | 24 February 2023 | 1h 03m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
Interview with Joel Mokyr about his book A Culture of Growth: The Origins of the Modern Economy. Discusses how science and technology evolved in ways that reinforced each other; the connections between the industrial and scientific revolutions and between scientific discovery and technological adaptation; the decline of the guilds in England and the subsequent diffusion of English artisans and mechanics across Europe; and more.

 

Posted on by