2019-20 Volume — Policy Punchline

*Policy Punchline: Covid-19 Series - A Year of Insights in Review (2019-2020)*

Introduction by Professor Atif Mian

Policy Punchline has completed its second year and what an impressive journey it has been! The most remarkable thing about it is that from the beginning it has been an entirely student-run effort. As this collection of Policy Punchline conversations shows, the initiative has gone from strength to strength. The great group of scholars interviewed, the quality and depth of the conversations, and the scope of topics covered are all a testament to the hard work and insightful thinking that went into this wonderful effort.

Policy Punchline is the brainchild of its founding president Tiger Gao. Tiger came up with the idea of starting a podcast series with the many brilliant minds that come through Princeton from academia, industry, and the government. It is impressive that not only did Tiger come up with this idea in just his sophomore year, but he then inspired and built a team of fellow students to convert his vision into reality. It is heartening to see that as Tiger prepares to graduate, his fellow students behind him will continue to expand this initiative.

Policy Punchline is now a truly collective effort. There is a team of more than 40 students who plan, organize and publish the content. The quality and content of the Policy Punchline podcasts are on par with professional productions. In fact, I consider it to be significantly better than many popular podcasts out there. The students put in an impressive amount of work in preparing questions, and the back-and-forth interactions are very insightful.

The collection of Policy Punchline conversations published in this volume includes podcasts conducted over the last year. The range of topics is truly impressive and timely. For example, as soon as news about Covid-19 hit, the podcast team was focused on this most important topic of our time. The Covid-19 crisis is covered from many angles in this series. Jessica Metcalf discusses the epidemiology of the virus as early as February; Dan Michelson speaks on the health care crisis; Markus Brunnermeier talks about challenges in the financial market and the role of the Federal Reserve Bank on April 1st right after serious disruptions in financial markets; and Emil Verner discusses one of the very first historical studies of whether we can expect a tradeoff between controlling the virus and the economy. The answer given by Emil Verner was prescient: No, there is no tradeoff. The better we are at controlling the virus through containment, the quicker the economy will recover. If only our governments around the world understood this message! Policy Punchline was not shy to seek counter-arguments, though. Paul Frijters presents the counter argument, that there needs to be a balance to how strict a policy response we choose in efforts to contain the virus. All of this helps the listener (or reader) gain a more nuanced understanding of the various issues involved.

I want to emphasize the breadth and range of the topics covered in this volume of interviews. Covid-19 was generally thought of as an economic and health crisis. But the Policy Punchline staff go beyond that and rightfully highlight the important ethical and philosophical dimensions. How does society decide how to ration health care in the middle of the pandemic? How do you balance the needs of the young with the risks facing the old? The conversations with Peter Singer, Arthur Caplan, and Keith Whittington about these questions are terrific.

While Covid-19 was clearly the topic of conversation in 2020, the podcast team did not lose sight of longer-term structural issues plaguing our society. Alan Blinder, Robert Frank, Branko Milanovic, and Ellora Derenoncourt discuss the challenges for economic and monetary policy in the face of rising and extreme inequality, and the further fractures created by Covid-19. Jake Shapiro and Frances Lee discuss the structural and political problems of extreme partisanship and “multiple realities,” and the political challenges that arise out of that. Melissa Reynolds, Merle Eisenberg, and Nicholas Lemann provide a sweeping account of history and how the Covid-19 crisis should be seen in this wider context. There is just so much to nibble on in this brilliant Policy Punchline effort. Most of all Policy Punchline reflects the tremendous potential that our students have and what they can achieve when they come together for a common purpose. I very much look forward to the next series of Policy Punchline podcasts and conversations.

Atif Mian

John H. Laporte, Jr. Class of 1967 Professor of Economics, Public Policy and Finance

Director of the Julis-Rabinowitz Center for Public Policy and Finance

Princeton University

Preface by Tiger Gao

Policy Punchline has truly come a long way since I wrote the preface for our last book a year ago. We interviewed 54 guests in the school year of 2019-2020, including over 20 guests for our special Covid-19 coverage. Our team has grown to over 40 student researchers, co-hosts, designers, and affiliated contributors, and we have added new segments in energy, fundamental sciences, tech policy, and intellectuals in the humanities and beyond. Most importantly, we are more focused than ever on our mission of “promoting long-form dialogues on frontier ideas and urgent issues” with our brilliant guests.

During the beginning few months of Policy Punchline, we questioned time and again whether it would be more convenient and commercially fitting to produce a shorter and highly edited podcast show that dealt more in generalities and with broad trends in the news. We eventually realized that the main benefit of listening to a long-form podcast (such as Joe Rogan, Sam Harris, Eric Weinstein, Ezra Klein, or Policy Punchline) is that it allows our guests to develop long trains of thoughts with nuances and subtleties that go well beyond the “bumper-sticker level complexities of legacy media,” as podcast host Eric Weinstein once satirized. Whether it’s a book discussion about a recent bestseller in economics, or a debate on moral philosophy, it is much more difficult to have nuanced, thought-provoking discussion within 15 minutes.

This goal requires a tremendous amount of dedication from our team members, who went above and beyond, setting us apart from other shows through the quality of our questions and extensive research that goes into each and every interview. On average, our team spends 20 hours preparing for interviews – researching into the topic, learning about our guest’s background and thought processes, writing questions, and developing a framework for the discussion.

Our incredibly supportive guests have given us the space to explore the long-form podcasting format, often taking as much as two hours out of their busy schedules to discuss their ideas. They have also been graciously unreserved with their words of encouragement, often going on record saying that the interview experience with Policy Punchline is much deeper and well-reasoned than those they have done on book tours or with legacy media outlets.

The growth of our team members’ own depth of knowledge and our guests’ kind support made us realize who we are – not simply an extracurricular club, but rather a group of deeply curious students who grapple with pressing issues every day in and outside of our classrooms. All of us have a true passion for intellectual debate, and we don’t limit our political or epistemological framework to familiar or comfortable views. We are willing to ask the tough questions while drawing inspiration from the wide ideological spectrum of our guests.

Grounded in our faith that long-form podcasting is the best way to engage in deep discussions, we aspire to play a small role in contributing to today’s media landscape and socio-political discourse. America is polarized today not simply because the Right and the Left are somehow "not talking to each other." One important factor to our divisions is that in our highly fragmented information age, people are easily manipulated by clickbait advertisements, targeted political messages, pseudo-empiricist statistics, and a wide variety of noise – to the point that it’s extremely difficult to even sit with a thought and reflect on the merits of various arguments.

At normal times, such concerns might be relegated to the side, but we now live in a tumultuous era where norms are shifting rapidly, where citizens are debating topics ranging from the merits of “cancel culture” to how we should reform capitalism.

This is an age that requires social discourse conducive to thoughtful debate, yet this project is hampered by the perceived optimization and maximization of information intake through web surfing rather than book reading. Our presidential debates are reduced to 30-second responses; students are opting to get educated by Instagram posts rather than books; scientists have shifted their battleground to Twitter; and mind-boggling “innovations” have emerged to help one read the summary of a book in 7 minutes.

Rather than accepting the false premise that people are incapable of appreciating and digesting long-form dialogues, we want to help change the environment for the better and provide a thoughtful alternative to information consumption through our podcast.

In the over 95 interviews we have conducted in the past two years, we have talked to fascinating personalities from “techno-utopian” iconoclasts to thinkers deeply rooted in the political and business establishment. Having this unique privilege and flexibility of being able to speak to people from all ideological and academic backgrounds, we hope to present an integrated conversation where our listeners may learn about some of the most innovative ideas and bold positions in our world today.

This book is one such attempt, where we bring together analyses on the Covid-19 crisis in seven different segments – public health, economics, ethics, history & political science, industry perspective, greater reflection for our society, and additional op-eds. Our interviews touch on issues from the epidemiology of coronavirus to the ethics of triage; from the economic tradeoff of lockdowns to the Federal Reserve’s unprecedented actions; from plague narratives in history to the viability of contact tracing technology; from the digital transformation of art viewing to fundamental reflections for capitalism…

This is the boldest project we have undertaken thus far, completed fully remotely in a span of four months. As you may soon see from our long interviews, our podcast’s name Policy Punchline is somewhat misleading and counterintuitive because we are committed to long-form deliberation rather than just the “punchlines.” We hope this book may withstand the test of time and inspire you with ideas for years to come.

As Princeton students, it’s easy for us to develop a naïveté about the scope and scale of the urgent problems our society is facing. Such disengagement could limit us into rather linear thinking about the purpose of our lives and careers. But if we learn from more frontier ideas and thinkers, we can cultivate a stronger sense of social responsibility, tackle a more diverse range of problems, and flourish in a more fulfilling and purposeful life. That’s the ultimate punchline I hope Policy Punchline can exemplify.

I write these words with a tad bit of sadness, as I’ll be graduating in a year and this is likely the last preface I’ll write for our Policy Punchline books. But I’m incredibly proud of the growth of our team as more younger members are starting to co-host interviews, contact guests, and become an essential part of this podcast. I am no longer the only voice of the show, and when I graduate in 2021, our team will continue to present fascinating dialogues to our listeners.

I am extremely grateful to my hardworking teammates, who continue to inspire me every day, and to all our guests and mentors, without whom this podcast would not have flourished to this day. I sincerely hope that you’ll enjoy the conversations in this book and let your mind wander beyond the “punchlines” to an exciting and open world. Thank you again for supporting Policy Punchline.

Tiger Gao

Host & Co-Founder of Policy Punchline

Contents:

Introduction by Professor Atif Mian

Preface by Tiger Gao