Bryan Caplan on Voters as Mad Scientists

Mike has another conversation with one of his all-time favorite guests: Bryan Caplan. Bryan is an economist at George Mason University, a prolific author, and blogs at Bet on It. In this episode, they discuss Bryan’s latest collection: Voters as Mad Scientists: Essays on Political Irrationality.

Topics Mike & Bryan Discuss Include:

- Twitter & Nazis & Meth (oh my!)

- why Bryan hates politics

- social desirability bias

- hyperbole and overconfidence

- innumeracy

- the irrationality of voters

- if irrationality has gotten worse

- why Bryan doesn’t vote

- the case for DEI being worse than McCarthyism

- politics as not utterly hopeless but “mostly hopeless”

- some small reasons for cautious optimism

Bryan Caplan on Twitter

The Politics Guys on Facebook | Twitter

Listener support helps make The Politics Guys possible. You can support us or

change your level of support at patreon.com/politicsguys or politicsguys.com/support. On Venmo we’re @PoliticsGuys. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices