Podcast Episodes

Are Sexual Purity Taboos a Response to STIs?

Episode 205

I.

Did cultural evolution create sexual purity taboos to prevent the spread of STIs? A few weeks ago, I wrote a post assuming this was obviously true…

7 years, 2 months ago

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If Kim Jong-un Opened a KFC, Would You Eat There?

Episode 204

Philip Morris is pivoting to smoke-free cigarettes, because “society expects us to act responsibly, and we are doing just that by designing a smoke-f…

7 years, 2 months ago

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Followup on the Baumol Effect: Thanks, O Baumol

Episode 203

Last week I reviewed Alex Tabarrok and Eric Helland’s Why Are The Prices So D*mn High?. On Marginal Revolution, Tabarrok wrote:

SSC does have some l…

7 years, 2 months ago

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Nobody is Perfect Everything is Commensurable

Episode 202

I.

Recently spotted on Tumblr:

“This is going to be an unpopular opinion but I see stuff about ppl not wanting to reblog ferguson things and awarene…

7 years, 2 months ago

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Highlights From the Comments on Cultural Evolution

Episode 201

Peter Gerdes says:

As the examples of the Nicaraguan deaf children left on their own to develop their own language demonstrates (as do other exampl…

7 years, 2 months ago

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Book Review: Why Are the Prices So D*mn High?

Episode 200

Why have prices for services like health care and education risen so much over the past fifty years? When I looked into this in 2017, I couldn’t find…

7 years, 2 months ago

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Addendum to “Enormous Nutshell”: Competing Selectors

Episode 199

[Previously in sequence: Epistemic Learned Helplessness, Book Review: The Secret Of Our Success, List Of Passages I Highlighted In My Copy Of The Sec…

7 years, 2 months ago

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Asymmetric Weapons Gone Bad

Episode 198

[Previously in sequence: Epistemic Learned Helplessness, Book Review: The Secret Of Our Success, List Of Passages I Highlighted In My Copy Of The Sec…

7 years, 2 months ago

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List of Passages I Highlighted in My Copy of “The Secret of Our Success”

Episode 197

[Previously in sequence: Epistemic Learned Helplessness, Book Review: The Secret Of Our Success]

A rare example of cultural evolution in action:

Thr…

7 years, 2 months ago

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Book Review: The Secret of Our Success

Episode 196

[Previously in sequence: Epistemic Learned Helplessness]

I.

“Culture is the secret of humanity’s success” sounds like the most vapid possible thesis.…

7 years, 2 months ago

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