Tyler's three laws and twelve rules (with Tyler Cowen)

Dec 15, 2021 56m 44s 13 insights Episode Page ↗
Spencer Greenberg speaks with economist Tyler Cowen about his three laws, including why all propositions about real interest rates are wrong. They also discuss trends in economics, cultivating mentorship, cultural learning, and the importance of intellectual breadth.
Actionable Insights

1. Cultivate Mentors & Peer Groups

Actively seek out mentors in areas you want to learn more about and have a small group of smart, interesting, or useful peers you work with. This approach makes learning more vivid and effective, as humans are programmed to learn better with other people involved.

2. Learn From Those Who Offend

Actively learn from people who offend you, as taking offense can be a sign you’ve under-invested in understanding their point of view. Resist the urge to devalue and dismiss them, and instead be drawn to them as a source of learning.

3. Steel-Man Opposing Views

To truly understand an issue, write out and articulate other points of view that are not your own, making the best possible case for them. This practice, known as ‘steel-manning,’ will deepen your overall understanding.

4. Broaden Your Worldview

Spend more time reading, traveling the world (especially to highly relevant countries like China and India), and thinking about bigger, broader, deeper questions to expand your understanding beyond specialized topics.

5. Study Symbolic Systems

Study the symbolic systems of art, music, literature, and religion to better understand alternative points of view in political and intellectual discourse. This approach helps crack cultural codes and keeps you more open-minded.

6. Avoid Devalue and Dismiss

Resist the tendency to ‘devalue and dismiss’ arguments or people by finding one flaw and then lowering their status, which prevents you from learning from their potential wisdom.

7. Identify Undervalued Talent

Recognize that judging people by their looks (’lookism’) is a market inefficiency and an opportunity to gain deeper understanding and support undervalued talent. Companies can gain an advantage by hiring people overlooked due to appearance biases.

8. Raise Others’ Aspirations

Engage in raising other people’s aspirations by making possibilities vivid through human examples of achievement. Many people are not ambitious enough because their imaginations are not vivid until they see success embodied in others.

9. Articulate Flaws to Understand

Apply ‘Cowan’s First Law’ by recognizing that there is something wrong with everything, and you don’t truly understand an idea or paper until you can articulate its flaws.

10. Be Honest About Opinions

Be honest about your opinions, even if you hold them weakly or are not a specialist, rather than pretending to have no opinion or defaulting to conformist views.

11. Use Teaching to Test Understanding

Teach concepts, even those you don’t fully agree with, and present them objectively. If you struggle to make a good case for something to a class, it’s a warning sign that you may not understand it very well.

12. Research Existing Literature

Before embarking on new research or problem-solving, ensure you know what existing literature is already out there, as ’there is a literature on everything’ (Cowan’s Second Law).

13. Optimism for Lifelong Improvement

Maintain optimism about people’s ability to improve at all different stages in their lives, and avoid writing people off, as demonstrated by examples like Grandma Moses starting painting in her seventies.