Derek Thompson

And so it's difficult for people to find that proverbial room.

The last point that I want to make about this debate that sometimes happens between

Economists who are obsessed with statistics and commentators who focus on surveys, vibes, for lack of a better word.

This is a little bit of a woo-woo place to end this particular episode, but you're a California boy, so you can take it.

I can take a lot of woo-woo, Derek.

Probably more than I can.

I was listening to Michael Pollan's book, A World Appears, about consciousness while feeding a bottle to my four-month-old the other night.

And he referenced this book by Antonio Damasio called Descartes' Error.

This is initially not going to seem to make any contact with the subject matter.

I'm very excited to see where you're going with this, Derek.

We're going to get there.

So Descartes' Error

The subtitle is Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain.

And, you know, Descartes famously tried to separate our reason from our emotions.

And Damasio, who's this, I believe he's a neuroscientist, his point is that emotions aren't separate to thinking.

Emotions are a part of reason.

People who have brain damage that makes it harder for them to feel emotions tend to also struggle with reasoning.

So what the hell does this have to do with economics?

In economics, I think commentators often try to keep vibes and statistics separate.

They divide the world into, well, the vibes say this, young people are sad, but the stats say this, young people are rich.