If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down
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Speaker 2 I think he's going to run for office in September. When I met you,
Speaker 2 I told you that though, Trevor's going to be president of the day. When I met him,
Speaker 3 Trevor's going to be the president of the remember this, but I said, so what?
Speaker 2 You're going to go home and run for office?
Speaker 2 And you went. He's going to be the
Speaker 2 president of the United States. No, no, no, no.
Speaker 2 Zelensky used to be a comedian. I.
Speaker 2 Yes.
Speaker 1 And look at his life now.
Speaker 2 Holy face.
Speaker 2 Look at his life.
Speaker 3 Maybe not a good example.
Speaker 1 This is What Now
Speaker 1 with Trevor Noah.
Speaker 1
Well, all right. You ready to play some If I Rule the World? I'm ready.
All right, let's do it.
Speaker 1 This is one of my favorite games to play with people. And there are few people in the world
Speaker 1 who are more my favorite than Tracy McMillan Coffee.
Speaker 2 Tracy, Tracy, Tracy.
Speaker 1
I'll tell you why. I'll tell you why.
So what I love about playing the game game if I ruled the world is oftentimes we think about the world in a gradual way.
Speaker 1 And I think sometimes as people, we get bogged down in what we perceive possibility to be.
Speaker 2 Oh, yeah. Right.
Speaker 1 And so I love playing the game for myself and for other people because I think it's good to remind ourselves that everything is possible if you don't think that it's impossible.
Speaker 1
And you cannot even get to it if you think it's not. Does that make sense? Yeah.
So it's impossible to fly. But someone goes like, but maybe it isn't.
And then one day you're flying, right?
Speaker 1
So we don't know. And not everything is possible, but everything's impossible if you don't try to get there.
So if I rule the world is a very simple game that we play.
Speaker 1
Everyone gets a chance to say what they would do if they ruled the world. And when I mean rule the world, don't get bogged down.
Don't worry about bureaucracy.
Speaker 1
Don't worry about like people coming after you, not coming after you. Don't worry about voting.
Everyone develops amnesia.
Speaker 1
No, they develop amnesia. Okay.
So they won't go, but it used to be like this. No, it is not like that.
Okay.
Speaker 2 Right.
Speaker 1 Your goal is to get the other two people on this podcast to vote for you to vote for you
Speaker 3 i didn't know it was a competition part that's not a competition
Speaker 2 involved it's not a competition okay it's not a competition we you have to vote it's not a competition just to see the merits of the ideas oh trevor's ideas rarely win okay so don't feel don't like feel like in they've never won
Speaker 2 no not rarely win
Speaker 2 no no no they've never won i don't think they've ever won no i don't mind i think josh josh i've had an idea when josh yeah you've won yeah yeah you've won ben made us do a day off.
Speaker 1 Yeah, Ben, we went with, but I think Josh hasn't won either.
Speaker 1 I'm surprised by that. It's not about Josh.
Speaker 2 Josh has crazy ones.
Speaker 2
Stuff he's never tried. Once he was on.
You love Josh. Everyone does shrooms.
We're like, Josh, have you done shrooms? No.
Speaker 2 Yes.
Speaker 2 Josh has some. He's so crazy.
Speaker 1 Josh has some crazy ones where you're like, wait, Josh, what?
Speaker 1 Like, what was Josh? One of Josh's last ones was he thinks that in your like sentencing or in how you get punished in society, pettiness should be exempt.
Speaker 2 No, petty is power. No, no, no, but
Speaker 1 no, it was like pettiness should be exempt, essentially.
Speaker 1 So he said, like, for instance, if you committed a crime or did something to someone, but it was because of pettiness, you shouldn't be punished.
Speaker 3 Yeah, okay, you're a pettiness pay ass.
Speaker 2 It's like
Speaker 2
Trevor told us not to be polite. He was like, let's get rid of customer service.
Was it politeness?
Speaker 1 I don't think I would have said that.
Speaker 2 It was something around.
Speaker 1 No, I think my, oh, I think mine was, I said, like,
Speaker 1 your aptitude should not be measured by your affable nature.
Speaker 2 Yeah, that was.
Speaker 1 That's what I was saying. I was like, people should not go, you are a good president because you can speak well or because you're no.
Speaker 1 Oh, no, I people should not say you're a good waiter or waitress because you are good, you are nice to the people.
Speaker 1 Customer service, just do the thing. Don't even ask me how my day is, is what I was saying.
Speaker 2 And I was like, I want how is your day, British people, because I don't get that energy. Yeah, I don't get that.
Speaker 2
This is what she came here with her traumatized. Yeah, and they're all and they're like, Americans are so nice.
Yeah, I'm like, Yeah, I know where you're like.
Speaker 1 She was willing to trade incompetence for being nice.
Speaker 1 So that's how the the game works.
Speaker 2 Okay. We'll go in it.
Speaker 1
We discuss it, you know, as much, and people will challenge you. And you tell us why you think it's good.
Remember, you state your case, you tell us why you think this will work.
Speaker 1 We ask a few questions and then we vote.
Speaker 2 Okay.
Speaker 1 You know, as I say, it's not about winning, even though Christiana has won. It's just about, you know, using it.
Speaker 2 Take your thoughts.
Speaker 3 Have you ever mentioned my competitive nature?
Speaker 2 I'm not proud. I mean, you're
Speaker 2 MacArthur, Genius Grill, New York Times.
Speaker 1 Yeah, we've never played this game with a genius.
Speaker 2 Sociologists. We kind of
Speaker 2
gleaned it. Okay.
all right.
Speaker 1 So, how do we want to start? Who wants to start?
Speaker 2 Well, ladies, do you want to go second? Yes, first. Okay, then.
Speaker 1
Okay. Whoa, going, Tracy, first.
Oh, no, I'll go first.
Speaker 2
You go first. You go first.
You go first. All right.
All right. So, if I ruled the world in my crypto-fascist state,
Speaker 2 I would put a restriction on the amount a person is allowed to contribute to the public discourse in text.
Speaker 2 So, you have a limited amount of words
Speaker 2
per month. You can contribute to the public.
And it doesn't matter the public.
Speaker 1 Every time I I think I know how crazy Christiana is, this woman surprises me.
Speaker 2
I haven't thought this through, guys. Keep going.
We need to put, so there's freedom of speech in the real world, but when it comes to freedom of text, there is restriction.
Speaker 2 There is not freedom of text.
Speaker 2 Okay, okay.
Speaker 3 Curve out freedom of text. That's that's interesting.
Speaker 2 This is interesting. So I remember that the white man said the pen is mightier than the sword.
Speaker 2 Okay, okay, fine.
Speaker 1 And that guy was stabbed by the sword afterwards.
Speaker 2 But okay, that's okay.
Speaker 1 I have a question, but I mean,
Speaker 3 okay, how are are you going to?
Speaker 3 Because arguably everything now is text, right? This is one of the things. How are
Speaker 3 is there any
Speaker 3 ranking or sorting for like what one contributes with text? I don't care about
Speaker 2
obvious personal interests. I don't, you could be a MacArthur wing and sociology.
I was wondering if that's what you meant. You could be a sociologist.
Speaker 2 You could be a comedian.
Speaker 3 Everybody has the same amount of people.
Speaker 2 See, because I am also a socialist, so I believe in equality.
Speaker 2
And I'm a communist, so it's free. I'm not charging you for the number of words.
That's wild. However, there is a restriction.
There is a limit.
Speaker 2 There is a limit on the amount you can contribute to the public discourse.
Speaker 1 Maybe to Tracy's question in a way.
Speaker 1
Like, is it like an actual limit of like an amount of words? Yeah, words. Okay, so actual words.
We count them. So and counts the same as like the word compulsion.
Speaker 2 It does. Oh, don't worry about it.
Speaker 3 So getting at my. Yeah, because I want to say a lot and a little, but you're saying what.
Speaker 2 And the great thing is it'll make you pithier.
Speaker 1 okay so it's word count okay so you're you're basically putting a word count because you know i i believe men shouldn't say more than 400 words a day
Speaker 2 again fair enough and why is a man saying and let me tell you my husband starts about 350. i try not to talk more and he's like no i'm good
Speaker 2 yeah yeah he don't want to say more and he's like why am i why should i talk there's nothing okay to say okay um but okay so that's so that's the limit yeah and then what happens if you go above that yeah you just can't fine a fine a fine.
Speaker 2
Well, okay, now see, that can become a tax then. No, no, it's a fine weighted to your income.
Because let me tell you the story I heard about Donatella Versace.
Speaker 2
She was smoking under a no-smoking sign and they said, Ms. Versace, I said you can't smoke there.
And she said, just tell me what the fine is. That's right.
Speaker 2
Oh, the fine has to be weighted to your income. That's right.
Because in economics,
Speaker 3 some people, fine is just a tax. Yeah.
Speaker 2
So it's punitive. I don't believe in a castoral state.
So I'm not going to throw you in prison. But what I'm going to say.
Speaker 3 See, yours gets complicated because of that abolition thing. Right.
Speaker 2 Well, now I kind of do believe in prison, but that's enough.
Speaker 1 Okay, so you get fined and it's a proportion of your net worth.
Speaker 2 It's weighted to how you're going to.
Speaker 1 Yes, weighted to how much you... Okay, okay, all right, okay.
Speaker 1 Another question I have is... Oh, man.
Speaker 2 It doesn't compel you to contribute to the public discourse. No, I understand.
Speaker 3
And it's cumulative. It's like life course.
Like, I start out every month. No, every month.
Speaker 2 Say
Speaker 2 in your month, you get like 800 words.
Speaker 1 Okay, so it is weighted to like your lifespan but you but does it so it doesn't accumulate over time no it resets
Speaker 2 resets at the beginning of every month so there's no books uh no i'm talking about the public discourse i'm talking about online in terms of oh okay you're saying only online online i'm talking about because i and i'm going to give you the thinking behind this yes we are big political events of the last 10 years have been heavily shaped and manipulated by online behavior.
Speaker 2
I agree. For good or for bad, it's been online.
I agree. And some people have had an outsized influence on it, whereas some other people haven't.
And it's been these fringes. So I just think, cap it.
Speaker 3 The podcast bros are going to come for you.
Speaker 2 Well, they'll just be on the mic more. They'll speak more.
Speaker 3 Do you see the perverse incentives there?
Speaker 3 So now the men will go from writing a whole bunch of words and throwing them at me to speaking them.
Speaker 2 I mean, they already have the mic. So
Speaker 3 that's what we should be going after, the mics.
Speaker 1 Yeah, I'm going to, this is a no for me because I don't think you're solving the issue you're trying to solve.
Speaker 1 So understanding how a lot of the social discourse has been shaped in America and around the world, I think is very important for people.
Speaker 1 We really saw this around Black Lives Matter,
Speaker 2 right?
Speaker 1 Most people still do not know that most of the memes and the tweets and the posts that they saw came from Russia.
Speaker 1 Now, I'm not saying this as like a Hillary and the Russian. No, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 1 I'm just saying on like a very simple level, they found a lever that they could pull in the same way North Korea has focused on hacking crypto. Yes.
Speaker 1 Like North Korea, I don't, most people don't even like know this. North Korea has gone on like a very concerted mission to hack crypto wallets around the world.
Speaker 1
That's right. Yeah.
And they've gone, oh, this money is untraceable, but it's usable everywhere and it's really powerful. And when you steal it, no one can come after you.
That's right.
Speaker 1 So North Korea has gone out. They steal tons of crypto everywhere in the world and no one can like do anything about it because you can't like really prove it's them and it's and they can use it.
Speaker 1 You can't like stop them. Okay,
Speaker 1 the same thing happened in and around social media. There were all these farms that were produced in and around Russia, and even in like parts of Ukraine, if my memory serves me correctly, right?
Speaker 1 And like, basically, what they did was they just came after Americans and they did it as simply as this: every issue, they created a meme or a post, a binary, both ways,
Speaker 1
and they just shot them out. They just shot them out.
Here's why the police are coming after you. Here's why they're trying to kill the police.
Here's why black people are the worst thing.
Speaker 1
Here's why black people are the best thing. Here's that's all they did.
They diagnosed an issue correctly, by the way.
Speaker 1 But then they really inflamed the tension. So the issue I worry about on your side is you may stop people
Speaker 1 who maybe post a lot or write a lot online.
Speaker 1 But then they will create a world of people who gets to like sort of outspeak them because how are you shutting them down? Like they'll even like, I can even just think of a simple one.
Speaker 1 Elon could just buy people to say his thing.
Speaker 2 Which is what he he has effectively done.
Speaker 3 That's what I was going to say.
Speaker 2 This is like a
Speaker 3 Twitterization of everything.
Speaker 2 Oh, that's a that's a good point.
Speaker 3
So we saw this arc with Twitter, to your point, because that's what Elon knew or figured out or saw happen with Twitter. He realized that there was a real moment.
People kind of forget this moment.
Speaker 3 There's a real moment of fear.
Speaker 3 Governments across this country when the Arab Spring happened. That yes, somehow social media had shifted the balance of power towards a democratization of voices who could influence people's beliefs.
Speaker 3 And immediately there was a technological solution to that. We said, no problem, we will just make 50 trillion bots, right?
Speaker 3 Train on our behavior because text is easily manipulated to make it sound like a person. This is what you say.
Speaker 2 So these are good points, but I believe I could create, not myself, but hire someone to create the technology. to eliminate bots.
Speaker 1 No, no, but listen, no bots. I'm saying they would buy people.
Speaker 1 So what I'm saying is you could easily then say, okay, as Trevor, I've finished my 800 word count, but I want to to like wait the election so what i'm going to do is i'm going to pay hey have you used your 800 count thank you i'll take that and actually here just post this that's right right in fact have you seen some of the more interesting um music campaigns that are being run now so music used to be a very different game in that like the way you would get an artist to blow up was really defined by the labels for the most part they told a radio station play this person.
Speaker 1 We'll give you the resources, play this person. And that's how you became a star.
Speaker 1 Things started changing with streaming, with social media, with all of that, because now you couldn't, labels couldn't dictate it the same way, but they have found something that's been really effective now.
Speaker 1
And that is, and I think Drake did this for his latest album. It's pretty brilliant.
Yeah. They've gone out to
Speaker 1
everyone online, not just like quote unquote influencers. They got you, you, you join this platform.
I forget the name of the platform.
Speaker 1 And essentially, it sells the services of just the people online.
Speaker 1 And what happens is I can come on there and say, as Trevor, I have a campaign that I want to launch. I have $10,000
Speaker 1
and I pay it to the service. The service then goes out to everyone who signed up to it, who's just a regular person online and says to them, play the song.
Find a way to play the song.
Speaker 1 Find a way to make this campaign go viral. And we pay you per view.
Speaker 1
So you don't pay people who failed. It's not like putting up a billboard on the highway and hoping people respond.
No, you now go, oh, wow, that was an amazing dance Christiana did.
Speaker 1
She got 2 2 million views on that. We now pay her for the 2 million views.
And then Tracy did something. It didn't catch on.
So we don't really pay her for that. And so you are paying for performance.
Speaker 1 But what it does, though, is it creates a false idea of what trends are.
Speaker 1
That's right. Because now you've paid people to make a trend.
And because everyone's trying to chase the money, they then it makes it seem like there's a trend when there is no trend.
Speaker 1 And so I'm saying people could pay.
Speaker 2 Can I put an identity on that?
Speaker 3
What I love about the music example. I just want to say this.
They borrowed that from politics.
Speaker 1 I did not know that.
Speaker 3 The political influencer model,
Speaker 3
starting under Barack Obama, it started to mature later, was exactly that. Make this go viral, make this candidate seem inevitable.
Trump just did it better and at scale.
Speaker 3 He seems inevitable with a minority of the voters.
Speaker 3 because he uses audience influencers to this is a wonderful piece that uh i think in the new york times like a week ago about this sort of like hidden influencer uh economy of politics and how trump is like just bypassing the media altogether and going straight to this and it is embedded in the white house the white house press machine this has gone mainstream music was actually late we did this in politics already okay so i have an addendum that yeah okay if you are found to be buying somebody's text okay or if you accept payment for it prison okay So you did put prison back on the table.
Speaker 1 Prison's back on the table. See?
Speaker 3 See how fast that happens, by the way?
Speaker 2 I know. It's so sad.
Speaker 2 I was like, what I was going to do, can I make a bigger fine? I got this excellent plan, but yeah.
Speaker 2 Okay, so if people buy other people, no, I'm just basically creating disincentives for purchasing somebody's vote.
Speaker 2 Just in the same way, like in a lot of countries, there is a cap on how much you can donate, you can spend
Speaker 2 or you can actually spend on a political campaign. Yes, right? So then it just means that like their big money in politics doesn't have to be.
Speaker 1 Okay, and just remind me one more time.
Speaker 2 The reason you're doing this is because um i think people talk too much online myself included okay i think that some people contribute to the discourse more than they should and i think it's like it gets you out there to go and talk to people in real life okay i'm ready to vote tressie are you ready to vote i am ready to vote okay
Speaker 2 your voters oh that's fine i was gonna go with the consensus no no no no okay this is back to my accurate diagnosis yeah right
Speaker 3 i agree wholeheartedly with trying it because what you're essentially saying, you want to take the attention economy out of the discourse because it's ruined it. I am there 150%.
Speaker 3 I think you got to go straight to jail because I think if you got any middle ground, people are going to game it. So based on that,
Speaker 3 I'm going to vote no.
Speaker 2 Okay.
Speaker 2
Okay. Trevor's voting no.
I already know that.
Speaker 1 Yeah, I'm definitely voting no.
Speaker 3 But I'm telling self-interest. I'm one of those people with a lot of people.
Speaker 2
You lost Tracy. As soon as you said words, I got to tell you.
When you said words,
Speaker 2
I was like, wow. She's like, you're coming for my chat.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 you said words so the okay
Speaker 2 you're not even on twitter anymore that's true no but
Speaker 1 yes but okay let me explain why i'm voting no though just so so the reason i'm voting no is because
Speaker 1 really because i'm sat across from somebody who i consider one of the greatest luminaries in this space
Speaker 1 i don't think that it's fair that us idiots can say more than people like that.
Speaker 2 Oh, see, that's why I disagree.
Speaker 1
No, no, no. I mean this honestly.
I mean this honestly. So I think sometimes the numbers shouldn't always be right because numbers are dangerous.
Speaker 1 Like mobs are numbers, but mobs are not necessarily dangerous.
Speaker 2 My issue is that the experts like Tressie are actually receding from the public discourse. I have lots of friends who are authors.
Speaker 2 No, I think, please don't get me wrong. The idiots are the ones who are the loudest voices right now.
Speaker 1 I'm with you completely. And that's why I say to you.
Speaker 2 And it may bring the Tressies back. to the internet, to the public square.
Speaker 1 Completely with you. I always say this to you with love and understanding.
Speaker 1 I vote no, not because I disagree with what you've identified, but because I don't believe that this is the right way for us to solve it, and so my vote is also going to be a no. Accept it.
Speaker 2 There were these were actually good notes.
Speaker 3 Your next plan is coming hard.
Speaker 2 Yeah, I'm going to refine it, but these were good notes. I didn't, I didn't spot you know,
Speaker 3
taxing the microphones again. I'm going to put that back on the table for you to consider.
You know what?
Speaker 2
I so I'm different. I kind of like the podcast, but I don't like their content, but they just give us insight into the male male psyche that I would otherwise never have.
Oh, I like that.
Speaker 2
Yeah, so much when you look at it. You're just like, oh, this is how men really think.
Because men don't really talk in that way. Don't they, though? I avoid them.
Speaker 2 So I don't know what it is to make sure I avoid them.
Speaker 2 Okay.
Speaker 1 All right. Let me be the man who then talks.
Speaker 2 Okay.
Speaker 1 I will give you a little insight into my world.
Speaker 1 We're going to continue this conversation right after this short break.
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Speaker 2 All right.
Speaker 1 Okay, if I ruled the world,
Speaker 1 I would abolish quarterly earnings.
Speaker 1 that companies report on
Speaker 1 and I would probably extend it even further than like companies wouldn't be able to report on their earnings for like maybe like a few years, actually.
Speaker 1 Like, no, no reporting at all from any company.
Speaker 1 They wouldn't be, they'd just be like, we just run, run, run, run, run, run, run.
Speaker 2 Like the SP 500, we wouldn't know what's going on with those.
Speaker 1
Yeah, no, no, you wouldn't know their earnings. Like, so you know, like right now, it's quarterly.
Yeah. Quarterly earnings report.
Speaker 2 Like, yeah, the counselor made 300. No more quarterly earnings.
Speaker 1 And I would even extend it to maybe like two to three years, maybe. Like every three years, they could report their earnings.
Speaker 2 Right.
Speaker 2 Okay.
Speaker 1 And I'll tell you why okay tell you why
Speaker 1 in my mind i think we can draw a direct line between quarterly earnings and the destruction of most things society has held near and dear oh yeah i'm with you on that i think the shittification of everything as i call it yeah I greatly attribute to quarterly earnings because the quarterly earnings has made it so that every CEO of every major company has to make sure that the reporting that they do four times a year shows that the company is making more money and is more profitable.
Speaker 1 Four times a year, you have to do this.
Speaker 1 And because you have to do this and because it affects the share price and your job as a CEO, your incentive is now to make sure that every quarter your company makes more money than it made in the previous quarter or the money is going up versus looking at the long-term prospects of the company, the employees, and the thing that you're actually trying to do in the world.
Speaker 1 And so when I look at every service,
Speaker 1 I am yet to find a company that became a better version of itself once it went public.
Speaker 3 Oh, strong agree.
Speaker 1 Right? I genuinely have yet to see anything.
Speaker 2 Why don't you ban IPOs?
Speaker 1
So I thought about this. I thought about this.
I thought about like, why, why not ban publicly listing and all this thing.
Speaker 1 So I do think from the little, because I went and asked some of the people who work in Wall Street and all of this, and they said there is a major advancement that we should never take for granted that came from allowing people to collectively come in to build something even though they weren't there.
Speaker 1
Right. So I can see the value in that and I can understand it.
And I was like, you know what I mean? Because I don't want to just be like, ah, ban all, you know, IPOs and ban.
Speaker 1
You know, some people would say that, ban it all. I can see why.
Yeah. I wouldn't be against banning it, but I think there would be a second system effect that I can't predict right now.
Speaker 1 So what I would say is I would just ban the reporting of how much money people have made.
Speaker 2 People are going to steal so much money.
Speaker 2 I would steal money.
Speaker 1 I have to do everything in my power to not say anything.
Speaker 2 I did not say that.
Speaker 2 He's going to say something about Nigerians. I didn't say anything.
Speaker 1 I didn't say anything.
Speaker 1 I didn't want to say anything.
Speaker 2 He was a good person.
Speaker 3 Your first thought was, I could see where I could get some money out of that.
Speaker 1 Your first thought, Christiana, was that I'm not going to say anything.
Speaker 2 I think on an accounting level, if we look at like Enron, all of that stuff,
Speaker 2 the lack of public accountability that's transparent may take us to a place that is quite dangerous, right?
Speaker 2 And now, as much as I am a socialist, I am a socialist that has quite a bit of money in the market.
Speaker 1 Because of the champagne with the socialism,
Speaker 2 listen, I got three kids. They've got these 529 accounts.
Speaker 2 They're playing with the money.
Speaker 2 I want to know whether I should be holding or I should be letting things go. Okay.
Speaker 2 And I think, unfortunately, because of the way this country is set up, the West now, before your house used to be the thing, you could just have a house and you know you were okay.
Speaker 2 They have forced us to put our money in the market.
Speaker 3 Everything's asked that.
Speaker 2 And
Speaker 2 most of us would like to know what's happening to it
Speaker 2 every quarter. And I don't think that's a ridiculous thing.
Speaker 1 I think the downside of you knowing is
Speaker 1
worse for the general public. So, so here's what I say.
I understand what you're saying. And I still say, remember, there's still ramifications in my world.
Speaker 1
So if people are corrupt and all that, we will still catch them. They will just be caught later.
They're still up to reports.
Speaker 2
Yeah, so then your money is going to be enrolled. But your money's going to be gone regardless.
That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 So I'm saying,
Speaker 1
I understand the guardrails you're trying to put in place. But I'm saying if we look at, I believe most companies are not run corruptly.
Most CEOs are not stealing the money. Most, most, most.
Speaker 1
I always go with that. I, you know, me, I believe in general good.
Yeah. So I think the risk that we're willing to take for a few, because we will punish them severely when they are found.
Okay.
Speaker 1
Do you get what I'm saying? So the company will no longer exist. The people will never be allowed to work in another company.
Honestly, now that's a good like there's a major
Speaker 3 from the economy. No, it's finished.
Speaker 1
You are gone. If you are busted in any Enroni type thing, you are never doing anything businessy any, any again, Facebook Marketplace, don't even join it.
It's gone forever.
Speaker 1
You are out of everythingness. That's like my remedy for it.
Like you can go work for a very simple, like you can be a cobbler.
Speaker 2
Yeah. But good luck being.
I'm looking for a good cobbler, too.
Speaker 2
We're running out of it, by the way. It could bring out the trade.
It could push some people into the trade.
Speaker 1 We're going to push people into the trade.
Speaker 2 I think my real concern is.
Speaker 2 similar to myself that you have identified a problem like which is this need for relentless profit and CEOs juicing up the company to serve shareholders rather than making good stuff.
Speaker 2 Because I don't think some companies need to grow forever. I think it's okay just to be your size.
Speaker 2 However, I don't think whether you do quarterly earnings or annual earnings, that will really change. But I'm saying you can see it on the graph, though.
Speaker 1 If you see, if you go back and look at this, like once it really became a thing, because it wasn't always a thing. And once quarterly earnings, you see the jump.
Speaker 3 So I think the issue here is the way that quarterly earnings have changed our understanding of the world, even if you aren't in the market. Yes.
Speaker 2 Right. Which I agree with
Speaker 3 that big problem. I think this is like something you said to me once, by the way, Christiani, which I love now using, which is it gives you this like casino economy.
Speaker 2 That's exactly what I mean. Right.
Speaker 3 That you're constantly in a cycle of risk and loss.
Speaker 2 And that's what I mean.
Speaker 3 You're chasing both the dopamine and the possibility.
Speaker 1 And it's making people think things are better.
Speaker 3 But it's not, it's too
Speaker 3 much.
Speaker 1 It's like judging a roller coaster on every different slope.
Speaker 2 Yeah, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2
Listen, I'm on schwab.com all the time. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
That's that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 3 I think part of your tension is that that also happened at the same time.
Speaker 3 The quarterly earnings change in our understanding of the world happened at the same time that all of a sudden we were all forced into the market.
Speaker 3
Because the problem is our houses shouldn't be assets. We shouldn't have to do our retirement accounts.
We shouldn't even have these 529s. Your baby should just go to school.
Speaker 3 So it's really hard to like now get ourselves out of the mindset of, well, without that quarterly information, how will i provide companies don't have pensions
Speaker 2 companies don't have pensions anymore so people
Speaker 3 what would need to happen in trevor's scenario is basically a form of government that we used to have you got to have a social safety network oh no no no no no yeah this is because how are you going to push people out of the the first thing you say to most americans now is no i need to know what's happening with my 401k Yes, and that's the problem.
Speaker 3
Yo, yo, they love the 401k. The 401k is actually where I might say your problem originated more so than the quarterly earnings because because that made all of us care.
Yeah.
Speaker 3
Once we had to do a 401k, everybody cared, and we're not supposed to care. Yeah.
It shouldn't be that big of a deal.
Speaker 2 Yeah.
Speaker 2 Well, okay. Is it time to vote? Yeah.
Speaker 3 I do have some, I mean, I could obviously talk about this so long. There are lots of second-order issues that I would need to work out.
Speaker 3 Is a half-vote a thing?
Speaker 2
No. No.
Oh. You can't half-vote for Hillary or Trump.
I tried.
Speaker 2 just like i tried just now okay oh
Speaker 3 i just don't think they're the downsides are the are significant enough i actually think because this is one of those things where it has existed before so that means it's not like it's some weird alternate universe we know we can live quite fine with yearly earnings so because of that i'm going to vote yes believe it or not We have a yes.
Speaker 2 We have a yes.
Speaker 2
I'm going to vote no. And not because I don't think it's a good idea.
My personal personal level of anxiety, there isn't enough Zoloft in the world that can make me be like...
Speaker 3 We got to take your apps away. I think.
Speaker 2 Oh, yeah. Trevor says that all the time.
Speaker 2 I just think, and I think for a lot of regular people who unfortunately it is a 401k.
Speaker 1 So this is, oh, okay. I have some of the information here.
Speaker 1 So, okay, so quarterly earnings reports became a standardized requirement in the United States in 1970 when the SEC introduced Form 10Q as part of its filing system.
Speaker 1
The mandate formalized the practice. And I think it was because of a crash at some point.
Because before
Speaker 1 prior to 1970, some companies provided some quarterly updates voluntarily, but they were inconsistent. And then it really became like a big deal.
Speaker 2
So really, it was for like standardization. Like it's something regulation.
Yeah, it was something that was a very important thing. But to your point, it was because of a crash.
Speaker 1 And people were like, oh, okay, we don't want this to happen again.
Speaker 2 Yeah, I think that's it.
Speaker 1 But then to my point, there was another crash.
Speaker 2 I'm just going to point that out.
Speaker 2 There's something to the idea, but I just think it would give just regular people a lot of anxiety. No, no, but
Speaker 1 why would that anxiety
Speaker 1 would be based on the fact that they knew there was another way before? Don't forget amnesia. That's our rules.
Speaker 2 Yeah. It wasn't Christianity.
Speaker 3 I forgot about that.
Speaker 2 Don't forget that part.
Speaker 1 That's not important. The people don't know that there was quarterly.
Speaker 2 That there was any other way.
Speaker 1 I'm saying I'm taking it away completely. It hasn't now.
Speaker 2
Tressie, you've got me on the half vote. Maybe.
See, I told y'all, this is
Speaker 2 right here. We need half votes.
Speaker 3 Actually, I may change mine today, by by the way no because people like me will still so yeah okay wow we come back to human nature you're like
Speaker 3 this has actually been at the heart of a lot of our comments like do you just think this is a human nature
Speaker 2 problem okay wow okay well uh another no for me which i'm used to
Speaker 2 yes i did actually i got a very valuable and also my no didn't come from a place of hate where where it usually comes from that's true from a place of just like yeah this one was different because normally you go like i hate that idea but here you went,
Speaker 1 you blame yourself.
Speaker 2 I said I hate myself, which is very true. Okay, that's progress.
Speaker 1 Okay, I'll take it.
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Speaker 1 Okay, this is it. Drum roll, please.
Speaker 2 Oh,
Speaker 3 because you guys don't know this, but you foreshadowed mine.
Speaker 2 Oh, that's beautiful.
Speaker 2 Then it's a perfect journey.
Speaker 3
I need not to say anything because I was like, ah, but I think my argument will be stronger than the statement. So here we go.
Okay.
Speaker 2 If I ruled the world,
Speaker 3 there would be a national job core for customer service jobs.
Speaker 3 Everybody would be conscripted into working in customer service for some period of of time in their life for them to go on to the rest of the labor market. And let me tell you why.
Speaker 3 We have talked about JobCorp before about like going and doing the jobs that matter to the economy, but it's not the jobs our economy actually does, right? This is a customer service.
Speaker 3 This is a service-based economy.
Speaker 3 And what's happened in that, I think has helped fuel, by the way, political polarization is depending on how much money or status you have, you can buy your way out of having to engage with customer service to get the stuff you need.
Speaker 3
You know it. How many of us go to the airport now and bypass? I do.
I bypass all of the lines. And if they come up with a new tier, I'm getting that one too.
You're damn right.
Speaker 2 I want out TSA pre-check clear plus
Speaker 2 advanced global global and
Speaker 2 global global
Speaker 3 both numbers at the same time and ask you which one gets me through faster. Like I'm shaking up at the TSA thing, right? Get me through.
Speaker 3 But I do think that what that has done is means it's kind of like the loss of public transportation. It's the loss of any public square.
Speaker 3 There are people experiencing this country now from a very myopic view because we all do this. We extrapolate our everyday experiences and go, oh, that's how the world works.
Speaker 3
That's how the country works. Well, now some people's world actually works like an airport lounge.
where everything is smooth. And they're like, what do you mean? America's great.
Speaker 3
What are you talking about? Right. But you know who always knows that things aren't great? The people who have to actually provide the customer service.
The people in retail.
Speaker 2
That's it. The people on the other end of the phone when you have a complaint.
That's right.
Speaker 3 So I want people before they go off to Wall Street and before they go off to be a financial consultant or this, that, or the other, right?
Speaker 3 I want them to understand that for the vast majority of people in this country, nothing works anymore. And this is why.
Speaker 2 And so you mean everyone would have to do it from the richest to the poorest.
Speaker 3 Sorry, yes.
Speaker 2 But poor people don't have time to to do it.
Speaker 3
You know why? Because I want them to work together. Well, they won't be doing other stuff.
It's job core. Okay.
Speaker 1 So you go.
Speaker 1 So this is like military service. Yes.
Speaker 2
But customer service. That's right.
How long?
Speaker 3
Okay, that's a good question. How long before you understand just how lucky you are? Probably six months.
You probably get it within two weeks.
Speaker 3
But I say this as somebody who works a lot of customer service jobs. So I might be more sensitive.
Okay. So maybe up to a year.
Speaker 2 And are you paid for it? Yes.
Speaker 3
Because I don't want to create like a permanent underclass with this. In fact, part of the point is people make money for this.
And I need you to understand that shapes the whole thing.
Speaker 2 So you're trying to close kind of the empathy gap
Speaker 2
in a way. Yes.
And you want people to understand how frustrating it is to be in America.
Speaker 3 And what they have been able to opt out of is not the majority of this country.
Speaker 2 Okay. Okay.
Speaker 1 I will say this. One part of it that I really do like is
Speaker 1 I often say to people, so I'm in airports a lot.
Speaker 1 And I notice people who travel infrequently will have a very different attitude towards airport workers because for them, they don't understand how any of this isn't going according to plan.
Speaker 1 And I'll often say to people who are even there having a meltdown, like I've been at a gate when the flight's canceled and I see people immediately going to meltdown.
Speaker 1
And sometimes I'll say to anyone who's around me, I go like, hey, don't waste your time. Let's just go rebook.
Trust me, just go rebook.
Speaker 1
You're wasting your time because you're going after the face of the problem. Yes.
Who has nothing to do with the problem? They don't know when the plane's coming. They can't clean the plane.
Speaker 1
They can't fix the plane. They can't do anything.
They've just been told to tell you. And then they bear the brunt of it.
Right.
Speaker 2 Yeah.
Speaker 1 And they are not the one who's making your ticket not work.
Speaker 1 So I do like that side of it. The question I have, though, is.
Speaker 1 Because you say everyone does it. And is it like every front-facing job? So we're talking, I'll list a few jobs and you let me know if this includes them.
Speaker 1 Waiter.
Speaker 2 yes in fact very much so um
Speaker 1 tsa agent yes okay um um airport booking like at the yes at the okay front desk at a hotel yes that was actually my oh okay oh that was one of yours it's one i thought of first um i'm trying to think of what else would anybody who answers the phone when you call
Speaker 2 center agent
Speaker 3 let me tell you who's not included because i did think about this okay because we call a lot of stuff service now that's not customer service so there's like you know personal finance service, there's bank service, anything that where the customer service job is conditioned on the people have already cleared a high level of status to even be there.
Speaker 2 I'm not going to include.
Speaker 3 I don't want you providing customer service just to rich people or even just to only poor people.
Speaker 3 Because one of the benefits to me of this is that there are very few places anymore where you get a cross-section of Americans.
Speaker 1 So they'll work at the DMV.
Speaker 2 Yeah, what about hairdressers? Because I have a good friend Vernon who's an incredible.
Speaker 3 Oh, no, because we can't have people out here just messing with folks.
Speaker 2 I'm not trying to run. No kind of like.
Speaker 2 I have no food.
Speaker 2 That is skill-based.
Speaker 2 What I was going to say, I have a friend called Vernon Frontois, who's an amazing celebrity hairstylist, but he has like lots of clients who aren't celebrities.
Speaker 2
And he said something to me interesting. He was like, you know, I'm in service work.
That's right. He's like, I use my body.
Yes. And he's like, people don't think of it as the physical,
Speaker 2 laborious job. I use my body and I'm very attuned to the client's emotions yes and
Speaker 2 whatever the client is i have to be responsive to them and when i leave work i'm drained even if it's somebody that i really enjoy and i never thought about his work so i think that's like in the especially since a lot of women are in the beauty industry and like long agree you know like nails yeah yeah yeah but but i will say this though to tressy's point there's a level of reverence we have for hair people because they can destroy our lives that is no the hairdressers will not say that they would say that we treat them badly and that's why they that's why they would demand a deposit That's why I would agree.
Speaker 3 I would agree that they would say that. And I actually also would agree that there's a coarsening of the people and how they interact with service providers.
Speaker 3 I would also say that if you gave most people a shot at working at a super cut, which coincidentally, one of my former jobs was training the people who worked.
Speaker 2 I had so many jobs, y'all.
Speaker 3 And it was at the supercut. So I've seen it as a, and as opposed to saying, hey, go work the front desk at the rental car agency, they would take the abuse at the hair, at the haircuttery every day.
Speaker 3 You know why? Because to Trevor's point, at the end of the day, however,
Speaker 3
you need your hair cut. Yes.
There is an intimacy to the interaction. There's no intimacy.
So I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 And these others.
Speaker 2 But yeah, understanding how he's
Speaker 2 doing yourself.
Speaker 3 Yeah, because you need a skill to deliver it well.
Speaker 3 If delivering the customer service requires a certain amount of skilled training to do it. Like you do need to know, like that, you need to know the technique to cut it.
Speaker 2 We can get most americans based on just their everyday skills to answer a phone okay and to push a button on the okay so you're talking about like administrative front-facing i would say front-facing frontline customer service where you have to get something you need and it would be really hard for you to get it any other kind of trusty can i tell you my concern yes that you're not have to work one of them uh no i would let me tell you something one of my first jobs i worked in alders in croydon yeah and i was retail it was my saturday's job i was paid like maybe three four pounds an hour yeah taught me every taught me so much about
Speaker 2
it. Boulders was like a, sadly, R.I.P.
It was a department store. Okay.
Speaker 1 Like a Macy's type thing.
Speaker 2 Yeah, not that fancy, but it was a department store.
Speaker 1 You clearly haven't been to Macy's recently.
Speaker 2
You were not wrong, but oh, that's great. Yeah, it was a Saturday job.
I had my uniform and my friends worked across the street at House of Fraser, which was fancier department store.
Speaker 2 So I've worked retail and, you know.
Speaker 3 But you see what you said, what it taught you?
Speaker 2
Yeah, it taught me a lot. I mean, and well, this is the thing.
I remember one of the distinct experience of a customer who was really cruel to me in the way she spoke to me.
Speaker 2 Oh, because, like, there's always an people make an assumption about retail girls, especially when they look a bit young.
Speaker 2 Some people think this is going to be your job for the next 30 years, even that to me shouldn't define how you treat them or whatever. And I remember feeling like very dehumanized in that moment.
Speaker 2 And I was just like, I will never speak to somebody working in retail like this. So, whenever there's a sales associate, I try and make friends with them.
Speaker 2 Of course, they give you the good bags as well. But, um,
Speaker 2 what I would knew about that interaction, though, there's a version of me that means i would want revenge and when i'm on the other side of it you're back to human nature i'm going to treat people badly and my fear is for a lot of people when they have the power when they've come out of job core and they no longer are on the yeah you know the person servicing they're going to go around they're going to treat people badly because they were treated badly yes so how do we i think you're assuming people are going to learn the right lesson
Speaker 2 which i see i actually don't i
Speaker 3 I actually believe that human nature is a thing too. And I don't think we can solve for every, like, you know, psychologically harmed person.
Speaker 3 What I do think, and again, thought this one through is, yes, people will come out of there saying, see, the people who do this are just as stupid as I thought.
Speaker 3
Oh my God, I'm so glad to be back to my inheritance and my good life. I'm out of it.
Right. But those people also were never going to behave well anyway.
Speaker 3 Right. I do think you're going to have a part of the population where that's not going to work.
Speaker 3 But I do think that when we talk about this pulling apart from each other, which I don't romanticize that we were never a cohesive culture or society, but the intimacy of our daily interactions increased the risk of us acting badly in certain ways.
Speaker 3
And I think that when we have lost that, we don't have to take the train together. We don't have to sit in the park together.
We don't have to sit.
Speaker 3 When people can consistently buy themselves out of the public square to just get the stuff they need, I can live on Amazon. I never have to interact with with the public.
Speaker 3 I think it makes it really easy to dehumanize each other and to say my fates are not linked to yours in any way at all.
Speaker 3 And I think that for maybe not everybody, but I think for a soft majority of people.
Speaker 3 any kind of exposure to having to share space with people in a way where you can't use your pre-check, your clear, your app that gives you this fast line at the McDonald's.
Speaker 3 I mean, do you see how it's trickled down?
Speaker 3 I mean, there's now a special line for everybody everywhere at every level of interaction.
Speaker 3 And I don't think that has been good for us.
Speaker 1
But wait, wait, wait. Help me understand this.
How would that solve that part? Because if everyone's in the job core,
Speaker 1 I still have my pre-check, don't I?
Speaker 3
Yeah. Well, it solves it this way.
You now have to experience the exchange from the other side.
Speaker 2
Okay. So I still have the powers.
I was working that.
Speaker 1 So at some point, I would know what it's like to be in the non-free check line.
Speaker 2 Right.
Speaker 1
Okay. All right.
I do like many elements of of this, I will say. I think one of the things I like most is, to your point,
Speaker 1 wait, actually, let me ask this before I before I assume. Because remember, this is, you said something that made me feel like you're allowing people to choose when it happens.
Speaker 3 No, not when.
Speaker 1 So when, so when is this happening in their lives?
Speaker 3
I think it's pretty much like military service. I think you get drafted up.
It's somewhere between, you know, your name goes in the big bucket somewhere between 18 and 21.
Speaker 2 Are you worried that, you know, rich people will buy their way out?
Speaker 2
You can't. You can't give it to a system.
So you get the power. You get exemptions.
Speaker 3 No, it's a system.
Speaker 2
That's right. So no exemptions.
No.
Speaker 3
Well, because the thing of us, customer service, we got so many variety. There shouldn't be exemptions for bone spurs.
There's not really
Speaker 3 because I can find you something.
Speaker 2 Yeah.
Speaker 2 You know what I'm saying?
Speaker 3
Because you can answer the phone from anywhere. Yeah, I'm going to find you something.
Okay.
Speaker 2 Okay.
Speaker 3
And I might even be the one assigning it. I haven't gone that far, but the more I think about it, the more I like that idea.
But yes.
Speaker 1 This is me pitching for you to win my vote. Would you consider making it something that people have to like go back and re-up after a certain amount of time?
Speaker 2 I only say this because...
Speaker 2 You may lose me there.
Speaker 2 I'll tell you why.
Speaker 2 Having to come back.
Speaker 1 I'll tell you why.
Speaker 2
Get all came having to come back. Oh, no, no, no, no.
Trevor, nothing.
Speaker 2 Wait, I'll tell you why.
Speaker 1 I'll tell you why. I'll tell you why.
Speaker 1 I think when young people go into these lines of work,
Speaker 1
they process it differently. It's almost like a hobby-jobby thing.
I hear it. So like I've seen college kids slash high school kids working at like a place where something doesn't work.
Speaker 1 You like, even if someone's berating them, these kids are just like, whatever. They're like, what? Because they get shouted at by teachers and parents and whatnot.
Speaker 2 Okay, this is a good point.
Speaker 1 They go like, they don't even think of this as being part of their lives is what I think a lot of the time.
Speaker 1 Now, I'm not saying it's good to treat them that way, but I've noticed a lot of them have a very like water off my back-ish vibe versus an adult who is being berated as if they are a child.
Speaker 1 Because I think there's an overlap between how people treat young people.
Speaker 2 Okay, so this is a lot of people.
Speaker 3
You got me on this stage. I like this.
I have a pitch.
Speaker 2 Make it like Teach for America.
Speaker 2 You know, Teach for America is the thing where like they get these kids that are probably going to work at McKinsey at some point and you go and work in a public school, but you have to have a degree first to get the job to be a teacher.
Speaker 2 If it's like Teach for America, when you finish college or you finish, make it a bit older. So you do it around.
Speaker 1 You can pitch yours i'm telling you my one i would i'm just asking if you would be willing to consider a re-up okay so here's what i said i'll tell you why it could be a conditioned re-up if you do the re-up you may lose me
Speaker 2 okay i'm just asking democracy now see y'all are putting you've got christiana i'm just letting let me tell you why
Speaker 1 because i think i do think it's it's invaluable for a young person to go into a space where they they work in a front-facing service job whether it's waiting tables whether it's picking up calls whatever it is i do think that's good for them to interact with people and to understand this from that side.
Speaker 1 However, when you are young, I mean, you're so predisposed to sort of doing that because that's where society puts you anyway. Hey, can you grab me something from the thing?
Speaker 1 Hey, pick up that thing for me. Hey, so you're almost already in a service job for the most part, Trevor.
Speaker 2
I'll counter Gen Z are like the generation that haven't had to do that thing that we did. Okay, okay.
Like a lot of Gen Z have never kids, Saturday jobs and stuff.
Speaker 1
But that's what I'm saying. I'm not saying remove it.
I'm saying I just
Speaker 3 want a 42-year-old
Speaker 3 management job.
Speaker 2
That's what I mean. I'll tell you why.
Three kids. Yeah, you can be on it.
Speaker 1 But remember, you okay, but I'm assuming Tressie in your world, there's already child care. There's already all these because she's worried about time with her kids and her kids.
Speaker 1 You said you got three kids. I'm assuming in Tressie's magical world, there's
Speaker 2
childcare. Oh, yeah, no.
Healthcare, all of that.
Speaker 3 I have built a feminist economy.
Speaker 2 Well, there you go.
Speaker 2 Okay. Yeah, like we
Speaker 2 are
Speaker 3 filling up and providing for social reproduction in any world where I'm in charge.
Speaker 2
Do you know why I like your addition to it? Yes. Because the thing that's drawing me to Tressie's idea is that you're saying that nobody is above service.
That's right. Right.
Yes. And you're saying,
Speaker 2
I don't care if you've gone out and worked in that. That's what I came to this thing again.
Yeah. I agree.
I'm like, yeah. Yes.
Speaker 1 Because in what we've spoken about before, I think sometimes people
Speaker 1
don't think of it as a problem. that needs to be solved.
They think of it as a problem that they need to escape.
Speaker 2
Yes. Oh, wow.
That's the issue that I have.
Speaker 2
Thank you. You see? That's why I left England.
Yeah, that's what I mean.
Speaker 1
So people, we live in a world where people don't say, man, this neighborhood sucks. We've got to fix it.
They go, this neighborhood sucks.
Speaker 2 I've got to get out.
Speaker 1 That's what people say. And then I go, like, I even feel like that with Americans.
Speaker 1 Whenever an election doesn't go the way they want, they go, I'm leaving this country. And then I'll often say to them, I'll go, yo.
Speaker 1 First of all, what a crazy privilege you have that you think you can just like go anywhere in the world whenever you want to because it's not going the way you like.
Speaker 2 Right.
Speaker 1
But also, where's like, where's your gusto to say, ah, that's terrible. I'm going to try to be part of fixing it.
Yeah, I understand.
Speaker 1
Like, because then otherwise you just become like the, the, the, the, you know, those people who drive and throw trash out of their car everywhere. Because that's all you're doing.
I don't like this.
Speaker 1
Throw it away. I don't like this.
Throw it away. No, but where are you in fixing it? So the reason I want people to re-up, the way I'm asking, because I don't run this world, you do.
Speaker 1
I'm just asking this as a citizen of your world. Yeah.
No. Is because I think it would be nice for people to be reminded of the fact fact that they don't get out of it,
Speaker 1 they're just lucky enough to not be experiencing that part of it.
Speaker 1 So now you're a CEO, yes, you're a top banking, whatever, you're retired, you're whatever it might be, and at different stages of your life, you're re-upping the experience that you will process differently because of your status in life.
Speaker 2 Oh, I like this because then people in the job call will be like intergenerational because then you'd actually have which I do think is hugely important.
Speaker 3 Yeah, yes, okay, so I'm going to say something I rarely say, Trevor,
Speaker 3 You have improved upon my idea.
Speaker 2 I?
Speaker 2 Well. This is
Speaker 2 a mad. I'm a mad guy.
Speaker 2
Here's what you know. There's a man at home right now who is very jealous of you.
And he is like, what?
Speaker 2 Jesse. Okay.
Speaker 2
Yes. Yeah, I agree.
Okay. Yes.
Can we vote?
Speaker 1 So voting.
Speaker 2 Emphatically, yes.
Speaker 1 Okay. 1 million percent yes.
Speaker 2
Thank you. I won.
This is like a wow. I don't think we've had this before.
Speaker 1 Wow, I didn't think it would end with that line.
Speaker 2 I won.
Speaker 2 Like, it's not a competition.
Speaker 2 We were in service.
Speaker 1
Tressie wasn't. She roped us in with, like, and you know, as humans, and don't forget, and as people.
And as soon as we gave her the vote, she was like, ha ha.
Speaker 2 That's why she has a genius grunt, right? Yeah. MacArthur.
Speaker 2 Yeah.
Speaker 1 You know, if you winning means we get to live in that world, I will take it.
Speaker 2 I like it. Thanks, younger.
Speaker 1 Congratulations. Your first attempt and a win.
Speaker 3 I feel amazing. That's great.
Speaker 2
Because if I touch the two of you, that's what I'm saying. If I can convince the two of you, I think it's giving us two.
Can I be honest with you?
Speaker 1 I think it is actually an amazing idea that isn't hard to implement.
Speaker 3 It really actually is.
Speaker 1 And I think the upsides of it, I didn't even consider what you're saying about intergenerational
Speaker 1 just old people having to work with young people and then women with men in ways that they wouldn't necessarily, because now you also have, we have like gendered jobs.
Speaker 1
It's so great that it's not a gendered job. That's right.
And then you just have to be able to do that. It was just your number came up.
Speaker 1 And it it would be nice for, and we talk about this all the time, what universities I think have lost because of how much money has defined university.
Speaker 1 We have fewer and fewer places and spaces where people of different class groups get to mix.
Speaker 2 And political and mix organically.
Speaker 1 And how nice would it be to have? the air of a billionaire working at the southwest counter with somebody who comes from the inner city.
Speaker 2 Yeah, they could get married. Yeah, they could be.
Speaker 3 This is the fear, by the way.
Speaker 3 this is the fear right so for people when you say this thing that sounds perfectly logical and it's amazing and all of our values are embedded in it why wouldn't you be in favor of this honestly it's that
Speaker 3 Like I invested in a kid who should be able to like go on and inherit and
Speaker 3 you are going to put them beside the cute poor kid.
Speaker 2 Oh, wow.
Speaker 3
Anything could happen. But that's my point.
Anything could happen.
Speaker 1 It's the villain in every Disney movie. That's right.
Speaker 1 But that's that's why i like it anything could happen i love it well tressy the genius and the winner yeah thank you for that thank you so much for joining us thanks and uh that really was great that's um that gave me a lot to think about thank you
Speaker 1 What Now with Trevor Noah is produced by Spotify Studios in partnership with Day Zero Productions. The show is executive produced by Trevor Noah, Fanaz Yamin, and Jodi Avigan.
Speaker 1
Our senior producer is Jess Hackle. Claire Slauter is our producer.
Music, Mixing, and Mastering by Hannes Brown. Thank you so much for listening.
Speaker 1 Join me next Thursday for another episode of What Now?
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