WEBVTT - Sliding Door Moments 0:00:11.720 --> 0:00:14.560 Good morning, peeps, and welcome to wok F Daily with 0:00:14.640 --> 0:00:18.840 me your girl Daniel Moody recording from the Home Bunker, Folks, 0:00:18.880 --> 0:00:23.720 I cannot express to you how much weather changes my mood. 0:00:23.880 --> 0:00:26.120 I don't know if I am the only one. I'm 0:00:26.200 --> 0:00:29.840 surely not, because there is a thing called seasonal depression. 0:00:29.920 --> 0:00:33.360 But my god, I need sunshine. I need blue skies, 0:00:33.479 --> 0:00:39.280 I need birds chirping, because just dealing with this consistent doom, 0:00:39.360 --> 0:00:45.520 scrolling headlines of death and despair and just the grifters 0:00:45.720 --> 0:00:49.600 getting away with everything, you need something, you know, and 0:00:49.760 --> 0:00:53.560 nature is my thing. So happy, happy spring that we're 0:00:53.600 --> 0:00:56.640 beginning to see here in New York, and I hope 0:00:56.640 --> 0:00:59.880 where you are, folks. I'm really excited about the conversation 0:01:00.360 --> 0:01:06.199 that I'm bringing to today by author Mark Renk, who 0:01:06.360 --> 0:01:10.480 is the author of the book The Random Factor, how 0:01:10.680 --> 0:01:15.319 chance and luck profoundly shape our lives and the world 0:01:15.480 --> 0:01:19.920 around us. I love this conversation because one of my 0:01:20.000 --> 0:01:24.119 favorite movies, which we discuss briefly in this episode, is 0:01:24.280 --> 0:01:28.520 Sliding Doors. It is a nineteen nineties classic with Gwyneth 0:01:28.560 --> 0:01:35.479 Paltrow set in London, and you know their metro has 0:01:35.680 --> 0:01:40.720 sliding doors as do most. And the movie shapes up 0:01:40.959 --> 0:01:45.240 with her character making the train, and you follow that story, 0:01:45.319 --> 0:01:48.760 and her character missing the train, and you follow that story. 0:01:49.320 --> 0:01:52.040 And there are all of these moments that we have 0:01:52.480 --> 0:01:56.160 every day in our lives that if something were to 0:01:56.280 --> 0:01:59.960 have changed, we would not have met said person, talk 0:02:00.240 --> 0:02:06.040 to a person, you know, the course of our lives shift. 0:02:06.600 --> 0:02:11.480 And I think about that as it pertains to our 0:02:12.120 --> 0:02:16.600 justice system, as it pertains to our education system. Think 0:02:16.639 --> 0:02:21.360 about it, you know, I think about having had some 0:02:21.480 --> 0:02:25.080 of the professors and teachers that I had in middle 0:02:25.160 --> 0:02:29.440 school and high school and college. In some cases, if 0:02:29.480 --> 0:02:33.120 I had had and this is you know, a personal one, 0:02:33.280 --> 0:02:36.840 which is the only regret that I truly truly have 0:02:38.040 --> 0:02:41.440 in my life thus far, because I try to live 0:02:41.480 --> 0:02:43.440 a life where I don't have regrets and I can 0:02:43.560 --> 0:02:47.240 see the lessons and the learnings from the decisions that 0:02:47.280 --> 0:02:50.920 I've made, even if they have resulted in you know, 0:02:51.000 --> 0:02:54.440 grief and trauma, because it is unavoidable if we are 0:02:54.800 --> 0:02:59.760 really living life. But I had a professor in college. 0:02:59.840 --> 0:03:02.120 And if you've been listening to me for years now, 0:03:02.160 --> 0:03:08.160 you've heard this story. I'm declared political science major, and 0:03:09.280 --> 0:03:13.120 my plan had always been to go from undergrad to 0:03:13.840 --> 0:03:18.000 law school. I'd always wanted to be a lawyer. And 0:03:18.360 --> 0:03:23.440 one of my political science professors, during his office hours, 0:03:24.040 --> 0:03:26.560 told me that I wasn't smart enough to go to 0:03:26.680 --> 0:03:35.800 law school. And you imagine this as this older white 0:03:35.840 --> 0:03:42.680 man telling a young black woman who is still a teenager. 0:03:42.680 --> 0:03:45.560 I think I was maybe like eighteen or nineteen at 0:03:45.560 --> 0:03:51.080 the time, that I'm not smart enough to go to 0:03:51.160 --> 0:03:57.400 law school. And that was a really defining moment in 0:03:57.440 --> 0:04:00.880 my life and would be in my career because I 0:04:00.960 --> 0:04:05.400 didn't go. I would again think about it when I 0:04:05.520 --> 0:04:10.400 was in my mid twenties in my first job as 0:04:10.440 --> 0:04:14.400 a lobbyist, and everyone in you know, my office, was 0:04:14.440 --> 0:04:18.760 a lawyer. We were all making the same money, except 0:04:18.880 --> 0:04:24.240 I didn't have the law school debt. And I'd ask 0:04:24.320 --> 0:04:26.760 my boss at that time, you know, do you think 0:04:26.839 --> 0:04:29.320 you know? I keep him in and hawing about whether 0:04:29.400 --> 0:04:31.400 or not I should go to law school, and he 0:04:31.440 --> 0:04:33.920 was just like, Danielle, I'm going to tell you something. Honestly, 0:04:34.400 --> 0:04:37.560 if law school were free, I would tell you to 0:04:37.680 --> 0:04:41.800 go right now, just for the sheer knowledge of it. 0:04:41.839 --> 0:04:44.279 I think that you would enjoy it. But the fact 0:04:44.400 --> 0:04:47.599 is that the trajectory that you're on and lobbying and 0:04:47.880 --> 0:04:51.320 working on the hill and bah blah like it. You know, 0:04:51.520 --> 0:04:54.000 will just incur a lot of debt if you don't 0:04:54.040 --> 0:04:59.440 plan on going to a firm and essentially dedicating the 0:04:59.480 --> 0:05:01.799 next five to ten years to kind of paying off 0:05:02.240 --> 0:05:04.880 the debt that you're going to incur. And I think 0:05:04.880 --> 0:05:08.480 you would be miserable working at a firm. And it 0:05:08.560 --> 0:05:12.839 was those sliding door moments in my life that kind 0:05:12.920 --> 0:05:16.520 of set my life in the direction and my profession 0:05:16.600 --> 0:05:20.919 in the direction that it went in. I talk to 0:05:21.000 --> 0:05:24.960 lawyers all the time. I engage, you know, with legal 0:05:25.000 --> 0:05:28.200 analysts and you know, and legal scholars and all of 0:05:28.240 --> 0:05:30.440 those things. And it is the one regret that I 0:05:30.520 --> 0:05:33.039 had that what would have happened if I had had 0:05:33.400 --> 0:05:36.719 a different professor in college on that day that said 0:05:37.400 --> 0:05:39.839 I think that you should go. I think it's going 0:05:39.920 --> 0:05:43.159 to take a lot of work and effort, but like, 0:05:44.080 --> 0:05:49.640 we need more minds like yours. Right, where would I 0:05:49.680 --> 0:05:52.360 have ended up? What would I have done? Who would 0:05:52.400 --> 0:05:56.680 I have become? And I think about that often. And 0:05:56.720 --> 0:06:03.200 so this book by Mark Rang is really just interesting. 0:06:03.720 --> 0:06:07.080 I think that it has us kind of take a 0:06:07.160 --> 0:06:10.880 pause and think about our lives and think about the 0:06:11.160 --> 0:06:16.000 trajectory that we've been on, whether we've made different pivots 0:06:16.040 --> 0:06:20.240 and pauses and missteps and what have you, but how 0:06:20.360 --> 0:06:23.840 it really does shape and change our lives. So that 0:06:23.880 --> 0:06:33.680 conversation is coming up next, folks. I am very happy 0:06:33.720 --> 0:06:38.240 to welcome back to wok Affi Daily, Mark Robert Renk, 0:06:38.240 --> 0:06:41.560 who is the Herbert S. Hadley Professor of Social Welfare 0:06:41.880 --> 0:06:46.360 at Washington University in Saint Louis and is the author 0:06:46.400 --> 0:06:49.839 of the new book The Random Factor, How chance and 0:06:50.000 --> 0:06:55.440 luck profoundly shape our lives and the world around us. Mark, 0:06:55.560 --> 0:07:02.960 I think that the idea of randomness and chance is 0:07:03.000 --> 0:07:05.600 so interesting to me. I was just saying to you 0:07:05.680 --> 0:07:09.480 that one of my favorite movies from the nineties is 0:07:09.800 --> 0:07:13.840 Sliding Doors with Gyneth Paltrow. And for folks who who 0:07:13.880 --> 0:07:16.520 may or may not have ever seen it, you know, 0:07:16.640 --> 0:07:20.680 it's a two track story of what happens when you know, 0:07:20.760 --> 0:07:23.840 this character gets on the train versus missus the train 0:07:24.000 --> 0:07:27.960 and how her life is completely different, and then we 0:07:28.200 --> 0:07:33.640 as the audience realize which is real and what really 0:07:33.680 --> 0:07:37.480 happened on that day with the train And talk to 0:07:37.600 --> 0:07:42.320 us about this book. Your new book, and this idea 0:07:42.480 --> 0:07:46.240 of randomness and how it plays against I guess our 0:07:47.120 --> 0:07:50.160 thought in this country, at least what we've been indoctrinated 0:07:50.200 --> 0:07:55.120 into thinking about as rugged individualism, and this idea of 0:07:55.160 --> 0:07:59.960 pulling ourselves up and how that's counter to randomness and luck. 0:08:00.160 --> 0:08:02.040 Yeah, yeah, first of all, it's great to be with 0:08:02.080 --> 0:08:05.960 you Danielle again. And yeah, that movie is one of 0:08:06.040 --> 0:08:09.440 my favorites, and it really kind of exemplifies what the 0:08:09.480 --> 0:08:13.040 book is about. So I, you know, a lot of 0:08:13.040 --> 0:08:15.960 my prior work has been on issues of poverty and 0:08:16.000 --> 0:08:19.960 inequality and things like that. But in an earlier book 0:08:20.000 --> 0:08:22.560 on the American Dream, I interviewed a lot of different 0:08:22.600 --> 0:08:26.960 people and sort of delved into their lives and how 0:08:27.000 --> 0:08:29.120 their lives played out. And one of the things that 0:08:29.160 --> 0:08:33.199 I hadn't anticipated was that so many people mentioned, you know, well, 0:08:33.240 --> 0:08:35.679 if this hadn't happened, if that had, if this chance 0:08:35.800 --> 0:08:38.079 kind of event, if I hadn't had that telephone call 0:08:38.200 --> 0:08:41.000 or missed it or whatever it was, my life would 0:08:41.040 --> 0:08:45.000 be really, really different. And I started looking around, and 0:08:45.040 --> 0:08:47.440 there really hasn't been a lot written in the at 0:08:47.520 --> 0:08:50.000 least of the social sciences on the role the chance 0:08:50.040 --> 0:08:53.200 and luck and randomness play. So that's how I got 0:08:53.280 --> 0:08:56.640 kind of involved in this, and it's just a fascinating subject. 0:08:56.640 --> 0:08:59.800 And as you point out, I think we, particularly as 0:08:59.840 --> 0:09:03.200 a Americans, tend to downplay the role of chance and luck. 0:09:03.240 --> 0:09:05.680 You know, we we do it on our own, the 0:09:05.760 --> 0:09:10.960 rugged individualist, you know, we have control of our destiny. Well, 0:09:11.280 --> 0:09:15.040 you know what, it's it's not that simple. There's a 0:09:15.200 --> 0:09:18.960 lot of randomness and chance things that affect our lives. 0:09:18.960 --> 0:09:21.360 And so that's what the book really kind of plays 0:09:21.400 --> 0:09:23.640 out in many different ways. So, you know, the first 0:09:23.679 --> 0:09:25.240 part of the book is looking at kind of the 0:09:25.240 --> 0:09:28.240 world around us and how history and natural science have 0:09:28.320 --> 0:09:30.559 been shaped by that. Middle part of the book kind 0:09:30.559 --> 0:09:32.880 of focuses on our lives and how they have been 0:09:32.920 --> 0:09:34.640 shaped by chance and luck, And the last part of 0:09:34.640 --> 0:09:36.600 the book talks about what we can learn from this 0:09:36.800 --> 0:09:39.440 of living in a random world, what lessons can we learn, 0:09:39.480 --> 0:09:42.040 which is which I think is also really interesting. 0:09:41.960 --> 0:09:46.199 Because I think that this idea that I think even 0:09:46.320 --> 0:09:51.160 just the idea of their being destiny right, of their 0:09:51.240 --> 0:09:57.720 being universal unknowns right, and the fact that things sort 0:09:57.760 --> 0:10:02.120 of just happen, right, and if they sort of just happened, 0:10:02.520 --> 0:10:04.960 I think that that means for some people, then we're 0:10:05.000 --> 0:10:07.800 not in control, right, Like we're not in control of 0:10:07.840 --> 0:10:11.400 our destiny. It's all been pre written, right. But I 0:10:11.440 --> 0:10:15.520 think that what you're discussing here is the fact that 0:10:16.360 --> 0:10:19.600 a lot of things that we even understand as our norm. 0:10:19.720 --> 0:10:23.360 Let the one of the examples that you give is 0:10:23.400 --> 0:10:26.480 around like penicillin, right, and the fact that how is 0:10:26.480 --> 0:10:30.320 that discovered by accident? Right of leaving a Petri dish 0:10:30.360 --> 0:10:34.560 out right and then figuring out what happened the next day. 0:10:35.200 --> 0:10:40.360 And so this idea that randomness doesn't necessarily mean well, 0:10:40.400 --> 0:10:42.679 I guess let me ask you this, Does randomness mean 0:10:42.720 --> 0:10:46.040 that we're just not in control? Right in the in 0:10:46.080 --> 0:10:48.280 the extreme sense of the thing, like I might as 0:10:48.320 --> 0:10:50.800 well just lay down on the couch because everything is 0:10:50.840 --> 0:10:51.880 already written. 0:10:51.679 --> 0:10:52.160 Right right? 0:10:53.520 --> 0:10:55.400 How do those two things play? 0:10:55.679 --> 0:10:58.160 Yeah, yeah, great question. So I think there's two ways 0:10:58.200 --> 0:11:01.920 to think about that. One is that, yes, there's a 0:11:01.960 --> 0:11:06.199 lot of randomness and chance that occurs in individuals' lives. 0:11:07.120 --> 0:11:09.400 But the other side of that is what do you 0:11:09.640 --> 0:11:12.960 do when a chance event happens to you? What do 0:11:13.040 --> 0:11:16.280 you do when something lucky or unlucky? What is your 0:11:16.320 --> 0:11:19.199 response to it, So it's not simply a fata complete. 0:11:19.320 --> 0:11:20.760 I mean, there are lots of things we have no 0:11:20.840 --> 0:11:23.559 control over, but we do have control over how we 0:11:23.640 --> 0:11:27.600 respond to those things, So there's an interaction that's going on. 0:11:27.880 --> 0:11:29.680 The Other thing that I talk about in the book is, 0:11:29.720 --> 0:11:32.600 you know, I'm a sociologist by training, and so you know, 0:11:32.640 --> 0:11:35.680 sociologists look at the role of social class and race 0:11:35.800 --> 0:11:38.200 and gender and the effects that those have on our lives. 0:11:38.200 --> 0:11:41.440 And those are all you know, absolutely those have a 0:11:41.480 --> 0:11:44.400 strong effect. But the way that I describe it is 0:11:44.559 --> 0:11:47.520 think of those as strong currents that are pushing our 0:11:47.559 --> 0:11:51.560 lives in certain directions. But within those currents are all 0:11:51.679 --> 0:11:55.960 kinds of ripples of randomness and ripples of chance. And 0:11:56.000 --> 0:11:58.000 that's the way to think about how some of these 0:11:58.120 --> 0:12:02.720 larger forces come fine with randomness to have an effect 0:12:02.760 --> 0:12:04.880 in our lives. So it's not simply one or the other, 0:12:05.000 --> 0:12:07.920 it's really both working together. And I think that's an 0:12:07.920 --> 0:12:09.839 interesting way again to think about this. 0:12:10.679 --> 0:12:13.760 Yeah, you know, and I think that what happens is 0:12:13.840 --> 0:12:20.000 when we have conversations about destiny, about randomness, right about luck, 0:12:20.800 --> 0:12:24.920 is that it is a lot more layered than people think. 0:12:24.960 --> 0:12:27.760 It isn't as black and white. And I want to 0:12:27.800 --> 0:12:31.040 get into the conversation around why you say that those 0:12:32.040 --> 0:12:37.199 that happen to be in lower economic classes or status 0:12:37.800 --> 0:12:42.520 like are seemingly more affected by quote unquote bad luck 0:12:43.160 --> 0:12:46.640 than others. So let unpack that for us. 0:12:46.840 --> 0:12:51.679 Yeah, that's again a great question. And so so what 0:12:51.720 --> 0:12:55.760 I talk about is that certain events that are chance 0:12:55.840 --> 0:13:00.000 and random can have different implications depending on where you are, 0:13:00.160 --> 0:13:03.319 for example, in terms of your social class, your economics 0:13:03.360 --> 0:13:06.560 sort of well being. So folks that are you know, 0:13:06.880 --> 0:13:12.960 lower income or in poverty, certain events, random events, for example, 0:13:13.120 --> 0:13:15.600 just say your car breaks down, it's going to have 0:13:15.800 --> 0:13:18.840 much more of a profound influence than it will for 0:13:18.920 --> 0:13:21.080 somebody that has a lot of money. And this is 0:13:21.120 --> 0:13:25.000 another interesting component I think in this book, which says 0:13:25.040 --> 0:13:30.600 that chance and luck can actually exacerbate inequalities. You know, 0:13:30.679 --> 0:13:34.640 Billy Holliday had the famous you know the song God 0:13:34.679 --> 0:13:38.160 Bless the Child where where she said them that's God 0:13:38.200 --> 0:13:41.480 shall get them, that's not shall lose. So the Bible says, 0:13:41.520 --> 0:13:44.839 and it's still is news. And the idea is that 0:13:45.280 --> 0:13:49.200 if you have advantages, probably you're going to have more 0:13:49.240 --> 0:13:52.400 good breaks than if you don't have advantages where you're 0:13:52.400 --> 0:13:54.800 going to have more bad breaks. And in this way, 0:13:55.559 --> 0:13:59.200 chance and luck can widen the inequalities that we find 0:13:59.240 --> 0:14:01.559 in society. And that's a really I think again, that's 0:14:01.559 --> 0:14:03.480 a really interesting way to think about a lot of 0:14:03.480 --> 0:14:07.120 people don't talk about that at all. So so that's 0:14:07.160 --> 0:14:10.760 a way in which a chance event can have very 0:14:10.800 --> 0:14:13.840 different implications depending on where you are sort of in 0:14:13.880 --> 0:14:15.840 the social structure, you know. 0:14:15.920 --> 0:14:18.400 And it's interesting when you use like kind of this 0:14:18.520 --> 0:14:22.160 idea of let's say you know a car breaking down, right, 0:14:22.280 --> 0:14:25.320 which is you know, don't necessarily know when that's going 0:14:25.360 --> 0:14:27.040 to happen. Or let's say you're getting it, you get 0:14:27.080 --> 0:14:30.000 a flat tire, right, Well, if I'm driving and I 0:14:30.040 --> 0:14:34.200 get a flat tire, but I'm not a wage worker, right, 0:14:34.320 --> 0:14:37.840 so I'm able to call in and say, hey, I'm 0:14:37.840 --> 0:14:40.200 not going to make it into the office today. You know, 0:14:40.280 --> 0:14:43.800 I had this happen, it is more likely, I guess. 0:14:43.840 --> 0:14:47.080 The question is is it more likely then that because 0:14:47.080 --> 0:14:49.560 you're at a higher economic status, there's a bit you 0:14:49.640 --> 0:14:54.840 have more control in some sense right of how you're 0:14:54.880 --> 0:14:58.520 perceived and how a situation will be taken, where it 0:14:58.560 --> 0:15:02.800 can be still an inconvenience, but not catastrophic. 0:15:03.160 --> 0:15:05.440 Right, That's exactly right. So in other words, think of 0:15:05.440 --> 0:15:09.120 it as having the person with more resources, it just 0:15:09.160 --> 0:15:12.680 has more leeway in terms of dealing with that chance event. 0:15:12.880 --> 0:15:15.720 Whereas if you are right living on the edge and 0:15:15.760 --> 0:15:19.080 you're you know, a wage worker and you've got to 0:15:19.120 --> 0:15:22.400 get into work and this happens to you, it can 0:15:22.440 --> 0:15:24.800 be catastrophic. You can lose your job. You know, that 0:15:24.880 --> 0:15:27.680 might be it. And so again the same event, the 0:15:27.720 --> 0:15:31.800 flat tire, but playing out very differently. Another example that 0:15:31.840 --> 0:15:34.480 I give in the book is coming down with a 0:15:34.560 --> 0:15:38.600 medical diagnosis of say cancer or something like that, you know, 0:15:39.040 --> 0:15:42.240 which is you know, certainly awful. But if you have 0:15:42.360 --> 0:15:45.920 the resources, you probably got an earlier diagnosis, you probably 0:15:45.960 --> 0:15:49.760 have access to more healthcare resources. Then if you're in 0:15:49.800 --> 0:15:51.960 poverty where you might not have that, And so the 0:15:52.040 --> 0:15:55.200 same event plays out different The same chance event plays 0:15:55.240 --> 0:15:58.000 out differently. We know that actually a lot of cancers 0:15:58.400 --> 0:16:02.000 are simply random. It's random mutation. You know, there's an 0:16:02.080 --> 0:16:04.800 environmental effect and there's a genetic effect, but there's also 0:16:05.000 --> 0:16:06.720 very much of a random effect. 0:16:06.400 --> 0:16:15.920 There, you know. I also think about homelessness, right, I 0:16:15.920 --> 0:16:19.760 think about homelessness in the sense that you have the 0:16:19.800 --> 0:16:22.120 people that will say, well, I'm not going to give 0:16:22.360 --> 0:16:25.800 my hard earned money to this homeless person on the 0:16:25.800 --> 0:16:28.280 street over here with a sign they need to quote 0:16:28.360 --> 0:16:31.080 unquote get a job. But the way in which our 0:16:31.120 --> 0:16:33.600 system is set up is that you need to have 0:16:34.320 --> 0:16:37.160 a phone number, you need to have an address, you 0:16:37.240 --> 0:16:41.480 need to have all of these proofs of identity right 0:16:41.600 --> 0:16:46.920 in order to even be considered. And so again, if 0:16:46.960 --> 0:16:52.400 you have had the unfortunate luck right of losing housing 0:16:53.120 --> 0:16:56.520 and you're in and out of shelters or on the street, 0:16:57.240 --> 0:16:59.600 the idea that you're going to be able to pick 0:16:59.640 --> 0:17:04.560 yourself up and move into a different economic station is 0:17:04.640 --> 0:17:06.679 almost nonexistent. 0:17:06.520 --> 0:17:09.440 Right, And this gets back to sort of your original 0:17:09.480 --> 0:17:13.080 point about rugged individualism that we think of. You know, well, 0:17:13.280 --> 0:17:15.919 just anybody can pull themselves up by their bootstraps and 0:17:15.920 --> 0:17:18.919 so on and so forth. And what you're pointing out is, no, 0:17:19.200 --> 0:17:22.480 that's not necessarily the case. That you know, depending on 0:17:22.520 --> 0:17:25.399 where you are in society, there's a lot of forces 0:17:25.400 --> 0:17:28.760 and factors that may be working against you and make 0:17:28.840 --> 0:17:31.399 it much more difficult. You know, one of the things 0:17:31.440 --> 0:17:34.399 I talk about in earlier work on poverty is. I 0:17:34.440 --> 0:17:39.719 give the example of sort of an altered game of monopoly. 0:17:40.400 --> 0:17:44.040 So we often think about you know, let's imagine there's 0:17:44.080 --> 0:17:46.680 three players. They all start out with fifteen hundred dollars. 0:17:46.720 --> 0:17:48.560 They you know, who's going to win and lose. Well, 0:17:48.600 --> 0:17:50.440 there's going to be some luck involved the roll of 0:17:50.480 --> 0:17:54.200 the dice and some skill involved. Okay, but now let's 0:17:54.359 --> 0:17:56.840 imagine an altered game of monopoly, which I would say 0:17:56.880 --> 0:17:59.080 is much more of the way the United States operates 0:17:59.119 --> 0:18:02.280 in other countries. Player one starts out with five thousand dollars, 0:18:02.359 --> 0:18:04.760 player two with fifteen hundred, and player three with two 0:18:04.800 --> 0:18:07.119 hundred and fifty dollars, and maybe player one has some 0:18:07.240 --> 0:18:10.479 properties too. Well, we're still going to have the same rules, 0:18:10.560 --> 0:18:12.960 we're still going to roll the dice, but given those 0:18:13.040 --> 0:18:16.040 prior advantages, player one is going to win almost all 0:18:16.080 --> 0:18:19.120 of the games because it's just stacked against players two 0:18:19.160 --> 0:18:22.120 and three. And that's really the reality. So again, you've 0:18:22.119 --> 0:18:25.840 got chance in luck playing out, but the implications are 0:18:25.920 --> 0:18:26.520 much different. 0:18:27.480 --> 0:18:29.679 I mean, you just laid out like that's the difference 0:18:29.720 --> 0:18:35.080 between equality and equity. Right reading about that, I'm I'm like, 0:18:35.200 --> 0:18:38.320 that's like, that's that's it. Right there, which is equality. 0:18:38.440 --> 0:18:41.840 Is like, well, we all will have the same chance 0:18:41.920 --> 0:18:45.080 to roll the dice, right, isn't that Isn't that fair? Well, 0:18:45.119 --> 0:18:48.399 it's like, well no, because we are all starting in 0:18:48.480 --> 0:18:52.280 a different place with more or less amounts of money. 0:18:52.280 --> 0:18:53.919 So what difference does it make if we have the 0:18:53.920 --> 0:18:56.439 same chance to roll the dice if we're actually not 0:18:56.560 --> 0:18:58.399 starting in the same place. 0:18:58.520 --> 0:19:00.399 Right, It's so funny, you should say, because I just 0:19:00.440 --> 0:19:02.920 like an hour ago, is reading an article about equity 0:19:02.920 --> 0:19:05.959 and equality. It is so funny. But that's exactly right. 0:19:06.040 --> 0:19:07.879 I mean, this is a good example of that of 0:19:07.920 --> 0:19:11.520 that equality and equity are quite different in this context. 0:19:11.840 --> 0:19:14.120 Yeah, because I you know, I think about it too. 0:19:14.160 --> 0:19:16.960 And let me ask you this. You know, because you're 0:19:17.040 --> 0:19:19.719 in a in a in a university setting. You know, 0:19:19.800 --> 0:19:23.440 we're looking at right now at tax on diversity, equity 0:19:23.480 --> 0:19:26.199 and inclusion, right that are that are coming in and 0:19:26.240 --> 0:19:30.199 they're in they're targeting universities, and they're targeting you know, 0:19:30.320 --> 0:19:34.720 thought centers and intellectualism, which is what universities and colleges 0:19:34.760 --> 0:19:38.719 are supposed to be. And the idea around diversity, equity 0:19:38.760 --> 0:19:42.119 and inclusion is just that to create more inclusion, to 0:19:42.200 --> 0:19:46.320 create more opportunity from those that have been barred from 0:19:46.400 --> 0:19:50.960 admission into into different universities and colleges, into different industries 0:19:51.000 --> 0:19:55.840 of employment, and creating some way, right, some path forward 0:19:55.880 --> 0:19:58.600 of equity, and it not just being about the roll 0:19:58.640 --> 0:20:01.639 of the dice. We need to be more intentional about 0:20:01.680 --> 0:20:05.399 who has been included and excluded. How does it How 0:20:05.440 --> 0:20:10.000 does this randomness right and this idea of you know, 0:20:10.200 --> 0:20:12.200 of D and I and where we are with the 0:20:12.240 --> 0:20:17.080 pushback kind of play into how policies are created again 0:20:17.240 --> 0:20:21.080 around this rugged individual like, oh, everyone should be able 0:20:21.119 --> 0:20:25.399 to quote unquote pull themselves up, but we know factually 0:20:25.480 --> 0:20:26.920 that that is not the case. 0:20:26.880 --> 0:20:31.160 Right, And so here's here's an interesting sort of angle 0:20:31.280 --> 0:20:32.720 on this, and that is, you know, we've been talking 0:20:32.720 --> 0:20:36.600 about rugged individualism. The other thing that that America has 0:20:36.640 --> 0:20:40.439 really put a strong emphasis on is the idea that 0:20:40.480 --> 0:20:45.400 we are a meritocracy, that you get what you deserve. 0:20:46.280 --> 0:20:49.639 And in the book I talk about there's some really 0:20:49.680 --> 0:20:54.240 interesting analysis that show that those who have extreme wealth 0:20:54.840 --> 0:20:59.000 as well as those who experience poverty, there's a lot 0:20:59.080 --> 0:21:03.199 of luck in Now that's not to say that, you know, 0:21:03.520 --> 0:21:07.520 hard work and individualism aren't important, but for those who 0:21:07.560 --> 0:21:11.160 really make it. There's a strong luck component. For example, 0:21:11.160 --> 0:21:14.359 think about the entertainment industry. If don't to anybody there, 0:21:14.960 --> 0:21:18.360 they will always tell you if I hadn't gotten that break, 0:21:18.880 --> 0:21:21.720 I wouldn't be where I am today. And that's just 0:21:21.760 --> 0:21:24.560 sort of a little example of that. So, you know, 0:21:25.040 --> 0:21:28.280 we think, well, we live in a meritocracy and people 0:21:28.320 --> 0:21:30.879 get what they deserve. Well, you know what, with chance 0:21:30.920 --> 0:21:33.840 and luck, people don't always get what they deserve. Maybe 0:21:33.840 --> 0:21:36.160 they get more than they deserve, or maybe they don't 0:21:36.200 --> 0:21:39.920 get what they should deserve. And so, in going back 0:21:39.920 --> 0:21:43.879 to your point about policy and thinking about policies, one 0:21:43.960 --> 0:21:47.679 of the things that this injects into the discussion is 0:21:47.720 --> 0:21:51.320 the idea of the importance of a social safety net 0:21:51.359 --> 0:21:55.000 and social insurance because what happens. You know, this is 0:21:55.040 --> 0:21:57.560 my work on poverty, which shows that most Americans will 0:21:57.560 --> 0:21:59.960 experience poverty at some point in their lives. And people say, 0:22:00.040 --> 0:22:02.399 how can that be. The reason is, over thirty or 0:22:02.440 --> 0:22:06.160 forty years, things happen to people out of the blue, 0:22:06.280 --> 0:22:09.520 losing a job, getting sick, a family splitting up. And 0:22:09.560 --> 0:22:12.480 when those things happen in the United States, there's not 0:22:12.600 --> 0:22:15.080 a lot to protect people from poverty. So one of 0:22:15.119 --> 0:22:17.040 the things that I one of the big arguments I 0:22:17.080 --> 0:22:20.360 make is that because of chance and luck, and particularly 0:22:20.400 --> 0:22:23.840 bad luck, we should think about having a robust social 0:22:23.880 --> 0:22:27.000 safety net to protect people when these things happen. And 0:22:27.080 --> 0:22:30.040 European countries do a much better job of that than 0:22:30.119 --> 0:22:31.800 we do in the United States. 0:22:31.920 --> 0:22:34.400 You know, And I think about it too as you're saying, 0:22:34.400 --> 0:22:36.800 that's what just popped into my mind, right, which was 0:22:37.040 --> 0:22:40.960 a social experiment in and of itself, is COVID, right Lee. 0:22:41.200 --> 0:22:45.359 So here we have this global health pandemic hits every 0:22:45.400 --> 0:22:49.159 single continent, hits you know, every single person in a 0:22:49.200 --> 0:22:53.320 different way. But those again who had the privilege and 0:22:53.359 --> 0:22:56.600 the ability and the economic status to be able to 0:22:56.680 --> 0:23:00.560 work from home versus those whose work were quired them 0:23:00.840 --> 0:23:03.560 to be in person, to put themselves in harms way 0:23:03.880 --> 0:23:08.159 for folks who had maybe some cushion in terms of 0:23:09.080 --> 0:23:12.320 the ability that if they were to lose their job, 0:23:12.359 --> 0:23:14.800 they weren't going to lose their homes. Or we saw 0:23:14.920 --> 0:23:18.800 food lines right in communities and in neighborhoods that we 0:23:19.200 --> 0:23:22.800 never even knew had food pantries, right, And so again 0:23:22.920 --> 0:23:27.040 it was this randomness to some extent of this global 0:23:27.040 --> 0:23:31.000 health pandemic, but how it hit. We couldn't look away 0:23:32.240 --> 0:23:35.199 and say that people didn't need help, like, oh, you 0:23:35.240 --> 0:23:39.400 were getting what you deserved in terms of the outcome here. 0:23:39.760 --> 0:23:43.399 Right right, right, No, that's a great example. It's like, yeah, 0:23:43.480 --> 0:23:46.600 nobody deserved what happened with COVID and that was a 0:23:46.720 --> 0:23:49.399 very and again it was actually very random. There was 0:23:49.440 --> 0:23:53.040 a mutation, you know, it started in the fish market 0:23:53.119 --> 0:23:56.439 in China and stuff like that and spread, but the 0:23:56.680 --> 0:23:59.320 impact that that had was very It had a very 0:23:59.320 --> 0:24:02.480 different impact depending on where you were again in society. 0:24:02.560 --> 0:24:06.840 So again it's another example, and it's example of things. 0:24:06.960 --> 0:24:09.840 Bad things can happen out of the blue, and what 0:24:09.880 --> 0:24:12.760 we should think about is, Okay, why don't we put 0:24:12.760 --> 0:24:15.520 some things in place to protect people. That's the whole idea, 0:24:15.560 --> 0:24:18.720