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
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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 the