Glorious and bracing interrogation of the world’s smartest people: Conversations with Tyler reviewed

Tyler Cowen is a man who leaves you at once in awe and perturbed. He is the Holbert L. Harris chair in the economics department at George Mason University, and the co-host of the popular economics blog Marginal Revolution. But his intellectual interests are staggering in scope, enough to unsettle. He is a true polymath. He embodies the American work ethic. He goes through ‘five or ten books’ a day. His Marginal Revolution blog is not for the faint of mind: he sends up to 40 emails each week. At any time of his choosing, Tyler pops into your inbox to show you a new study he’s found (‘which words do men use more than women?’), tips for getting better at watching films (‘get a mentor!’) or news from Norwegian sex resorts. He recently confessed that the only thing he’s not really interested in is geology (still, he said he’s fascinated by the role of the Massif Central in French history). You wonder how he has the time to eat, though he is also an acclaimed food author who has written dining guides and runs his own ‘ethnic dining’ blog.

His views? He has described himself as a ‘state-capacity libertarian’ — he’s incredibly pro-growth, favourable towards immigration, and a supporter of same-sex marriage, as well as a fan of state-led ‘megaprojects’. It sounds slightly esoteric, but state-capacity libertarianism is the ideology that could have reigned supreme in the UK had Dominic Cummings’s stay in Downing Street been longer.

How does one man have all this intellectual energy? Perhaps it’s the lack of booze. He says he’s ‘with the Mormons’ on alcohol, and thinks it would be better if we all just didn’t drink: we’d be a smarter species for it.