Human-Kind or Human Evil with Rutger Bregman  | What Now? with Trevor Noah Podcast

So I've got a total of three years old. And if my toddler would compete with a pig with with quite a few tasks. where intelligence is being measured, you know the toddler would actually lose. I would watch that, by the way. Crazy. That's just like, that's great TV. We need to make that a strong look at Japanese. It really like the toddler versus which one shop's better. I'm actually in for the show. Yeah, we're going to make the show. Total of this is big and.

this is what now. with Trevor Noah. Rutger. Well, welcome to the podcast. I was I was thinking about, you know, having you on and I was like, do you do you get invited back? Anyway, this is the thing I found myself often, but I you invited me back. Trevor Well, I mean, yeah, but I don't.

I don't think you've ever said anything against me. And I was just thinking. You're the guy who went to Davos and told all the billionaires. who were there, like, literally everyone, you sat there. and you basically said, you guys are a bunch of hypocrites. I'm paraphrasing, obviously, but what I think they heard was, you guys are hypocrites. You are not paying your fair share and you're acting. high and mighty when you know, avoiding the elephant in the room. You went to Ted and you told everyone there. they should be giving away their money and everyone in the room like the 1%. And like, you know, poor people are actually right and like,

the rich people are wrong for the way they're doing it. So I really wondered like, do you get invited back to places. like has has how did like the Davos have invite you back to Ted? Like where where do you find that you have the best recidivism rates? Well, no, I didn't I didn't get another invitation to go to Davos. Yeah. Yeah, It was shocking something I said. I guess it. Tucker Carlson. I also never heard from him again. But apart from that, you know. Yeah, people invite me back, but. Okay, help me out with the Tucker one.

I thought that you and him. would have been on the same page for what he's been saying. Where was the big divergence? Well, I mean, this was just after I had gone to Davos, and indeed, I had set some nasty things about billionaires. Yeah. And their massive tax avoidance and our massive tax evasion. And then, you know how they keep whining about their philanthropy. while maybe, you know, just start with paying your fair share in taxes. Right. So then Tucker Carlson invited me on his show. because apparently he liked it that I, you know, stuck it to the global.

Yeah. Yeah. That's something like that. Yes. And I was like, well, you know, you're also really. you know, you are part of the problem, like your. what is it, a millionaire funded by billionaires. So. man. Like that. Yeah. Where's your point? Like, what's what's the income where you throw shade? I'm very curious about that. What's the number? It's a good question. Depends on where you live. I guess I'm okay. I just moved to New York and it feels like. you need to be a multimillionaire even to raise kids here. Yes, you do.

I guess that depends. But it's easy to forget how wealthy people are when when they're. when they live in rich countries. So, yes, why? I'm from the Netherlands. If you have just a median income, which is about, what is it, €35,000 annually. So what is that, $40,000 or something? You're part of the richest 3.5% in the world. So remember Occupy Wall Street. where people were saying we are the 99% and they are the 1%? Well, actually, from a global perspective, very often.

the people you know, who say that stuff on TikTok are Instagram. You know, they're actually part of the top 5%. But, you know, I completely agree because I'm from England. And you know, when well, whenever I go home, I'm like, this country is so poor. And I'm going to say that because American is like, skew. your perception of what money is. Right? Because there's just so much money here. Everything is so expensive. There's some there was a piece. in The New York Times recently about how they are given financial.

aid to families that make $800,000 a year to attend private school, because these are the even though they have 800,000, $100,000. a year, they cannot afford to send their kids. to these private schools, which costs about $70,000 a year. And if you have two or three kids. do the numbers and that's kind of the class that does pay taxes. And sometimes it's just you live in a place where even though. in the abstract, you know, you're like among the wealthiest in the world, you're like, how am I going to pay for gas? How am I going to pay for my accommodation? How am I going to give my kids a better life.

so you can be rich here and feel really poor? We will actually. Then maybe that's that's that's a good place to sort of jump into, like when we talk about people being in a 1% and in a 99% and etc., etc., is it fair to do that for people when they're not living in the globe? And I mean this because I sometimes think about like how people see their lives. You know, politicians will always talk to people and say. your your lives are better than ever. The mortality rate is lower than and someone's like, Yeah, I'm broke, I'm poor.

You know, someone would be like, white privilege. And then there's a white guy working in like the Appalachian Mountains. somewhere vibes. And he's going, Where, where's my white privilege? Like, I want this white privilege you're telling me about. And then you have to get academic and explain it to him. If you were black, your situation would be way worse. What are we actually trying to do when we tell people that they're in the 1%? Are we trying to get them to give more. or are we trying to get them to feel guilty about having more? So I do think it's valuable if people, you know, who are really privileged.

You went to a fancy Ivy League university or something like that, that they really realized that they are very privileged. I maybe you guys remember from 2016 when when Trump was first elected, we had this big round of soul searching in the United States. and elsewhere as well, all about how is this possible? And we were trying to get into the minds of the Trump voters. Yeah. Or in Germany, into the minds of the AfD voters or in the Netherlands. into the minds of the get will those voters.

And you know what? Now that Trump has been elected again, I think can we please not do that again? You know so not another round of soul searching and looking inward and like, we all these these calls for more empathy and compassion. Well, maybe it starts with actually practicing what you preach. I think that the big betrayal. of educated elites in this country and elsewhere has not been a lack of empathy, but a lack of actually contributing to making this world a better place. Right. You've got so many of these Ivy League graduates like Harvard, 45% of Harvard graduates go into consultancy and finance.

What do they do for a living? Do they really, you know, contribute to society? Well, you can ask them and quite a few polls find out. that they're often very likely to consider their own jobs socially useless. So I really consider that the big betrayal. that that kind of hypocrisy where people claim the moral high ground. Yeah, but don't actually live up to it. So but let's talk about let's talk about this. through the lens of different countries. I actually love the fact that all three of us come from a place.

where we're all experiencing the world slightly differently. And obviously we all now live in the U.S., but we've all seen the idea of poverty. and the idea of suffering expressed and maybe even experience differently. You know, so. when I think of the Netherlands, I think of a place where things are going. well, you know, every time I'm in the Netherlands, I'm just like, wow, your roads are great and everything seems to be working and things are good. But then I see people voting the same way that, let's say, what a quote unquote typical Trump supporter would vote like in the U.S.

And they and they're saying the same things. you know, our lives are getting worse. Things are getting worse. I go to the UK now. The UK doesn't seem as up to date as, let's say, the Netherlands. You know, London might be great, but as soon as you get a little bit out, even when I went to Brixton, I was like, okay, okay, watch now. No, no, no, it's true, It's true. Yeah. But there's like a part of Brixton that's super nice. yeah. And then you cross, you go past exactly like, what's going on. Exactly. There's always one station. Yeah, but even then, when I'm in the UK, I'm like, wow, this is.

I understand that for your country you're having a tough time. But the people, they are really like, Wow, this is the worst experience we're having. It's all going down. And then in South Africa, it's the same thing at a different standard. or quality of living. And so it almost it almost makes me wonder. I go, what is more important? What's actually happening to people or how they feel about what is happening. to them? Do you know what I mean? Like, I don't know what you think in the UK. Do you think. how they feel matches up with their lives. or do you think they just notice their lives depending on how they feel?

You know, it's interesting, maybe because now I compare the US to the UK a lot more now. I've lived here for like nearly ten years. Yeah. And you know, when I go back to the UK, I was like, my God, the guns. I'm like on the guns and healthcare. And obviously Trump and the other lady that was trying to be president, they're like, You live in a crazy place. But the thing I have noticed is kind of like this because of austerity. I don't know how much you know about the Tory government. It's kind of like this urban, suburban, rural blight.

You can see the lack of investment. Yeah, you can. People and the country and the stores are boarded up. Stores are dilapidated. Yeah, like that where I used to, I used to work in this department. store called Alders, which is now closed in the wicked center in Croydon. And if you go to the wicked center now, it used to be this like bustling. kind of shopping mall and now you're like, it's like a ghost town. Yeah, right. Like this NHS, which is like brilliant free health care, but people are like, I'm on a list for two years to get a knee replacement. When I go into central London, a lot of the wealth I see is foreign wealth.

I don't necessarily come across people who are like, I was born and raised in London and I'm made my dream come true here. So, you know, I see the I just see the the gap. between the haves and the have nots seems to be getting wider everywhere. But in America, it's more acute because there's just so much money here, if that makes sense. That makes a lot of sense. I want to know, like what I think of you, and I think maybe this is probably. how most people see you in the world are familiar with your work. You know, they see the historian, they see somebody who's a journalist.

And I think in many ways they also see somebody who is really adept. at looking at studies. and the way the world actually works versus how we think it works. So when you look at three different places where people have the same feeling, even though they're having a different experience, what do you think it tells us about how people are experiencing the world. so I think that there are two ways to travel. You can travel in time, obviously, or you can travel in space, and if you go to another country, then very often you realize, wow,

So it's not there are different ways to doing things right. And that's just like history. I think the main lesson of studying history is that things can be different. There's nothing inevitable. about the way we've structured our society and economy right now. I've personally always been fascinated by by this question of how radical ideas, seemingly crazy ideas can over the years. and decades become reality, both for for better and for worse. Actually, I spend about a year studying the abolitionist movement,

mainly the British abolitionist movement, because that was the most successful one. And what you realize, if you go back to, say, the year 1750. and you would have stood on a street corner in London or Pennsylvania. or New York and you would have said, Abolish the slave trade, abolish. slavery, most people would have set you're utterly nuts. You know that That could never happen. And we really need this. You know, this is like fundamental to our economy. And then obviously, it took many, many decades. And it started with a small group. of really committed black and white abolitionists.

But it does happen. So I've always been fascinated by those processes, how the how the crazy. can become inevitable. What did they do? Well, like, what was it that made them movement as successful as it was? You know, you could write a very long book about that. I think that I mean, that's what you do. Yeah, that's exactly what you did. Yeah. So as I was studying in, particularly the British abolitionist movement, I was like, this is a. almost like a self-help book for modern day activists. and revolutionaries, because there are so many lessons we can learn from it.

One of the first big lessons is that it takes the coalition. So very often these days people are, I think, too purist. about their ideals, right? They only want to work together with people who are exactly on the same side. But then you study some of these great movements and you realize. that they were actually coalitions of people who very often disagreed. vehemently about, you know, pretty fundamental things about them. And in this case, it all started with the Quakers, which was a very weird radical Christian sect. They didn't get much done for a long time until they started working together.

with the evangelicals. Right? This was in the day when evangelicals were not just on TV trying to make money. So that that's that's one really important lesson. And another one that is, I think, very relevant today is that in history, very often the right things happen for the wrong reasons. So I really had this epiphany as I was studying the life of Thomas. Clarkson was one of the main British abolitionists, and. he was trying to make the argument in Westminster, in the British Parliament,

that the slave trade ought to be abolished. And from a modern day perspective, you would say, well, obviously. your most powerful argument. is that this is the most immoral system that ever existed, right? It is the historians that the future will judge us very harshly for this. Well, actually, that didn't work at all. Well, it's almost Clarkson did discover is that once he started advocating. for the suffering of white sailors on these ships who were dying in droves, then all the politicians were suddenly paying attention right. And that was a really powerful political argument. Yeah. I mean, this is something I'll I'll I'll chat to friends about.

When I think about movements or ideas, I go, Oftentimes. we think because we live in the age of the most morality, we think that morality is what moves people, but most of the time. it's an incentive that's, you know, just attached to the other person. Oftentimes it's financial, but when it's not, it's literally directly attached to them. And so you think of like Martin Luther King, it's amazing how the boycott. was really like, you know, one of the biggest tools in his arsenal. It was like, okay, black people are not going to ride on your busses.

We're not going to like, you know, support your businesses. And then people are like, okay, apartheid. in South Africa, as much as it was like, yeah, shame and this and that. It was the world saying, Yeah, we're not going to buy your stuff and we're not going to sell you stuff. And then at some point. the apartheid government says, this is not this is not sustainable for us. We can't we can't keep doing this. Yeah. And so then it makes me wonder, like with your work, you know, you talk about like humans being kind and being good, etc.,

but then the work that you study seems to suggest that kindness. isn't necessarily the thing that moves us in the right direction. So how do you deal with the paradox in your own work? Yeah, so my very first book was called Utopia. for Ellis, and it was about all these crazy ideas like, can't we just abolish poverty by giving everyone money? You know, it's called a universal basic income. Can't we abolish all borders around the globe? Can't we move to a much more participatory form of democracy? And at some point I started to think, you know,

what do all these crazy ideas have in common? Well, it's a different way of looking at humans. It's a more hopeful and more optimistic view of human nature. There's this all theory. which says that humans, deep down are just fundamentally selfish, right? It's often called vannier theory. You know, the idea. that civilization is just a thin veneer and that below that lies raw human nature. And I think the problem with that theory, it's it's not just that I think it's wrong. The biggest problem is that it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Yeah, because once you start assuming the worst in other people, that's how you're going to design your whole society, right? You're going to have a society with a lot of bureaucracies, with a lot of cameras, with a lot of police, and you're going to bring out the worst in people. You're going to create the kind of people that your theory presupposed. So, obviously, you know, humans are capable of the. of the most terrible atrocities. We do things that penguins would never think of doing, right. Concentration camps, genocides, apartheid, you name it.

But then on the other hand, we're also capable of incredible altruism. And I think that, you know, shifting that perspective a little bit, assume and assuming the best in people and also design our. our systems of government, of companies, you name it around, that. could be a great way of making this world a much better place. I actually think animals are as capable as we are. I think maybe I'm in the minority here. I think animals are literally just like us.

I just don't think they have like, the systems, you know, I have a vendetta. against dolphins, weightlifters and rapists. They're like the most, even though I don't. Okay. I don't really know. Dolphins tell your story and then I like your story and other people tell. Tell your story. Just read up your stuff that dolphins. you tell me what you've read up on and then we will fight about this. I don't like this. Anti dolphin. Please go. I am very sorry. Tell me what you've read. I know that dolphins are capable of rape. They often do rape just like male cat. Okay. And pigs are incredibly intelligent.

That can be the good dolphins don't run away from dolphins. No. My point is no, because like every other Daily Show is like a bit about how much. I hate dolphins and I feel like a weirdo because I hate dolphins. But I'm just saying that there are some animals. that are capable of like being incredibly cruel. He has kids that I agree with. I look, I'm on the same page. Animals, I think, can be as what we consider cruel, as as little. just for pleasure as we can. Yeah. I will say this, however, about dolphins.

we take for granted how intelligent dolphins are, right? We take for granted that dolphins do things for pleasure. They have many of the aptitudes that humans have, right? So they'll even like smoke. Pufferfish I, like a lot of people don't know that. They'll literally smoke Pufferfish and get high. All right. They poke it, it blows up and they have the toxin. Okay. So if dolphins are as smart as we are, how do we know that they aren't engaging in S&M the way humans do? And we are watching it from the outside?

If you watched 50 Shades of Gray. as an animal, you would be like, this is this is torture. This is a terrible story of torture. because you don't understand what they're saying. You don't understand. You're just watching somebody try another person up and whip them. But I'm but what I'm trying to say, I'm actually disagreeing. with our friend Ruckas here, like belief that things can be no good. Yeah, that I agree with you. I think animals we are. And what I mean by that is I go I think every animal does.

the most terrible things, but because they don't have systems, they haven't figured out ways to to like expand them outward. Do you know what I mean? Like, I like, okay, for instance, I'm bad with like specific troops. and what the names of the different chimps or monkeys are. So don't correct me on this. The chimp Twitter chimp tock monkey crew, whatever. I know it's wrong, but I know they do it. There's a group of monkeys or whatever they are somewhere. And what they'll often do is they'll invade the territory.

of other chimpanzees or monkeys, and they'll slaughter all of them. No reason. There's lots of them. And they're like, play around with the entrails everywhere. And then they just leave. Okay, well, here's an interesting story, Trevor. So there are two species of primates who are like. 99% genetically similar to us. On the one hand, you have the chimpanzees who indeed behave pretty much like you just describe. So like a tribe of chimpanzees meets another tribe of chimpanzees. that they never met before, you know, And it can get pretty violent.

Now we also have the bonobos and they're pretty much the opposite. So if like two groups of bonobos. meet each other, what they'll have is an orgy. You know, that's basically that way of saying hi. So this has been a question that's, that's, that's been asked. by primatologists for a long time, like are we the chimpanzees, are the bonobos? Maybe we're both I think men are the chimpanzees. You know, I want the restraints on men and everyone else is fighting you, you know, like really, I'm a Sanders in the making.

Wow. You're just going to throw us all under the bus at the same time. Men are scary. I don't speak to men after 5 p.m. like my husband. Whatever. my dad. But that's my middle five if but aren't. like they have to be very like Trevor or like my husband and my son. Wow. And my life has never been better. Never been actually. Right. How do you respond to this? So as the person who writes a book talking about how humans are kind, how do you respond to people who say to you, well, then what about murders?

Well, then what about serial killers? Well, then, well, what about like there's many bad things that happen. How do you respond to them? And what data do you use to support it? Yeah, well, that's the problem. If you write a book about human decency is that you have to go on. for hundreds of pages about all the terrible things we do. Look, for. me, it all starts with this question How have we conquered the globe? Right? Why have humans been so successful compared to to other species? And for a long time we like to believe that it is because we are so smart, right? Because we have these huge brains that take up, what is it, 20, 25%.

of our energy. But then, you know, scientists started studying other animals. And again, as as you just said, they're pretty similar to us in many respects. There's now a new group of scientists who think that what has made a special. as a species is something called survival of the friendliest. It's really the case that throughout our history. it was actually the friendliest among us who had the biggest chance of passing. on their genes to the next generation, because that basically helped people. to work together on a scale that no other animal has been able to do.

Now, the technical term for this is self domestication syndrome. We know this with animals that we have domesticated sheep and dogs. They've turned very friendly. And what Charles Darwin already noted is that these domesticated. animals have certain traits in common. You know, you can see that in their genetic profile, but. they also get like these these floppy ears or white spots in Darfur. And most importantly, they look a little bit more childlike and they also become more playful.

Now, what's so interesting, if you study the skeletons of humans over the past, you know, thousands of years, what you see. is the puppy ification of humanity. So we we literally look much. like friendlier, more childish than we humans have become cuter over time. Exactly. Exactly. So this is my theory of human nature. I called homo puppy. That's the term I hope to be remembered for in the annals of science. But it's very, very much contrary to the way people often think about,

you know, how we have conquered the globe. Right. That we, you know, Yeah, yeah, we murdered all the Neanderthals or something like that. Well, actually, modern scientists think pretty much the opposite. So I believe that theory. And the reason I believe it is because I drive. I know a lot of people who are anti humans and they'll be like, You can't trust humans. You can't. And I go, But you drive. If you spend any time driving, you believe humankind is good? No, I drive perpetually terrified. Yes, but you drive because I live in Los Angeles. But you drive. If you drive, you are inherently believing that every other person on the road.

who's driving is going to respect a painted white line. This is that's that's that's not morality. That's just a reason I believe nobody is irrational. Yes. But what I'm saying is that's what I believe. And I think we have made it all about like kindness. Yeah. When really most of humankind is rational. And so in our rationality, I believe we are rational enough to realize that it's not a zero sum game. And so when you see somebody else's child fall, you'll pick them up most times.

No, but I think that's that's why we exist, as. have you been to a park recently traveled. Have I been to you? But now, now you modern parents, you're not even allowed to, like, look at another person or help them when I grew up. When I grow, even in South Africa now, people can still be like, friendly. and help you with your child. You're talking about. a very specific, like, sad thing that's happened in America. I argue for the most part human beings, and I think it's demonstrated that in our very nature. Right? We get on a plane we trust. We don't even know the pilot. We've never even seen this guy certificate, Right?

We just we just fly. It's this weird system where we because the trust is so latent. and the morality is so latent, we then notice the anomalies in society. Yeah. And then we go look how bad we are. So I understand what you're both saying, Right? Gotcha. She's very pessimistic, but I mean, I objected to your work because you don't like Hobbs. And I agree with Hobbs. I have a very dismal view of human nature. I've got a picture of him of good and bad or something like that.

The old British philosopher Firestone, if I start my bedroom now. But I. I think maybe it's I think actually becoming a parent. has probably deepened my not pessimism, it's fear. That's where I'm speaking from. And a lot of people have this genuine fear of other human beings, of systems, of institutions right now. And I think a pronounced fashion of that is like the Trump voter. who's like, I want the wall.

I don't want immigrants. Yeah. Or it's like a mother like myself who, like, doesn't believe in sleepovers. because I'm like, I, I keep getting molested. And if everyone like me, you're crazy. And I'm like, well, child molesters everywhere, they're like, not they really. But like, I think for a lot of people who are afraid for valid reasons or, you know, you read the newspaper and they'll say crime is down. But like people feel like crime is up, like women won't jog in a park at night, you know. So it's really hard for I think for myself and for a lot of people to reconcile.

this idea of like a good world. and people being kind with like your lived experience, I guess. And I think as a parent, I feel that acutely. because I'm like everywhere I go, I like to grab my kids. Yeah. Rucka You recently became you recently became a parent. I want to know if your views have changed because you were the person who was. and please correct me at any point. But I mean, like you were very much the person. who's willing to like experiments and say, Let's have open borders, let's give everybody universal basic income. This is the world we should be living in. It's opened.

it up a lot more than you think we should, because we will actually be good. to each other. I want to know if you noticed any changes in yourself once you became a parent. Did you become more or less conservative in your own eyes? So often people say, becoming a parent really made me more idealistic because, you know, that was the moment when I realized. that we really need to take care of future generations. You know, actually, quite often I see the opposite. is that people, I don't know maybe turn inward a little bit. So I've been actually trying to fight that.

But you feel it though, it's pulling you then? Yeah, I think it's fine. You know, this discussion really reminds me of that. This new story from I don't know, maybe ten years ago. when a Danish women was arrested in the U.S. because she had parked her stroller with, I think our baby in. it next to a cafe while she was getting takeaway coffee. And she was arrested for child neglect while in Denmark, where she's from, you know, that's like entirely normal to do that.

I mean, that's life. Yeah. Yeah, I think so. What I'm struggling with is I grew up in a very, like, communal culture, so there was a lot of trust with like, leave the baby leaving you, leaving your baby at people's houses and you're like, I have to what. I do the night shift, I'm going to come pick up my kid when I can. It's that type of culture, and I think it's like this, like hyper. capitalist, weird world where there are no communal bonds. Like you don't even know the name of your neighbors. It becomes really hard to be like,

Well, your neighbor is probably trustworthy and kind. and somebody that is as valuable as yourself. Do you know, like, I think that like our atomization is contributing to like. this very real fear of a people and people just hoarding their recently like. So I kind of becomes like this self-fulfilling prophecy in a way. But the way we live our lives I think informs a lot and and important. that it's in the interests of those in power for us to be cynical. about human nature. Right?

Because that justifies the hierarchy, that justifies all these power differences. You know, I was as I was. going on a book tour making this argument that humans have evolved to work together. and that we are the product of survival, of the friendliest. What really struck me is that I got most pushback from journalists, and I think it's logical. I mean, journalists spent most of their their careers, their days. writing about what goes wrong, right? So people who actually are more tuned into the news, who are addicted to the news, they're often much more cynical.

And I got most praise, actually, I received. a lot of emails from hitchhikers. There's this one. I forgot his name. This guy who like is the professional hitchhiker. He's been really going everywhere. I just know this experience. You can go everywhere, you can go every country and people. are basically friendly to strangers pretty much everywhere. And I was like, Well, that is the lived experience, right? That is very different from the journalist mindset. where you continuously are on the lookout for newsworthy things.

It's the problem with the goodness, right? As Trevor said, it's it's the water we swim in. It's very easy to miss because you're just used to it. Yes. And by the way, one final thing, I had a pretty different experience actually moving to New York. So, I mean, I like my neighbors in the Netherlands, but in the Netherlands, our social circle is much more closed off. But I you know, I moved here to Brooklyn and everyone's so friendly. I was like, no welcoming to the neighborhood.

Like, like, like my neighbor literally said, yeah, you can have sleepovers, invite people, you know, in my apartment. It's all fine. So I don't know, maybe that's just Brooklyn. But my experience was pretty different. Yeah, I think your experience is also, like, informed by the body you're in, you know? So my experience as a black woman, I go to Nigeria and they kind of block me as a Westerner. means like, we can get why you're white and I can get money out of this life, you know, may vary in certain parts of Los Angeles and, you know, so maybe lots of people in the world are like, you know what?

When I come into a space, people aren't welcoming. And then that reinforces this idea that it makes you feel like, all humans really kind of agree. And as you said, it benefits these billionaires. Sometimes I get this question, maybe you get that as well, Trevor, but maybe it's particularly true for me when people ask me. So, Rutger, do you get any abuse on Twitter or, you know, on socials? And I'm like, I'm not really I mean, not really.

Anything that hurts. I'm white, I'm heterosexual, and I'm a man. So that's my advice. If you don't want to get abuse online, you know, be a man, be heterosexual. It works incredibly well. So, yeah, you're absolutely you're absolutely right. That part of me wonders this as well as I. think about this book I wrote, Humankind. is this just one big expression of privilege?

You know, is it a telling fact that I wrote that book? Probably. But I can I can I can interject with one thought here. You actually are the person who made me realize this. One day. you said to me, Trevor, of course you think that that's possible because of, you know, how you see the world or how the world treats you. And it's funny, Christiane and I always have this back and forth, and I will say, yes, I am the way I am because of how the world treats me.

But I'm also the way I am. or the world is the way it is to me because of how I treat it. And I don't know when the cycle begins, to be honest with you. Right. I think it is easier to be optimistic. when things have gone right or when you remember things going right, because sometimes I think it's more about your perception than the reality. Right? And so even when I think about jogging or not jogging, I don't have kids. But the one thing I will say is. I think of how many parents, let's say, in America are terrified.

at the idea of their child being kidnaped when the data does not support it. It just does not. And I think it's very difficult in life, but we're oftentimes. at the mercy of the things that have happened to us. And so we that becomes part of how we see the world. I think very exceptional individuals are able to see the world beyond. how it happened to them and rather how they wish it to be. What most of us, most of us, you get robbed on a certain street.

You probably will never walk on that street ever again. The chances of you getting robbed, they're going to probably zero. depending on where you are. But you just go like, You know what? I am not going to do that. That street is where people get robbed. And so I. I hear what you're saying, but I sometimes think. if every law or if every idea. we make is based on the worst instance of what happened, planes. wouldn't fly cause wouldn't drive, children wouldn't run and plow.

So I want to preface this. I'm actually an abolitionist. You know, I'm like, No, you don't even believe in police. But I guess what I'm trying to say is that, like the way. my perception is shaped as a woman, is that like the vibe? Completely. It's not I'm not I'm afraid of straight, you know, I don't like men in general. No, not complete. That's why the table is like this size. I mean, we just use it's often it's it's not just strange men. It's familiar men. Right. And so it's just like I think for some groups, it's really. I find tremendous safety in other women.

Now, if it was a world where it's just like my community of women. and my friends around me, that who I lean on the most. And I'm like, I think the world was them. I feel differently. And I say that someone is like generally very optimistic about myself. I wouldn't have moved to America if I wasn't an optimistic person. But I've had these like core experiences and show me that. I guess it was a lot of racism. People are wicked and it was a. it was a racism I received as like a child in the classroom.

I'm raising my children to be like, it's a world out there and I have a son. and I'm like a certain age. You look at your boyhood ends. much earlier than a kid with blond hair and blue eyes. So there's certain things. you know you can't do in public, like you can't throw a tantrum past head. because someone may call law enforcement enforcement. So I think like that the idealized worldview often comes can come when you're. kind of like a person who is automatically given the benefit of the doubt. And I think for people like myself and people that are like. in far worse positions, that doesn't happen.

And so you don't necessarily experience the kind out, even if you put kindness out there. Absolutely. Yeah, I agree with all of that. Wait, with all of it? Yeah, absolutely. Wait, what is. So I don't know, but. don't come here. Don't know. No, no, don't do that. No, no, no, no, no. All of that. You know what this is, okay? Do you think Can I say all of it? I think the light bearer is like Rutger. The nice white people should go out there and do this type of work. I think what he's doing is very important because he's the type of person.

people listen to. You can have the ear of an entrepreneur and an activist because of your position. You're listened to and respected and you're using your white privilege, male privilege for good. I think it's like this is actually the ideal. This is what you should use it for. That I agree with, you know, I mean, and I agree with you, I, I don't look, we this is what I forgive you. You've stepped into a this is a fundamental tenet of. Yes. History of this is us.

This is you know, and it's good we keep each other. I say Trump is optimistic because he's like he's like the chosen one, like Obama, South Africa. I like the going right. And I think. if you are born right at the perfect, he's like mixed everything has blindfold. He's, you know, everything own right writing Jon Stewart quick. He's like, I just he's like, got this, like good Obama Yes, you know what I mean? So but it's optimistic about, yeah, love the world. But this is the thing. This is the thing that I believe. Yeah. Everything you are saying is true.

However, every negative thing also experienced. Do you understand what I'm saying? Yeah. So I grew up in a house with domestic abuse. I grew up in a country where my people couldn't work or do anything. My mother herself wasn't allowed to go my grandmother. So like you, do you know how you what kind of life you've lived. When a flushing toilet was like a thing you were excited for? That's the kind of life I lived. And I'm not even saying this like a woe is me thing. I'm just like, I remember being like, Yeah, flushing toilet today.

No flushing toilet this month and then flushing toilet. Another time. And then like you, you have your techniques, you start learning which newspapers you prefer to wipe your ass with. Yeah, this is life, right? So I'm not I never say this to diminish another person's experience. I really don't know. I don't think you do. But. But, but I think and you know, it's. some of what you say in your book written when you speak. I think some of the time it's so hard, but some of the time, the way we are perceiving something. affects our ability to not live.

in that world because we are perceiving it as being that way. Right? Yeah. And so, I mean I've even learned this in therapy. I think we sometimes think and maybe that's because I wasn't raised this way. We sometimes think it's happening to us and us alone. and we are the victims and we're the only ones. And that's why I genuinely have never worn it. I don't wear does a cape of anything because I go. My friends had parents, mothers who were abused. Yeah. So in our community this was a thing that was normal.

And over time in South Africa, we fought against gender based violence and we continue to. But I because I never taught that. No, Trevor, this is happening to you. I then didn't think that it's happening to the world. and I didn't think that I was like suffering because of it, you know what I mean? So that's why I come back to the analogy of it all. The reason I say I don't agree with you on all of it, but you know, I agree with you on most of it is I go. there are still. hundreds of of women who do run at 5 a.m. There are still hundreds of thousands of women who do run.

You know, they have you know, I'm a box cutter and. Yes, yes, I know I understand this, but this is what I mean. This is this is like one of the hardest things. In fact, you know what? Let's take it away from a personal injury in that way. And let's think of it through the lens of crime, because in South Africa, we deal with this. South Africa has one of the highest crime rates in the world. Right. But it is not happening to most of the people. Most of the time. And most people have not been affected by that crime, but they do get affected by it.

And if it does actually happen to you, it is the only thing that is true in your world. And I cannot say to anybody who has been affected, I know it's. not as bad as you think, because to them it is the full version of what they think. Do you do what I'm saying? So what I'm always trying to do, and this is why I fight with my friend, because I go, I don't ever want us to live in a world. where we think, like you said, you can only hold one thought. Some people will say, My parents didn't love me. They were abusive. I'm like, All your parents grew up in a world where they beat.

you and all kids were beaten. And yeah, now we don't believe that that's the right thing. And now they think it's like timeouts and conversations. But to Rutgers point, maybe in like 15. years, maybe in 20 years, they'll be like, hey, actually timeouts are worse. My child's mental health is already happening. well, there you go. Timeout. Well, there you go. Right Now, do you know what I mean? So I think there's a there's a there's a difficulty in processing. how kind humans are. versus how bad human beings individual can be.

and how much how much harm they can do versus the you know what I mean? Yeah, one person can kill many people and now all of us feel like. the world is full of killers. But we forget that like when one person was shooting in a crowd, everyone was running. Yeah. So there's more runners than they are shooters. I know. I do believe that. Listen, I want to be clear so everyone doesn't think like I'm a complete pessimist. No, no, I don't think you're you know, I think you're a secret optimist. And I think you challenge the mystic about myself. I keep saying. everyone.

I just I. because, you know, I there's so many people in my life. I love because of that kindness. Right? So it'd be ridiculous for me to say it's just I struggle. with the idea of humanity as kind because of the way where we are right now. But that can change. I'm open to my mind being changed. So, Rutger, what if you had to throw a Hail Mary? What is one thing? One like, I know it's hard, but just like one. example, story, study data, anything where you would go,

this is how you can believe that humankind. is kind of my favorite story. in the book is about this moment in 1965. when six boys shipwrecked on an island near Tonga. I had asked myself the question if there had ever been. a real Lord of the Flies, and it turns out there was six boys. were at this boarding school in Nuku'alofa, the capital of Tonga. They were really frustrated.

They thought school was boring and they were like, Let's go on an adventure. They borrowed a boat from a local fisherman and then ended up in the storm. On the very first night. they drifted for eight days, incredibly hungry, incredibly thirsty, but miraculously survived and then washed up on this island. that was, you know, totally forgotten, uninhabited. And they survived there for 15 months. And it's a real example of survival, of the friendliest, because if they were really like nasty and not working together well,

we wouldn't be here able to tell their story. Now, what's happening there? I think it's really a combination of things. Obviously, it's Tongan culture, right, which is a very cooperative culture. with very essential skills where kids learn to swim, you know, basically. in their first year already. So that's obviously essential. I also think, though, that it is a part of human nature. What we see expressed there, as I said, survival of the friendliest. It's kids working together and exhibiting traits.

that are also very much a part of who we are as a species. So, you know, to traverse growing up again, this is one of those things where you can hold two. seemingly contradictory thoughts in your mind at the same time. Yes, we're incredibly selfish. Cruel. We're also one of the most co-operative and altruistic. species in the animal kingdom. I think I realize because of your work, the Lord of the Flies. has had more impact on how we see humankind.

than the real story. It wasn't based on, obviously, but I'm saying. the Lord of the Flies is how people people think it's a real thing. They're like, Well, I guess this is Lord of the Flies. And you're like, That's a fiction. We have based our reality on a fiction, and yet the realities. never seem to be able to create the fictions. that we want to live in and want to create now. And this is particularly the case when you at natural disasters. So look at how disasters are portrayed. in series and movies, and it's the same thing all the time. Civilization is a thin veneer and people very quickly turn into animals,

beasts, barbarians. They start raping, looting, plundering. And that's also how the press often behaves. You know, the most famous case here is Katrina, 2005, the terrible flooding. And the press was full of these horrible stories. of people getting shot, of the looting and the plundering. Well, actually, we have got 60, 70 years of empirical evidence of anthropologists, sociologists. going into these places and actually interviewing people, doing the rigorous empirical research and time and time again,

they found that disasters actually bring out the best in people. So every single time doesn't matter where it happens, if whether it's Japan. or the US or South Africa, you get an explosion of altruism. Because once things really get serious like that, people are like, okay, we're got to stick together. We got to survive together. Sure, there are always some examples that then will get magnified. in the press, but like the big headline story should be, people are working together once again. Yeah, And I think a lot of that becomes how we see the world.

If we are told the world is away, then it does become that way. Yeah. You know, so I that's why I appreciate honesty. I love what you do. Like I say, don't tell us the world is perfect, but you tell us. that humankind is inherently kind. And we're going to continue this conversation right after this. short break. And so actually, let me ask you this.

As a historian, you look at the world differently because you have to. offer things better or worse, Because, of course, because I have people phoning me and texting me now. and they'll say to me, they will lead every conversation with Hi, Trevor, I hope you will all things, but they'll be like, Hi, Trevor, Hope everything's going good considering the world we're in right now. And I understand where they're coming from. But then there's a part of me that goes, But when? When was it not bad in some way?

I would say the answer is pretty simple. In the past, everything was worse. If you zoom out far enough, at least I'm. you know, we've seen incredible progress in the fight against poverty, for example. It's just just like in 1980, 50% of the world population lived in extreme poverty. Now that's less than 10%. 50%? Yeah, it's really extraordinary. Child mortality has been declining massively. On the other hand, though, I also understand why people are really scared. In many respects. I'm pretty terrified.

Do you guys know this website called Our World in Data? It's my favorite With our world in data. Yeah. No, no. Tell me about it. What is it? It's a it's really a great website with the like has the best collection of data. on what's going on in the world. Okay. And the guy who founded that is a statistician called Max Roser, and he always says that there are three statements that are true at the same time. So the first statement is the world is bad. I mean, that is true. There are millions of kids dying from easily preventable diseases. every single day. There are billions of animals being tortured in factory farms.

Right now, autocracy is on the rise. So there are lots of bad things. And the second statement is also true that the world is much better. We have made extraordinary progress. and you won't see that if you just follow the news, because the news is about what happens today. Instead, about what happens every single day. You know, it doesn't teach you all that much about the big structural trends. And the third statement is also true, which is we could do so much better. You know, if you take a look at the resources. we have, how many talent we have, how much capital we have,

we should already have abolished poverty around the globe. You know, we should already have abolished most terrible diseases, like the fact that malaria still exists, that to be a colossus still exists. I mean, that's that's just an outrage. So, yeah, as as you can see, I've got mixed feelings about this. So when you when you look at the world we're in now, how do you think. the historian version of you in 200 years will look at you slash us? This is something I always think about when I when I think of the time.

I'm living in or even everything that happens right? An election comes. and then people are like, it's this is the worst result, I can't believe. But then literally half of the country, let's say in America are like, thank God, Reprieve. We are now finally on the right track. And in moments where there's no chaos, I just sit and I go, How do we know which one actually is? And how do you know how the future will view us in this? Are we the good guys of this time?

I think it's one of the most fascinating questions. you can basically ask about a history. So if you. look at all these civilizations we've seen, whether it's the Romans. or the Aztecs or people in the Middle Ages, people throughout history. have believed. that they are the most civilized right. now, that they are on the right side of history. So the Romans, for example, thought that they were so civilized because they didn't sacrifice children. for the gods. That's a good move then. Then then they did had the Colosseum, you know,

and they did throw naked women for the lions, etc.. But that was just good entertainment during lunch time. Not a good time. Okay. So today we like to see ourselves as really civilized. because we've, you know, officially abolished slavery and the slave trade. We've got, you know, universal suffrage in many countries now. We now have gay marriage. So surely we got to be the most civilized right? Well, that would be very coincidental if we turned out to be that one. civilization who got it all figured out.

I think it's quite likely that the historians of the future. will look back at us. And I'm not just saying like, the MAGA Republicans. No, I'm talking about me. Like, yeah, about you. Like we're probably doing some things that are terrible, like moral catastrophes. And today, you know, we have lots of progressives and liberals. who care deeply about human rights and about all the injustices, but. keep eating factory farm meat of animals that have been horribly abused. So that for me is one of those examples where the historians of the future.

could be like, they're going to look at us, the hell, what the hell were these people thinking? How could they unthinkingly keep participating in that. incredibly cruel system? They're going to be on the news with co-host who's a cow. because animals talk in the future. Let's be clear on this. Everybody. They are already talking. And then yeah, literally. And and instead of yeah, and then they're going to ask the cow, they'll be like, what do you think? And be like, Whoa, All manner of things. You people, you humans, you shouldn't. And the human will be like, I wasn't around back then. Those were my grandparents. You can't judge me for their actions.

So are you. Are you a vegan? Yeah. okay. Have you always been a vegan? No, no, no. I was a quite fanatic carnivore. Yeah, Well, then the what changed? I guess reading. So I think the final notes came from Yuval Noah Harari. You had him on the show? Yeah. Yeah Show as well. Right. So he wrote this book called Sapiens about, you know, the big picture, right? The history of humanity of the last hundreds of thousands of years.

And in that book, he, like, doesn't make any moral judgment whatsoever. So he talks about the Nazis and he's like, I don't know, describing it as, you know, yeah, like just another culture, right? It's just another way of of, you know, the way humans can behave. And then at the end of the book, he talks about the way we treat animals. And he has has this offhand remark where he says, well, this is probably the biggest crime in all of human history. And I thought that was very convincing. just just by looking at the numbers, because like the total.

number of people who ever lived is estimated at 117 billion. The total number of animals that we slaughter every year is 80 billion. So it takes us just a year and a half. to slaughter as many animals as the amount of people that ever lived. And then if you look at the latest science, every other week. there's a new paper coming out about how sentient, how sensitive, how intelligent chickens are, cows are. And I also felt so ignorant once I started digging into it, like,

for example, the fact that cows give milk, I was like, Yeah, cows get milk. That's what they do. Well, actually, yeah, they have to be pregnant every, every year. They have to be pregnant basically. And then we take away all these calls, which is like a product. that we very often can't use. So we, we abuse those cows in a terrible way as well. Yeah, I actually love veganism as a way of life. It's just like I think it's I like crazy. I like I think it's crazy. I'll I'll be on the record and I think it's crazy.

I think I think I have fights with my friends about this all the time. So actually, let me ask you this for a few reasons. One, the way we inflict pain on them is unnecessary oftentimes, and we waste. we throw away so many of the animals that we've killed that I'm like, people. What are we doing here? Do you know what I mean? If you're going to inflict pain on somebody, at least like, use it, eat it. Do you know what I mean? Like, if you're going to kill me and my family eats us is how I think. Even as a human. Yeah and I'm not a pig or a cow, but I don't like the way that.

Yeah. And I'm guilty of it to. Please don't get me wrong, I don't like the intelligence arguments at all. I don't like that at all because I find myself going. If people are telling us that we should not be eating animals. because they are sentient and they think and they feel, I'm like, Whoa, whoa, wait. So now we're making this a moral thing, so we should or shouldn't eat things that are closest to us as humans. And then the things that are not we shouldn't treat accordingly. I don't want to live in a world where we are making that type of judgment.

based on what we think or how close we think something is to us, because that's also the argument. we use to inflict pain and suffering on other people. Do you know what I mean? So we'll be like, no, they're not as intelligent as we are. Therefore they can be slaves. Therefore they can be punished and beaten and put in prison. And I think that's like the same argument just the other way around. So I go, If you're going to eat something, eat it with respect. Do you know what I mean? Be like, Yeah, like I don't think a lion looks down on the zebra. You know what I mean? I don't think the lions like the stupid zebra. That's why I'm eating it. It's just like, No, no, this is how I live.

And I caught you and I eat you. Some of the indigenous cultures I've bumped. into traveling around the world, they have a very respectful thing. Even in South African culture. You know, a lot of it when you slaughter a sheep or a cow and it's. meant to be an auspicious occasion the way because, you know, there's this. misconception people have about Africans and eating meat. And the truth is Africans didn't used to eat that much meat. You would only slaughter an animal for a big occasion. It was like you giving away your daughter to another tribe.

What a loss of life, what a loss of a future. And so you would you would have this moment. And in that they would teach you when you're slaughtering the animal, you first go and speak to it. You'd say thank you. You would have this acknowledgment. and so I genuinely I don't mind, like vegan or not, I think everyone should be able to do what they can. But I don't like it when we make it about intelligence or not. It's like, you know, so we saying like dumb things deserve to be killed. So there's a famous philosopher, Jeremy Bentham in the late 18th century.

He already made the point. It's not about how smart animals are. It's not about can they talk, Can they reason? It's about can they suffer? That's like that's that's the essential point. There was a recent. scientific committee who. published this big report about when you cook craps alive. Well, they suffer immensely. Yeah, I think that matters. Look, I'm not fundamentally against eating meat. Not at all. What I'm against is factory farming.

It's really important to acknowledge as a. as a consumer in the world today, is that what is it, 95, 98% of all meat comes from factory farms. So if you say, well, I'm radically kind of going to cut down. the amount of meat I eat, you know, I'm just going to eat meat that was hunted. or something like that, or that was really raised in an ethical way. I mean, that that's fine. But then please also acknowledge that you will have to eat 5%. as much for something. Yeah. Which, which I think is necessary.

I think we have too much of it. I want to know what you think about it through the lens of, let's say, capitalism. When I told some of my friends you were coming on the podcast, the first thing some of them said was, it's the guy who hates capitalism. I love him. You know, they were like, he hates, he hates business and he hates capital. I love him. Then I was like, I don't know. Does he think of himself that way? And I wondered, and I still do. Do you think there's such a thing as good capitalism? Do you think companies can do good? You know, you talk about humans being kind,

but in your research and in your work, do you think that can be extended. to companies? absolutely. You know, I'm a pretty old fashioned European social Democrat, so. I think that sometimes some tasks are best. done by the government, sometimes by civil society and sometimes by markets. Right. I wouldn't want the government. to try and invent an iPhone and to market it to customers. You know, they're probably going to be really bad at it. Just look at the Soviet Union. So actually one thing I like about having moved to.

the United States is that, yeah, some cliches are really true. There's a much more entrepreneurialism nature here. So a couple of my friends launched this journalism platform in Amsterdam. a decade ago, and they had this night where they presented the plan. Right. We want to revolutionize journalism. We want to really change it, not focus on all the bad news, but. focus on the structural, important things and what happens in the Netherlands. If you pitch something new like that, you know, like 90% of the people. there will say it's not going to work. I probably don't bother. And then if it doesn't work, then they're like, I see you told you so.

I recently had a dinner like that here in New York. where. someone invited me to talk to a bunch of journalists and entrepreneurs and blah, blah, blah and say, Well, I've this idea for starting an organization. that helps as many talented. people as possible to work on the most pressing issues of our time. And I was like, Yeah, absolutely. That's going to work. Yeah, you're going to build this huge global movement of ambitious idealists, and I can't see why it's not going to work. Go you. And actually, if you're building something new, if you're trying something new,

that's really what you want. So yeah, you want, you want you want that push in the back. That's what you want. Exactly. So no, I'm not like this whole debate about socialism versus capitalism. It's like a dick dichotomy that doesn't exist. Sweden is a capitalist country. Denmark is capitalist, is like. you can be a. pluralist, you can have rules, you can have. a flourishing economy where billionaires actually pay their taxes. And the fact that we think we have to choose between either or that it's either,

you know, Elon Musk paying very little in taxes, taking over the government, or, you know, the Netherlands or Denmark, where you can fall asleep on street. And it's very hard to be an entrepreneur. Well, there's something in the middle probably. Yeah. I think we are living in a world where everything is being distilled. You and I talk about this a lot is like it feels like. the world is becoming less and less tolerant of people. holding multiple ideas, even if those ideas aren't in conflict. Yeah, like people will say to, you know, you can't think that.

And you're like, but why can I don't think that that. because you think something else. And I'm like, Yes, but these two things are not separate. They're not even in conflict with with one another. And I think if we lose that as people, we then become one dimensional. Now, thinking in our problem solving and then we. I think we experienced fractures in society that aren't necessarily real. Does that make sense? Yeah. But I guess my thing is, on the billionaire front, I think the fact that these billionaires exist seems like a profound failure.

I agree. But I agree. I agree with that. I'm just like to a billion of a thing is a lot. Just like 1 billion, I think. Like, how did we get here? But my question I want system because we know that there are, you know, under socialism there are people that hoard and steal. then also have a body. And so I'm like shouldn't we be in a world where we're like, do we want billionaires? Like forget them paying more taxes like Russia? I'm even like to the left of you. I'm not. I just don't think they should exist.

But you don't mean the people. We are going to state that for the record, it just means that not the financial. I love thing. I love all of the founding. Yes. Yes. She doesn't mean that just means the people. No, no. I just honestly believe that, like, that's an expression like, you know, you say intensive farming. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So every imagination, I believe, like the fact that we're like, Yeah, but let me throw this at you. What if I told you you can live in a world where there's. billionaires and the issue isn't that they all aren't billionaires. The issue is where the water level is at the bottom.

I think that it's more important to think about. where a person who is never going to be a billionaire sits. So if somebody has a good education and you speak about this with like, let's say just income and basic income and get a guaranteed income, like I. if we lived in a world where. we're focusing on making sure that everyone at the bottom. has a good time, the top doesn't really bother us that much. It's like there's always going to be somebody at the top. But the question is where are you in relation to them?

Does that make sense? Yeah, I just think with to be a billionaire you have to hoard. And I don't believe in wealth hoarding. I think is because like you speaking about Occupy Wall Street, the thing that bothered people is that like the gap between the haves. and the have nots has widened. so much and it's been at the benefit of this billionaire class. So I can't I can't just imagine any world where we're like, we're okay. with having that. If somebody makes five or $7,000 more a year, like. So I'm basically telling you next time you go to Davos, you should be like, he's never going back.

Forget paying more taxes, man. You need to give all your man. He's never going back. unless you got a billion. You're not going anywhere. Okay, Let me try and and find a way to get back to Davos, because I'm actually going to say something nice about billionaires. you mean like, here we go. I haven't done that on a podcast, but here I go. So I was studying the history of malaria, as you may have now. may know, we we recently developed these amazing vaccines, like for the first time in history, we've got them.

This has been one of the most deadliest diseases in old world history. And it took us decades and decades to finally get the vaccine. And I was wondering, like, why did it take so long? Turns out that actually in the early eighties, scientists. already understood that we could very yeah, we could develop a vaccine. The problem was that. it was mostly poor people in poor countries who were dying from it. And a lot. So between 1980 and 2020, around 40 million people. die from malaria, which is about as much. as how many people died in Europe during the Second World War.

And for his AIDS, there was a massive. in wealthy countries because also wealthy people were dying from have AIDS. So we developed amazing medicines against that, but not for malaria. The tragic thing. and the embarrassing thing is that it took a tech billionaire, in this case, Bill Gates, in the year 2000, to say, okay, well, let's actually. finance the research that is necessary so that governments are not doing it, and also not like the Liberal governments, like socialist government. Denmark wasn't doing it, the Netherlands wasn't doing it. And.

I think that is that is. something where sometimes philanthropy can play a role to do that stuff. that is so neglected because it's so unpopular to do and yeah, I think. like someone like Bill Gates deserves an enormous amount of credit for it. He really changed the course of history in that respect. So. Okay, that's it. That's the one. Nice thing I've we've got a pro billionaire statement of work. I mean, this is this is this is massive.

Don't go anywhere because we got more what now. after this. run? I'm really curious. for people at home who have some sort of moral ambition. but don't know how to channel that and they don't necessarily want to go vegan. What can you do in your little patch of the world to make it better? So I guess one of the problems with Progressive these days. is that they have all these rules of life that are about.

basically about how you live your own personal life. So you're not supposed to fly, you're not supposed to eat meat, you're not supposed to have kids, you're not supposed to use plastic straws. And yeah, so you really limit your environmental footprint. I think the problem with that kind of reasoning is that. in the past possible scenario, if you've done everything right, then you have an. environmental footprint of zero and you might as well not have ever existed.

Right? So then death is the highest ideal. You might just might as well just kill yourself. I think we got to talk much more about the actual positive things. we can do to make this world a much better place and why history. teaches me, is that that always starts with groups coming together. There's this beautiful quote from Margaret Meet the anthropologist. who sat that we should never doubt the power. of small groups of thoughtful committed citizens to change the world. In fact, it's the only thing that ever has. So I guess we need like safe spaces for for do gooders who come together, places.

where you don't have to be embarrassed that you actually believe that some things. could be radically improved. So that's that's I guess my most important advice. Find those bubbles, those cults maybe. of of people who are actually like, yeah, we're not cynical. We're actually going to do something. We're actually going to build something. Tell us a little bit about about your, you know, it sounds like. you assembling like a suicide squad of of experts to change the world, which I love this idea.

And I think I've loved it because I think of it through a different lens. So I've I've felt well, I think for most of my adult life. that it's sad that we funnel people. into parts of life where they will have the most income. but not the most impact, you know, or the impact that they'll have. Won't or impact the most people positively. And it's not even because of them. It's just what we do. Yeah, right. You're going for like everyone, just like the math geniuses,

the statisticians, the all these people, like, what are you aiming for and what do you hope to achieve? Well, take a look at all these Ivy League universities. Read the college essays of the students when they come in, and it's all about the big problems they want to solve. You know, they want to work at the U.N. solving world hunger. They want to fight the next pandemic. They want to fight the tobacco industry, create beautiful new innovations. that make this world a much better place.

And the years go by and McKinsey knocks on their door. and they end up, you know, being a strategy consultant. or a corporate lawyer or a banker and something is lost along the way. And I think that waste of talent is really one of the greatest waste of our time. I would love to live in a society where the most ambitious, talented, driven. people who've been given a lot also work on the most pressing and important issues. So that's why that's actually why I've moved to New York. We were kickstarting the US chapter of the school for moral ambition.

That's what my next book is called. So More Ambition is the combination of the idealism of an activist, plus the ambition of an entrepreneur morally and which. we basically want to help as many people as possible. to quit, though soul crushing, not super socially useful jobs and to work on something that actually. matters, I think we got to redefine what it means to be successful. Successful is not about having. that corner office or having that fancy LinkedIn resumé.

It's about making an actual difference and make future historians sprout. That's what being successful really should be about. Make future historians proud. That seems like a hat for some reason. It's like a hat, and I don't know what color would be, but it's but. But it seems like one. I know this is going to sound like a weird question, but. should we care about what the future would think of us? And what I mean by that is, we don't know how we will be perceived by the future.

We look back on many great people now. and we're like, Nope, that terrible Gandhi. Yeah, and for many different reasons. For, you know what I mean? But we do it. We just do it right. Rightly or wrongly, we do it. And so I sometimes wonder, should we even care about the historians of the future, or should we just like we're just trying to do what's good for now and then? Amen. You future people will judge us all you want, but we're not here. What do you think? Well, I think that meaning is created by humans.

And I guess one of our messages to all these, you know, privileged and wealthy people, some of them, you know, who get so rich. that they can buy a building on Harvard and have it named after them. Yeah. The message is like, no one's going to remember you for that. No one's going to give a shit 100 years from now that your name is on it. They'll have to ask Chetty. if that so exist. Like who the fuck is this guy? And you know, we talked earlier about the British abolitionists. One thing that struck me is that the British Society.

for the Abolition of the Slave trade was founded by 12 individuals. One of them was a writer. So There is a place for someone like me. One of them was a lawyer, so they can be useful as well. But ten out of 12 for entrepreneurs, people have built their own companies. People have scaled their own companies. who may have been the Forbes 400 if that would have existed at the time. But at some point they thought, you know what, I'm going to. build a legacy that actually if they, you know, just have been rich. or like successful entrepreneurs, no one would have remember them.

It's because they took up the fight against the greatest moral. atrocity of their time. That's why we remember them today. So essentially, you're appealing to the ego. It's it's a mixture. It's I think it's fine that people are motivated by, again, multiple things. Yeah, it can be a little bit of vanity. I mean, if you if you look back, you know, one of your shows on Netflix, some part of you must think like, this is pretty cool, right? Yeah. When I have, you know, my new book in my hands, like, this is awesome.

Yeah, that's fine. That's completely natural motivation at the same time. Yeah, I do also genuinely care about the suffering of those. who are oppressed of of the animals, all the things that we've talking about. I think it's fine to be motivated by multiple things at the same time. I want to have a conversation with you after you've lived in New York. for a year or two. I wish this on you. Please let me be clear. I really don't. But I think like the amateur scientist in me does, and I would love.

to see how much your worldview is going to be shifted or how I know it will be. But I'd love to know how it will be shifted by you existing in a place. that is going to push every theory that you have. You come from a place where people are looked after. You know, you come from a place where. health care and, you know, people think about how much time you work. and how much maternity leave, paternity leave schools, what's in your food. Yeah, and I would love to speak to you.

in like a year or two and just see, like, have you become more hopeful, more curmudgeonly? Have you lost hope or are you just like now Rutger Bregman, the billionaire, just being like, let me just get a billion and then continue this journey? I do do, do, do do you think how resilient do you think you are. to the press that comes from. living a place that sort of hasn't fostered your ideas? So I think the way to be morally resilient is to make commitments in public.

I mean, the of things like like marriage, for example, right? You say in public, you know, I'm I'm, I'm marrying this person. And the same is true for things like I'm sticking to veganism. I just sat on this podcast, right? Yeah, I'm a vegan, so I guess that makes it much more difficult now for me. to not be a vegan in public. So shame we could do the same for similar things also with our wealth. For example, one thing I've experienced is that it's. much easier to give money away if you don't have it.

So for this new book, I actually thought, okay, that's. that's like a great resource that we can use to build this movement. You know what? I'm giving all of it away in advance because it's so much more difficult. once you have the actual money in your bank. I like that. So that you are free. So you're pre giving the money away? Yes, yes, yes. And it's you know what? This this actually makes me think we have a friend, a mutual friend in common. We've worked with, you know, from South Africa. His name is David Booker. And David would always say the same thing to us.

He'd always go, Would you be like, I don't understand why. America gives you your money and then asks you for it back. He's like, That's why people hate Texas. You know, they don't hate Texas because they're paying taxes. and paying taxes because they just take the money from me. You know what the tax is supposed to be? Just don't make me give it to you drives. He's also a guy that gives away tons. He does it all the time without even thinking. Yeah, no, no. He gets everyone money. Maybe that's. Do you think this would work in our society? Like so David side of it I actually agree with. I think sometimes people just are reticent to the idea of giving the money.

But if it was taken before they knew they'd be like, whatever. Even the idea of tax. I know that you. say Texas, Texas Texans and people must pay more taxes, but a lot of people say, Yeah, you know what, Rutger? I pay my taxes. And then the government doesn't use the tax correctly. And I don't see the roads improving and I don't see the schools improving. But I do want to see improving. I see bombs. I see more bombs. I see more fighter jets. Wow. Raqqa, you're telling me to pay more tax on? The more tax I pay, the more missiles made.

And I think a lot of people are struggling with now. Obviously, some people just want to keep their money, don't get me wrong. But there are many people who feel like they're funding the worst. but not the best. And this is moving, by the way, across political lines. This is not like a Republican or a Democrat thing. This is just people across the line saying, why do we have money for a bomb? But we don't have money for road or school? How do you like how do you respond to that? Because it seems like you're sort. of telling people to do something that has caused a lot of the problems. as opposed to the solutions.

Yeah, it's another good example where you can believe. two things at the same time. So on the one hand, it's important to emphasize that I'm talking. about taxing the rich and in the us for the first time in history, billionaires now have a lower effective tax rate than working class people. So that's. if you look at all taxes combined, it's actually lower than working class people. Seems pretty unfair to me. At the same time, Republicans are correct in their assessment that government is. just not delivering, and especially so in blue states and in blue cities.

I think one of the most embarrassing things for Democrats right now is that, I mean, in Texas, it takes a day in Texas. to deploy as much solar energy as it would take a year in in California. Yeah, there's a lot of California blue states. Yeah. So many like the not in my backyard attitude is everywhere there. So this is another example of, you know, what we talked about. at the beginning of the show, this this progressive hypocrisy where you occupy the moral high ground. But you don't actually deliver.

So I totally understand that. when a government. doesn't deliver, it does make people more skeptical. Yeah. Of paying the taxes. On the other hand, why has government been, you know, not been as effective as it used to be? Well, also because it's funding constraints. So it's like you get into it's the cycle that goes with the cycle. Yeah. Yeah. I think I think we we should use what you spoke about with universities. This might be a solution. Okay. Moral ambition, right?

Somebodies hunger, whether it's ego based. or whether it's, you know, eternity, whatever it might be. What I think we should do is we take people's taxes. And the more tax you pay, the more things get named after you. Because nobody likes I love that. Yeah. Nobody likes things being like everybody loves you. You get a bench in the lawn, on the benches is nothing like that's like, that's like if you paid a little bit of taxes, I'm talking like, I'm talking like highways. but you paid the most tax this year. We're not driving on the Jeff Bezos highway.

But. But. But it must be. It must be. It's not about like the money, because that's where the trick comes in. It must about the percentage of your income that you paid, because that's where the trick is, right? Yeah. And so you go an average working person and you find their tax rates are with 20. something puts that person we go, okay Jonathan. made this your road and then we just get like digital billboards. We switch the things up. I think it could work. I really like the idea of one one other thing. that might be easier to implement and to actually do. I don't do this call. Just do good.

But maybe, maybe some. magazine could have like the Forbes 400 version doing good, right? Where like the the entrepreneurs who. Yeah, really improve the most people's lives that year. because we know that many of these billionaires and enterprises, they are ego driven, you know, they're driven by that vanity. So can't we use that that energy and that fact of human. for good? I would really love to see that. because I think it would really drive some of those billionaires out there.

It would really drive them nuts if they would be very low on the list. and they'd be like, next year I want to give them the secrets of the club. I secretly believe that most of the world is. just governed by how well people are treated in club environments. And if you just go like this way, Mr. Bezos, then he's like, I'm doing something right. But if you're like, Sorry, Jeff, you're not getting in. Why? Yeah, your tax rate, buddy, you know? And then just be like, Mrs. Kowalski, come on in. I think I think we could we could switch something up.

We could, we could make it really interesting. Is like, the most fundamental currency of society. It's not money, but it's status. It's like, how do you earn respect in a in a society? One thing that I found out when once I was studying these British abolitionists. is that they were actually part of a broader cultural shift. So the main British abolitionist was. a guy called William Wilberforce, one of those evangelicals. And he actually said that it was his life's. mission to make doing good more fashionable on his death,

that when he was being asked, like, what you most proud of, he didn't talk about his leading role in abolishing the slave trade. He said he talked about his missionary activities in India. For him, abolitionism was just a part of something bigger, you know? Yeah, and I think, honestly, that's what we need today. We got to redefine what it means to be successful. And it's fine if people then do it for yeah, a yearning for a certain kind of status. But yeah, the way we define success today I think is ruining us.

I like this. So you're starting a new journey. We know what you're going to be doing. You know, we know what your what now is. I would love to issue out a challenge to you just for you to yourself. What do you think we should check back in on with you in a year. to see if it's changed or shifted? What do you what's the most shaky thing in your life. right now where you're like, man, this this might this might shift. in my personal life? Yeah, well, apart from just becoming a father again. Yeah. So I spent ten years in what I like to call the awareness business.

You know, you write books, you write articles, you stand on. stages in Davos or in Vancouver and at that conference. And then you just hope that some other people. will do the actual work of making the world a better place. And after ten years of doing that, I became quite fed up with myself. I experienced this emotion, emotion, you could call it moral envy. You know, you study of those pioneers doing their great work today, or some of them in the past. Yeah. And you're like, God, I wish I was like that, right? I wish I was also actually having some skin in the game.

and actually taking a risk and not just being on the sidelines. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Giving my opinion. There's this beautiful quote from Theodore Roosevelt. about, you know, that. it's it's, it's really about the people who are in the arena, you know, not about. the people who stand on the sidelines and just share their opinions. So, yeah, that's that's the journey I'm on right now. I've basically quit my career as a writer. I guess it will take a long time to write another book. And I'm now, you know, trying to kickstart this organization. and to really turn it into global movement and to help as many people as possible.

to to join, to fight against the next pandemic, against the breakdown of democracy, against the tobacco industry, you name it. Yeah. So A year from now, I hope to have actually achieved something there. that is not just about spreading awareness and being on a podcast. that a lot of people listen to, but you know, maybe actually, yeah, improving people's lives in a tangible way. That'll be great. I like that for you. Well, you know what? I will still hopefully be in the business of bringing awareness to people who are.

bringing awareness, I hope, and a good enough I mean, life is about many things. It's not just about doing good. Definitely. It's about, yeah, man, I agree with it. But thank you, Rutger. Thanks. Thanks. Joining us and good luck. I am. I think one of the things I've always loved about talking to you. is you present like a it's a very sober view of what we're actually trying to do, you know, So some people have an idea of you. that's based on clips, which is the world we live in. Yeah. So they think you are the guy who hates billionaires. or they think you're the guy who hates capitalism. or they think you are the guy who thinks everything is fixable tomorrow.

But what I like about sitting down with you, reading your books, whatever it is, is that it's a it's a. it's a really sober look at what we could and should do in the world, you know, to try to make it a better place for everyone. So thank you again. Good luck with the with the baby life. We appreciate you. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for having me. What now with Trevor Noah. is produced by Spotify Studios in partnership with Day Zero Productions.