The Daily Stoic - Economist Emily Oster On Rationality and Risk

Episode Date: January 13, 2021

On today’s episode, Ryan has a wide-ranging conversation with professor and economist Emily Oster. They talk about how to balance your life with children, how to communicate positive messaging, how the American government handled the pandemic, and more.Emily Oster is a professor of economics at Brown University, as well as the bestselling author of several books. Her most recent book, Cribsheet, aims to help improve decision making during the early years of parenting.This episode is brought to you by GiveWell, the best site for figuring out how and where to donate your money to have the greatest impact. GiveWell’s team of researchers works countless hours to determine which charities make the most effective dollar-for-dollar contributions to the causes they support. Since 2010, GiveWell has helped over 50,000 donors donate over 500 million dollars to the most effective charities, leading to over 75,000 lives saved and millions more improved. Visit GiveWell.org/stoic and your first donation will be matched up to 100 dollars.This episode is also brought to you by the Jordan Harbinger Show. Jordan's podcast is one of the most interesting ones out there, with guests like Kobe Bryant, Mark Manson, Eric Schmidt, and more. Listen to one of Ryan's episodes right now (1, 2), and subscribe to the Jordan Harbinger Show today.Sign up for Daily Stoic’s parenting course, The Stoic Parent: http://dailystoic.com/stoicparent***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better.Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow @DailyStoic:Twitter: https://twitter.com/dailystoicInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic/Facebook: http://facebook.com/dailystoicYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/dailystoicFollow Emily Oster:Homepage: https://emilyoster.net/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/ProfEmilyOsterInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/profemilyoster/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profemilyoster/See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stood Podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Welcome to the Daily Stood Podcast where each day we bring you a passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you find strength, insight, and wisdom every day life. Each one of these passages is based on the 2000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women. For more, you can visit us dailystone.com. Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wunderree's podcast business wars. And in our new season, Walmart must fight off target, the new discounter that's both savvy and fashion forward.

Listen to business wars on Amazon music music or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoke Podcast. As you know, I'm a proud father of two little boys. If you're a parent, you may be familiar with the work of today's guest. I'm talking about the economist Emily Oster. Actually, I wrote an article about Emily for daily dad, which is my other podcast and the other daily email we do. And it's funny. I thought I'd tell you this little story. So I try to be very gender balanced when I write. I try to, to Robert Green, the

gaming, this great advice. You always want the reader to be included. So that's something I consciously think about. But when I was writing about Emily, and I was talking about some of the interesting sort of parenting tactics that her parents had done, and I said, if you're not familiar with Emily Oster, your wife probably is, that being sort of, that is a daily dad, so I thought, you know. And I got a nice note from a man, that being, you know, sort of that is a daily dad. So I thought, you know, uh, and, and I got a nice note from a man. He said, Hey, you know, I, I really like your email. I read it every day, but I didn't like this because you were, you said that your

wife might know. And he's like, my husband and I, uh, past Emily's, uh, books, have, have past Emily's books between us many times. And we get her newsletter, which I also recommend she has this great, sub-stack newsletter. And then he said, I felt a little excluded by this. And he was totally right. But the reason I was thinking, wife, is that one of Emily's books, the book, I think she's sort of most known for,

it got a lot of attention, is this book, Expecting Better, which is primarily for pregnant women. But her other book, Crypt Sheets, is of the same length, is much less gender specific. Basically, what Emily does, and this is why I work so important and why I wanted to have her on, she looks at things sort of hyperrashically. So she doesn't look at, you know, what the old wives tales about raising kids are. She doesn't look at the tropes. She doesn't, she looks, she goes, what is the data show? And as an economist, she really looks at the data. And she's been a godsend during the pandemic. She's one of the

few people actually look at the data of whether you should be sending your kids back to school or not. I actually don't totally agree with her conclusions, but I like the idea of let's actually look at this. Let's ignore what everyone else is doing. Let's ignore what the pressure to do this or that. Let's ignore what all of that. Let's just look at the data. She's got this brilliant mind.

She's kind of like a Peter Tiel in a way where it's not that she's contrarian, but I think Emily thinks independently on these issues because she went to the to the first principle. So Emily's work is great. This is an awesome conversation. Her perspective was super helpful to me. I came home, I was talking to my wife about it. And then as it happens, a shout out to my UK publisher profile, Emily and I share the same publisher there in the UK. We don't get as much indistosism as maybe I like that there's a few connections although Emily is a professor at Brown University where they as I've said are in the middle of trying to tear down a markets or realize that you which is totally insane but we don't get into

that. We do talk about being rational, looking at the data, managing risk, these are all questions that Emily of all people is qualified to answer and give us insights on. So I hope you enjoyed this interview. With me and Emily Oster, you can check out her book, Expecting Better, her other book, Crib Sheets. And I highly recommend her substack newsletter, Emily Oster, from Parent Data.

It's great, one of the few that I get, and I really enjoy. So check that out, joy this interview, and be safe, Emily. Please. I was fascinated by the Bloomberg profile of you and your family. It sounds like your mother and father

had a very interesting way of raising you in your siblings. Really? I mean, I think that they, yeah, I guess everybody's family is kind of weird in their own way. And so when you're in the family, you're like, oh, this is totally how everyone does it. And then when you meet your spouse and you go to their family, you're like, oh,

I guess not everybody does it like that. But like they were saying like alternating which days they cooked to show that the role should be shared, even like how you got one last name and your other siblings got a different last name. Yeah, yeah, I think that, you know, for my mom, you know, she was a kind of 1970s feminist and and for her a lot of these, this mom, like there were a lot of aspects of modeling that

that were just very in the concrete. So, you know, beyond saying men and women are equal, like literally trying to show us that, you know, you could kind of both do all the things. I think that was just for her and that was a really important way to show us that you could kind of both do all the things. I think that was just for her and that was a really important way to show that. No, but I love that because I mean, isn't that what parenting is supposed to be? Like, it's easy to say, here's what I believe, here's what's true. And then as a parent, I think you struggle to, you know, like actually live up to what you think is important. Yeah, it's interesting because there's a sort of,

there's a little bit of a problem from this from an economist standpoint, because actually within economics, it is not really that you should split the things exactly evenly, right? Like people should do the things that they are relatively better. Comparative advantage.

Comparative advantage. And so actually my father is a terrible cook, like legitimately terrible. And so like it father's a terrible book, like legitimately terrible. And so like it was like, you know, every, it wasn't really that great and I did have him book every other day because you only go good like two things. And so you had, you know, and my mom is a fantastic book. So it would be like, every day you, you know, you come home you like, who's cooking today? It was sad. I was like, oh, it's fascinating. Please, and so, you know, there was this sort of tension about

like efficiency versus equity. No, it's funny how, I mean, obviously I'm sure in other cases it's not true, but it is interesting how much sort of like gender roles can be revealed in the course of these sort of ordinary parental virtue tasks. I remember my dad, my mom worked a lot, so she would work at night sometimes.

She was a school principal at a school that also had night classes. And when my dad would cook, my dad would cook us, he'd cook like ramen noodles, and then he would melt cheese in it. Like he would put cheese, you call it cheesy soup. And in retrospect, it's so disgusting to even comprehend eating that.

But you're also learning the lesson, the same one your parents are teaching, which is that like the parents job is to cook dinner for the kids, not the mom's job or the dad's job. I know, I think that's, I think that's right. I mean, I will say in my family, I do all the cooking, but my husband is all of the dishwasher.

So we've sort of flitted in a slightly different way, but at least you know, the kids see kind of both people and that both people are contributing to like making sure the house is functioning. Yes, right. And you kind of also have to choose your battles as far as like what lessons? Like where do you really want to show?

Like here's what I mean, what I say. Is it to the point where we all have to eat inedible food or should we find, you know, bigger battles to fight? Yeah, exactly. There's like a sort of, there's like, which children do you want to die on? So, so going to this idea, some of the gender stuff I was curious about, because I feel like this is partly why your, your books have resonated and why I like them, but by so many of my wife's friends have liked them as well. Am I wrong in picking up that like, mom seems to be like a thousand times harder

on themselves than fathers, and where is that coming from? Yeah, I don't, I mean, I think you're definitely right. How much of that is like societal pressure as opposed to like, you know, to how much you put on yourself? I've never quite worked out. I think there's this trope, which is a trope, but also not totally wrong, where people feel like when I'm watching the kid for the day, everyone everyone should leave thinking like, wow, I learned a lot and it was like,

and I mastered a new skill and also we had the 17th course, Benchal meal. And then when he's watching the kid for the day, it's like, oh, they're not dead. So I went, you know, and so somehow, the standards are really weird. And I do think that it's both society, it's both society, it's both society and it's, you know,

and it's probably partially pressure people put on, put on themselves. Yeah, there was a story. I liked one time where Stuart Scott, the late ESPN broadcaster, was having like, it took his two daughters out to lunch and they're sitting there with a friend and their kids and someone who recognized him came up and said, oh, it's so great to see you babysitting. And he said, I'm not a fucking babysitter. Like, this is my job. You know, like, but there is an element where it's like,

yeah, as a father, it's like, if the kids are alive, success, and the mother, you're judged on, you're judged against the greatest mother who ever lived. And, you know, the TV image of a mother and all these things. Right. I think it's not even the greatest mother who ever lived. And, you know, the TV image of a mother and all these things. Right. I think it's not even the greatest mother who ever lived is like what other people think that I think is the greatest mother who ever, you know, like there's not like there's one version of that that like you could aspire to. It's just like what they think that, you know, should should be happening. Yeah, and there's a thing I think that the Stoics would sort of point out about that. That's interesting where it's like, there does seem to be this like kind of contest women are in with other women

about like sort of who can be the most pure authentic, you know, natural mother and men obviously have tons of ridiculous contests that we get in with other men. But it's I think in both cases, it's sort of this idea is like, what is making you feel like a piece of shit about it? How does it make you better at that thing? No, I totally, I mean, I think it's not, you know, making other people feel bad is something that we seem to think is a way that we can make ourselves feel good, which is not obvious.

There's this thing where I think we, I guess what I'm saying is beating on yourself for not being good enough, for not doing it perfectly, it not only doesn't help you, but it doesn't help your kids or anyone. So there's this kind of guilt that we add on top that is not additive really in any way. Yeah, no, exactly.

It's sort of like somehow by feeling bad about things, I am somehow positively contributing to the experience of my of my children. I think it comes up in pregnancy also around sort of denying things, right? The idea that like, you know, well, if you're like, you know, well, if you can go without coffee, even if there's like no reason to do it,

just the act of kind of making that sacrifice, that is what makes you a good parent. As opposed to like just, you know, that's just something that makes you miserable and doesn't help your people. Yeah, right. And, and, and I know some of the studies of it have been sort disproven or whatever, but I think, uh, personally, most people, it's like you only have so much willpower. I think we can kind of admit that that we only have so much energy and we only have so much sort of self-discipline. What are you going to spend it on?

Is a really important question. Yeah, I think you have to, and we only have so many mental and physical resources, right? You just can't do all of these things, or then you try to do all of them and then you kind of lose it. And now you yielded your kid. And but that's also bad. You know, now you did that thing. Right. Right. Yeah.

No, you feeling like you're not good enough. You feeling like, you know, you're crappy compared to other moms or dads, et cetera. It isn't making you better with this little person who needs you to be strong and confident in all these things that parenting the bright. That sure.

I mean, your kids, why? If you are happy, that is a way for them to also be happy. So where does the premise of your work, which I think is interesting, I was just talking to Tom Rex, who wrote this book called First Principles, which is really about what did the founders believe as they were creating America? But the concept of First Principles seems to kind of be at the root of your work,

which is in the sense that you're like, instead of just assuming that all of these things are true, all these sort of lessons or rules or guidelines, why don't we actually explore them and see if this is worth doing, this is not worth doing? Is that sort of how you think about your work? Yeah, I mean, I think about my work as basically saying, you know, people told you a lot of different stuff.

And, you know, especially actually in this world in which you kind of can't do everything, where you're sort of, you're limited in your capacity or you're well powered, your time or whatever it is, that it actually is pretty valuable to have those things right. And rather than saying like every single, it's very important that you breastfeed

and not close sleep and that your kid is not in your bed, but they are in your room and that they do that for a year and also you know that you do all these other 50 things, like actually identifying what is the data say about which of these is most important and, you know, which of them are maybe, maybe even if they matter, that they matter less. And that lets you, like, make informed decisions,

you know, world of constraints. I mean, economics is all about, right? Like optimizing under constraints. I think sometimes we just assume that parents have 75 hours in every day. And so they don't have these constraints, but that turns out not to be fair. Well, and even I think there's also probably some guilt,

slash fear of optimizing, which implies compromise as a parent, as opposed to just doing everything perfectly exactly how you'd want it to be. Yeah, I think people want, people don't want to say like, why I, you know, even though this thing was like a little bit good, I kind of didn't have the capacity to do it, but I think we should be able to say that because of course, like if you, you know, if you,

you may, you may literally be impossible to do all that, I think the people tell you to do it. Well, I feel like from, from what I've read of your stuff where it's like, look, if you know that the choice you're making is for the most part rooted in data, then you can feel good about it, even if other people think you're crazy or weird or you know, Marcus really says this great line,

where he says, we love ourselves more than other people, but we care about other people's opinion more than our own. There seems to be an element of parenting where it's like, even though we all have pretty good intuition and maybe we have our own experiences, we really just wanna make sure we're not doing something weird compared to what our kids, friends, parents are doing.

Yeah, I think the other piece of it is not so much, it's part of it is sort of knowing like what the data says. And in part of it is just knowing that you thought about it. So I think that some of what I'm sort of delivering in the books is like, look, here's like, like here's a kind of opportunity for you to sit down and think about, you know, what are the choices I'm in a face, what is the evidence, say,

how should I think about my preferences? And then to kind of come out and say, okay, well, I decided like to breastfeed, right? I decided not to breastfeed and I decided it because I looked at the evidence and say, how should I think about my preferences? And then to kind of come up and say, okay, well, I decided to breastfeed. Why? I decided not to breastfeed, and I decided it because I looked at the evidence, and I thought about it. I thought about what worked for me. And then when someone is like, oh, you're not breastfeeding, then it's a little bit easier to be like, I'm not breastfeeding. And I thought about it, and I'm not doing it because it's not the thing that works for me. As opposed to just being like, oh, my God, that person is judging me.

Like, maybe I am doing wrong. Right. And also, I'm not like knowing that you're not not doing it because it's hard, right? You know what I mean? Like you're doing it, there's a logic to your actions. Exactly. But you made that decision for a reason,

not just because you just like on a whim one day, you decided that I just wasn't gonna be for you. I feel like too, and you've been writing about there's a lot during the pandemic, but it's sort of like, when you look at risk or when you look at a decision, it's like what parts of this are in your control, what parts of it are out of your control,

which is a very serious to a concept. And then the parts that are within your control, how can you minimize risk? So then if you do make a compromise because this is your job and you have to or because you're gonna lose your mind if you don't, that you've at least done it in the most responsible way possible.

Yeah, and I think in the COVID, you know, in the COVID times that this sort of risk piece comes up way more than I think in the COVID, you know, in the COVID times, that they sort of risk piece comes up way more than it does in our normal lives. And again, you know, there are like, I think that we have we have gone to a place where people are kind of like, we can't ever take any risks. And I think that's not, you know, I'm sympathetic to that given how much we're sort of talking about this and how sailing these risks are. But the fact is you are taking risks all the time in other kinds of risks. And so I think there is a piece of sort of like by structuring this a little bit and saying,

like you need to minimize risk, we kind of do recognize, or this is a risk like other risks. It's not a totally different thing that we've never thought about before. Like the pandemic is really different, but this is something where you have the capacity to think through these choices. Yeah, life is risk. The idea that you could live in a totally risk-free way is if you were trying to live in a risk-free way,

you should have never had kids in the first place because giving birth is a risk. Absolutely. I mean, everything, you know, I'm talking to people about, you know, how could I possibly, like, it seems so. I mean, everything, you know, I'm talking to people about, they're like, you know, how could I possibly, like, it seems so selfish to have, like, you know, a child care provider,

you know, with my kid is like, but, you know, you're sent, like, you wouldn't have thought for five seconds about this in a serious flu season, even though, like, people are sending their kids they never even think about it. But actually, like,

the flu risk for kids, not for adults, but for kids, the flu risks are probably more significant than the flu risk. That's true, adults, but for kids of flu risks are probably more significant than the flu risk. That's true, although I think one of the things I've struggled with sort of friends of ours or people that I know, which is they go back to what we're talking about earlier, they have a child care at their house, or they're sending their kids to school, not because

they've broken it down like you're talking about, but because it's uncomfortable, and so they haven't thought about it, so they're just defaulting to what's least inconvenient for them, which is an alarming thing to see happen. Yeah, I agree. I mean, I think these are not, it's like there are good, there are reasonable people would choose different options here, but just being like, what I don't wanna think about it.

Like I'm just gonna like do whatever,, what I don't wanna think about it. Like I'm just gonna do whatever because I just don't wanna like think about what's happening. I think that's not, you know, that is not a good, is not a good decision. So maybe this is crazy as sort of a rule of thumb, but so you, of all people, would be able to disabuse me. I've, one of the things my wife and I have thought about

is sort of like, okay, in 20 years, our kid going to ask us. They're going to say, you know, okay, you know, 300,000 cases a day, 3,000 people a day were dying, like what were you guys doing? You know, and I think it's, you know, like let's say it's school. It's like, oh, we sent you to school and they're going to be like, oh, because the schools did a really great job, you know, protecting kids against the virus. And you're like, no, not really. And then're gonna be like, oh, because the schools did a really great job, you know, protecting kids against the virus. And you're like, no, not really. And then you'd be like, and you, you, you, you, you never went to any stores.

Well, you know, we went to the grocery store pretty often, you know, like, oh, because you had to. And it's like, no, they actually had this magical technology that meant you didn't have to. And like, I feel like a lot of the decisions that people I know are making are going to be so baffling to their kids when their kids are old enough to ask about it. So that's kind of a rubric we've been using to guide our decisions is like how is this going to look when the immediacy of our needs fades from the equation?

Yeah, that's interesting. I mean, I think that like, you know, I, so I, I, I actually haven't thought about it like that. And you know, what would I say? Like we sent our kids to school. And I think about what they would, what they would ask. And I think that like realistically, I would say, you know, we chose to send you this pool because like we saw how hard it was for you in the, in the spring. And we thought about like whether there were cases in the school.

I mean, in part of this a a little tricky, because this is like, I'm now spending more on what am I going to say? Well, I was spending 150% of my time, like, figuring out if schools were seen. And so I was like, but I do think there's a little bit of a frame of how I thought about this when we were thinking about seeing family for holidays and so on.

We didn't end up seeing my family for Thanksgiving, even they actually also had each other. And, and I think part of it was I didn't feel like, like I didn't feel like I could look my kids in the, yeah, I do like, yeah, we're doing this, you know, you know, your school is like, don't do it. And the governor is like, don't do it. And everyone's like, don't do it.

We're just like, oh, we're just gonna do it. Right. Right. Yeah, it's, it's, I saw a great tweet last night that was like, one of the things that pandemic has revealed for me is that everyone has a very different definition of, I've been very safe. Right. No, it's true. My friend was telling me the other day she went to like sort of sit outside with some other people and they were like, you know, and they were all sitting really far apart around it. Whatever they were particularly, activity was safe. But then everybody was like, oh, we've been so safe.

And then one person was like, oh, we go out to eat with different couples every Thursday and our kids are in nine different youth sports. And she was like, I don't have to love my house. And this other person was like, well, I'm dating,, I don't like, I don't like how I was. You know, and there's other versions like, well, I'm dating, but like, I don't see people that afraid, well, I don't know. I think it does reveal how hard it is for the human brain to be disciplined

and consistent, consistently logical. So yeah, you'll talk to something about, I'm very safe, I washed out my groceries, et cetera, whatever. And then they're like, but I mean, I did get a massage last week. And you're like, you went in a windowless room with a stranger, you know, like it for, so your muscles would be slightly less sore. Like, it's not, it's not that either of those decisions is necessarily bad. It's that logically, they are completely mutually exclusive. Yeah, I mean, I think part of what, part of what's been sort of interesting here is I think there are a lot of parallels

to this kind of these like things we ask people to do in early parenting. Yeah. And some of the errors that I see in the public health messaging are basically the same error. There were sort of telling people, do like hear all the things that you can't do and they're all equally good.

And actually, like, and you know, actually, and LA, I don't know, it's like LA had the things like dokel outside with a people who are not in your pod. Like even running six feet away from someone with you both wearing a mask, like that's really unsafe. That's not really unsafe. Like is it imprintsable possible that someone could get COVID?

And that way I guess, but it's like so banishingly unlikely. I think you're more likely to be eaten by a coyote. It's just like really, really unlikely. And so in somehow, but then we tell people, don't go over and have dinner at other people's houses, don't go in a window this room with other people. Also, don't run outside with them. And we don't rank them.

Then people are like, well, I can't achieve all these things. Like, it's like, I'm like, I'm going to like literally go, like, I'm having serious mental health problems. I hear just the other people, you've told me all these things are risky. I guess I'll just have people over to my house, even though I would be just as happy going running with them, because I don't really have any idea which of these things are bad. And so I think we really, we do need to think a little bit about the messaging in a world where it's just really hard to kind of go to whatever is like the safest bubble apparatus. Got a quick message from one of our sponsors and then we'll get right back to the show. Stay tuned. Is this thing on? Check one, two, one, two. There y'all. I'm Kiki Palmer. I'm an actress, a singer, an entrepreneur,

and a Virgo, just the name of you. Now, I've held so many occupations over the years that my fans lovingly nicknamed me Kiki Kiki Pabag Palmer. And trust me, I keep a bag, love. But if you ask me, I'm just getting started. And there's so much I still want to do. So I decided I want to be a podcast host.

I'm proud to introduce you to the baby this is Kiki Palmer podcast. I'm putting my friends, family, and some of the dopest experts in the hot seat to ask them the questions that have been burning in my mind. What will former child stars be if they weren't actors? What happened to sitcoms? It's only fans, only bad. I want to know.

So I asked my mom about it. These are the questions that keep me up at night, but I'm taking these questions out of my head and I'm bringing them to you. Because on Baby Mrs. Kiki Palmer, no topic is off limits. Follow Baby This is Kiki Palmer, whatever you get your podcast. Hey, prime members, you can listen early and app-free on Amazon music. Download the Amazon music app today. Yeah, it's, it certainly highlights the, the essential nature of communication as a leadership strategy. And I'm not sure there's at least in the U.S. I'm not sure there's really any figure

of any political party that has done a good job intelligently and rationally explaining this to average ordinary people. No, and I think probably like it was very, people, there were a lot of things people didn't understand early on. So I think part of it was like there was a sort of like issue with, you know, just we don't know. That was like one piece.

And then, you know, and then even once we knew, you know, communicating that nuance was, is just really, is really difficult. My husband was saying apparently Japan did a much better job with this by sort of like really emphasizing early on, just like don't be inside with other people with no mention, you know,

and like just like really being like, that's the thing you don't want it. Just don't do that. And then, you know, like other things are okay. And of course, they are some risks and whatever, but like, this is the one thing we really, really, really don't want to do. But it's like you look back at like World War One and World War Two. They had all these posters, you know, like keep calm and carry on and,

and what are some of the others? Like, loose lips, synch ships, you know, all these, like sort of propaganda messages. And we sort of laugh at them at how simple and silly they are. And then you look at COVID like a a historical event worse than those things in some some capacity. And like the only thing that's come out of as far as a messaging thing is that phrase social distancing, which is impossible to define and gives people no clarity whatsoever. Right, yeah, it's not the same physical distancing, it's not the same social distancing, it's not the same, doesn't mean don't see other people, but doesn't mean don't see them,

but you should see them in certain ways also be distant. If you can't be distant, wear a mask, but definitely if you're wearing a mask, you should still be distant, because it's just sort of like what is it? Right, and then someone from the side comes in and goes and by the way, masks don't work. You know, and then, so it's just sort of like what is it? Right. And then someone from the side comes and goes, and by the way, masks don't work, you know, and then then, so it's like, not only is

the messaging not clear to people who want to clearly hear what the message is, but then we're also having to contend with disinformation and misinformation in a way that's, you know, never happened before in history. Yes, you occasions have been for. Yes. Well, occasions have been for? Yes. Well, I feel like even I've seen smart people that I know say stuff like they'll go like lockdowns

don't work. And even then there's nuance, right? It's like, look sure. Absinence, like abstinence works, right? Absinence only education does not work. And there's a large difference between those two. Lockdowns, like if you're trying to design a strategy to prevent people from getting COVID, lockdowns would be a great strategy. If you're trying to have the world continue to exist, lockdowns are not a good strategy, but you see smart people sort of repeat

these phrases that I can't even tell what they're doing. If they're fooling themselves or is it that they're trying to rationalize things they want to do, I'm not quite sure. they're trying to rationalize things they want to do. I'm not quite sure. Yeah, no, I sort of have I struggle in general with like what like what people think that they're saying and a lot of these in a lot of this messaging or you know, even like I feel I feel like a lot of the messaging just as people listen less. The messaging has just gotten like more and more extreme and like, you know, it's kind of like, let's just yell louder. Yeah. You shouldn't do things,

but like people didn't listen when you were yelling quieter. And so I don't know why you think yelling louder is gonna help and somehow we just keep like yelling louder. Yeah. What do you think of, so it's like, on the one hand, there's these people sort of who clearly have almost been infected. Like Marcus really talks about, and Marcus really was writing during the Antonin plague, which is much worse than COVID. But he was talking about

there's like multiple, he says, there's, there's a plague, which can take your life. And then he's sort of there's this other pestilence that can destroy your character. And so it seems like, I'm sure people we both know sort of been infected with these other ways of thinking. And I think a lot of people have talked about the conspiracy theory. I'm interested in smart people I know who sort of fall in prey to like magical thinking, you know, like the like, oh, I'm following the rules except when it's important to me, for example, like people who are like, have been really smart and then they go, but Thanksgiving is important. And you're like, sure, but the virus doesn't, doesn't care that this is a special holiday.

No, it was like these, when they did, there was like sort of, we're not going to have any football, except for bowl games. And somebody tweeted like, you know, the coronavirus doesn't know if it's a bowl game. Yeah, like that's, you know, and that's like that. And so, I mean, the coronavirus doesn't know if it's a goal game. Like that's like that. And so I mean, I think there is a piece there, which is like, what did they really mean? Well, what they really mean is like, I'm, you know, I think something like, I think of myself as having a risk of legit.

And there are some things that are important enough to me that I'm willing to take risks. But it's sort of like, I think the way, and I think that is an internally coherent attitude, which you know, you could agree or disagree with, but does like make sense. But then there's the sort of the way that the people end up framing that is by saying, well, it's not risky if it's thanks to me. That's not right. Like that's, you're just saying, like Thanksgiving is important to you. And so, you know, you're willing to take some risks.

And, but I think if we recognize it more like this is really important to me, I have a risk budget, then we can get back to more of this mitigation stuff and say, okay, look, you know, it's not that it's not risky. But let's talk about how you could do that. I hear you that that's really important to you. How can we make that as little risk as possible, given that you're kind of going to do it anyway? And I think we have struggled to do that because we're just pretending it's not risky if they want it. Well, sports is a great example of that too, where it's like, okay, I can see why we're

having professional sports. There's millions of dollars on the line or billions. I can see why we're having collegiate sport because there's billions of dollars on the line. And these are adults. It's interesting. And but but they've decided to consciously take a risk. And then they have all sorts of mitigation strategies in place. And then you read about like a high school football event where everyone gets COVID and you're like, well, of course, just because other people were playing football, does it mean you should be playing football?

And the magical thinking is in, we're playing football with none of the protocols or mitigation strategies, but we'll be exempt because somehow football is exempt. Yeah, the idea that somehow, just because the NBA managed a run of bubble, like everyone can play basketball, like you know, they were testing everybody every day

and they wouldn't let them like leave their home to them. You know, it's not like there's nothing special about basketball. There's nothing special about the NBA's willingness to spend millions and millions and millions of dollars to make sure that they could make even more millions of dollars which is totally understandable. And you know, probably a good decision

but it's not made in high school basketball is cool. Yeah, yeah, it's, I think the other thing that you're seeing is too, and I think this is compounded, or is, is realized in your work, but then also in lots of different economists and psychologists, which is that we make increasingly bad decisions under fatigue or duress. So the quality of decisions that people

are making in March and April and May, even under less information, we're now struggling. It's like, Herndt and somebody who sent their kid back to daycare in Texas in May, maybe that decision was good in May, but now cases have quadrupled. Can you reevaluate that decision, or have you used up your decision-making budget to go to your metaphor, and now you're just stuck? Yeah, I think the other thing is that like early on, there was this sort of almost benefit of the uncertainty

that like it was, there was so much uncertainty that people were like a great in a way that they're not, they're not like a, like afraid anymore, even though they still sort of should be. And we're afraid it's worse. You should really be more afraid. Yeah, I mean, we've learned what we're like, yeah, basically like they should be at least as a freight. Yeah, but that way. And, and you know, they're kind of not because I think that the fear was such a sort of uncertainty was a big piece of the fear.

Is it just that as we become more familiar, like they've done like studies like when, like London during the blitz, like you just get sort of immune to it, is that what happens? Yeah, I think people get, I mean, you know, you get a psychologist on talk about that, but I think that like there's a piece of this that's like, you know, people just get like a custom to things

and they get sort of like in or to the, and I think the other thing is if you haven't had it, feel like, well, I haven't had it yet. Like maybe I'm not going to get it, you know, maybe like maybe I'm like secretly protected. That's the magical thinking. Yeah. It's imagine thinking, right? Like, you know, and I so I think that's not, I think there's kind of that he's there's the he's that people are just really, really tired of COVID, and they just kind of wish it would go away, and they sort of think if I just like pretended to stop there, maybe able to just kind of like not be there. And I think, you know, we've exhausted a lot of our like emotional reserves for thinking around thinking about these things. Yeah, like as there's a, there's a part of your work, which is a lot of work for people,

like to, to be constantly calculating the risk and thinking about it in a way it's almost easier to even though there's more social pressures and it might not be as safe, it's almost easier in some ways to just do what other parents are doing than to think for yourself is exhausting. There's women of truth. Yeah, it is. I mean, it is. And I think sometimes people are like, you know, this way of like approaching this parenting stuff or any of these things where you just like have a place to step in and sit there like,

it's like, what is that? Like that takes forever. But I think the thing that sometimes people then realize if they do that is like actually if you thought carefully about the decision, you know, like, and then you don't keep revisiting. But even part of what's part of our decision making is when you make a decision and then the next day you think about whether it's really as right as it is, is it right, then you kind of keep having

to make a decision over and over again. I think that's really frustrating. That's really frustrating for people and it occupies a lot of your emotional space. I said at some point, real one point, like these kind of decisions should take like you need to give them the space they deserve, but not all the space.

And it shouldn't, you know, and once you make it, then hopefully you can sort of move on to other decisions to be done. Yeah. Yeah. As watching how people have responded to this and how it's played out changed, how you understand certain other statistics or, you know, sort of,

like tricky things that people think about. My wife was saying this the other day I was laughing about it, she was like, I don't know how I can ever go back to driving on the road with some of these people. You know, like, as you watch people be so bad at mitigating risk and being rational, then it's like, we're just all supposed to go back to being friends afterwards. It's sort of struck me like all the horror stories you hear when, as you becoming a parent, all the things you have to be worried about, all the statistics, I start to wonder, you know, watching people, you know, like, like the joke I heard was like, there can never be another zombie movie without large portions of the cast running towards the zombies denying

that they're real. You know, like, like, this whole idea that will respond rationally and with fear to a scary thing has been widely disproven by COVID. So it's, it's almost like all these statistics you hear, it makes me go like, were these parents following these rules at all and just lying about it? Like, how could, how could the same people that acted this way be acting totally reasonable everywhere else? No, it's true. It's sort of like you're like faking humanity as shaken by the fact that like people won't put a piece of cloth

on their face, even though like obviously that's a good idea. Yeah, no, I mean, I think this has revealed a lot of pretty like deep divisions, maybe it's like there's a lot of pretty deep divisions. Maybe it's like there's a lot of, I feel like we are not gonna come out of the scene all the people that we know, and quite the same, quite the same way that we did before.

But is it change some of the thing, like it, not that it makes me question data, but it makes me question like the, like what they'll say, you know, this is the leading cause of death for infants or whatever. And you go, sure, but that includes the same people that wouldn't wear a mask, you know, in a pandemic.

Like, you got to imagine that there's just, it's like, I guess what I'm saying is people must clearly be operating on different levels of both competence and sort of rule following. And then that gets muddled in the general data that we have about stuff. Yes, so that's interesting. So what you're sort of saying is like basically, are people gonna better understand the idea of like a confounding?

And it's very hard to learn about all these behaviors because people who are doing one thing are also doing all of the other things we're not doing them or whatever it is. Yeah, so that's interesting. So that's also like I learned because that's like I that's like the main thing that I think all the time. But I do wonder if maybe it will be I certainly have spent a lot of the COVID era explaining causality to people and I wonder if it will get easier if you sort of point out like, Hey, think about those people who didn't wear a mask and all the other stuff that they're probably doing and then feel like, oh yeah, that could be.

Right, right. No, the one that gets me, that helps me is I read a study one time that was like, it was like 27% of the population thinks that chocolate milk comes from brown cows. And I was like, oh, this, this, like, that's a, that's a large large 25% of the population is like millions and millions of people. And those people have beliefs about other things. And, and that I have to

account for that as I go to the world. Yeah, but I think maybe gets back to this question of like, what is it good? How, like, how do we make clear messaging in a way that like, you know, like, I mean, yeah, how do we, how do we do clear messaging in a way that, like, you know, like me, yeah, how do we do clear messaging in a way that people can kind of understand and recognizing that, you know, there are some issues around, like really complex nuance messaging that it's hard to communicate sometimes.

Got a quick message from one of our sponsors and then we'll get right back to the show. Stay tuned. our sponsors and then we'll get right back to the show. Stay tuned. There's a there's a still exercise called premeditashomalorum and Senaqa says that you should he says like uh which just means premeditation of evils he says like war, torture, shipwreck, exile ironically all things that happened to him. He said, should be, should be in your mind at all times, meaning that you can't go through the world expecting only good things to happen. You have to have a sort of a plan for the worst case scenario. How does that line up with how you think about the world? Do you

do you just look at the risk and go, oh, that's very unlikely? Or do you also sort of, if you're like, hey, I'm gonna take this risk, here's my plan for the worst case scenario. I think that I am like, I mean, I think a lot of we know about psychology as people are sort of by nature, either like pretty optimistic or pretty not optimistic. And I think that more of a like sort of I act and then like I don't kind of think about the,

as much about the bad stuff that could that could happen. I mean, I think that's not entirely true. Like, you know, when I think about should I see my family into when I kind of think down, okay, like what are the, you know, what are the bad things, the bad things that can happen. But I think that like, I guess for me, like I talk a lot, I do a lot of like talking, writing to myself, it's fairly controversial. And I always when people criticize me, I always feel really bad. Like I have like a really like I just I always feel really bad. Sure. And yet I like I never, I keep doing it.

You know, like I just like and I sort of know, but I never think like, okay, I'm going to feel bad. Like let me prepare for like, oh, I'm going to feel bad about it. You know, but I never think like, okay, I'm gonna feel bad, like let me prepare for like, how I'm gonna feel bad about it, you know, what I'm gonna have to happen if I'm wrong, whatever, and like, I just like do it, and then I'll find out. So I think I'm more of a, oh, I'll do this now and then I'll do it. But don't you think, but maybe it's that having written something

and then, you know, been attacked for it, you are aware that that's basically the worst case scenario of saying a controversial thing. So then you don't go through your work afraid of making a mistake or afraid of being criticized whether you're right or wrong because you're like, oh, I can take that.

Yeah, I guess, but I wish that I could also, I mean, I think that's a good point except that I wish that also then I didn't feel exactly as bad as I did every single, I would have thought think that's a good point, except that I wish that also then I didn't feel exactly as bad as I did every single. I would have thought that that would translate to like, sometime just being like, oh, it's fine. Like today people I wrote something in my newsletter

about like milk and like what kind of milk was right? And then a few people wrote and they were like, oh, you know, I don't know, like you use the word obesity and like that's like just mental and whatever. And I felt really bad. And I was like, what, like, like, I mental and whatever and I felt really that and I was like what like like I Why do I feel so bad about this? No, that goes to the idea we were talking about earlier which is that we care about ourselves more than other people

But then their opinions mattered a so much like like I because I love your newsletter and and I do one too I do this daily newsletter and it's like I had to I had to make sure that the response that when I first started, the responses would go to me. Now they go to an inbox that I never checked because, because it's like one person, let the emo goes up to 300,000 people every day, but one response from one asshole would make me feel like that was representative. Logically, your mind doesn go, 299,999 other people found this not even worth remarking on, but this one person is going to hit you the way that it hits you. Yeah, no, and I mean, I write about that sometimes. I might do this later, how I feel bad when people do this.

And I think that's, you know, I think that's actually helped me a little bit, sort of like to, you know, not that it makes people not say bad thing, mean, things that they definitely people not say bad things, which they definitely do, but it's been good for me to articulate that. And then to hear people come back and say, I also feel like that. I don't know. I really like it. I'm very... You really like getting the responses?

No, I like writing it. I mean, of course. I'm like some of the responses too. But I've been it. I mean, yeah, like some of the responses too. But I've been like, I've just been really like, this is something I started at the beginning of pandemic. I've like sounded to be a really productive way to interact. Well, I think it's just a much better model. It's like, I see you write articles different places.

I do the same. It's like when you're writing for the Atlantic and the New York Times or whatever, you have to do this piece and then you have to hope that they'll accept it and then they give you notes and they're always cutting it down and it's like there's this whole process and it's like the newsletter is like no no I'm having an ongoing even if it's one-sided conversation it's an ongoing conversation with a large group of people every day which is why you were attracted to writing in the first place I feel like. Yeah I like this sort of

and it's not it's not as one side as these pieces that you write for, like, other things, because of course, sometimes, you know, people, like, some people will write, you know, in the news, in the note thing, okay. A lot of people wrote, and they were like, I really need to know about, like, big and diets and other notes, like, I have many emails

that were like, what about other notes? Should I have milk at all? Like, did, and so now there's an opportunity, like, in a few weeks, I can come back and be like, okay, like a bunch of new glasses. Here's some follow-up stuff. And I think you just can't do that in other, that's been hard to do in other modalities.

Yeah, and you can, it's almost like if some of these government entities were talking about had more direct ways to communicate with people. It might have been better in the pandemic as opposed to everything being filtered through reports. And like, there isn't that ongoing conversation. So there's not that trust also that says, like, hey, I really thought about this. Here's the complicated thing.

Please, please go ahead. Yeah, also, and I think that, you know, I think what the other problem is like, some of these messaging, it's hard to, it's hard for them to understand what people don't get, like what people don't understand. And so there's sort of, there isn't in that feedback about like, well, I, you know, I just like, I'm sorry, I don't understand.

Like this is a piece I don't understand. And then instead, they just sort of like communicate. Well, have you even, I've found it's given me not leverage, but it's given me to keep them. Well, have you even, I've found it's given me, not leverage, but it's given me clarity even with my publisher, right? Because like, so let's say I wanna do something a certain way on one of my books,

the publisher, you know, they go, oh, we don't like that or the sales staff doesn't like that or, you know, whatever. And it's like, that's great, but I have talked to these people every day for, you know, five years, you know, I know, it's not from an ego place, but it's from you have a greater knowledge

and sort of relationality to the audience that a person who sells a book to a salesperson, to a bookstore who sells it to a customer just fundamentally doesn't have. Yeah, I think it gives me a good way to window into the questions that the people that I am, that I'm like writing for, like what they're, what is in their head, and what they're going to want and what they want to know. I have one last question for you. We can kick this around a bit and I hope it doesn't come. It's nothing to do with you. I'm just curious about it.

I wrote this book a few years ago called Ego as the Enemy. I think Ego is the enemy of good thinking. Connecting with the audience, it must be fascinating in your position. You have all these different expertise as you build this audience. I think we're seeing in the pandemic different people get way, not out of their lanes, but it's because it's worse than that. People talking about things they have no idea about just because other people are asking them or because there's a market for that. How do you, how do you maintain sort of intellectual humility in the midst of something like this? Do you get what I'm saying? Yeah, I do. I'm sure people would say that I have.

I mean, I tend to be sort of generically out of my topic lane. And so my books are out of my lane. And I'm doing all this school stuff, which is kind of like out of my lane. And I guess I try. which is out of my lane. I guess I try to, I have tried to stay in what I see as my weird lane, which is science communication and communicating data and to some extent, collecting data,

which in the message ethics, which I think of as kind of where I am. But I have struggled a little bit with this question in COVID, particularly around the school stuff. Because I feel like I'm in a space that is different than I have been in before. It's a space that I've had to learn pretty fast. And I did not expect to find myself as the person

with the best school data in America. That doesn't really seem like that should be true. And at the same time, I kind of feel like there's some obligation to, I don't know, like help people be at school. So somehow, like, even though it's not really my lane, like maybe I'm the only person in the lane. And so I don't know, that analogy falls down. So it's tricky because it's like on the one hand,

you kind of not, like a person should kind of stay in their lane and to get too far out of their lane is it can be sort of tempting from an ego standpoint. But then also the, I'm an epidemiologist with the fuck do you know, is also a form of ego. So there's this kind of tension between like who gets to say what and how does truth get out into the world? Yeah, and I think that, you know, I don't love when people are like, well, you're not

an epidemiologist. So like, you should never be allowed to talk about these things. Like, well, I don't like why would that be? And, you know, at the same time, like, I, you know, I've tried to steer people sometimes to be like, well, can you actually people often ask me to come in on the macro economy? I tell you, which I know nothing. Even though it would seem like it would be my lane, and to be like, I just, and you should talk about like,

the, like, the labor market and like interest rates. And like, you just like come on our TV to talk about that. I'm always just like, I don't know what you're talking about. Like, you know, I understand you think that I might, but I don't. Well, one of the things I've struggled with and it's a weird thing obviously it's a little less now that you're not not going around giving talks, but as you become sort of a, I don't know what you call a public intellectual, but a person who writes and opines about things for a living is you get in this space where you feel like you should have an answer because someone asked you a question.

And that's super tempting and dangerous. And it's really how you can get your head up your own ass. I totally agree. Yeah, you gotta be like, there's like a piece of like self-editing like, no, no. Like, I don't, it's actually okay to be like, I don't know anything about it. And, you know, and even though people expect exactly, like people just think actually okay to be like, I don't know anything about it. And even though people expect exactly,

like people just think you're gonna be able to talk about whatever, because you're a person who goes on TV and toss and stuff. Yeah, or even, yeah, it's like, because you know it makes bad TV, and you know it leaves the audience to satisfied, to be able to say something like, I'm not sure I haven't thought about that,

or I actually have no idea, or like, that's an sure I haven't thought about that, or I actually have no idea, or like those that require, that's an awkward thing to have to do, but is the most honest thing to do, even though it's not what people want from you. Yeah, I mean, this is what they always like teach you that you're supposed to like just answer a different question. Yeah, just like, you know, basically answer a question you do know the answer to. Right. And then there's also a big ego in the, well, what happens when the people who are supposed to know fall down on the job or mess up? And then like, for instance, like, it's not as if the scientific community

has done a stellar job since the beginning of COVID. We've had, you know, mistakes and they've walked things back or they've contradicted themselves. And so that can also create the, well, if they don't know, then I know. Like it's almost, it goes to certainty. And I think where some of these charlatans have sort of come onto is like,

if you're willing to claim whatever you think, even though you don't really know it, the market almost gravitates towards that certainty and rewards it. Yeah, no, I mean, particularly in this era of uncertainty, people are really like eager for certainty and certainly media outlets are eager for people who will be like, I think for sure, and they kind of, there's not a lot of space for new ones and that has meant that people who are willing to say, I'm, you know, I'm certain are getting airtime even though

and those people kind of have to be not reliable since there isn't any sort. And one of the benefits of the newsletter I found is that when you're talking to your audience, you can talk about new ones. And you can say, I don't know. Or you could send out a thing to your newsletter that says, here's the contradictory,

confusing picture about whether kids should go back to school. The New York Times is not gonna publish that piece, though. You have to know, you know, and you, or not, you have to know, you have to claim to know, right? Like the things that get published elsewhere, it's sort of that there's a publication bias in the cultural consciousness as well. Like, the nuance doesn't spread well on social media.

Yeah, I think the other thing that this sort of, like, more continual interactions allow is for kind of updating and saying, basically, like, here's where we are now, you know, here, and then to sort of revisit and be like, this is what we thought, here is some new information, kind of, let's, like, sort of revisit and be like, this is what we thought, here is some new information. And kind of let's sort of let's understand that this is an evolving picture, which doesn't fit well until like a piece.

Right, no, if the input, I remember in like maybe June, I was reading a piece in, because I was having a Florida, I read a piece in the National Review, it was like, where will Ron DeSantis go to get his apology? Because it's like Florida had done really bad. And then it was doing well for a minute. And then, so then, the right sort of swings in and, oh, let me dunk on everyone who doubted.

And it's like, actually, it swung right back. So I think the epistemetic humility comes in in the also like, hey, I'm going to actually, I'm not going to make a, I'm not going to have an opinion because there's not enough data yet. That's like the hardest thing to do. I'm like, I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. My now. Which, I guess, is, goes to, that I think the core of your work too, which is we, nobody knows for sure, but we can go to the data and make pretty good guesses about what works and what works.

And we can understand the limitations in different places. So, where are we more sure and where are we last? Emily, thank you so much. I love your stuff. It's been very helpful to me and my family. And please keep doing the newsletter. Thank you, Emily. Thanks so much the newsletter. Thank you. I love. Thanks so much for listening. If you could leave a review for the podcast, we'd really appreciate it.

The reviews make a difference and of course every nice review from a nice person helps balance out. The crazy people who get triggered and angry anytime we say something they disagree with. So if you could rate this podcast and leave a review on iTunes, that would mean so much to us and it would really help the show. We appreciate it. We'll see you next episode. Hey, prime members. You can listen to the Daily Stoic early and add free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today.

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