The Economist has brought its
debate series to New York, and the first two debates took place in the magnificent
Gotham Hall on Saturday. The first one was on wealth and happiness, and pitched
two bloggers (Tyler Cowen and Will Wilkinson) against two A-list economists
(Betsey Stevenson and Jeff Sachs). Without going into too much detail (you can
get that from Cowen’s
commenters or from Will),
the bloggers won: many congratulations to them.
The second debate was on religion and politics. Afterwards, the Economist laid
on some cocktails, where Stevenson’s equally A-list husband, Justin Wolfers,
pondered Pascal’s Wager. If you believe there’s anything at all to religion,
he noted (and possibly if you don’t), the biggest risk one runs is the risk
that you belong to the wrong religion. So how would you go about hedging that?
Justin’s suggestion: have lots of children, and bring each of them up in a different
religion. You might not make it to heaven, but at least you’re maximizing your
chances that at least one of your children will.
Both debates were successful and enjoyable, which means I think that there
will certainly be more of them. Interestingly, there doesn’t seem to be any
shortage of New Yorkers willing to spend between $20 and $40 to while away a
large chunk of their Saturday afternoon listening to debating points. Don’t
they know they can read as many blogs as they like for free?