How to Spend Your Time and Money Better (with Nobel Prize Winner Richard Thaler)

This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human. Pushkin. As humans, we do a lot of things that don't make all that much sense. I sometimes imagine a completely rational alien species.

somewhere out there in the universe that's observing us earthlings and is totally shocked by how often we act against our own best interests. We eat foods that we know aren't good for us. We avoid small, simple actions like exercising or flossing, preventative care that we know will pay off in the long run. But we also do some truly beautiful things, behaviors that might puzzle those rational aliens. We donate blood or even an organ to someone in need,

and at real risk to our own health. We're kind to strangers who, in many cases, we'll never even see again. I also wonder what those aliens would make of the way humans experience happiness. How complex and counterintuitive the things that promote our well-being must look to a totally rational being. Unfortunately, it's unlikely I'll ever get a chance to chat with a rational extraterrestrial, like one of the Vulcans from Star Trek, those creatures who embody pure logic and self-discipline about the anomalies of human behavior.

We already have this episode, so unlocking it is cheap and permanent: the full transcript (49 minutes, 8,651 words), segment and word-level timestamps, and .txt, .srt, .vtt and word-level JSON downloads, as many times as you like, forever.

No account needed, we create one from your checkout email. With credits it is 1 credit; packs start at 5 episodes for $3.49, and monthly plans are cheaper still.