TEDxMidAtlantic - Tyler Cowen - 11/5/09

Tyler Cowen occupies the Holbert C. Harris Chair of economics as a professor at George Mason University and is co-author of the popular economics blog Marginal Revolution. He currently writes the Economic Scene column for the New York Times and writes for such magazines as The New Republic and The Wilson Quarterly. Cowen is also general director of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.

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Category:

Education

Tags:

• TEDx
• TEDxMidAtlantic

[Gwern0]

Transcript: lesswrong . com/r/discussion/lw/8w1/transc­ript_tyler_cowen_on_stories/

[KurosenvsGrither]

This is a very interesting perspective. People are always thinking in terms of direct causality, predictable domains, agents with directed will, conflicts, et cetera, and very few people catch themselves in the act. I think a likely source of this tendency is the anthropomorphic bias, where people use a model of "what they would do" in a situation, obscuring to themselves both that other people may not act like them, and that non-humans may not act even remotely like a person at all.

[thrillscience]

You would think Tyler Cowan would be invited to real TED and not one of the fake TEDs

[drmarkchang]

Say the word "story" again...I dare you.

[animalcolm]

...love the irony : telling good vs evil stories is EVIL!

great talk!

[1maxroman]

Sometimes it is a bit funny how people take some common things everyone does and name it somehow. I more often see this in computers. how just common sense takes and named as some kind of theory. ex: waterfall model of software development. of course people think in terms of stories. if they did not, they would think in some other way, and that way would have been described here huh. also sad that it is obvious from aside, but when it comes to me personally :) I am lost..

[Fingolfin3423]

I love TED talks, but this is a weak one.

[WarEffort]

Dislike. I <3 Stories. All kinds.

[LeonardGarden]

Alexandre Dumas was told by a mentor of his that there are about 200 stories known to man. Master them and you will master writing. In my humble opinion, stories are not told to provide us with an accurate account of what happened, (the fiction) rather what our reaction was and why (a more likely reality). Use this tool (like Dumas) and you'll compel those who are listening and make them think.

[minkr1]

dont confuse this with a talk on literature. its about myths and economics.

[grey0powerlessnesss]

Another anti-scientific rant (economics is not a science).  Qualitative descriptions are almost meaningless without reproducible quantitative data. Religion, marketing, economics are 'stories'.

Retired science teacher & researcher.

[barkal100]

@whatevyouknow