If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down

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I think he's going to run for office in South Africa.

Okay, I tell you, I told him that the first time I was going to be presenting this time I met him.

Trevor's going to be the president of the Republic of this.

But I said, so what?

You're going to go home and run for office

and you went.

He's going to be the president.

What?

He's going to be president of the US.

No, no, no.

Africa Zelensky used to be a comedian I yes and look at his life now

look at his life maybe not a good maybe not a good example

this is what now

with Trevor Noah

Well, all right, you ready to play something if I rule the world?

I'm ready.

All right, let's do it.

This is one of my favorite games to play with people.

And there are few people in the world who are more my favorite than Tracy McMillan Carter.

Tracy, Tracy, Tracy.

I'll tell you why.

I'll tell you why.

So what I love about playing the game If I Ruled the World is oftentimes we think about the world in a gradual way.

And I think sometimes as people, we get bogged down in what we perceive possibility to be.

Oh, yeah.

Right?

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 and you cannot even get to it if you think it's not does that make sense yeah so you it's impossible to fly but someone goes like but maybe it isn't and then one day you're flying right 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, it's a very simple game that we play.

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.

Don't worry about like people coming after you, not coming after you.

Don't worry about voting.

Everyone develops amnesia.

No, they develop amnesia.

Okay.

So they won't go, but it used to be like this.

No, it is not like that.

Okay.

Right?

Your goal is to get the other two people on this podcast to vote for you.

To vote for you.

I didn't know it was a competition part.

That's what a competition comes.

Yes, it is.

There's voting involved.

It's not a competition.

It's not a competition.

You have to vote.

It's not a competition.

Just to see the merits of the ideas.

Trevor's ideas rarely win.

so don't feel don't feel like in they've never won yeah no not rarely win

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 ben made us do have a day off yeah ben we we went with but i think josh hasn't won either it's gonna be surprised by that it's not about josh hash has crazy ones

he's never tried once he was like you love josh everyone do shrooms we're like josh have you done shrooms no yeah yeah josh has some he's so crazy josh has some crazy ones where you're like wait josh what?

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.

No, petty is power.

No, no, but

no, it was like pettiness should be exempt, essentially.

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.

Yeah.

Okay, a pettiness pair.

It's like a yeah.

Trevor told us not to be polite.

He was like, let's get rid of customer service.

Was it politeness?

I don't think I would have said that.

It was something around that.

no i i think my oh i think mine was i said like your your your aptitude should not be measured by your affable nature yeah that was 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 oh no people should not say you're a good waiter or waitress because you are good you are nice to the people customer service just do the thing don't even ask me how my day is is what i was saying and i was like i want how is your day british people because i don't get that in england yeah i don't get that

this is what she came here with her traumatized yeah and they're all they and they're like americans are so nice yeah i'm like yeah i know what you are

she was willing to trade incompetence for being nice

so that's how the game works okay we'll go in it we discuss it you know as 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 we ask a few questions and uh and then we vote okay you know and as i say it's not about winning even though christiana has won it's just about you know it.

Have you ever mentioned my competitive nature?

I'm not proud.

I mean, you're

MacArthur, Junius Greil, New York City.

Yeah, we've never played this game with a genius.

Sociologists.

We kind of

gleaned it.

Okay, all right.

So, how do we want to start?

Who wants to start?

Well, later on.

Do you want to go second?

Yes, first.

Okay, okay.

Whoa, going Tracy first.

Oh, no, I'll go first.

You go first.

You go first.

You go first.

All right.

All right.

So if I ruled the world in my crypto-fascist state,

I would put a restriction on the amount a person is allowed to contribute to the public discourse in text.

So you have a limited amount of words

per month.

You can contribute to the and it doesn't matter the public.

Every time I think I know how crazy Christiana is, this woman surprises me.

I have 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 restrictions.

There is not freedom of text.

This

is to curve out freedom of text.

That's that's interesting this is interesting so i okay remember that the white man said the pen is mightier than the sword

okay okay fine and that guy was stabbed by the sword afterwards but okay let's okay i have a question but i mean okay how are you going to because arguably everything now is text right this is one of the things how are

is there any

ranking or sorting for like what one contributes with text i don't care about i ask out of obvious personal interests i don't you could be a macartha sociologist

you could be a sociologist

you could be a community has the same amount of

see because I am also a socialist so I believe in equality and I'm a communist so it's free I'm not charging you to do for the what number of words wild however there is a restriction there is a limit there is a limit on the amount you can contribute to the public discourse maybe to to Tracy's question in a way 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.

It does.

Oh, but also getting at my.

Yes, I'm trying to say a lot and a little, but you're saying

what, and the great thing is, it'll make you pithier.

Okay, so it's word counts.

Okay, so you're basically putting a word count because you know, I believe men shouldn't say more than 400 words a day.

Again, fair enough.

And why is a man saying

my husband starts about 350?

I try to get him to talk more, and he's like, No, I'm good.

Yeah, yeah, he don't want to say more.

And he's like, why am I, why should I talk?

There's nothing to say.

Okay.

But

that's the limit.

Yeah.

And then what happens if you go above that?

Yeah.

You just can't.

Fine.

A fine.

A fine.

Well, okay, now see, that can become a tax though.

No, no, it's a fine weighted to your income.

Because let me tell you the story I heard about Donatella Versace.

She was smoking under a no-smoking sign, and they said, Miss Versace, I can't smoke there.

And she said, just tell me what the fine is.

That's right.

Oh, the fine has to be weighted to your income.

That's right.

Because in economics, economics, such

as some people, fine is just a tax.

Yeah.

So it's punitive.

I don't believe in a carceral state, so I'm not going to throw you in prison.

But what I'm going to say is.

See, yours gets complicated because of that abolition thing.

Right.

Well, now I kind of do believe in prison, but that's

okay.

So, so you get fined, and it's a proportion of your net worth.

It's weighted.

Yeah, it's weighted to how much you.

Okay, okay.

All right.

Okay.

Another question I have.

Oh, man.

It doesn't compel you to contribute to the public discourse.

And it's cumulative.

It's like life course.

Like I start out.

No, every month,

say in the

month, you get like 800 words.

Okay, so it is weighted to like your lifespan.

So it doesn't accumulate over time.

No, it resets.

I can't say it.

But it resets.

It resets at the beginning of every month.

So there's no books.

No, I'm talking about the public discourse.

I'm talking about online in terms of

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.

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.

The podcast bros are going to come for you.

Well, they'll just be on the mic more.

They'll speak more.

Do you see the perverse incentives there?

So now the men will go from writing writing a whole bunch of words and throwing them at me to speaking them.

I mean, they already have the mics.

So well, that's what we should be going after.

The mics.

Yeah, I'm, I'm gonna, this is a no for me because I don't think you're solving the issue you're trying to solve.

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.

We really saw this around Black Lives Matter,

right?

Most people still do not know that most of the memes and the tweets and the posts that they saw came from Russia.

Right.

Now, I'm not saying this as like a Hillary and the Russian.

No, no, no, no, no.

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.

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.

That's right.

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.

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.

You can't like stop them.

Okay.

The same thing happened in and around social media.

There were all these farms that were produced.

in and around Russia and even like parts of Ukraine, if my memory serves me correctly, right?

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,

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.

Here's why black people are the best thing.

Here's that's all they did.

They diagnosed an issue correctly, by the way,

but then they really inflamed the tension.

So the issue I worry about on your side is you may stop people

who maybe post a lot or write a lot online, 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.

Elon could just buy people to say his thing.

Which is what he has effectively done.

That's what I was going to say.

This is like a

Twitterization of everything.

Oh, that's a, that's a good point.

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.

It was a real moment of fear,

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.

And immediately there was a technological solution to that.

We said, no problem, we will just make 50 trillion bots.

Right?

Train on our behavior because text is easily manipulated to make it sound like a person.

This is what you see.

These are good points, but I believe I could create, not myself, but hire someone to create the technology to eliminate bots.

No, no, but let's say no bots.

I'm saying they would buy people.

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 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.

In fact, have you seen some of the more interesting 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, right?

We'll give you the resources, play this person, and that's how you became a star.

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.

And that is, and I think Drake did this for his latest album, it's pretty brilliant.

Yeah, they've gone out to

everyone online, not just like quote-unquote influencers.

You join this platform.

I forget the name of the platform.

And essentially it sells the services of just the people online.

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.

And I pay it to this service.

The service then goes out to everyone who signed up to it, who's just a regular person online, and says to them,

find a way to play the song, find a way to make this campaign go viral and we pay you per view

so you 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 she got two million views on that we now pay her for the two million views and then tressy did thing something it didn't catch on so we don't really pay her for that and so you are paying for performance but what it does though is it creates a false idea of what trends are popular 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.

And so I'm saying people could pay

what I love about the music example.

I just want to say this.

They borrowed that from politics.

I did not know that.

The political influencer model.

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.

He seems inevitable with a minority of the voters because he uses audience influencers to, there's this wonderful piece that I think in the New York Times, like a week ago, about this sort of like hidden influencer 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.

Yeah.

If you are found to be buying somebody's text,

or if you accept payment for it, prison.

Okay.

So you did put prison back on the table.

Prison's back on the table.

See?

See how fast that happens, by the way?

I know.

It's so sad.

You feel me?

No, sir.

I was like, well, I was going to do, can I make a bigger fine?

I got this excellent plan, but yeah.

Okay.

So if people buy other people.

No, I'm just basically creating disincentives for purchasing somebody's vote.

Just in the same way, like in a lot of countries, there is a cap on how much you can donate, you can spend,

or you can actually spend on a political campaign.

So then it just means that like their big money in politics doesn't have to be.

Okay, and just remind me one more time.

The reason you're doing this is because

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 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.

Your voters?

Oh, that's fine.

I was going to go with the consensus.

No, no, no, no.

No, okay.

This is back to my accurate diagnosis.

But right,

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%.

I said 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,

I'm going to vote no.

Okay.

Okay.

Trevor's voting no.

I already know that.

I'm definitely voting no.

Self-interest.

I'm one of those people with a lot of people.

Yeah, you lost Tracy.

As soon as you said no, I want to tell you.

When you said words,

I was like, wow.

You're coming for my chat.

Yeah.

You said words.

So the okay.

Tracy, you're not even on Twitter anymore.

That's true.

No, but Tracy does lives more.

Yes, but okay.

Let me explain why I'm voting no, though.

So the reason I'm voting no is because

really, because I'm set across from somebody who I consider one of the greatest luminaries in this space,

I don't think that it's fair that us idiots can say more than people like that.

Oh, so that's why I disagree.

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.

Like mobs are numbers, but mobs are not necessarily dangerous.

My issue is that...

the experts like Tressie are actually receding from the public discourse.

I have lots of friends who are authors.

No, I think, please don't get me wrong.

The idiots are the ones who are the loudest voices right now i'm with you completely and that's why i say and it may bring the tresses back to the internet to the public square

completely with you i always say this to you with love and understanding 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 there were these were actually good notes

your next plan is coming hard yeah i'm going to refine it but these were notes.

I didn't spot

taxing the microphones again.

I'm going to put that back on the table for you to consider.

You know what?

So I'm different.

I kind of like the podcast.

I don't like their content, but they just give us insight into the male psyche that I would otherwise never have.

Oh, I like that.

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.

So I don't.

Okay.

All right.

Let me be the man who then talks.

Okay.

I will give you a little insight into my world.

We're going to continue this conversation right after this short break.

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All right.

Okay, if I ruled the world,

I would abolish quarterly earnings that companies report on.

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.

Like, no, no reporting at all from any company.

They wouldn't be, they'd just be like, we just run, run, run, run, run, run.

Like, the SP 500, we wouldn't know what's going on with those.

Yeah, no, no, you wouldn't know their earnings.

Like, so you know, like, right now it's quarterly, yeah, quarterly earnings report.

Like yeah, Chrysler made 300.

No more quarterly earnings.

And I would even extend it to maybe like two to three years, maybe.

Like every three years, they could report their earnings.

Right?

Okay.

And I'll tell you why.

I'll tell you why.

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.

Four times a year, you have to do this.

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.

And so when I look at every service,

I am yet to find a company that became a better version of itself once it went public.

Oh, strong agree.

Right?

I genuinely have yet to see an extra.

Why don't you ban IPOs?

So I thought about this.

I thought about this.

I thought about like, why not ban publicly listing and all of this thing?

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 right so I can see the value in that and I can understand it and I was like you know what I mean I'm because I don't want to just be like ah ban all you know IPOs and ban 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 so what I would say is I would just ban the reporting of how much money people have made.

People are going to steal so much money.

I would steal money.

I have to do everything in my power to not say anything about it.

I do think that's what I'm saying.

He's going to say something about Nigerians.

I didn't say anything.

I didn't say anything.

I didn't want to say anything.

Your first thought was, I could see why I could get some money out of that.

Your first thought, Christiana, was that I I'm not going to say anything about it.

I think on an accounting level, if we look at like Enron, all of that stuff,

the lack of public accountability that's transparent may take us to a place that is quite dangerous, right?

And now, as much as I am a socialist, I'm a socialist that has quite a bit of money in the market.

There comes the champagne with the socialists.

Listen, I got three kids.

They've got these 529 accounts.

They're playing with the money.

I want to know whether I should be holding or I should be letting things go.

Okay.

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.

They have forced us to put our money in the market.

Everything's acid

economy.

Most of us would like to know what's happening to it

every quarter.

And I don't think that's a ridiculous thing.

I think the downside of you knowing

is

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.

So, if people are corrupt and all that, we will still catch them.

They will just be caught later.

They're still left to report.

Yeah, but then your money is going to be enrolled.

But your money is going to be gone.

That's what I'm saying.

So, I'm saying,

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.

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.

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, there's major barring from the economy.

No, it's finished.

You are gone.

Yeah.

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.

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.

Yeah.

But good luck being a lot of people.

And we're running out of them, by the way.

It could bring back some people.

We're going to push people into the trade.

I think my real concern is...

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.

Because I don't think some companies need to grow forever.

I think it's okay just to be your size.

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.

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.

So I think the issue here is the way that quarterly earnings have changed our our understanding of the world, even if you aren't in the market.

Yes.

Right.

Which I agree with

that huge problem.

I think this is like something you said to me once, by the way, Christian, which I love now using, which is it gives you this like casino economy.

That's exactly what I mean.

Right.

That you're constantly in a cycle of risk and loss.

And

you're chasing both the dopamine and the possibility.

And it's making people think things

are better or when it's not.

It's too much.

It's not a sign of quality.

It's like judging a roller coaster on every different slope.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

Listen, I'm on schwab.com all the time.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

That's I think part of your tension is that that also happened at the same time.

The quarterly earnings, the change in our understanding of the world happened at the same time that all of a sudden we were all forced into the market.

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 babies should just go to school.

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?

Companies don't have pensions anymore.

So people

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.

Hold on, no, no, no, no, no, this is true.

Cause how 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.

Yeah, yo, they love the 401k.

The 401k is actually where I might say your problem originated more so than the quarterly earnings because that made all of us care.

Yeah.

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.

Yeah.

Well, okay.

Is it time to vote?

Yeah.

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.

Is a half-vote a thing?

No.

No.

Oh.

You can't half-vote for Hillary or Trump.

I tried.

Just like I tried just now.

Okay.

Ooh.

I just don't think the downsides 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.

We have a yes.

I'm going to vote no, and not because I don't think it's a good idea.

My personal level of anxiety, there isn't enough Zoloft in the world that can make me be like, We got to take your apps away.

Oh, yeah.

Trevor says that all the time.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sometimes happen there.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

I just think, and I think for a lot of regular people who unfortunately is a 401k.

So this is, oh, okay, I have some of the information here.

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.

The mandate formalized the practice.

And I think it was because of a crash at some point.

Because before

prior to 1970, some companies provided some quarterly updates voluntarily, but they were inconsistent.

And then it really became like a big deal.

So really, it was for like standardization.

Like it's something regulation.

Yeah, it was something good.

But to your point, it was because of a crash.

And people were like, oh, okay, we don't want this to happen again.

But then to my point, there was another crash.

I'm just going to point that out.

There's something to the idea, but I just think it would give just regular people a lot of anxiety.

No, no, but

why would that anxiety

would be based on the fact that they knew there was another way before?

Don't forget amnesia.

That's our rules.

Yeah.

It wasn't added.

I forgot about that part.

Don't forget that part.

The people don't know that there was quarterly.

There was any other way.

I'm saying I'm taking it away completely.

It has never been.

You've got me on the half vote.

Maybe.

See, I told y'all, this is what I'm trying here.

We need half votes.

Actually, I may change mind to that, by the way.

No, because people like me will still.

So, yeah.

Okay.

Wow.

We come back to human nature.

You're like,

this has actually been at the heart of a lot of our comments.

Like, do you just think this is a human nature

problem?

Okay.

Wow.

Okay.

Well, another no for me, which I'm used to.

You got a yes?

I did, actually.

I got a very valuable answer.

And also, my no didn't come from a place of hate where it usually comes from a place.

But it came from a place of just like.

Yeah, this one was different because normally you go like, I hate that idea.

But here you went,

you blamed yourself.

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I blame myself, which is very different.

Okay, that's progress.

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Okay.

This is it.

Drum roll, please.

Oh,

because you guys don't know this, but you foreshadowed mine.

Oh, that's beautiful.

Then it's a perfect journey.

I just wanted me 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 if i ruled the world

there would be a national job core for customer service jobs everybody would be conscripted into working in customer service for some period of time in their life for them to go on to the rest of the labor market and let me tell you why We have talked about job core 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 a customer service, this is a service-based economy.

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.

You know it.

How many of us go to the airport now and

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.

I want out TSA pre-check clear plus

advanced global global engineering.

Global, global engineering.

I'll give you 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

That's it.

The people on the other end of the phone when you have a complaint.

That's right.

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?

I want them to understand that for the vast majority of people in this country, nothing works anymore.

And this is why.

And so you mean everyone would have to do it from the richest to the poorest.

Sorry, yes.

But poor people don't have time to do it.

You know why?

Because I want them to work together.

Well, they won't be doing other stuff.

It's job core.

Okay.

So you go.

So this is like military service.

Yes.

But customer service.

That's right.

How long?

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 but i say this as somebody who worked a lot of customer service jobs so i might be more sensitive okay so maybe up to a year and are you are you paid for it yes 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 right so you're trying to close kind of the empathy gap

in a way yes and you want people to understand how frustrating it is to be in America.

And what they have been able to opt out of is not the majority of this country.

Okay.

Okay.

I will say this.

One part of it that I really do like is

I often say to people, so I'm in airports a lot.

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.

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.

And sometimes I'll say to anyone who's around me, I go, Hey, don't waste your time.

Let's just go rebook.

Trust me, just go rebook.

You're wasting your time because you're going after the face of the problem,

who has nothing to do with the problem.

They don't know when the plane's coming, they can't clean the plane, 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.

Yeah.

And they're not the one who's making your ticket not work.

So I do like that side of it.

The question I have, though, is,

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.

Waiter.

Yes, in fact, very much so.

TSA agent?

Yes.

Okay.

Airport booking, like at the

front desk at a hotel?

Yes, that was actually my.

Okay.

Oh, that was one of yours.

Yeah, it's one I thought of first.

I'm trying to think of what else would be.

Anybody who answers the phone when you follow

the customers or call.

Let me tell you who's not included because I did think about this

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 who have already cleared a high level of status to even be there.

I'm not going to include.

I don't want you providing customer service just to rich people or even just to only poor people.

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.

So they'll work at the DMV.

What about hairdressers?

Because I have a good friend Vernon who's an incredible.

Oh, no, because we can't have people out here just messing with folks.

I'm not trying to run.

No kind of life.

He's like, oh.

What I was going to say, I know.

Oh, that is skill-based.

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.

And he said something to me interesting.

He was like, you know, I'm in service work.

Yes, right.

He's like, I use my body.

Yes.

And he's like, people don't think of it as a physical,

laborious job.

I use my body and I'm very attuned to the client's emotions.

And

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, especially since a lot of women are in the beauty industry.

I'm not a long agree.

agreement you know like nails yeah yeah but but i will say this though to tressie'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 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 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 at the super cut.

There's so many jobs, y'all.

It was at the super cut.

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.

You know why?

Because to Trevor's point, at the end of the day, however.

You need your hair cut.

Yes.

There is an intimacy to the interaction.

There's no intimacy.

So I'm sure.

But yeah, I'm the style.

what yeah, because you need a skill to deliver it well.

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.

We can get most Americans based on just their everyday skills to answer a phone

and to push a button on the phone.

Okay, so you're talking about like administrative.

Front-facing, I would say front-facing, front-line 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 Chrissy.

Can I tell you my concern?

Yes, that you're going to have to work one of them?

No, I would let me tell you something.

One of my first jobs, I worked in Alders in Croydon when I was retail.

It was my Saturday's job.

I was paid like maybe three, four pounds an hour.

It's taught me so much about

Alders was like a, sadly, R.I.P.

It was a department store.

Okay, like a Macy's type thing.

Yeah, not that fancy, but it was a department store.

You clearly haven't been to Macy's recently.

Oh, Trevor.

You were not wrong, but oh, that's hurt.

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.

So I've worked retail and, you know.

But you see what you said, what it taught you?

Yeah, it taught me a lot.

I mean, and well, this is the thing.

I remember one distinct experience of a customer who was really cruel to me in the way she spoke to me.

Because like, there's always an people make an assumption about retail girls, especially when they look a bit young.

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.

And I remember feeling like very dehumanized in that moment 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 of course they give you the good bags as well but um

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,

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

person servicing, they're going to go around and they're going to treat people badly because they were treated badly.

So how do we, I think you're assuming people are going to learn the right thing.

How do we have to hurt people hurting people?

How is it about people, which I see?

I actually don't,

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.

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.

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, right?

I do think you're going to have a part of the population where that's not going to work.

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.

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 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 the public.

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.

And I think that for maybe not everybody, but I think for a soft majority of people,

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.

I mean, do you see how it's trickled down?

By the way, I mean, there's now a special line for everybody everywhere at every level of interaction.

And I don't think that has been good for us.

But wait, wait, wait.

Help me understand this.

How would that solve that part?

Because if everyone's in the job core,

I still have my pre-check, don't I?

Yeah.

Well, it solves it this way.

You now have to experience the exchange from the other side.

Okay, so you still have the power to be able to do that.

I was working that.

So at some point, I would know what it's like to be in the non-conference line.

Okay.

All right.

I do like many elements of this, I will say.

I think one of the things I like most is, to your point,

wait, actually, let me ask this

before I assume.

Because remember, this is...

You said something that made me feel like you're allowing people to choose when it happens.

No, not when.

So, when so, when is this happening in their lives?

Uh, 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.

So, you worry that that is, you know, rich people will buy their way out.

Oh, yeah, you get it.

You can't, you can't come to a system.

So, you get the power, you get exemptions back.

No, it's a system.

That's right.

So, no exemptions.

No, well, because the thing of us, customer service, we got so many variety.

There shouldn't be exemptions for bone spurs.

There's nothing

because I can find you something.

Yeah, you know what I'm saying?

Because you can't answer the phone from anywhere.

Yeah, I'm going to find you something.

Okay.

Okay.

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, you're going to have to.

Would you?

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?

I only say this because you may lose me, Very.

I'll tell you why.

Having to come back.

I'll tell you why.

Having to come back.

Oh, no, no, no, no.

Trevor, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I'll tell you why.

I'll tell you why.

I'll tell you why.

I think when young people go into these lines of work,

they process it differently.

It's almost like a hobby-jobby thing.

I hear you.

So, like, I've seen college kids slash high school kids working at like a place where something doesn't work.

You like, even if someone's berating them, these kids are just like, whatever.

They're like, because they get shouted at by teachers and parents and whatnot.

Okay, this is a good point.

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.

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.

Because I think there's an overlap between how people treat young people.

Okay, so that's

the status.

You got me on this.

I like this.

I have a pitch.

Make it like Teach for America.

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.

If it's like Teach for America, when you finish college or you finish, make it a bit older.

So you do it around.

You can pitch yours.

I'm telling you my one.

I'm just asking if you would be willing to consider a re-up.

Okay.

So here's what I'm saying.

I'll tell you why a re-up.

It's going to be a conditioned re-up.

If you do the re-up, you may lose me.

Okay, I'm just asking.

Because it's democracy now.

See, y'all are putting it in.

You've got Christiana.

Let me tell you why, Christiana, because I do think it's invaluable for a young person to go into a space where 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.

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?

Hey, pick up that thing for me.

Hey, so you're almost already in a service job for the most part.

I'll counter Gen Z are like, are the generation that haven't had to do that thing that we did?

Okay, okay.

Like a lot of Gen Z have never did Saturday jobs and stuff.

But that's what I'm saying.

I'm not saying remove it.

I'm saying I just want to.

You want a 42-year-old

management job.

That's what I mean.

I'll tell you why.

Yeah, and you move on.

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.

You said you got three kids.

I'm assuming in Tressie's magical world, there's oh yeah oh yeah no health care all of that i have built a feminist economy well there you go okay

yeah like we so this is a okay we are

filling up and providing for social reproduction in any world where i'm in charge you know why i like your addition to it yes because the thing that's drawing me to to Tressie's idea is that you're saying that nobody is above service.

That's right.

Right.

Yes.

And you're saying,

I don't care if you've gone out and worked in the family.

That's what I'm saying to this thing again.

Yes, which I agree.

I'm like, yeah.

Yes, because in what we've spoken about before, I think sometimes people

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.

Yes.

That's the issue that I hear.

Thank you.

You see?

That's why I left England.

Yeah, that's what I mean.

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.

I've got to get out.

That's what people say.

And then I go, like, I even feel like that with Americans.

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, 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.

Right.

But also, where's like, where's your gusto to say, oh, that's terrible.

I'm going to try to be part of fixing it.

Yeah, I understand.

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.

Cause that's all you're doing.

I don't like this throw it away i don't like this throw it away no but where are you in 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 i'm just asking this as a citizen of your world yeah is because i think it would be nice for people to be reminded of the fact that they don't get out of it

They're just lucky enough to not be experiencing that part of it.

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.

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.

Yeah.

Yes.

Okay.

So I'm going to say something I rarely say, Trevor.

You have improved upon my idea.

I?

Well, this is

a man.

I'm a man.

Here's what you know.

There's a man at home right now who is very jealous of you.

And he is like, what?

tressie okay i yes yeah i agree okay yes can we vote so voting emphatically yes okay one million percent yes thank you i won this is like a wow i don't think we've had this before wow i didn't think it would end with that line

i won't like

we were in service we were tressy was she roped us in with like and you know as humans and don't forget and as people and as as soon as we gave her the vote she was like ha ha that's why she has a genius grant right yeah

you know if you winning means we get to live in that world i will take it i like it thanks congratulations your first attempt and a win i feel amazing that's great because if i come

to it

if i can convince the two of you i think it's giving us two can i can i be honest with you i think it is actually an amazing idea that isn't hard to implement is really actually and i think the upsides of it i didn't even consider what you're saying about intergenerational yes 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 yeah so great that it's not a gendered job that's right and then you just have to it was just your number came up and 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 we have fewer and fewer places and spaces where people of different class groups get to mix And political and mix organically.

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?

Yeah, and get married.

Yeah, they could be.

This is the fear, by the way.

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.

Like, I invested in a kid who should be able to go on and inherit and do it.

And you are going to put them beside the cute, poor kid.

Oh, wow.

Anything could happen.

But that's my point.

Anything could happen.

It's the villain in every Disney movie.

That's right.

Yeah.

But that's why I like it.

Anything could happen.

I love it.

Well,

Tressie, the genius and the winner.

Yeah.

Thank you for that.

Thank you so much for joining us.

Thanks.

And that really was great.

That's a that gave me a lot to think about.

Thank you.

What Now with Trevor Noah is produced by Spotify Studios in partnership with Day Zero Productions.

The show is executive produced by Trevor Noah, Sanaz Yameen, and Jodi Avigan.

Our senior producer is Jess Hackle.

Claire Smoter is our producer.

Music, Mixing and Mastering by Hannes Brown.

Thank you so much for listening.

Join me next Thursday for another episode of What Now.

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