Ep. 615: Robin Hanson Interview with Michael Covel on Trend Following Radio

Michael Covel's Trend Following

Michael Covel

Investing, Business

4.6 • 730 Ratings

🗓️ 15 December 2017

⏱️ 59 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

My guest today is Robin Hanson, an associate professor of economics at George Mason University and a research associate at the Future of Humanity Institute of Oxford University. He is an expert on idea futures and markets, was involved in the creation of the Foresight Institute’s Foresight Exchange, and DARPA’s Future MAP project. He is co-author of “The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life.” And today Robin and Michael dive right into the heart of our hidden motives. Robin shows that once our brains are able to confront these blind spots, we can better have a grasp on ourselves and the motivations behind how we think–which of course can then lead to possibly better policy.

The topic is his book The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life.

In this episode of Trend Following Radio we discuss:

Hidden motives
Humans as political animals
Deception vs. self deception
Selfishness
Understanding your motivations

Jump in!

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I’m MICHAEL COVEL, the host of TREND FOLLOWING RADIO, and I’m proud to have delivered 10+ million podcast listens since 2012. Investments, economics, psychology, politics, decision-making, human behavior, entrepreneurship and trend following are all passionately explored and debated on my show.

To start? I’d like to give you a great piece of advice you can use in your life and trading journey… cut your losses! You will find much more about that philosophy here: https://www.trendfollowing.com/trend/

You can watch a free video here: https://www.trendfollowing.com/video/

Can’t get enough of this episode? You can choose from my thousand plus episodes here: https://www.trendfollowing.com/podcast

My social media platforms:
Twitter: @covel
Facebook: @trendfollowing
LinkedIn: @covel
Instagram: @mikecovel

Hope you enjoy my never-ending podcast conversation!

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Trend Following Radio, where great thinking comes alive.
0:10.9	Nobel Prize winners, legendary traders, bestselling authors, and the pros that know what drive us irrational human beings.
0:21.2	I am your host, Michael Covel.
0:24.0	Not filtered, raw, honest.
0:27.4	That's my passion.
0:33.3	My guest today is Robin Hansen.
0:35.5	This is Robin's third appearance on this show.
0:39.5	Robin is an economist at George Mason University, my alma mater.
0:44.3	And Robin spends his life chasing down leads, paths, directions that interest him, and he keeps finding really cool stuff.
0:58.9	You might recall my last interview with Robin, we were discussing his book, The Age of M.
1:03.9	What happens at the singularity?
1:06.8	Today, a very different topic, a very different book, an awesome perspective.
1:12.6	Check out his TED talk if you've not on this subject.
1:16.5	The subject? His newest book, The Elephant in the Brain, Hidden Motives in Everyday Life.
1:23.3	And to quote Robin, the aim of this book is to confront our hidden motives directly
1:27.5	to track down the darker, unexamined corners of our psyches and blast them with floodlights.
1:34.9	That's the only intro you need. Let's jump right in.
1:38.5	I hope you enjoy this conversation with Robin Hanson.
1:58.2	So, Robin, I've been making this observation for the last 15 years long before I've seen your newest work.
2:00.0	And my observation is this.
2:02.4	I would go not often, but occasionally,
2:09.0	I would go to the post office or the local bank, these local branches. And you couldn't help but notice that there was always a certain demographic in there. And that demographic never seemed annoyed
	...

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