Free Thoughts

Megan McArdle joins us to talk about her new book The Up Side of Down: Why Failing Well is the Key to Success (2014). We don’t tend to think of failure as a good thing. But McArdle says that recognizing failure—and in some cases embracing it—is a crucial part of what makes American culture, markets, and society successful. But she also says we’re getting worse at dealing with failure. Is the world too fragile to tolerate failure now?

Show Notes and Further Reading

Megan McArdle, The Up Side of Down: Why Failing Well is the Key to Success(book)

Steven Johnson, The Ghost Map: The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic—and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World (book)

Steven Pinker, How the Mind Works (book)

Bruce M. Hood, SuperSense: Why We Believe in the Unbelieveable (book)

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