Even if you disagree with my assessment (and I'm sure many on HN will be more than happy to do so) I think you will find at least some interesting tidbits in this podcast that will make it worth your time to listen.
For Tyler, he frequently ranks high on lists of influential economists among peers (see his wikipedia article) and I personally find his writing compelling, insofar as I can judge it as a non-economist.
Certainly noteworthy is an understatement, it is an epic accomplishment, however it doesn't really reflect on his importance as a computer scientist, especially if we consider prior art (i.e. bitcoin). I am struggling to think of a metric that would qualify Buterin as anywhere near one of the most important computer scientist alive today. When I think "most important computer scientists alive today" I think of people like (in no particular order):
Brian Kernighan, Ken Thompson, Donald Knuth, Bjarne Stroustrup, Larry Wall, Tim Berners-Lee, James Gosling Linus Torvalds, Richard Stallman, Bill Joy, Robe Pike Larry & Sergey, Gudio, Matz, and many many more. The pioneering work of these computer scientists has had ripple effects throughout the world of computing and the economy in general. Ethereum, on the other hand, while technically sophisticated, has had near zero impact outside of the very narrow blockchain niche.
> For Tyler, he frequently ranks high on lists of influential economists among peers (see his wikipedia article) and I personally find his writing compelling, insofar as I can judge it as a non-economist.
Tyler does seem to be a more important individual within his field, but I am not seeing any signs that would indicate he is among the most important economists.
To be honest, while I think he's a very bright person, I have kind of tired of what feels to me like a contrarian "shtick". I kind of prefer his co-blogger Tabarrok's writings in that he's pretty much a straight up libertarian. Some things I disagree with, but it just seems a bit more direct.
https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Mercatus_Center
BTW due to recent relaxation of IRS disclosure requirements, we will be increasingly blind to this kind of funded sentiment generation from very moneyed interests.
Cowen, OTOH, seems to relish the contrarianism a lot. For example, a hot issue right now is housing, and the deleterious effects of local government regulations (zoning) are something that many on both left and right agree on.
But on more than one occasion, Cowen seems to take some other tack that maybe all that regulation is good, somehow. It's like he's just going against the grain in order to be seen as a 'thinker' or something. I can't quite put my finger on it.
He's a bright guy, and I've bought and enjoyed some of his books, and I used to read the blog, but I've started skipping it lately.
There isn't nearly the kind of vast funding, and certainty not focused as the Koch funding is to generate ideas and support for more social constructs and support of ideas in the direction of maybe the market really shouldn't determine everything - or at least markets where there is massive asymmetry between participants.
That said, there are lots of good insights to be had by studying economists with a libertarian bent, and I frankly have a hard time finding any economic writing based on a different economic tradition that is very compelling - Some of the writing of Jaron Lanier is pretty good, but he's not an economist. (I guess lots of folks like Thomas Piketty, but I have a hard time personally getting much insight out of his work, for whatever reason.)
I actually get a lot of insight when economists go against their political 'tribe'.
Paul Krugman on cheap labor, for instance: http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_dismal_science/19...
Or Greg Mankiw writing in favor of a carbon tax.
That's not to say they're wrong when, say, the libertarian economist argues against some regulation, or someone like Krugman argues for it, just that it's more 'the usual'.
This book is not without controversy, but much of the criticism is generated from the very same network of entities that is criticized by the book.
https://www.chronicle.com/article/A-New-History-of-the-Right...
If the book is too long, I might at least listen to this interview of the author.
https://www.blubrry.com/jacobin/34546244/the-dig-democracy-i...
https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Legislative_E...
Analysis: Koch brothers a force in anti-union effort
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-wisconsin-koch-idUSTR...
Who's Behind Friedrichs?
Many large corporations derive wealth from regulations and other forms of government intervention (e.g. a central bank designating large banks as primary dealers, and all of the other interventions that make that a valuable position).
Regulations generally limit competition to regulated firms, and increase economies of scale advantages, by imposing fixed costs like lobbying and regulatory compliance.
In areas where we as society agree that regulation needs to be supplied, there then is a set of secondary meta-concern such as of avoiding undue impacts on businesses and competition. But you seem to focus on the general elevation of a whole set of meta-concerns about regulation. I think you cannot use those secondary concerns to invalidate the primary goals and usage of regulation.
That's not an externality. That's just a bad quality product, and in the case of the safety performance not meeting the car maker's advertised claims, it's fraud.
>>But you seem to focus on the general elevation of a whole set of meta-concerns about regulation.
I think regulations are largely a consequence of what you term "meta-concerns", but which are actually the objective of the major forces that are pushing for them. If you look at the push for Airbnb regulations for example, you see a lot of rhetoric about affordable housing, but you see the groups funding the PR campaign are hotel industry groups.
This same pattern can be seen across various industries: incumbents using astroturfing and other PR tactics to convince the public that there is a public interest in creating new regulatory restrictions.
I believe another driver of regulations is basic ignorance about how a complex economy evolves to address inefficiencies. This blind spot leads to people assuming that problems need to be addressed with cookie-cutter rules that are politically imposed.
It's fraud, but a fraud that most consumers can't vet individually, so regulation in that case is the most efficient way to stamp out the fraud.
If you look at airbnb complaints there are also many neighbors who are impacted by added trash and traffic of airbnb encouraging the running commercial rentals in the midst of residential living spaces. This leads to a lot of inefficiency in the lives of full-time residents. Because some hotels have added to the push, doesn't mean all airbnb regulations should be invalidated. Getting the balance right between businesses is a metaconcern, it doesn't invalidate the primary need from people for the regulation.
So you agree with me: it's fraud. As for whether individuals can vet fraud without the government: they clearly can. Government organizations are not the only highly resourced parties that vetting can be delegated to, and government bureaucracies are not the only networks through which product/service information can propagate.
Governments can of course provide certification programs that consumers can rely on. There is no justification for limiting consumer choices to those products that the government has certified, which is what you're endorsing. People should be free to live their life as they wish, including in ways that impose risks on them.
>>If you look at airbnb complaints there are also many neighbors who are impacted by added trash and traffic of airbnb encouraging the running commercial rentals in the midst of residential living spaces.
This is an externality, and not specific to commercial use of property. Applying regulations exclusively to commmercial uses of property, like renting it out on Airbnb, is therefore a disingenuous attempt to control people's private property under the pretense of addressing externalities.
From what I've seen, like the fact that several major pieces of anti-Airbnb legislation followed concerted PR campaigns by the hotel industry, and the fact that the hotel industry association boasted the legislation as a result of its work, the primary cause of people's opposition to Airbnb, and support for restrictions on it, is special interest backed PR efforts, that have convinced the public that there is a pressing public interest need to stop Airbnb rentals.
He is not a computer scientist. And he is different than one. He should be called crypyoecononomy architect.
Computer scientist requires a lot of more work in research and development, and at the same time he has done a lot more work that is outside of the computer scientist scope.