DISQUS

As for Caldwell on Hayek, you should chat about how Hayek as political philosopher was concerned with helping the poor through institutions and contrast him with other libertarians, as you did so well in a recent blog post.

If you discuss spontaneous order stuff, please be critical. In the price system, okay maybe; but gestures toward spontaneous emerging this-and-that in theoretical psychology and stuff about knowledge passed down through morality and law is weird. Also the central thesis of the book he is most well-known for is wrong, isn't it? Please discuss.

All three interviews will be great, I think.

Robin Hanson was interviewed by Russ Roberts on two very enjoyable EconTalk podcast episodes. The first was about health care, and the second was about signaling.

Talk about prediction markets, especially the controversy around his DARPA-funded work --- that will interest a broad audience and be a good intro, possibly. Get him to say some stuff about alternative political institutions related to futures markets.

Ask him about his medical-skepticism, but if he sketches ideas premised on evo-psych speculations, please give him some push back. I wouldn't waste a lot of time on post-human or cryogenic stuff as that's weird and not all that interesting, I think.

I'd avoid talk about Bayesian reasoning unless you want to dig directly into the controversy surrounding the different interpretations of probability --- something too dry for the format, I think.

Cognitive bias is an obvious point of conversation.

Press him about utilitarianism, or whatever it was that led him to take up Mankiw's challenge and come out in favor of a height-tax.

You might try turning him on himself, asking which criticisms of his ideas he finds strongest. I think he's a fair dealer and very clear headed, so that could be illuminating.