Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the show. My guest today is Russ Roberts. He's an economist,

a research fellow at Stanford University, an author, and a podcaster.

Economics promised us a model which works for all of life's decisions, from what to buy

for lunch to investing in a company, but when you face with decisions like where to live,

how many children to have, whether to get married or what sort of person you want to be,

it falls short. Thankfully, Russ has a new toolkit.

Expect to learn why Charles Darwin made a checklist before marriage, which said his wife

was slightly better than a dog. Why the decision about whether to have children is so difficult

to predict, whether rationality is totally incompatible with the decisions that define

us, why happiness is overrated as an optimizing function, whether tradition is any use at all,

and much more. I really, really enjoyed this episode. Russ is a cool guy. I like people

who have been through the ringer of the utilitarian, hyper-rationalists, economics-expected value

calculation approach, and come out the other side with genuine wisdom and ease and grace.

Russ is an absolute baller. You're going to enjoy this one.

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