WEBVTT - What Invention Deserves Way More Credit Than We Give It? 0:00:00.120 --> 0:00:02.480 Guess what, Mango? What's that? Will? All Right? So, I 0:00:02.480 --> 0:00:04.920 know we're doing this episode on inventions, and I wanted 0:00:04.960 --> 0:00:07.160 to give you an update. I'm not giving up on 0:00:07.200 --> 0:00:09.440 my invention, and tell me about that again. You know 0:00:09.480 --> 0:00:13.280 the pudding truck. We talked about this putting ruck. So 0:00:13.360 --> 0:00:14.480 this is the one where you take one of those 0:00:14.520 --> 0:00:17.120 cement trucks with this huge spinny things on the back 0:00:17.160 --> 0:00:19.480 and fill it with pudding, right, yeah, exactly. I mean 0:00:19.480 --> 0:00:22.200 I've had this vision for years and one day, I mean, 0:00:22.239 --> 0:00:25.279 this is probably when I retire, but I'm determined to 0:00:25.360 --> 0:00:27.360 do this. I don't know how much it costs to 0:00:27.360 --> 0:00:29.440 buy one of these trucks new, but we'll figure that 0:00:29.440 --> 0:00:31.760 out in the future. But I'm determined to make this 0:00:31.840 --> 0:00:34.159 thing work. And you know, I'm planning to compete with 0:00:34.200 --> 0:00:36.240 the ice cream truck. I mean, go head to head 0:00:36.320 --> 0:00:38.919 with the ice cream truck. I want to drive around neighborhoods, 0:00:38.920 --> 0:00:41.920 but you know, instead, the pudding will come pouring down 0:00:41.960 --> 0:00:44.919 that cement shoot. Kids will just hold their hands out 0:00:44.960 --> 0:00:46.960 and the pudding will just like rush into them, and 0:00:47.000 --> 0:00:49.360 the people are gonna love it. I've just I've got 0:00:49.360 --> 0:00:51.600 to figure out how to pass the health code stuff first, 0:00:51.680 --> 0:00:55.240 but but again I'll figure that out later. Yeah, those 0:00:55.240 --> 0:00:58.280 minor details. So I know it's brilliant, but it seems 0:00:58.280 --> 0:00:59.920 like a bit of a stretch to call it an invention, 0:01:00.040 --> 0:01:02.200 and especially when I think about all the cool stuff 0:01:02.240 --> 0:01:04.640 we read about this week. I mean, I I certainly 0:01:04.640 --> 0:01:06.520 don't want to crush your dreams. You should, you should 0:01:06.520 --> 0:01:09.119 definitely pursue this, but we should probably also talk about 0:01:09.160 --> 0:01:11.880 some of the most important inventions that shaped the modern economy. 0:01:12.000 --> 0:01:13.960 What do you say? All right, well, one day I 0:01:14.000 --> 0:01:34.039 think you'll understand more mango, But all right, let's get started. Hey, 0:01:34.080 --> 0:01:36.760 their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will 0:01:36.800 --> 0:01:39.000 Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good friend 0:01:39.080 --> 0:01:41.520 men Guestow, Ticketter and the man on the other side 0:01:41.520 --> 0:01:44.160 of the soundproof class who's giving us not one but 0:01:44.480 --> 0:01:48.040 two thumbs up. Thanks Tristan as our producer, Tristan McNeil. 0:01:48.480 --> 0:01:51.120 And today we're looking at some of the revolutionary ideas 0:01:51.200 --> 0:01:54.360 and breakthrough innovations that have helped make our economy what 0:01:54.520 --> 0:01:56.680 it is today. I mean, it's kind of crazy when 0:01:56.720 --> 0:01:59.200 you stop and think about how quickly humanity has gone 0:01:59.280 --> 0:02:04.240 from scattered, nomadic tribe to this current information based age, 0:02:04.320 --> 0:02:06.600 and of course a few things have happened in between. 0:02:06.640 --> 0:02:09.880 But it's pretty amazing to think about all this progress. 0:02:10.280 --> 0:02:12.240 Even the concept of money is, you know, what it 0:02:12.280 --> 0:02:15.000 looks like, what it can buy for us, All that 0:02:15.040 --> 0:02:17.760 has changed along the way too. And all this rapid 0:02:17.800 --> 0:02:20.680 evolution is due in no small part to some very 0:02:20.800 --> 0:02:25.320 unexpected consequences, you know, the surprising, often life changing impacts 0:02:25.360 --> 0:02:28.880 of a few key people and ideas and inventions. And 0:02:29.320 --> 0:02:31.560 so that's what we're planning to cover today. Yeah, and 0:02:31.600 --> 0:02:33.680 we should definitely say upfront that today's episode is a 0:02:33.680 --> 0:02:36.960 little different than most. The theme and content is directly 0:02:37.000 --> 0:02:39.120 inspired by a new book out this month called Fifty 0:02:39.120 --> 0:02:42.079 Inventions That Shaped the Modern Economy, and our guest is 0:02:42.080 --> 0:02:44.600 actually the best selling author of that book, Tim Harford. 0:02:44.919 --> 0:02:48.680 So Tim is a rare cripple threat. He's an author, broadcaster, 0:02:48.919 --> 0:02:53.080 and an economists so we're super excited to talk to 0:02:53.120 --> 0:02:55.400 him and see what juicy details he has about about 0:02:55.440 --> 0:02:57.960 the world economy. Yeah, and it probably sounds a little 0:02:57.960 --> 0:02:59.920 strange to some of our listeners to hear us talking 0:03:00.000 --> 0:03:02.800 about the juicy details. I mean, it sounds a little 0:03:02.800 --> 0:03:05.480 strange to me, to be honest. Yeah, so you mean 0:03:05.520 --> 0:03:08.359 the fact that economics can be interesting pretty much? Yeah. 0:03:08.400 --> 0:03:10.720 I mean a lot of people assume economics is this 0:03:10.880 --> 0:03:15.680 extremely complex and therefore unapproachable science, and you know, people 0:03:15.680 --> 0:03:18.200 feel like it's too abstract of a concept to truly 0:03:18.280 --> 0:03:20.840 wrap your head around and make it real to us, 0:03:20.840 --> 0:03:23.640 you know, for us to really understand it. And it 0:03:23.720 --> 0:03:26.399 has this reputation of being kind of boring or tedious, 0:03:26.400 --> 0:03:29.040 and some people even call it the dismal science for 0:03:29.080 --> 0:03:31.560 this reason. Yeah, which is true. A lot of people 0:03:31.600 --> 0:03:33.720 call it that because economics can lead to some pretty 0:03:33.800 --> 0:03:37.000 upsetting outcomes, like the idea that robot labor will one 0:03:37.080 --> 0:03:40.080 day supplant the need for human workers. But I actually 0:03:40.120 --> 0:03:42.880 read about how that nickname originated, and the funny thing 0:03:42.960 --> 0:03:45.560 is it really points to the merits of economics rather 0:03:45.600 --> 0:03:47.720 than his drawbacks. Oh really, I haven't. I haven't read this. 0:03:47.800 --> 0:03:50.160 What did you read? Yes? So, according to this article 0:03:50.200 --> 0:03:53.760 in The Atlantic, Thomas Carlyle, a Scottish writer and philosopher, 0:03:53.840 --> 0:03:56.600 called economics the dismal science when he was writing in 0:03:56.680 --> 0:03:59.520 defense of the slave trade in the West Indies, and 0:03:59.560 --> 0:04:02.080 he was actual arguing that white plantation owners should be 0:04:02.080 --> 0:04:05.320 able to force black plantation workers to be their slaves. 0:04:05.360 --> 0:04:08.880 But to Carlins chagrin, he wasn't able to justify this 0:04:08.960 --> 0:04:12.400 by looking at the economics. Apparently, like supply and demand 0:04:12.440 --> 0:04:15.040 are more in favor of leaving people alone rather than 0:04:15.080 --> 0:04:17.400 forcing them in to do labor. Wow, I don't think 0:04:17.440 --> 0:04:20.360 i'd heard that. So, so Carlisle called economics a dismal 0:04:20.400 --> 0:04:22.760 science because it wouldn't back up slavery. Is that what 0:04:22.760 --> 0:04:26.000 you're saying, Yeah, And then he railed against political economy, 0:04:26.040 --> 0:04:29.719 calling it a jury, desolate and indeed quite adject and 0:04:29.760 --> 0:04:34.200 distressing science, what we might call the dismal science. Yeah. 0:04:34.200 --> 0:04:36.279 So if you really trace the term back to its root, 0:04:36.360 --> 0:04:40.040 it's a nickname that connects economics with morality, and it's 0:04:40.040 --> 0:04:44.120 also this argument against racism and slavery. Like Carlo considered 0:04:44.160 --> 0:04:47.040 that to be a failing of economic thought. But obviously 0:04:47.160 --> 0:04:50.040 for any decent person that's a really good thing. That's 0:04:50.040 --> 0:04:52.120 pretty cool that that's where that came from. So the 0:04:52.200 --> 0:04:55.120 dismal science is actually a tool for making the world 0:04:55.440 --> 0:04:58.800 less dismal. Exactly. So, well, why don't we go ahead 0:04:58.800 --> 0:05:01.000 and talk about one of the big inventions and and 0:05:01.040 --> 0:05:03.960 one that also made life less dismal, especially during the 0:05:03.960 --> 0:05:07.000 hot summers. We're talking about air conditioning, yeah, I mean, 0:05:07.080 --> 0:05:08.720 you know, you know, we all know air conditioning was 0:05:08.760 --> 0:05:10.840 a big deal, but sometimes you do have to stop 0:05:10.880 --> 0:05:14.039 and really consider the impact of an invention like this. Yeah, 0:05:14.279 --> 0:05:16.480 so I'd say air conditioning is one of those inventions 0:05:16.560 --> 0:05:18.719 whose impact is always staring you right in the face, 0:05:18.800 --> 0:05:21.440 yet you never really quite make the connection. And and 0:05:21.480 --> 0:05:24.520 I remember hearing how much like how much less legislation 0:05:24.640 --> 0:05:27.640 was passed by the founding fathers and and future congresses 0:05:27.680 --> 0:05:30.600 because of the summer heat. But uh, you know, just 0:05:30.600 --> 0:05:34.280 think about skyscrapers, like they're these beautiful bastions of finance 0:05:34.320 --> 0:05:37.640 and commerce. But without air conditioning, we'd never be able 0:05:37.680 --> 0:05:40.560 to occupy those buildings, and people on the higher floors 0:05:40.680 --> 0:05:42.680 they'd be baked live. You know, it's weird. I had 0:05:42.720 --> 0:05:44.559 never really thought about that, But that's a good point. 0:05:44.560 --> 0:05:47.960 And air conditioning is definitely good for all kinds of business. 0:05:47.960 --> 0:05:49.839 I mean, actually, one when you were saying skyscrapers, I 0:05:49.880 --> 0:05:52.120 was thinking about shopping malls. I mean, there's no way 0:05:52.160 --> 0:05:54.279 those would exist. No one would want to walk around 0:05:54.320 --> 0:05:56.400 in them because it would just be too hot in there, 0:05:56.440 --> 0:05:59.479 but they were a huge part of the American economy 0:05:59.480 --> 0:06:01.760 for deck aids. Yeah, and even if you look at 0:06:01.800 --> 0:06:05.080 online shopping, like remember computers stopped working all together if 0:06:05.120 --> 0:06:07.680 they get too hot. So really, without air conditioning, we 0:06:07.680 --> 0:06:10.520 wouldn't have the vast server farms that make online shopping 0:06:10.560 --> 0:06:13.760 and really the Internet itself possible. Yeah, that's very true. 0:06:13.760 --> 0:06:16.400 And it's hard to imagine cities in the Nations Sun Belt, 0:06:16.440 --> 0:06:19.640 you know, ever, of really emerging without air conditioning. We 0:06:19.760 --> 0:06:21.880 just think about how hot it's been here this summer 0:06:21.920 --> 0:06:24.560 in Atlanta. I can't imagine there's anyway you would have 0:06:24.600 --> 0:06:26.880 made the move to Atlanta if we didn't have air conditioning, 0:06:27.920 --> 0:06:30.960 not when I looked at it, like all the states 0:06:30.960 --> 0:06:33.760 in the Sun Belt, so there's Georgia, but also like Arizona, 0:06:33.839 --> 0:06:37.400 New Mexico, Texas, Southern California. It's amazing to think they 0:06:37.440 --> 0:06:40.240 all experienced population booms during the second half of the 0:06:40.279 --> 0:06:43.920 twentieth century, you know, when air conditioning became commonplace and 0:06:43.960 --> 0:06:46.760 people's homes and offices, so they it's a boom. But 0:06:46.880 --> 0:06:48.839 like how big of a boom are we talking? Well? 0:06:49.040 --> 0:06:51.960 Pretty big. I mean between nineteen fifty and two thousand, 0:06:52.360 --> 0:06:54.840 the sun belts share of the national population shot up 0:06:54.839 --> 0:06:58.880 from twenty percent to Oh wow, that's pretty huge, all right, 0:06:58.960 --> 0:07:01.760 So the economic effect of air conditioning are definitely coming 0:07:01.760 --> 0:07:03.920 into focus now. But I want to back up a 0:07:03.960 --> 0:07:06.640 little bit. I mean, what's the story behind air conditioning, 0:07:06.800 --> 0:07:09.320 you know, the origins of it. I know Tim included 0:07:09.360 --> 0:07:11.680 it on his list, but there's got to be some good, 0:07:11.720 --> 0:07:14.640 you know, background stories there. Absolutely, so finding a way 0:07:14.640 --> 0:07:16.800 to cool down in hot weather has been on humanity's 0:07:16.840 --> 0:07:19.760 mind forever and and in fact, there was this eccentric 0:07:20.000 --> 0:07:23.920 Roman emperor named Ella Gabalus who sent a thousand slaves 0:07:24.000 --> 0:07:27.080 into the mountains to fetch huge amounts of snow, which 0:07:27.080 --> 0:07:29.320 he then had them pile up in his garden. And 0:07:29.320 --> 0:07:31.320 and that way it was just when the wind kicked up, 0:07:31.360 --> 0:07:33.920 the cooler air would blow inside his palace. So it 0:07:34.000 --> 0:07:36.640 took a thousand people to try to cool this one dude, 0:07:37.160 --> 0:07:40.280 Ella Gables. And I'm not sure that I remember that name. 0:07:40.280 --> 0:07:42.160 I would have to imagine that would not be easy 0:07:42.200 --> 0:07:45.360 to implement, though on like a wider scale, though definitely not. 0:07:45.520 --> 0:07:48.280 The concept was revived in the nineteenth century by an 0:07:48.360 --> 0:07:52.680 entrepreneur from Boston named Frederick Tudor. In winter, Tutor harvested 0:07:52.720 --> 0:07:55.560 blocks of ice from frozen New England lakes. Then he 0:07:55.680 --> 0:07:58.720 packed the blocks and sawdust which served his installation, and 0:07:59.040 --> 0:08:01.760 he shipped the warmer regions in the summer. And the 0:08:01.800 --> 0:08:04.760 practice grew so popular that a mild New England winter 0:08:05.080 --> 0:08:08.119 like it would cause this panic all over and people 0:08:08.120 --> 0:08:11.320 would worry about a potential ice famine next summer. But 0:08:11.400 --> 0:08:14.360 my favorite revival of this Roman emperor's methods happened in 0:08:15.080 --> 0:08:17.240 one after a President Garfield took a bullet from a 0:08:17.280 --> 0:08:20.880 would be assassin. He had naval engineers construct this makeshift 0:08:20.920 --> 0:08:23.600 cooling device to keep him comfortable while he slowly died. 0:08:23.720 --> 0:08:27.240 That summer, so sad, but following the Romans lead, the 0:08:27.280 --> 0:08:30.040 device cooled the room down by blowing air over a 0:08:30.040 --> 0:08:33.560 cold material. So you know, Garfield was super smart and 0:08:33.559 --> 0:08:35.960 and these naval officers are bright, and they got cotton 0:08:36.000 --> 0:08:38.080 sheets that have been soaked in ice water, and that's 0:08:38.080 --> 0:08:40.520 how they created the coldness. That's the best the Navy 0:08:40.559 --> 0:08:42.400 could come up with. I have to be honest, that 0:08:42.400 --> 0:08:45.560 doesn't seem that impressive. Well it's kind of impressive, but 0:08:46.960 --> 0:08:49.600 just like with the Emperor's snow Mountain. It was incredibly 0:08:49.640 --> 0:08:53.360 wasteful and impractical, and Garfield's caretakers supposedly went through half 0:08:53.440 --> 0:08:56.120 a million pounds of ice in just two one. Oh wow, 0:08:56.160 --> 0:08:58.480 that is insane. All right, well, why don't you tell 0:08:58.520 --> 0:09:01.160 us how proper air conditioning then became a reality. I 0:09:01.520 --> 0:09:04.360 appreciated all that background information, but let's talk about more 0:09:04.440 --> 0:09:06.600 modern form. This is not how it happens right now. 0:09:06.640 --> 0:09:11.280 I said, no, people aren't carrying snowback. Actually, before I 0:09:11.280 --> 0:09:12.880 do that, I didn't want to go on a little 0:09:12.920 --> 0:09:16.440 tangent about how smart Garfield was. He was this president 0:09:16.480 --> 0:09:18.520 that could write Latin with one hand and Greek with 0:09:18.559 --> 0:09:21.240 the other. Um, but he was also too smart for 0:09:21.240 --> 0:09:23.720 his own good. Like you know, when he caught that bullet, 0:09:23.760 --> 0:09:26.160 he had doctors used a metal detector to locate it, 0:09:26.480 --> 0:09:28.560 which is really a smart idea, but they forgot to 0:09:28.720 --> 0:09:33.160 count for the bed springs. So the doctors went all 0:09:33.200 --> 0:09:36.040 these exploratory missions, like trying to find things they thought 0:09:36.080 --> 0:09:41.480 were the bullet, but I thought just bullets. Tangent, that's 0:09:41.480 --> 0:09:45.560 a good one. But back to air conditioning. So the 0:09:45.600 --> 0:09:48.600 air conditioning we know today got its start in nineteen two, 0:09:48.640 --> 0:09:52.760 following the much needed advent of electricity, and and uh, surprisingly, 0:09:52.840 --> 0:09:54.960 the invention of a C had nothing to do with 0:09:55.000 --> 0:09:58.840 making people more comfortable. It was actually invented by Willis Carrier. 0:09:59.280 --> 0:10:02.240 He's this young engineer at a heating company called Buffalo Forge, 0:10:02.280 --> 0:10:05.080 and it was this big printing company had actually tasked 0:10:05.120 --> 0:10:07.720 Buffalo Forge with creating a system to help control the 0:10:07.800 --> 0:10:10.880 heat and humidity and their factories. So they needed something 0:10:10.920 --> 0:10:13.560 to help prevent paper from wrinkling and from their ink 0:10:13.559 --> 0:10:16.040 from running down the paper like during the printing process. 0:10:16.080 --> 0:10:18.320 And so Carrier was put in charge of the project 0:10:18.320 --> 0:10:22.280 and he's quickly figured out that circulating air over coils 0:10:22.320 --> 0:10:25.319 that were chilled by compressed ammonia, that that could help 0:10:25.440 --> 0:10:29.679 keep the humidity at a constant and as you might guess, 0:10:29.760 --> 0:10:32.480 this thrilled the printers to no end. Wow, that's interesting 0:10:32.480 --> 0:10:34.959 that it really wasn't about people at first. So how 0:10:34.960 --> 0:10:37.880 did this transition happen, you know, going from printing factories 0:10:37.920 --> 0:10:40.720 to people's homes. Well, it was kind of slow because 0:10:40.760 --> 0:10:44.080 Carrier's original model was pretty massive, and at first the 0:10:44.080 --> 0:10:47.200 company just stuck to the other industrial clients, like you know, 0:10:47.280 --> 0:10:50.560 other places have been plagued by humidity. Uh, you can 0:10:50.600 --> 0:10:53.360 think about like flour mills, or even like the Gillette 0:10:53.360 --> 0:10:56.000 Corporation was a client. The moisture from humidity was just 0:10:56.040 --> 0:10:58.280 as bad for razor blades as it was for paper. 0:10:58.760 --> 0:11:02.840 But um Still, Carrier knew his invention had wider applications, 0:11:02.880 --> 0:11:05.839 so four years later, in nineteen o six, he started 0:11:05.840 --> 0:11:08.640 looking into possibilities for adding a C to public buildings, 0:11:08.880 --> 0:11:11.920 but instead of government buildings or offices, he decided to 0:11:11.920 --> 0:11:15.440 target theaters, which traditionally shut down during the summer months. Yeah, 0:11:15.480 --> 0:11:17.360 I mean, I can imagine. You can imagine all these 0:11:17.400 --> 0:11:20.640 packed bodies and one room the windows no a C. 0:11:20.880 --> 0:11:23.240 And it's definitely not a great recipe for getting people 0:11:23.280 --> 0:11:26.240 in there, not at all, and especially considering the best 0:11:26.280 --> 0:11:28.600 option for cooling a theater at the time was the 0:11:28.600 --> 0:11:31.319 way Tutor used to do it, Like some theaters had 0:11:31.400 --> 0:11:33.559 used large fans to blow air over ice and help 0:11:33.600 --> 0:11:36.800 cool the audience. I mean the downside was, you forget 0:11:36.800 --> 0:11:39.320 about this, that pollution was on the rise, and especially 0:11:39.320 --> 0:11:41.880 in New England's lakes, so so the damp air from 0:11:41.880 --> 0:11:45.679 the melting ice it's sometimes made the whole place reek 0:11:45.800 --> 0:11:50.040 and so um so so Carrier's new device, which which 0:11:50.080 --> 0:11:53.200 he called the weather Maker, was this obvious upgrade, you know. 0:11:53.400 --> 0:11:56.000 I mean, I've heard this before about people's first exposured 0:11:56.080 --> 0:11:58.439 air conditioning being in the nineteen twenties, you know, back 0:11:58.440 --> 0:12:01.079 when movie theaters started popping up ball over the country. 0:12:01.440 --> 0:12:03.400 But it actually never occurred to me to think about 0:12:03.440 --> 0:12:06.000 the economic upheam that would have occurred here. I mean, 0:12:06.400 --> 0:12:08.120 you know, look at where we are now with summer 0:12:08.160 --> 0:12:11.760 blockbusters raking in billions every year, and you figure a 0:12:11.760 --> 0:12:13.320 lot of this has to do with people wanting to 0:12:13.320 --> 0:12:15.680 get a break from the heat. Absolutely, And and when 0:12:15.720 --> 0:12:19.160 home model Lacey's started being produced on mass like in 0:12:19.160 --> 0:12:22.720 in the post war nineteen fifties, they completely changed the 0:12:22.760 --> 0:12:25.600 way we live and the boom was insane. So I 0:12:25.679 --> 0:12:27.600 just looked at these figures and I saw that there 0:12:27.600 --> 0:12:32.720 were seventy four thousand units sold in ninety versts a 0:12:32.880 --> 0:12:35.960 million units sold in nineteen fifty three. So that's like 0:12:36.000 --> 0:12:38.319 a crazy economic boom. But you know, the thing I 0:12:38.360 --> 0:12:40.559 always think when I think of economic booms, like, I've 0:12:40.559 --> 0:12:43.280 got to mention this is the mini golf craze in 0:12:43.360 --> 0:12:46.320 the they put like one course on a rooftop and 0:12:46.360 --> 0:12:49.439 in four years there were a hundred fifty courses on rooftops, 0:12:49.480 --> 0:12:52.760 like but actually there's a course on the roof of 0:12:52.760 --> 0:12:55.800 our building here, I know, one of the few remaining. 0:12:55.840 --> 0:12:59.160 I guess. Yeah. So it's impressive, but but the A 0:12:59.240 --> 0:13:01.800 C is way more actical. Wow, it's it's interesting to 0:13:01.800 --> 0:13:03.000 think about it. And I know we want to talk 0:13:03.000 --> 0:13:04.880 about a lot more inventions, but first I feel like 0:13:04.920 --> 0:13:06.840 we need to get Tim Harford himself on the line 0:13:06.840 --> 0:13:09.319 to give us a rundown of some of his favorite inventions. 0:13:16.120 --> 0:13:19.199 So our guest today as an award winning journalist, economist, 0:13:19.280 --> 0:13:22.959 and broadcaster triple threat. As we mentioned earlier in the episode, 0:13:23.320 --> 0:13:26.239 he's the author of the best selling The Undercover Economists, 0:13:26.320 --> 0:13:28.920 as well as Messy. But today we're going to be 0:13:28.960 --> 0:13:31.600 talking to him about this terrific book that we've been 0:13:31.920 --> 0:13:35.440 speaking about all episode long, and that's fifty inventions that 0:13:35.520 --> 0:13:39.280 shape the modern economy. Tim Harford, welcome to Part Time Genius. 0:13:39.480 --> 0:13:41.680 It's great to be on the show. Thank you. Now. 0:13:41.800 --> 0:13:44.439 I know that, um, when we asked you to come 0:13:44.480 --> 0:13:46.800 on the show, you said that you would only appear 0:13:46.920 --> 0:13:49.600 if both Manguesh and I were on the line, and 0:13:49.679 --> 0:13:53.079 I've got bad news. This uh, this hurricane now tropical 0:13:53.120 --> 0:13:54.959 storm has thrown us for a bit of a loop. 0:13:55.040 --> 0:13:58.400 So I appreciate your willingness still to come on despite 0:13:58.400 --> 0:14:01.000 what we'd agreed to earlier. It's I felt it was 0:14:01.040 --> 0:14:04.319 the least I could do. Although you see, my familiarity 0:14:04.320 --> 0:14:07.040 with American geography is is not as hot as it 0:14:07.160 --> 0:14:09.120 might be. So for all I know you, you guys 0:14:09.160 --> 0:14:12.000 are actually speaking in Alaska and there aren't any hurricanes there. 0:14:12.000 --> 0:14:14.880 But in all seriousness, I hope that that you and 0:14:14.920 --> 0:14:17.480 all your colleagues are safe. Thank you very much. Everyone 0:14:17.559 --> 0:14:20.400 has done fine. Our our studios are in Atlanta, and 0:14:20.440 --> 0:14:22.600 for our listeners, let you in on a little bit 0:14:22.600 --> 0:14:25.160 of a secret. We don't always record our interviews on 0:14:25.200 --> 0:14:27.840 the same days as the rest of our episode, and 0:14:27.880 --> 0:14:30.320 so our offices have been closed for a couple of days. 0:14:30.400 --> 0:14:32.680 But everyone seems to be okay, and so our thoughts 0:14:32.680 --> 0:14:36.240 are obviously with all of those affected by Hurricane Irma 0:14:36.880 --> 0:14:39.960 over the past few days in Florida and everywhere else. 0:14:40.360 --> 0:14:42.640 But let's get started to talk about this book that 0:14:42.680 --> 0:14:45.680 we've really fallen in love with, Fifty inventions that shape 0:14:45.720 --> 0:14:48.200 the modern economy, One of the things I love about 0:14:48.200 --> 0:14:51.040 it is that even though it's really structured as this 0:14:51.600 --> 0:14:54.240 really kind of a massive list and we love list, 0:14:54.360 --> 0:14:58.400 there's still such a terrific narrative quality throughout the book, 0:14:58.440 --> 0:15:00.760 and you feel like you can follow the these stories. 0:15:00.840 --> 0:15:03.280 And I was just wondering, you know how much time 0:15:03.400 --> 0:15:05.960 it took to try to pull this off, because you 0:15:06.000 --> 0:15:10.000 could just say, here are fifty inventions and facts about them, 0:15:10.160 --> 0:15:13.400 but you really took such great efforts to weave then 0:15:13.520 --> 0:15:15.960 such terrific narrative through all of this. I was just 0:15:15.960 --> 0:15:18.520 curious to hear about the process of writing this book. 0:15:19.600 --> 0:15:21.280 You're very kind, thank you. I mean, one of the 0:15:21.360 --> 0:15:25.840 great things about um the way that I wrote the 0:15:25.840 --> 0:15:29.200 book was there's also a BBC series based on the book, 0:15:29.240 --> 0:15:33.680 and it's it's nine minute episodes, and each episode has 0:15:33.680 --> 0:15:36.880 got to stand alone because somebody might just tune in, 0:15:37.080 --> 0:15:41.000 they might just listen to that one story and there's 0:15:41.000 --> 0:15:43.280 no context for anything, and so you've you've got to 0:15:43.280 --> 0:15:47.920 make the story work. And nine minutes he is about words. 0:15:48.360 --> 0:15:50.920 It's long enough to say some interesting stuff, but it's 0:15:51.040 --> 0:15:53.160 it's never long enough to say everything you might want 0:15:53.240 --> 0:15:55.800 to say, And so you've got to pick a good 0:15:55.840 --> 0:16:01.720 hook and drive towards a particular point, and there's loads 0:16:01.760 --> 0:16:04.200 and loads that that you always leave out. And I 0:16:04.240 --> 0:16:08.560 found actually incredibly fun to write like that. I had 0:16:08.560 --> 0:16:11.480 never really quite written a book in that style before, 0:16:11.520 --> 0:16:14.760 but it worked, It worked nicely. So yeah, the story 0:16:14.840 --> 0:16:17.160 is always the thing. Well, it was terrific. And part 0:16:17.160 --> 0:16:20.600 of the fun is is seeing chapters that you don't 0:16:20.680 --> 0:16:23.920 always realize just how entertaining or interesting they're going to be. 0:16:24.040 --> 0:16:26.880 Just just as an example, you know, a chapter on 0:16:27.080 --> 0:16:29.760 concrete where you're talking about the influence that it had. 0:16:29.840 --> 0:16:31.680 And I have to mean, when I first saw you'd 0:16:31.680 --> 0:16:34.880 listed concrete as one of these inventions that had shaped 0:16:34.920 --> 0:16:37.440 the modern economy, I really thought it was going to 0:16:37.480 --> 0:16:40.440 be about I don't know, maybe communist structures and Edison. 0:16:40.600 --> 0:16:44.480 But you know, you talk about how concrete is influencing education, 0:16:44.680 --> 0:16:46.400 so I was hoping maybe you could tell us a 0:16:46.440 --> 0:16:48.880 little bit about that, and and also why you find 0:16:48.920 --> 0:16:52.360 concrete so interesting. Yeah, I mean I should say, Chushia 0:16:52.360 --> 0:16:55.600 of form of Soviet Premier did once give a two 0:16:55.680 --> 0:16:58.160 hour lecture on the subject of concrete and what good 0:16:58.200 --> 0:17:02.040 Soviet concrete should be like, So it's there is there 0:17:02.120 --> 0:17:05.560 is some Soviet brutalism in there, but yeah. So I 0:17:05.600 --> 0:17:08.240 began with a great story that I heard from the 0:17:08.240 --> 0:17:14.400 development economist Charles Kenny about using a concrete ready mixed 0:17:14.440 --> 0:17:18.440 concrete as an anti poverty program in rural Mexico about 0:17:18.440 --> 0:17:23.040 fifteen years ago. So development organizations and governments are always 0:17:23.040 --> 0:17:25.600 trying to figure out where if we throw some money 0:17:25.600 --> 0:17:27.960 at the problem of poverty, is there something we can do. 0:17:28.280 --> 0:17:30.280 Maybe we should give people cash, maybe we should give 0:17:30.280 --> 0:17:34.479 people vaccinations, maybe we should provide schools. This particular poverty 0:17:34.520 --> 0:17:37.320 program anti poverty program said, we are going to provide 0:17:37.560 --> 0:17:41.680 ready mixed concrete. We're going to drive through these low 0:17:41.760 --> 0:17:46.000 income townships right up to people's doors. Obviously, it's it's 0:17:46.000 --> 0:17:47.800 pre arranged whore you're going to go to. And then 0:17:47.960 --> 0:17:50.840 they opened the door and you just pour the ready 0:17:50.880 --> 0:17:56.359 mixed concrete from the mixer lorry the mixer truck straight 0:17:56.359 --> 0:18:00.000 into the front room. And the people who live there 0:18:00.080 --> 0:18:02.399 have been given instructions as to how to smooth it 0:18:02.440 --> 0:18:04.600 out and look after it themselves, and they just wait 0:18:04.680 --> 0:18:08.040 and give it a few hours and it cures and 0:18:08.080 --> 0:18:11.320 then you have a concrete floor and the truck drives 0:18:11.320 --> 0:18:13.679 off to the next household, and it turns out to 0:18:13.760 --> 0:18:18.920 be fantastically effective as an anti poverty intervention because these 0:18:18.960 --> 0:18:23.200 floors are they're much more clean, they're much more hygieneq. 0:18:23.640 --> 0:18:26.480 In particular, there's a problem with parasitic worms that the 0:18:26.520 --> 0:18:28.879 kids will pick up through their their bare feet, and 0:18:28.920 --> 0:18:33.000 they make them sick they missed school. Put the concrete 0:18:33.000 --> 0:18:35.919 floor in and this problem largely goes away, and so 0:18:36.000 --> 0:18:38.280 the whole health of the household, the mental health of 0:18:38.320 --> 0:18:41.920 the parents, the physical health of the children all improves. 0:18:41.920 --> 0:18:45.240 And it's incredibly cheap. And so I was just trying 0:18:45.280 --> 0:18:48.399 to get people to look at this really unromantic substance 0:18:49.200 --> 0:18:51.359 in a different way. If we use it wisely, it 0:18:51.440 --> 0:18:54.439 can do a tremendous amount of good. Another invention that 0:18:54.480 --> 0:18:56.879 you talk about, and something that we actually covered a 0:18:56.920 --> 0:18:59.040 bit in an episode we did a few weeks ago 0:18:59.240 --> 0:19:03.000 on ike and their Secrets of IKEA. I'm curious to 0:19:03.040 --> 0:19:05.480 hear from, you know, including the Billy bookcase and a 0:19:05.640 --> 0:19:08.479 list of the inventions you know what makes it so 0:19:08.520 --> 0:19:10.520 special and worthy of being on a list like this. 0:19:11.119 --> 0:19:13.080 I'm totally going to download that episode. By the way, 0:19:13.119 --> 0:19:15.920 that sounds great. The reason I put the Billy Bookcase 0:19:16.000 --> 0:19:18.679 in was because I wanted people to think about what 0:19:18.800 --> 0:19:22.760 innovation looks like in a modern economy. We get very 0:19:22.760 --> 0:19:28.840 fixated on certain particularly sexy, eye catching innovations, so things 0:19:28.880 --> 0:19:34.560 like the latest iPhone, m Google algorithms, big data, and 0:19:34.680 --> 0:19:37.960 actually a lot of the innovation that that makes the 0:19:37.960 --> 0:19:41.280 modern economy what it is is very simple. It's unromantic. 0:19:41.600 --> 0:19:44.639 It's all about process. It's all about shaving off a 0:19:44.640 --> 0:19:47.280 bit of cost here, a bit of cost. They're getting 0:19:47.280 --> 0:19:50.240 the supply chains working a bit more smoothly, maybe trying 0:19:50.240 --> 0:19:55.240 to get the logistics reduced transport costs. It's it's not sexy, 0:19:55.480 --> 0:19:59.560 it's not exciting, but it is the reason why the 0:19:59.720 --> 0:20:04.240 you know, the dollar in your wallet goes so much further. 0:20:04.320 --> 0:20:07.080 You know, for an hour's work, you can buy much 0:20:07.119 --> 0:20:11.280 more than you could thirty, forty, fifty hundred years ago. 0:20:11.560 --> 0:20:16.960 And a lot of that is just this very a straightforward, unromantic, 0:20:17.359 --> 0:20:22.000 unheralded logistical innovation. And the Billy bookcase stands as the 0:20:22.080 --> 0:20:24.760