Kind: captions
Language: en
why are so many Western economies right
now very
fragile well I think one answer is that
nobody really knows I mean it's amazing
how often very distinguished Nobel
prizewinning economists get this stuff
wrong but clearly we have certain
problems and the most obvious one is
demographic so most of our countries are
birth rates are falling and we're
getting older and as we get older we
become more expensive to look after
particularly in medical
terms uh in in Britain the statistics
are very Stark when we set up the
welfare state before the first world war
there were 20 working people for every
one retired person today we've got just
under three working people for every one
retired person so you can see the
balance has changed very dramatically in
terms of who's paying for who um second
bit that comes out of that of course is
that our economies are increasingly
dependent on immigration
and that's particularly uh for running
Care Systems running service Industries
but it but it's also increasingly true
for
skills and the problem there is that
immigration is very unpopular with large
swayes the population in the US and in
Europe and it's driving a lot of votes
for the populace right and I guess the
center hasn't really worked out how to
deal with that so maybe those are two
things to be getting on with
all right those are two very good things
um so let's first address the
demographic bombshell
um as we have this happen the pyramid
gets inverted we have a ton of people at
the top that are going to require a lot
of care they're no longer in the
workforce um is immigration going to be
the only response to that or do you look
at something like Ai and you say Ai and
Robotics is going to solve the problem
or do you take a totally different
approach to that
well I think ultimately immigration
can't continue always to be the answer
because if you did that your population
would keep growing indefinitely and the
United States I guess is a very very
large country but in someone like the
United Kingdom uh we're already more
densely populated than India so uh if
the pyramid inverted and then you tried
to build a bigger base to the pyramid by
bringing in more and more people
indefinitely over the next 300 years
you'd end up in an impossible situation
ideally you want not to have a pyramid
at all you want to have something that's
pretty static and
sustainable and to get to that you've
really got to work out how to become
more productive and that includes more
productive in the care industry so that
does involve learning from Japan on what
can be done with machine learning what
can be done with
robotics it involves thinking seriously
about jobs that we currently do that may
be replaced by Ai and that of course
we're often reluctant to do because
we're very risk averse uh we can be very
impacted by regulations by unions and by
others um but no I I don't think the
answer can be indefinitely bringing in
more and more younger people because
those people get old and they in turn
will have to be looked after by more and
more younger people and you'll end up
with a NeverEnding
growth okay well here is uh an
interesting hypothesis so one thing that
does seem to be playing out is that the
immigrants that are coming into the
country are coming from countries that
have higher birth rates now that could
give you that static column that you're
looking for over time obviously you're
going to have this sort of weird
transitionary period but what becomes
fascinating is you get this very
populous spark against that um because
what drives the higher birth rates is a
wildly different culture that's that
seems unarguable and
without putting any value judgment on
whether one culture is better than
another I will say it is the
architecture of the human mind is very
tribal by Nature we grow up in the
culture that we grow up in we tend to
hold on to that and so anything that
disrupts that is going to cause this
sort of weird moment that I see us
living through do you think that is an
accurate read on why we're seeing
populism now or is there something else
a foot
so I think um that that's partly it
although remember that um immigrant
communities have often had much higher
birth rates so if you look at the Irish
American Community when it began to come
into large numbers in the United States
late 19th early 20th century they had
significantly larger families than the
kind of and you do you think that's a
function of being an
immigrant it's usually a function of
poverty it it's not really a question of
of uh which part of the world you come
from poorer people tend to have larger
families and and that's partly because
if you're coming from a subsistence
economy you feel you need firstly the
labor of your children but secondly most
importantly you're worried some of the
kids are going to die and you need a lot
of
replacement so birth rates come down uh
for a number of reasons one of them is
that you think that the children you
have you hope are likely to survive into
adulthood secondly kids become more
expensive um they they no longer seem as
they might do if you're a a a a small
farmer in Ecuador or in Ireland as
though they're a net positive income
contributor to the family instead you
get into a worldview where you think oh
my goodness I'm going to have to pay for
that college education and this that and
the other and they're not really going
to bring me much in in return um so we
can see that as countries get wealthier
uh their their birth rates fall very
dramatically and that the biggest birth
rates in the world place like ner which
at the moment it's in the Sahara in
Africa has a birth rate of about 7.6 on
average per couple whoa but that's one
of the very poorest countries on Earth
and I assume they still have a pretty
traumatic um infant death rate huge
infant mortality rates whereas countries
like Italy which had very high birth
rates in the 1950s and now in a position
like the United States where the
indigenous population is
shrinking so it's it's it's it's not a
simple question of culture and religion
and the way that we used to think we
used to think the point is that I don't
know people from Italy or people from
Ireland had big families because they
were predominantly Catholics and there
were prohibitions on the use of birth
control it's now seems more uh plausible
that the reason they had bigger families
generally speaking was that they were
poorer is the the rise of populism
predictable or is this a totally
unrelated thing to immigration totally
unrelated to the economies and it just
happens to be happening at the same time
because in my current mental model they
are effectively one and the same
phenomena yeah so I think the first
thing is that you're right that there's
a very very strong um Factor there
immigration is clearly driving the rise
of farri right populism across Europe
and the United States and if you were
trying to explain why the far right in
Germany just got nearly a third of the
vote in the latest state election that's
very closely related to immigration you
just have to see their literature you
have to interview their supporters it's
immigration and the perception is that
the ruling Elite has failed to control
borders it's now it's a little bit more
nuanced than you might think because to
often the people interviewed will say
look we're reasonably happy with having
a more diverse Society we just want to
know that we've got control of our
borders in fact we' don't mind more
people coming in provided we think the
governments making the choice to do that
rather than being forced to do it by in
Britain for example a debate
between people who are very very focused
on the absolute
numbers uh which is a minority and the
people who are focused on people who are
legally Crossing on boats which seems to
be the thing that's upsetting people
most
um on your second question which is are
immigrant populations generally having
more children yeah there is some
evidence for that I mean this stuff is
all very controversial um and you know
I'm waiting into tricky territory but in
London for example it seems as though
over
60% of uh the children born in London
are born to people whose parents were
not born in the United Kingdom when
looking at this problem there are
obviously conspiracies that bound the
great replacement Theory people get very
paranoid that there's something that is
happening intentionally now you've said
that one of the ways to offset the um
inverted pyramid is to bring in
immigrants not going to solve the
problem the whole way but when you have
an economy that is based on growth which
I would say in the west is is the
primary um base Assumption of our
economies so you have this economy that
requires growth you are the El making
policies you probably are going to be
pretty Pro people um coming into the
country uh then if you have stats like
this in London over 60% of the people
are born to mothers that are foreign all
of the sudden
uh I hate even using the phrase
replacement Theory but it's like that is
a fact that is happening that the people
that are locally um that are already
there are birth rates far lower and so
they're just you know again trying to
use very neutral language it just begins
a shift yeah I mean and again there's a
interesting um thing that I need to
learn from you about which is the
difference between uh the United Kingdom
and Europe uh and and the United States
on the other hand so the UK in Europe
predominantly um if you looked at the
genetic profile of people living in the
United Kingdom in the 1950s
1960s a very high proportion were
descended from people who had been there
6,000 years ago it's now clear that uh
the these Viking invasions the Norman
Conquest didn't really change the gene
pool of Britain very
much uh the United States is different
and and that's what I never quite
understand in the great replacement
Theory I mean the great replacement in
the United States was of course the
great replacement of the Native American
population uh and and therefore as a
European looking at the US I get a bit
confused I mean
what exactly is it that people are
anxious about their own parents
Grandparents great-grandparents were
immigrants not that long ago so
presumably that's a little bit different
to uh what's going on Europe I don't
think it is so this feels to me like the
uh a phrase I will say a lot this is
just the architecture of the human mind
so Dave Chappelle has a quote that I
think can be broadly applied which is
everything is funny until it happens to
you uh when you're the person coming in
and conquering and getting the land hey
it's all good when you are the person
being conquered it's like whoa whoa whoa
whoa whoa and now all of the sudden it's
all breaks all the time what the hell is
happening and um so that to me I
understand I think it is just going to
be the natural human response I would
have expected Native Americans to be
wildly pissed off as people roll in and
start taking their land and I would
expect them to as they did fight to the
death to feel betrayed every time a
treaty was made and then broken to have
longstanding generational bitterness
over what happened I think we see the
exact same parallels between the Israeli
uh Palestinian conflict all of this
feels like yeah this is pretty
predictable um the things I want to
tease out are how much of the future can
we see by saying okay I understand the
human mind I understand how it reacts to
this stuff and I would like to predict
as many of the second and third order
consequences as possible so um I think
now would be a good time to plant a flag
in
populism what is it exactly and if I am
correct that populism happens when you
feel and in fact there's one more thing
I have to put out there uh I have a
feeling that people only conflict
ethnically once you have cultural
assimilation if you don't have cultural
assimilation then people will fight at
the level of culture so I would not
expect ethnically diverse UK to um be
where the battle lines are drawn I think
people that sound and act quote unquote
British will all get along no matter
what they look like uh and then people
who don't and are espousing foreign
values that's going to be where the line
of conflict is and so to me immigration
is really a bigger question of
assimilation which is why it probably
feels slightly different in the US
because I think the US ethos largely is
one of yeah give me immigrants I'm here
for it but when they roll up they better
feel American so they better want
American values if you roll up and you
feel like you're trying to shut down the
things that are classically American
then you're going to have a problem that
would be my gut
instinct yeah and the question of what's
American of course changes over time
making it even more complicated because
I guess if you were part of the kind of
Brahman Elite in Boston and the mid
1800s you would have seen a lot of the
Immigrant communities turning up in the
1800s as not being classically American
in the way you defined it then in the
1850s
1860s what classic what's classically
American now I guess is the kind of
post-war American
Vision no doubt and you will when you
look back in history you see the pockets
of discrimination violence Etc when they
are perceived to be the other right that
they haven't assimilated and look that's
complicated I know I'm sort of rounding
things just to be a just to make it even
more complicated it's not just that
people assimilate in assimilating they
change the culture so
uh it's partly because of immigration
that the culture of the United States in
2024 is quite unlike the culture of the
United States in 1954 or the culture in
1924 and the same will be true in
Britain it's not that there's uh a given
thing called British culture into which
people assimilate in the process of
assimilation British culture itself
shifts and Alters so for example you
would expect um in 20 30 years time very
different views of the monarchy the
royal family in Britain and that would
be largely driven by people coming from
other countries who didn't grow up with
this royal family who think a lot of
British Traditions are a bit peculiar
and a lot of those Traditions will be
stripped out and the same will happen in
the United States if you end up with a
much larger population many of whose
parents grandp parents grew up in Latin
America you will expect a more hybrid
culture to emerge which will have
features which were more associated with
Latin America and not associated with
the America of the
1950s yes and the final button I'll put
on that is uh no one likes change or the
vast majority of humanity don't so in
any transition everyone goes through a
transition which is one of the big
questions of my life right now I've
started paying attention to world
affairs is that just because I'm about
to turn 50 or is something actually
happening right now that's worth paying
attention to I I have a hard time
parsing those um but it does feel like
there's there's a larger wave of
immigration which I think is explained
by economics we've already been through
that uh so I do feel like this moment is
going to be more contentious but I think
your point is well taken that these
moments are occurring basically at all
times uh and even if it's just
generational where they're assimilating
new values you're you're always going to
see this movement okay uh plant to flag
in populism form
what is it
exactly populism um at its core is a
very exclusionary worldview by which I
mean the populist claims to speak for
the people against the elite and usually
claims that the elite is somehow foreign
or alien to the
country so when a populist says I'm
speaking on behalf of the American
people or the German people in actual
fact often their supporters are barely
50% of the population but that's not how
they present themselves they don't
present themselves in a pluralist way
they present themselves as having a
monopoly on truth and
identity and people who are against them
are not perceived as fellow citizens who
have a equally valid but different
perspective on things they're perceived
as people who are somehow
traitors to the cause um so it's got a
sort of
monopolistic structure built into it and
that's what makes it so dangerous that's
why often you'll see populists challenge
the
Constitution challenge the rule of law
challenge checks and balances because
it's a mindset that assumes that they
represent in adverted comms the real
people that they're right and everybody
else is wrong and therefore anything
that stands in the way of doing things
in the way that they
want constitutions amendments
courts legislatures are to be swept
aside because they are defying the will
of the
people and of course this is not just
phenomenal the right I mean this was a
very very you know apparent in the
Bolshevik Revolution in that created the
Soviet Union the Bolsheviks were you
know tiny proportion of the Russian
population but they claimed to be the
people and proceeded to rip up
everything that stood in their way in
order to fulfill the will of the people
and anyone who opposed them was a tracer
to the
people if they actually don't have a
majority behind them why does that
rhetoric work so
well
um well I think it works partly because
it gives a great deal of confidence and
energy to their supporters gives their
supporters a degree of moral
legitimacy that they might feel they
lacked if their leaders were just saying
to them well you know we've got x
million votes and they've got a few more
votes than us and we're going to take it
in turns that removes uh some of the
um yeah some of the authority which is
necessary for the extremism it's also
that they're able to draw on very deep
roots of
nationalism blood and soil if you say
you speak for the nation you know you
are making America great again for
example
right you have a whole language which is
not available to your
opponents your opponents may be talking
about I don't know tariffs or economic
growth or how to fund a Medicare system
but you are saying I am making my
country great again and and the whole
structure of that creates a very
different type of
politics okay so I have a thesis on why
this works let me know what you think
about this I suppose I should call it a
hypothesis uh the reason that the strong
man works the reason that populism works
even when they don't necessarily in the
beginning represent the majority of the
population is that um leadership works
because the average person feels lost
and confused they are looking for
shorthands always this is just again
architecture of the human mind and a
strongman will intoxicate people with
certainty they will say this is the
problem this is what we're going to do
about it and your life is going to be
better I think it only works if there is
underlying um frustration in the
populace even people that would not have
at the beginning of this identified
there's it could be as subtle as a
malaise things aren't growing I don't
know why it feels like it's going to be
worse for me than it was for my parents
things just seem harder but if you have
that Open Door of frustration or Mala
and you come in and say this is why you
feel terrible and this is what you need
to do about it people feel seen they
feel heard and now they have an answer
they don't have to think for themselves
they just have to identify with that
person and it's like all right well
things suck now so I'm going to get on
board with
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impact yeah what do you think about that
I think it's right I think
any
successful Insurgent movement and and
populism by its nature is quite
revolutionary always has to draw on a
deep um sense of dissatisfaction with
the status quo I mean the only way you
can run a campaign against the elites or
the establishment is if the elites and
the establishment are associated with
something that seems to be failing
people now some of that is objective and
some of that can be made up so
objectively the 2008 financial crisis
was a humiliation for The credibility of
markets and exposed profound
inequalities inequalities between
people's incomes inequalities between
people's wealth inequalities between
regions right difference between what
it's like living in Flint Michigan and
what it's like living in
Massachusetts the Iraq and Afghan wars
were complete humiliating catastrophes
three and A5 trillion dollars three and
half thousand billion dollar was spent
by the United States and its allies and
they achieved nothing invaded to get rid
of the Taliban spent 20 years and
Afghanistan handed the country back to
the Taliban again right so these are
objective facts
but it's also true that such facts exist
at many other periods and the question
is are the political entrepreneurs able
to
exploit people's frustrations
successfully or not so the Vietnam War
was an equal
catastrophe but it didn't lead in the
way that the Iraq and Afghan disasters
did directly contribute towards the rise
of populism right now why is that partly
because of social media I mean I think
one of the most dramatic changes in our
lives has been the introduction of
Facebook and Twitter and indeed the
algorithms that underly Google and the
way that those have contributed to very
very particular ways of perceiving the
world contributed to polarization
contined contributed to the erosion of
borders uh contributed to the
dissolution of traditional news
networks and and that's necessary
because people in Flint Michigan were
always in a worse situation than you
know people living in fancy parts of
Boston but it's the modern world makes
that much more visible to people and I
think and also gives the populists an
opportunity they didn't have before
Donald Trump for example whatever you
think of him was an immense beneficiary
of the world of social
media because he's able to benefit from
the fact that if he says something
provocative in the 1950s he wouldn't
really be reported right the New York
Times could ignore him the television
news because could decide not to cover
him he wouldn't really go anywhere as
soon as the world of social media exists
if he says something provocative he gets
a double benefit he gets the benefit
from his supporters who say whoa this
guy speaks the truth he's given us
permission to say things we haven't been
able to say but he also gets the benefit
from the people who are outraged by him
because the people outraged by him are
also viewing his things retweeting his
things sharing his things and a whole
Revenue stream comes in and an attention
stream from support and outrage which
wasn't
possible uh really before this stuff
really gets going I guess in about 2014
when smartphones become very very
available and when a critical mass of
people are are using these platforms so
this contemporary
populism yes it has some relationship to
fundamentals but it's much better
understood as a products of a changing
media
culture do you think that social media
is a net benefit or a net detraction
from
society I think politically it it
probably has been a net detraction I
think there's huge things that we all
enjoy about it enormously I think it
gives us wonderful access to things with
Incredible
ease you know I spend a lot of time on
on Twitter X and like many people there
are kind of wonderful rabbit holes that
I go down which I wouldn't have been
able to go down
uh you know 15 years ago right I can
look at cute cats I can work out I can
follow people with strange theories on
medieval Britain I can look at lovely
architecture I can learn how to follow a
new diet regime right all that stuff I'm
able to do but when Elon Musk decides
to take control of a platform like that
and then say to people in Britain onx
that there is a civil war in
Britain and is able to guess it to a
very very large number of people
instantaneously this
claim and is then able to do something
that wasn't possible in traditional
media which is to have 500 replies which
seem to validate the post from people
saying oh yeah there is a civil war in
Britain I looked out the window look at
this the whole thing's out of control it
has a power um which simply didn't exist
before I mean it was no equivalent of
this there was no way of doing that
before and that that's what the Arab
Spring was kind of the first hint
of now when it happened in the Arab
Spring did that feel positive or
negative to you at the
time at the time it felt positive at the
time I felt right the way
through
that social media and the internet more
broadly was a Wonder ful liberating
phenomenon that would allow us to speak
directly people to people that would
push out the control of the old
hierarchies and Elites that would allow
people to topple dictators to
self-organize um and it took me some
time
to
understand the risks associated with
that what are the risks well the risks
are exactly these examples I've tried to
give from Donald Trump or Elon Musk of
being able to mobilize very very rapid
very aggressive very exclusionary
movements often on the basis of very
scant facts and getting visibility and
support and enthusiasm for projects
which previously were curated I mean
previously when news anchors dominated
when uh the newspapers dominated there
was a normative structure there was an
ethical structure embedded in the
editors
that chose what to display to the public
and what not and often that put an
emphasis for example on the truth I mean
newspaper
editors uh you know of course were
always vulnerable to advertisers they
were always um you know flawed human
beings but they had some notion of
public service and particularly publicly
funded broadcasters you know the nprs
the bbcs to this world believed they had
an obligation to the public to try to
check whether what was being said was
true but as those business models have
been destroyed and they have been
destroyed they've been destroyed so that
these platforms now are struggling to
compete with a YouTube influencer who
can make more money than the New York
Times then it it becomes much more
vulnerable to all these things we're
talking about
polarization posttruth
populism do you think the um general
public is better off with a curated
reality
well it's a it's a really good question
I don't know how I work my way through
that
because you can see so strongly the
arguments on both sides I mean on the
one hand you know I was the beneficiary
of social media when I ran to be prime
minister in the United Kingdom I was
able to come from nowhere and use social
media to develop a momentum I would
never have been able to find before I
was able to get huge support for my
particular program in a very unusual way
I was able to circumvent the traditional
party structures I was able to crowdfund
and do all that kind of stuff and of
course people like me who tend to be on
more on that side of politics we got
very excited by uh President Obama's
ability to do that you know Again
difficult to imagine his campaign in the
old world of the Democratic Party
Machine on the other hand
uh if we are really losing
any sense of
truth if anything goes if we can no
longer really rely on serious
journalists with serious editors fact
checking we find ourselves in a very odd
world yeah this I think is going to be
uh one of the defining arguments of our
time because to your point you can see
the arguments on both sides in terms of
uh man the very sense of what is real
begins to break down when you just have
a wall of information coming at you uh
you need algorithms to parse the
information in some way uh even
time-based display of the information is
a decision right and not necessarily the
best decision and will be gamed and all
of that uh people will start posting
right when they think the right people
are waking up I mean it's it is uh it's
really interesting but I think it forces
everybody to lay bear what their base
assumption is about the what I'll call
the the people and I have a base
assumption that authoritarian rule is
the only way to enforce a controlled
narrative even if you're doing it for
the what the quote unquote right reasons
that you you will eventually have to do
it through violence and given that my
fear is always that the authoritarian
government is far more terrifying than
the mob meaning a bunch of people let
loose going crazy saying whatever they
want to say but I guess where where you
where the founding fathers would
challenge you is they would say that
that isn't really or shouldn't be the
choice that the idea of representative
democracy was supposed to be finding a
middle path
between authoritarian despotism on the
one hand and what you call the mob on
the other right that these structures
the Electoral College the
Senate and coming out of that things
like the presidency was supposed to be
ways of
um giving some voice to the people but
balancing that voice with other things
balancing it with the Supreme Court That
was supposed to be composed of Highly
Educated jurists
balanced with a carefully written
Constitution an executive balanced with
a
legislature and elected senators and
representatives who were supposed to be
using their judgment and conscience not
simply acting as a transmission
mechanism for whatever their vote has
said because um if you are Thomas
Jefferson thinking
about
government yes you want to get rid of
the king you want a re Evolution but you
you do not have much confidence in the
idea that a kind of freefor all is the
way to go that things need to be curated
and
organized just as I suppose you know
this conversation we're having follows
certain kinds of rules certain kinds of
expectations you know you very
courteously let me speak I occasionally
listen to you and ask a question back um
the but the risk in the public
sphere is that those rules disintegrate
and you end up with
nonsense yeah I I aggressively agree
with the founding fathers I am
completely uh enamored by what they put
into place I don't think that they could
have ever conceived of social media and
it is very possible that they would have
put different things in place had they
been able to predict that but I look at
the first and second amendment and I say
yeah word like that's exactly how you
have to be thinking so uh the First
Amendment says you barring an incitement
to violence you have the right to say
anything and that has to be a as a
matter of priority as the first
amendment that has to be protected and I
can go into reasons why but I'm actually
more interested to hear if you agree
with that or not but the First Amendment
and Then followed up with the second one
which is the right to bear arms and once
you understand that the founding fathers
were far more worried about the Govern
government becoming tyrannical and you
needing weapons not to protect against
your neighbor going crazy and coming and
stealing your chickens though yes that
too but that it's really about the
government becoming problem so to your
point they're trying to get away from
the King authoritarian rule they're like
we don't want that anymore but the
people like hey you don't just want
Anarchy love the Third Way idea but
there I think there people need to at at
a minimum have a hypothesis of mind
reading into the founding fathers and
why they would put those as one and two
that was mine um how do you take that
how do you feel about Free Speech well
so I I think the the uh idea of free
speech is
a a smart and good one and I think it's
good that you added short of incitement
to violence I mean we've just had this
in the United
Kingdom the people who've been
prosecuted have not been
prosecuted for um sharing ideas they've
been prosecuted
for defining how to attack immigrants
and
hoses telling people to wear gloves
telling them what fuels to use telling
them which hostiles to attack right the
these are not martys to um expressing
their
views right the people who have been put
in prison been put in prison for stuff
that you would be put in prison for
before social
media right that that breaks your first
amendment
um on the Second Amendment look this is
a difficult
conversation but I come from the United
Kingdom in
1960s we had about a 100 people a year
being killed by gun violence in the
United
Kingdom and you had about 15,000 people
a year being killed by gun violence in
the United States fast forward since
when about 2 and a half million people
have been killed by violence in the
United States we are now in a situation
where in the United Kingdom we have
about 65 people killed a year through
gun violence and you have approaching
45,000 people killed a year in other
words the number of people killed a year
in the United States by gun violence has
tripled when it's almost hared in the
United Kingdom from a very low level to
begin with in fact it's sear to low
levels it's pretty difficult writing a
crime drama in the United Kingdoms there
just not enough people murdered to be
able to generate the plot right I mean
it's it's um our average uh crime dramas
are basically body counts as most the
people that would be killed in an entire
year um so I think that
[Music]
um the founding father's anxiety
around despotic government is a good
thing to be worried about I think they
were right to be concerned about it but
I also think
that governing involves balancing very
different
considerations it involves balancing the
ways that societies change over
time uh technology changes over
time you know would they have taken the
same view of an assault weapon as they
would have a musket which is what they
were talking
about would their views of government
change once government has the ability
to surveil in the way that it does now
would their view of government
change if they saw that 2 and a half
million people have been killed by gun
violence since the 1960s I don't know
but I I certainly think that one of the
things that we have to do is is remain
alert to the possibility that the world
changes things change and the things
that we once
believed um we may change our beliefs on
I mean I think a classic
example in Ireland would be the debate
around abortion which has changed very
dramatically in the last 40 years from a
very strong Catholic opposition to a
compromise and the United States is now
this very strange outlier I mean I had a
you know I was a member of the
conservative party in Britain I had a
friend come to one of our conservative
conferences who's an American couldn't
believe the fact we didn't mention
abortion at all in the entire conference
it's just not a subject nobody talks
about nobody's interested in it we have
a pragmatic compromise on how many
days and the number of days Beyond which
you can't have an abortion and the
number of days within which you can and
it settled the issue basically
permanently in Britain
Europe and in the US it hasn't but that
that that I don't think
is telling you much more than that
cultures change and they change at
different
Paces that is for sure um talk to me
about social media so practically
speaking there is is a
collision as an American this certainly
seems true as an outsider looking at the
UK it seems even more true as an
outsider looking at Canada it's
downright terrifying um what do you
think should be done with social media
should people barring a direct
incitement to violence
um should there be controls should the
platforms be held accountable to what
people publish on their platforms uh
what's your take on that
I don't know I mean
it's it's a very very difficult world to
get into this a part of the problem is
there is so much money
involved uh literally some of the very
very wealthiest companies in the world
are on one side of this debate and their
entire business model is predicated on
these algorithms and on this particular
way I mean what's striking is that and I
I'm being a bit provocative here towards
you and many of your listeners right but
what's striking is some of these
companies my sense is you know Google
began quite idealistic there was all
this do no evil stuff going on right
and back in
2014 it still seemed plausible to me
that these companies believe they had an
ethical
purpose it feels to me as though the
only thing they care about now is
profit and they have developed these
unbelievable
marketplaces advertising models
algorithms that allow them often to take
80 cents in the dollar from an entire
industry now to what extent can they
then be trusted really to think clearly
about these things
I've just had a you know I just had a a
long conversation with a guy called Nick
CLE who's very senior at
Facebook and I like Nick very much
but can I really believe when he's
earning as much money as he is that he's
going to be clear and honest with
himself I don't think he's necessarily
lying to me he may be lying to himself
about the negative impacts of what's
going
on so I don't know how you get through
this but one thing I know for sure these
algorithms are not sharing information
on the basis
of what they believe is true they're
sharing information on the basis of what
gets attention which they can then sell
to a company that wants your attention
in order for you to buy their
products and what do you think about ex
sorry go ahead going to go with that I
was just going to ask what do you think
about X's Community notes
I step in the right direction fine if
anybody pays any attention to them but
often the community notes come when the
damage is done I mean Elon Musk had got
45 million people viewing a post
claiming that Kama was trying to
extradite people to a small island in
the South
Atlantic before any Community notes get
on I mean why did Donald Trump Just
Produce in this debate this strange
story about immigrants eating
cats because he operates in a strange
bubble full of other people who believe
this why do they believe this well they
believe it because it's incredibly easy
now to share this kind of information
and when he said it I guess millions of
people listening will have been like
damn right because they somehow have
seen this stuff and he's seen this
stuff but these algorithms are not are
not acting responsibly I mean they're
not they're not attempting in any way I
mean Elon Musk is a very interesting
example of this you would have thought
that as the owner of this
company uh he would
bother sometimes to check what he puts
out the fact that he can't be bothered
to spend a little bit of time checking
whether the article he's sharing is true
or not checking whether or not the
historian he's endorsing has said that
Adolf Hitler was in favor of peace and
Winston Churchill was the worst war
criminal of the war I mean what's going
on
I mean it's this I think that's that's
that's that's bringing it to a
head that previously if you were a
regulator in Europe or Canada dealing
with these
companies you could convince yourself
that they were well intentioned and that
when they got things wrong it was by
mistake so the model was predicated on
the idea that you would go to Facebook
or go to Twitter and say I'm sorry
you've posted something dangerous or
untrue and rely on them to take it down
but we're now dealing with a situation
where it feels as though I'm afraid with
Elon mus that he's not well intentioned
in that way that he's testing it he's
pushing the boundary as hard as he
possibly can and that you're not going
to have a very productive conversation
with him saying I'm sorry what you just
said was completely untrue unbelievably
dangerous causing huge Chaos on the
streets could you please take it down
the likelihood is he'll say no this my
free speech I'm allowed to share lies if
I want
and that changes the whole
equation um in what way well because if
44 million
people suddenly hear that for example I
mean how did these riots start in
Britain the riots started in
Britain because a post on social media
claimed that a Syrian
immigrant who's named got off a boat in
the last 12 months and killed three
young girls with a knife
right this was completely
untrue the girls were killed by a
Christian who'd been born in the United
Kingdom immediately people are burning
down
mosques and they're burning down mosques
because they believe it was done by a
Muslim and then being spread very
rapidly around social media is details
on other mosques and other community
centers and other Asylum Seekers and
quite quickly the government begins to
lose control of the
narrative then if other people are
tweeting out
you know the government is trying to
crush you and they're going to take you
off to the South Atlantic and put you on
an island in the middle of nowhere right
more and more people come out on the
streets fighting against what they
believe is this kind of crazy repressive
government that's going to deport them
from the
country so I mean that that was a very
you know obvious example to us a few
weeks
ago where lies spread on social media
quite literally led to Asylum Seekers
trapped in a burning hotel with hundreds
of people outside trying to set light to
it on the belief that these people were
somehow responsible for stabbing young
women who they hadn't
stabbed so your own uh Countryman Orwell
was very aware that there was always
going to be a battle for the truth and
that humans could be manipulated pretty
easily uh with fear being one of the
Great
weapons
um that is where I start to get worried
because it it social media forces us to
confront some really Stark base
assumptions so for instance can the
populace think for itself if you don't
think that the the average person at
large can parse through the information
that's coming at them then it's like we
have to shut this down for the good of
the people if you believe that uh
someone somewhere when you put that kind
of control on is going to have to decide
what is true and that they are likely to
become corrupted by power if nothing
else um you run into a situation where
you have trade-offs before you and you
are simply choosing the lesser of the
bad trade-offs does it not seem that way
to you I think you're I think I mean I
think where we probably disagree is I
think you
you're imagining a little bit like
your mob against uh authoritarian rule
you're imagining two extremes and you've
lost sight of the of the reality I mean
the reality is that each of us including
you and
me are fallible
humans we often will end up believing
things that aren't true and you know we
you and I will be quite proud of our
ability to pass information and judge
but we'll be aware that we've got it
wrong we've been wrong about friends
we've been wrong about world
events um we're susceptible to certain
kinds of authority our memories are very
weird and flawed I mean we we are
strange
creatures and so I I don't think one
wants to I mean I'm very sensitive to
this as somebody who was an elected
politician I mean obviously as an
elected
politici it would be a complete career
suicide to suggest that the public could
ever be wrong about anything because
your opponent would immediately say you
know you're you're contemptuous the
public you don't believe in
democracy my view is that generally the
Judgment of the Public's pretty good
it's generally why I like living in a
democracy I think people are pretty
sensible do I think that the decision to
vote for brexit was the correct decision
no and I think it's been very damaging
for the United Kingdom but the majority
of people voted for it how do I then
deal with that I deal with that by
saying to myself
well we live in a society where there's
lots of different access to information
lots of different levels of Education
lots of different data out there and
it's a pluralistic society and people
have the right to choose to leave the
European Union if they want to even if I
disagree with
them but that's about
defining uh
a a Terrain of rules in it's uh defining
a stadium within whose bounds you
play people can choose within that
Stadium to leave the European Union
right they can choose to put taxes up or
taxes down they cannot in my view choose
to burn down hotels with human beings in
them and we have I mean our whole system
is about drawing boundaries and lines
and the the risk of where the real
techno optimists and apostles of social
media are going is that they're
forgetting how many rules there are
already in our societies how our whole
society depends on rules and they're
asking for exemption for the rules for
one particular form forgetting that our
entire lives Liberty and happiness
depend upon systems that constrain in
innumerable ways what we can
do okay so I think we actually agree on
all of the pieces but we disagree Maybe
on the conclusion so um we're fallible
so my whole my whole worldview is
predicated on my agreement with the
following statement so it's interesting
that I think there is some area though
where we end up drawing something
different so we're fallible 100% that
that is why I am so terrified of the
government because a an authoritarian
government is a government that says we
know best and I'm saying no no no you're
just made up of fallible people uh who
believe things that aren't true who have
memories that are just wildly um
manipulated by themselves by others it's
the way that our minds work is utterly
fascinating um so all of those things
that make us a slightly scary creature I
agree with all of that and I come back
to and I suppose the question that I
asked about Community notes is because
that to me feels like the only real
solution so I get it there are going to
be times where 45 million people 100
million people 200 mli whatever they see
a lie a blatant lie and that will do
just unimaginable damage before it's
corrected but and
um I have not been able to articulate to
you in this that I look at the two
extremes so that I can find the third
way I'm just trying to see what the
realities of the compromise are not
because I'm saying oh you just go to one
or the other I'm saying if you
understand what the trade-offs are going
to be hopefully you can find a better
way but when I look at oh okay uh
Millions hundreds of millions of people
will see a lie and that lie could have
tremendous consequences so what do I do
about that do I step on that from the
top down or do I let the people battle
that out in the arena of ideas I think I
was pretty agnostic until covid happened
and all of a sudden I saw people that
had very credible voices uh in terms of
epidemiology being told to shut up
because what they were saying didn't
match the narrative and if you believe
in the scientific Pro uh process I do
you break that process and so you are
breaking the ability to make progress
when you tell people that certain things
are beyond the pale and cannot be
discussed there are certainly things
Beyond The Pale that you can't do but in
terms of like hey here's my hypothesis
on what is happening here again I'm not
saying that you should be able to
advocate for violence or anything like
that I'm just saying we when
authoritarian rule comes in to say
misinformation disinformation Mal
information those are all completely off
limits you get a totalitarian
state so I mean I've
I you know I agree and sympathize a lot
of what you're saying I mean I my
version of your experience during covid
was my experience uh in Afghanistan and
Iraq so I served in those places and I
saw very very
clearly people pursuing completely crazy
policies that made no sense of at all
and I saw politicians and Generals and
an enormous amount of the public getting
behind projects which were just simply
crazy wasting lives wasting money I mean
just and so it's very easy on the basis
of that to think the establishment the
Elite's got no idea what it's doing and
we need to blow up the whole
system the question is what is the
alternative and I don't think that what
we're describing with covid or Iraq and
Afghanistan or indeed what I saw as uh
somebody working in International
Development where I saw so many
ludicrous stupid
wasteful projects um I I don't think
those things are examples
of authoritarian rule it can feel like
it because if you disagree with the
conventional
wisdom it can feel pretty authoritarian
but it's much more like what happens if
you you're in a
company where The Bard has got the wrong
end of the stick these are much more the
problems we face in our societies are
much more about optimism bias group
think risk aversion so if I think about
you know what's happening with Co in the
United
Kingdom it's not exactly that we're
living in a dictatorship it's more that
a bunch of slightly complacent
politicians and scientists
for for reasons which are often to do
with their psychology rather than the
evidence right end up going down a
particular path and that's always true
you know we it's now clear that the
economic policy of the 1970s was largely
ludicrous the economic policy of 1980s
was pretty ludicrous and that a lot of
the things we've done and believe in are
pretty ludicrous I happen to believe
that there's a form of this group think
and optimism bias happening with social
media that in 20 years time people are
going to look at it and they're going to
look at it in the way that they look at
Philip Morris cigarettes or Peru
Pharma they're going to literally say
what were these people thinking how did
they think this was normal and okay but
this isn't authoritarianism this is
um this is group think it's optimism
bias it's Financial interests it's and
and and that's and the way to deal with
it is not
through
[Music]
um the radical uh opening of every
narrative the way to deal with it is
through checks and
balances the way to deal with it is
through an independent Judiciary through
independent universities through
electoral Cycles where people can get
rid of their government every four years
through um breaks between Executives and
legislatures I'm much more confident
that the answer is the structures of
liberal democracy not the kind of that
we're going to stop authoritarianism by
unleashing the power of social media I
think the the power of social media is
much more likely to lead to the collapse
of liberal democracies and the
development of authoritarian States it's
much more likely to embolden populism
much more likely to
embolden uh people who are able to
exploit attention and advertising models
to take power and then challenge the
Constitution very interesting if I'm
right that that only happens when the
Tinder is dry meaning the economics are
bad there's an underlying sense of
frustration um yes I can see that but I
think that's just you're supercharging
the um the voices to your point but if
the voices have nothing to Rally in the
populist's soul I don't think it will
take hold when things are growing and
people feel good you just don't end up
going down that path but my answer to
that is I'm I'm more gloomy than you are
I think it's very rare in societies for
things to be growing and for people to
be feeling good our experience as humans
is one of Perpetual
dissatisfaction I mean what are we
meaning when we're saying things are
going well right if you're somebody on a
low income in the United
States you now live in a world in which
even if your income was going up by 10%
a year you know you're still getting by
on $40 $50,000 a year and you can see on
television people living lives where
they don't have to worry about their
mortgage they don't have to worry about
basing their grocery bills
you're stuck in flip Michigan and you
can
see the Kardashians having a good time
in California right you you we cannot as
societies produce a situation
where everybody or even the majority of
people are going to feel that their
lives are great people are always going
to be incredibly conscious
of the UN the Injustice of the world the
unfairness of Life most people will
always feel that and therefore we need
to Design Systems which are realistic
about
that which find ways of explaining
that you know in the United Kingdom that
we can't pay for our Health Service
without paying much more
tax that we can't expect to clean up our
Rivers without investing far more in our
water
system that we're not going to be able
to have an economy that grows as fast as
China that we're not going to be able to
run our hospitals without having
immigrants I mean and and the Tinder
will always be
there all societies are full of Tinder I
mean there may be rare exceptions it's
possible that in the United States
between about 1955 and 1975 you had a a
rare period of 20 years where the Tinder
was a little wetter and where people
were not as enraged but the general
condition of most of our societies
doesn't matter whether you're in China
or Indonesia or Britain or the United
States is a lot of very angry people
understandably because life is extremely
unfair
that is uh certainly a sobering uh
perspective so if we are living in a
state of Perpetual dissatisfaction the
Tinder is already there always there
social media gives voices that create
this rise in populism what do we
actually
do well um I think on we have to up the
quality of the non-populist politicians
they need to have policies which are
credible and serious they need to be
able to improve people's lives I mean
they're never going to be able to
deliver everything that people
crave but we certainly should be able to
deliver better Healthcare to people in
the United States we should be able to
deliver better infrastructure we should
be able to deliver decent economic
growth not Chinese style economic growth
but we should be able to deliver 2 or 3%
economic growth and we should be able to
have more equal tax systems these things
are not Beyond
us secondly I think we need much better
communication I think one of the
problems is that the
Hillary clintons of this world came
across as humorless and stiff and out of
touch and if the center is to regain a
bit of momentum it needs to develop a
sense of humor but finally we need a
sense of moral purpose we need to
explain why the populist critique is not
just intellectually incoherent but
morally
wrong why pluralism matters why
democracy matters why equality matters
why these things are precious
ethically so that's on the side of the
politicians but then I think there is
probably also room room for more
regulation of social media as part of
the
story all right I see um I this is a
very classic view but I see all of
history all of human existence as a
feedback loop uh and quite frankly a
positive feedback loop so that the
output of the system itself causes the
system to move faster and when I look at
um the economy I don't know if you how
much you know about Ray Delio but um
looking at his study of Empires rising
and Empires falling and it's all
essentially a cycle of debt um there
seems an inevitability I know you and I
slightly disagree about um although I
will say in your answer it sounded to me
like a lot of things that you're saying
that we need to do better politicians
better economy uh more humor these are
things that that put a little moisture
on the Tinder and I think that's right I
think that's the right answer um but it
does get at I think my stance which is
okay the tinder's always going to be
there but it it does differ in degree of
dryness uh and so there are times where
it's more likely to spark than others so
um I think the debt cycle drives a lot
of this and that we are now obviously
the UK is an Empire that has I mean I
would say it has collapsed certainly
it's it is not what it was when the Sun
never set on the uh British Empire and
the American Empire feels like to use
ralo's language we are mid to late stage
five and Stage six is total
collapse
um In
This Moment do you see do you perceive
any inevitability because that is
certainly how it feels from my
perspective it depends depends what I
mean I think you're right that debt is a
big problem and we don't talk enough
about debt and we don't talk enough
about the way that money works and we
don't talk about what happens when debt
is canceled or forgiven and what that
can mean for countries too um
but it also depends when you talk about
the collapse of Empires what you mean
and what you're worried about
so the United Kingdom no longer rules an
Empire right it's uh a small island in
the Mediterranean sorry it's small
island of the Atlantic I don't know why
I put it I was like wow you guys
upgraded to the Mediterranean nice we've
upgraded it's must be the weather here
it's climate change Mak us seem more
Mediterranean um uh but the average
person in Britain is much better off
than their grandparents were so at the
period where Britain ruled a quarter of
the
world life expectancy was in its early
60s uh average incomes were down at5 or
6,000 a
year people didn't have indoor
Laboratories and indoor toilets um they
didn't have electricity many
people and now we live in a world in
which we no longer get to
send white guys off to rule large chunks
of
India but the average person in the
United Kingdom is far better off
materially than they were in the 1930s
1940s so what are we talking about when
we're talking about the collapse of the
American Empire
right perfectly plausible that within 20
30 years time nobody in the Congo is
going to be interested what the United
States has to say about the world
perfectly plausible that nobody in Japan
or South Korea is going to rely on the
United States to save them but that
doesn't mean
that the Next Generation or the
generation after might not live lives
which are longer happier more fulfilled
and richer than those of us that are
alive
today yeah the the only thing that I
lose sleep over is that the transition
moment is almost always devastating so
the long Arc of History it won't matter
it'll Bend towards Justice things will
get better for everybody but that will
be cold comfort to the people that have
to live through it but setting that
aside because there's some other things
that I want to talk to you about um
decentralization
being one of them this is something
you've put forward as a way to improve
politics to get out of some of the
Quagmire and then your recent work on um
direct giving I think these two ideas
are are really
powerful well let let let me talk about
them and they're related in a way so
decentralization is about
understanding that often local people
know more care more can do more than
distant officials that you're much more
likely to come up with a good solution
for your neighborhood than somebody in
Washington and that there's another
great benefit for decentralization
getting power down to a local level
which is that you can end up with a lot
more Innovation you can learn from each
other rather than having a single
centralized structure different states
do different things and they learn from
each other compete with each other I
also think that at a time when we've
lost faith in democracy the closer you
put government to people allowing them
to vote in their local area and get
engaged in shaping their local the more
faith and trust they redevelop in the
democratic system I think our our
societies are basically too big our
governments are too far away and that a
lot of our problems come from that the
same would be true with industrial
strategies I think that an industrial
strategy for California is much better
developed in California than in
Washington and probably much better
developed in Northern California than in
California as a whole Etc
right on Direct giving I mean this is
something which is is even more radical
but I used to run a $2 billion a year
International development program we're
literally giving $20,000 million a year
to people in the developing world it's
one of the largest development programs
in the world and we achieved so little
and one of the reasons we achieved so
little is that we were obsessed with the
idea that we knew best we were coming in
an African village and we were going to
teach them something we had this great
phrase give someone a fish they eat for
a day teach them to fish they eat for a
lifetime and we developed these
mad teaching people to fish programs
which ended up consuming 95% of the
budgets and ending up with almost no
good results on the
ground I then had the privilege a few
years ago visiting this nonprofit called
give directly which was giving cash it's
all it was doing turning up in a village
it was surveying people and then it was
transferring to their phones Che feature
phone about $900 in
cash you go back a few weeks later the
entire Community is transformed people
have new roofs their kids are in school
they're eating better there's
electricity there's water supply there's
latrines the whole place has been
completely transformed and transformed
for I would say about 5% of the costs
that it would take you to do it through
a traditional program well you could do
20 times as many villages as you could
do through a traditional program and why
well because
it turns out that cash Falls like uh
kind of water on a mountain landscape it
fills every crevice and cranny and it
adjusts flexibly to different people's
lives it adjusts the fact that you may
have a different business idea to me or
your neighbor may be focused on
Healthcare and someone else focused on
education or you may need to fix your
roof I've already fixed my roof I want
to buy a cow you want to get a bicycle
for your business I mean and the cash
allows you to do that whereas the
traditional program comes in and says
the one thing that matters in this
Village is water or the one thing that
matters in this Village is education or
the one thing that matters in this
Village is a road or the one thing that
matters is roofs the one thing that
matters is
sanitation right it's it's nonsense
every house is different every need is
different and if you give cash something
very interesting happens people begin
adjusting to each other right you and
your neighbors buy a bunch of bicycles
so you can take your products to Market
I open a store fixing bicycles you buy a
cow I open a store selling veteranary
medicine for cows or I set up a yogurt
business processing the milk from those
cows there's amazing multiplier effects
that come out of cash and above all I
think just to finish on that it gives
dignity it's saying that the poorest
people in the world know more than you
or I do about their Village in Malawi
the idea that you or I have any idea
what their lives are like what their
needs are what their priorities are it's
just
Madness we can begin to understand what
they're worried about day-to-day and it
would cost us an incredible amount of
money trying to work it out most of
which would be
wasted all right it is an utterly
fascinating um idea so as I try to wrap
my head around what this uh is at its
Essence so it's it's going to sound
weird but it's basically a decentralized
centralized bank that is creating money
out of thin air from their perspective
right so just shows up in their bank
account so we're creating money we're
Distributing it now given that that must
always happen to jump start an economy
whether you're digging gold out of the
ground or you're harvesting sea shells
or salt or whatever you have to create a
thing that is the money that people want
and therefore they will do a thing it
allows people to specialize I mean this
just is how economies are born but the
economy must become at some point
self-sustaining or you get what we're
having here in America which is why I
think we're in so much trouble which is
just printing money but setting that
aside how does this how does direct
giving if you look at it like that jump
starting an economy how does it become
self-sustaining well what one thing is
that what we're increasingly doing is
giving one-time payments this is not a
Ubi so people are not receiving this
money every month it's a one-time
capital investment that is going into
getting their business off the ground or
fixing their roof and it's understanding
as you say that often what's holding
people back is capital not knowledge the
people in this Village have a very good
idea
uh what goods they can sell in in the
market town the problem is they're 20
mil away from the market town and they
don't have a bicycle to get to it or
they just don't have a plastic bottle
into which to put the yogurt that
they're milking out of the cow I mean
there's very simple things that they're
often
lacking so it it's recognizing that's
what's holding or you know you're
running the a little shop in town you
don't have any money to buy any biscuits
these are pretty straightforward things
or you can't buy them bulk a lot of the
uh issues is that one of the reasons the
extreme poor in Africa uh end up in a
very bad position is that they can't buy
a packet of 12 bits of toilet
paper they they have to buy it in tiny
more expensive quantities because they
don't have the money to to do any kind
of bulk buying there's no economies to
scale for them once that's going then of
course it isn't about cash once the
motor of the economy for the extreme
poor is going it's then much more about
the economy as a whole it's about is
there a decent government where's the
tax rate where's the infrastructure are
the roads are the schools are the
clinics what's your tariff and trading
position and and and so the cash is not
about kickstarting the whole economy
it's
about allowing the extreme poor and even
within a country as poor as Rwanda we're
talking about a third of the population
not the majority of the population
allowing them to access the
infrastructure and the economy that's
out
there interesting you said this is not
about jump starting the whole economy
I'm very surprised you say that meaning
there's already an economy there or yeah
so let's take Rwanda rwanda's got a
gross domestic product of about $10
billion a year and the extreme poor are
living on about $2 a day and there's
probably about uh say two million of
them in that
country what you're talking about is
giving the money to the people who are
literally struggling to work out how
they're going to eat for the next two
days and allowing them to access
Services which often already exist
there's often already a hospital or a
clinic but if you
are on the edge of starvation you you
just can't get to that hospital or
clinic there may be a school but you
just can't afford to send your kids to
that scho school
because the basic money that you might
even need to buy a textbook or the
decision that your child's not going to
be hoing vegetables but go off to school
is too much for you to make um again in
Rwanda it's got an insurance sector it's
got call centers it's got software
developers it's got uh people employed
as teachers and doctors I there there's
lots of stuff happening in the economy
the problem is these remote
Villages and and that's where the $900
suddenly transforms somebody's
opportunities and ability to better
themselves okay so what is it just to
not to pick on Rwanda but since you
brought him up yeah why doesn't Rwanda
do this themselves is there corruption
in the system is there something broken
like why didn't this problem resolve
itself well fundamentally because the
country hasn't got enough money I mean
the the even with the GDP of 10 billion
it's it's got a population about 10
million people they're living on the the
average person is living on about $1,000
a year and the tax revenue that you can
generate from that is not sufficient to
be able to
deliver $900 to a family and extreme
poverty you would need to bring in the
money from the World Bank or the IMF or
some other donor and it's not a loan
you're giving people they're not paying
you back it's a one-time cash
Grant um so so uh without the taxation
Revenue without the ability to borrow um
you simply don't have the money to give
these
people okay so is this uh just trying to
find an analogy to help people wrap
their heads around this and and I'm
asking this in the spirit of the
following I don't think the average
taxpayer cares so they're like why am I
going to pay for this like if the
Rwandan government isn't able to do this
for their own people why am I doing this
and so then it becomes a humanitarian
thing and I think people will get some
people people obviously will get behind
like okay cool I'm willing to do this
but they're going to need to really
understand how this at some point become
self-sustaining so if the Rwanda
government is already not collecting
enough taxes to be able to do this with
their own populace and this isn't
jumpstarting the whole economy but
attaching them to the economy does that
like make this all work or are we going
to have a brief generation where things
are nice and then it just Falls by the
way no I mean one of the reasons why
we're quite confident about this is that
some very very rigorous randomized
control trials have been run where you
compare the groups that receive the cash
with the groups that don't receive the
cash over 3 6 9 12 years and we're
seeing even 12 years into these
programs the sustained impact of a few
hundred given 12 years earlier in terms
of people's savings their Investments
and above all their incomes and you're
seeing those people becoming taxpayers
and you're seeing those people
contributing in a productive fashion to
the
economy
so the evidence is is very very striking
um in a study in Kenya for each dollar
going into these Villages there's $250
of benefit for the surrounding area this
is partly because people are starting
from a very low base it's
not I I think you were getting at this a
few minutes ago capital in this context
goes much much further than it would in
summer like the United States
partly because things are much cheaper
partly because uh what is a dollar for
us will end up being worth about $100
for the people that are receiving it but
also that there is so much untapped
potential so much untapped labor so much
untapped
resource you know there's quite
literally in Zambia there is um I was
with a farmer in
Zambia and uh he said uh I've just uh
got a house for myself son and I said
well what does that mean and he said
well come with me and literally he just
walked into the bush chopped down some
trees and stuck up a mon thing now his
son was cultivating what was
Wasteland and still in an enormous
amount of Afric it's
incredible land there which hasn't even
begun to be cultivated so the small
amount of money that you bring in which
allows somebody to get that hoe buy a
few seeds get a little bit of fertilized
for pesticide plant a few
trees produces impact in a way that it
never could if you were you know giving
the money to somewhere I don't know in
Kansas where it's much more difficult
for somebody in extreme poverty to put
their money to
work if you guys have 12 years worth of
data on this where can people learn
about that so if you go to givedirectly
dorg that are fantastic and I think very
honest and one of the reasons I I
support this
organization I'm not paid by this
organization but I support this
organization is because they're
wonderfully honest and they've got a lot
of research they talk very openly about
things that go wrong they talk about
when they're surprised by less impact
they talk about when they're
disappointed but they also talk
beautifully about the things that have
worked and how much they've learned and
they show right the way down to the
detail these academic papers there have
be more than 350 studies now and these
are rigorous modeled on the way in which
you do a medical trial in the way that
you compare the control group and the
treatment group how does this compare
what Bill Gates is
doing he is doing something very
different Bill Gates is concerned with
health and what he really wants to do in
many contexts is eliminate
diseases so he would like to eradicate
polio he'd like to end malaria for
example he'd like to vaccinate
people and that really is what he cares
about if I'm looking at somebody in a
village house and you give them cash
they get to choose what their priority
is am I going to fix my roof am I going
to start a business am I going to put my
kids in school am I going to vaccinate
myself that's not the Bill Gates view
Bill Gates view is this person should
vaccinate themselves the money is going
into vaccination and my problem with
that and I'm not succeeding in
convincing Bill Gates this and this just
irritate him if he listen to your show
is that what you're often doing is
letting people live longer lives in
extreme grinding poverty you're not
giving them the opportunity to improve
their lives they're just living longer
now there's something to be said for
living longer but I'm not sure that the
weight that he puts on living longer as
opposed to living a shorter life in
better material conditions is
correct Rory talking to you has been
utterly fascinating man I cannot thank
you enough for your time where can
people follow along with you well U
thank you um so uh couple of things um
do go to the give directly website
because I'm passionately proud of them
um uh I I tweet Rory Stewart UK and I've
just written a book on politics which is
out in the US called how not to be a
politician I love it awesome thank you
again so much for joining me today
everybody if you have not already be
sure to subscribe and until next time my
friends be legendary take care peace if
you like this conversation check out
this episode to learn more first off the
um the financial cliff that we're
rapidly driving off uh is is pretty
terrifying um there you know it's not
just the $35 trillion in debt or the
fact that um that interest