Bryan Caplan - Feminists, Billionaires, and Demagogues

1. 0:00 – 1:03

   Preview

   1. BCBryan Caplan0:00

      There can be a thousand refugees from a country you don't like, you put it on the news and people say, "Oh, we just couldn't possibly absorb them. We're at our absolute breaking point. This is terrible."

   2. DPDwarkesh Patel0:08

      Student loan forgiveness.

   3. BCBryan Caplan0:10

      Oh. Oy vey.

   4. DPDwarkesh Patel0:11

      (laughs)

   5. BCBryan Caplan0:12

      I mean, this is one where I think it's very hard to find almost any economist, no matter how left wing or progressive, who really wants to stick their necks out and defend this garbage. The amount of time that American feminists spend on female infanticide in China and India, could it even be 1% of the rhetoric? It's just not something that they care about? It's not just, "Oh, I can get to be a billionaire. I'll do this thing and make the money." Like, it is something that actually, I think, fosters a whole culture of entrepreneurship. I mean, again, we've been hanging out in Austin. All over there, there's a whole bunch of people who are never gonna be billionaires, Dwarkesh. But, you know, I've told people, like, "Dwarkesh. Will Dwarkesh ever be a billionaire?" Probably not, but, like, 2%.

   6. DPDwarkesh Patel0:48

      (laughs)

   7. BCBryan Caplan0:48

      Like, you know, li- like, Dwarkesh is just a mover and a shaker.

   8. DPDwarkesh Patel0:52

      Okay. Today I have the great honor, for the third time, of interviewing Bryan Caplan again. Bryan, thanks so much for coming on the podcast.

   9. BCBryan Caplan0:59

      I've got the great honor of being interviewed by you, Dwarkesh.

   10. DPDwarkesh Patel1:01

       (laughs)

   11. BCBryan Caplan1:01

       You're one of my favorite people in the world.

2. 1:03 – 17:44

   Don’t Be a Feminist

   1. DPDwarkesh Patel1:03

      (laughs) Yeah, it's a greater pleasure every time-

   2. BCBryan Caplan1:05

      (laughs)

   3. DPDwarkesh Patel1:05

      ... um, for me at least. Uh, so le- let's talk about your book, Don't Be a Feminist. Is there any margin of, uh, representation of women in, like, leadership roles at which you think there should be introduced bias to make sure more women get in, even if the original ratio is not because of bias?

   4. BCBryan Caplan1:22

      No. I believe in meritocracy. I think it is a good system. It is one that almost everyone sees the intuitive appeal of, and it works. So just looking at a group and saying, "We need to get more members of group X," is just the wrong way to be approaching it. Rather, you need to be focusing on, "Let's try to figure out the best way of getting the top-quality people here."

   5. DPDwarkesh Patel1:45

      But if there's a- just an astounding ratio of men in certain positions, could that potentially have an impact on the company's ability to do good business, that the- Like, the company would just care about increasing the ratio for that reason alone?

   6. BCBryan Caplan1:58

      Right. I mean, one can imagine that. I mean, I think in our culture it really goes the other way, and I think that people are more likely to be trying to get rid of men despite the fact that the men are delivering value. I mean, if you really push me into starting to think, "Well, suppose that you're running a bar, would you have ladies' night?"

   7. DPDwarkesh Patel2:15

      (laughs)

   8. BCBryan Caplan2:15

      Yeah, I would have ladies' night in a bar, because the- (laughs) that actually works and it's good business. Uh, but if what you're doing is trying to actually get correct answers to things, if you're trying to go and make something run effectively, if you're just trying to make progress, you're trying to learn new things, the thing to focus on is what actually leads to knowledge, and not focusing on just trying to get demographic representation. And even really, I think what we've seen is once you go down that route, it is a slippery slope. So I would actually, besides defending meritocracy on its merits, also say we- the slippery slope argument is not one that should be dismissed lightly. There's a lot of evidence that it really does actually fit the facts, and when you make an exception of that kind, it really does lead you to bad places.

   9. DPDwarkesh Patel3:03

      Okay. I- I... But just changing topics a bit, I wonder if this gives you greater sympathy for immigration restrictionists, because their argument is similar, um, that, like, there's no natural schelling point for your keyhole solutions where you let tens of millions of people in, but you don't give them w- welfare or voting rights-

   10. BCBryan Caplan3:18

       Mm-hmm.

   11. DPDwarkesh Patel3:18

       ... that there's a slippery slope. You let them in-

   12. BCBryan Caplan3:20

       Mm-hmm.

   13. DPDwarkesh Patel3:20

       ... and then eventually, you know, the civil rights argument is gonna extend to them. There'll be adverse consequences that these keyhole solutions can't solve for.

   14. BCBryan Caplan3:27

       So for there, I mean, first of all, I would say maybe. Yeah. So that is one of the best arguments to keyhole solutions. I mean, I'm guessing that a lot of your listeners have no idea what keyhole solutions are, Dwarkesh-

   15. DPDwarkesh Patel3:38

       (laughs)

   16. BCBryan Caplan3:38

       ... so maybe we want to back up and explain that.

   17. DPDwarkesh Patel3:41

       Go for it.

   18. BCBryan Caplan3:42

       Uh, sure. So I have a totally unrelated book, Open Borders: The Science and Ethics of Immigration. Uh, one of the chapters goes over ways of dealing with complaints about immigration that fall short of stopping people from actually coming or excluding or kicking out people that are already there. So, you know, we'll just- we'll- just to back up a little bit further, so most of the book t- talks about complaints about immigration and say that they're either totally wrong or overstated. But then I have another chapter saying, "All right, fine, maybe you don't agree with that, but isn't there another way that we could deal with this?" So, for example, if you're worried about immigrants voting poorly, you could say, "Fine. We won't extend voting rights to immigrants, or make them wait for a longer time period." I mean, that's one where I would just say that the focal point of citizen versus non-citizen is one of the s- one of the strongest ones-

   19. DPDwarkesh Patel4:30

       Mm-hmm.

   20. BCBryan Caplan4:30

       ... so I think that it actually is one that has, has a lot st- a lot of stability. The, like, this line of, "Well, you're not a citizen, therefore something," really does have a lot of intuitive appeal. Although, yes, I do think that keyhole solutions would probably not work multi-generationally. Uh, at least, uh, unlikely to work. So to go and say this is a key- this is a keyhole solution where you're not a citizen, your kids are not citizens, their kids after them are not citizens, that's one that I think would be hard to maintain. But again, at the same time, it also does say the problems that people are worrying about, if they ever were severe, are also getting diluted over time, so I wouldn't worry about it so much. But yes, that is one of the very best objections to keyhole solutions that I know of, Dwarkesh. Good for you.

   21. DPDwarkesh Patel5:09

       Okay. So going back to feminism-

   22. BCBryan Caplan5:11

       (laughs)

   23. DPDwarkesh Patel5:12

       ... um, doesn't, over time, feminism naturally become true? So, um, th- one, one of the things you can say that the way that society's unfair to men is that they had to fight in wars-

   24. BCBryan Caplan5:22

       Mm-hmm.

   25. DPDwarkesh Patel5:22

       ... or do, uh, difficult and dangerous jobs. But, you know, society, over time, becomes more peaceful, or it at least-

   26. BCBryan Caplan5:28

       Mm-hmm.

   27. DPDwarkesh Patel5:28

       ... has in our timeline, and the difficult jobs get automated. Um, at the same time, the gains for the people who are at the very peak of any dis- uh, discipline, they keep going up, maybe fairly-

   28. BCBryan Caplan5:39

       Mm-hmm.

   29. DPDwarkesh Patel5:39

       ... but this implication still is that, like, if men are overrepresented there, again even for biological reasons, then the relative gains that they get go up. Right? So over time-

   30. BCBryan Caplan5:48

       Mm-hmm.
3. 17:44 – 20:58

   Western Feminism Ignores Infanticide

   1. BCBryan Caplan17:44

      in some other countries.

   2. DPDwarkesh Patel17:45

      But let me apply the argument you make in Open Borders that-

   3. BCBryan Caplan17:47

      Mm-hmm.

   4. DPDwarkesh Patel17:47

      ... you can effect change by shifting the Overton window.

   5. BCBryan Caplan17:50

      Mm-hmm.

   6. DPDwarkesh Patel17:50

      Right?

   7. BCBryan Caplan17:50

      Yeah.

   8. DPDwarkesh Patel17:51

      So that advocating for open borders ma- it just, like, shifts, um-

   9. BCBryan Caplan17:53

      Mm-hmm.

   10. DPDwarkesh Patel17:54

       ... shifts the immigration policy a li- slightly towards the open end.

   11. BCBryan Caplan17:57

       Mm-hmm.

   12. DPDwarkesh Patel17:57

       Couldn't the American feminists make the same point that by making the crazy arguments-

   13. BCBryan Caplan18:00

       Mm-hmm.

   14. DPDwarkesh Patel18:00

       ... they make in America-

   15. BCBryan Caplan18:01

       (laughs)

   16. DPDwarkesh Patel18:01

       ... they're making Saudi Arabia more liberal-

   17. BCBryan Caplan18:03

       Hmm.

   18. DPDwarkesh Patel18:03

       ... for women?

   19. BCBryan Caplan18:04

       I would say that when the arguments are crazy, then it's not clear that shifting the Overton window actually happens. Uh, that may be where you d- where you discredit it, uh, discredit the other view. In particular, I think what I say in that part of the book is that people generally confuse being radical with being unfriendly. And most of the harm that is done to radical causes is due to the unfriendliness rather than the radicalism. Also, in that, in that case, I would say, yeah, well, feminism has a definite friendliness problem. Uh, they, uh, it is not a movement that goes out of its way to go and make other people feel like they are respected, and, "Even if you disagree with me, I wanna be your friend and listen to what you have to say, and maybe we could go and come to some understanding." Uh, I think it is a movement where the main emotional tenor of the elites is, "We are totally right and anyone who disagrees had better watch out."Uh, so I don't... So I think that there is a discrediting of it. The other thing is just that I think there's, there's, uh, too much cultural separation between the fem- the feminist movement as we know it and places like China and India, where I just don't see that being really angry about exaggerated or false complaints about unfairness, unfair treatment of women in the United States is going to do anything for infanticide in India. Uh, correct-

   20. DPDwarkesh Patel19:15

       Uh-

   21. BCBryan Caplan19:15

       Correct me if I'm wrong, Dwarkesh.

   22. DPDwarkesh Patel19:16

       Well, uh-

   23. BCBryan Caplan19:16

       Uh, do you... Like, do you see much, uh, much influence of-

   24. DPDwarkesh Patel19:19

       Oh, yeah.

   25. BCBryan Caplan19:19

       ... Western feminism on infanticide in India?

   26. DPDwarkesh Patel19:21

       Well, I don't know of, of inten-

   27. BCBryan Caplan19:23

       Yeah.

   28. DPDwarkesh Patel19:23

       Actually, maybe yes-

   29. BCBryan Caplan19:24

       All right.

   30. DPDwarkesh Patel19:24

       ... even on that subject as well.
4. 20:58 – 32:56

   Why The Universe Hates Women

   1. DPDwarkesh Patel20:58

      say, "Oh my gosh, okay, Bryan, maybe you're right, that society as a whole-"

   2. BCBryan Caplan21:01

      (laughs)

   3. DPDwarkesh Patel21:01

      "... doesn't mistreat women, but maybe the cosmos mistreat women. But all of these things combined make women's lives worse on average than men's lives-"

   4. BCBryan Caplan21:08

      Mm-hmm.

   5. DPDwarkesh Patel21:08

      "... and it's not because maybe society mistreats them-"

   6. BCBryan Caplan21:10

      Mm-hmm.

   7. DPDwarkesh Patel21:10

      "... but in some sense, there's still unfairness geared towards women."

   8. BCBryan Caplan21:13

      Mm-hmm.

   9. DPDwarkesh Patel21:14

      What do you make of this argument?

   10. BCBryan Caplan21:15

       Yeah. So an unfairness where there's no human being that does it, that seems like a very strange idea to me just at the, just at the get-go. It's like, well, so who was unfair to you? The universe is unfair? It's like, well, I mean, I think the correct term there is unfortunate, not unfair. Although, then I... You know, so that aside, I would say, like, you know, it's a really interesting question. Like, who actually has better lives, uh, just as a matter of biological endowments, men or women? In terms of demonstrator preference, I think the overwhelming result is that most people just want to remain in whatever gender they're born in. Right? So this, this is not actually... You know, transgenderism, this is like a genie wish, if you could change your gender just with a wish, costlessly, perfectly. I think still a very large majority of people just want to stay with whatever they have because it's part of their identity, it's some kind of endowment effect, status quo bias, whatever. Right? But then if you say, "Okay, yeah. Right, fine." Like, you, like, you just want to stay whatever you were because that's your identity, but still, like, if you could put that aside, what would you want to be? It's a tough question. So you can say, well, wo- women, women have a harder personality to, uh... A harder personality because of higher neuroticism. Uh, they've also got higher agreeableness, so that gives them some other advantages in terms of getting along with other people. You know, like, for example, you know, men's dre- disagreeableness makes it hard for men to just bite their tongues and shut up when someone's saying something they don't like. I think that is easier for women to do. Right? And, and yeah. And you may, as you may have noticed, having to shut up and bite your tongue while someone around you says something stupid you don't like is actually a big part of life. That is... So that's one thing. Now, in terms of things that I feel that I would get out of being a woman, just being able to have as many kids as I wanted. That would matter a lot to me. Right? So I only have four kids right now. If it were totally up to me, yeah, I would have had more kids. And I think as a woman, it would have been easy to do. Right? (laughs)

   11. DPDwarkesh Patel23:05

       (laughs)

   12. BCBryan Caplan23:05

       Right? Uh, so again, like, you know, there is the issue, well, how are you going to find a guy that wants to have a lot of kids? Uh, this is one where I've looked at the data on family size and what determines it, and it seems like, you know, while both men and women have a... You know, see... Like, in the data, seem to have a say on family size, but it just looks like women's traits have a much larger effects. Men are more likely to just say, "Okay, fine, whatever. We'll do what you want to do on family size." Whereas women seem to have much more pronounced, uh, preferences, which they then tend to get. So yeah, I think that if I were a woman, I could have had more kids and it would have been easy for me to do, you know, easier for me to do it. Uh, so that would be something that matters to me. Uh, it's not something that matters to everybody, but, uh, that's, that's something there. Um, again, you know, there, there is just the nice fact of people caring about your suffering. I... In the book, I do talk about the ethos of women and children first, uh, which is, you know, very pronounced. It's not just modern society, but, uh, it is in modern society that we can simultaneously have women and children first, but also have a lot of rhetoric about how people don't care about women.

   13. DPDwarkesh Patel24:09

       Um-

   14. BCBryan Caplan24:09

       And it's like, hmm, that's not-

   15. DPDwarkesh Patel24:11

       What, what do you, what do you think of this theory that-

   16. BCBryan Caplan24:12

       (laughs)

   17. DPDwarkesh Patel24:12

       ... maybe society cares a lot more about women's suffering-

   18. BCBryan Caplan24:15

       Mm-hmm.

   19. DPDwarkesh Patel24:16

       ... but it sympathizes a lot more with men's success? So if you think of-

   20. BCBryan Caplan24:18

       Mm-hmm.

   21. DPDwarkesh Patel24:18

       ... like, a default character-

   22. BCBryan Caplan24:19

       Mm-hmm.

   23. DPDwarkesh Patel24:19

       ... in a movie or a novel-

   24. BCBryan Caplan24:22

       Mm-hmm.

   25. DPDwarkesh Patel24:22

       Um-

   26. BCBryan Caplan24:22

       Mm-hmm.

   27. DPDwarkesh Patel24:23

       At least for me, that's like-

   28. BCBryan Caplan24:23

       Yeah.

   29. DPDwarkesh Patel24:23

       The default is a man-

   30. BCBryan Caplan24:24

       Mm-hmm.
5. 32:56 – 46:52

   Women's Tears Have Too Much Power

   1. BCBryan Caplan32:56

      has a very famous essay where he points out that in fiction when there is a mob of angry college students, it's very demographically diverse. But when you look at actual footage, it seems like women are highly overrepresented, right? And you know, and then he generalizes this to saying a lot of what's going on in terms of cancel culture and related problems is that women are the main ones that get angry about these things, and people don't know what to do about it. Right? So he, you know, if I remember correctly, he just says, you know, like, like, you know, like a ma- a man can, in a way, actually enjoy a, a, an argument with another man. And you know, even if you lose or even it's, even if, even if it's a, a, a physical fight, he says, "Well, like you sort of feel invigorated by it. We got, we got through this. We like, we, we resolved something." He says, "Whereas like no guy feels this way about an argument with his wife." Right? And that just like, I, what do I need to do in order for this argument to end as soon as possible would be a more normal reaction. And he says this sort of generalizes to a lot of, you know, not all social, not all social arguments, but ones basically involving someone being offended or angry or hurt. Where he says, you know, a lot of what's going on is that it is mainly women that are presenting these complaints, and that it's hard to deal with it because men don't want to argue with angry women. It just makes them feel bad and then it's sort of a no win situation. Uh, so anyway, that is Hanania's argument. Uh, overall it seemed pretty plausible to me. I haven't thought about it that much more, but it's one that does seem to make a fair bit of sense in terms of just what I'm writing about feminism. You know, one really striking thing is just how one-sided this conversation is, right? It is a conversation where women have complaints and men mostly just listen in silence, right? Or of course, men will sometimes complain amongst each other when women aren't around. It's not a real dialogue where women have complaints about men and then men are very eager to say, "Oh, but I have something I would like to say in rebuttal to that." Right? And a lot of it is this, uh, you know, what, what, uh, he calls women's tears, or you could also just think about the, it's, it's sadness but m- but mingled with or, or supported by a, you know, by, by intimidation of like, "If you don't give me what I want, if you don't pretend that you agree with me, I will be very angry and I will be fairly sad. And so you should be afraid." Right? That is, I think a lot of what's probably going on with the rhetorical dominance of feminism, which is that people are just afraid to argue about it, uh, to, to argue against it, uh, because you are... You know, like in a way it does sort of violate the women and children first ethos, which is if women complain about something, you aren't supposed to go and say, "I disagree. Your complaints are unjustified." You're supposed to say like, "What can I do to make it better?"

   2. DPDwarkesh Patel35:45

      But that, that seems like a good description of like race issues and class issues as well.

   3. BCBryan Caplan35:48

      Mm-hmm. Yeah.

   4. DPDwarkesh Patel35:48

      I don't know if it's, uh, particular to-

   5. BCBryan Caplan35:50

      I mean-

   6. DPDwarkesh Patel35:51

      ... uh, feminism.

   7. BCBryan Caplan35:51

      ... so sort of the main difference there is that it, you know, there's, people have a lot more firsthand experience of inter-gender relations and they spend a lot more time in inter-gender relations than they spend in all of the other ones. So I mean the, the dynamic is probably pretty similar, but in terms of the really negative firsthand experience that one, that uh, that men have, probably, uh, Hanania is right about that and that generalizes to bigger issues.

   8. DPDwarkesh Patel36:16

      You have an essay about endogenous, uh, sexism.

   9. BCBryan Caplan36:19

      Yeah.

   10. DPDwarkesh Patel36:20

       Um, could this just not be the cause of, uh, uh, society being unfair to a woman that we start off with men being in power, they get sexist just because they're around other men and they like them more. Um, and then-

   11. BCBryan Caplan36:32

       Mm-hmm.

   12. DPDwarkesh Patel36:32

       ... like over... So th- then the starting position matters a lot-

   13. BCBryan Caplan36:34

       Mm-hmm.

   14. DPDwarkesh Patel36:34

       ... even if, uh-

   15. BCBryan Caplan36:35

       Mm-hmm.

   16. DPDwarkesh Patel36:35

       ... like men aren't trying to be sexist.

   17. BCBryan Caplan36:37

       Hmm. So let me just, uh, back up and explain the argument. So the argument says this. Imagine that in reality men and women are equally good in absolutely every way, but people are more likely to have close friends with their own gender, which is totally true. So if I remember the essay, I think that for men close friends, the male female ratio is like four to one, and for women... Or no, I think it's like... Let's see. No, I think it's the other way around. I think it's for men, it's like six to one. For women, it's like four to one. Right? So most people's close friends are the same gender, right? So you meet these people and they're your close friends, you know them really well. And because you have handpicked them, you're gonna think well of them, right?And then the question is, all right, so then what about people of the opposite gender and what's your interaction with them going to be like? And what I point out is that a lot of the people of the opposite gender that you hang out with will be the spouses of your friends, partners of your friends. And on average, you're going to think worse of them because you didn't pick them. Basically, there's two filters there. I like you because you're my friend. And now I put up with your partner because that person is your partner. Right? So this means is that the women that men are around are going to be the partners of their friends. They're going to like them less and think less of them than they think of their friends. And on the other hand, the partners of women's friends will be men, and women will get to know them and say, "Wow, they're not that great." They're at least kind of disappointing relative to my female friends." So anyway, this is an argument about how the illusion of your own gender being superior could arise. Right? Now, as to whether this is actually the right story, uh, I leave, leave that open. The, this was just more of a thought experiment to understand what, you know, what could happen here. In terms of, you know, how much, you know, like, like could this actually explain the unfair treatment of women in society, or could it lead in this way? Especially we start off with men having, being the gatekeepers for most of the business world, for example. Uh, the answer is it's totally plausible that it could. That's why we really want to go to the data and see what we actually find. And again, like in the data that I know of, actually the evidence of women earning less money than men while doing, wha- wha- while do, actually doing the same job is actually quite low, right? So there's very little gender disparity in earnings once you make the obvious statistical adjustments for being in the same occupation, right? And, uh, so again, like the, like the main one that probably is, like this, this one actually has gotten worse for women is mentoring, right? So mentoring, partly it's based upon friendship. I like this person, I like working with them, so I will go and help them to go and acquire more human capital on the job, right? Th- this is one that feminism has visibly messed up and many feminists will, in a se- in a strange way admit that they have done it while not taking responsibility for the harm. Because, so yeah, so I've got an essay on that, uh, in the book as well. So, you know, this is one where, you know, first of all, just looking at the evidence, it is totally standard now for male managers just to admit that they are reluctant to f- to mentor female employees because they're so worried. And then I go and track down a bunch of feminist reaction to this where they basically just say, "I can't believe how horrible these guys are." Right? It's like, look, you know, you're asking them for a favor to get mentorship. They're scared. If someone's scared, do you really want to yell at them more and offer more mostly empty threats because it's really hard in something that, uh, that is this informal to actually scare someone into doing it. You really do need to win them over.

   18. DPDwarkesh Patel40:06

       Tactically that might be correct, but it seems like just as a matter of like is their argument justified-

   19. BCBryan Caplan40:11

       Mm-hmm.

   20. DPDwarkesh Patel40:12

       ... like I, I can see why they'd be frustrated. Like-

   21. BCBryan Caplan40:14

       Mm-hmm. (laughs)

   22. DPDwarkesh Patel40:14

       ... obviously you want to be, uh, point out when there's like-

   23. BCBryan Caplan40:17

       Mm-hmm.

   24. DPDwarkesh Patel40:17

       ... uh, a sexual harassment allegation.

   25. BCBryan Caplan40:19

       Mm-hmm.

   26. DPDwarkesh Patel40:19

       And they may-

   27. BCBryan Caplan40:20

       Mm-hmm.

   28. DPDwarkesh Patel40:20

       That may have the effect of less mentorship.

   29. BCBryan Caplan40:22

       Mm-hmm.

   30. DPDwarkesh Patel40:22

       But, um, like-
6. 46:52 – 51:31

   Bryan Performs Standup Comedy!

   1. BCBryan Caplan46:52

   2. DPDwarkesh Patel46:52

      All right. Shifting subjects, um, you recently performed at The Comedy Cellar.

   3. BCBryan Caplan46:56

      (laughs)

   4. DPDwarkesh Patel46:57

      How was that experience?

   5. BCBryan Caplan46:58

      Yeah, that was super fun and a big challenge. The, you know, so I am a professional public speaker. Standup comedy is professional public speaking. I was curious about how much transfer of learning there would be, how many of the things that I know as a regular public speaker can I take with me to do standup comedy. Uh, I'm also just a big fan of standup comedy. Like if you know me personally, like I just find life constantly funny.

   6. DPDwarkesh Patel47:24

      Yes, I can confirm that.

   7. BCBryan Caplan47:25

      (laughs)

   8. DPDwarkesh Patel47:25

      Yeah, yeah, you're a very pleasant person to be around.

   9. BCBryan Caplan47:27

      Yes. Right. The things that life, life is funny to me. I like pointing out funny things. I like just, you know, using my imagination. A lot of comedy is also just imagination saying, "Look, imagine if it was the opposite way, what would that be like?" Uh, so anyway, I did get this chance... Well, actually just to back up again. So during COVID, I did, so I created a wiki of comedy ideas, just on the idea maybe one day I'll go and do standup comedy. And then The Comedy Cellar actually has a podcast where we're, kind of like Joe Rogan, where comedians go and talk about serious issues. I was invited on that, and as a result, I was able to talk my way into getting to perform on the actual live stage of the biggest comedy club in New York, uh, so maybe the world.

   10. DPDwarkesh Patel48:09

       (laughs)

   11. BCBryan Caplan48:09

       Um, it was, the main thing I could say even about my performance is it was me and like nine professional comedians, and I don't think I was obviously the worst person.

   12. DPDwarkesh Patel48:18

       (laughs)

   13. BCBryan Caplan48:19

       So that felt pretty good.

   14. DPDwarkesh Patel48:21

       It was a pretty good performance, actually.

   15. BCBryan Caplan48:22

       Yeah, yeah, uh-

   16. DPDwarkesh Patel48:23

       I enjoyed it.

   17. BCBryan Caplan48:23

       ... I felt, I felt, felt good about it. You know, like the main, so like, like the main differences that I realized between the kind of public speaking I was used to doing and what I actually did there, so one is importance of memorizing the script. It just looks, looks a lot worse if you're-

   18. DPDwarkesh Patel48:38

       Yeah.

   19. BCBryan Caplan48:38

       ... reading, reading off of notes. So that's normally I w- I have some basic notes and then I ad lib. I don't memorize. The only time I have a script is if I have a very time constrained debate, then I will normally write an opening statement, but otherwise I don't. And again, the thing with comedy is it depends so heavily upon exact word choice.

   20. DPDwarkesh Patel48:57

       Mm-hmm.

   21. BCBryan Caplan48:58

       You could s- you could go and put the same sentence into Google Translate and then back translate it and get another sentence that is synonymous but isn't funny at all. So that was something that I was very mindful of. And then obviously, you know, there's things like timing and just being able to read an audience. Being able to read an audience, that's one that I'm more used to. Uh, that was what was so hard during COVID is not being able to look at the faces even of a live audience. It's like, okay, well-... I can see their eyes, but I don't, can't tell their emotions or the reactions from their eyes. I don't know whether I should talk more or less about something. Don't know whether they're angry or annoyed or curious or bored. Uh, so these are all things that I would normally be adjusting my talk for in normal public speaking. Again, with comedy, it's a bit hard to do. What successful comedians actually do is they try it about a bunch of different ways and then they remember which ways work and which ones don't, and they just keep tweaking it. And then finally, when they do the Netflix, Netflix special, they have basically done A/B testing on 100 different audiences, and then it sounds great. But first time, not that funny.

   22. DPDwarkesh Patel49:58

       Yeah. It didn't occur to me until you mentioned it, but that makes a lot of sense that the, the transfer of learning there.

   23. BCBryan Caplan50:02

       Mm-hmm.

   24. DPDwarkesh Patel50:02

       You, in both disciplines-

   25. BCBryan Caplan50:04

       Mm-hmm.

   26. DPDwarkesh Patel50:04

       ... you, there's a lot of hypotheticals.

   27. BCBryan Caplan50:05

       Yeah, yeah.

   28. DPDwarkesh Patel50:05

       Thought experiments, putting things in strange situations-

   29. BCBryan Caplan50:08

       Mm-hmm. Yeah.

   30. DPDwarkesh Patel50:08

       ... to see what the result is.
7. 51:31 – 54:26

   Affirmative Action is Philanthropic Propaganda

   1. BCBryan Caplan51:31

   2. DPDwarkesh Patel51:31

      Um, okay. Uh, I wanna talk about discrimination.

   3. BCBryan Caplan51:34

      Mm-hmm.

   4. DPDwarkesh Patel51:34

      So r- as you know, there was a court case, uh, it was a Supreme Court case-

   5. BCBryan Caplan51:38

      Mm-hmm.

   6. DPDwarkesh Patel51:38

      ... about Harvard-

   7. BCBryan Caplan51:38

      Mm-hmm.

   8. DPDwarkesh Patel51:39

      ... and affirmative action.

   9. BCBryan Caplan51:40

      Mm-hmm.

   10. DPDwarkesh Patel51:40

       And you might also know that, um, a lot of companies have filed a brief in favor of Harvard-

   11. BCBryan Caplan51:45

       (laughs) .

   12. DPDwarkesh Patel51:45

       ... saying that the, uh, this affirmative action is necessary for them to hire a diverse workforce. Uh, included Apple, Lyft-

   13. BCBryan Caplan51:51

       Mm-hmm.

   14. DPDwarkesh Patel51:52

       ... General Motors. So what is the explanation for corporations, uh, wanting to extend affirmative action?

   15. BCBryan Caplan51:58

       Mm-hmm.

   16. DPDwarkesh Patel51:58

       Or is it, is it, are they just saying this but don't want it?

   17. BCBryan Caplan52:01

       Right. I mean, if those individual corporations could press a button that would immunize them to all employment lawsuits, I think they would press it. Right? When you look at their behavior, they don't just give in whenever they get sued. They have a normal team of lawyers that tries to minimize the har- minimize the damage to the company and pay as little as possible and make the problem go away. So I think really what's going on is public relations, right? They are trying to be on that team. As to whether it's public relations vis-a-vis their consumers or public relations vis-a-vis other people in the executive board room is an interesting question. I think these days it probably is more of the latter. Although even under Reagan actually, there were a bunch of major corporations that did make a similar statement saying that we want to, we want affirmative action to continue. I think that the real story is that they want to get the status of saying that we are really in favor of this, we love this stuff. But at the same time, if it just went away, they wouldn't voluntarily adopt a policy-

   18. DPDwarkesh Patel52:59

       Mm-hmm.

   19. BCBryan Caplan52:59

       ... where we give you a right to go and sue us for mistreatment. Uh, I think there would still be a lot of propaganda. I mean, I mean, here's the general thing. It's, you know, the thing about this is, uh, it's a species of corporate philanthropy, sticking your neck out in favor of a broad social cause, right? I mean, like some people might say, "No, it's self-interest for some reason." It's like, look, the odds that even Apple is gonna change the Supreme Court's mind is super low, so I don't think it's that. Basically what they're doing is a kind of philanthropy, and what's the deal with corporate philanthropy? The deal with corporate philanthropy is you are trying to go and first of all make, you know, make the public like you, but also you're trying to look good and jockey for influence within your own company, right? And one really striking thing about corporate philanthropy, when you look closer, normally they spend way more resources marketing the philanthropy and letting everyone know, "Oh, we did all this philanthropy" than they actually spend on the philanthropy.

   20. DPDwarkesh Patel53:47

       (laughs) .

   21. BCBryan Caplan53:48

       Right? So I had a friend who was a marketing person in charge of publicizing her company's philanthropy. They gave away like $1,000 a year to the Girl Scouts or something like that, and she had $100,000 salary-

   22. DPDwarkesh Patel53:58

       (laughs) .

   23. BCBryan Caplan53:58

       (laughs) of telling everyone about how great they were for giving this money to the Girl Scouts. So I think that's the real story. Like, get maximally cynical. Al- you know, with- without, without denying the fact that there are true believers now in corporate board rooms who are pushing it past the point of profitability.

   24. DPDwarkesh Patel54:14

       Right. The, the, the, the, the cost of the philanthropy is just the production budget of the-

   25. BCBryan Caplan54:18

       Yeah. Yeah.

   26. DPDwarkesh Patel54:18

       ... of the TV commercial (laughs) .

   27. BCBryan Caplan54:20

       Yeah, yeah, yeah (laughs) . Yes. Yeah. You know, it's a rounding error. The, the donations are, is, uh, is the rounding error and the, "Hey, everyone. Look at us. We're so

8. 54:26 – 58:09

   Peer-effects as the Only Real Education

   1. BCBryan Caplan54:26

      freaking philanthropic."

   2. DPDwarkesh Patel54:27

      Yeah. Okay, so this question was one that actually Tyler suggested I ask you.

   3. BCBryan Caplan54:31

      Mm-hmm.

   4. DPDwarkesh Patel54:32

      So I, in The Myth of the Rational Voter-

   5. BCBryan Caplan54:34

      Mm-hmm.

   6. DPDwarkesh Patel54:34

      ... you say that, um, education makes you more free market.

   7. BCBryan Caplan54:37

      Mm-hmm.

   8. DPDwarkesh Patel54:37

      Um, now this may have changed in the meantime-

   9. BCBryan Caplan54:39

      Mm-hmm.

   10. DPDwarkesh Patel54:39

       ... but let's just say that's still true.

   11. BCBryan Caplan54:40

       Mm-hmm.

   12. DPDwarkesh Patel54:40

       If you're not learning anything, (laughs) why is education making you more free market?

   13. BCBryan Caplan54:44

       Right. Well, you know, it's particularly striking that even people who don't seem to take any economics classes, who aren't, aren't involved, I think that the best story is peer effects. So when you go to college, you're around other peers who, though not pro-market, are less anti-market than the general population. The thing about peer effects though is that they really are a double-edged sword from a social point of view. Think about this. Right now, if you are one of the 1% of non-Mormons that goes to Brigham Young University, what do you think the odds are that you'll convert to Mormonism?

   14. DPDwarkesh Patel55:14

       Higher than normal.

   15. BCBryan Caplan55:15

       Yeah, yeah. I don't know the numbers, but I think it's pretty high. But suppose that Brigham Young let in all the non-Mormons, uh, then what would Brigham Young do for conversion to Mormonism? Probably very little, right? So... And then furthermore, you realize, huh, well, what if those Mormons at Brigham Young were dispersed among a bunch of other schools where they were th- were a minority? Seems quite plausible they'd be making a lot more converts over there.Right, so basically, the thing about pure effects is that if you achieve your pure effects by segregation, when, again, that's just, of course, literally what college does, it takes, uh, one part of society and segregates it from another part of society. Physically, when you're in school and then there's social segregation just caused by the fact that people want to hang out with other people in their own social cir- uh, uh, of your own education levels, that kind of thing. So in that case, in terms of whether or not education actually makes society overall more free market, I think it's totally unclear because basically the people go to college, they make each other more free market. Same time they remove from influencing people of other social classes who don't go to college, who probably then s- influence each other and make each other less free market. I think that's the most plausible story.

   16. DPDwarkesh Patel56:22

       But what about the argument that the people who are going to, let's say, elite universities-

   17. BCBryan Caplan56:26

       Mm-hmm.

   18. DPDwarkesh Patel56:26

       ... these are, you know, people who are gonna, like, control things?

   19. BCBryan Caplan56:28

       Mm-hmm.

   20. DPDwarkesh Patel56:29

       Right? And so if you can engineer a situation in which the-

   21. BCBryan Caplan56:32

       Mm-hmm.

   22. DPDwarkesh Patel56:32

       ... pure effects in some particular direction-

   23. BCBryan Caplan56:34

       Mm-hmm.

   24. DPDwarkesh Patel56:34

       ... are very strong at Harvard-

   25. BCBryan Caplan56:35

       Mm-hmm.

   26. DPDwarkesh Patel56:35

       ... maybe because the upper class is like-

   27. BCBryan Caplan56:36

       Mm-hmm.

   28. DPDwarkesh Patel56:37

       ... very liberal or woke, they make the underclass even more woke. And then just like a reinforcing cycle after every generation-

   29. BCBryan Caplan56:42

       Hmm.

   30. DPDwarkesh Patel56:42

       ... of people come into college, then that still matters a lot, even though, like-
9. 58:09 – 1:09:00

   The Idiocy of Student Loan Forgiveness

   1. DPDwarkesh Patel58:09

      if there are, like, non-linear dynamics to this where if you-

   2. BCBryan Caplan58:11

      Yeah. And they, well, and like, yeah, if you wonder, like there's gotta be, right?

   3. DPDwarkesh Patel58:13

      (laughs)

   4. BCBryan Caplan58:14

      But, but as to what the... But as soon as you're talking about non-linear dynamics, hm, those are hard to understand, right? Yeah. They're hard to understand.

   5. DPDwarkesh Patel58:20

      (laughs)

   6. BCBryan Caplan58:21

      (laughs) So I would just say, like, you know, keep a much more open mind about this. Um, and if anyone is listening and wants to do research on this, that sounds cool, I'll read it.

   7. DPDwarkesh Patel58:28

      Right. I mean, one of... Uh, uh, I remember you saying that one of, like, the things you're trying to do with your books is influence elite opinion-

   8. BCBryan Caplan58:34

      Yes, yes, yes.

   9. DPDwarkesh Patel58:34

      ... because elite opinion circulates down to-

   10. BCBryan Caplan58:35

       Right.

   11. DPDwarkesh Patel58:36

       ... the common view, right?

   12. BCBryan Caplan58:37

       Yeah. Mm-hmm.

   13. DPDwarkesh Patel58:37

       And then, so in that sense, if you can set up-

   14. BCBryan Caplan58:39

       Yes. Yeah.

   15. DPDwarkesh Patel58:39

       Like everybody... There are elite subcultures-

   16. BCBryan Caplan58:41

       Yes.

   17. DPDwarkesh Patel58:41

       ... in every society.

   18. BCBryan Caplan58:42

       Mm-hmm.

   19. DPDwarkesh Patel58:42

       But they're not the same elite subcultures, right?

   20. BCBryan Caplan58:44

       Yes.

   21. DPDwarkesh Patel58:44

       So you might care very much about which particular subculture is dominating America.

   22. BCBryan Caplan58:47

       Right. I mean, a- again, although- although notice that that's one where I'm taking it as a given that we have the current segregation and then I'm gonna try to go and take advantage of it. But if it were a question of if I could change the dial of what kind of segregation that we have, then it's much less clear.

   23. DPDwarkesh Patel59:00

       Yeah. Student loan forgiveness.

   24. BCBryan Caplan59:02

       (laughs) Oh.

   25. DPDwarkesh Patel59:03

       What is your reaction?

   26. BCBryan Caplan59:04

       Oh. Oy vey.

   27. DPDwarkesh Patel59:06

       (laughs)

   28. BCBryan Caplan59:06

       Give me a freaking break. (laughs)

   29. DPDwarkesh Patel59:09

       (laughs)

   30. BCBryan Caplan59:09

       I mean, this is one where I think it's very hard to find almost any economist, no matter how left wing and progressive, who really wants to stick their necks out and defend this garbage. Look, it's a regressive transfer, right? So why then, why is it that someone who is left wing or progressive would go and favor it? It's like, well, 'cause people who have a lot of education and, and, and colleges are on our team and we just want to go and help our team or something like that. I mean, it really is one where, look, the, obviously what the forgiveness really means, is we're gonna go and transfer the cost of this debt from the elites that actually got, that actually ran up the bill to the general population, right? Incl- which includes, of course, a whole lot of people that did not go to college and did not get whatever premium that you got out of it. So there's that. In terms of efficiency, like, you know, since the people have already done what, uh, they've already gotten the education, you're not even going and increasing the amount of education if you really think that's good. The only margin that is really increasing education is it's making people think, "Well, maybe there'll be another round of debt forgiveness later on, so I'll rack up more debt." The actual true price of, of education is less than it seems to be, although even there you have to say, "Huh, well, but could people knowing this and the, and the great willingness to borrow actually wind up increasing demand for college and raising tuition further?" There's good evidence on that, that it does. So, you know, not at 100%, but still to a substantial degree. Again, you, you know, like for me, just again, just to back up, that can be my catchphrase. So I have a book called The Case Against Education. My view is much more extreme than that of almost any normal economist who opposes student lo- student loan debt forgiveness, and that is to say, I think that the real problem with education is that we have way too much of it, most of it is very socially wasteful, and what we're doing with student loan forgiveness is we're basically going and transferring to people who wasted a lot of re- a lot of social resources. And yeah, like that story that you are, that it is on the slippery slope to free college for all, in a way that's the best argument in favor of it, right? If you really thought that free college for all was a good idea, then this is putting us on that slippery slope. I, I would say, yeah, and that's terrible because the real problem with education is that we just spend way too many years in school. It is generally not socially useful, right? Rather, the main reason why it's going on is that it's a way of stamping people's foreheads saying that they are better than oth- than their competitors, don't throw their application in the trash. And the more education we get, the more you need to not have your application thrown in the trash, credential inflation. Since we're talking a lot about inflation these days, the central organizing idea of what's so wasteful about education in my book is credential inflation. Saying that really when everyone has a college degree, nobody does, right? And again, the analogy is very good, right? So can you make a country rich just by giving everybody a trillion dollars?... you cannot. Like, all that happens is you wind up raising prices and you cause a lot of harm in the process. And I say the same thing is going on with the multiplication of credentials.

Episode duration: 2:05:51