Interviews

We believe we exist to hold power accountable.

“I think a lot of my [writing] is aimed at pulling the curtain back and showing that these judges and their clerks–in addition to being great legal minds–are also people too, and are subject to all of the frailties and biases that all of us are subject to as human beings.”

“The usual idea, especially in the context you’re asking about – prisoners’ dilemmas – is to start with the maximal credible punishment right at the beginning, because the idea is that that will be the most severe threat and so will illicit the best cooperation. But in reality, everybody who’s looked at the way punishments are designed finds that the successful ones are done in a graduated way.”

“Because at the end of the day, you’re stuck with yourself, and long after the album kind of fades away from people’s spotlight, you still want to be able to be true to yourself and to your audience. They’re the ones that are gonna stick with you through thick and thin.”

For a long time, economists seemed to agree with the implicit assumption of your question that we should minimize the ethical judgements we make. I’m not sure that’s a universal position anymore.

“The end of the Cold War could not have happened as it did without the resurgence, the renewal, the revitalization of the United States. And I argue that all three of those figures – Milton Friedman, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Buckley – were indispensable to that.”

They own their data because they own their relationship. And hence then they can own their own power.