Things Roman Mars Has Said on Podcasts

“If I show you a building, I think you have a reaction to the building because of what you're exposed to and what you like and don't like. But if I could tell you the story of a building, I can make you fall in love with it. And then you see it. And then all of a sudden you see the merits, usually in its function, over your initial sort of take on its aesthetics.” — Roman Mars, Conversations with Tyler

Tyler Cowen asked what's gained by making an audio-only show about visual design. Mars said it gets around people's biases: telling the story of a design and the intentions behind it, rather than letting listeners react to how it looks.

Conversations with Tyler · 2026-10-28 Permalink → Listen →

Conversations with Tyler Around 42:55 into the episode

Roman Mars

…live here, or at least they did when they mostly lived here. Now they mostly live in colleges around the country, but I can hear everything in the house. So it's not perfect in that sense. But if they turn on a faucet in the kitchen, I can hear it. But other than that, I love my studio. It's great.

Tyler Cowen

What do you think are the advantages of doing a podcast or radio show about visual objects, but the show itself is audio only?

Roman Mars

Yeah. It has to do with overcoming people's biases. If I show you a building, I think you have a reaction to the building because of, you know, like what you're exposed to and what you like and don't like, and for all kinds of reasons, and good and bad. But if I could tell you the story of a building, I can make you fall in love with it. And then you see it. And then all of a sudden you see the merits, usually in its function over your initial sort of take on its aesthetics. And I think that there's something about when I was developing the show, you know, like 16, 17 years ago, I was really into that idea of telling the story of design versus having people react to the visuals of design and that it told a different story that was nice and needed to be told about intentionality and the things that we make and do and surround ourselves with.

Tyler Cowen

Now, you've been extremely productive and for a long period of time in the worlds of podcast, radio, and also writing. What do you think is your most unusual successful work habit?

Roman Mars

Huh. Unusual.

Tyler Cowen

So if you said, oh, I wake up early every morning, not everyone does it, but it's not unusual, right?

Speaker names come from our own diarization. The position is estimated from where the line sits in the episode.

“A lot of driving, on the highway in particular, is all designed around calming your brain so that you will go that fast, because humans are not evolved to go that fast. … Most people estimate when surveyed that a dash in a dividing line of a highway is two feet long, when in fact they're 10 to 15 feet long. And it is all there to calm your brain at going at high speeds so that you can go very fast and have it not freak you out.” — Roman Mars, Conversations with Tyler

Tyler Cowen asked whether suggested speed limits on ramps should just tell drivers the truth. Mars answered that highway design is built to lull drivers into going fast, so the road sometimes has to jolt them back out of that state.

Conversations with Tyler · 2026-10-28 Permalink → Listen →

Conversations with Tyler Around 37:57 into the episode

Roman Mars

…in me figuring that out and doing the math as I become a better driver or more confident driver or know the roads better that serves some purpose. It's just that that purpose, like the sort of intention and the effect are kind of hard to calculate. So would it be better to tell people the truth?

Tyler Cowen

Another rule is to double the number and subtract 10. Yeah, that's more ambitious than your

Roman Mars

…and driving in general, like on the highway in particular, is all designed around calming your brain so that you will go that fast because humans are not evolved to go that fast. So like if you were to get out on a highway and stand next to a sign, most people marvel at the size of a highway sign. Like they have no idea that it's really that big. And part of that and the dashes in between lanes, most people estimate when surveyed that a dash in a dividing line of a highway is two feet long, when in fact they're 10 to 15 feet long. And it is all there to calm your brain at going at high speeds so that you can go very fast and have it not freak you out. So when you're going a transition of like tricking people's brains into going very fast so that a highway functions, you have to do things that sort of like shock people out of their hypnotic state to get them into different driving mode. And so an artificially low speed limit or suggested limit, it makes some sense to do it that way. But also like, you know, like as people begin to game it and…

Tyler Cowen

You have a very famous TED Talk on city flags and what makes for a good city flag. And you've propagated the term vexillology, the study of flags. Why should there be no lettering on flags? City flags, that is.

Roman Mars

Because a flag is meant to be flying on a pole. And so it should be effectively work from backwards and forwards. So it's just because it has a backside that you can see. And so it's not good.

Tyler Cowen

What about the other perspective that outsiders never see flags? Like I've been, I think, to the 50 largest American cities often repeatedly. There's not one city flag I could identify from any one of them until I saw your talk.

Speaker names come from our own diarization. The position is estimated from where the line sits in the episode.

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