50. The Truth Is Out There…Isn’t It?

Freakonomics Radio

Freakonomics Radio + Stitcher

Documentary, Society & Culture

4.6 • 32K Ratings

🗓️ 22 November 2011

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

There’s a nasty secret about hot-button topics like global warming: knowledge is not always power.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Yes, life was pretty good until I got a phone call from my broker.
0:07.0	That's Stephen Greenspan.
0:12.1	He's an Emeritus Professor of Psychology at the University of Connecticut.
0:15.8	Hi, Katherine.
0:17.1	And this is Katherine Wells.
0:18.9	She's one of the producers on her show.
0:20.3	Hi, Katherine.
0:21.3	Hi, Stephen.
0:22.3	So you are here today with a story for us, yes?
0:24.9	Right, a story about Stephen Greenspan.
0:27.2	He has an interesting specialty.
0:28.7	He's an expert in what he calls social incompetence, which we all feel.
0:34.5	What he means is he studies why people do dumb things.
0:37.6	Presumably that means why smart people do dumb things.
0:40.8	Right, that included.
0:42.3	And when he told you there that life was pretty good, what did he mean?
0:45.4	What was so good exactly about his life?
0:47.2	Well, it was December 2008 and he had a book coming out called Annals of Gollibility.
0:54.2	The other thing that seemed pretty good was his financial situation.
0:57.4	About a year earlier, he had invested in a hedge fund that was doing pretty well.
1:01.8	So he was getting nicely set up for retirement, too.
1:04.6	So one day in December, he gets this first pre-release copy of the book, The Gollibility
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Freakonomics Radio + Stitcher, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Freakonomics Radio + Stitcher and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.