Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to wok F Daily with
Speaker 1: me your girl Daniel Moody recording from the Home Bunker, Folks,
Speaker 1: I cannot express to you how much weather changes my mood.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I am the only one. I'm
Speaker 1: surely not, because there is a thing called seasonal depression.
Speaker 1: But my god, I need sunshine. I need blue skies,
Speaker 1: I need birds chirping, because just dealing with this consistent doom,
Speaker 1: scrolling headlines of death and despair and just the grifters
Speaker 1: getting away with everything, you need something, you know, and
Speaker 1: nature is my thing. So happy, happy spring that we're
Speaker 1: beginning to see here in New York, and I hope
Speaker 1: where you are, folks. I'm really excited about the conversation
Speaker 1: that I'm bringing to today by author Mark Renk, who
Speaker 1: is the author of the book The Random Factor, how
Speaker 1: chance and luck profoundly shape our lives and the world
Speaker 1: around us. I love this conversation because one of my
Speaker 1: favorite movies, which we discuss briefly in this episode, is
Speaker 1: Sliding Doors. It is a nineteen nineties classic with Gwyneth
Speaker 1: Paltrow set in London, and you know their metro has
Speaker 1: sliding doors as do most. And the movie shapes up
Speaker 1: with her character making the train, and you follow that story,
Speaker 1: and her character missing the train, and you follow that story.
Speaker 1: And there are all of these moments that we have
Speaker 1: every day in our lives that if something were to
Speaker 1: have changed, we would not have met said person, talk
Speaker 1: to a person, you know, the course of our lives shift.
Speaker 1: And I think about that as it pertains to our
Speaker 1: justice system, as it pertains to our education system. Think
Speaker 1: about it, you know, I think about having had some
Speaker 1: of the professors and teachers that I had in middle
Speaker 1: school and high school and college. In some cases, if
Speaker 1: I had had and this is you know, a personal one,
Speaker 1: which is the only regret that I truly truly have
Speaker 1: in my life thus far, because I try to live
Speaker 1: a life where I don't have regrets and I can
Speaker 1: see the lessons and the learnings from the decisions that
Speaker 1: I've made, even if they have resulted in you know,
Speaker 1: grief and trauma, because it is unavoidable if we are
Speaker 1: really living life. But I had a professor in college.
Speaker 1: And if you've been listening to me for years now,
Speaker 1: you've heard this story. I'm declared political science major, and
Speaker 1: my plan had always been to go from undergrad to
Speaker 1: law school. I'd always wanted to be a lawyer. And
Speaker 1: one of my political science professors, during his office hours,
Speaker 1: told me that I wasn't smart enough to go to
Speaker 1: law school. And you imagine this as this older white
Speaker 1: man telling a young black woman who is still a teenager.
Speaker 1: I think I was maybe like eighteen or nineteen at
Speaker 1: the time, that I'm not smart enough to go to
Speaker 1: law school. And that was a really defining moment in
Speaker 1: my life and would be in my career because I
Speaker 1: didn't go. I would again think about it when I
Speaker 1: was in my mid twenties in my first job as
Speaker 1: a lobbyist, and everyone in you know, my office, was
Speaker 1: a lawyer. We were all making the same money, except
Speaker 1: I didn't have the law school debt. And I'd ask
Speaker 1: my boss at that time, you know, do you think
Speaker 1: you know? I keep him in and hawing about whether
Speaker 1: or not I should go to law school, and he
Speaker 1: was just like, Danielle, I'm going to tell you something. Honestly,
Speaker 1: if law school were free, I would tell you to
Speaker 1: go right now, just for the sheer knowledge of it.
Speaker 1: I think that you would enjoy it. But the fact
Speaker 1: is that the trajectory that you're on and lobbying and
Speaker 1: working on the hill and bah blah like it. You know,
Speaker 1: will just incur a lot of debt if you don't
Speaker 1: plan on going to a firm and essentially dedicating the
Speaker 1: next five to ten years to kind of paying off
Speaker 1: the debt that you're going to incur. And I think
Speaker 1: you would be miserable working at a firm. And it
Speaker 1: was those sliding door moments in my life that kind
Speaker 1: of set my life in the direction and my profession
Speaker 1: in the direction that it went in. I talk to
Speaker 1: lawyers all the time. I engage, you know, with legal
Speaker 1: analysts and you know, and legal scholars and all of
Speaker 1: those things. And it is the one regret that I
Speaker 1: had that what would have happened if I had had
Speaker 1: a different professor in college on that day that said
Speaker 1: I think that you should go. I think it's going
Speaker 1: to take a lot of work and effort, but like,
Speaker 1: we need more minds like yours. Right, where would I
Speaker 1: have ended up? What would I have done? Who would
Speaker 1: I have become? And I think about that often. And
Speaker 1: so this book by Mark Rang is really just interesting.
Speaker 1: I think that it has us kind of take a
Speaker 1: pause and think about our lives and think about the
Speaker 1: trajectory that we've been on, whether we've made different pivots
Speaker 1: and pauses and missteps and what have you, but how
Speaker 1: it really does shape and change our lives. So that
Speaker 1: conversation is coming up next, folks. I am very happy
Speaker 1: to welcome back to wok Affi Daily, Mark Robert Renk,
Speaker 1: who is the Herbert S. Hadley Professor of Social Welfare
Speaker 1: at Washington University in Saint Louis and is the author
Speaker 1: of the new book The Random Factor, How chance and
Speaker 1: luck profoundly shape our lives and the world around us. Mark,
Speaker 1: I think that the idea of randomness and chance is
Speaker 1: so interesting to me. I was just saying to you
Speaker 1: that one of my favorite movies from the nineties is
Speaker 1: Sliding Doors with Gyneth Paltrow. And for folks who who
Speaker 1: may or may not have ever seen it, you know,
Speaker 1: it's a two track story of what happens when you know,
Speaker 1: this character gets on the train versus missus the train
Speaker 1: and how her life is completely different, and then we
Speaker 1: as the audience realize which is real and what really
Speaker 1: happened on that day with the train And talk to
Speaker 1: us about this book. Your new book, and this idea
Speaker 1: of randomness and how it plays against I guess our
Speaker 1: thought in this country, at least what we've been indoctrinated
Speaker 1: into thinking about as rugged individualism, and this idea of
Speaker 1: pulling ourselves up and how that's counter to randomness and luck.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, first of all, it's great to be with
Speaker 2: you Danielle again. And yeah, that movie is one of
Speaker 2: my favorites, and it really kind of exemplifies what the
Speaker 2: book is about. So I, you know, a lot of
Speaker 2: my prior work has been on issues of poverty and
Speaker 2: inequality and things like that. But in an earlier book
Speaker 2: on the American Dream, I interviewed a lot of different
Speaker 2: people and sort of delved into their lives and how
Speaker 2: their lives played out. And one of the things that
Speaker 2: I hadn't anticipated was that so many people mentioned, you know, well,
Speaker 2: if this hadn't happened, if that had, if this chance
Speaker 2: kind of event, if I hadn't had that telephone call
Speaker 2: or missed it or whatever it was, my life would
Speaker 2: be really, really different. And I started looking around, and
Speaker 2: there really hasn't been a lot written in the at
Speaker 2: least of the social sciences on the role the chance
Speaker 2: and luck and randomness play. So that's how I got
Speaker 2: kind of involved in this, and it's just a fascinating subject.
Speaker 2: And as you point out, I think we, particularly as
Speaker 2: a Americans, tend to downplay the role of chance and luck.
Speaker 2: You know, we we do it on our own, the
Speaker 2: rugged individualist, you know, we have control of our destiny. Well,
Speaker 2: you know what, it's it's not that simple. There's a
Speaker 2: lot of randomness and chance things that affect our lives.
Speaker 2: And so that's what the book really kind of plays
Speaker 2: out in many different ways. So, you know, the first
Speaker 2: part of the book is looking at kind of the
Speaker 2: world around us and how history and natural science have
Speaker 2: been shaped by that. Middle part of the book kind
Speaker 2: of focuses on our lives and how they have been
Speaker 2: shaped by chance and luck, And the last part of
Speaker 2: the book talks about what we can learn from this
Speaker 2: of living in a random world, what lessons can we learn,
Speaker 2: which is which I think is also really interesting.
Speaker 1: Because I think that this idea that I think even
Speaker 1: just the idea of their being destiny right, of their
Speaker 1: being universal unknowns right, and the fact that things sort
Speaker 1: of just happen, right, and if they sort of just happened,
Speaker 1: I think that that means for some people, then we're
Speaker 1: not in control, right, Like we're not in control of
Speaker 1: our destiny. It's all been pre written, right. But I
Speaker 1: think that what you're discussing here is the fact that
Speaker 1: a lot of things that we even understand as our norm.
Speaker 1: Let the one of the examples that you give is
Speaker 1: around like penicillin, right, and the fact that how is
Speaker 1: that discovered by accident? Right of leaving a Petri dish
Speaker 1: out right and then figuring out what happened the next day.
Speaker 1: And so this idea that randomness doesn't necessarily mean well,
Speaker 1: I guess let me ask you this, Does randomness mean
Speaker 1: that we're just not in control? Right in the in
Speaker 1: the extreme sense of the thing, like I might as
Speaker 1: well just lay down on the couch because everything is
Speaker 1: already written.
Speaker 2: Right right?
Speaker 1: How do those two things play?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, great question. So I think there's two ways
Speaker 2: to think about that. One is that, yes, there's a
Speaker 2: lot of randomness and chance that occurs in individuals' lives.
Speaker 2: But the other side of that is what do you
Speaker 2: do when a chance event happens to you? What do
Speaker 2: you do when something lucky or unlucky? What is your
Speaker 2: response to it, So it's not simply a fata complete.
Speaker 2: I mean, there are lots of things we have no
Speaker 2: control over, but we do have control over how we
Speaker 2: respond to those things, So there's an interaction that's going on.
Speaker 2: The Other thing that I talk about in the book is,
Speaker 2: you know, I'm a sociologist by training, and so you know,
Speaker 2: sociologists look at the role of social class and race
Speaker 2: and gender and the effects that those have on our lives.
Speaker 2: And those are all you know, absolutely those have a
Speaker 2: strong effect. But the way that I describe it is
Speaker 2: think of those as strong currents that are pushing our
Speaker 2: lives in certain directions. But within those currents are all
Speaker 2: kinds of ripples of randomness and ripples of chance. And
Speaker 2: that's the way to think about how some of these
Speaker 2: larger forces come fine with randomness to have an effect
Speaker 2: in our lives. So it's not simply one or the other,
Speaker 2: it's really both working together. And I think that's an
Speaker 2: interesting way again to think about this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, and I think that what happens is
Speaker 1: when we have conversations about destiny, about randomness, right about luck,
Speaker 1: is that it is a lot more layered than people think.
Speaker 1: It isn't as black and white. And I want to
Speaker 1: get into the conversation around why you say that those
Speaker 1: that happen to be in lower economic classes or status
Speaker 1: like are seemingly more affected by quote unquote bad luck
Speaker 1: than others. So let unpack that for us.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's again a great question. And so so what
Speaker 2: I talk about is that certain events that are chance
Speaker 2: and random can have different implications depending on where you are,
Speaker 2: for example, in terms of your social class, your economics
Speaker 2: sort of well being. So folks that are you know,
Speaker 2: lower income or in poverty, certain events, random events, for example,
Speaker 2: just say your car breaks down, it's going to have
Speaker 2: much more of a profound influence than it will for
Speaker 2: somebody that has a lot of money. And this is
Speaker 2: another interesting component I think in this book, which says
Speaker 2: that chance and luck can actually exacerbate inequalities. You know,
Speaker 2: Billy Holliday had the famous you know the song God
Speaker 2: Bless the Child where where she said them that's God
Speaker 2: shall get them, that's not shall lose. So the Bible says,
Speaker 2: and it's still is news. And the idea is that
Speaker 2: if you have advantages, probably you're going to have more
Speaker 2: good breaks than if you don't have advantages where you're
Speaker 2: going to have more bad breaks. And in this way,
Speaker 2: chance and luck can widen the inequalities that we find
Speaker 2: in society. And that's a really I think again, that's
Speaker 2: a really interesting way to think about a lot of
Speaker 2: people don't talk about that at all. So so that's
Speaker 2: a way in which a chance event can have very
Speaker 2: different implications depending on where you are sort of in
Speaker 2: the social structure, you know.
Speaker 1: And it's interesting when you use like kind of this
Speaker 1: idea of let's say you know a car breaking down, right,
Speaker 1: which is you know, don't necessarily know when that's going
Speaker 1: to happen. Or let's say you're getting it, you get
Speaker 1: a flat tire, right, Well, if I'm driving and I
Speaker 1: get a flat tire, but I'm not a wage worker, right,
Speaker 1: so I'm able to call in and say, hey, I'm
Speaker 1: not going to make it into the office today. You know,
Speaker 1: I had this happen, it is more likely, I guess.
Speaker 1: The question is is it more likely then that because
Speaker 1: you're at a higher economic status, there's a bit you
Speaker 1: have more control in some sense right of how you're
Speaker 1: perceived and how a situation will be taken, where it
Speaker 1: can be still an inconvenience, but not catastrophic.
Speaker 2: Right, That's exactly right. So in other words, think of
Speaker 2: it as having the person with more resources, it just
Speaker 2: has more leeway in terms of dealing with that chance event.
Speaker 2: Whereas if you are right living on the edge and
Speaker 2: you're you know, a wage worker and you've got to
Speaker 2: get into work and this happens to you, it can
Speaker 2: be catastrophic. You can lose your job. You know, that
Speaker 2: might be it. And so again the same event, the
Speaker 2: flat tire, but playing out very differently. Another example that
Speaker 2: I give in the book is coming down with a
Speaker 2: medical diagnosis of say cancer or something like that, you know,
Speaker 2: which is you know, certainly awful. But if you have
Speaker 2: the resources, you probably got an earlier diagnosis, you probably
Speaker 2: have access to more healthcare resources. Then if you're in
Speaker 2: poverty where you might not have that, And so the
Speaker 2: same event plays out different The same chance event plays
Speaker 2: out differently. We know that actually a lot of cancers
Speaker 2: are simply random. It's random mutation. You know, there's an
Speaker 2: environmental effect and there's a genetic effect, but there's also
Speaker 2: very much of a random effect.
Speaker 1: There, you know. I also think about homelessness, right, I
Speaker 1: think about homelessness in the sense that you have the
Speaker 1: people that will say, well, I'm not going to give
Speaker 1: my hard earned money to this homeless person on the
Speaker 1: street over here with a sign they need to quote
Speaker 1: unquote get a job. But the way in which our
Speaker 1: system is set up is that you need to have
Speaker 1: a phone number, you need to have an address, you
Speaker 1: need to have all of these proofs of identity right
Speaker 1: in order to even be considered. And so again, if
Speaker 1: you have had the unfortunate luck right of losing housing
Speaker 1: and you're in and out of shelters or on the street,
Speaker 1: the idea that you're going to be able to pick
Speaker 1: yourself up and move into a different economic station is
Speaker 1: almost nonexistent.
Speaker 2: Right, And this gets back to sort of your original
Speaker 2: point about rugged individualism that we think of. You know, well,
Speaker 2: just anybody can pull themselves up by their bootstraps and
Speaker 2: so on and so forth. And what you're pointing out is, no,
Speaker 2: that's not necessarily the case. That you know, depending on
Speaker 2: where you are in society, there's a lot of forces
Speaker 2: and factors that may be working against you and make
Speaker 2: it much more difficult. You know, one of the things
Speaker 2: I talk about in earlier work on poverty is. I
Speaker 2: give the example of sort of an altered game of monopoly.
Speaker 2: So we often think about you know, let's imagine there's
Speaker 2: three players. They all start out with fifteen hundred dollars.
Speaker 2: They you know, who's going to win and lose. Well,
Speaker 2: there's going to be some luck involved the roll of
Speaker 2: the dice and some skill involved. Okay, but now let's
Speaker 2: imagine an altered game of monopoly, which I would say
Speaker 2: is much more of the way the United States operates
Speaker 2: in other countries. Player one starts out with five thousand dollars,
Speaker 2: player two with fifteen hundred, and player three with two
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty dollars, and maybe player one has some
Speaker 2: properties too. Well, we're still going to have the same rules,
Speaker 2: we're still going to roll the dice, but given those
Speaker 2: prior advantages, player one is going to win almost all
Speaker 2: of the games because it's just stacked against players two
Speaker 2: and three. And that's really the reality. So again, you've
Speaker 2: got chance in luck playing out, but the implications are
Speaker 2: much different.
Speaker 1: I mean, you just laid out like that's the difference
Speaker 1: between equality and equity. Right reading about that, I'm I'm like,
Speaker 1: that's like, that's that's it. Right there, which is equality.
Speaker 1: Is like, well, we all will have the same chance
Speaker 1: to roll the dice, right, isn't that Isn't that fair? Well,
Speaker 1: it's like, well no, because we are all starting in
Speaker 1: a different place with more or less amounts of money.
Speaker 1: So what difference does it make if we have the
Speaker 1: same chance to roll the dice if we're actually not
Speaker 1: starting in the same place.
Speaker 2: Right, It's so funny, you should say, because I just
Speaker 2: like an hour ago, is reading an article about equity
Speaker 2: and equality. It is so funny. But that's exactly right.
Speaker 2: I mean, this is a good example of that of
Speaker 2: that equality and equity are quite different in this context.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because I you know, I think about it too.
Speaker 1: And let me ask you this. You know, because you're
Speaker 1: in a in a in a university setting. You know,
Speaker 1: we're looking at right now at tax on diversity, equity
Speaker 1: and inclusion, right that are that are coming in and
Speaker 1: they're in they're targeting universities, and they're targeting you know,
Speaker 1: thought centers and intellectualism, which is what universities and colleges
Speaker 1: are supposed to be. And the idea around diversity, equity
Speaker 1: and inclusion is just that to create more inclusion, to
Speaker 1: create more opportunity from those that have been barred from
Speaker 1: admission into into different universities and colleges, into different industries
Speaker 1: of employment, and creating some way, right, some path forward
Speaker 1: of equity, and it not just being about the roll
Speaker 1: of the dice. We need to be more intentional about
Speaker 1: who has been included and excluded. How does it How
Speaker 1: does this randomness right and this idea of you know,
Speaker 1: of D and I and where we are with the
Speaker 1: pushback kind of play into how policies are created again
Speaker 1: around this rugged individual like, oh, everyone should be able
Speaker 1: to quote unquote pull themselves up, but we know factually
Speaker 1: that that is not the case.
Speaker 2: Right, And so here's here's an interesting sort of angle
Speaker 2: on this, and that is, you know, we've been talking
Speaker 2: about rugged individualism. The other thing that that America has
Speaker 2: really put a strong emphasis on is the idea that
Speaker 2: we are a meritocracy, that you get what you deserve.
Speaker 2: And in the book I talk about there's some really
Speaker 2: interesting analysis that show that those who have extreme wealth
Speaker 2: as well as those who experience poverty, there's a lot
Speaker 2: of luck in Now that's not to say that, you know,
Speaker 2: hard work and individualism aren't important, but for those who
Speaker 2: really make it. There's a strong luck component. For example,
Speaker 2: think about the entertainment industry. If don't to anybody there,
Speaker 2: they will always tell you if I hadn't gotten that break,
Speaker 2: I wouldn't be where I am today. And that's just
Speaker 2: sort of a little example of that. So, you know,
Speaker 2: we think, well, we live in a meritocracy and people
Speaker 2: get what they deserve. Well, you know what, with chance
Speaker 2: and luck, people don't always get what they deserve. Maybe
Speaker 2: they get more than they deserve, or maybe they don't
Speaker 2: get what they should deserve. And so, in going back
Speaker 2: to your point about policy and thinking about policies, one
Speaker 2: of the things that this injects into the discussion is
Speaker 2: the idea of the importance of a social safety net
Speaker 2: and social insurance because what happens. You know, this is
Speaker 2: my work on poverty, which shows that most Americans will
Speaker 2: experience poverty at some point in their lives. And people say,
Speaker 2: how can that be. The reason is, over thirty or
Speaker 2: forty years, things happen to people out of the blue,
Speaker 2: losing a job, getting sick, a family splitting up. And
Speaker 2: when those things happen in the United States, there's not
Speaker 2: a lot to protect people from poverty. So one of
Speaker 2: the things that I one of the big arguments I
Speaker 2: make is that because of chance and luck, and particularly
Speaker 2: bad luck, we should think about having a robust social
Speaker 2: safety net to protect people when these things happen. And
Speaker 2: European countries do a much better job of that than
Speaker 2: we do in the United States.
Speaker 1: You know, And I think about it too as you're saying,
Speaker 1: that's what just popped into my mind, right, which was
Speaker 1: a social experiment in and of itself, is COVID, right Lee.
Speaker 1: So here we have this global health pandemic hits every
Speaker 1: single continent, hits you know, every single person in a
Speaker 1: different way. But those again who had the privilege and
Speaker 1: the ability and the economic status to be able to
Speaker 1: work from home versus those whose work were quired them
Speaker 1: to be in person, to put themselves in harms way
Speaker 1: for folks who had maybe some cushion in terms of
Speaker 1: the ability that if they were to lose their job,
Speaker 1: they weren't going to lose their homes. Or we saw
Speaker 1: food lines right in communities and in neighborhoods that we
Speaker 1: never even knew had food pantries, right, And so again
Speaker 1: it was this randomness to some extent of this global
Speaker 1: health pandemic, but how it hit. We couldn't look away
Speaker 1: and say that people didn't need help, like, oh, you
Speaker 1: were getting what you deserved in terms of the outcome here.
Speaker 2: Right right, right, No, that's a great example. It's like, yeah,
Speaker 2: nobody deserved what happened with COVID and that was a
Speaker 2: very and again it was actually very random. There was
Speaker 2: a mutation, you know, it started in the fish market
Speaker 2: in China and stuff like that and spread, but the
Speaker 2: impact that that had was very It had a very
Speaker 2: different impact depending on where you were again in society.
Speaker 2: So again it's another example, and it's example of things.
Speaker 2: Bad things can happen out of the blue, and what
Speaker 2: we should think about is, Okay, why don't we put
Speaker 2: some things in place to protect people. That's the whole idea,
Speaker 2: For example, of insurance. This is why you buy home
Speaker 2: insurance or automobile insurance. You don't think I'm going to
Speaker 2: have an accident tomorrow, but you do think I might
Speaker 2: have an accident at some point. My homemate burned down,
Speaker 2: and I want to have protection if that should happen.
Speaker 2: And that's the same idea of a social safety net
Speaker 2: and having kind of a robust social safety net.
Speaker 1: How do you think that we go about and I
Speaker 1: feel like this happens probably every presidential election cycle, but
Speaker 1: particularly this one, where you have Republicans, for instance, talking
Speaker 1: about taking away social safety nets, talking about letting, you know,
Speaker 1: folks essentially roll the dice on their life and if it,
Speaker 1: you know, if you're not wealthy, then go with God. Right.
Speaker 1: But it's this idea that again, people get what they deserve.
Speaker 1: So if you are poor, that is of your own doing.
Speaker 1: It's not the government's quote unquote responsibility to do anything
Speaker 1: for you. And then again on the flip side of that,
Speaker 1: if you are wealthy, well then you must be a genius,
Speaker 1: right and you you know what I'm saying, and so
Speaker 1: and and celebrated in that way, and we equate that
Speaker 1: wealth with celebrity and celebration the way that we equate
Speaker 1: poverty with you know, damnation and you know and pity.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I mean absolutely. You know, I've we talked
Speaker 2: earlier about you know, I've done a lot of work
Speaker 2: on poverty and inequality and the whole idea of you know,
Speaker 2: deservedness underlies the whole issue of poverty, as it does
Speaker 2: with wealth. I mean, there's no question about it. And
Speaker 2: that's why this goes counter to that story. This is saying,
Speaker 2: you know what, it's not simply a meritocracy and people
Speaker 2: get what they deserve. There's a lot of randomness involved.
Speaker 2: And you know, just as an example, I've talked to
Speaker 2: hundreds of people. You know, I'm pretty dire economic straits,
Speaker 2: and to say that, you know, they deserve what happened
Speaker 2: to them is ridiculous. These are folks that work just
Speaker 2: as hard as me or you or anybody else. They
Speaker 2: want the best for their family and their kids. But
Speaker 2: they were dealt a bad hand. They got a bad hand.
Speaker 2: And you know, it's not to say that. Of course,
Speaker 2: there is such a thing as as agency and motivation
Speaker 2: and all that stuff, but we need to put it
Speaker 2: into this wider context. And that's that. I just think
Speaker 2: that's so important. So, but you're exactly right. I mean,
Speaker 2: there's this story of you know, well, folks that you
Speaker 2: know are poor deserve it, and folks that are wealthy
Speaker 2: deserve it too. And therefore the position that comes from
Speaker 2: that is, well, then we don't need to have social
Speaker 2: policies to address this because it's your own problem, it's
Speaker 2: not mine.
Speaker 1: Right, And I think that that again it goes back
Speaker 1: to the top about rugged individualism versus the responsibility of community.
Speaker 1: Right that if I can put the onus on you
Speaker 1: to make your to make your life better, then I
Speaker 1: don't take I don't have any shared responsibility and how
Speaker 1: your life turns.
Speaker 2: Out exactly that's exactly right. So it's it relieves me
Speaker 2: of any responsibility. Look, it's your problem, not mine, and
Speaker 2: therefore I don't need to pay taxes to support you.
Speaker 2: So that's the other thing, you know, And again this
Speaker 2: is this is not the reality. Like I'm into. I'm
Speaker 2: into sort of research and evidence, and I can tell
Speaker 2: you that is not the reality of the situation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, well, Mark, what are your hopes for the
Speaker 1: random factor and what folks take away from your new book?
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, I hope it does exceedingly well, yes,
Speaker 2: let's keep our fingers crossed. And yeah, you know, I
Speaker 2: think the message you know what I said at the
Speaker 2: very beginning, it's sort of at the end of the book.
Speaker 2: I have a couple chapters where I stop and I say, well, okay,
Speaker 2: if you have this idea that there's a lot of randomness,
Speaker 2: what can we learn from this, How can we better
Speaker 2: ourselves as a result, you know, And there's many example
Speaker 2: sort of lessons like you but one is just to
Speaker 2: have more empathy towards folks and to realize, you know,
Speaker 2: there but for the grace of God go I also
Speaker 2: to have a bit of humility, like you know, maybe
Speaker 2: I had some good breaks and I should be kind
Speaker 2: of humble about that. And as instead of saying, well,
Speaker 2: I deserve everything I get. So I think there's there's
Speaker 2: there's a lot of really interesting components there, and I
Speaker 2: hope folks, you know, pick up on this. And I
Speaker 2: must say, I think it's a great read. I think
Speaker 2: it's it's so fascinating and people I think will really
Speaker 2: enjoy it.
Speaker 1: I love it, folks. The book is the random factor,
Speaker 1: how chance and luck profoundly shape our lives and the
Speaker 1: world around us. It is out now. Mark, always a
Speaker 1: great conversation when you come, always always getting me thinking
Speaker 1: and in different ways. So I hope that you'll you'll
Speaker 1: come back again soon.
Speaker 2: I'd love to come back, Danyelle. And my last words
Speaker 2: of wisdom are to count your lucky stars.
Speaker 3: Very I love that.
Speaker 1: That is it for me today, Dear friends on woke
Speaker 1: app as always Power to the people and to all
Speaker 1: the people. Power, Get woke and stay woke as fuck.