The Joe Walker Podcast

Avi Loeb is Chair of Harvard's Astronomy Department.

Show notes
Selected links

•Follow Avi: Website
•The Myth Of Sisyphus, by Albert Camus
•The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, by Thomas Kuhn
•'The End of Spacetime', public lecture by Nima Arkani-Hamed
•Rendezvouz With Rama, by Arthur C. Clarke
•'Glowing Auras and "Black Money": The Pentagon's Mysterious U.F.O. Program', NYT article (16/12/17)
•'2 Navy Airmen and an Object That "Accelerated Like Nothing I've Ever Seen", NYT article (16/12/17)

Topics discussed

•Avi's childhood growing up on a farm in Israel, and journey into academia. 5:16
•Avi's romance with philosophy, Satre, and Camus. 10:11
•When in their careers should scientists court risk? 15:24
•Albert Camus and The Myth Of Sisyphus. 21:10
•How does alien intelligence change the meaning of human existence? 24:50
•If there was no other intelligent life in the universe, would that make a god more likely? 34:51
•How far off is technology for 3D printing of...humans? 40:49
•What are the a priori odds of other intelligent life in the universe -- and how do we calculate them? 42:49
•Why is it so quiet out there? 47:25
•Space archaeology. 52:33
•Is space-time a doomed concept? 1:04:14
•How do we verify what happens beyond the event horizon of a black hole? 1:12:08
•The multiverse: bullshit or not? 1:17:25
•What could spacefaring aliens teach us about physics? 1:30:00
•'Oumuamua -- a possible interstellar spacecraft lurking in our solar system. 1:31:45
•The Pentagon UFO releases. 1:43:47
•Hostile aliens. 1:46:00
•The advantages of generalism. 1:54:43
•The meaning of life (42). 2:01:21

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Peter Doherty is an immunologist and winner of the 1996 Nobel Prize in Medicine.

Show notes
Selected links

•Follow Peter: Website | Twitter
•'I'm 79, I won the Nobel Prize and I don't give a s---', AFR profile of Peter Doherty
•Pandemics: What Everyone Needs To Know, by Peter Doherty
•The (in)famous Imperial College paper

Topics discussed

•Has Peter always not given a shit? 7:32
•Peter's odd high school experience. 9:00
•How the media report on science. 12:30
•What is the difference between a virus and a bacterium? 15:08
•How does a new coronavirus come into existence? 17:47
•What is Peter's area of expertise and what does he know about pandemics? 22:57
•What has the coronavirus pandemic taught us about the usefulness of epidemiological models? 25:20
•The politicization of lockdowns. 35:57
•The origins of America and Australia's cultural differences. 47:33
•Social media and political polarisation. 57:05
•In weathering the pandemic relatively well, was Australia lucky or were the epidemiological models too pessimistic? 59:56
•Can we just lockdown the vulnerable segment of the population, rather than the whole population? 1:03:52
•Is Peter optimistic about keeping a lid on the virus until a vaccine arrives? 1:08:25
•What do governments need to learn from the pandemic to be better prepared for the next one? 1:16:00

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Cameron Murray is a Research Fellow at the University of Sydney's Henry Halloran Trust. Ian Mulheirn is Executive Director and Chief Economist at the Tony Blair Institute.

Show notes
Selected links

•Follow Cameron Murray: Website | Twitter
•Follow Ian Mulheirn: Website | Twitter
•Tackling the UK housing crisis: is supply the answer?', 2019 report by Ian Mulheirn
•'Innovative Approaches to Reducing the Costs of Home Ownership', 2003 report by Joye and Caplin
•'The Australian Housing Supply Myth', 2019 paper by Cameron Murray
•'The Geographic Determinants of Housing Supply', paper by Albert Saiz

Topics discussed

•Why isn't a lack of supply the primary cause of high house prices? 14:40
•The role of interest rates. 18:46
•The tangled web of causality behind house prices. 36:42
•Narratives in housing markets: are they exogenous shocks or post hoc rationalisations? 41:40
•Where did the housing supply narrative come from? 46:41
•How would the UK government prop up its housing market if fundamentals deteriorated? 1:04:52
•Arguments in support of the housing supply myth. 1:05:48
•What makes for an intellectually defensible forecast of house prices? 1:29:17

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Matt Ridley is an author, journalist, biologist, and businessman. His books have sold over a million copies.

Show notes
Selected links

•Follow Matt Ridley: Website | Twitter
•How Innovation Works, by Matt Ridley
•The Origins of Virtue, by Matt Ridley
•Zero to One, by Peter Thiel
•Born Standing Up, by Steve Martin
•The Innovator's Dilemma, by Clayton Christensen
•'The Use of Knowledge in Society', essay by Friedrich Hayek
•Bad Blood, by John Carreyrou
•The Great Stagnation, by Tyler Cowen
•The Rise and Fall of American Growth, by Robert Gordon

Topics discussed

•When did Matt first come to understand the disturbing notion of selfish gene theory? 8:55
•How did Matt, a biologist, become so interested in innovation? 16:20
•The infinite improbability drive. 20:30
•What's the difference between innovation and invention? 24:05
•What do most people (wrongly) believe about how innovation works? 25:48
•Why innovation relies on collaboration. 33:53
•Innovation is the child of freedom. But what amount or types of freedom are sufficient to underpin innovation? 40:35
•Why does innovation thrive in fragmented political systems? 46:39
•Does unfettered economic freedom tend irresistibly towards monopolies? 50:37
•Antitrust enforcement: have we been doing enough? 1:02:44
•The relationship between uncertainty and innovation. 1:05:58
•Frauds and visionaries. 1:14:20
•Uncertainty and economics. 1:15:26
•Are we in the midst of a Great Stagnation? 1:26:40
•Can we escape stagnation? 1:40:30

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Mervyn King was Governor of the Bank of England from 2003 to 2013.

Show notes
Selected links

•Follow Mervyn King: Website
•Radical Uncertainty, by Mervyn King and John Kay
•The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, by John Maynard Keynes
•'Debt deflation: Theory and evidence', paper by Mervyn King
•The End of Alchemy, by Mervyn King
•Recollections of a Bleeding Heart, by Don Watson
•The Poverty of Historicism, by Karl Popper
•Obliquity, by John Kay
•'Truth and Probability', essay by Frank Ramsey
•Frank Ramsey: A Sheer Excess of Powers, by Cheryl Misak

Topics discussed

•Why did Mervyn choose to study economics at Cambridge? 11:06
•Keynes' General Theory. 17:41
•Debt-deflation. 23:58
•When Mervyn met Ben. 29:20
•Was Mervyn caught off guard by the Global Financial Crisis? 31:40
•Does stability lead to instability? 38:18
•The stability heuristic. 41:43
•What is radical uncertainty? 49:54
•How technology creates radical uncertainty. 1:04:57
•Why has the economics profession overlooked radical uncertainty -- and when did this blindspot begin? 1:13:10
•Narratives. 1:25:18
•What does it mean to be rational? 1:31:21
•Speculative bubbles. 1:40:25

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Russ Roberts is an economist and the host of EconTalk.

Show notes
Selected links

•Follow Russ Roberts: Website | Twitter
•EconTalk
•Macroeconomic Patterns and Stories, by Ed Leamer
•Fooled By Randomness, by Nassim Taleb
•Systemic Risk of Pandemic Via Novel Pathogens -- Coronavirus', paper by Joe Norman, Yaneer Bar-Yam, and Nassim Taleb
•'To philosophize is to learn how to die', essay by Montaigne
•How Adam Smith Can Change Your Life, by Russ Roberts

Topics discussed

•When and how did EconTalk begin? 8:55
•Has interviewing over 750 people made Russ a better or more effective person? 13:59
•How to really understand an idea. 32:00
•What has Russ learned from Nassim Taleb? 35:43
•The Precautionary Principle. 42:03
•The lockdown dilemma. 48:38
•The Precautionary Principle again. 1:11:52
•Is Russ afraid of death? 1:18:49
•What has Russ done to improve his craft as an interviewer? 1:27:18
•Where was Russ born and what did his parents do? 1:48:21
•Why did Russ study economics? 1:49:52
•Narrative economics. 1:51:13
•Who are the most important economists for non-economists to know? 1:57:12
•How does Russ think about what he does? 2:02:31
•Vipassana meditation. 2:06:26
•When would Russ recommend economics as an undergraduate degree? 2:17:18
•Adam Smith's distinction between being loved and being lovely. 2:21:14

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Malcolm Turnbull was Australia's 29th Prime Minister.

Show notes
Selected links

•Follow Malcolm Turnbull: Website | Twitter
•A Bigger Picture, by Malcolm Turnbull
•Malcolm's speech at the 2010 Deakin Lectures
•Malcolm's speech at the 2010 BZE Stationary Energy Plan launch
•'Condolence on the Death of Robert Hughes', 2012 speech by Malcolm Turnbull
•Malcolm's 2015 speech challenging Tony Abbott's leadership
•The Fiery Chariot, by Lucille Iremonger
•Reflections on the Revolution in France, by Edmund Burke
•The Case for Conservatism, by Quintin Hogg
•The Reluctant Republic, by Malcolm Turnbull
•Fighting For the Republic, by Malcolm Turnbull
•Constitutional Advancement in a Frozen Continent: Essays in honour of George Winterton
•'An Alternative Republic Proposal', Anne Twomey's 2015 article in the ALJ
•Skin in the Game, by Nassim Taleb
•Antifragile, by Nassim Taleb

Topics discussed

•Which of Malcolm's speeches is he most proud of? 9:52
•Malcolm's childhood. 12:51
•Burkean Conservatism. 20:20
•How do governments know when they're reforming too quickly or too slowly? 26:11
•Resolving the core tension in the Australian Republican Movement. 42:59
•Same-sex marriage. 48:48
•The Minority Rule. 52:19
•Is the Liberal Party philosophically tenable? 59:35
•How does Malcolm assess prospective tech investments? 1:04:24
•Malcolm's intellectual shift on China. 1:07:19
•Malcolm's struggle with depression and suicidal thoughts. 1:11:42
•Antifragility. 1:15:48

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Chris Edmond and Steve Hamilton are Australian economists.

Show notes
Selected links

•Follow Chris Edmond: Website | Twitter
•Follow Steve Hamilton: Website | Twitter
•'A Rush Back to 'Normal' Would Be the Blunder of the Century', WIRED's interview of Larry Summers
•'Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions to reduce COVID-19 mortality and healthcare demand', Imperial College London paper by Neil Ferguson et al
•'How the recession we have to have can be sharp but short', The Australian Financial Review article by Steve Hamilton and Stan Veuger
•'Coronavirus: payroll subsidy will save the economy', The Australian article by Chris Edmond and Bruce Preston

Topics discussed

•What happens to an economy when non-essential workers are told to stay home? 9:22
•The false choice between health and economic outcomes. 20:53
•How long do lockdowns need to last? 36:39
•Are Australia's lockdowns hard enough? 43:46
•What does pandemic-appropriate fiscal stimulus look like? 46:29
•Is this the end of surplus fetishism? 59:45
•JobKeeper. 1:06:44
•Will Australia see further rounds of stimulus? 1:19:21
•Is the financial economy healthy? 1:22:33
•Which one piece of advice would Steve and Chris give to the Australian Government? 1:26:26

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Chris Joye is Founder and Co-Chief Investments Officer at Coolabah Capital Investments. He is also a Contributing Editor with The...

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Andrea Crisanti is a Professor of Microbiology at the University of Padua. He is part of the research team that eradicated coronavirus in Vo, a town in northern Italy.

Show notes
Selected links

•Follow Andrea: Website
•Johns Hopkins University's coronavirus dashboard
•Data on testing by country
•Marc Lipsitch's 18 March STAT article

Topics discussed

•The Italian crisis. 8:22
•Why has Lombardy become an epicentre of coronavirus? 9:50
•How does the situation in Veneto compare to that in Lombardy? 11:06
•How did Andrea become involved in the Vo experiment? 11:51
•What is the process for identifying infection people in Veneto? 17:20
•What is the R0 for asymptomatic people? 20:25
•What is the strategy employed at Vo? 24:32
•Is there still time for Australia and the US to implement the strategy used at Vo? 25:21
•Does the Vo strategy need to be implemented in full in order to be successful? 28:05
•Why have some Asian countries been better at controlling the virus than Western countries? 28:47
•Is the Vo strategy scalable? 29:43
•How should we think about the prospects of future waves of the virus? 30:34

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