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About Stephen J. Dubner
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Blog postThey can’t vote or hire lobbyists. The policies we create to help them aren’t always so helpful. Consider the car seat: parents hate it, the safety data are unconvincing, and new evidence suggests an unintended consequence that is as anti-child as it gets.
Listen and subscribe to our podcast at Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or elsewhere. Below is a transcript of the episode, edited for readability. For more information on the people and ideas in the episode, see the links a2 days ago Read more -
Blog postAlso: how can you become a more curious person?
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Relevant Research & References
Here’s where you can learn more about the people and ideas in this episode:
SOURCES
James Flynn, former professor of political science at the University of Otago. Zeynep Tufekci, associate professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Todd Kashdan, professor of psychology at George6 days ago Read more -
Blog postFor many economists — Steve Levitt included — there is perhaps no greater inspiration than Paul Romer, the now-Nobel laureate who at a young age redefined the discipline and has maintained a passion for introducing new ideas to staid debates. Levitt finds out what makes Romer a serial “quitter,” why you can’t manufacture big ideas, and what happened when Romer tried to start a charter city.
Listen and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Radio Public, Spotify, o1 week ago Read more -
Blog postWe’ve collected some of our favorite moments from People I (Mostly) Admire, the latest show from the Freakonomics Radio Network. Host Steve Levitt seeks advice from scientists and inventors, memory wizards and basketball champions — even his fellow economists. He also asks about quitting, witch trials, and whether we need a Manhattan Project for climate change.
Listen and subscribe to People I (Mostly) Admire at Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you get yo1 week ago Read more -
Blog postAlso: why is public speaking so terrifying?
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Relevant Research & References
Here’s where you can learn more about the people and ideas in this episode:
SOURCES
Admiral James Stockdale, Medal of Honor recipient. Marty Seligman, professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. Julie Norem, professor of psychology at Wellesley College. Viktor Frankl, Holocaust survivor and author of1 week ago Read more -
Blog postSocieties where people trust one another are healthier and wealthier. In the U.S. (and the U.K. and elsewhere), social trust has been falling for decades — in part because our populations are more diverse. What can we do to fix it?
Listen and subscribe to our podcast at Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or elsewhere. Below is a transcript of the episode, edited for readability. For more information on the people and ideas in the episode, see the links at the bottom of this post2 weeks ago Read more -
Blog postAlso: why do we procrastinate?
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Relevant Research & References
Here’s where you can learn more about the people and ideas in this episode:
SOURCES
Maria Konnikova, author of The Biggest Bluff. B. F. Skinner, former professor of psychology at Harvard University. Albert Bandura, professor of psychology at Stanford University. Gabriele Oettingen, professor of psychology at New York Unive2 weeks ago Read more -
Blog postShe might not be a household name, but Suzanne Gluck is one of the most powerful people in the book industry. Her slush pile is a key entry point to the biggest publishers in the U.S., and the authors she represents have sold more than 100 million books worldwide. Steve Levitt talks with Gluck — his own agent — about negotiating a deal, advising prospective authors, and convincing him to co-write Freakonomics.
Listen and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Radio Publ3 weeks ago Read more -
Blog postIn this episode of No Stupid Questions — a Freakonomics Radio Network show launched earlier this year — Stephen Dubner and Angela Duckworth debate why we watch, read, and eat familiar things during a crisis, and if it might in fact be better to try new things instead. Also: is a little knowledge truly as dangerous as they say?
Listen and subscribe to No Stupid Questions at Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or elsewhere. Below is a transcript of the episode,3 weeks ago Read more -
Blog postAlso: where is the line between acronyms, initialisms, and gibberish?
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Relevant Research & References
Here’s where you can learn more about the people and ideas in this episode:
SOURCES
Lyle H. Ungar, professor of computer and information science at the University of Pennsylvania. Johannes Eichstaedt, computational social scientist at Stanford University. Will Smith, Oscar-nominated actor.3 weeks ago Read more
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The New York Times bestselling Freakonomics changed the way we see the world, exposing the hidden side of just about everything. Then came SuperFreakonomics, a documentary film, an award-winning podcast, and more.
Now, with Think Like a Freak, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner have written their most revolutionary book yet. With their trademark blend of captivating storytelling and unconventional analysis, they take us inside their thought process and teach us all to think a bit more productively, more creatively, more rationally—to think, that is, like a Freak.
Levitt and Dubner offer a blueprint for an entirely new way to solve problems, whether your interest lies in minor lifehacks or major global reforms. As always, no topic is off-limits. They range from business to philanthropy to sports to politics, all with the goal of retraining your brain. Along the way, you’ll learn the secrets of a Japanese hot-dog-eating champion, the reason an Australian doctor swallowed a batch of dangerous bacteria, and why Nigerian e-mail scammers make a point of saying they’re from Nigeria.
Some of the steps toward thinking like a Freak:
- First, put away your moral compass—because it’s hard to see a problem clearly if you’ve already decided what to do about it.
- Learn to say “I don’t know”—for until you can admit what you don’t yet know, it’s virtually impossible to learn what you need to.
- Think like a child—because you’ll come up with better ideas and ask better questions.
- Take a master class in incentives—because for better or worse, incentives rule our world.
- Learn to persuade people who don’t want to be persuaded—because being right is rarely enough to carry the day.
- Learn to appreciate the upside of quitting—because you can’t solve tomorrow’s problem if you aren’t willing to abandon today’s dud.
Levitt and Dubner plainly see the world like no one else. Now you can too. Never before have such iconoclastic thinkers been so revealing—and so much fun to read.
In celebration of the 10th anniversary of the landmark book Freakonomics comes this curated collection from the most readable economics blog in the universe. It’s the perfect solution for the millions of readers who love all things Freakonomics. Surprising and erudite, eloquent and witty, When to Rob a Bank demonstrates the brilliance that has made the Freakonomics guys an international sensation, with more than 7 million books sold in 40 languages, and 150 million downloads of their Freakonomics Radio podcast.
When Freakonomics was first published, the authors started a blog—and they’ve kept it up. The writing is more casual, more personal, even more outlandish than in their books. In When to Rob a Bank, they ask a host of typically off-center questions: Why don’t flight attendants get tipped? If you were a terrorist, how would you attack? And why does KFC always run out of fried chicken?
Over the past decade, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner have published more than 8,000 blog posts on the Freakonomics website. Many of them, they freely admit, were rubbish. But now they’ve gone through and picked the best of the best. You’ll discover what people lie about, and why; the best way to cut gun deaths; why it might be time for a sex tax; and, yes, when to rob a bank. (Short answer: never; the ROI is terrible.) You’ll also learn a great deal about Levitt and Dubner’s own quirks and passions, from gambling and golf to backgammon and the abolition of the penny.
Freakonomics lived on the New York Times bestseller list for an astonishing two years. Now authors Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner return with more iconoclastic insights and observations in SuperFreakonomics—the long awaited follow-up to their New York Times Notable blockbuster. Based on revolutionary research and original studies SuperFreakonomics promises to once again challenge our view of the way the world really works.
Los autores de Freakonomics te enseñan cómo ejercitar tu cerebro.
Con Piensa como un freak, Steven D. Levitt y Stephen J. Dubner han escrito su libro más revolucionario hasta la fecha. Con el sello inconfundible de narración cautivadora y análisis no convencional, nos llevan al interior de su proceso reflexivo y nos enseñan a pensar de manera un poco más productiva, más creativa, más racional, es decir, a pensar como un freak.
Como en sus libros anteriores, ningún tema está vedado, de los negocios a la filantropía, pasando por los deportes o la política, todo con el objetivo de reciclar tu cerebro.
Algunos de los pasos para pensar como un freak:
- Deja de lado tu brújula moral, porque es difícil ver un problema con claridad si ya has decidido qué hacer con él.
- Piensa como un niño, porque se te ocurrirán mejores ideas y plantearás mejores preguntas.
- Toma una clase magistral en incentivos, porque, para bien o para mal, los incentivos gobiernan el mundo.
- Aprende a convencer a gente que no quiere ser convencida, porque ser bueno no basta para que uno se salga con la suya.
- Aprende a apreciar las ventajas de abandonar, porque no puedes resolver el problema de mañana si no estás dispuesto a reconocer el fracaso de la calamidad de hoy.
Está claro que Levitt y Dubner ven el mundo como nadie. Nunca antes unos pensadores tan iconoclastas han sido tan reveladores y tan divertidos de leer.
Reseña:
«Este libro cambiará tu vida.»
Daily Express
As a boy, Stephen J. Dubner's hero was Franco Harris, the famed and mysterious running back for the Pittsburgh Steelers. When Dubner's father died, he became obsessed—he dreamed of his hero every night; he signed his school papers "Franco Dubner." Though they never met, it was Franco Harris who shepherded Dubner through a fatherless boyhood. Years later, Dubner journeys to meet his hero, certain that Harris will embrace him. And he is . . . well, wrong.
Told with the grit of a journalist and the grace of a memoirist, Confessions of a Hero-Worshiper is a breathtaking, heartbreaking, and often humorous story of astonishing developments. It is also a sparkling meditation on the nature of hero worship—which, like religion and love, tells us as much about ourselves as about the object of our desire.