Tyler Cowen: belief

Transcript context

…In what ways should there be more such clusters? In economics and academia, there are some other clusters. You had one at UMass Amherst, which isn’t quite what it used to be. You had one at Notre Dame. Those were more heterodox left-wing clusters. There’s a group called INET, backed by George Soros, that’s trying to create more of these. I think that’s a very positive endeavor. I would like there to be a few departments that are still some version of Marxist, other heterodox views. I’d like there to be more departments that specialize in experimental economics, other methods. But you have too many people trying to just move up in the rankings and be number 23, which isn’t necessarily that glorious, rather than be number one or two along some stranger dimension. If we go home and we all conclude that we should ourselves become part of some movement to help create more of these heterodox clusters, is the characteristic you’re just describing about trying to extrapolate views to other ostensibly unrelated areas, is that the thing you should be trying to do even outside of economics? Or is there some underlying thing that’s the right guiding principle when you’re trying to create non-economic heterodox clusters?…

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