On a podcast, the economist and blogger Tyler Cowen explains why he quit playing chess, even after managing to win New Jersey’s state chess champion

What Is Cowenism? - rene saenz

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2022-05-12 19:00:08

On a podcast, the economist and blogger Tyler Cowen explains why he quit playing chess, even after managing to win New Jersey’s state chess championship at the age of 15:

“One of the early things I learned playing chess, which I did when I was very young... I was always around people who were better than I was, including at young ages. Just to learn that there will always be people smarter than you was a great lesson to learn early, and a lot of smart people never learn it, but I learned it by age 11 or age 12.”

The actual story here, as I’m sure Tyler is aware, is not “there was someone smarter than me, so I quit”. Instead, the story is that Tyler could lose a much bigger game (his free time being spent on an activity with no reward) while seeming to win at a relatively smaller game (a chess championship).

In this sense, Tyler finds that he can “win” the biggest by constantly pushing their formulation of opportunity costs higher up the stack and aiming to maximize leverage over short-term success. Considering this as a philosophy of nested opportunity costs, heretofore referred to as Cowenism, offers insight into his most important work (including CWT) and provides context for many of his statements.

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