In this special episode of People I (Mostly) Admire, Steve Levitt speaks with the palliative physician B.J. Miller about modern medicine’s goal of “protecting a pulse at all costs.” Is there a better, even beautiful way to think about death and dying?
Hey there, it's Steven Dubner.
In our last episode, we gave you a special holiday Treat, an episode of Freakonomics MD, the newest podcast in our growing Freakonomics radio network.
This week, another treat, an episode from one of the other podcasts in our network.
It is called people I mostly admire.
You can get this show on any podcast app for free, and if you don't already subscribe, I'd encourage you in the strongest way possible to do so.
People I mostly admire is near to my heart because it's hosted by this guy.
My name is Steve Levitt and I am a professor of economics at the University of Chicago.
I am best known for co authoring freakonomics with Steven Dubner.
So Levitt, how do you think about the differences between people I mostly admire in freakonomics radio?
I think we have a very similar view of the world, in part because we've worked together so much over the last 15 or 20 years, and I think of free economics radio as the journalistic version of the way we think.
And people I mostly admire is the non journalistic version.
You know, my personality, I don't put a big value on being unbiased, so I get a little leeway to go out and be a crazy academic.
Levitt, I have to say, I thought I knew you pretty well, and yet I feel like every week on the show I learn something about you, and I love it.
I really appreciate how much you're willing to open your mind and your heart and the weirdest parts of you.
I think I don't have as much shame about the weird parts of me as most people do.
Also, it's a bit cathartic for me, the podcast, because for so long I was single mindedly devoted to producing economic research, and that endeavor was so all consuming that I put a lot of other parts of me aside.
So it has been such a joy to step back from being a producer of knowledge to just being able to do this podcast where my role isn't to have great ideas, my role is to try to find people who have great ideas and bring those ideas to light.
I think that's part of why a different side of me is coming out, because there is a kinder, gentler version of me.
I just was hiding it from everybody.
There was a conversation you had a few months ago with your fellow economist Ed Glaser.