Tyler Cowen: belief

Transcript context

…Of course. That sounds fun. So, that is coming up as well. Incidentally, on the GOAT thing, you and Russ Roberts, at the end of your EconTalk conversation, had a bit of a discussion about GOATs in various fields. I think this book has inspired people. You were inspired by Bill Simmons writing about the greatest of all time in basketball. You did it for economics. What are you looking at next? What do you want to see someone make a good case for as a field for who’s the GOAT? Almost anything, it can work. It’s been done plenty for basketball. There’s my take on economics. I think the fundamental innovation is not GOAT per se, but writing from the perspective of a fan. It’s what a lot of people actually want. If you read, say, theringer.com, it’s written from the perspective of a fan, which is great. To have many more things written from the perspectives of fans, to me, is more important than whether or not they do GOAT. GOAT may not apply to a lot of fields. Political science — it’s much more heterogeneous and varied than, say, economics. So, maybe there is no GOAT of political science even, possibly. That’s fine, but you could write a book about your favorite political scientists, again, with this perspective of enthusiasm and why they got me excited about things. That’s what I want. Academic incentives are precisely to do the opposite of that. Like, here’s why it’s not really very exciting at all. That’s not how it’s described, but that’s the way it turns out. That’s very much the Bill Simmons brand. I think the success of The Ringer has shown that that thing is really enticing, when you hear people come to it from deep appreciation and enthusiasm.…

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