Episode 007 Stephen Dubner

Summary

• Tim Ferriss interviews Stephen Dubner, an awardwinning author, journalist, and radioTV personality best known for writing Freakonomics and Super Freakonomics.
• Dubner and his coauthor Steven Levitt collaborate on their books by Levitt writing academic papers and Dubner translating them into common English and adding a story element.
• Dubner and Levitt brainstorm ideas for their books, and have thrown away hundreds of pages in the process.
• Dubner believes stories are powerful because they allow people to insert themselves into the narrative.
• Dubner and Levitt had an idea for a book that ended up not working out.
• Dubner believes the elements of a good story are to make it interesting, relatable, and to have a moral or lesson.
• Stephen Dubner and Tim Ferriss brainstormed to come up with ideas for their book, Thinking Like a Freak, which has nine chapters and roughly 15 principles.
• The brainstorming process took months and involved experimentation, failure, and quitting things that weren't going well.
• Stephen Dubner was attracted to the work of Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky because it explored how people make decisions and was explained in the form of stories.
• A good story includes data, a time series, a narrative with characters, and must be true.
• The Quantified Self movement has produced good science, but it is easy to manufacture spurious connections.
• Stephen Dubner was raised in a devout Roman Catholic family, after his parents converted from Judaism.
• He chose to practice Judaism as an adult, after being exposed to a world of Jewishness and Jewish thought in New York.
• He was inspired by his parents' decision to quit everything and start a new life, and he applied this to his own life when he quit his rock band and pursued writing full time.
• He chose to embrace Judaism for a variety of reasons, including the social environment, a longing for something he hadn't experienced, and a way of looking at the world that he identified with and appreciated.
• Steve Levitt and Stephen Dubner found mentors in their lives who helped them find a lens that resonated with them.
• Stephen Dubner's mentor was Ivan Kronenfeld, who had a deep well of learning and wisdom informed by Judaism.
• Stephen Dubner's son Solomon is 13 and is interested in soccer journalism. Stephen teaches him the rules of Freakonomics.
• Stephen Dubner's daughter is 12 and he encourages her to think for herself and figure out her own preferences.
• Stephen Dubner and Tim Ferriss discuss the differences between nurture and nature when it comes to parenting.
• Stephen Dubner suggests that when trying to form someone, it is more beneficial to look at failures and mistakes rather than successes.
• He suggests that successes are often anomalies and it is difficult to dissect the inputs that went into producing them.
• Looking at failures can help someone avoid making the same mistakes and be more successful.
• The origins of the word "sophisticated" are derived from the Greek sophists, who were itinerant teachers of philosophy and rhetoric who did not have a good reputation.
• The goal of appearing sophisticated can be great, but it can also be a detriment if the goal is to actually persuade anyone of anything or to enlarge society in any way.
• The advice given is to think like a child, follow natural curiosities, and experiment to find out what is true.
• The book was a struggle to get started because it needed to be sequential and not preachy.
• The most prominent example that didn't make the cut was reduced from 30 pages to half a page.
• Stephen Dubner and Tim Ferriss discuss the concept of "first put away your moral compass" which was originally intended to be a 30page chapter in their book.
• The idea is that if you want to solve a problem, you should not approach it with a moral compass as it can lead to mistakes and exclude possible solutions.
• Stephen Dubner's friend Jonathan Rosen provided a metaphor of sailors using a lead box to protect their compass from metal objects that could throw it off course.
• Stephen Dubner's first hour of the day consists of reading, writing, and planning his day.
• Tim Ferriss and Stephen Dubner discuss how clothing and environment can affect mood and attitude.
• Stephen Dubner recommends his favorite sources of information, such as The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Marginal Revolution, The Browser, and Jason Kottke.
• Stephen Dubner also talks about his love for sports, particularly soccer, and recommends John McFee's book Levels of the Game.
• Stephen Dubner's advice to his younger self is to not be scared and to remember that nobody cares about what he does.
• Tim Ferriss recommends Stephen Dubner's book Think Like a Freak as a guide to better thinking.
• Stephen Dubner is the author of the books Freakonomics and SuperFreakonomics.
• People can find more about Stephen and his work at Freakonomics.com and Freakonomics on Twitter.
• The website contains a lot of related projects, some of which may not be very good.
• Stephen appreciates Tim Ferriss having him on and would love to talk again in any circumstances.