Rationally Speaking #218 - Chris Auld on "Good and bad critiques of economics"

10/01/18 • 48 min

In this episode, economist Chris Auld describes some common criticisms of his field and why they're wrong. Julia and Chris also discuss whether there are any good critiques of the field, and whether economists think that people with an addiction to alcohol or drugs are behaving rationally.

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Rationally Speaking #217 - Aviv Ovadya on "The problem of false, biased, and artificial news"

Aviv Ovadya, an expert on misinformation, talks with Julia about the multiple phenomena that get lumped together as "fake news." For example, articles that are straightforwardly false, misleading, or artificially created (think "Deepfakes," videos that make a politician appear to say something he didn't say). Which of those problems are more dangerous for our civilization? Are any of them tractable? And what might a solution look like?

Next Episode

Rationally Speaking #219 - Jason Collins on "A skeptical take on behavioral economics"

In this episode, economist Jason Collins discusses some of the problems with behavioral economics: Why governments have started to rely too much on the field, and why that's bad; why it's suspicious that there are over 100 cognitive biases; when "nudges" are problematic; and more.