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Peter Leeson

Professor of Economics and Law, George Mason University · 1 appearance on the record.

computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →

academicauthorpeterleeson.com ↗Wikipedia ↗

Peter Leeson is an economist who applies rational choice theory to informal institutions, self-governance, and seemingly bizarre social and legal rituals. He is best known for his books examining unconventional economic behavior, including The Invisible Hook and WTF?! An Economic Tour of the Weird.

11statements → 6claims → 6claims resolved → 33%fully supported → 4.09/5average certainty → 2.09/5average debate potential → 1said about them ↓

2 supported 3 partly supported 1 contradicted how the 6 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

6 assertions · 1 opinion · 4 insights · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 6 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 6 are resolved. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Peter argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Assertion Supported
18th-Century Pirate Constitutions Included Workman's Compensation for Limbs Lost in Battle
“Another key thing was piratical social insurance, a kind of workman's comp system. You know, if you lost your left arm in battle with a potential prize, you would receive out of the crew's common booty that he'd seized, compensation of a certain number of piec…”
Peter Leeson Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 25:50 a16z Podcast | The Why Behind the Weird

Their most notable contradicted claim

Assertion Contradicted
Economist Peter Leeson Documented Hundreds of Renaissance Insect and Rodent Trials
“I documented several hundred at least, and the trials often lasted long. They could, they certainly would last weeks. They could last many months”
Peter Leeson Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 3:48 a16z Podcast | The Why Behind the Weird

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

none yet certainty 1
none yet certainty 2
none yet certainty 3
75% certainty 4
25% certainty 5

weighted support: a fully supported claim counts one, a partly supported claim counts half. Each filled bar is clickable and opens exactly those claims; "none yet" means nothing said at that certainty level has resolved yet

How they sound: speaking style how? →

235 words/min while actually speaking · 5.1 um and uh per 1k words

No argument clarity score for Peter Leeson: no usable question→answer exchanges on raw tape (a fair score needs 8+). We do not score a sample that small. Roundtable and news formats yield far fewer direct exchanges than interviews.

Measured by listening to 4,120 words across 1 episode, but every recording we have of Peter Leeson is the aired feed, and an editor cleaned that audio before release. Some of the hesitation was cut before we ever heard it, so read these as floors: the true rates are at least this high. These are measurements of speaking style, not scores. How it's measured →

Everything Peter Leeson said on the a16z Podcast that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Opinion
Economist Peter Leeson Calls Polygraph Tests Scientifically Invalid Horseshit Like Astrology
“Totally horseshit. Like astrology, there are people who believe that polygraph tests are actually capable of physiologically measuring whether or not someone is lying or telling the truth, but the scientific community overwhelmingly and correctly rejects them.”
Peter Leeson Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 21:36 a16z Podcast | The Why Behind the Weird
Insight
Polygraphs Work by Manipulating Incentives Through Shared Belief, Not Biological Measurement
“You can't physiologically measure whether or not someone is lying or telling the truth. But the thing is, as long as people believe that they're real, then just like ordeals, they have the power to affect our incentives.”
Peter Leeson Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 22:30 a16z Podcast | The Why Behind the Weird
Insight
Seemingly Irrational Historical Rituals Are Actually Rational Economic Behaviors
“People engage in all kinds of stuff that seems batshit crazy, but if you examine it through the lens of economics, if you just think about it in terms of basic constraints, you know, the limitations that people confront given their environments and the incenti…”
Peter Leeson Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 1:06 a16z Podcast | The Why Behind the Weird
Assertion Partly supported
Most Defendants in Medieval Boiling Water Trials Were Actually Exonerated
“If you look at the historical evidence, it turns out the overwhelming majority of people who supposedly plunged their arms into boiling water were in fact exonerated.”
Peter Leeson Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 14:22 a16z Podcast | The Why Behind the Weird
Assertion Partly supported
Medieval Priest Manuals Instructed Clergy to Secretly Manipulate Ordeal Water Temperatures
“Instruction manuals that priests of this era had for conducting ordeals, what you'll find is a whole bunch of fishy business where they essentially tell you to do things like, you know, you'll boil the water in private so that nobody can see, which means you m…”
Peter Leeson Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 18:34 a16z Podcast | The Why Behind the Weird
Assertion Supported
18th-Century Pirate Constitutions Included Workman's Compensation for Limbs Lost in Battle
“Another key thing was piratical social insurance, a kind of workman's comp system. You know, if you lost your left arm in battle with a potential prize, you would receive out of the crew's common booty that he'd seized, compensation of a certain number of piec…”
Peter Leeson Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 25:50 a16z Podcast | The Why Behind the Weird
Insight
Historical Superstitious Beliefs Functioned as Substitute Technologies for Social Governance
“You can kind of think about, in part, beliefs as a substitute technology for the sort of physical technologies that we take for granted in the modern world, many of which, as you point out, historically didn't exist. So naturally, they relied more on beliefs a…”
Peter Leeson Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 10:52 a16z Podcast | The Why Behind the Weird
Insight
Medieval Ordeals Sought Facts While Witch Trials Extorted Forced Confessions
“Ordeals are about finding fact when you don't know. They're about doing the same thing that contemporary legal systems do. But witch trials were about basically extorting confessions from people that you wanted to hear.”
Peter Leeson Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 20:28 a16z Podcast | The Why Behind the Weird
Assertion Supported
Early Caribbean Pirates Governed Their Ships Using Constitutional Democracy
“Pirates used a form of early constitutional democracy in order to govern their ships.”
Peter Leeson Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 24:32 a16z Podcast | The Why Behind the Weird
Assertion Contradicted
Economist Peter Leeson Documented Hundreds of Renaissance Insect and Rodent Trials
“I documented several hundred at least, and the trials often lasted long. They could, they certainly would last weeks. They could last many months”
Peter Leeson Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 3:48 a16z Podcast | The Why Behind the Weird
Assertion Partly supported
Renaissance Courts Granted Insects and Rodents the Same Legal Rights as Humans
“They were prosecuted just like they were people. So they had all of the rights that would have attached to a person who had been accused of stealing somebody, somebody's crops, for example.”
Peter Leeson Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 4:45 a16z Podcast | The Why Behind the Weird

The other half of the tape: Peter Leeson's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 1 time in 1 episode on the a16z Podcast. every mention, with the transcript →

Every mention by year

tap a year for its mentions
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0112019episodes it came up in
000.50.5112019episodesmentions per episode
2019 1 mention in 1 episode

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
a16z Podcast | The Why Behind the Weird Jan 2, 2019 19m
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