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3 posts

Podcast

Yuval Levin on EconTalk

I'm not familiar with Yuval Levin (I don't even remember his previous appearance on EconTalk, which I must have heard), but he was on EconTalk recently talking about his new book. The book sounds interesting enough, and if I had room on my to-read shelf for it, I'd probably add it, but I don't so I won't. But the bits of conversation that emerged centered around three things that really stuck with me. First was the idea of formative institutions. One view of people is that children know what' … (Continued)

99 Percent Invisible on the Automat

I found this 99% Invisible episode about The Automat enlightening, mostly because it is a reminder to be humble and not assume your knee-jerk reaction that something is being caused by technology when it actually may be that what you're seeing is a novel incarnation of something very old. The technology is just the shiny new wrapper: A new restaurant called Eatsa opened up a few years back in downtown San Francisco It was designed to be a high-tech affair where people order on iPads and the … (Continued)

Maurico Miller on Econtalk

On a recent episode of Econtalk, the host interviewed Maurico Miller, who wrote a book called The Alternative: Most of What You Believe about Poverty Is Wrong.... based on his years of running social assistance programs. But what he learned is unique because his programs didn't directly help people. The programs were entirely focused around building a community that would keep each other accountable and help each other out. It was not about handouts or means-testing people. There was no idea of … (Continued)