1
00:00:02,750 --> 00:00:05,590
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios. Podcasts.

2
00:00:05,910 --> 00:00:07,270
Speaker 2: Radio. News.

3
00:00:18,680 --> 00:00:21,460
Speaker 3: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Odd Thoughts Podcast.

4
00:00:21,620 --> 00:00:22,460
Speaker 3: I'm Traci Alloway.

5
00:00:22,600 --> 00:00:23,780
Speaker 1: And I'm Joe Weisenthal.

6
00:00:24,160 --> 00:00:27,460
Speaker 3: Joe, both you and I did international relations at university

7
00:00:27,600 --> 00:00:29,040
Speaker 3: slash college, as you would say.

8
00:00:30,140 --> 00:00:32,580
Speaker 1: At college, at uni. And yeah, it helped us a lot.

9
00:00:32,640 --> 00:00:34,099
Speaker 1: It got us where we are here right now.

10
00:00:34,280 --> 00:00:37,099
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think today's guest, pretty much anyone who did

11
00:00:37,200 --> 00:00:41,680
Speaker 3: any sort of political science or IR degree, or maybe even,

12
00:00:41,770 --> 00:00:44,110
Speaker 3: I don't know, some undergraduate syllabus or something like that,

13
00:00:45,150 --> 00:00:50,089
Speaker 3: this author, this person, was definitely on the syllabus in

14
00:00:50,450 --> 00:00:52,810
Speaker 3: the early 2000s and probably still is, right?

15
00:00:53,030 --> 00:00:55,380
Speaker 1: Almost certainly still is. You know, I did all the

16
00:00:55,410 --> 00:00:58,080
Speaker 1: reading back when I was in college. You know, it wasn't,

17
00:00:58,240 --> 00:01:01,690
Speaker 1: even though I was... I did get a degree in it. Technically,

18
00:01:01,730 --> 00:01:03,990
Speaker 1: by the way, I don't know if I've ever said this. Technically,

19
00:01:04,050 --> 00:01:06,730
Speaker 1: in Texas, the degree was called government, which included poli

20
00:01:06,770 --> 00:01:07,830
Speaker 1: sci and IR.

21
00:01:07,910 --> 00:01:08,890
Speaker 3: You've been lying to me.

22
00:01:08,910 --> 00:01:12,070
Speaker 1: It's sort of a little subtle. I had no choice.

23
00:01:12,090 --> 00:01:12,649
Speaker 1: That's what it was called.

24
00:01:13,050 --> 00:01:15,470
Speaker 3: Insight into Joe's upcoming political ambitions.

25
00:01:15,590 --> 00:01:17,709
Speaker 1: That's right. But, you know, like a lot of the stuff,

26
00:01:17,790 --> 00:01:20,289
Speaker 1: including the work of our guest today, I like went

27
00:01:20,330 --> 00:01:23,770
Speaker 1: back and reread several years ago because I guess at

28
00:01:23,790 --> 00:01:27,149
Speaker 1: the time, early 2000s, it felt a lot like theory.

29
00:01:27,600 --> 00:01:30,670
Speaker 1: And then suddenly, like over the last several years, it's like, oh,

30
00:01:30,720 --> 00:01:33,230
Speaker 1: this isn't just, this might help explain the world or

31
00:01:33,270 --> 00:01:34,850
Speaker 1: a thing is going on in the world that I

32
00:01:34,890 --> 00:01:38,150
Speaker 1: need to revisit and changes are afoot, et cetera. So

33
00:01:38,569 --> 00:01:40,600
Speaker 1: I revisited the work. And so even though it was

34
00:01:40,620 --> 00:01:42,890
Speaker 1: a long time ago, Feels fresh in my head.

35
00:01:43,030 --> 00:01:43,270
Speaker 2: Yeah.

36
00:01:43,370 --> 00:01:46,250
Speaker 3: So I've already given it away, but today's guest is,

37
00:01:46,350 --> 00:01:49,730
Speaker 3: in fact, Francis Fukuyama. He is a professor at Stanford,

38
00:01:50,050 --> 00:01:52,170
Speaker 3: author of the new book, In the Realm of the

39
00:01:52,230 --> 00:01:56,550
Speaker 3: Last Man, and author of famously both an essay and

40
00:01:56,590 --> 00:01:58,750
Speaker 3: a book called The End of History.

41
00:01:59,230 --> 00:01:59,990
Speaker 1: And The Last Man.

42
00:02:00,230 --> 00:02:00,840
Speaker 3: And The Last Man.

43
00:02:00,880 --> 00:02:01,590
Speaker 1: Which is really key.

44
00:02:01,610 --> 00:02:02,320
Speaker 2: Which is key.

45
00:02:02,360 --> 00:02:04,600
Speaker 3: Which is key. So a lot of people think about

46
00:02:04,620 --> 00:02:06,820
Speaker 3: The End of History as this idea that like, well,

47
00:02:07,250 --> 00:02:10,389
Speaker 3: Liberal democracy has won out and we're never going to

48
00:02:10,450 --> 00:02:13,430
Speaker 3: have wars or conflicts or struggles ever again. And that

49
00:02:13,530 --> 00:02:17,169
Speaker 3: wasn't quite the message. And we should talk about why

50
00:02:17,230 --> 00:02:20,010
Speaker 3: it kind of, I don't know, got framed in that way.

51
00:02:20,580 --> 00:02:24,919
Speaker 3: But I think this whole topic clearly is very relevant

52
00:02:25,040 --> 00:02:27,510
Speaker 3: at the moment because- We just had local elections in

53
00:02:27,550 --> 00:02:30,870
Speaker 3: Germany earlier this month. And it's kind of a reminder

54
00:02:30,990 --> 00:02:35,250
Speaker 3: that there is this lingering feeling or possibility that maybe

55
00:02:35,330 --> 00:02:38,810
Speaker 3: people don't actually like the liberal order. Maybe they don't

56
00:02:38,850 --> 00:02:39,190
Speaker 3: want it.

57
00:02:39,340 --> 00:02:41,440
Speaker 1: Totally. It certainly seems you can point to a lot

58
00:02:41,480 --> 00:02:43,080
Speaker 1: of things. We don't need to go down the list.

59
00:02:43,139 --> 00:02:46,639
Speaker 1: But various ideologies they would call like illiberalism of some

60
00:02:46,700 --> 00:02:50,030
Speaker 1: form or another seem to be. on the march and

61
00:02:50,050 --> 00:02:53,430
Speaker 1: there's this sort of anxiety about why and whether the

62
00:02:53,470 --> 00:02:56,730
Speaker 1: people who have spent a lot of time like upholding

63
00:02:57,150 --> 00:03:02,050
Speaker 1: the various institutions that we associate with Western democracy or

64
00:03:02,130 --> 00:03:06,690
Speaker 1: liberal democracy entities like the EU or free trade agreements,

65
00:03:07,050 --> 00:03:10,150
Speaker 1: the degree to which it feels like people are exhausted,

66
00:03:10,410 --> 00:03:12,030
Speaker 1: like that there is this effort to hold it up,

67
00:03:12,400 --> 00:03:16,079
Speaker 1: but there is this sense of exhaustion, maybe resignation and

68
00:03:16,100 --> 00:03:18,060
Speaker 1: so forth. The one other thing I'll say before we

69
00:03:18,100 --> 00:03:21,630
Speaker 1: get into it, you know, like I remember I mentioned

70
00:03:21,650 --> 00:03:23,250
Speaker 1: this once or twice, but this is a thing that

71
00:03:23,290 --> 00:03:25,770
Speaker 1: sticks out to me, like in middle school or maybe

72
00:03:25,790 --> 00:03:28,610
Speaker 1: my first year of high school, learning about the Cold War.

73
00:03:29,550 --> 00:03:33,030
Speaker 1: And it was taught in U.S. history classes. And we're

74
00:03:33,050 --> 00:03:34,190
Speaker 1: talking like 93 here.

75
00:03:34,210 --> 00:03:34,590
Speaker 3: Yeah.

76
00:03:35,230 --> 00:03:37,050
Speaker 1: As if it was like it might as well have

77
00:03:37,070 --> 00:03:39,310
Speaker 1: been World War One. It was already taught as like.

78
00:03:40,180 --> 00:03:40,620
Speaker 3: History.

79
00:03:40,880 --> 00:03:43,530
Speaker 1: And now look at 20, you know, from 2026, I

80
00:03:43,560 --> 00:03:46,270
Speaker 1: was like, oh, that was literally just the day before

81
00:03:46,350 --> 00:03:49,290
Speaker 1: the fall of the Berlin Wall, etc. But already by

82
00:03:49,350 --> 00:03:52,510
Speaker 1: that point, so many of these global questions were being

83
00:03:52,570 --> 00:03:56,120
Speaker 1: taught as if they had finally been settled. Clearly nothing

84
00:03:56,140 --> 00:03:56,480
Speaker 1: is settled.

85
00:03:56,580 --> 00:03:59,640
Speaker 3: No, that was the total vibe in the early 2000s, right?

86
00:03:59,660 --> 00:04:02,640
Speaker 3: At university, it was done. And yet here we are

87
00:04:02,660 --> 00:04:05,940
Speaker 3: in 2026. And it seems things are very much not finished.

88
00:04:05,960 --> 00:04:08,950
Speaker 3: So without further ado... We do, in fact, have the

89
00:04:08,970 --> 00:04:11,850
Speaker 3: perfect guest, Francis Fukuyama. Thank you so much for coming

90
00:04:11,910 --> 00:04:12,470
Speaker 3: on Odd Thoughts.

91
00:04:12,490 --> 00:04:13,970
Speaker 2: Well, thanks very much for having me.

92
00:04:14,150 --> 00:04:17,770
Speaker 3: When you look at something like the recent German local election,

93
00:04:18,170 --> 00:04:22,830
Speaker 3: the far-right party Alternative für Deutschland, Alternative for Germany, got

94
00:04:22,870 --> 00:04:25,690
Speaker 3: a majority. How do you fit something like that in

95
00:04:25,730 --> 00:04:29,850
Speaker 3: your framework? Is it, well, this is a natural rejection

96
00:04:29,970 --> 00:04:32,589
Speaker 3: of liberal democracy of the sort that I write about

97
00:04:32,790 --> 00:04:34,870
Speaker 3: in this book, in the realm of The Last Man?

98
00:04:35,430 --> 00:04:38,500
Speaker 3: Or is this just a sort of bump along the

99
00:04:38,660 --> 00:04:40,620
Speaker 3: evolution of liberal democracy?

100
00:04:41,140 --> 00:04:45,010
Speaker 2: Well, I don't think anybody knows which of those alternatives

101
00:04:45,570 --> 00:04:48,710
Speaker 2: is the right one. I think that liberal democracy has

102
00:04:48,770 --> 00:04:51,870
Speaker 2: had some pretty bad moments earlier in the 20th century.

103
00:04:52,430 --> 00:04:55,979
Speaker 2: The 1930s was pretty bad with communism and fascism both

104
00:04:56,200 --> 00:04:59,820
Speaker 2: threatening it. The 1970s and the oil shocks also led

105
00:04:59,860 --> 00:05:03,080
Speaker 2: to a lot of pessimism about the future of democracy.

106
00:05:03,640 --> 00:05:05,680
Speaker 2: So it could be that we're going simply through a

107
00:05:05,740 --> 00:05:09,460
Speaker 2: period like that. I think probably the discontent is a

108
00:05:09,500 --> 00:05:13,680
Speaker 2: little bit more extreme this time. Freedom House says that

109
00:05:13,700 --> 00:05:16,550
Speaker 2: the aggregate level of freedom in the world has declined

110
00:05:16,580 --> 00:05:20,190
Speaker 2: now for the last 20 years, since about 2008 or so.

111
00:05:20,810 --> 00:05:22,850
Speaker 2: And I think that one of the reasons for being

112
00:05:22,930 --> 00:05:27,070
Speaker 2: more pessimistic is really what's happened in the United States,

113
00:05:27,170 --> 00:05:31,489
Speaker 2: because for the entire post-World War II period, the United

114
00:05:31,529 --> 00:05:36,140
Speaker 2: States was the model liberal democracy. My Chinese students 20

115
00:05:36,140 --> 00:05:38,580
Speaker 2: years ago all said they wanted China to be like

116
00:05:38,620 --> 00:05:41,850
Speaker 2: the United States. They don't say that anymore. And I

117
00:05:41,930 --> 00:05:46,250
Speaker 2: think that the rise of a populist movement within the

118
00:05:46,310 --> 00:05:49,589
Speaker 2: leading liberal democracy in the world is a big signal

119
00:05:49,630 --> 00:05:53,830
Speaker 2: that something deeper is afoot and that that discontent really

120
00:05:53,910 --> 00:05:56,250
Speaker 2: reflects some underlying social changes.

121
00:05:56,630 --> 00:05:58,830
Speaker 1: I'm glad you brought up your students because actually that

122
00:05:58,850 --> 00:06:01,839
Speaker 1: was sort of what I was going to ask first is,

123
00:06:02,350 --> 00:06:07,270
Speaker 1: Having been a professor for several years, setting aside international

124
00:06:07,330 --> 00:06:11,229
Speaker 1: students or any students, you know, like I said, when

125
00:06:11,290 --> 00:06:13,130
Speaker 1: I first learned that there was this thing called the

126
00:06:13,170 --> 00:06:16,510
Speaker 1: Cold War, it was just like history was settled. It

127
00:06:16,540 --> 00:06:18,720
Speaker 1: had come to an end. Now, I don't think we

128
00:06:18,760 --> 00:06:20,380
Speaker 1: were taught in high school that history had come to

129
00:06:20,400 --> 00:06:23,060
Speaker 1: an end, but we were taught that these big questions

130
00:06:23,420 --> 00:06:25,400
Speaker 1: had kind of come to an end and kind of irrelevant,

131
00:06:25,660 --> 00:06:27,779
Speaker 1: kind of like in the past. And I'm curious if

132
00:06:27,839 --> 00:06:31,859
Speaker 1: you've seen the evolution of your students taking your courses

133
00:06:31,880 --> 00:06:36,420
Speaker 1: and what you've observed about how they view that period

134
00:06:36,440 --> 00:06:38,860
Speaker 1: of time, why they're interested in it, and if their

135
00:06:38,880 --> 00:06:39,739
Speaker 1: interests have changed.

136
00:06:40,540 --> 00:06:45,140
Speaker 2: It's discouraging getting older. The Cold War is history. 9-11

137
00:06:45,610 --> 00:06:48,610
Speaker 2: is history. Even the rise of Donald Trump now is history.

138
00:06:48,650 --> 00:06:52,910
Speaker 2: It happened when I was seven years old. So things move.

139
00:06:52,950 --> 00:06:56,830
Speaker 2: But I think that the most important phenomenon that I

140
00:06:56,950 --> 00:07:02,250
Speaker 2: hadn't anticipated is the importance of generational change. For my generation,

141
00:07:02,270 --> 00:07:05,030
Speaker 2: I think the fall of the Berlin Wall and the

142
00:07:05,089 --> 00:07:10,640
Speaker 2: collapse of communism was the big defining event. And that's

143
00:07:10,680 --> 00:07:14,200
Speaker 2: certainly what inspired me to write the end of history essay,

144
00:07:14,260 --> 00:07:17,260
Speaker 2: the first one. But now we've come full circle where

145
00:07:17,280 --> 00:07:20,940
Speaker 2: a lot of people that actually lived through or in

146
00:07:20,980 --> 00:07:24,850
Speaker 2: those countries now want to reverse that outcome as in

147
00:07:24,890 --> 00:07:30,240
Speaker 2: the Sachsen-Anhalt election. And I think that it indicates that

148
00:07:30,420 --> 00:07:35,540
Speaker 2: liberal democracy actually is something that is easily taken for granted.

149
00:07:35,920 --> 00:07:39,340
Speaker 2: You know, you have a couple generations since the fall

150
00:07:39,560 --> 00:07:42,840
Speaker 2: of the Berlin Wall that have grown up without any

151
00:07:42,920 --> 00:07:46,440
Speaker 2: knowledge of what communism really was. And I think that

152
00:07:46,520 --> 00:07:49,060
Speaker 2: one of the biggest things that makes people like liberal

153
00:07:49,100 --> 00:07:52,600
Speaker 2: democracy is the opposite, is living under a dictatorship. If

154
00:07:52,640 --> 00:07:55,360
Speaker 2: you live in a communist dictatorship, You know, I mean,

155
00:07:55,380 --> 00:07:58,960
Speaker 2: the joy that Eastern Europeans felt when communism fell was

156
00:07:59,040 --> 00:08:03,440
Speaker 2: really tangible because they didn't like, you know, being surveyed

157
00:08:03,520 --> 00:08:07,750
Speaker 2: and imprisoned, you know, for speaking out. And nobody experiences

158
00:08:07,810 --> 00:08:09,710
Speaker 2: that in Europe or the United States or has not

159
00:08:09,770 --> 00:08:13,370
Speaker 2: experienced that certainly for the last generation. And so it's

160
00:08:13,410 --> 00:08:17,290
Speaker 2: very easy to assume that the good things about liberal democracy,

161
00:08:17,330 --> 00:08:20,860
Speaker 2: the peace and the prosperity are just naturally there and

162
00:08:20,900 --> 00:08:23,260
Speaker 2: we don't have to worry about them. And therefore, you

163
00:08:23,320 --> 00:08:25,480
Speaker 2: can think about, you know, the EU as the biggest

164
00:08:25,540 --> 00:08:28,660
Speaker 2: dictatorship in the world rather than a real dictatorship.

165
00:08:29,540 --> 00:08:33,719
Speaker 3: Can I just ask before we get into more current events,

166
00:08:34,140 --> 00:08:37,949
Speaker 3: but the end of history, I touched on it in

167
00:08:37,970 --> 00:08:40,210
Speaker 3: the intro, but a lot of people interpreted that to

168
00:08:40,250 --> 00:08:43,960
Speaker 3: be quite literally the end of history. So liberal democracy won,

169
00:08:44,330 --> 00:08:48,050
Speaker 3: globalization won, everyone was going to trade with each other

170
00:08:48,090 --> 00:08:50,130
Speaker 3: and we weren't going to have any more wars or conflict.

171
00:08:50,570 --> 00:08:53,069
Speaker 3: and things like that. And I am certainly guilty in

172
00:08:53,850 --> 00:08:56,490
Speaker 3: the past on this podcast of using end of history

173
00:08:56,530 --> 00:08:59,929
Speaker 3: as a sort of byword for globalization. What do you

174
00:08:59,990 --> 00:09:04,590
Speaker 3: attribute that misinterpretation to? Was it the zeitgeist of the

175
00:09:04,690 --> 00:09:06,410
Speaker 3: end of the Cold War at the time you wrote

176
00:09:06,429 --> 00:09:10,010
Speaker 3: the book in 1992? Was it people just were too

177
00:09:10,050 --> 00:09:12,590
Speaker 3: lazy to read the last six chapters? What was going on?

178
00:09:12,890 --> 00:09:14,630
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, it's a little bit of all of those.

179
00:09:14,770 --> 00:09:17,079
Speaker 2: The end of history was not my phrase. It was

180
00:09:17,130 --> 00:09:21,220
Speaker 2: a phrase of the German philosopher Hegel, who understood history

181
00:09:21,260 --> 00:09:24,179
Speaker 2: with a capital H, the way we understand today something

182
00:09:24,200 --> 00:09:28,110
Speaker 2: like modernization or development. And so the idea is that

183
00:09:28,160 --> 00:09:31,800
Speaker 2: human societies evolve over time, and they evolve in a

184
00:09:31,850 --> 00:09:35,370
Speaker 2: progressive fashion. And so the question was, in which direction

185
00:09:35,429 --> 00:09:39,069
Speaker 2: were they evolving? And that's the end, its end in

186
00:09:39,110 --> 00:09:42,610
Speaker 2: the sense of goal or termination point. So the question

187
00:09:42,630 --> 00:09:45,470
Speaker 2: of the end of history was, what kind of society

188
00:09:45,650 --> 00:09:49,520
Speaker 2: emerges at the end of this long evolutionary process? Now

189
00:09:49,600 --> 00:09:53,800
Speaker 2: for about 150 years, the Marxists took Hegel's concept of

190
00:09:53,850 --> 00:09:56,309
Speaker 2: history and said the end of history is going to

191
00:09:56,330 --> 00:10:01,660
Speaker 2: be communism. By the late 1980s, after Gorbachev and Puri Stryka,

192
00:10:02,280 --> 00:10:03,920
Speaker 2: it seemed to me that they were never going to

193
00:10:03,960 --> 00:10:06,800
Speaker 2: make it, you know, that communism was really off the table.

194
00:10:07,220 --> 00:10:09,280
Speaker 2: And therefore, if there was an end of history, it

195
00:10:09,320 --> 00:10:12,579
Speaker 2: was a stage just before you got to communism, which

196
00:10:12,640 --> 00:10:17,240
Speaker 2: was what the communists called bourgeois democracy and a market

197
00:10:17,280 --> 00:10:20,600
Speaker 2: economy and capitalism. And so for me, that was the

198
00:10:21,280 --> 00:10:24,620
Speaker 2: resting point that we seem to be arriving at. What

199
00:10:24,660 --> 00:10:27,569
Speaker 2: they didn't understand in the title, and I guess this

200
00:10:27,620 --> 00:10:30,449
Speaker 2: is my fault for picking these words, but it was

201
00:10:30,510 --> 00:10:34,370
Speaker 2: the end of history and the last man. The philosopher

202
00:10:34,410 --> 00:10:37,050
Speaker 2: Nietzsche was the one that talked about the last man

203
00:10:37,110 --> 00:10:40,290
Speaker 2: because he hated the idea of there being an end

204
00:10:40,330 --> 00:10:45,230
Speaker 2: of history because for him, the victory of English liberalism

205
00:10:45,290 --> 00:10:49,490
Speaker 2: would be a boring... flat world where nobody had aspirations.

206
00:10:49,570 --> 00:10:53,890
Speaker 2: Everybody was fed, clothed, happy, but content in that happiness,

207
00:10:53,929 --> 00:10:56,430
Speaker 2: just like a cow grazing in the field.

208
00:10:57,250 --> 00:10:59,350
Speaker 3: And he said- Cows seem pretty happy.

209
00:10:59,370 --> 00:11:01,930
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, they are happy, but for Nietzsche- For a man,

210
00:11:02,320 --> 00:11:03,679
Speaker 1: for a human, yeah.

211
00:11:03,820 --> 00:11:08,940
Speaker 2: Human beings had a pride that shouldn't be satisfied just

212
00:11:08,960 --> 00:11:12,280
Speaker 2: by peace and contentment, that you should want something more,

213
00:11:12,320 --> 00:11:14,280
Speaker 2: you should want to dominate and so forth. And I

214
00:11:14,340 --> 00:11:18,310
Speaker 2: think That's the unhappiness that I was talking about back

215
00:11:18,370 --> 00:11:20,750
Speaker 2: then in that part of the book. And I think

216
00:11:20,770 --> 00:11:22,940
Speaker 2: that's what's driving a lot of the extremism in the

217
00:11:22,960 --> 00:11:23,480
Speaker 2: world today.

218
00:11:24,620 --> 00:11:27,160
Speaker 3: The first ever essay I wrote when I was doing

219
00:11:27,210 --> 00:11:30,310
Speaker 3: my international relations degree was we were allowed to choose

220
00:11:30,370 --> 00:11:34,290
Speaker 3: our own topic. And I chose like a Nietzschean interpretation

221
00:11:34,490 --> 00:11:37,250
Speaker 3: of international relations, which I thought at the time was

222
00:11:37,290 --> 00:11:41,610
Speaker 3: just me being like an insufferable university student. But then

223
00:11:41,630 --> 00:11:44,290
Speaker 3: I'm sure I was. I'm sure I was. But then

224
00:11:44,309 --> 00:11:47,690
Speaker 3: I read End of History or the Nietzsche reference. And

225
00:11:47,710 --> 00:11:49,370
Speaker 3: I was like, maybe I'm on to something.

226
00:11:49,429 --> 00:11:53,330
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe you're on to something. OK, one interpretation of

227
00:11:53,690 --> 00:11:57,860
Speaker 1: many of the political events that have transpired, I suppose,

228
00:11:57,900 --> 00:12:01,540
Speaker 1: is that people got bored. Right. And so there's obviously

229
00:12:01,559 --> 00:12:03,780
Speaker 1: more than the German election. There is the election of

230
00:12:03,820 --> 00:12:06,800
Speaker 1: Donald Trump and there is Brexit and actually like a

231
00:12:06,840 --> 00:12:11,510
Speaker 1: million other things that we could cite within what we

232
00:12:11,550 --> 00:12:15,090
Speaker 1: call liberalism. We grew up with or learned to celebrate

233
00:12:15,130 --> 00:12:18,610
Speaker 1: differences among people and that this was important and pluralism

234
00:12:18,650 --> 00:12:20,800
Speaker 1: and difference and diversity and all these things that were

235
00:12:20,820 --> 00:12:25,260
Speaker 1: like internalized as positive. But I sometimes wonder, is there

236
00:12:25,300 --> 00:12:28,820
Speaker 1: like a contradiction in the sense like we value pluralism

237
00:12:28,860 --> 00:12:32,220
Speaker 1: and difference, but maybe some people really are different in

238
00:12:32,280 --> 00:12:35,700
Speaker 1: the sense that like, no, like they really want a

239
00:12:36,300 --> 00:12:39,230
Speaker 1: different order or they really want to live in a

240
00:12:39,290 --> 00:12:43,920
Speaker 1: distinct culture and that maybe is less oriented towards the market,

241
00:12:44,100 --> 00:12:48,660
Speaker 1: et cetera, really more energized by the idea of cultural

242
00:12:48,700 --> 00:12:54,050
Speaker 1: homogeneity or something like that. From the sort of liberal perspective,

243
00:12:54,530 --> 00:12:58,510
Speaker 1: how do you think about difference? Because things like migration,

244
00:12:58,570 --> 00:13:01,350
Speaker 1: et cetera, seem to be one of the through lines

245
00:13:01,410 --> 00:13:04,820
Speaker 1: for all of this sort of illiberal, the rise of illiberalism.

246
00:13:04,860 --> 00:13:07,900
Speaker 2: No, that's exactly right. I think right from the beginning

247
00:13:07,940 --> 00:13:12,079
Speaker 2: of liberalism, One of the charges has been it weakens community.

248
00:13:12,640 --> 00:13:15,900
Speaker 2: It weakens the sense of togetherness, you know, shared values

249
00:13:16,000 --> 00:13:19,260
Speaker 2: and so forth. And that's deliberate. Liberalism got its start

250
00:13:19,300 --> 00:13:22,440
Speaker 2: in the 17th century after the European wars of religion,

251
00:13:22,880 --> 00:13:26,770
Speaker 2: when Christians were killing each other over things like transubstantiation

252
00:13:26,830 --> 00:13:31,089
Speaker 2: or childhood baptism. And the early liberals said, look, we

253
00:13:31,230 --> 00:13:33,429
Speaker 2: actually need to accept the fact that we don't agree

254
00:13:33,510 --> 00:13:37,160
Speaker 2: on the highest things. Let's just tolerate one another and

255
00:13:37,220 --> 00:13:40,920
Speaker 2: live peacefully. And that's really the essence of liberalism. As

256
00:13:40,980 --> 00:13:43,960
Speaker 2: you say, it accepts pluralism and difference. But I think

257
00:13:44,040 --> 00:13:47,209
Speaker 2: that that's also what drives a lot of people crazy

258
00:13:47,270 --> 00:13:50,450
Speaker 2: is that you have to tolerate people you really disagree with.

259
00:13:51,170 --> 00:13:54,070
Speaker 2: And you don't get the strong sense that everybody is

260
00:13:54,130 --> 00:13:56,870
Speaker 2: marching in the same direction. And I think, you know,

261
00:13:56,929 --> 00:14:01,400
Speaker 2: that's the origin of nationalism. That's the origin of religious politics.

262
00:14:02,059 --> 00:14:04,459
Speaker 2: the trouble is that people forget that this sort of

263
00:14:04,500 --> 00:14:08,130
Speaker 2: politics is what gets you into trouble. 20th century was

264
00:14:08,190 --> 00:14:11,450
Speaker 2: all about really strong national identities that wanted to assert

265
00:14:11,490 --> 00:14:14,750
Speaker 2: themselves and dominate their neighbors. And you had two world

266
00:14:14,790 --> 00:14:17,630
Speaker 2: wars as a result of it. Today, you see that

267
00:14:17,710 --> 00:14:20,850
Speaker 2: in Vladimir Putin, right? That he's not content just to

268
00:14:20,910 --> 00:14:25,040
Speaker 2: have a peaceful, prosperous Russia. He also has this idea that,

269
00:14:25,560 --> 00:14:27,960
Speaker 2: you know, Russia is this great, you know, country that

270
00:14:28,000 --> 00:14:31,420
Speaker 2: includes Ukraine and Belarus and all these other territories. And he,

271
00:14:31,920 --> 00:14:34,780
Speaker 2: is not happy unless he's dominating all of that. And

272
00:14:34,800 --> 00:14:38,140
Speaker 2: that is not compatible with a liberalism that says, you know,

273
00:14:38,380 --> 00:14:39,540
Speaker 2: you got to live and let live.

274
00:14:39,880 --> 00:14:43,460
Speaker 3: So setting aside multiculturalism for a second, which is a

275
00:14:43,500 --> 00:14:46,340
Speaker 3: thorny problem for liberal democracies, I think you point to

276
00:14:46,380 --> 00:14:48,990
Speaker 3: something in your book that to me is possibly an

277
00:14:49,020 --> 00:14:53,229
Speaker 3: even thornier problem. It's this concept called megalithemia. Am I

278
00:14:53,330 --> 00:14:53,870
Speaker 3: saying that right?

279
00:14:53,950 --> 00:14:55,010
Speaker 2: Megalithemia, right.

280
00:14:55,270 --> 00:14:56,430
Speaker 3: Megalithemia.

281
00:14:56,690 --> 00:14:56,970
Speaker 2: Okay.

282
00:14:57,390 --> 00:15:01,130
Speaker 3: Which is like the desire to be recognized as superior.

283
00:15:01,630 --> 00:15:04,950
Speaker 3: in some way. So people aren't just satisfied that they're

284
00:15:05,090 --> 00:15:09,570
Speaker 3: all equal, they all have equal dignity, equal rights. People

285
00:15:09,690 --> 00:15:13,130
Speaker 3: want to feel like they're special or superior in some way.

286
00:15:13,230 --> 00:15:16,370
Speaker 3: And to me, Twitter, the fact that Twitter exists is.

287
00:15:16,350 --> 00:15:19,370
Speaker 1: Like proof of this concept. That's exactly where my mind went.

288
00:15:19,470 --> 00:15:19,750
Speaker 2: Yeah.

289
00:15:19,970 --> 00:15:21,850
Speaker 3: You know, you have people like Elon Musk, the richest

290
00:15:21,890 --> 00:15:24,230
Speaker 3: man in the world, who still wants a platform to

291
00:15:24,270 --> 00:15:26,610
Speaker 3: be heard and feel superior to others.

292
00:15:26,650 --> 00:15:29,330
Speaker 1: When I went and re-read The End of History several

293
00:15:29,370 --> 00:15:33,410
Speaker 1: years ago, All I could think about is this explains

294
00:15:33,890 --> 00:15:36,460
Speaker 1: why so many billionaires who have all the power in

295
00:15:36,480 --> 00:15:40,620
Speaker 1: the world, what they really crave deep down at the

296
00:15:40,680 --> 00:15:44,000
Speaker 1: base of that Maslow's Pyramid is to be listened to

297
00:15:44,040 --> 00:15:48,120
Speaker 1: and respected. And it drives them crazy that they have everything,

298
00:15:48,180 --> 00:15:50,960
Speaker 1: but they are still not as influential as a typical

299
00:15:51,100 --> 00:15:53,520
Speaker 1: up-end columnist. And I think this is the source of

300
00:15:53,900 --> 00:15:57,360
Speaker 1: tremendous psychological angst, even for the most powerful people.

301
00:15:57,180 --> 00:15:57,620
Speaker 2: In the world.

302
00:15:57,740 --> 00:16:01,440
Speaker 3: All right, now imagine that on a society-wide scale. Everyone

303
00:16:01,500 --> 00:16:04,540
Speaker 3: wants to feel superior and recognized in some way. How

304
00:16:04,610 --> 00:16:06,990
Speaker 3: are liberal democracies supposed to deal with that?

305
00:16:07,390 --> 00:16:10,210
Speaker 2: So just as a footnote, I mentioned Donald Trump in

306
00:16:10,250 --> 00:16:12,390
Speaker 2: the original End of History and the Last Man book.

307
00:16:13,040 --> 00:16:15,440
Speaker 2: At that point, I said the great thing about having

308
00:16:15,480 --> 00:16:18,880
Speaker 2: a capitalist democracy is that there's a way of bleeding

309
00:16:18,980 --> 00:16:21,820
Speaker 2: off some of that desire to dominate and be great

310
00:16:22,280 --> 00:16:24,240
Speaker 2: because you can just get rich. And I gave Donald

311
00:16:24,260 --> 00:16:27,140
Speaker 2: Trump as an example. Little did I know that just

312
00:16:27,160 --> 00:16:30,180
Speaker 2: getting rich wasn't enough for him, that he also wanted

313
00:16:30,240 --> 00:16:33,820
Speaker 2: the political glory. So I don't think you can get

314
00:16:33,880 --> 00:16:37,400
Speaker 2: away from megalothumia, this desire to be recognized as greater

315
00:16:37,500 --> 00:16:40,370
Speaker 2: because That's the source of any excellence. You know, if

316
00:16:40,390 --> 00:16:42,230
Speaker 2: you want to be a great pianist or a great

317
00:16:42,310 --> 00:16:46,640
Speaker 2: football forward or a great athlete or anything, you have

318
00:16:46,680 --> 00:16:49,180
Speaker 2: to have this will to excel and to be better

319
00:16:49,220 --> 00:16:53,180
Speaker 2: than other people. The trouble is that it oftentimes leads

320
00:16:53,240 --> 00:16:55,780
Speaker 2: in bad directions where you simply want to be a tyrant.

321
00:16:56,280 --> 00:16:57,980
Speaker 2: And I think you're right that, you know, if you're

322
00:16:58,000 --> 00:17:02,690
Speaker 2: a billionaire, there's no material need that you have unsatisfied.

323
00:17:03,050 --> 00:17:06,149
Speaker 2: What you don't have is the recognition of other people,

324
00:17:06,290 --> 00:17:08,850
Speaker 2: of other billionaires that And I think that's really what's

325
00:17:08,890 --> 00:17:13,010
Speaker 2: driving a lot of the competition in our economy. If

326
00:17:13,070 --> 00:17:16,980
Speaker 2: it just stayed economic competition, that would be fine. But

327
00:17:17,040 --> 00:17:20,700
Speaker 2: when it becomes politicized and turns into political ambition, I

328
00:17:20,740 --> 00:17:23,980
Speaker 2: think that's where democracy gets in trouble. And I think

329
00:17:24,040 --> 00:17:28,000
Speaker 2: that's really the challenge that we're facing. You're also correct

330
00:17:28,040 --> 00:17:31,670
Speaker 2: that I think on a national level, people want this

331
00:17:31,750 --> 00:17:35,840
Speaker 2: feeling of togetherness. They want a sense of national identity

332
00:17:35,880 --> 00:17:39,609
Speaker 2: that is stronger than just tolerating everybody. And that is

333
00:17:39,690 --> 00:17:42,169
Speaker 2: one of the reasons we still have conflicts in the

334
00:17:42,210 --> 00:17:42,790
Speaker 2: world today.

335
00:17:58,850 --> 00:18:01,129
Speaker 1: When you think about the events of the last 40

336
00:18:01,130 --> 00:18:05,550
Speaker 1: years or 20 years, maybe. Something that I'm very interested in,

337
00:18:05,550 --> 00:18:08,609
Speaker 1: I'm curious whether you think about it much, is the

338
00:18:08,650 --> 00:18:13,949
Speaker 1: changing media environment and the degree to which, say, for

339
00:18:13,990 --> 00:18:17,350
Speaker 1: better or worse, you have a few monopoly media outlets,

340
00:18:17,830 --> 00:18:20,350
Speaker 1: and that has this sort of effect of everyone having

341
00:18:20,390 --> 00:18:23,449
Speaker 1: the same diet. And I'm curious, the role of digital

342
00:18:23,490 --> 00:18:27,949
Speaker 1: media and social media and your active Instagram user in

343
00:18:27,990 --> 00:18:31,530
Speaker 1: sort of regrouping people around, I guess might people say

344
00:18:31,550 --> 00:18:35,410
Speaker 1: like tribal lines and this bit, the way technology changes

345
00:18:35,710 --> 00:18:38,150
Speaker 1: how we interact and relate to each other.

346
00:18:38,369 --> 00:18:41,429
Speaker 2: I think it's had a really profound effect. One of

347
00:18:41,450 --> 00:18:44,129
Speaker 2: the most dangerous for democracies is the fact that we

348
00:18:44,190 --> 00:18:48,250
Speaker 2: no longer agree about simple empirical facts because, you know,

349
00:18:48,270 --> 00:18:52,150
Speaker 2: the old media really had certain journalistic standards. You couldn't

350
00:18:52,170 --> 00:18:55,200
Speaker 2: just publish anything. Your editor would say, well, do you

351
00:18:55,260 --> 00:18:57,160
Speaker 2: have a second source on that? And if you didn't,

352
00:18:57,200 --> 00:19:00,260
Speaker 2: you know, it wouldn't get in the newspaper. Today, you know,

353
00:19:00,520 --> 00:19:03,540
Speaker 2: we have the internet where anyone can say anything. And

354
00:19:04,300 --> 00:19:06,680
Speaker 2: not only can they say anything, but that anything can

355
00:19:06,740 --> 00:19:11,629
Speaker 2: be amplified. There's a, I think, very unhealthy dynamic in

356
00:19:11,670 --> 00:19:14,850
Speaker 2: the online world where you get noticed. If you're an

357
00:19:14,970 --> 00:19:20,940
Speaker 2: internet influencer, you say something sensible or Rational reasonable, you

358
00:19:20,960 --> 00:19:22,560
Speaker 2: know people will listen to you, but.

359
00:19:22,420 --> 00:19:26,300
Speaker 3: They won't my take bring back earnestness on the internet

360
00:19:26,540 --> 00:19:29,090
Speaker 3: It's so out of fashion if you say something reasonable

361
00:19:29,119 --> 00:19:33,450
Speaker 3: and earnest It's like immediately consigned to the realms of internet.

362
00:19:33,590 --> 00:19:37,390
Speaker 2: But there's an inevitable dynamic that happens where the moment

363
00:19:37,410 --> 00:19:41,210
Speaker 2: you start saying something unreasonable, you know, you insult somebody

364
00:19:41,290 --> 00:19:45,910
Speaker 2: or you say something that's just ridiculously untrue it sets off,

365
00:19:46,080 --> 00:19:48,880
Speaker 2: you know, a big uptick in your followers. And then

366
00:19:48,920 --> 00:19:51,760
Speaker 2: you say, okay, we got to top that by saying

367
00:19:51,800 --> 00:19:54,940
Speaker 2: something even more extreme. And I think that that explains

368
00:19:55,000 --> 00:19:58,220
Speaker 2: a lot of the extremism in our politics because people

369
00:19:58,260 --> 00:20:00,900
Speaker 2: are living in an online world and they also don't

370
00:20:00,940 --> 00:20:02,149
Speaker 2: agree on basic facts.

371
00:20:02,830 --> 00:20:05,070
Speaker 3: Since we're on the topic of, I guess, new media

372
00:20:05,109 --> 00:20:07,510
Speaker 3: and technology, can we talk a little bit about AI?

373
00:20:07,530 --> 00:20:10,030
Speaker 1: Speaking of The Last Man.

374
00:20:10,050 --> 00:20:12,109
Speaker 3: Speaking of The Last Man. I knew there was an

375
00:20:12,230 --> 00:20:16,070
Speaker 3: AI chapter in your new book, and I thought it

376
00:20:16,130 --> 00:20:18,330
Speaker 3: was going to be more about, I guess, like the

377
00:20:18,450 --> 00:20:21,109
Speaker 3: existential threat of AI and what it means for the

378
00:20:21,170 --> 00:20:24,210
Speaker 3: whole bored last man concept. But you talk about it

379
00:20:24,350 --> 00:20:28,150
Speaker 3: in a sort of state administrative sense. capacity way. Why

380
00:20:28,170 --> 00:20:30,950
Speaker 3: did you decide to take that line as opposed to,

381
00:20:30,970 --> 00:20:33,659
Speaker 3: I don't know, arguing how AI would fit into the

382
00:20:33,700 --> 00:20:35,560
Speaker 3: socio-political economy more broadly?

383
00:20:35,740 --> 00:20:38,480
Speaker 2: Well, no, I think that what I said was that

384
00:20:38,560 --> 00:20:42,980
Speaker 2: the most dangerous aspect of AI is agentic AI. That

385
00:20:43,060 --> 00:20:46,639
Speaker 2: is where human beings delegate to machines the power to

386
00:20:46,700 --> 00:20:50,379
Speaker 2: make decisions. And I spent a lot of time thinking

387
00:20:50,420 --> 00:20:54,359
Speaker 2: about human hierarchies. And I know that we often over-delegate

388
00:20:54,400 --> 00:20:58,830
Speaker 2: authority in organizations and governments. But I think we're beginning

389
00:20:58,869 --> 00:21:01,370
Speaker 2: to do that. I think this Hugging Face incident that

390
00:21:01,450 --> 00:21:05,990
Speaker 2: OpenAI got into where they had developed an AI agent

391
00:21:06,050 --> 00:21:08,950
Speaker 2: that broke out of its playpen and then started getting

392
00:21:09,030 --> 00:21:12,600
Speaker 2: out into the internet and breaking into other computers, that's

393
00:21:12,660 --> 00:21:15,800
Speaker 2: what agentic AI is all about. And that's what I

394
00:21:15,859 --> 00:21:19,680
Speaker 2: think the whole loss of control fear is related to,

395
00:21:19,859 --> 00:21:22,840
Speaker 2: is that you're going to create these agents that are powerful.

396
00:21:22,880 --> 00:21:26,129
Speaker 2: And the thing about modern AI is that the people

397
00:21:26,170 --> 00:21:29,379
Speaker 2: that create them don't really understand what's going on underneath

398
00:21:29,420 --> 00:21:34,240
Speaker 2: the hood. Classic computer programming, line by line, it's very

399
00:21:34,280 --> 00:21:37,200
Speaker 2: deterministic what the computer is going to do. With these

400
00:21:37,280 --> 00:21:40,780
Speaker 2: new AIs, they don't really understand why it's behaving the

401
00:21:40,830 --> 00:21:44,989
Speaker 2: way it is. And if you then delegate authority to

402
00:21:45,010 --> 00:21:48,169
Speaker 2: a machine where you don't really know why it's thinking

403
00:21:48,210 --> 00:21:50,950
Speaker 2: what it's thinking, I think that's what leads you down

404
00:21:50,990 --> 00:21:54,209
Speaker 2: the road to some real doomer scenarios where they can

405
00:21:55,070 --> 00:21:57,689
Speaker 2: kind of act as if they've got their own volitions

406
00:21:57,790 --> 00:21:59,470
Speaker 2: and really no human being is going to be able

407
00:21:59,520 --> 00:22:00,190
Speaker 2: to control them.

408
00:22:00,700 --> 00:22:04,260
Speaker 1: You're a famous tinker and you like building stuff and

409
00:22:04,280 --> 00:22:08,600
Speaker 1: you do woodworking, et cetera. Do you tinker with AI?

410
00:22:08,619 --> 00:22:10,880
Speaker 1: Do you play around with it the way you play

411
00:22:10,900 --> 00:22:13,450
Speaker 1: around with like making bookshelves or working on a car

412
00:22:13,510 --> 00:22:14,510
Speaker 1: engine or something like that?

413
00:22:14,750 --> 00:22:17,350
Speaker 2: Well, ever since the early 90s, I built my own

414
00:22:17,430 --> 00:22:19,910
Speaker 2: computers and I've written my own software and I use

415
00:22:19,970 --> 00:22:23,470
Speaker 2: cloud code a lot. It's just an amazing thing. I mean,

416
00:22:23,550 --> 00:22:27,939
Speaker 2: I had written some fairly complicated programs, but I got stuck.

417
00:22:28,160 --> 00:22:29,350
Speaker 1: What kind of stuff were you building?

418
00:22:29,510 --> 00:22:32,430
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, mostly it was, I have, I maintain

419
00:22:32,470 --> 00:22:35,230
Speaker 2: a few big databases on some servers that I keep

420
00:22:35,250 --> 00:22:37,550
Speaker 2: at home and I wanted to migrate it to a

421
00:22:37,590 --> 00:22:41,510
Speaker 2: different system and cloud code just did it. You know, you, you,

422
00:22:41,609 --> 00:22:44,129
Speaker 2: you don't, I mean, it helps to be a programmer

423
00:22:44,230 --> 00:22:48,130
Speaker 2: cause you can then correct things where it makes mistakes, but, uh, yeah,

424
00:22:48,170 --> 00:22:50,709
Speaker 2: basically it's, it's just an amazing system.

425
00:22:51,410 --> 00:22:53,290
Speaker 3: There's a picture in the book of one of the

426
00:22:53,330 --> 00:22:55,970
Speaker 3: tables that you made, and it looks really nice. It

427
00:22:56,010 --> 00:22:58,630
Speaker 3: looks like a legitimate table.

428
00:22:58,650 --> 00:23:03,240
Speaker 2: It's beautiful. It is legitimate. You can really sit at it.

429
00:23:03,520 --> 00:23:06,700
Speaker 2: So when I was in the State Department, the Secretary

430
00:23:06,720 --> 00:23:09,520
Speaker 2: of State has a suite on the eighth floor that's beautiful.

431
00:23:09,580 --> 00:23:15,910
Speaker 2: It's furnished with these antique federal-style American classic furniture. And

432
00:23:16,090 --> 00:23:19,090
Speaker 2: when I was delivering memos up there as a young

433
00:23:19,230 --> 00:23:22,090
Speaker 2: official officer, I really admired that and I wished I

434
00:23:22,130 --> 00:23:24,379
Speaker 2: could have that in my own home. So basically I

435
00:23:24,420 --> 00:23:27,240
Speaker 2: taught myself how to build this kind of furniture.

436
00:23:27,420 --> 00:23:31,060
Speaker 3: I love that. I upholstered a chair recently for similar reasons,

437
00:23:31,100 --> 00:23:33,240
Speaker 3: but I have yet to get to the actual woodworking

438
00:23:33,260 --> 00:23:33,920
Speaker 3: of the chair itself.

439
00:23:34,000 --> 00:23:35,720
Speaker 1: We could just talk woodworking and upholstery for the rest

440
00:23:35,780 --> 00:23:36,500
Speaker 1: of the time.

441
00:23:36,619 --> 00:23:38,510
Speaker 3: Could you do a Chippendale chair, you think?

442
00:23:38,830 --> 00:23:42,130
Speaker 2: I don't like the Chippendale style that much. I like

443
00:23:42,210 --> 00:23:43,830
Speaker 2: Federal because it's a little bit cleaner.

444
00:23:43,850 --> 00:23:44,930
Speaker 3: Cleaner and simpler.

445
00:23:44,950 --> 00:23:49,710
Speaker 2: Still decorated. It's got inlay and I think that's about

446
00:23:49,770 --> 00:23:53,390
Speaker 2: my favorite, you know, style of furniture. When you get

447
00:23:53,430 --> 00:23:57,390
Speaker 2: into things like empire, you know, then that becomes really

448
00:23:57,430 --> 00:23:59,540
Speaker 2: a different level of skill because you have to carve

449
00:23:59,580 --> 00:24:02,980
Speaker 2: all these, you know, dragons and faces and things into

450
00:24:03,000 --> 00:24:06,700
Speaker 2: the woodwork. And that's something I never got into. All right.

451
00:24:07,080 --> 00:24:10,570
Speaker 3: At the risk of turning this into an interior design episode. No.

452
00:24:10,890 --> 00:24:11,110
Speaker 2: Okay.

453
00:24:11,150 --> 00:24:13,670
Speaker 3: Serious question. Just going back to AI. But what does

454
00:24:13,690 --> 00:24:18,359
Speaker 3: AI actually mean for the last man in concept itself?

455
00:24:18,540 --> 00:24:20,330
Speaker 3: Do you see, because I feel like you could go

456
00:24:20,380 --> 00:24:23,470
Speaker 3: in two directions, and we've done episodes on both these scenarios.

457
00:24:23,850 --> 00:24:27,390
Speaker 3: You could have one where people just become even more

458
00:24:27,490 --> 00:24:30,830
Speaker 3: nihilistic and filled with ennui, so to speak, or you

459
00:24:30,869 --> 00:24:34,300
Speaker 3: could maybe have a sort of utopian world where AI

460
00:24:34,390 --> 00:24:36,280
Speaker 3: is doing all the work for us and we get

461
00:24:36,359 --> 00:24:39,740
Speaker 3: freed up to pursue some of our cultural pursuits.

462
00:24:40,280 --> 00:24:43,940
Speaker 2: Yeah, actually, that was John Maynard Keynes' vision of the future,

463
00:24:43,980 --> 00:24:47,310
Speaker 2: that productivity would increase so much that we'd have, you know,

464
00:24:47,470 --> 00:24:49,970
Speaker 2: we'd only have to work 10, 20 hours a week

465
00:24:50,010 --> 00:24:52,290
Speaker 2: and the rest we could pursue hobbies and so forth.

466
00:24:52,850 --> 00:24:54,889
Speaker 2: I don't think that's going to make people happy in

467
00:24:54,930 --> 00:24:58,130
Speaker 2: the end. I mean, same problem with universal basic income.

468
00:24:59,100 --> 00:25:00,620
Speaker 2: And the reason for this has to do with this

469
00:25:00,680 --> 00:25:04,400
Speaker 2: concept of thumos. So megalothumia comes from this Greek word thumos,

470
00:25:04,440 --> 00:25:09,560
Speaker 2: which is spiritedness or pride, that in addition to material needs,

471
00:25:10,040 --> 00:25:13,020
Speaker 2: human beings want to be recognized for their basic human

472
00:25:13,080 --> 00:25:17,250
Speaker 2: dignity and And quite frankly, a lot of our dignity

473
00:25:17,330 --> 00:25:19,909
Speaker 2: comes from the work we do. The fact that you

474
00:25:19,970 --> 00:25:22,270
Speaker 2: are paid to do a job means that somebody in

475
00:25:22,350 --> 00:25:25,520
Speaker 2: society thinks that what you do is valuable enough to

476
00:25:25,560 --> 00:25:28,780
Speaker 2: give you money for it. And I think that that's

477
00:25:28,880 --> 00:25:32,780
Speaker 2: why this vision of a society where everybody is just,

478
00:25:33,560 --> 00:25:37,439
Speaker 2: you know, selling trinkets on Etsy, but not really, you know,

479
00:25:37,480 --> 00:25:39,460
Speaker 2: doing the kind of work that we're used to doing.

480
00:25:39,950 --> 00:25:42,050
Speaker 2: it's not going to make people happy because it doesn't

481
00:25:42,070 --> 00:25:45,030
Speaker 2: give them a sense of pride and accomplishment. You know,

482
00:25:45,070 --> 00:25:48,189
Speaker 2: that it's, you could spend your whole life playing video games.

483
00:25:48,270 --> 00:25:50,109
Speaker 2: And I think part of the reason that you got

484
00:25:50,170 --> 00:25:54,330
Speaker 2: this manosphere that is so, you know, restless is that's

485
00:25:54,350 --> 00:25:56,570
Speaker 2: what they do. You know, they're online all the time.

486
00:25:56,609 --> 00:26:00,470
Speaker 2: They have all these fantasies about being, you know, superheroes,

487
00:26:00,590 --> 00:26:03,389
Speaker 2: but in real life, they kind of know that, you know,

488
00:26:03,430 --> 00:26:06,770
Speaker 2: there's this basic emptiness there. And I think that that

489
00:26:06,850 --> 00:26:11,460
Speaker 2: lack of, work that gives you dignity that ordinary people

490
00:26:11,560 --> 00:26:14,399
Speaker 2: can feel is one of the things that may be

491
00:26:14,440 --> 00:26:19,219
Speaker 2: destroyed by AI because it's so capable of substituting for

492
00:26:19,260 --> 00:26:21,680
Speaker 2: that kind of human labor. And I think that's really

493
00:26:21,770 --> 00:26:24,770
Speaker 2: one of the big dangers because either people will be

494
00:26:24,830 --> 00:26:29,370
Speaker 2: perpetually lonely and unhappy or they will rebel against that

495
00:26:29,570 --> 00:26:31,830
Speaker 2: and you'll have a lot of political turmoil.

496
00:26:32,490 --> 00:26:40,389
Speaker 1: There's so many different things sort of working against quote, liberalism, etc.

497
00:26:40,410 --> 00:26:43,129
Speaker 1: And there are people arguing for it, right? Like there's

498
00:26:43,170 --> 00:26:46,869
Speaker 1: communities of people online who like try to like argue

499
00:26:46,930 --> 00:26:49,990
Speaker 1: about these things and argue we should be building things

500
00:26:50,050 --> 00:26:54,710
Speaker 1: and appreciate markets and appreciate prosperity. But it's all a

501
00:26:54,710 --> 00:26:58,280
Speaker 1: little hollow. It doesn't seem like really fully scratch that itch.

502
00:26:58,300 --> 00:27:01,000
Speaker 1: Like we can get there intellectually. OK, these are good things,

503
00:27:01,460 --> 00:27:05,470
Speaker 1: but it doesn't supply that sort of like spiritedness, etc.,

504
00:27:06,190 --> 00:27:09,690
Speaker 1: Does anyone out there have conceptions of what a positive

505
00:27:10,210 --> 00:27:16,639
Speaker 1: vision for liberalism or counter-illiberalism looks like other than, no, look,

506
00:27:17,060 --> 00:27:20,920
Speaker 1: GDP goes up. Look, actually, things haven't been getting worse. Actually,

507
00:27:21,260 --> 00:27:25,660
Speaker 1: despite what you see online, real wages generally have been rising.

508
00:27:26,180 --> 00:27:29,330
Speaker 1: These arguments may or may not be true, but they

509
00:27:29,390 --> 00:27:32,770
Speaker 1: certainly don't seem to satisfy many people. They don't excite people.

510
00:27:32,830 --> 00:27:36,600
Speaker 1: It's not something that you really get behind enthusiastically. Do

511
00:27:36,619 --> 00:27:39,110
Speaker 1: you see anyone or any path of like, oh, this

512
00:27:39,140 --> 00:27:41,750
Speaker 1: is what a reinvigorated vision looks like?

513
00:27:42,330 --> 00:27:46,510
Speaker 2: Well, there are some possible futures where you actually do

514
00:27:46,570 --> 00:27:50,129
Speaker 2: face real threats, where the society really does have to mobilize.

515
00:27:50,210 --> 00:27:53,310
Speaker 2: I think we felt something like that in the 1930s

516
00:27:53,630 --> 00:27:57,449
Speaker 2: with the Depression and then fighting World War II, and

517
00:27:57,490 --> 00:28:00,990
Speaker 2: that was very inspiring to many people. It was also

518
00:28:01,050 --> 00:28:05,130
Speaker 2: very devastating. And the question is, can you recreate that

519
00:28:05,210 --> 00:28:10,619
Speaker 2: sense of national purpose without having a war or pandemic

520
00:28:10,680 --> 00:28:13,960
Speaker 2: or revolution? I think you can. I think that there

521
00:28:14,040 --> 00:28:16,220
Speaker 2: are a lot of projects out there in the world

522
00:28:16,260 --> 00:28:19,359
Speaker 2: that could be the source of a greater sense of

523
00:28:19,619 --> 00:28:22,540
Speaker 2: common purpose. One of the themes in the book is

524
00:28:22,600 --> 00:28:25,850
Speaker 2: indeed the fact that we don't build anything anymore. I

525
00:28:25,890 --> 00:28:30,170
Speaker 2: live in California. We were promised high-speed rail. They allocated

526
00:28:30,250 --> 00:28:33,850
Speaker 2: money for it in the mid-1990s, and we have like

527
00:28:33,850 --> 00:28:37,820
Speaker 2: 10 miles of track in the Central Valley where nobody lives.

528
00:28:38,640 --> 00:28:41,440
Speaker 2: And I think that you could actually recreate some of

529
00:28:41,480 --> 00:28:44,760
Speaker 2: that sense of purpose if you could get back to

530
00:28:44,900 --> 00:28:48,620
Speaker 2: actually having projects that are big and visible. That's part

531
00:28:48,640 --> 00:28:50,959
Speaker 2: of what the Chinese government has been doing. They are

532
00:28:51,060 --> 00:28:54,870
Speaker 2: really good at building infrastructure. They build these incredible bridges

533
00:28:54,970 --> 00:28:58,210
Speaker 2: over gorges in the middle of the interior of China,

534
00:28:58,270 --> 00:29:01,790
Speaker 2: but it actually adds to the sense that The society

535
00:29:01,810 --> 00:29:05,260
Speaker 2: is moving forward and it's accomplished something, plus which I'd

536
00:29:05,280 --> 00:29:07,080
Speaker 2: like to be able to get from L.A. to San

537
00:29:07,120 --> 00:29:11,040
Speaker 2: Francisco in three hours. It would be pretty convenient if

538
00:29:11,060 --> 00:29:11,660
Speaker 2: you could do that.

539
00:29:12,240 --> 00:29:14,680
Speaker 3: As soon as you brought up America's lack of high-speed rail,

540
00:29:14,740 --> 00:29:17,000
Speaker 3: I knew my next question was going to be about China.

541
00:29:17,080 --> 00:29:18,880
Speaker 3: But talk to us a little bit more about China,

542
00:29:18,920 --> 00:29:23,090
Speaker 3: because if we think that liberal democracy has won in

543
00:29:23,160 --> 00:29:26,970
Speaker 3: some way, it's the inevitable outcome of human evolution. People

544
00:29:27,010 --> 00:29:29,050
Speaker 3: can still point to China and say, well, that's not

545
00:29:29,070 --> 00:29:31,910
Speaker 3: a liberal democracy. That is something else. And it seems

546
00:29:31,970 --> 00:29:35,270
Speaker 3: to be reasonably successful at this moment in time, at

547
00:29:35,330 --> 00:29:38,910
Speaker 3: least when judging by infrastructure projects like high-speed rail.

548
00:29:38,930 --> 00:29:42,060
Speaker 2: Yeah. know, I've been saying this for several decades, that

549
00:29:42,100 --> 00:29:46,620
Speaker 2: the only alternative society that is not a liberal democracy

550
00:29:46,680 --> 00:29:50,580
Speaker 2: that looks like a plausible competitor is China, because they

551
00:29:50,740 --> 00:29:53,500
Speaker 2: are able to stay at the frontier of technology, they've

552
00:29:53,520 --> 00:29:58,990
Speaker 2: maintained social stability, and they certainly have great GDP growth numbers.

553
00:29:59,660 --> 00:30:01,570
Speaker 2: So the question is, is that going to be a

554
00:30:01,630 --> 00:30:05,150
Speaker 2: sustainable model going forward? And I don't think the answer

555
00:30:05,210 --> 00:30:08,790
Speaker 2: is fully in. I mean, right now, the US versus China,

556
00:30:08,850 --> 00:30:11,830
Speaker 2: we don't look so good. I think very few people

557
00:30:11,870 --> 00:30:13,530
Speaker 2: around the world are saying, well, we want to be

558
00:30:13,570 --> 00:30:17,040
Speaker 2: polarized and angry and at each other's throats all the time.

559
00:30:17,800 --> 00:30:20,920
Speaker 2: And they look at China and they do see the

560
00:30:21,040 --> 00:30:27,810
Speaker 2: modern cities and infrastructure that's come up virtually overnight. I think, however,

561
00:30:27,970 --> 00:30:30,730
Speaker 2: it is a little bit premature to declare that they've

562
00:30:30,790 --> 00:30:34,600
Speaker 2: won that contest because there are some big problems, both

563
00:30:34,800 --> 00:30:38,260
Speaker 2: in the economic model and in the political model. As

564
00:30:38,300 --> 00:30:41,220
Speaker 2: far as the economic model is concerned, I think Xi

565
00:30:41,240 --> 00:30:44,260
Speaker 2: Jinping actually made a big mistake after he came to

566
00:30:44,320 --> 00:30:48,270
Speaker 2: power because instead of investing in the interior of China

567
00:30:48,330 --> 00:30:52,250
Speaker 2: in social services and pensions and so forth, he decided

568
00:30:52,290 --> 00:30:56,010
Speaker 2: to double down on this export-led growth This time driven

569
00:30:56,070 --> 00:31:00,000
Speaker 2: by high tech and it's destroying the manufacturing base of

570
00:31:00,140 --> 00:31:02,820
Speaker 2: every other society in the world. You know, what happened

571
00:31:02,840 --> 00:31:05,760
Speaker 2: to the United States in the early two thousands, the

572
00:31:05,840 --> 00:31:08,380
Speaker 2: Europeans may lose their auto industry, you know, as a

573
00:31:08,420 --> 00:31:11,870
Speaker 2: result of Chinese EVs and it's producing a big, big

574
00:31:11,950 --> 00:31:14,970
Speaker 2: backlash and the rest of the economy actually is not

575
00:31:15,030 --> 00:31:18,590
Speaker 2: doing well. They have this big property bust and they're

576
00:31:18,610 --> 00:31:21,930
Speaker 2: still not out of it. Uh, the amount of unemployment

577
00:31:21,970 --> 00:31:25,630
Speaker 2: for Chinese young people is really pretty dramatic. And it's

578
00:31:25,670 --> 00:31:28,190
Speaker 2: just going to get worse as they introduce AI into

579
00:31:28,230 --> 00:31:31,650
Speaker 2: their economy. So we'll have to see. The political model

580
00:31:32,710 --> 00:31:36,390
Speaker 2: has done better than I would have expected. The idea

581
00:31:36,410 --> 00:31:40,030
Speaker 2: is as you get richer, better educated, you're not content

582
00:31:40,090 --> 00:31:44,840
Speaker 2: simply to be a passive subject. You actually want to participate.

583
00:31:44,880 --> 00:31:47,260
Speaker 2: You want to be able to express your opinion. And

584
00:31:47,280 --> 00:31:49,840
Speaker 2: you can't do that in China. And I think that

585
00:31:49,860 --> 00:31:53,540
Speaker 2: there still may come a point where that unhappiness is

586
00:31:53,560 --> 00:31:57,300
Speaker 2: going to come out expressed politically. It's a very effective

587
00:31:57,350 --> 00:32:02,330
Speaker 2: dictatorship that right now can squash any signs of discontent. But,

588
00:32:02,810 --> 00:32:04,770
Speaker 2: you know, that may not be the case forever.

589
00:32:21,160 --> 00:32:23,220
Speaker 1: We have no idea what the future holds. But here

590
00:32:23,260 --> 00:32:27,320
Speaker 1: in 2026, there are a number of, China is the

591
00:32:27,460 --> 00:32:31,380
Speaker 1: main example, but there are a number of places that

592
00:32:31,520 --> 00:32:37,370
Speaker 1: are not, quote, democracies that seem to be stable. And

593
00:32:37,610 --> 00:32:41,110
Speaker 1: some of the Gulf countries have obviously done extraordinarily well

594
00:32:41,230 --> 00:32:45,310
Speaker 1: over the past couple of decades. Have you revisited any

595
00:32:45,350 --> 00:32:49,470
Speaker 1: of your premises about this idea that an educated elite

596
00:32:49,930 --> 00:32:54,860
Speaker 1: eventually really wants a say, that they actually want to

597
00:32:54,900 --> 00:32:58,100
Speaker 1: be stakeholders in politics? Or is there a degree of

598
00:32:58,140 --> 00:33:00,780
Speaker 1: like if you have competent management or if you're perceived

599
00:33:00,800 --> 00:33:03,820
Speaker 1: to have competent management, maybe that just doesn't manifest as

600
00:33:03,860 --> 00:33:04,300
Speaker 1: a problem?

601
00:33:04,820 --> 00:33:09,460
Speaker 2: I think that I'm perfectly willing to accept the fact

602
00:33:09,520 --> 00:33:13,620
Speaker 2: that there are different models. Certainly the American one compared

603
00:33:13,700 --> 00:33:16,510
Speaker 2: even to other rich democracies has a lot of problems

604
00:33:16,770 --> 00:33:19,630
Speaker 2: in the way we organize our institutions that have led

605
00:33:19,690 --> 00:33:23,910
Speaker 2: to some of the instability that we see. I think

606
00:33:23,990 --> 00:33:28,730
Speaker 2: that the question about real authoritarian alternatives, you know, Singapore

607
00:33:28,760 --> 00:33:31,300
Speaker 2: is the one that's brought up all the time. I'm

608
00:33:31,700 --> 00:33:35,560
Speaker 2: perfectly happy to admit that the Singaporeans govern themselves pretty well.

609
00:33:36,200 --> 00:33:40,180
Speaker 2: But the question is first, can you actually export that

610
00:33:40,260 --> 00:33:43,950
Speaker 2: model to other countries? You know, if you had a

611
00:33:44,330 --> 00:33:46,910
Speaker 2: regular source of Lee Kuan Yew that you could call

612
00:33:47,030 --> 00:33:49,670
Speaker 2: on to run your authoritarian country, that would be great.

613
00:33:50,430 --> 00:33:53,730
Speaker 2: But most authoritarian countries end up with a Lukashenko or

614
00:33:53,850 --> 00:33:57,650
Speaker 2: Putin or a really bad leader. And that's the problem

615
00:33:57,670 --> 00:34:01,520
Speaker 2: with that kind of concentration of power. The longer term

616
00:34:01,580 --> 00:34:04,760
Speaker 2: question is the one that you pointed to is, are

617
00:34:04,820 --> 00:34:10,419
Speaker 2: people simply willing to be passive consumers who are satisfied

618
00:34:10,500 --> 00:34:14,660
Speaker 2: with just the stability offered by a Singaporean type government?

619
00:34:15,100 --> 00:34:16,700
Speaker 2: And that's where I think you do get into this

620
00:34:16,760 --> 00:34:20,980
Speaker 2: last man question, because Nietzsche would say, no, human beings

621
00:34:21,020 --> 00:34:22,819
Speaker 2: want to aim higher than that. You know, they want

622
00:34:22,840 --> 00:34:25,860
Speaker 2: to struggle for things and eventually they're not going to

623
00:34:25,880 --> 00:34:29,180
Speaker 2: be happy with, you know, the kind of peace and

624
00:34:29,219 --> 00:34:33,130
Speaker 2: prosperity that an authoritarian government can offer. At least in

625
00:34:33,330 --> 00:34:37,290
Speaker 2: our liberal society, we can have an active civil society.

626
00:34:37,330 --> 00:34:39,410
Speaker 2: So you can believe what you want. You can get

627
00:34:39,469 --> 00:34:43,509
Speaker 2: together with other people. You can pursue all sorts of

628
00:34:43,989 --> 00:34:48,359
Speaker 2: ambitions as long as they're not ones that want to dominate,

629
00:34:48,390 --> 00:34:50,900
Speaker 2: you know, the rest of the society. And in a

630
00:34:51,160 --> 00:34:53,260
Speaker 2: place like China, that's much more limited.

631
00:34:53,680 --> 00:34:57,700
Speaker 3: So on China specifically, there's an anecdote that you describe

632
00:34:57,850 --> 00:34:59,810
Speaker 3: in your book where you get to meet with the

633
00:34:59,870 --> 00:35:05,980
Speaker 3: former vice president, Wang Qishan. And That's super interesting because

634
00:35:06,060 --> 00:35:08,540
Speaker 3: it seems almost like you were summoned over there to

635
00:35:08,600 --> 00:35:10,880
Speaker 3: talk to him and then he ended up just talking

636
00:35:11,020 --> 00:35:14,180
Speaker 3: at you for about an hour. But what's your theory

637
00:35:14,219 --> 00:35:16,500
Speaker 3: of what you were doing there? Was China trying to

638
00:35:16,600 --> 00:35:20,890
Speaker 3: understand more about liberal politics or were they just trying to,

639
00:35:21,550 --> 00:35:23,339
Speaker 3: I don't know, was it some sort of like internal

640
00:35:23,430 --> 00:35:24,870
Speaker 3: CCP political game?

641
00:35:25,430 --> 00:35:28,030
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know the answer to that. He definitely

642
00:35:28,090 --> 00:35:30,649
Speaker 2: wanted to talk to me. He had read my book

643
00:35:31,070 --> 00:35:36,570
Speaker 2: and So he was credited as being a genuine intellectual. Apparently,

644
00:35:36,590 --> 00:35:39,900
Speaker 2: Xi Jinping was not all that happy with him because

645
00:35:39,940 --> 00:35:46,260
Speaker 2: he was entertaining some rather heterodox ideas. He wanted, however,

646
00:35:46,380 --> 00:35:49,759
Speaker 2: to talk to me. He was leading at that point

647
00:35:49,840 --> 00:35:53,750
Speaker 2: this big anti-corruption campaign that Xi had unleashed, where they

648
00:35:53,830 --> 00:35:58,350
Speaker 2: actually executed some very senior ministers and tens, if not

649
00:35:58,450 --> 00:36:02,129
Speaker 2: hundreds of thousands of Communist Party officials were sacked. put

650
00:36:02,170 --> 00:36:03,969
Speaker 2: in jail as a result of this. So he was

651
00:36:03,989 --> 00:36:08,570
Speaker 2: the second most feared man and most powerful man in China.

652
00:36:09,110 --> 00:36:11,720
Speaker 2: But I think he wanted to indicate that he was

653
00:36:11,800 --> 00:36:14,900
Speaker 2: still open to the fact that a more liberal China

654
00:36:14,960 --> 00:36:18,020
Speaker 2: might be possible in the future, but he still had

655
00:36:18,060 --> 00:36:21,820
Speaker 2: to demonstrate his loyalty. It's a little bit of a

656
00:36:21,880 --> 00:36:25,980
Speaker 2: contrast because the other dictator that I had encountered at

657
00:36:26,020 --> 00:36:29,060
Speaker 2: that point was Muammar Gaddafi, who also invited me to

658
00:36:29,120 --> 00:36:33,219
Speaker 2: Libya to talk to him. And I mean, it kind

659
00:36:33,239 --> 00:36:35,580
Speaker 2: of explains why Libya is a mess and China is

660
00:36:35,680 --> 00:36:38,370
Speaker 2: one of the great powers in the world because, you know,

661
00:36:38,410 --> 00:36:44,230
Speaker 2: Gaddafi's head was totally uneducated. He really is somebody I

662
00:36:44,510 --> 00:36:46,660
Speaker 2: felt in the end should have gone to college and

663
00:36:46,739 --> 00:36:48,540
Speaker 2: actually gotten a decent education.

664
00:36:48,870 --> 00:36:50,690
Speaker 3: His son famously went to LSE.

665
00:36:50,810 --> 00:36:53,609
Speaker 2: Well, his son was given a degree by LSE, whether

666
00:36:53,630 --> 00:36:56,370
Speaker 2: he really went to LSE. And in fact, the, uh,

667
00:36:56,530 --> 00:37:00,120
Speaker 2: the chancellor and his thesis advisor had to be sacked. Yeah.

668
00:37:00,180 --> 00:37:02,340
Speaker 3: Howard Davies. I remember this. I went to LSE.

669
00:37:02,400 --> 00:37:06,680
Speaker 2: Yeah. But that dictator was just, his head was full

670
00:37:06,719 --> 00:37:10,009
Speaker 2: of conspiracy theories. And, you know, he believed that he

671
00:37:10,050 --> 00:37:13,390
Speaker 2: had come up with the big alternative to communism and

672
00:37:13,450 --> 00:37:18,339
Speaker 2: capitalism as a way forward, which was of course nonsense. Um, But,

673
00:37:18,440 --> 00:37:22,360
Speaker 2: you know, Wang Qishan was a serious intellectual. He actually

674
00:37:23,080 --> 00:37:28,400
Speaker 2: introduced Alexis de Tocqueville to China. So in Tocqueville's Old

675
00:37:28,420 --> 00:37:32,800
Speaker 2: Regime and the Revolution, he explains that the French Revolution

676
00:37:32,860 --> 00:37:37,310
Speaker 2: occurred not because of deprivation, but because France had started

677
00:37:37,390 --> 00:37:41,850
Speaker 2: to reform itself in the generation before the revolution. Things

678
00:37:41,890 --> 00:37:46,549
Speaker 2: were actually getting better, both economically and politically. But expectations

679
00:37:46,610 --> 00:37:50,210
Speaker 2: were rising faster than the regime's ability to accommodate these

680
00:37:50,290 --> 00:37:54,069
Speaker 2: new expectations. And that's why you had the revolution. And,

681
00:37:54,390 --> 00:37:59,129
Speaker 2: you know, Wang Qishan's lesson was China shouldn't start down

682
00:37:59,190 --> 00:38:03,149
Speaker 2: this road to liberalization the way Gorbachev had because that's

683
00:38:03,210 --> 00:38:05,370
Speaker 2: just going to get, it's going to spiral out of

684
00:38:05,450 --> 00:38:08,330
Speaker 2: control and the regime will fall. And that's what they did.

685
00:38:08,489 --> 00:38:10,759
Speaker 2: And we have Alexis de Tocqueville to thank for the

686
00:38:10,800 --> 00:38:13,120
Speaker 2: fact that they're still in power. Amazing.

687
00:38:13,520 --> 00:38:16,500
Speaker 1: I want to talk about the neocons for a second.

688
00:38:16,560 --> 00:38:21,759
Speaker 1: You've talked about how the sort of the aftermath of

689
00:38:21,780 --> 00:38:25,219
Speaker 1: the war in Iraq and the aftermath led to a

690
00:38:25,260 --> 00:38:28,260
Speaker 1: break between you and people who you may have seen

691
00:38:28,400 --> 00:38:33,800
Speaker 1: as friends or ideological allies, etc. And yet, it seems

692
00:38:33,860 --> 00:38:35,520
Speaker 1: to me that if we go and look at the

693
00:38:35,560 --> 00:38:38,259
Speaker 1: sort of like cohort of people that we associate with

694
00:38:38,280 --> 00:38:41,819
Speaker 1: like the neocon era in the early 2000s, particularly Iraq,

695
00:38:42,170 --> 00:38:47,549
Speaker 1: Many of them today are some of the biggest defenders of,

696
00:38:48,250 --> 00:38:51,060
Speaker 1: I guess, normal liberalism. You know, you think of like

697
00:38:51,420 --> 00:38:54,380
Speaker 1: Dick Cheney, who, you know, like I don't think he

698
00:38:54,540 --> 00:38:59,040
Speaker 1: supported Trump or Bill Kristol, who basically became a Democrat,

699
00:38:59,160 --> 00:39:03,240
Speaker 1: et cetera. What do you make of this cohort that

700
00:39:03,469 --> 00:39:07,710
Speaker 1: you could say 20, roughly 25 years ago was like

701
00:39:07,930 --> 00:39:12,820
Speaker 1: there was a schism. They had like complete war. Terrible judgment, etc.

702
00:39:13,200 --> 00:39:15,420
Speaker 1: And yet today, when you look at them, they are

703
00:39:15,500 --> 00:39:20,219
Speaker 1: probably fairly aligned with you in terms of the sort

704
00:39:20,260 --> 00:39:25,049
Speaker 1: of institutionalism and support for sort of the stability and

705
00:39:25,070 --> 00:39:27,870
Speaker 1: the institutions that allowed America to thrive for a long time.

706
00:39:28,090 --> 00:39:30,600
Speaker 2: Well, to go a little bit into the intellect. history

707
00:39:30,620 --> 00:39:34,219
Speaker 2: of that movement, a lot of people that were neocons

708
00:39:34,280 --> 00:39:37,450
Speaker 2: back in the early 2000s had been second or third

709
00:39:37,489 --> 00:39:42,530
Speaker 2: generation students of a German Jewish philosopher named Leo Strauss,

710
00:39:43,190 --> 00:39:47,130
Speaker 2: who encouraged his students to think seriously about philosophy and

711
00:39:47,170 --> 00:39:50,819
Speaker 2: about the philosophic ideas that You know, we're at the

712
00:39:50,860 --> 00:39:55,879
Speaker 2: base of Western civilization. But the Straussians actually split into

713
00:39:55,980 --> 00:39:59,620
Speaker 2: two different camps, East Coast and West Coast. The West

714
00:39:59,680 --> 00:40:02,779
Speaker 2: Coast ones were followers of a student of Strauss named

715
00:40:02,820 --> 00:40:05,989
Speaker 2: Harry Jaffa, who in the end, I think, could only

716
00:40:06,030 --> 00:40:10,190
Speaker 2: be described as American nationalists because Jaffa regarded the American

717
00:40:10,230 --> 00:40:15,890
Speaker 2: regime as the apotheosis of Aristotelian virtue. And those people

718
00:40:16,090 --> 00:40:19,390
Speaker 2: went in the opposite direction. They became big Trump supporters.

719
00:40:19,430 --> 00:40:21,750
Speaker 2: So Michael Anton, you know, the author of the famous

720
00:40:21,810 --> 00:40:26,149
Speaker 2: Flight 93 article that served, you know, in both Trump

721
00:40:26,170 --> 00:40:31,549
Speaker 2: administrations was, again, a product of that intellectual tradition. Bill

722
00:40:31,650 --> 00:40:34,810
Speaker 2: Kristol and, as you mentioned, you know, Dick Cheney and

723
00:40:34,850 --> 00:40:39,510
Speaker 2: especially his daughter Liz were very different and I think

724
00:40:39,660 --> 00:40:46,009
Speaker 2: were more authentic believers in a constitutional Tradition that said

725
00:40:46,050 --> 00:40:48,430
Speaker 2: the government power ought to be limited and that's what

726
00:40:48,590 --> 00:40:51,310
Speaker 2: is really surprising to me about a lot of the

727
00:40:51,390 --> 00:40:56,049
Speaker 2: conservatives that ended up supporting Trump because you know, they

728
00:40:56,070 --> 00:41:00,320
Speaker 2: had built their ideological foundations around the idea of a

729
00:41:00,340 --> 00:41:04,720
Speaker 2: rule of law and limitations Constitutional limits on government power.

730
00:41:04,760 --> 00:41:07,200
Speaker 2: That's what it meant to be a conservative and yet,

731
00:41:07,540 --> 00:41:10,400
Speaker 2: you know once their guy gets into power they want

732
00:41:10,440 --> 00:41:12,759
Speaker 2: to take all those limits off and do everything through

733
00:41:12,780 --> 00:41:16,719
Speaker 2: executive orders and flout the law if that's necessary to

734
00:41:16,800 --> 00:41:19,779
Speaker 2: achieve their objectives. So I, you know, in the end,

735
00:41:19,960 --> 00:41:22,440
Speaker 2: it's been a big puzzle to me why some people

736
00:41:23,080 --> 00:41:25,360
Speaker 2: react to the same events with the same kind of

737
00:41:25,420 --> 00:41:28,980
Speaker 2: educational background, but end up going in different ways. The

738
00:41:29,070 --> 00:41:31,230
Speaker 2: only way I can explain it is in a way

739
00:41:31,350 --> 00:41:37,750
Speaker 2: socially that you are not an objective scientist looking at facts.

740
00:41:37,790 --> 00:41:41,770
Speaker 2: You are actually embedded in a social circle. And you're

741
00:41:41,790 --> 00:41:44,090
Speaker 2: going to believe the things that people in your social

742
00:41:44,150 --> 00:41:44,990
Speaker 2: circle believe.

743
00:41:45,610 --> 00:41:49,239
Speaker 3: Just going back to, I guess, the overarching question of

744
00:41:49,860 --> 00:41:54,819
Speaker 3: liberal democracy, you sort of end the book. It's not

745
00:41:54,880 --> 00:41:58,190
Speaker 3: on a down note, but it's certainly on an uncertain note.

746
00:41:58,489 --> 00:42:02,530
Speaker 3: You know, it's basically I'm not sure how to maintain

747
00:42:02,570 --> 00:42:06,560
Speaker 3: liberal democracy or promote it. given that the message of

748
00:42:06,620 --> 00:42:09,660
Speaker 3: liberal democracy doesn't seem to be resonating with a lot

749
00:42:09,680 --> 00:42:11,279
Speaker 3: of people at the moment. So I'm just going to

750
00:42:11,360 --> 00:42:14,839
Speaker 3: ask you directly, how should we, I guess, fix the

751
00:42:14,910 --> 00:42:17,850
Speaker 3: PR of liberal democracy, or how would one go about

752
00:42:17,989 --> 00:42:18,750
Speaker 3: actually doing that?

753
00:42:19,210 --> 00:42:21,489
Speaker 2: Well, I think there's a twofold answer. I think we

754
00:42:21,530 --> 00:42:25,510
Speaker 2: need to remind people about the dangers of the absence

755
00:42:25,550 --> 00:42:28,090
Speaker 2: of liberal democracy. And you can see it right in

756
00:42:28,140 --> 00:42:32,540
Speaker 2: the present world. Putin invades, does a full-scale invasion of

757
00:42:32,640 --> 00:42:36,060
Speaker 2: Ukraine and gets into a bloody, bloody war that's now

758
00:42:36,080 --> 00:42:38,480
Speaker 2: in its fifth year. That's what happens if you have

759
00:42:39,020 --> 00:42:43,540
Speaker 2: a dictatorship instead of a liberal democracy. And then in

760
00:42:43,580 --> 00:42:47,900
Speaker 2: a way, Ukraine, I think, is incredibly admirable because they

761
00:42:47,940 --> 00:42:50,060
Speaker 2: want to defend their freedom and they're willing to die

762
00:42:50,100 --> 00:42:55,200
Speaker 2: for it. And so there are inspiring causes. I think

763
00:42:55,300 --> 00:42:59,390
Speaker 2: that the other part of the answer is that liberals

764
00:42:59,489 --> 00:43:03,200
Speaker 2: need to actually have a positive program I don't think

765
00:43:03,250 --> 00:43:06,090
Speaker 2: that you're going to beat back populism just by complaining

766
00:43:06,130 --> 00:43:10,270
Speaker 2: about it, you know, bad as many of its programs

767
00:43:10,350 --> 00:43:13,150
Speaker 2: and policies may be. I think that you have to

768
00:43:13,290 --> 00:43:17,160
Speaker 2: offer people some positive vision for how their future is

769
00:43:17,180 --> 00:43:19,440
Speaker 2: going to look different. And this gets back into this

770
00:43:21,120 --> 00:43:24,080
Speaker 2: narrative about building things, you know, that liberal societies, one

771
00:43:24,100 --> 00:43:25,920
Speaker 2: of the big problems that I talk about at the

772
00:43:26,040 --> 00:43:29,779
Speaker 2: end is they accumulate too many rules. Liberalism is about

773
00:43:29,969 --> 00:43:32,270
Speaker 2: a rule of law But you can actually have too

774
00:43:32,290 --> 00:43:34,250
Speaker 2: much rule of law. So here in New York City,

775
00:43:34,330 --> 00:43:38,170
Speaker 2: you know, rebuilding Wallman Link was almost impossible until Donald

776
00:43:38,190 --> 00:43:40,489
Speaker 2: Trump took it over because, you know, there are just

777
00:43:40,590 --> 00:43:44,470
Speaker 2: too damn many procedural requirements that you have to go through.

778
00:43:44,969 --> 00:43:47,710
Speaker 2: And I think if government could actually be more effective

779
00:43:47,770 --> 00:43:51,130
Speaker 2: and could actually carry through on its promises, you know,

780
00:43:51,150 --> 00:43:55,330
Speaker 2: in a reasonable amount of time, people would start thinking, yeah, actually,

781
00:43:55,370 --> 00:43:56,420
Speaker 2: this is working for me.

782
00:43:56,940 --> 00:43:59,719
Speaker 1: It's tough to build things in the U.S. One area

783
00:43:59,980 --> 00:44:02,950
Speaker 1: that it hasn't been difficult to build things in the U.S.

784
00:44:03,010 --> 00:44:06,810
Speaker 1: is basically software and technology and all that. And you're,

785
00:44:07,050 --> 00:44:10,430
Speaker 1: you know, at Stanford, you're kind of at ground zero

786
00:44:10,450 --> 00:44:13,050
Speaker 1: for it. Granted, you're not, you know, in the computer

787
00:44:13,170 --> 00:44:16,330
Speaker 1: science department, but I would just love to hear your

788
00:44:16,469 --> 00:44:20,790
Speaker 1: perspective on how, you know, the culture of a university

789
00:44:20,850 --> 00:44:23,790
Speaker 1: or the culture of students has changed maybe over the

790
00:44:23,830 --> 00:44:28,230
Speaker 1: last couple of decades. with this sort of explosion of

791
00:44:28,650 --> 00:44:31,500
Speaker 1: money and tech, et cetera, and how that, you know,

792
00:44:32,160 --> 00:44:34,640
Speaker 1: how your students think about that and how that shapes

793
00:44:34,719 --> 00:44:37,100
Speaker 1: the directions that they want to go in and whether

794
00:44:37,140 --> 00:44:40,940
Speaker 1: it sort of bled over into some of the humanities

795
00:44:41,020 --> 00:44:42,680
Speaker 1: or social sciences in some way.

796
00:44:43,080 --> 00:44:46,009
Speaker 2: First of all, Stanford is different from Harvard and Yale

797
00:44:46,090 --> 00:44:49,830
Speaker 2: because Harvard and Yale feed people into Wall Street, basically.

798
00:44:49,910 --> 00:44:52,370
Speaker 2: You know, the smart, ambitious people all want to become

799
00:44:52,950 --> 00:44:56,859
Speaker 2: billionaires through that route. At Stanford, they're more entrepreneurial. They

800
00:44:56,900 --> 00:44:58,819
Speaker 2: want to do a startup that's then going to make

801
00:44:58,840 --> 00:45:02,880
Speaker 2: them a billionaire. I think that in both places, it

802
00:45:02,940 --> 00:45:07,390
Speaker 2: means that the humanities and social sciences are weak. You know,

803
00:45:07,469 --> 00:45:10,330
Speaker 2: it's not the most favored route.

804
00:45:10,590 --> 00:45:13,730
Speaker 1: Do you feel it in some way with either the

805
00:45:13,790 --> 00:45:17,390
Speaker 1: students that are coming through those departments or the interests

806
00:45:17,430 --> 00:45:20,290
Speaker 1: of those students? Like, has it changed the texture of, like,

807
00:45:20,810 --> 00:45:23,490
Speaker 1: professor-student relationship in some way in those departments?

808
00:45:23,690 --> 00:45:26,490
Speaker 2: For me, I mean, I don't teach undergraduates anymore, so

809
00:45:26,650 --> 00:45:28,070
Speaker 2: I'm a little bit.

810
00:45:28,410 --> 00:45:29,670
Speaker 1: Removed from that.

811
00:45:30,070 --> 00:45:33,800
Speaker 2: But it's certainly the case that student politics has changed

812
00:45:33,840 --> 00:45:38,000
Speaker 2: very dramatically, especially on the left, especially after October 7th

813
00:45:38,080 --> 00:45:42,420
Speaker 2: and the Hamas attack. There's been a big radicalization of students,

814
00:45:42,840 --> 00:45:47,570
Speaker 2: and they're mobilized around that issue and others that we're

815
00:45:47,590 --> 00:45:52,400
Speaker 2: seeing in our national politics. So that's Certainly different. We

816
00:45:52,440 --> 00:45:55,399
Speaker 2: went through this long period in the 90s and early

817
00:45:55,920 --> 00:45:59,980
Speaker 2: 2000s of really student apathy. Everybody was too focused on

818
00:46:00,020 --> 00:46:02,500
Speaker 2: getting a high paying job and they didn't really pay

819
00:46:02,540 --> 00:46:06,440
Speaker 2: attention to politics. Now they're definitely more mobilized, but in

820
00:46:06,500 --> 00:46:11,250
Speaker 2: some ways it's not a healthy mobilization because they're pursuing

821
00:46:11,290 --> 00:46:16,450
Speaker 2: goals that I think are either unachievable or misguided, but

822
00:46:16,469 --> 00:46:19,740
Speaker 2: they're definitely much more politically aware. I've got a number

823
00:46:19,780 --> 00:46:22,009
Speaker 2: of students, you know, over the past decade that have

824
00:46:22,130 --> 00:46:24,910
Speaker 2: actually gone into electoral politics. And I think that's great.

825
00:46:25,370 --> 00:46:26,750
Speaker 2: I think that's what they ought to be doing.

826
00:46:27,330 --> 00:46:30,210
Speaker 3: Any advice for would-be international relations graduates?

827
00:46:30,610 --> 00:46:34,070
Speaker 2: Well, I think that you need to think broadly because

828
00:46:34,230 --> 00:46:39,669
Speaker 2: right now international relations is extremely complicated as a disciplinary

829
00:46:39,770 --> 00:46:44,790
Speaker 2: field because economics and sociology are absolutely at the core.

830
00:46:45,210 --> 00:46:48,200
Speaker 2: You know, you want to know why you have global populism. Well,

831
00:46:48,219 --> 00:46:52,049
Speaker 2: the sociology of most countries has changed. Left-wing parties are

832
00:46:52,090 --> 00:46:56,830
Speaker 2: no longer based in working class populations. They've become basically

833
00:46:56,910 --> 00:47:01,430
Speaker 2: parties of educated professionals who have very different political instincts

834
00:47:01,510 --> 00:47:05,060
Speaker 2: than the working class. And part of the reason you've

835
00:47:05,100 --> 00:47:08,380
Speaker 2: got this polarized politics both here and in Europe is

836
00:47:08,440 --> 00:47:11,480
Speaker 2: because of that change. And that's not something, you know,

837
00:47:11,520 --> 00:47:16,280
Speaker 2: in classical realist international theory, you don't look inside countries.

838
00:47:16,320 --> 00:47:18,839
Speaker 2: You know, you just regard them as billiard balls. But

839
00:47:18,880 --> 00:47:22,820
Speaker 2: if you don't see the domestic and the technological changes,

840
00:47:22,880 --> 00:47:26,239
Speaker 2: and then by the way, the geopolitics of AI is

841
00:47:26,440 --> 00:47:28,879
Speaker 2: really going to hit us, I think, like a freight train,

842
00:47:28,920 --> 00:47:31,840
Speaker 2: because that's going to be one of the determining factors,

843
00:47:31,880 --> 00:47:35,640
Speaker 2: just like nuclear weapons in a previous generation, about how

844
00:47:35,719 --> 00:47:38,340
Speaker 2: power is going to be distributed in the coming world.

845
00:47:38,840 --> 00:47:43,239
Speaker 1: That phenomenon of like, okay, the energy on the left

846
00:47:43,800 --> 00:47:46,890
Speaker 1: coming from people who are not what people might have

847
00:47:47,030 --> 00:47:49,390
Speaker 1: in a previously are called like the working class that

848
00:47:49,430 --> 00:47:51,920
Speaker 1: many people are actually like fairly well to do and

849
00:47:51,960 --> 00:47:55,680
Speaker 1: they're well educated. Is there, I mean, this is actually

850
00:47:55,700 --> 00:47:58,580
Speaker 1: not even that new. I mean, right. Like historically, a

851
00:47:58,640 --> 00:48:01,720
Speaker 1: lot of left movements have always had a certain many

852
00:48:01,760 --> 00:48:05,930
Speaker 1: come from nobility or education or son of a wealthy

853
00:48:05,969 --> 00:48:09,810
Speaker 1: business person, et cetera. Is this just people are different

854
00:48:09,830 --> 00:48:12,129
Speaker 1: and that draws them to that? Or is there some

855
00:48:12,489 --> 00:48:17,319
Speaker 1: sort of stronger theory or structural force that that has

856
00:48:17,360 --> 00:48:21,360
Speaker 1: sort of like reinvigorated the sort of educated, successful left?

857
00:48:22,080 --> 00:48:24,000
Speaker 2: Well, if I may, I think this is why this

858
00:48:24,080 --> 00:48:27,700
Speaker 2: concept of the last man is important. You know, at Stanford,

859
00:48:27,760 --> 00:48:30,230
Speaker 2: we had students that were living out in tents in

860
00:48:30,290 --> 00:48:34,630
Speaker 2: an encampment after October 7th for six months. And you

861
00:48:34,690 --> 00:48:38,029
Speaker 2: can't imagine a more privileged group of people than a

862
00:48:38,090 --> 00:48:41,750
Speaker 2: Stanford undergrad, right? But, you know, I think what was

863
00:48:41,830 --> 00:48:44,770
Speaker 2: missing in their lives was this sense that they were

864
00:48:44,930 --> 00:48:49,489
Speaker 2: struggling and sacrificing for a higher cause of social justice.

865
00:48:49,730 --> 00:48:52,720
Speaker 2: And that was the part that was missing in their lives.

866
00:48:53,180 --> 00:48:55,779
Speaker 2: They'd struggled to get into Stanford, but it was just

867
00:48:55,800 --> 00:48:58,980
Speaker 2: for themselves. And I think they wanted a more idealistic

868
00:48:59,600 --> 00:49:03,610
Speaker 2: thing to aspire to. And I think that that's really

869
00:49:03,830 --> 00:49:06,950
Speaker 2: what drives a lot of people into that kind of politics,

870
00:49:07,050 --> 00:49:09,129
Speaker 2: is that they want to be able to risk their

871
00:49:09,170 --> 00:49:13,529
Speaker 2: lives for something noble. And our liberal society doesn't give

872
00:49:13,570 --> 00:49:16,340
Speaker 2: them a lot of opportunities for that kind of risk

873
00:49:16,400 --> 00:49:16,980
Speaker 2: and daring.

874
00:49:17,420 --> 00:49:19,870
Speaker 3: All right, Francis, this has been such a great conversation.

875
00:49:19,920 --> 00:49:21,100
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for coming.

876
00:49:20,940 --> 00:49:21,460
Speaker 1: On All Thoughts.

877
00:49:21,660 --> 00:49:23,290
Speaker 2: Thanks very much for having me.

878
00:49:36,280 --> 00:49:38,360
Speaker 3: So, Joe, that was a lot of fun getting to

879
00:49:38,420 --> 00:49:43,380
Speaker 3: interview a sort of legend, a legend in political economy.

880
00:49:43,820 --> 00:49:45,400
Speaker 3: One thing that stood out to me, I find the

881
00:49:45,480 --> 00:49:50,140
Speaker 3: idea of the last man and megalithemia or just themia

882
00:49:50,260 --> 00:49:53,450
Speaker 3: in general very compelling because you look around you and

883
00:49:53,489 --> 00:49:57,210
Speaker 3: you see that something does seem to be missing for

884
00:49:57,230 --> 00:49:59,930
Speaker 3: a lot of people. And to me, it sort of

885
00:49:59,969 --> 00:50:04,850
Speaker 3: boils down to a relativism versus absolutism kind of thing,

886
00:50:04,870 --> 00:50:08,509
Speaker 3: which is like neo... neoliberalism or liberalism in general is

887
00:50:08,570 --> 00:50:11,129
Speaker 3: predicated on this idea of absolute gain. So as long

888
00:50:11,170 --> 00:50:16,109
Speaker 3: as everyone is kind of advancing, not necessarily at equal rates,

889
00:50:16,210 --> 00:50:18,910
Speaker 3: as long as everyone is advancing in absolute terms, people

890
00:50:18,969 --> 00:50:23,029
Speaker 3: should be happy. But my personal experience of life and

891
00:50:23,050 --> 00:50:25,850
Speaker 3: the world and history is that actually people are very

892
00:50:25,890 --> 00:50:30,550
Speaker 3: much relativist in nature. And it doesn't matter if everyone's advancing,

893
00:50:30,630 --> 00:50:33,270
Speaker 3: if they're doing so at extremely different speeds or in

894
00:50:33,350 --> 00:50:36,100
Speaker 3: very different ways. people aren't going to be happy. And

895
00:50:36,160 --> 00:50:39,920
Speaker 3: I kind of, did you see that viral media thing?

896
00:50:40,260 --> 00:50:42,480
Speaker 3: It was abundance, modern abundance.

897
00:50:42,500 --> 00:50:43,140
Speaker 1: Oh, I did see that.

898
00:50:43,160 --> 00:50:45,270
Speaker 3: Where it was like, oh, everyone has a washing machine now.

899
00:50:45,280 --> 00:50:47,430
Speaker 1: Everyone has a toaster now, yeah. And they dreamed of

900
00:50:47,469 --> 00:50:49,750
Speaker 1: this in the 1850s, that you could have crisp bread

901
00:50:49,810 --> 00:50:50,590
Speaker 1: right on demand.

902
00:50:50,710 --> 00:50:54,770
Speaker 3: It's all very true, but clearly it's not enough for

903
00:50:54,830 --> 00:50:57,810
Speaker 3: people in 2026 that you can have a toaster and

904
00:50:57,850 --> 00:51:00,109
Speaker 3: a washing machine and a TV and things like that.

905
00:51:00,150 --> 00:51:02,190
Speaker 1: You know, it's interesting. I forget who pointed it out,

906
00:51:02,230 --> 00:51:05,370
Speaker 1: but someone pointed out like, that viral thing.

907
00:51:05,450 --> 00:51:05,790
Speaker 2: Yeah.

908
00:51:05,989 --> 00:51:09,770
Speaker 1: It didn't include like Instagram and phones because this is

909
00:51:09,810 --> 00:51:11,330
Speaker 1: like one of the big things. It's not like, oh,

910
00:51:11,430 --> 00:51:13,850
Speaker 1: and it's so great that we can now spend six

911
00:51:13,890 --> 00:51:16,430
Speaker 1: hours scrolling reels all day, even though that is like

912
00:51:16,730 --> 00:51:18,989
Speaker 1: one of the hallmark aspects of modernity.

913
00:51:19,030 --> 00:51:19,230
Speaker 3: Yeah.

914
00:51:19,750 --> 00:51:21,569
Speaker 1: Because people know it's not good and they know it's

915
00:51:21,590 --> 00:51:24,190
Speaker 1: not satisfying and it's not something that ever like a

916
00:51:24,250 --> 00:51:25,030
Speaker 1: hundred years ago.

917
00:51:25,070 --> 00:51:25,280
Speaker 2: Yes.

918
00:51:25,360 --> 00:51:26,520
Speaker 1: Maybe you dream.

919
00:51:26,239 --> 00:51:27,339
Speaker 2: Of having a dishwasher.

920
00:51:27,900 --> 00:51:30,450
Speaker 3: You're doing fine, but you're looking at a picture of,

921
00:51:30,540 --> 00:51:32,080
Speaker 3: I don't know, someone on a yacht and you're not

922
00:51:32,100 --> 00:51:32,839
Speaker 3: doing as well as that.

923
00:51:32,880 --> 00:51:37,380
Speaker 1: Yeah, that that is it's meaningless. It's comparison is the

924
00:51:37,440 --> 00:51:40,480
Speaker 1: thief of joy. All kinds of issues with that. But

925
00:51:40,520 --> 00:51:42,580
Speaker 1: I totally this is why I always think about like

926
00:51:42,600 --> 00:51:44,930
Speaker 1: the angry Twitter billionaires. Yeah, because it's like these people

927
00:51:44,989 --> 00:51:49,560
Speaker 1: who have literally everything. And yet they're like driven crazy

928
00:51:49,580 --> 00:51:51,500
Speaker 1: because they see a headline in the New York Times

929
00:51:51,820 --> 00:51:54,520
Speaker 1: that they didn't like or something that they didn't agree with.

930
00:51:54,840 --> 00:51:57,459
Speaker 1: And it drives them nuts. And I think that's just like,

931
00:51:58,040 --> 00:52:00,549
Speaker 1: you know, there but for the grace of God, it's like, oh,

932
00:52:00,610 --> 00:52:02,790
Speaker 1: like you have all this and yet you still can't

933
00:52:02,870 --> 00:52:06,110
Speaker 1: find a way to achieve satisfaction because no one like really,

934
00:52:06,510 --> 00:52:09,430
Speaker 1: you know, you're not like intellectually respected, et cetera. And

935
00:52:09,469 --> 00:52:12,549
Speaker 1: you just see how that drives people crazy. And it

936
00:52:12,630 --> 00:52:16,480
Speaker 1: is interesting too, like with the sort of utopian visions

937
00:52:16,760 --> 00:52:19,259
Speaker 1: of AI, like, And the sort of paradox of all

938
00:52:19,320 --> 00:52:22,239
Speaker 1: work is we want to work to achieve something, but

939
00:52:22,260 --> 00:52:24,620
Speaker 1: we don't really, you don't want to finish. You don't

940
00:52:24,640 --> 00:52:26,719
Speaker 1: want to like finish the goal. You don't want to

941
00:52:26,800 --> 00:52:30,200
Speaker 1: actually end it because then you feel sort of, then what.

942
00:52:30,140 --> 00:52:32,120
Speaker 3: Do you do? Well, I do kind of wonder, maybe

943
00:52:32,239 --> 00:52:37,220
Speaker 3: AI can solve the last man problem in the sense

944
00:52:37,280 --> 00:52:41,640
Speaker 3: that maybe if we have to feel superior and recognized-

945
00:52:42,280 --> 00:52:47,440
Speaker 3: as humans. Maybe if we have offsetting AI agents and robots,

946
00:52:47,540 --> 00:52:49,160
Speaker 3: we can feel superior to them.

947
00:52:49,340 --> 00:52:51,590
Speaker 1: It's hard to feel superior to them. That's part of

948
00:52:51,610 --> 00:52:53,450
Speaker 1: the problem is like we're not going to feel that

949
00:52:53,469 --> 00:52:57,530
Speaker 1: for very long. But yes, we could certainly try Chad GPT,

950
00:52:57,570 --> 00:52:59,950
Speaker 1: solve the crisis of The Last Man, make no mistakes

951
00:53:00,410 --> 00:53:01,910
Speaker 1: and see what it comes up with.

952
00:53:02,260 --> 00:53:02,509
Speaker 2: All right.

953
00:53:02,790 --> 00:53:03,350
Speaker 3: Shall we leave it there?

954
00:53:03,430 --> 00:53:03,950
Speaker 1: Let's leave it there.

955
00:53:04,210 --> 00:53:06,469
Speaker 3: This has been another episode of the All Thoughts Podcast.

956
00:53:06,610 --> 00:53:09,279
Speaker 3: I'm Traci Allaway. You can follow me at Traci Allaway.

957
00:53:09,430 --> 00:53:12,340
Speaker 1: And I'm Joe Wiesenthal. You can follow me at The Stalwart.

958
00:53:12,460 --> 00:53:15,860
Speaker 1: Follow our producers, Carmen Rodriguez at Carmen Armand, Dashiell Bennett

959
00:53:15,940 --> 00:53:19,040
Speaker 1: at Dashbot, Kale Brooks at Kale Brooks, and Kevin Lozano

960
00:53:19,160 --> 00:53:22,180
Speaker 1: at Kevin Lloyd Lozano. And for more OddLots content, go

961
00:53:22,200 --> 00:53:25,239
Speaker 1: to Bloomberg.com slash OddLots. We have a daily newsletter and

962
00:53:25,440 --> 00:53:27,660
Speaker 1: all of our episodes. And you can chat about all

963
00:53:27,680 --> 00:53:32,440
Speaker 1: of these things 24-7 in our Discord, Discord.gg slash OddLots.

964
00:53:32,940 --> 00:53:34,980
Speaker 3: And if you enjoy Odd Lots, if you like it

965
00:53:35,180 --> 00:53:37,820
Speaker 3: when we talk about the end of history with Francis Fukuyama,

966
00:53:37,880 --> 00:53:40,340
Speaker 3: then please leave us a positive review on your favorite

967
00:53:40,380 --> 00:53:43,859
Speaker 3: podcast platform. And remember, if you are a Bloomberg subscriber,

968
00:53:43,920 --> 00:53:46,720
Speaker 3: you can listen to all of our episodes absolutely ad-free.

969
00:53:47,080 --> 00:53:48,960
Speaker 3: All you need to do is find the Bloomberg channel

970
00:53:49,100 --> 00:53:52,540
Speaker 3: on Apple Podcasts and follow the instructions there. Thanks for listening.

971
00:54:01,739 --> 00:54:02,900
Speaker 3: Thank you.