0:05

Hi. I am Kate Hudson and my name is

0:07

Oliver Hudson. We wanted to

0:09

do something that highlighted our relationship and

0:12

what it's like to be siblings. We

0:19

are a sibling, railval No,

0:22

no, sibling, rail You

0:25

don't do that with your mouth, Velry.

0:33

That's good.

0:39

Oh, you're in the day.

0:43

I'm in the day. DEAs

0:46

is short desert for those

0:48

of you who don't know that. I'm

0:50

so happy. I just feel like it's hot

0:53

today. It's eighty degrees. The

0:56

super Bowl weekend's gonna be fun. We're

0:59

both extremely football fans. You

1:01

know, a lot of people hate Brady.

1:04

A lot of people hate him. Oh I

1:07

don't, buddy, who hates Brady is

1:09

Here's what I think. I love Tom Brady. Him

1:12

win, I just do. Here's the thing,

1:14

Okay, here's why I want to see

1:17

Tom Brady win. Because

1:19

he is the greatest of all time. He's

1:21

no joke, hands down the

1:24

goat. You can't even

1:27

touch him now if you use this

1:29

thing. Yeah, it's the biggest

1:31

greatest fuck you of all

1:34

time. They should have. He

1:36

should have played out his career in

1:40

Boston. He deserved that.

1:43

There's probably a part of him that wanted to go. You

1:45

know, I think I think there was a there's

1:48

got to be an interest in let's see what I can do

1:50

with another team. No, no, you

1:52

don't spend your whole career

1:54

at one place and not this is

1:57

I mean, look, maybe I'm projecting.

2:00

Maybe I'm projecting what I would say. It

2:02

was like, let's let's get out of here, let's go do something

2:04

else. Come on, Oliver. Yeah, but the

2:06

Buccaneers, their team was sick. Anyway,

2:10

Regardless of all of that, I just

2:12

want to see Tom Brady go to Tampa Bay

2:14

his first year, he wins the fucking Super

2:16

Bowl. I mean, it's just crazy.

2:18

But can we talk about

2:21

homes? Isn't he like twenty three?

2:24

He won a super Bowl last year. I mean, he's been in the

2:26

league. He's so sick.

2:28

It's It's what I love about this

2:30

Super Bowl is you have the

2:34

oldie the oldie goat and you

2:36

have the new star facing

2:39

off. Yeah. No, a good

2:41

game, it's going I

2:43

think it's going to be great. Well, let's get into

2:45

a guest who you're about to listen to right

2:47

now, who's an amazing human being. By the

2:49

way, for res Akaria, he hosts

2:52

for Rezakaria GPS for CNN Worldwide,

2:55

So I didn't know what to expect

2:58

when we started the

3:00

interview. I had a feeling

3:02

that he would

3:04

have a great sense of humor and

3:07

would be cool. I just felt like, maybe

3:10

that's because after interviewing Sanjay

3:13

and I kind of feel like all the CNN

3:16

guys are going to be kind of cool, you know. Like,

3:19

So we interviewed for Reid and

3:22

I loved every second of it. I could have

3:25

talked to him for me too.

3:28

He was so informative and such

3:30

a great teacher. I just make

3:33

a great point though, because I've watched

3:35

him on CNN on the weekends do his show,

3:38

and I thought that

3:40

he would be I was predicting he

3:42

was going to be a little more straight laced, you

3:44

know what I mean. And

3:47

he's cool, Like he

3:49

was sitting in his cool study and

3:52

he just I wanted to have like a scotch

3:54

with him, you know, and

3:57

just bullshit. I want him to be

3:59

a part of my book club, you

4:04

know, because you know, he's the kind of

4:06

person that you say something to, you have

4:08

an idea, and he

4:10

never makes you feel ever dumb.

4:15

So for Reid wrote a book called ten

4:17

lessons for a post pandemic world. I

4:20

felt like talking to him it

4:23

was not only informative, but hopeful

4:27

and and

4:30

and I think it's important to educate

4:32

ourselves on the history of pandemics

4:35

and understanding the

4:37

difference between where

4:40

and what we have experienced in history

4:43

and the difference of how it will be

4:45

experienced now, and to come

4:48

on, you know, the digital world and technology,

4:50

and we got into all of that. I just thought it was really it was

4:53

great. The topic itself is great, you

4:55

know, it's about what we've just been

4:57

through this and I'll let you guys listen.

4:59

But one of the question that I actually asked was

5:02

have we experienced this pandemic

5:04

long enough to actually affect

5:07

the way that we move forward? Or

5:09

are we going to get over it like we get over everything

5:12

else. Of course, time will always you

5:14

know, remove and heal. And you know, in

5:16

twenty years from now, I'm sure we're going to be

5:18

wherever the hell we are. But you

5:20

know, just to explore this, this concept

5:22

is really really cool of what it's

5:25

going to be like once we go back

5:27

to normal quote unquote whatever

5:29

that means, or will we will we will?

5:32

You will hear the answer because hopefully

5:34

you're going to listen this what I gotta go.

5:37

I love you and

5:39

I've got we can keep this in. I've

5:42

got a reading assessment with with my daughter.

5:44

She's in first grade and she is

5:47

at I think what she's

5:50

a two year old level. She can't read, so

5:54

how she's doing all right? The irony of what you're

5:56

saying right now is that we actually we're

5:59

so excited did to talk to him and then got

6:01

right into talking about virtual learning

6:04

and the challenges that it brings. So

6:07

hope you enjoyed the combo as much as we do.

6:14

Online education is an oxymoron.

6:17

It's like it just doesn't work, Like

6:19

there's they've got to rethink the model.

6:22

The kids are not learning that much. They get

6:24

distracted, they're on their phones,

6:26

they're looking at their searching on Google. Yeah,

6:29

and they've taken you've taken all the fun

6:31

out of education, you know, the sort

6:34

of social interaction, the making

6:36

fun of the teacher, the flirting.

6:39

It's like all it is is a you know, it's

6:41

like one person monologue.

6:43

Yeah, but I guess what's the alternative

6:46

at this? No, you're right, you're right, but

6:48

it makes me, it makes me understand that

6:51

the promise of online education has

6:53

to be really seriously rethought, that

6:56

you need a hybrid model. You can't just

6:58

you can't just say all of Africa is to be educated

7:00

online. No, they won't. No.

7:03

And also like this, so like you said, the social

7:05

interaction, you even say it in your books.

7:07

We are social animals. I

7:09

mean, we need the connection.

7:12

We need to have that, like the even

7:14

just the sense of touching someone or

7:16

being able to connect in person. That's

7:19

why I sometimes feel like technology

7:22

can only go so far. What

7:24

I mean by that it will go very far, but that the

7:26

human connection will always be a necessity.

7:29

You know, when people start thinking, when people start

7:31

saying, oh, we'll have a chip and we'll never see each other,

7:33

And I'm like, I don't think that we'll ever I

7:36

mean, I don't want to jump the gun here because we haven't gotten to your

7:38

book yet, but I don't think we'll ever be like

7:40

that. Because even this pandemic, and

7:43

you say this in the book that it sort

7:45

of sped up history didn't change it. It's just

7:47

speeding it up. Right. What I'm

7:49

feeling is that I can't wait to

7:52

snuggle my friends, like I can't wait

7:54

to sit in a bar and like, actually

7:56

top a crowded bar with a buzzy

7:59

atmosphere. It's like, yeah, that sounds like

8:02

the biggest treat in the world. Oh

8:04

god, I know. Well, there's

8:06

a few things. Actually, I'm so excited to talk to you.

8:08

By the way, I watch you every every

8:11

weekend, so I'm

8:13

a bit starstruck. But

8:16

when you talk about speeding up history, first

8:18

of all, I'd love to know

8:21

what that means. But the other

8:23

thing, too, is this pandemic has seemed

8:25

to slow us down a

8:27

little bit as far as being together, that

8:30

cuddling, that being cozy, that being

8:32

a family, sometimes to the detriment

8:34

to the family, I guess, because people

8:37

aren't used to being together like this, and

8:39

they get to learn more about each other in

8:41

one year than they have in fifteen. You

8:44

know. But when you talk about the speeding

8:46

up of history, what does that exactly mean? What

8:49

I mean by saying it's speeding

8:51

up history is that, you know, I use that

8:53

line of Lenin's there are decades

8:55

when nothing happens, and then there are weeks when

8:58

decades happen. You feel as though

9:00

what's happened is this has put certain

9:02

trends that we were all living with into

9:05

overdrive. You know. The biggest

9:07

one is, of course, we've all in somewhere or the other,

9:09

been living a digital life, and all

9:11

of a sudden we are we are consumed

9:14

by digital life. I mean, I don't know what your

9:16

lives are like at this point. I'm doing, you

9:19

know, zoom meetings after zoom meetings

9:21

after zoom meetings, and that's everything from

9:23

a doctor's appointment, my regular

9:25

meetings. What I'm amused by is I'm now finding

9:28

people with whom I would normally have telephone

9:31

calls. It's all zoom meetings. I'm thinking,

9:33

why why am I looking at all these people?

9:35

I just needed to have a short phone

9:38

call. I've already nixed that. I've

9:41

already that month

9:43

ago. I was like, no, we'll just talk. Yeah,

9:48

I have a catch up call with somebody, you

9:50

know, and it's great, and it's like, oh my god, I

9:52

haven't shaved I have, you know anyway.

9:55

So, but but I think that

9:58

it is even true for things

10:00

like online retailing. It's also

10:03

true for things like geopolitics, where you know,

10:05

for example, to right the simmering rivalry

10:07

between the United States and China has

10:10

just got ramped up because everywhere

10:12

the stakes have become higher, you know,

10:14

getting things right has become

10:16

higher. The issue of whether government should

10:18

spend money, you know, the so called universal

10:21

basic income issue, Suddenly it's

10:23

front and centive because nobody can

10:25

work. So this whole question of if

10:27

you have lots of people who are not

10:29

doing any work, is it the government's responsibility?

10:32

Is it smart policy for the government

10:34

to just give them money because at least they can spend

10:37

and that keeps the economy going. You know, So all

10:39

these questions suddenly have gotten heightened

10:42

urgency. It's almost like the tape is moving on

10:44

fast forward, or they've gotten intensified.

10:48

But I think I take your point that there are

10:50

some aspects where, weirdly

10:53

we have become more socially isolated. Weirdly,

10:55

whether there's less contact. For example,

10:57

I feel this a lot because I travel a lot.

11:00

I feel less contact between myself

11:02

and a lot of the rest of the world. You

11:04

know, even though I do do some of the zoom,

11:07

but that physical connection of walking

11:10

through a city that is decidedly

11:12

foreign, you've lost that, you

11:15

know, you've lost that experience. I

11:17

live for that experience. So

11:20

you know, you wrote this book ten lessons

11:22

for a post pandemic world. You

11:24

say that, you know, clearly we're

11:26

not post pandemic, but I'm

11:29

interested in the choice of, you know, post

11:31

pandemic meaning we're kind of over the hump,

11:34

And what do you mean by that, because I think for a lot of

11:36

people we still feel like we're very deep

11:38

in it. Yeah,

11:40

you know, it's a very good question, because I was trying

11:42

to think through at the start how

11:45

to phrase this, because really it was the

11:47

shape of the future and what

11:49

I realized. So I did a lot of research

11:52

on the on the healthcare,

11:54

the medicine, the science, and I

11:56

came to the conclusion it was a bet that

11:59

we would have that scenes pretty fast.

12:01

Now, to give you a sense of what a big bet this was, if

12:03

you had asked somebody five years ago how

12:05

long it would take to develop a vaccine, they

12:08

would have telled you ten years. Ten

12:10

to fifteen years is the normal timeframe.

12:13

But talking to a lot of the experts

12:16

in March, I realized that no,

12:18

for a variety of reasons, and there are complicated

12:21

set of reasons, but for a variety of reasons,

12:23

we are likely to get a vaccine quite soon.

12:26

And so while I was watching the public

12:28

health disaster that was America's

12:30

response to COVID. I was talking to

12:32

the people in the private sector who were telling me

12:35

with great confidence, and scientists were

12:37

telling me the great confidence we're going to get past

12:39

this. So I knew that, you know, we're going to go

12:41

through a very bad phase, or at least

12:43

I guessed, but we could

12:45

see the light at the end of the tunnel, and that's

12:48

where we are now. Look, if

12:50

Biden does it fantastically, If

12:52

the Biden administration does a fantastic job,

12:55

America will achieve herd immunity by

12:57

June. If it does the bad job,

12:59

it will achieve it by August. If

13:02

it does a super fantastic job, I am advocating.

13:05

Actually this week's column, I'm saying we

13:07

should throw everything they can. Even

13:09

if you can speed it up by one month, it's

13:11

a huge accomplishment. It'll be seen

13:13

as such in the world. It'll give the impression

13:16

of America as that can do superpower

13:18

again. And by the way, you'll say,

13:20

you'll make billions of dollars, tens

13:22

of billions of dollars in taxes because economic

13:25

activity will start up again. So

13:27

I could tell that we were now and

13:29

you know, we were going to enter that phase where we're

13:31

going to have to ask ourselves, Okay, how

13:34

much of this do we keep? You know, what

13:36

will it look like when we go back to office,

13:40

What will it look like when we go into a movie

13:42

theater? You know, all those post

13:44

pandemic questions. Do you think that

13:47

it has fundamentally changed

13:49

the way that we go about living our lives?

13:51

Because I've thought about this right when the pandemic

13:54

actually happened, and

13:56

I was sort of asking myself the question,

13:58

how long does it take for

14:02

the new normal to actually

14:05

become normal? How

14:07

long does it take for it to seep into

14:10

us so much that it actually alters

14:12

the way that we go about our lives? And

14:15

has it been long enough? I know it's been catastrophic,

14:18

I know it's been life changing, but it

14:20

has barely been a year. Is

14:22

a year enough time to fundamentally

14:25

change the way that we feel and think

14:27

and go about living our lives moving

14:29

forward? A great question. It's a great question

14:32

because if you look at that, you know what follows

14:34

the Great Spanish influenza of

14:36

nineteen eighteen nineteen, the Roaring

14:38

twenties, the jazz time, I

14:41

should have been in that time. Well,

14:43

it's so funny. Katie and I have talked about

14:45

this like a couple of weeks ago, and

14:47

Kate was like, it's going to be the Roaring twenties,

14:50

And I'm like, will this happen? And what

14:52

age group? What demographic? I mean

14:54

for us, for the twenty year olds, Is everyone going to all

14:57

of a sudden just be like making out in the streets.

15:01

But here's I think it's different. I

15:03

think it's different for two or three reasons. One,

15:06

we have the big alternative we have

15:08

now which we didn't have in the twenties, was this

15:10

digital life. Right in the twenties, if

15:12

you wanted to go back to what you had

15:15

to physically go back to the office. If you

15:17

wanted to be entertained, you had to physically

15:19

go into a movie theater or a play or

15:21

a vaudeville show, whatever it was. If

15:23

you wanted to you know, anything you wanted

15:25

to do had to be physically done. Where now

15:27

we have this whole alternative

15:29

of digital life that I talk about. But

15:32

the second part of this, I think is also we

15:35

have experienced vulnerability

15:37

in a way that we have not for

15:40

fifty or sixty years at least, you

15:42

know, because

15:44

of science and technology and medicine,

15:47

people have forgotten. You know, these

15:49

used to be the big killers of life. I mean, if you

15:51

go back over thousands of years, wars

15:54

actually was set piece bathles between

15:56

small numbers of soldiers until you

15:58

get to the Civil war kind of mass industrial

16:01

warfare. The thing that killed you

16:03

was the plague was you know, all

16:06

the various plagues in history. So

16:08

there was this deep sense of vulnerability

16:10

and fragility of life, which I think we

16:12

don't have. And the third part I

16:14

would say is just I try to remind

16:16

myself about this all the time. You're absolutely

16:19

right, Oliver, when you say it's just been

16:21

a year, it's going to be a year and a half

16:23

to close to two years by the time we're done,

16:25

right, when people are back fully and

16:28

while for many of us

16:30

it has allowed us to continue to work and generate

16:32

income, and you know it's not been that

16:35

bad, there is a vast segment

16:37

of the population around the world for

16:40

whom this has been much worse than the Great Depression.

16:42

You know, you're talking about anyone in a restaurant,

16:45

in a hotel, in a theme park, in a cruise

16:47

ship, in retail anyone

16:49

in third world country. You know, So that

16:52

that feeling of like massive dislocation

16:55

I do think will be will be

16:57

longer lasting than it was in

17:00

the in the nineteen eighteen period. Interesting,

17:03

So you think that that that part

17:05

of the economic effect is going to is

17:07

going to take a long time to either mend or heal.

17:10

Do you think we're going to go back to work? Do you think movies

17:12

will come back to normal? Get back to normal?

17:15

I mean, look, everything in time

17:18

will find its way, you

17:20

know, twenty years from now or

17:22

a new way. Will this have impacted,

17:25

you know, whatever we're doing in

17:27

twenty years. I mean, we move. We're such

17:29

a fast paced society that we're so

17:31

quick to not just forget, but

17:33

also to heal. You talk about that in your book.

17:36

We are extremely resilient.

17:40

Yeah, we're very good at

17:42

forgetting, which is a useful

17:44

skill. You know. Look,

17:47

I think everything, my

17:49

senses, everything will be a hybrid model.

17:51

You're not going to go back to work the same

17:53

way in the past because companies

17:56

have found massive efficiencies. I

17:58

mean, let me just show you. You know, CNN,

18:01

we're putting out a product that I guess

18:03

you know, if you're watching I

18:05

think it's not exactly the same show, and

18:07

it's on the show I would like to perfectly

18:10

do. We don't have editing capacity

18:12

and such. We're putting out a pretty good product

18:15

most people. You know, if you look at viewership,

18:17

it's its way up, and

18:20

we're not using any office space or

18:22

barely using the offices we have, and we

18:24

have ten floors. I think at Hudson

18:26

Yard is one of the most fanciest real

18:28

estate complexes in New York City, and

18:31

it's lying empty with the you

18:33

know, while we go in periodically,

18:36

but very specifically, large parts of

18:38

it are lying empty. What does that tell

18:40

you, right? What are the corporate executives

18:43

learning. I think we're learning

18:45

a lot about education. We were talking about

18:47

this earlier, right. I think that you're going

18:49

to have to have a hybrid model. We are

18:51

definitely going to go back to in person

18:53

because the richness of the educational

18:56

experience is so much in the in

18:58

person. But there are things that are

19:00

very easy to communicate, you

19:03

know, via zoom, bya whatever it is, and I think

19:05

we'll do that with the theaters.

19:07

I think that, as you know, is a longer term trend.

19:09

But I think my gut is you'll

19:12

still have a hybrid model that just

19:15

for the pr value alone, a

19:17

big movie studio is not going to want

19:19

to just release on streaming.

19:22

You know, the idea the release in the theater

19:25

gives you a lot of free publicity. It gives you,

19:27

it calls it to attention, it makes people

19:30

review it. So yeah, there's

19:32

exactly there's a physical event and that

19:35

you know, you can't pay for that publicity.

19:37

That that if there's a physical event, people

19:40

pay attention to it differently than than if

19:42

it's a virtual event. So I suspect

19:45

we are moving into you know, the next phase

19:47

will be this hybrid life, and we're all going to

19:49

be trying to figure it out mm hm

19:52

based on history, because you talk

19:54

a lot about there's

19:56

a lot of information in your book about

19:59

previous diseases, administrations, et

20:01

cetera. But we have a deadly

20:03

pandemic and an insurrection,

20:06

deeply divided country all

20:08

at the same time. Now, is this a coincidence

20:12

or is there some sort of interconnect

20:14

connectedness to all of these issues. It's

20:19

a it's a great question. I think that

20:21

the larger phenomenon of Trump

20:23

and right wing populism is

20:26

not really connected to the to the pandemic.

20:28

It's it's though it is part of a

20:31

kind of growing globalization

20:33

development, you know, this sort of fast

20:35

forward world we've been in really ever since

20:37

the collapse of the Soviet Union, and

20:39

and this is the you know, in some ways, Trump is the

20:42

backlash to that world. It's the people

20:44

saying stop the world, stop the strain,

20:46

I want to get off, or you know, standing

20:48

a thwart history saying stop. But

20:51

what the pandemic do did do, which

20:54

I think is related to the insurrection

20:56

into the tensions, is it

20:58

exposed the reality

21:02

that Donald Trump was uniquely ill

21:05

suited for the presidency because he doesn't

21:07

really believe in government. He doesn't, you know, that's

21:09

not really He is more indifferent

21:12

to government than any person who has ever

21:14

become president. He really

21:16

thinks it's a kind of TV show where you

21:19

tweet and you make you know, it's symbolic, it's

21:21

performative. There isn't actually

21:23

a job of governing, administering,

21:25

corralling bureaucracies. So

21:28

the pandemic forced forced

21:30

us to recognize that. And it

21:32

made his supporters angry, and it made his opponents

21:35

even angrier, and so it all it all

21:37

ended up coming to a head on January

21:39

sixth. So in that sense, I think the pandemic

21:42

did in a sense that accelerated

21:44

the tensions around the Trump residents. Well,

21:47

I think it was also just another catalyst for division,

21:49

you know what I mean, it was just another

21:52

widget, even though I'm not calling it

21:54

a widget, but in a sense it was like, oh, here's another

21:56

thing that we can pick people against. Fuck

21:59

masks. I don't believe it. It's

22:01

a hoax. It's overblown. Now everyone's

22:03

like, oh, yeah, it's all bullshit. You know, it's

22:06

just enough. Yeah, And you know, and you know, part

22:08

of that was rooted in a force that has been

22:11

kind of exacerbated by the pandemic, which

22:14

is, you know, a lot of what is motivating

22:16

this political divide in America is a

22:18

sort of cultural slash class conflict

22:21

between an urban, more educated,

22:26

more liberal, you know, city dwellers

22:29

and the more rural, less

22:31

educated people, you

22:34

know, living outside. If you look. There

22:36

was a very good article in the Atlantic that said

22:38

the two strongest predictors of this

22:41

election in terms of how you voted

22:43

were density and diplomas.

22:45

If you lived in a densely populated place,

22:48

if you had a diploma, you voted for Joe Biden.

22:50

If you lived in a sparsely populated place

22:52

and you didn't have a diploma, you voted for Trump.

22:55

Why is that?

22:57

That's a great question. I mean, I

23:00

think it's become a proxy for culture,

23:04

for values, for you

23:06

know, at some level, your degree of openness

23:09

to this world of change and diversity,

23:12

you know, because we are going through a lot of change. I

23:14

mean, I think the people there are people who look at

23:16

this and say, my world is disappearing,

23:20

And to a certain extent, they're right, you

23:22

know that that kind of monocultural,

23:26

white majority, Christian

23:28

dominated well not part of it is it's a bit

23:30

of a fantasy, you know, it wasn't

23:33

It's been changing slowly for a while. But

23:35

they're right. And then the question is are

23:37

you open to the fact that, yeah, and it

23:39

may be a more interesting, more diverse,

23:42

more energetic, more dynamic world, or

23:44

do you look at it with horror and

23:46

say, you know, I want to stop this all. So

23:49

I think part of it is that in education and

23:51

city dwelling tends to open you up.

23:53

I think it's always fascinating to me

23:55

that the people who are most opposed to immigration

23:57

in America live in places that

23:59

have no immigrants. Right, and the people

24:02

who are most open to immigration in America are

24:04

surrounded by noisy, crowded neighborhoods

24:07

with immigrants. And I think it's, you know, it's like

24:09

people who live with immigrants artists, they're

24:11

just like everyone else. They

24:14

are not to be feared. They're they're you know, some

24:16

nice, some bad so or you know where. Whereas the people

24:18

who don't see them, it's this this paranoid

24:22

fear of the thing which you actually have, no, you

24:24

don't encounter. Well, there's

24:26

also there's so much anger

24:30

and hostility and vitriol.

24:32

And just do you think And

24:34

I've always I've thought about this question.

24:38

Were these were these people sort

24:40

of laying in the weeds and unafraid

24:43

to express themselves and how and how they really

24:45

feel because they were

24:47

the minority, so to speak, and they couldn't

24:49

actually voice that opinion for

24:51

political correctness and other various

24:53

reasons. Right and Donald Trump came

24:55

along and enabled them, allowed

24:58

them to be able to to be

25:00

who they are and say what they feel.

25:03

Or did he incite

25:06

these people? Did he sort of you

25:08

know, bring this out

25:11

in these people? I

25:15

think it's a combination of the two. Look, there's

25:17

always been this strain of American politics,

25:20

you know, the people who liked McCarthy,

25:24

the people who voted for George Wallace

25:26

in nineteen sixty eight. People often forget the

25:29

election of the nineteen sixty eight wasn't just between

25:31

Richard Nixon and Hubert Humphrey, Johnson's

25:33

vice president, but there was a third party candidate,

25:36

George Wallace ran on an explicitly

25:38

pro segregation platform, and

25:41

he got about fifteen percent of the vote.

25:44

So some in some ways, maybe the question

25:46

you're asking is did the fifteen percent

25:48

become forty? And I think that's

25:50

a complicated question whether you're not, because

25:53

some part FRUM support is obviously not racist,

25:55

some part is just angry. But I

25:57

think that there's no question healed

26:00

demidse it. He gave permission to

26:02

people to you know, look, we all

26:04

have different parts of our I think of this about

26:07

even I mean myself to be honest, Like you know,

26:09

I've got a dark side, I've got

26:11

a nasty side, I've got a mean side.

26:14

And it's part of leadership is to

26:16

to appeal to the better angels

26:20

in Lincoln's phrase, rather than those demons,

26:22

and Trump is all demons. You know, he

26:25

really looks at life, and I've all been struck

26:27

by this. It is such a profoundly

26:31

nasty view of life, where you know everyone

26:33

is in it for themselves. You know.

26:35

He's so he's he's talking

26:37

like nobody else talks. He's he's assuming

26:40

you are as narrowly self interested

26:43

as he is, and and he celebrates

26:45

that. I was also saying that I had

26:48

this like very emotional response to

26:50

his exit, and I didn't quite

26:52

understand it. I mean, I mean I did, I understand,

26:54

I understand it, but when I really reflected

26:57

on why, it felt like an

27:00

emotional release.

27:03

I think that anyone who, like

27:05

any woman, any

27:08

person of color, that

27:10

has experienced in their own life

27:13

that kind of that person, that

27:15

that that we we we actually experience

27:17

more often than I wish we

27:19

did. You know, It's almost like being with

27:22

an abusive partner and having

27:24

that kind of abusive leader that

27:26

you see and you experience. And

27:29

when he left, it was like watching it was

27:31

like finally the abusive partner

27:34

is gone. You know. I

27:37

I felt that way when

27:39

I when I was watching him him

27:41

leave. You do say, though

27:44

in less than seven and in your

27:46

book, which scares me. I don't

27:48

like this, but you say that inequality

27:50

will get worse, and

27:52

so we're talking about all these things. But I'd

27:55

love for you to kind of share what you mean by

27:57

that, because it's a

27:59

scary thought. Yeah.

28:02

Well, well, first of all, I just want to say what

28:05

you said really resonated for me, because you know,

28:07

I'm an immigrant and I've come to this country

28:09

and I found it like a totally

28:11

magical place I have fallen. I fell in

28:13

love with America when I first came. I

28:16

wanted to become an American and one

28:18

of the things I loved about it was that I was just able

28:20

to do my thing and do what I love.

28:22

And I know it was never about

28:24

what skin color

28:26

I was, what religion I was. You know, that just

28:28

seemed irrelevant to two places

28:31

I was I was moving into. And

28:33

I never I tried very hard not to be

28:36

somebody who's using my identity

28:38

as an explanation for why you should

28:40

listen to me or anything. You know, I almost

28:43

never wrote an article that said as a

28:45

person of color as a and then

28:47

Trump comes along and he starts attacking

28:50

people, you know, and he's attacking Muslims,

28:52

and I'm Muslim, and he's attacking people who were look

28:55

different. And I suddenly felt

28:57

exactly what you were saying, which I had never felt before.

28:59

I saw felt part

29:01

of it is it also unleashed to

29:04

all of us. Point it unleashed a lot of cup

29:06

torrent of abuse that I had to deal with on

29:08

Facebook and Twitter, and you know, all

29:10

this to go back to where you came from. Amusingly,

29:12

Americans no lits, so a little about the world that they

29:15

would always get my country of origin wrong.

29:17

So it would be like go back to Indonesia,

29:19

go back to you

29:22

know, the It was somewhere

29:24

weird. But

29:26

but then you know, I got I got phone calls

29:28

that, you know, threatening my daughters,

29:31

you know, saying to them, you know, do you know, you know,

29:33

saying nasty things about their father and stuff.

29:36

So all that sort of suddenly put me in

29:38

a position where I felt like, now now

29:40

I'm feeling like a spokesman for

29:43

you know, immigrant people of color,

29:45

Like that's not what I want to do. I'm a guy who just

29:47

you know, tries to understand the world, studies from

29:49

my identity. Isn't that central to my work,

29:52

But it was sort of forced on me. And

29:54

so the relief I feel is I

29:57

can get back to doing what I really

29:59

like to do. I don't have to be, you

30:01

know, some symbol of you know, different,

30:03

because it's an act of coward is not

30:05

to claim your identity if somebody

30:08

is attacking you for it. So I'm just glad

30:10

to kind of be back to

30:12

normal life. And that's the relief I

30:15

feel about Joe Biden's administration.

30:17

It's just they all talk like normal people.

30:20

They all talk like normal politicians.

30:22

They you know, they're like everyone seems

30:24

to be approaching this like a

30:26

normal person, And to

30:29

feel like the freak show is over is

30:31

a huge relief. Inequality.

30:35

Inequality. Let me just quickly say, oh

30:37

yeah, so I think that. Think about what we

30:39

had been talking about earlier, right, the digital

30:42

kind of elite, Like if you are a

30:44

businessman, a bank or a lawyer,

30:46

a consultant, a journalist

30:48

at an academic you

30:51

can do you can do your job just fine online.

30:53

My guess is that actually for actors it's a little

30:55

bit more complicated, but you know, you

30:58

can there's a lot of income

31:00

that can be generated digitally by all

31:02

those professions. But if you're

31:04

a person who works with his hands or her hands,

31:07

you know, the retailed hospitality

31:11

all that. It's like the Great Depression

31:13

for you. So you know those people

31:15

are low wages anyway. So you're seeing this

31:19

rise of the digital world producing

31:21

more income the non digital world producing

31:24

rise. I'll give you an example of the book itself.

31:26

So publishing has in

31:28

general done well through the

31:30

pandemic because it turns out not everyone is watching

31:33

Netflix. A few people like you are

31:35

reading books, and so book sales are up.

31:37

There are I think about fifteen twelve

31:39

to fifteen percent greatly offware.

31:42

But here's the thing. In February

31:45

twenty twenty, Amazon was thirty percent

31:47

of book sales in America. It's now

31:50

sixty five percent of book sales

31:52

in America. So the big

31:54

get bigger, and who's losing out.

31:56

It's all the Mormon pop bookstores

31:58

that didn't have good work sites, that don't have

32:01

amazing delivery, that don't

32:03

have huge discounts, right, And that's happening

32:05

with hardware stores. That's happening.

32:07

You know. You can see in each of these areas Walmart

32:10

is doing well, Home

32:12

Depot is doing well. The little guy is not. So

32:14

in all these areas, you're seeing this

32:17

exacerbation of inequality, which

32:20

will continue to create the resentments,

32:22

the tension, and so

32:25

yeah, on that front, I'm that's probably

32:27

the thing I'm most worried about and most

32:29

gloomy about, is this rise of inequality.

32:32

I have a question about that. This is a bigger it's

32:34

a much bigger question, okay, about

32:36

equality. I mean, has there ever

32:39

First of all, what does equality mean? In

32:42

the bigger sense? Has there ever been true

32:45

equality when we're striving

32:47

to be equal? It's

32:50

it's very broad, it's big Historically,

32:53

has there ever been true

32:55

equality? And can you exist

32:58

with true

33:00

It's kind of esoteric, it's bigger. But you

33:03

know, what are we striving for? Yeah,

33:06

it's a very profound question. And

33:08

of course you're right. I mean, if you think about it in terms of

33:10

like in the old in ancient

33:12

Egypt, was was it equal? No? There was

33:14

the pharaoh, and there were the slaves, and there were the courtiers.

33:17

Right, So I think what we're

33:19

talking about is if

33:22

you look at the last couple of hundred years, which

33:24

is probably the most relevant comparison

33:28

between the depression in the nineteen

33:30

thirties and the nineteen eighties, Western

33:33

societies were able to achieve something

33:35

that seemed like a miracle, which was

33:38

that they got really good, robust

33:40

economic growth. The

33:42

societies grew, there was a lot of dynamism,

33:45

but yet it was not something

33:48

that created a massive degree of inequality.

33:51

Everyone moved up together. Yeah,

33:53

the rich may have gone a little bit faster than everybody

33:55

else. But you know, if you were a

33:57

steel worker, you were seeing your wages

33:59

go up. You know, no matter what you are doing,

34:02

average eight wages, medium wages

34:04

were all going on. And what happens

34:06

around the time of the nineteen eighties

34:09

that that connection

34:12

between every you know, the general economic

34:14

growth and middle class wages

34:17

stops going up. So if you're doing if you're

34:19

if you're a high flyer, you start doing really

34:21

well, and if your middle class, your wages starts

34:23

stagnating, and that produces this huge

34:26

inequality. So everyone is trying to figure

34:28

out, like, how did we do that? How did

34:30

that happen? Part of the answer

34:32

maybe it was a very unusual set

34:35

of circumstances. You know, you had a

34:37

great depression that you that all these countries

34:39

were climbing out of. You

34:41

had a world war, which created a

34:43

huge collective enterprise where everyone

34:45

was in it together. You had,

34:48

you know, still a lot of regulations on economies,

34:50

you had a lot of regulation on globalization.

34:53

So it may not be possible

34:55

to replicate that, you know, That's that's

34:57

the quest. But some countries

34:59

have better than others, and one has to say

35:02

the US has done pretty badly at that. So

35:04

if you look at you know, the two things

35:06

I look at as one in the

35:09

central thing, I think that matters to most

35:11

people. This is what I think the American dream

35:13

means is can you do better than

35:15

your parents? Do you have the opportunity

35:18

to do better than your parents? Right? And

35:20

that's what historically people have come

35:23

to America for and things like that. Well,

35:25

now it's pretty clear if you live

35:27

in most countries in Europe or Canada,

35:30

you have a better chance of doing better than your

35:32

parents economically than in the United

35:34

States. And that's a tragedy, right,

35:36

and that's something we can fix. And that the reason why

35:39

that happens. We've got a really lousy education

35:41

system that basically funds

35:44

on the basis of where you live, you

35:46

know, because we fund education through property

35:48

taxes, unlike almost anybody

35:50

in the world, which means if you're in a rich neighborhood,

35:52

you get a good school if you're in a shitty neighbor

35:54

whereas actually it should be opposite. We should

35:57

be spending more money on poor

35:59

neighborhoods because those people needed

36:01

more. Right, Such a lot of things

36:03

like that which have developed

36:05

in America that keep poor

36:08

people down, even though it's supposedly

36:10

equality of opportunity. So to me, that's

36:12

the big fix, That's what I'd like to fix. Well,

36:14

you do talk about you do talk about capitalism

36:17

and that it's broken, you know,

36:20

and what is the fix?

36:22

Is it just education? I mean it's I mean,

36:24

there's healthcare, there's all these I

36:27

think more than ever, maybe one

36:29

of the silver linings of a Trump presidency

36:32

is that more people, and more young people

36:34

are understanding what the actual issues

36:37

are in our country. And

36:39

I'm even seeing my son who's seventeen

36:41

years old. I didn't know any issues

36:43

that were going on in our country at seventeen,

36:46

and my son is well versed on a

36:48

lot of them. So I wonder, you

36:51

know, what is the answer to a broken

36:53

If capitalism is broken, where do we

36:55

go as Americans? And what do we do

36:57

about people who are stuck

37:00

lunch capitalists who that's the

37:02

way forward for them. You know, it's

37:05

a tough balance because clearly capitalism

37:08

is the most dynamic for economic system,

37:10

it's the most productive. It gives you all the

37:13

innovation, and you want all that. But

37:15

the point I'm trying to make in the book is

37:17

that there are some areas where it's

37:19

driving us to a place where we don't want

37:21

as a society. So for example, look

37:23

in technology, you're just ending up with

37:25

these massive oligopolies

37:28

or really monopolies. When I go to

37:30

Silicon Valley, now what I'm struck by is, and

37:32

I've been going for twenty odd years,

37:35

you used to have a lot of young entrepreneurs

37:38

who wanted to take the company's public, who

37:40

dreamed of taking that company's public, like that was

37:42

the big goal. Nowadays most

37:44

of them realize they're never going to be

37:47

able to make it on their own. Their goal

37:49

is to get bought by one of the five monopoly

37:52

you know players, Microsoft, Amazon,

37:55

Apple, Facebook, Google. It's

37:58

sort of becomes weird world that totally

38:00

dominated by five companies, and in

38:03

each one in their own space, they don't really compete

38:05

with one another. They collude. Sometimes

38:07

they make competitors impossible,

38:11

you know, so that can't be like the

38:13

right. But you know, from a market

38:15

point of view, it's pretty efficient, right,

38:17

Why better have one simple

38:20

platform where you can buy everything rather

38:23

than having thousands and thousands

38:25

of these stores that But what

38:27

happens to all those thousands and thousands of

38:29

shopkeepers who used to make a living? Right?

38:32

So it feels like the

38:35

market can't solve that problem because the market

38:37

is giving you a solution which is hyper efficient,

38:40

but it's not socially acceptable

38:43

in a society. So we need government,

38:45

We need politics to solve this problem

38:47

for us, and sometimes it means regulation.

38:49

I think some of these companies do have to be regulated.

38:52

I think some of these companies we need to explore

38:55

whether breaking them up into some

38:57

of their parts makes sense. I think in

38:59

some cases it means more redistribution.

39:02

You know, it's not just education. I think a lot

39:04

of poor kids in America don't do well

39:06

because they are malnutrition. I mean, they're

39:08

literally their brains are being deformed

39:11

because they're so poorly. You know, they

39:13

face so many challenges. And when

39:15

you face those challenges nutritionally,

39:18

when you're three months sold, four months sold,

39:20

five months there's very good brain science on this.

39:22

Now you're just under developing

39:24

the brain, right. So there's so many

39:26

areas where I think what we have to

39:29

do is recognize, like the market isn't

39:31

going to solve that problem. There is no market

39:34

reason why the poor kid

39:36

in Harlem or in Appalachia is

39:39

going to get you know. But that's why we need an

39:41

aggressive federal effort. So we need,

39:43

you know, to use money to help that. So

39:46

that's what I mean. I don't want to kill the goose

39:48

that lays the golden eggs. I love capitalism,

39:50

but I think we have to recognize there

39:52

are problems in society that you

39:55

know, the idea that the market will solve

39:57

everything. It just give everybody a voucher or something

39:59

that they'll all be happy. No, that's it's

40:01

not going to work. Now. Now, people

40:04

love to use Denmark as an example, and

40:06

it's interesting because I've been reading a

40:08

lot about it, and then you mentioned

40:10

it as well. And this is might be a

40:12

very dumb question, even though people tell me there

40:14

is no DOWMB question. It's so small.

40:17

I mean, we're talking about three hundred million

40:20

people and Denmark is what made

40:22

up of six just

40:24

about I

40:26

just wonder how realistic it is when

40:28

people talk about, you

40:31

know, governments that run like

40:33

Denmark and how real Ernie Sanders

40:36

essentially using Denmark as an example, how

40:38

truly realistic that would be in America.

40:41

What do you think? No, No, Look,

40:44

it's a good question. Here's what I would say.

40:47

A couple of reasons why I think it's not It's not

40:50

a bad example. A lot of American

40:52

government happens at a very local

40:54

level. In fact, a lot of American

40:57

government happens at a county level. That's one

40:59

of the reasons we have this crazy quilt patchwork

41:02

of healthcare systems, because actual

41:04

authority in America is held by two

41:06

thousand, nine hundred different county

41:09

public health systems. Look

41:12

at our crazy quote patchwork of voting.

41:14

Every county has a different amer the two thousand

41:17

election where within Florida, every

41:19

county had authority over their own ballots,

41:21

and some were you know, butterfly

41:24

ballots, and some were machines. And so

41:26

we actually a lot of what

41:28

you'd need to implement is implemented at a county

41:31

level, which is much smaller than Denmark. It's

41:33

often a few hundred thousand people

41:35

and Secondly, that basic

41:38

spirit that I describe in Denmark, which is,

41:40

you know, be very pro market, but at the same

41:42

time use the money to create greater

41:45

equality and greater opportunity,

41:48

is true of Germany. And the most interesting

41:51

example is it's true in Canada.

41:53

Canada now has much better social

41:56

mobility than the United States. If

41:58

you're a poor kid in Canada, uh you

42:00

are, you are more likely statistically

42:03

to move out of your poverty, up

42:05

your up the income ladder than in the United

42:07

States. And Canada is a reasonably big country.

42:09

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42:16

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42:18

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Company Golden Colorado and FT

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for Worth Texas Beer. What

44:24

about it's what's in the

44:26

news social media. You

44:28

know, you're seeing all of these these

44:30

social media companies now banning people

44:33

Trump and various others. Right,

44:36

then you're getting into the First Amendment stuff

44:41

regulation? Right, should there be government

44:43

regulation on these private companies?

44:46

Well, now you're getting into his personal

44:48

politics, Oliver. Well,

44:50

I'm just saying because I've had conversations

44:52

with with some of my more conservative

44:55

friends, and I'm sort of right down the middle. I'm

44:57

an independent. I can't go one way or

44:59

the other. I don't under stand that how I

45:01

can put all my beliefs in one side

45:03

or all my beliefs in another. But I've had conversations

45:06

with conservative friends who are not happy

45:08

about all of what's going on, and

45:10

I'm like, well, it's a it's a private company. You're

45:12

a capitalist, like you,

45:14

you should be cool with it. They can do whatever the

45:16

fuck they want. Well, I think, you know, I think I kind

45:19

of want to reframe your question if that's okay. Which

45:21

is the power and since

45:24

you know, historically like they

45:26

hold so much power. Clearly,

45:29

these media social media companies,

45:31

you know, they are a huge

45:33

part of our economy and our growth. I

45:36

mean, I have my own beliefs

45:38

on this, but just from a like a historian's

45:40

perspective, if you give

45:43

someone that much power, are

45:45

we setting ourselves up for disaster?

45:49

Yeah, it's a it's a it's a huge

45:52

subject. Then you guys, you're just listening

45:54

to the two of you. I see you're coming at it from

45:56

two different, very interesting

45:59

places. I

46:01

think the way I would put it

46:03

in this, first of all, when

46:05

you think about, you know, the power that Mark

46:08

Zuckerberg has to ban

46:11

Trump or Jack Dorsey has, Yeah,

46:14

it worries me a lot. I do think it's a private

46:16

company, but these are huge public utilities

46:18

almost these are public platforms that

46:21

really it's different from just

46:23

you know, it's not that Mark Zuckerberg owns one

46:25

newspaper. It's that he owns

46:27

really the oxygen in which

46:29

everybody breathes and

46:32

so. And the way I think about it

46:34

is, would I be

46:36

comfortable if it had turned out that

46:39

Rupert Murdoch ended up

46:41

being the guy not Mark Zuckerberg, which could

46:43

very easily have happened. If you remember Murdoch

46:46

bought my Space at about the same

46:48

time that Zuckerberg found

46:51

Facebook, and many people believe my

46:53

Space was the one that would win out

46:55

in that battle for social media platforms.

46:58

And if it had been my

47:00

Space, would we all be saying, oh, let's

47:03

leave it to so, you know, let's leave it to Rupert.

47:05

Rupert can figure out what's good speech

47:08

and what's bad. I think people would have a very

47:10

different view on all that. So

47:12

I it

47:14

makes me creasy. And yet, you know, I

47:17

don't know how does

47:19

the government do it, how does advance free

47:21

speech? So here's here's

47:23

where I come out. The biggest problem is this.

47:27

I like social media in the sense that

47:29

it has allowed enormous vitality

47:32

and democracy, and you know, people have been

47:34

able to find audiences and find each other,

47:37

and you know, all that stuff is great.

47:39

Here's the fundamental problem politically,

47:42

which is that social

47:45

media privileges lies

47:49

and sensationalism over truth

47:51

and boring facts. And I I'm

47:54

not saying this about some distant person me. I

47:57

I am more likely to click

47:59

on some thing that seems bizarro,

48:02

too weird to be true, then

48:04

I will on some you know, boring

48:07

policy initiative that you know, you can

48:09

tell Okay, I get it, I get it. Biden is reaching

48:11

out to the European allies, right, versus

48:14

that between Biden's son Ran

48:17

a Chinese prostitution ring, Like

48:19

I am more likely to say, hmm, that

48:22

can't really be true and

48:24

you click on it, right, And that that

48:26

dynamic of lives being

48:28

privileged over truth of falsehoods

48:31

of a fact. It's inherent in the nature

48:33

of the of the system and

48:35

the algorithms they use ensure

48:39

that. Because they're trying to maximize engagement,

48:42

all they're doing is they're getting you to do more and

48:44

more and more and more and more. So

48:46

I have this from an Indonesian friend of mine who's

48:49

a great tech entrepreneur. He said,

48:51

maybe the answer is you have to force

48:54

them to modify the algorithms. The algorithms

48:56

cannot just be on this one maximization

48:59

of saying we're just going to you know, just

49:01

engagement, engagement, engagement, which leads

49:03

to profit, profit profit. There has

49:06

to be some sense that this has become

49:08

a kind of information highway

49:11

and maybe everybody has to see

49:14

randomly generated you know,

49:16

other points of view, opposing points of view,

49:19

fact based you know, I'm

49:22

rather think this through. But ultimately,

49:24

if you don't fix the algorithm, we

49:28

being human beings, we are going to go

49:31

for falsehood over fact, and we are

49:33

going to end up in a culture that is

49:36

drowning in falsehoods, you

49:38

know, while the facts are desperately

49:40

trying to bubble up to the surface. I

49:42

have an idea, you mix falsehood

49:45

with fact. So Biden

49:48

is signing the Paris Climate

49:50

Accord, but naked. So

49:53

then so

49:55

then you're like what And it's a picture

49:57

of Biden's sort of like maybe half closed,

50:00

and you're like, oh my god, what And then you click

50:02

on it and it's a real article.

50:04

But now you're waiting for the butt naked part,

50:06

and at the end you don't really get there. So isn't

50:09

that what they do? Anyway? That's

50:11

what they do. I have a new media I

50:13

have a new media company for you to found,

50:16

and I think maybe it'd be called really

50:19

Sexy News something

50:22

like that,

50:28

exactly exactly.

50:31

I know we're going totally the opposite

50:33

way, but at some point, I just want to hear about your

50:36

upbringing a little bit and coming to America,

50:38

just for a second, and and what got you

50:40

so inspired to do what you do.

50:45

I grew up in India. My

50:48

dad was a politician and my mom

50:50

was a journalist, so you know, in my

50:52

house, this was like it was alive

50:55

with this kind of discussion. They were there was sort

50:57

of upper middle class, but

50:59

I incredibly privileged,

51:01

not financially but in the sense

51:03

that, you know, we met people from

51:06

all walks of life. We knew people

51:08

from all They were very well connected, I guess

51:10

would be one way of thinking about it. But

51:12

for a kid, what it did was just sort of opened

51:14

up the world, like everything seemed possible

51:17

because I would meet architects, and I would meet scientists,

51:19

and I would meet, you know, with politicians,

51:22

and just fascinated by

51:24

the world. Fascinated by I don't know why,

51:26

Like I read Henry Kissindra's memoirs when I

51:28

was fifteen years old. I still remember that,

51:32

you know, and I didn't even think it was as weird as

51:34

I now look back at, having had fifteen

51:36

year olds, I'm like, what was I thinking?

51:39

But and

51:42

I then, you know, it was fascinated by America.

51:44

Apply here for a scholarship, and

51:47

I got a scholarship to Yale, came

51:49

to Yale, fell in love with America and

51:53

just was always like, initially

51:55

I didn't think I could do this for a living, and

51:58

I still think it's like I'm it's

52:01

like a big scam for as far as I'm concerned,

52:03

because I would do this for free.

52:06

I don't, you know, I mean, to

52:08

me, it doesn't feel like work except

52:10

that I get paid, and so I,

52:13

you know, this is what I love to do. I would read

52:15

this stuff anyway, I would analyze it anyway,

52:17

or talk to these people anyway. And

52:19

what I love about it is most

52:22

probably is that I get to communicate

52:24

this interest and this passion to

52:27

people, you know, and to be able to do it. So as

52:30

long as I can do that, I feel like I've sort

52:32

of you know, I've just hit the jackpart of

52:34

life. I'm very I feel

52:37

very deeply satisfied with

52:39

what I do, you

52:41

know, professionally, even though

52:44

you know, by many metrics are people

52:46

who are much much more successful than I am.

52:48

Do you have brothers or sisters. I

52:51

have a brother who's two years

52:53

older, and he is a hedge

52:55

fund manager, and by

52:57

the normal metrics of American

52:59

life just to save money, he is vastly

53:01

most successful than I am, and

53:05

are you are you do you like sports? Are you

53:07

sports fan? So

53:09

I played. I like to play more than I

53:11

do to watch. Part of it is that I grew up

53:14

in India, complete cricket

53:16

fanatic. Yeah, and then I came here before

53:18

the internet at all. And you know, to talk

53:21

to an American about cricket, they think you're like talking about,

53:24

you know, having a tea party or something like that. They're

53:26

sense a very intense competitive sport.

53:29

But I played. I played tennis and I follow tennis.

53:32

That's probably the one main one. And I basketball

53:34

a little bit. Basketball is the

53:37

easiest one for immigrants because it's like

53:39

fast, high scoring. You don't need

53:41

to like I still have problem with football,

53:44

Like I look at it and I'm like, what exactly

53:47

just happened? And my

53:50

favorite description of football is the colonist

53:53

George Will said, it combines

53:55

two of America's worst features, violence

53:58

punctuated by committee meetings.

54:04

You know, here's a good example of like globalization

54:07

and all the things we've been talking about. So cricket

54:09

has now been totally transformed by India.

54:12

Because India is the biggest market by

54:14

far, everybody else fails in comparison.

54:16

So the Indians now essentially run

54:19

global cricket. It is the It is

54:21

the place that everyone wants to play it. They

54:23

have all the largest advertising revenues,

54:26

and the Indians have adapted.

54:28

Actually it was an Australian innovation. So

54:31

the new hard way to play cricket

54:33

is what are called limited overs.

54:36

Basically, they are two hour matches. Everything

54:38

goes fast, everyone's no one's wearing

54:40

no one's wearing whites anymore. Everyone's

54:43

wearing very colorful clothes, and

54:45

it feels a little bit like you're in the middle of a Bollywood

54:47

movie. Oh really Yeah,

54:50

a lot of a lot of googlees, nice

54:52

googly, I know. Okay,

54:56

one hundred years from now, what

54:58

do you think historic will be saying

55:00

about this post pandemic world.

55:03

Yeah, I think it. You know. I end the book

55:05

with this idea that look, it's all up to us. I actually

55:08

end with with my favorite scene

55:10

out of Lawrence of Arabia, where

55:13

this guy, uh so Lawrence is

55:15

trying to get these Arab tribes to attack Akaba,

55:20

an Ottoman port and

55:22

they's taking out a bunch of people along with him,

55:25

and one of the Arabs gets lost, and

55:27

Lawrence says, I want to go back and get him, and they

55:29

say no, no, no, his time had come. It

55:32

is written. So Lawrence says

55:34

no. And he then there's a speed row

55:36

tool in this impossibly handsome

55:38

you know. It dashes back through the

55:40

sandstorm,

55:42

it finds him, brings him

55:44

back and triumphantly brings him

55:46

to the Arab chieftain who was on marsharif

55:49

Uh and he and he plunts him down to him, and he

55:51

says, nothing is written,

55:54

you know, meaning we write our own destiny.

55:56

I can so. To

55:58

me, it feels like, you know, nothing

56:01

is written, nothing is said. A lot depends on whether

56:03

we learn the lessons from this pandemic. To

56:06

me, the central lesson, you know, it's my lesson

56:08

number one is we are living

56:10

in a very fragile world, and nature

56:13

is telling us that. You know this,

56:15

this is nature's way of telling

56:17

us you are not paying attention

56:19

to the risks here, you

56:21

know, the way we are developing and crowding out

56:23

and destroying the natural habitat of

56:25

animals, The way we engage in factory

56:28

farming, which is an invitation for

56:30

the next pandemic. Thousands of

56:32

cattle and chickens hoarded together in

56:35

just utterly inhuman conditions, the

56:38

viruses jumping from one chicken to another,

56:40

so that by the time they get to the ten thousand chicken,

56:42

they are now very potent. This is all,

56:45

you know, Look at the forest fires we've

56:47

had. You know, we had five million

56:49

acres of land burned in America last

56:51

year to the ground. That is, the entire

56:54

state of Massachusetts burnt to the

56:56

ground. You know, we need

56:58

to like really well, cup and

57:00

recognize what we are doing to the planet. What

57:03

we are doing in terms of development is

57:05

reckless and and there are actually are ways

57:07

to deal with this. There are there are

57:09

ways to buy insurance, there are ways to put

57:11

in seatbelts, there are ways to put in you know, airbags,

57:15

And I think if we get that right,

57:18

that sort of, you know, the most central

57:20

lesson will be okay. The

57:22

other the other stuff. You know, it's

57:24

a question of do you have the best society

57:26

you can, are you living up to your potential? Are

57:28

you bringing everyone? Those are second

57:31

order questions to me. The big question is

57:33

have we really understood what

57:35

we are doing here? Both Francis actually says

57:37

this is nature's revenge. I

57:39

don't know. I wouldn't quite put it that way, but

57:42

I think it's nature's we are telling us. Look,

57:44

you know you're you're overlooking the risks

57:46

of the way you are living. M

57:49

h. Thank you so

57:51

much. I just want to say everybody who's

57:54

listening, like, get this book, read this book,

57:56

and and and I was going

57:58

to say to you, you you know, I was going to thank you for ending

58:01

your book like that, because it's empowering to

58:03

know from someone as small

58:06

as you it is up to us

58:08

and that we can we can move the

58:10

needle in that in the direction that

58:13

will either be in

58:15

all of our best interests or not. So you

58:18

know what puts my mind,

58:20

it is to it personally, is that we are

58:22

a constantly evolving

58:24

species. Take everything away

58:27

for a second. We're we have evolved

58:29

to where we are over time, and we're

58:31

not done. We're still

58:33

evolving. So we are

58:36

always in transition, well always,

58:38

or as doctor trans says, we

58:40

might be devolving. Yeah,

58:43

but I don't maybe emotionally,

58:47

but I love that. I mean, for some reason that that

58:49

that makes me feel just not not

58:51

to be, not to all of a sudden be inactive

58:54

and trying to create change. But

58:56

I don't know, it makes me always feel a

58:58

little bit better to think that we are just

59:01

constantly in transition. We're

59:04

not settling. And you know what far

59:06

Red does say that the

59:09

realists are usually the idealists.

59:13

That's exactly the point. That's exactly

59:15

the point that the people who think big and

59:17

dream they're the

59:19

ones who actually are changing the world, and the

59:21

world does change. I think you're exactly

59:23

right. It's like we are evolving,

59:26

and how do we evolve? We are We evolved by learning,

59:28

and we have evolved a lot by cooperating.

59:31

Like those are the ways that things have you know, have

59:33

moved forward. And I think

59:35

we will keep doing it, you know,

59:37

and people don't

59:39

recognize how much we've already accomplished.

59:42

Right, Yeah, that's one of the things I make in that realist

59:44

idealist chapter. I mean, think of where

59:46

we are compared to you know, the

59:49

middle of World War two, the middle of World War One,

59:51

in the middle of the religious wars in Europe, with

59:53

the bubonic play killing half of

59:56

the entire population of Europe. And

59:58

here we have with a vaccine and nine months.

1:00:01

So you know, there's a lot of good news out there,

1:00:03

but it shouldn't make us should make us

1:00:06

want to run

1:00:08

fast, not run scared,

1:00:10

you know, we should recognize that we've got

1:00:12

to get stuff right. Guys, I have

1:00:14

to tell you, this was so much fun. Didn't

1:00:17

know what to expect, and this is like one

1:00:19

of the most fascinating conversations I've had.

1:00:22

So thank you, thank you. I'm

1:00:24

so excited. Sibling

1:00:28

Revelry is executive produced by Kate Hudson

1:00:30

and Oliver Hudson. Producer is Alison

1:00:33

Presnant, Editor is Josh Wendish.

1:00:35

Music by Mark Hudson aka

1:00:38

Uncle Mark.