Stephen Dubner

Just because of the nature of what I've ended up doing professionally.

And then I became a golfer.

Oh.

And that introduced me into a world that I had these preconceptions about and I was so wrong.

But when someone comes at me with a binary, you're for us or against us.

What I try to do, what I probably do do mostly is I say, first of all, let's define terms.

And that's a trick I think I learned from academia.

Let's take it away from the fascism.

If you're going to call someone in economic terms a communist or a socialist, let's define terms.

Are we talking about the socialism of 2025 Denmark?

Yeah.

Right.

Not the socialism of 1925 Vienna.

It's a big difference now.

What do you mean by that?

So this goes back to, I wonder if you've ever come across this in talking with Angela or anyone else in that realm.

I'm probably going to get all these facts wrong, but in my memory, there's something called the illusion of explanatory depth.

Basically, if you go to a family gathering, let's say, right?

People know you, you know them, you have some prior expectations.

Just go up to them and start asking them about hot button issues, whatever you think they are.