Rebecca Lowe: Exploring Freedom, Moral Philosophy, Technology and the best society | Podcast

Political philosopher Rebecca Lowe discusses her views on freedom, equality, and the ethical implications of emerging technologies. Currently writing a book titled 'Freedom in Utopia,' Rebecca delves into philosophical debates concerning obligations to extinct animals, the ethics of eating meat, and the future potential of lab-grown meat. 

On questioning norms and making choices:
“Think hard about what the norms are that you follow unthinkingly. There are many ways to live a good life, and it’s for you to work that out for yourself, because you’re the only person who can have any epistemic access to that.”

On fiction and its philosophical role:
“I feel quite strongly that people who don’t spend time reading fiction are really missing out on one of the great things about being human—the capacity to separate out from your daily life, think about other worlds, imagine.”

She also touches on the moral considerations surrounding artificial wombs, the possible role of ChatGPT as a tool for philosophical inquiry, and her disillusioning experience running for political office. Rebecca emphasizes the importance of decentralization, freedom, and respect in society while also sharing her creative process and insights into leading a fulfilling life.

Summary contents, transcript and podcast links below. Listen onApple,Spotify or whereveryou listen to pods. Video above or on Youtube.

---

Contents

• 00:22 Reviving Extinct Animals

• 02:29 Moral Implications of Eating Meat

• 07:47 Future Moral Consensus

• 11:25 Consequentialism in Healthcare

• 19:21 ChatGPT as a Philosopher

• 25:28 Artificial Wombs and Ethical Questions

• 30:33 Rebecca's Political Journey

• 34:43 Creative Process and Philosophy

• 37:50 The Importance of Reading Fiction

• 41:03 Imagining the Best Possible Society

• 42:19 The Role of Prisons in Utopia

• 46:01 Education in an Ideal Society

• 49:05 Cultural Goods and Utopia

• 52:18 Healthcare and Resource Allocation

• 55:11 Under rated / Over rated

• 58:55 Final Thoughts and Advice

Transcript (This is AI assisted, so mistakes are possible)

[00:00:00] Ben: Hey everyone, I'm super excited to be speaking to Rebecca Lowe. Rebecca is a political philosopher. She has a particular interest in rights, freedom, and equality, and she's currently writing a book called Freedom in Utopia, in which she thinks about freedom in the best possible society. Rebecca, welcome.

[00:00:19] Rebecca: Hi Ben, thanks for having me, great to be here. 

[00:00:22] Ben: Would the best possible society look to revive the woolly mammoth? 

[00:00:28] Rebecca: Do you know, actually, I've been for ages wanting to write something about our obligations to extinct animals. I think there are some really interesting arguments to be made about this when that technology becomes possible.

I don't know enough about the science. I need to, I've got some scientist friends I should ask. Maybe it already is possible. I'm aware, I think some philosophers are writing about this. I haven't actually read that stuff, and I should. But I have this general interest in things like how the demands of morality change when new things become possible.

What are our new requirements? What's permissible? And it does strike me that in that it seems like we have obligations to prevent current animals going extinct. When it's possible to bring back previously current animals, what do our obligations lie? I also just think a load of those animals that are dead are really cool.

I'm probably the stupid person who would want Jurassic Park to happen. So yeah, would it have woolly mammoths? I hope so. 

[00:01:22] Ben: So there are a couple of current projects actually coming out of long now and brand stinking. So there is a project to revive the woolly mammoth and they think they can do it.

But as a stepping stone to that, they actually have revived extinct species of a particular tree. So it's a first step for plants, which they think also might be. Might be positive but there's a kind of techno optimist critique in here somewhere because there's some thinking that the woolly mammoth Might be able to help I think the tundra for instance the tundra in siberia where historically they may have helped with things like that potentially going too far but there is some thought on that I might be a little 

[00:01:59] Rebecca: anxious if the reasoning was, to instrumentalize it.

I'm not sure if the tundra You know, the Tundra argument would count as that, or if, I'm sure people would come up with parallel arguments anyway, but I think I might be a little anxious if a large part of the thrust for bringing back a creature was to use the creature for some some particular end, but that's probably just me overthinking.

[00:02:21] Ben: Yeah, no, I think that is one of the critiques that some do, but then I think not everyone involved in the project puts that much weight on it. Obviously other people have different things. I think one of my moral failings is the fact that I still eat animals. I eat less now than I have ever done, but I still do.

I'm hopeful that lab grown animals like lab grown diamonds will be a future replacement. And I do wonder in a hundred or 200 years, we might view eating meat a little bit like slavery is why on earth did we do that in terms of social or moral progress? However, today, when I am presented with animal, I find it's actually respectful to eat any part of the animal given to me, bone marrow, eyeballs, liver, I will actually eat everything.

And I was reading some of your work, which actually had this idea of whether there was respect or not within lab grown meat. Or things. But in any event, do you think eating animals is actually disrespectful like that? And what are your hopes for lab grown meat? Is there some moral qualm about it, which I perhaps might not have considered as a substitute for the meat eating I do today?

[00:03:30] Rebecca: Yeah, I'm a big meat eater. I eat the I eat the marrow and the liver. Haven't eaten the eyeballs. I've probably, have I tried the eyeballs? Maybe. I love eating meat. I tried to give up eating meat. I managed for a few months last year. I have to say I managed by just eating all of the seafood.

Which slightly fails. I just like meat too much. I came to the conclusion there are too many more steaks I want to eat. But that's a failing as far as I see it. I think it's bad to eat meat. And the main reason I think it's bad to eat meat is this respect point that you're bringing up.

So in other words, I think even if all of the animals you ate had the best possible life and the best possible death, found some way to kill them without suffering, found some way to, eat them at the end point of their natural lifespan. However you want to cash it out, I still think it would be wrong to eat them.

The reason is that I think it's disrespectful to eat the dead body of a once living creature. I think most people hold that view pretty naturally around human bodies. That's why you feel You know, uncomfortable walking over a grave or, someone playing with the bones of a skeleton. I think we should afford a similar respect to the dead bodies of animals and, we're not just talking about playing with it, we're talking about consuming it.

And what's more, we do it, at least nowadays, for our pleasure. There are plenty of alternatives. Back in the day when there weren't, or if you're living in a place where there aren't sufficient non meat alternatives, I think that's different. I think if you eat the dead body of an animal, because you need to then I think you've got a load more arguments at your disposal.

But for my [00:05:00] pleasure, because I think it's delicious, when I could be eating something else that's delicious, so I can't even depend on some aesthetic argument. I think it's bad and wrong, but I'm, I'm human. I fail. Do 

[00:05:12] Ben: you put any weight on the environmental arguments? 

[00:05:15] Rebecca: Yeah, I think there's a whole subset 

[00:05:16] Ben: of the different, yeah, 100%.

[00:05:17] Rebecca: It's another sufficient argument, probably. For me, the sufficient argument that holds the most weight is the respect argument. I think for me, a lot of my views around how we should treat each other as humans, but also treat the other living things in our world come down to this point about, basic equal moral respect, something like that.

That's at the heart of my kind of, libertarianism or liberalism, whatever you want to call it. 

[00:05:40] Ben: And that respect doesn't need to transfer to lab grown meat. 

[00:05:44] Rebecca: Yeah, so I've written a thing actually, which I think I pretty much still hold, which is for a long time, I thought that the answer to my problem, which is I really love eating meat, I love cooking meat, my favorite thing to cook is meat, I'm one of these people who go to the butcher shop and, get the cool cut and I'll read loads of stuff about how to cook it, and I'll enjoy cooking it, and, all of those things but I think it's wrong, so that's a Problem, how do I reconcile that?

I thought for a long time, hey, sooner or later, lab grown needs are going to come along and I can, when it's good enough, I won't just You know, gain the kind of the taste sensation and the the texture sensation. I also gain the aesthetic and intellectual value of cooking it and all of those other things, giving it to my friends, the kind of the creative aspect too, I love all that stuff.

I think the problem for me is though that I feel like it would still be disrespectful to the kind of animal it replicates. We're not talking about creating a steak that doesn't look like a steak or doesn't taste like a steak. The whole point is that it's a as near to perfect simulation. And I make an analogy in my little piece I wrote, which I wrote for Eon, which if you're into philosophy, you should read some of these articles.

That's for your listeners. I make a kind of an analogy with video games where you're, um, imagine you had a video game and the aim of the video game was to beat up and otherwise abuse women. There's loads of arguments why you might think that's got sort of moral problems. One is it's bad for you to do bad stuff.

Another argument, however, is that it's disrespectful to womankind. And it doesn't have to be that, the particular instance of the woman is a real woman because the whole point is, it's not, it's a simulation. And I think you can apply the same argument to eating, the simulated beef steak.

It's disrespectful to beef kind to cows. That's, I think that's probably my position, but as as I've just admitted, I eat the actual meat, so it's going to be a little bit less bad, good times, 

[00:07:47] Ben: right? Are there any things today, which in a hundred or two hundred years time, you think we might have consensus on it being a moral wrongness?

So I, I wonder whether meat eating, except for some more narrow cultural things, might be there. And it's interesting we progressed, I think there's moral consensus. Slavery was bad and wrong, and then we had women's rights, arguably we had minority and disability, other rights, which we've had a growing consensus that, okay, that it was morally wrong not to have those rights but in the moment, it's quite hard to judge, you go back to, say, 1500 or certainly 2000 years ago, I think it would have been very, it was quite hard for a lot of them to feel like, okay, slavery was there, aside from maybe some religious thinkers, which is interesting, but is there anything you spot today where you go oh, I really think this is on the chopping block?

[00:08:35] Rebecca: There's kind of two parts to this, aren't there? One is, which is the thing I feel a little more confident maybe saying some things about something like, what are the things in our world that are bad and wrong? The second is a kind of prediction type question and it's, about epistemic capacity.

Are the people in 100 years time gonna have the capacity to know that thing was wrong? As you say, there's all kinds of considerations, maybe people are going to be far more stupid in the future. Maybe people, they'll have been in nuclear war and people will live in silos so they won't gain the advantage of talking to each other.

And I can't make predictions about that. But a couple of things My, my assumption is, so one of them is definitely the eating meat thing. How we treat insects? I don't know if this is just me, but all my life I've been, I don't think even, I'm not even sure what the word for it is.

I remember when I was a kid seeing people, clasping and killing mosquitoes. I remember my uncle, so I'm just going to be nasty about my uncle now had one of those little electric fly zapper things and I just don't get the, I just don't get it when people, I understand if you're in a hotel room with a mosquito in a country where you might catch one of the, Zika virus or something, I'm not really going to have a problem with you killing the mosquito.

I still think you're doing something problematic. If I can get the mosquito out the window, believe me, I've spent time in my life trying to get the mosquito out the window. Killing the mosquito is something I will do, but yeah. I'm, the idea that you just kill the spider, and not just kill the spider, but have fun, enjoy killing the spider, I just find it [00:10:00] morally, I find it morally repulsive, but I also just, I feel like I'm just on some other wavelength or something.

I just don't understand the mentality there. So the cavalier way in which people treat insects. I find astonishing and it doesn't mean I think you've got to go along, with a little brush and glasses looking at all of the, the speech ahead of you. I'm talking about voluntary intentional destruction, enjoyment in the destruction of a living thing.

I find this incomprehensible and I hope, I can only hope the people in the future look back and discuss. 

[00:10:34] Ben: That's really interesting. That's the kind of respect for living things idea. I find that interesting because you argue against consequentialist ideas in your sub stack. So this is the typical utilitarian thinking about the ends justify the means and the like.

And it's interesting because actually a lot of. Say effective altruist utilitarians have ended up being taking this position on meat and actually they do a lot of work on insects And particularly prawns and things like that, which other people find a little bit odd It's oh, why are they paying attention to this?

and they would make arguments that Prawns or insects have a little bit of value and therefore they make this value based argument and they come to it from that side of the argument. So I find it's really interesting that you've also come to it from a respect and principles way of doing that.

But I'm also interested in generally your take about why you feel so awkward around these consequential ideas. And I'd be interested In particularly placing it in typical cost benefit policy decision making and what you make of that in typical political decision a political economy decision and one thing that I think about and I throw to philosophers was within Healthcare economics or as I've noted that one of your parents is also medical ethics So I thought maybe you'd have a really interesting view on this but for instance in the UK, but really under any healthcare constrained budget, they make these decisions, and this is a live one, where they try and compare the cost of saving, say, a preterm baby with, say, a diabetic, and although it's quite flawed, you can get a rough consensus on what they call these quality adjusted life qualities, how much 

[00:12:11] Rebecca: qualities.

[00:12:11] Ben: Yeah, how much is or a disabled adjusted life here, but essentially they're putting a value on life and they're putting it under this constraint of budget, although it's a statistical thing to help them make those decisions. And I actually think it comes from road pricing initially, interestingly, economically speaking, but so they'll go something like.

It costs maybe half a million to save a preterm baby, and it costs about twenty to thirty thousand pounds to save a diabetic in terms of a year life. And if you just do a pure utilitarian calculation you tend not to make that decision. If you survey people, they actually will say, no, I think that I think we should spend some money on babies.

And it's interesting, different types of people are differently on that spectrum. Interestingly doctors themselves tend to be a little bit more utilitarian than just the average sample of the. Woman in the street, but I'm interested faced with that sort of decision. How do you think?

Philosophy helps think about it or in particularly you're thinking of philosophy. Is that something where you think you might have some insights? 

[00:13:14] Rebecca: That's a big question. Where to start I think one thing I'd say is, I'm with I'm not a Kantian I don't even know very much about Kant But one thing I think he's right on is that autumn fires can you don't have obligations that you It doesn't make sense to say you've got an obligation to do something if you can't.

When you're talking about things like healthcare, you have resource constraints. And while we continue to have resource constraints, we have to make difficult decisions at the margin. We have to You know, way up where the next pound is spent. So it's hard to give a clear answer if you're not going to depend upon some kind of equation in which you're, assigning costs and values to different kinds of lives or to different like if somebody is, if it's more expensive to save somebody's life than someone else's life, how do you deal with that?

I think you're right that. There's got to be some space for costing stuff out and whether that comes from road pricing or, insurance and people and actuaries have to be able to find some way to translate what it means in financial terms when someone dies or someone doesn't die or someone suffers an injury.

I understand that. And to some extent that's going to have just, market considerations at its heart. I think for me, a starting point I would use. would be something like urgent need I don't think it can only be what is the, the value in that sense that's assigned to the life, I think it's also what is the situation in which the person finds themselves whether that means that then you preference something like queuing for an allocation thing, so you and I have the same injury, but I get to the hospital first you and I get to the hospital at the same time, but I'm more likely to die.

Those generally are a kind of first place consideration, and my limited understanding about. Allocation of [00:15:00] resources in health care decision making it's rarely that you started it from the point of, hey, you tick these boxes, I tick these boxes, therefore I get priority.

That's the kind of fourth order matter is my understanding in terms of triaging that maybe I'm wrong on that. I'm not sure I have much of a better answer, except that my general position for two reasons is that consequentialism, consequentialist reasoning I think is bad and wrong. The main reason is I think it.

It not only allows or permits, it also sometimes demands certain behaviors which are morally repugnant. I also think you can't do a little bit of consequentialist reasoning. That's a relatively controversial view. I'm with someone like Stuart Hampshire on this. I don't think you can do pick and mix.

You can't be like, hey, for this policy problem, I'm going to do some consequentialist reasoning. That's not to say you can't say something like, hey, that argument Ben just made is a consequentialist argument. I'm just saying that you, qua Ben, can't be a little bit of a consequentialist. You're either a consequentialist or you're not.

It's a totalizing moral theory. You can't jam it together with some other theory. They're not coherent. So I'm saying one thing about, what you're disposition, your belief system is, and one, one thing about what counts as a moral theory or what counts as the kind of grounds on which you justify an argument so generally speaking, this comes back to something we were just talking about before around, overdetermination, so having different arguments for, to come to the same conclusion I think it's often the case that you and I can come to the same conclusion using different arguments.

For me, it's never going to be the case that one of those arguments is a good argument if it's a consequentialist argument. Doesn't mean we can't come to the same place. So I can come to the point in which I think you shouldn't, clap and laugh at killing the mosquito on my, right space pluralist liberal approach, and my friend the consequentialist can come to that purely, on the outcome, teleological and justifying the means position.

I'm just going to say, hey, that's a bad argument. You got to the right place. They don't get a monopoly on the endpoints. Sorry, I'm I don't have a good answer to the QALYs question except I'm deeply skeptical of assigning value in a bigger sense for lives. Yeah. I practically understand the requirement around costing stuff out.

Of course, that's the case in a world of limited resources, and healthcare resources are incredibly important. What I don't agree with are claims like, because this beta sounds down syndrome, therefore it's less. It has less moral value, that life, than the fetus without Down syndrome. Similarly, the person who's 86 has less value in this deeper sense than the person who's 17.

I'm just 100 percent not going to agree with that. And it's not just I'm going to disagree with it. I'm going to think it's revolting. Yeah. 

[00:17:46] Ben: That's interesting. There's a few things I find really interesting in those comments. If you add ask the average person, they do have this sense of what's fair and what's not.

So if you're born with, say, a rare genetic disease, but it's really expensive to treat, there is a sense that money shouldn't have been the stumbling block for treating some of those, even that it will take from, some others that you will end up having to just do a little bit of everything, knowing that you can't do.

do everything. And then the other bit which chimes, because it's one of my big problems with what a lot of Peter Singer writes, which actually comes down to disability rights. And I'm close to disability communities, but it, his strong form view means he ends up having to argue for these things, which feel morally really wrong to, Lots of people, in fact, probably a majority of people, but specifically to say within the dis disabled, disability community.

His 

[00:18:38] Rebecca: position's on infanticide, which he recently clarified in an interview, I think, with the New Yorker. We know that he held this position in the past. But he came out and clarified it again. He still holds it. Yeah. The parent who doesn't want the kid under the age of one can kill the kid. I'm slightly, but not very much you 

[00:18:56] Ben: know, caricaturing his position, right?

That is the end outcome of the, yeah, of the arguments. But and it's really tortured to get there because it's to do with, as far as I understand it, and I haven't Deeply read all of the underlying papers but almost to do with the personhood of animals So you've come he comes this is the consequentialist thing about you sometimes get to these decisions by seemingly very, tortured things 

[00:19:16] Rebecca: Yeah, 

[00:19:17] Ben: But in any event, maybe this is a good other good segue as to do you think?

Chat gpt, let's just call them gpt is a good philosopher 

[00:19:26] Rebecca: Yeah, I do. Again I'm a philosopher, so I'm gonna want to define the terms good and philosopher. Yeah, okay. I have this general view about the term philosopher, which is that most people either have far too narrow or too expansive a view, to a small set of people, like a relatively big set of people. You're only a philosopher if you're one of the four people working on epistemology or metaphysics at one of three American universities. And then on the expansive view, everyone's a philosopher because we all do, we live, philosophical lives and make philosophical comments.

On some level, Both of those views are correct, but they don't really tell us very much, do they? [00:20:00] If you think of a more, a mid ground position, which is Being a philosopher, doing philosophy, and those things are slightly different is applying a certain kind of approach to thinking about things maybe within also a certain set of questions, within a certain set of topics.

That's the more the kind of approach I'd take to being a philosopher is doing philosophy. Yeah, I think ChatGPT is increasingly a very good philosopher, certainly in terms of philosophical tool or resource that if you are interested in philosophy and you're willing to put in the philosophical work, I think you can, I think you can benefit massively from it.

I do I often talk with ChatGPT about philosophy. I wrote a thing on my sub stack about this recently, which I think some people got a bit of attention, one of the big philosophy blogs. Covered it, got a few funny responses from philosophers, I think probably hadn't read my piece, and also I'd say probably hadn't tried, the later, more pricey version of GPT, which I think is an easily justifiable spend if you've got, if you've got any money.

And I'd say actually, you know, I was talking to a friend about this the other day, I feel a little bit like It's like people who are offered, I don't know, you get this bargain and it's hey, and it is a bargain, hey, for half of your worldly resources, you can live forever. And you're like no, I'm saving my money up for something important.

The idea that you can talk proper philosophy with a text box on your computer is just so incredibly, it's insane. It's incredible. And the idea that you're not willing to like, Spend 200 quid on 200 quid on that, I think, or 200 dollars, I forget what it is now. I'd block it out of my mind.

I don't know, I just don't know what, how do they price stuff? Generally in life, what is their pricing strategy where that's not good spend? Okay, of course, if you're starving and you've got kids to feed, I don't have any kids to feed. I'm fortunate I can afford it.

But affording it means, assigning sufficient value. And why would you not assign a load of value to this thing? Probably, to be fair. It's slightly circular because you haven't tried it. Yeah, I think a load of people are missing a massive trick here. I find it quite funny. 

[00:22:00] Ben: It's getting cheaper and it's getting better and it's particularly good if, say, actually, so I don't know, if I ever want to think about what a consequentialist would think, or particularly say, Peter Singer, you ask TPT, it's really good at parsing some, particularly someone who's had quite a lot of public work, like Singer, and really teasing out this is probably what they would say.

And then you have this kind of quite angry conversation with them, which you couldn't say to Pizza Singer's face, but that's very dispassionate about this is because you haven't considered this, it's quite good. And it's interesting someone we both know, Tyler Cowen, the economist also advocates that.

But interestingly, Tyler has said, I don't know if you picked this up, but he claims he's two thirds utilitarian. So you should challenge him on this, whether you can be two thirds anything on this next time next time you speak to him. Actually, maybe that's a good segue. I noticed that you'd read his book The Age of Infavor, or you'd skimmed it.

And I was quite interested because it actually talks a lot about essentially an autistic cognitive profile as well as things like AI and other things like that. And I do wonder whether in the future, things like autism profiles or how we consider disability, or just talking about different mental states or different ways of being will be quite radically different.

And we can already see some signs now, but in where things are going, I had a chat with someone who was. Born deaf now can hear as an actor and it's interesting that they view the kind of cyber technology which enables them to hear Almost as a kind of companion partner. Not quite. It's quite a complex thing, but Interestingly in the same way that you would say you should have respect to insects They think that you should essentially have respect to these call them cyber AI in the sense that it's a part of her life, or we might get to the extent where they are.

I find it's really interesting that I'm often saying please and thank you and actually being quite nice to my GPT, weirdly because I actually think I get better responses, but there is this thing about do you abuse your GPT or are you nice to it. Yeah, so I was wondering, what do you, what did you make of that and what did you make of the Age of 

[00:24:05] Rebecca: Yeah, I read some of it over Christmas.

I thought it was excellent. What else? I think so actually on the point around saying please and thank you to the GPT, I think it's, it's good to practice being a good person. This is one of the reasons, so actually I wrote in my substack piece about talking with GPT about philosophy, but I bullied GPT, if that really means anything, to bully something that doesn't have moral status.

It probably doesn't, it's a shorthand, isn't it? But I felt morally dirty afterwards. I was trying to find out if it was a consequentialist, and I was really Again, I'm not sure it counts as being awful if it's a thing you can't can you be awful to a wall? No, you probably can't, but it's good to practice good behavior, and I think I didn't do that there.

So yeah, I think it's, I don't find it weird to say thank you, I do as well, you're right, it probably also has some benefits probably baked into it, and it's probably good if it's baked into it that it responds better if you're polite. 

[00:24:55] Ben: But there is something to, like you say, to good behavior even if it's in private 

[00:24:59] Rebecca: right, or 

[00:24:59] Ben: [00:25:00] you can, you might have a toy model and you bash it up.

But, and obviously, maybe there's no real consequence to the toy model or whatever, but you are modeling, even to yourself, 

[00:25:10] Rebecca: a 

[00:25:11] Ben: good behavior or not. 

[00:25:13] Rebecca: That's right. And I think we do have obligations to ourselves as well. And one of those is to try to. Make ourselves into good people as we can, because it's good for us to be good people.

It's bad to do that stuff. And one of the obligations we have to ourselves is to hold ourselves in check and to try to improve. Yeah cool. 

[00:25:28] Ben: A couple more philosophical things, and then we might pivot into some creative things. I noticed you wrote something around artificial wombs, and I've spoken to some young I guess liberal thinkers who are actually quite pro artificial it gets around a lot of the medical complications of biological birth.

I guess this is the sort of far future, although it's starting to happen now, so it's maybe not as far as before. But I was wondering what you thought about artificial wombs and whether some of the thinking about artificial wombs, they also transferred into, Essentially artificial or even AI soldiers and this type of thing about where AI goes But I'm wondering if you still have the same view on artificial wombs as you had has it changed and Whether you'd like to articulate that.

[00:26:12] Rebecca: Yeah, I think my position is something it actually reminds me a little about I guess the third I think I gave you two thing I would wonder if people in the future might look back with some moral I have some deep moral concerns about surrogacy for various reasons. One is, I think, the mere sufficient concern is about the woman who who gives birth to the child.

I worry about the exploitation of women to that end. We know, at least in some places, that women are exploited and used. As vassals or vessels and I have deep concerns about that. I also have concerns about the fetus that becomes the baby being separated from the person who gave birth to it.

Again, there's all kinds of, questions and things, and I'd want to clarify that, that, my position further. But one answer, to the artificial womb question is, it takes that problem away from, in terms of at least the treatment of the woman who gives birth. If you can do that without having that third party.

or whatever number party it'd be. That's one problem seemingly solved. I don't think it takes away the baby problem entirely, because there are questions about what it is to be born of a machine, effectively. In the piece I wrote about this, I took into account, the concerns of both the fetus and also the woman.

And I think there are great benefits on both ends of this kind of technology. Oftentimes the stuff I read or the people I talk to come at it from one point or the other. You get feminist argument, which is, it's better for women not to have to give birth for various reasons, not just, physically because it is brutal and risky, but also points around the opportunities in the labor force, costs, more general costs there are to, to giving birth, to being a mother, taking time out of work and all of those concerns.

But there's also the baby point, which is there are great advantages. In terms of access to health care interventions monitoring of being outside of, being hidden within a woman's womb. Also there are points, my friend Emily made this point when I was writing my piece around the kind of injustices and inequalities that obtain.

when we take into account the behaviours of different pregnant women. You've got pregnant woman A, who's a heavy smoker and drinker goes on rollercoasters. I don't know the effect of going on a rollercoaster on the thesis, but I'm assuming at least later on it's probably bad. And then you've got, woman B, who follows all of the best guidance, some of the guidance I'm sure is rubbish.

It seems like there's going to be some pretty serious costs to the fetus in Woman A. We can get rid of that if we have, if in the world in which we have the artificial womb, which provides all of the things that the fetus needs to develop. There are big questions around how you how you compare those things in terms of particular psychological effects.

What does it really mean to say what does it do to a fetus psychologically to, for them to gestate within the machine? It's very hard to know how to answer a question like that. But I think, generally speaking, it seems to me like there would be vast benefits of this technology coming into play.

I think it's highly likely it will. And I think it's really important we think about the ethical questions now, because once technology is in place new obligations arise. It's getting very hard to say, the fetus of eight weeks, 10 weeks, and now we have the technology to save it, but we shouldn't save it.

People will start saving it. And then you're going to have questions around women wanting to opt into this. And you're going to have to come up with pretty good arguments to say that women shouldn't be able to opt into that. Some of those might well be those resource questions. If this is something that's expected on the National Health Service does it mean that just because it's possible, therefore the taxpayer should spend?

Those are important questions. My point is, think about it now before it becomes possible. Otherwise, a load of these just status quo [00:30:00] problems come into play. It's very hard to wind stuff back once it starts happening. People start to backwards justify just because it happens, you get sunk cost thinking.

Think about it now. Try and work out some, some baseline stuff and we'll be in a much better place. It's also just interesting and fun. 

[00:30:19] Ben: Yeah, I think so. I think that we do seem to be a little bit behind where technology is going or is both in AI and in health. Technology and some other things perhaps a pivot into your life.

You ran for being an MP here in the UK. And that I wondered what you learned from that experience. I get the vibe that it's like, Oh my God, never again. And I'd be interested to know like, how, and obviously a lot of people are quite skeptical of like political system and average person on politicians.

Overall so i'd be interested in your experience, was there anything positive to take away? What are the maybe critiques you would take away and how is that? How is that whole experience for you? 

[00:31:06] Rebecca: Yeah, I mean look i'm not naturally a joiner. I didn't join a political party until actually so when I was doing masters back in 2008 in london.

I worked for a bit of time as a researcher for an mp It was a tory mp. So I had to join the conservative party to apply for the job I hadn't joined a political party before then I I hadn't got involved in student politics, there's nothing I was less keen to do, I hate all of that stuff. So I'm not naturally, I'm also just generally not naturally a joiner, I don't like organized fun.

I love playing board games and stuff, but the idea of, I don't know A work away day where you're forced to, I just, that's just naturally not me. I think the things I learned from it, yeah, number one, I don't want to be an MP. I have friends who are MPs and I really admire them. I think we need good people to do this.

But the invasion of privacy the stuff around party constraint, so towing the line, not being able to say what you believe. I don't think when I was running I ever said anything I didn't believe. I'm, yeah, I don't know, I'm not very good at doing that apart from anything else. But living with those constraints wasn't something I wanted to do.

Also the party that I ran for the Conservatives has changed a lot since then. Back then in 2015 it was relatively socially and economically liberal. I'm very socially liberal, there are a few parties that match that. I think it's also just like a relatively rare combination to hold probably these days.

[00:32:26] Ben: What's happened to classical liberals? Why, 

[00:32:29] Rebecca: Why the I don't know guys where are they? Come join us. Come 

[00:32:33] Ben: join us. Was it like from, I guess there's a huge tradition of it, but I guess if you root it in something like John Stuart Mill's time and beyond, you would have thought, oh, and now like diminishing.

I just think, I 

[00:32:47] Rebecca: find it for me, I'm just naturally skeptical about anybody trying to tell me what to do, including myself. I think it's not surprising that I adhere to it. As much as I adhere to anything, I'm definitely a, classical liberal. We can, talk about what that means, but.

In terms of the substance that's generally, been the substance of the views of the classical liberal thinkers around free speech, free trade 

[00:33:06] Ben: Freedom in general. Concern, 

[00:33:07] Rebecca: sorry, say again? Freedom in general, yeah, absolutely. Concern around, the overbearing state trying to tell you how to live your life, rule of law, these, constraints on other people trying to tell you what to do that's just naturally where I lie.

I'm also interested in the kind of, the moral theory aspect of it, how you justify these things, because again, this is consequentialist classical liberals and there's rights based classical liberals. There's interesting stuff about property. I wrote my PhD on moral property rights, largely because I'm naturally a capitalist.

I believe the stuff that it, the system under which we're the most free, it brings about the most good ends. But when you're thinking about, competing claims over stuff that is external to you. Which I see as being a necessary building block of supporting capitalism. It's hard to come up with a non consequentialist argument.

Or at least it's not hard, it's just I was interested in working out what the best justification for that was, because I'm the kind of philosopher who won't just, settle at this stage. I find myself having to go back down to where it begins. But sorry, just to go back to your question about the politics thing.

It left me quite disillusioned. It made me realize that a lot of people in politics, I think are in it for the power. It also, I think, pushed me towards recognizing that what I'm most interested in is just interested in, sorry, is just sitting in a little room reading philosophy books and talking to interesting people like you about philosophy.

The policy stuff and the politics stuff, I think is admirable and necessary, and I think all of us who are interested particularly in political philosophy should do some of that stuff. But for me personally, I like sitting reading Quine. That's just, that's just who I am. 

[00:34:42] Ben: Too compromising.

And maybe on that, what is your creative? process. Do you like to read half the day, write half the day? Are you a morning person, evening person? I've asked this out of a lot of creatives, and basically there is no right answer. People who are really good could do it. Early first thing, late first thing, read a lot, [00:35:00] write a lot, anything else.

But I'm just interested in what people do. Do you have a particular process. Do you sit down and write it or 

[00:35:08] Rebecca: I don't really, I again, I'm a little anxious around even imposing stuff on myself. Although I, then you get into this kind of circular thing where, I'm not happy unless I write, unless I work.

But if I'm telling myself, I've got to do it at this time, I'm going to, rebel against that. I have, I guess I come to some kind of. Compromise on which there are certain things I'm going to expect that I'm going to do every day, and many of those are things that are going to motivate me or put me in a good, I don't think I need motivation to write, it's basically all I want to do or read.

But I'm aware that you know if I do some exercise, and I listen to the music and I read some fiction. I talk to other people and I go for a walk. I'm gonna be in the right kind of frame of mind, not just to do some writing, but hopefully to do some good writing. I try to make sure I read philosophy every day that isn't related to the stuff I'm working on myself.

I was doing this thing where I read half an hour of classic 20th century, random classic 20th century every day philosophy every day. That was easier when I was living in my own house with all of my books. I then went to America for a few months and I didn't have all my books. If you're living in a house, thousands of philosophy books, you can just take them off the shelf and Oh, today I'm going to read Stawson.

But that was a good practice. I did enjoy that. I wrote like 50, 000 words of notes on stuff that I still go back to. But yeah, so there are certain things I do. I like writing. In the evening and at night, I do read and write at other times as well I read all the time just when I feel like doing it.

I write when I feel like doing it. I guess one principle I have, and as much as I have any about this, is if you feel like writing, go and do some writing. I'm lucky that I mostly, most of the time feel like that, but if I ever feel like very particularly And then, I think, listen to yourself.

Sorry, that's not very Like I say, I constantly have this whole problem about not trying not to, Not too many constraints on yourself. That's fair enough, 

[00:36:50] Ben: which is a definite way of doing it. What role does fiction You play in your own creative processes and what role do you think it should play maybe in overall humanities thinking and maybe in particular I noted you read what I have loved and it's interesting that one of the themes, it's multi-layered book but one of the themes is around grief.

So I'm particularly interested in maybe do you think. On something like grief, philosophers have anything to say, and is that a better domain for fiction, or even memoir, or something like that? Multi layered question as to what fiction plays a role in your own thinking. The fact that you blogged about it means that it must play some role.

Does that have any role for philosophy in general, or is it just for you? And how, when fiction seems to derive some real things to dwell on in terms of grief, that Perhaps there's a more powerful way than is that outside the domain of this middle road philosophy? 

[00:37:47] Rebecca: Oh man, that's a great question.

Beautiful question. I would say, first of all, I just am obsessed by reading novels. I always have been. I grew up without a TV. My parents, we didn't have a TV until I was about 12 when my brother and I came up with this. We basically persuaded our parents that if we could do the Times Crossword, we would get a TV.

There must be 

[00:38:05] Ben: some metaphysics argument for having a TV, right? I think 

[00:38:09] Rebecca: We'd already tried all of those. They had to read. Yeah I think this, I don't, I think I'm probably just dispositioning. It's probably just the case I would have already loved reading, but I think it was a very kind, good thing my parents did, because I just became obsessed with reading.

I was, what I always wanted to do, and I love reading fiction. I think it's really important to keep reading fiction. I know a load of people who, when they become adults, read other, don't read fiction anymore. Partly because you feel as if you have interests and obligations to know what's going on in the world, so you prioritise non fiction.

I understand that. I'm anxious around instrumentalizing fiction, although I do think there's a load of instrumental value in it. I find on some level certainly, I also find the same thing with going to the theatre. That when I'm, engrossed in fiction sometimes it helps me do philosophy because I'm forcing myself to not think directly about the philosophy and then sometimes I guess you get that, just that turning over in your mind and maybe you come to some conclusion you wouldn't have done otherwise.

I think it's definitely the case that for some emotional matters, fiction can play a really important part in our life, whether it's as a matter of comfort. So I think, similarly Bertrand Russell has this great point in The Conquest of Happiness, one of his books where he talks about playing games as a way to cope with grief.

I completely think that's right. Again, it's a point I think about being completely engrossed. Probably the same about sport, if you're playing a really vigorous game of tennis, you can't really be overthinking about the awful things in the world. So it's an escapism point, it's a sorry, my computer's just telling me to enter my password, I don't know why, so I'm just going to do that, there we go.

Um, multi levels of value, I feel quite strongly that people who don't spend time reading fiction are really missing out on one of the great things about being human. Which is the capacity to separate out from your daily life, think about other worlds imagine [00:40:00] and also just engage with, certainly the kinds of fiction, I like, which often are.

I guess, quite philosophical, I think, the what I loved is a very philosophical novel. I tend to be less keen on explicitly philosophical novels to when people are trying really hard. And actually there were a few points in that book where I felt maybe she was trying a bit too hard.

But when it's implicit, I really love that. So people like, I don't cut there, I think he's a great philosopher. Except for in the Lives of Animals, which I think is one of his best things. He doesn't really say, Hey, I'm now going to do some philosophy, right? So I really enjoyed the Knausgard. I read the first book recently, and I actually didn't so much the little essays, the more kind of, Hey, I'm now going to give you a philosophical little it's division on, the theory of time or whatever.

What I really liked was the implicit philosophy in the rest of it. So again, like someone like Iris Murdoch, I like her novels, but the bits where she's like explicitly doing philosophy in them. Less keen. So yeah, philosophical topics and ways of thinking about things. I suppose is something I particularly value in fiction, but I just like good novels.

[00:41:02] Ben: Yeah, that's great. Maybe let's do a little bit on thinking about what would be. in a best possible society and then we can wrap up with some quick fire and maybe some current projects and advice. Oh, I love quick fire. 

[00:41:13] Rebecca: Sounds good. 

[00:41:15] Ben: So on the freedom in the best possible society, I'm interested in art, education, prison.

Maybe disability as well. But in this best possible society, we had a brief conversation on this a few months ago are there still prisons? And I guess, when I look at prisons today, I was looking at some stats, and there was, it's something extraordinary, like 30 to 40 percent of people in the prison population have severe mental challenges.

Call it as an outcome that You know, they've been told they have huge learning difficulties or autism or other things or you're talking about half where If you really think about it that there's something which has really gone badly wrong and there is Then maybe there's a little other half which is a little bit different but you might need some restraints, I guess still in a best possible society if you've got some of these things how does your utopia handle constraint seen through the view of prisons, but I guess any constraint 

[00:42:19] Rebecca: Yeah, so I think my view is pretty much that it's not justifiable to put someone in captivity as a form of punishment.

I have a more radical general view, which is around whether punishment is ever justifiable. But if we're talking about putting someone in captivity as punishment, I think my position is that's not. Justifiable. However, that doesn't mean I don't think that it's ever the case that it's justifiable to put someone in captivity, right?

And if you, exactly, and if you think about the reasons why we do people to put people in captivity, so for instance, one of them might be a public health reason. If you come down with this new highly contagious disease but you're refusing to confine yourself to your house. It might be the case that someone wants to lock you up for a bit.

I'm not really passing a judgment on whether that's justifiable, I'm just saying that's, they're not doing it to you to punish you. They might also be wanting to punish you, saying, Hey, Ben, why are you not staying in your house? But that's a separate argument, right? So I think my position is something like, I don't see, even in the best possible world, because I think you'll still have some psychopaths, you'll still have some people who want to do bad stuff, and I don't think the best possible society would be somewhere where you weren't free to choose to do bad stuff, and sadly do bad stuff, therefore we have to think of ways to respond to that wrongdoing.

I can't see it wouldn't be the case that sometimes you need to put people in captivity in order to protect other people. So this is, I think, a self defense argument or a Now, of course, the way that's going to cash out is something like you're going to have these institutions that look like prisons, it's just Rebecca saying that they're not punitive.

However, I do think actually that if prisons weren't intended to punish, then they would look quite different. It'd be much harder, for instance, to I think to defend, certainly I'm not going to use the word justify there, defend some of the really quite vile practices that go on in our prisons at the moment.

I saw there was a report out yesterday from the prison inspectorate, I haven't read it yet, but one of the points that was being made was something around women's access to being able to wash their underwear. You're talking about the most basic human rights necessities of, being able to have access to sanitation and clean living spaces and clean stuff on your body.

The idea of, but of course, the problem is that if you're using a punitive argument for imprisoning people, you're going to say, oh, but if we don't treat them bad, it's not going to be, it's not going to be a prison or people aren't going to want to come to the people that aren't going to want to stay out of the prison.

You've got to find some kind of, whereas if you take the punitive element There's no reason why prisons can't be Places where it's not just that your basic needs are being met, believe me, I think everywhere, that any institution that's going to be a place where someone is spending their time needs to make sure that's the case, it's also going to be like, you [00:45:00] can't have these silly arguments anymore about, oh, those Scandinavian prisons, people get TVs.

Is a separate point. I grew up without a TV. I have views about whether TV is a necessary, preferential. Like I don't have a TV. I'm glad you know what I'm saying. 

[00:45:13] Ben: Society with a lot of technology. Yeah. You could be in the equivalent of like almost. Let's say a theme park or a holiday villa.

I think there'd certainly be 

[00:45:22] Rebecca: animals, there'd be green spaces, there'd be work opportunities, there'd be education. You'd have, we wouldn't just be talking about meeting basic needs, we'd be talking about it being a valuable place for people to spend time. And once you take the punishment element, that goes away.

But I'm not denying that you'd still have institutions. Again, it might, you might actually be able to take a non institutional approach in which what is effectively house arrest becomes, but again, there's going to be all kinds of resource allocation questions around this. So yes, my assumption is that Utopia, or is my working conclusion at the moment is that yes, people are put in captivity.

[00:45:57] Ben: For doing bad stuff, or, 

[00:45:59] Rebecca: but it's a different justification, yeah. 

[00:46:01] Ben: In this best possible society, do you still have schools? Would a government ever set a curriculum? Is there a basic amount of knowledge that you think a best possible society should have as a base? Or, if you take more, in fact you have it today.

I'm very sympathetic to the unschool movement of letting people do that. I still think knowledge is really important, but what knowledge someone Should want to seek is much more debatable as to whether anyone I guess you could say parents included But I guess another thing but at least best possible society.

Do we still have schools? How is education handled? 

[00:46:38] Rebecca: I think like we all have and not just parents have a serious obligation to ensure that kids get educated and One one one thing that I think I saw in a friend about this the other day and they're like, oh that's very illiberal of you because I said something like Children shouldn't get to choose most of the stuff.

That doesn't mean children shouldn't get to choose any stuff, right? But children shouldn't get to choose what the things are that they learn. That doesn't mean at the edges that they, their interests can't be satisfied, that those things can't govern some of the stuff they study. But as adults, one of the things we're obligated to think about is, what is it, what are the kinds of knowledge and skills, ways of, becoming better reasoning creatures?

How is it that we can inculcate those capacities in children. I'm not convinced that, I'm certainly not convinced that our current school system does a very good job of that. I didn't like school. I have a lot of sympathy for the school is prison argument. My I'm not really fully convinced that the answer though is, everyone's homeschooled partly because everyone is good at homeschooling their kids.

I have anxieties around Kids effectively being indoctrinated by people with very strong views about things. I certainly don't want the state going around telling people not to tell their kids stuff. But I think one important role at the moment that is incentivized by schools is giving kids access to other ways of thinking.

So if you've got a kid who's brought up in a religious household when they go to school they learn about other ways of seeing the world. Kids are, because they're not fully reasoning creatures, are very open, they're very persuadable. It can be indoctrinated very easily. I'm not, that's not a comment about religion generally or any particular religion, it's just a point that I think, again, because we all have obligations to kids we need to make sure that kids have access to different viewpoints and also to certain kinds of knowledge.

So if a kid gets 18 and doesn't, I don't know that there's gravity, or know that there are other countries in the world, there's a whole load of substance. That every kid has the right to know about, because it's important stuff. Sometimes there's some truth arguments about this, but some of it is just because it's established knowledge.

If it's the case that the established knowledge is that there's gravity, the kid has the, the right to know about that. I'm happy to make those kinds of arguments about this, those kinds of arguments. How you actually do it, whether, the state should be determining a curriculum, I want to have that stuff done as locally as possible.

But there is definitely a role for, um. Hard fact here. 

[00:49:03] Ben: Yeah, and rights and obligations. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. And then last one on this one is, do you think your best possible society has more art and more fiction, more theater or? Less or is it actually it's up to that society to decide so it's very hard to tell 

[00:49:20] Rebecca: yeah this is a great question I wrote a paper about this which will become a chapter in my book, which is basically around this problem of If you just let the people determine what the culture should be the culture might be really bad And if you don't know the culture like if you don't know about Mozart, you're hardly gonna push for Mozart this is a difficult problem in terms of how much spend there should be, what the obligation on the taxpayer is.

How much preference should play a role in this? Are there, objectively good cultural things that everyone should know about? I have an argument which is something like, again, it's like a right to the opportunity to know certain things. And I think you can use an argument like that which kind of bypasses the objective subjective value [00:50:00] point.

Which is something like it's the case that some particular opera is established knowledge is that this is good in these particular ways and people know about it has cultural significance, then I think it's wrong to deny someone the opportunity to know about that. The Truman Show world in which you're kept in the bubble and you don't have awareness of things that are going on in the world is bad for various reasons.

One, because you can't play a cultural part in it. One, because if you don't have awareness of it, you can't know that you might like it. I think those kinds of arguments can bypass some of those much more difficult should be people just get what they want kind of argument. I don't know whether there'd be more.

I generally think that more is the way to count these things. Would there be a diverse and interesting cultural mix in Utopia? Yes. I'm not sure it would be Utopia if not. How you get to that though, what the process is. what the institutional arrangements are. I don't have a good answer for you yet, but hopefully I'll get one.

My guess is probably something a little bit like, I think Rawls says something like, in the realistic utopia I don't know something like it takes some time for for people to start being just to one another because they're suddenly now experiencing more just institutions or something like that.

I'm paraphrasing badly. My guess is that over time, when you have all these other advantages, so my conception of utopia is one where people have much more of a purchase on decision making, so decision making is much more decentralized. I think when you are being treated like a reasoning creature with the right to make decisions about your own life, I think that has other advantages.

And my guess is that one of those advantages is also maybe valuing a diversity of cultural goods. That's probably a bit of a stretch, but I think I could make that argument. Also maybe if I don't know, maybe you have access to more resources, you have more disposable income. Because I think the nearby possible world is one where there's much less scarcity of goods.

I think a world in which the state is less intrusive. You have more freedom to determine what the good life is for yourself. I have a naturally positive view about humankind, that we're naturally Good, most of us, but also that we're inquisitive. So again, I think probably you'd see a morality of cultural goods 

[00:52:18] Ben: Is health care a universal right in this utopia?

Are we wealthy enough that there is no resource constraint or I guess it depends if you're really wealthy then you probably get there. But I guess in the realistic utopia, there may be still other resource constraints. There's always going 

[00:52:35] Rebecca: to be, yeah, there's always going to be constraint, like number of doctors and nurses time to do operations.

But 

[00:52:41] Ben: do you think universal healthcare is better than let's say the US model of private insurance? I very simplified something, which is quite complicated, but 

[00:52:48] Rebecca: I generally think like mixed models are pretty good. I, it frustrates me when, if you criticize the NHS, people assume you want the American model.

I think America has pretty high spend also. I think there are two questions. One is how the goods are allocated. One is how you pay for it. I'm a hardcore believer in like a pretty generous social minimum. And by that, if people genuinely can't provide for themselves to meet their basic needs references to, we can, draw the line where that, you know, where that cuts in different ways.

Then I think we should, um, we should help those people. Again, there are all kinds of questions about how you do that, what the mechanisms are, what that counts as, what their role in contributing is generally I think like mixed payment. Models on a social minimum is the answer a world with fewer resource constraints Although like I say, you're still going to have the people constraint.

I think could look much better I dislike the way we do it in the uk partly because I think it has dreadful outcomes Just look actually to return to the women's healthcare thing our Maternity statistics are atrocious, on any count. They're still better than 

[00:53:52] Ben: the US, though. No bar, 

[00:53:55] Rebecca: no bar, man! Right?

[00:53:56] Ben: That's true, but I think we are worse, if I look correctly, than Slovenia and Slovakia. 

[00:54:02] Rebecca: I think they're probably the only European countries, though. Like France, Italy, Scandinavia. Plus it's not just a relative thing. There's going to be some absolute requirement here. And I don't think any country in the world is meeting that absolute requirement, partly because I think people don't take sufficiently women's pain into account.

There is still this kind of naturalistic fallacy argument on which it's good for women to feel pain during childbirth or something which I really dislike. I saw a good piece the other day about how women in France have much better access to epidurals and stuff. And again, it's partly cultural.

Cultural thing, but there's a 

[00:54:35] Ben: lot of there's a lot of cultural thing. There's actually a lot doctors themselves or Technocratic value of pain. Yeah does not match the Call it the patient or the consumer value of pain So this is one of the things because pain in itself like will you go through a painful episode?

But if you're cured at the end, so this is Partly the utilitarian problem that while you're killed, it didn't matter that you went through a lot of pain because you're cured at the end of it. [00:55:00] 

[00:55:00] Rebecca: It's like the argument is hey, the person is dead. It doesn't matter that they suffered. Yeah, 

[00:55:05] Ben: or even the person is alive.

It doesn't matter that they suffered because they're alive. Yeah 

[00:55:10] Rebecca: right, 

[00:55:10] Ben: great. So maybe let's do some quick fire. Cool, go for it. Underrated, overrated, and then we'll finish off with a couple of questions. Okay. I'll try and do some of these. You can pass underrated, overrated, or maybe neutral rated, or you could say more or less.

So we'll do a segue one. Underrated or overrated, universal basic income? 

[00:55:31] Rebecca: Probably overrated, just because a lot of people are obsessed by it. But I think it's a depending on how you, what you, what do you take it to mean? It's if you just take it as a social minimum type thing, but probably overrated just in terms of too 

[00:55:46] Ben: many people on about it social media, overrated, underrated, 

[00:55:51] Rebecca: underrated, at least the good types.

Twitter, for instance massively underrated. People love to hate on Twitter. I've met like loads of interesting people, work opportunities, make friends through it. Great. 

[00:56:01] Ben: Great. Great. Phil, 

[00:56:03] Rebecca: If you filter well. It's incredibly valuable. 

[00:56:07] Ben: Equality, underrated, overrated? 

[00:56:11] Rebecca: Depends on what you count as equality, right?

In terms of like basic equality of respect massively underrated. Probably the most important concept in morality. If you're talking about, equal distribution of goods, then definitely overrated. 

[00:56:27] Ben: Fair enough. Although that's interesting because then I was going to put freedom, but I guess you probably don't you don't rank things like between equality and freedom because you put those very important, but I'm guessing on freedom underrated or overrated, you'd probably still say it's underrated today.

[00:56:41] Rebecca: Yeah, freedom is so important. I think freedom is, we have all of these like denuded understandings of freedom that go around. Whether it's people thinking, freedom is how many, machine guns you can have, or whether people think freedom is trading away political rights for economic goods I think, I also want to make a distinction between the ontological sense of what it is to do something freely and what the moral value of having that capacity is.

I think though generally philosophical theories and particularly theories of value massively underrate freedom. That's the point about my Utopia book to be honest. Like where does freedom sit within the theory of the good? And I think people I hate people who are underrated. 

[00:57:20] Ben: Great. So we're speaking, I'm in London at the moment, and you're in Spain, so I think this might be obvious, but underrated, overrated, travel.

[00:57:28] Rebecca: Oh, I love travel. Particularly train travel. Trains are massively underrated because they couldn't not be, because they're so great. 

[00:57:35] Ben: Yeah, that's fair. 

[00:57:36] Rebecca: I also find as a, again, like a kind of aid to being productive. I love working on trains. I love, working in new places. It's inspiring and fun and.

Yeah, 

[00:57:48] Ben: that was great. Great how about so we talked a lot about respects i'm going to assume that's still underrated But what about the concept of honor? I guess we've got all of these Aristotelian or other values, but maybe honor do you think it's underrated overrated? 

[00:58:03] Rebecca: I mean i'm gonna ask you what you mean by honor if you want to I mean if you're talking about Sorry, isn't very important answer.

If you're talking about honoring somebody for doing something good, then it's probably a good thing. If you're talking about honoring somebody for doing something bad, then no, but maybe that doesn't count as honor. I get a little anxious around, all these kinds of traditional values, like being patriotic, being honorable, being deferential.

Um, I think they rub up against my sense in which I don't want people interfering in me. I also think pride is something I have a bit of a, anxious relation with. So yeah, I'm just gonna say it totally depends on what you mean. Sorry. 

[00:58:46] Ben: That's good. Good philosopher answer.

Okay, that's great. So last couple of questions. So if you could then. Choose one thing to change about the UK. I guess you could either do policy if you want to be practical or some philosophical or other concept that you think that is really underrated and we should really embed within UK thinking.

I guess we didn't talk about the centralized, decentralized thing, but I think people have picked up, you're not a fan of centralization and would want more localism, but yeah, if there's one thing you could either change in the world or maybe the UK, either policy or thought that you would embed what would it be?

[00:59:21] Rebecca: I put some brakes on the assisted dying stuff. It's being pushed through very quickly. I have I don't, I'm opposed to it substantively, but I think the process at the moment is very concerning. And I don't actually think it helps people on the side of, making arguments for it. I think it's counterproductive.

The process shows, it may just be the case that the process itself is bad, and we need to change the process. It may be that the process is being misused. Beyond that, yeah, I just think. some fiscal decentralization, the decoupling of revenue raising and spending at the local level. The UK is a massive, particularly England is a massive outlier here.

And that's not an argument itself, because maybe it's the case that [01:00:00] other places do too much of it. But I think it's disrespectful to people in the sense that I think it's not just that Fiscal decentralization brings about better ends, matching, local needs and preferences with decision making, whatever, competition innovation, specialization.

It's also you've got the right to make decisions about stuff around about you, and that's been taken away from local people. Easy change, just, yeah, start with some housing stuff or whatever, property taxes, and get the ball rolling. 

[01:00:29] Ben: Easy. That makes sense. I'm generally in favour of that. The one big exception is I don't know what you do about big infrastructure.

Because no one wants If you want a wind farm, no one wants wind farms next to them. 

[01:00:42] Rebecca: I love wind farms so much. I'm such a fan of the wind Oh man, I saw some really beautiful ones on the train line. If you ask most people, they don't want wind 

[01:00:49] Ben: farms. But maybe that's where they've got to make a stronger argument for it, but things like wind farms, The 

[01:00:53] Rebecca: aesthetic argument for wind turbines, both onshore and offshore, I think, is It's not, it's been underdone.

I would do that. I'd be the wind farm czar. 

[01:01:02] Ben: Or many nuclear power or something. I was thinking about the assisted dying debate. It does strike me that I wonder whether the private members bill route, this is a really peculiar UK thing. So listeners, but I do wonder whether that's actually something we need to just.

Yes, and do other processes. It's not that, for instance, the U. S. has got some really weird esoteric processes, which they should definitely nix if they could. They can't because it's entrenched in their system, but it strikes me that this was under debated under or from all sides and that and partly because they tried to push it through this.

[01:01:36] Rebecca: 100%. And I think you're right. I think it does bring up questions about the PNB thing, which already is a little bit of a joke, a bit like the EDM thing. Some, some of these routes are a little bit of a joke, to be honest. And I mean that in the sense of that's what the consensus view within Westminster, again, that might be a bad view, but that is not a consensus view within the rest of the country.

So you already, you've got a Yeah. Transparency. There's these technocratic 

[01:01:59] Ben: things. Whenever you have these things about people have to sit up and speak for a set amount of time to do these things. You have it in the US as well. It's if you can stand there for six hours or something, you can run down the session by weird, sheer dint of willpower.

I'm not sure the ability to stand for six hours should be the measure that we debate these things on. Something's 

[01:02:19] Rebecca: going wrong there, isn't it? It's like your point about Peter Singer. If your argument comes to the conclusion that you have to. Be in favor of killing the baby. Something's gone wrong, guys.

[01:02:29] Ben: Anyway, okay, so I'll end up with would you like to highlight any current projects or thoughts that you're working on? Obviously there's this book around freedom, but anything else you'd like to mention? 

[01:02:39] Rebecca: Yeah, so the book, read the book, although I've got to write the book, but I'm doing an inter intellect series on it.

So if anybody's interested in coming along once a month online, that should be fun. I'm enjoying writing my sub stack. I'm writing a piece at the moment about the meaning of life. Cause I think it's funny that almost everybody makes this joke about, Oh, what do philosophers think about the meaning of life yet?

Of all the many philosophers I've met, I don't think I've ever met a philosopher working on the meaning of life. I thought it was funny. I'm waiting on a visa to go to But they do work on the good life 

[01:03:06] Ben: sometimes. 

[01:03:06] Rebecca: Yes, they do, but I think So yes, that's right. Of course, the philosopher's answer is Oh, but maybe not explicitly answering that question.

I'm waiting on a visa to go to America for a couple of years. I've got an exciting new job I'm very happy about. Yes, good things ahead, I hope. 

[01:03:21] Ben: And let's end with any life advice, career advice, philosophical advice that you might have for people. I've already picked up, if you don't want to compromise very much, definitely don't want to go and be a politician so that's one one thing but yeah, any other thoughts that you might have, maybe for people who want to follow?

A life within philosophy or political economy thinking or just generally some things that you thought about How you got to where you got to today 

[01:03:49] Rebecca: think hard about what the norms are that you follow like unthinkingly I think and maybe this is a just an interest in freedom thing I think all of us do things just because that's the way people around us do those things at the worst that leads us to doing really bad things At the best, it probably just means you're not getting as much fulfillment out of life as you might.

There are many ways to live a good life, and it's for you to work that out for yourself, because you're the only person who can have any systemic access to that. I think in a good life, you spend your whole life working that out. You probably do a plurality of valuable things but the life in which you just follow the crowd, not because.

And I'm not, I don't want to, make a kind of moral criticism of that. I just think it's very easy to do stuff just because. It's what you do, or what other people around you do. Keep questioning that. Again, all I can do is answer for me, but I find myself happier when I stop and think, am I really happy doing this thing?

I often ask myself this question, particularly if I feel frustrated or annoyed. I'm having a bad day, or I think, why do I have to do this thing? Whatever it's to [01:05:00] do with some obligation. I stop and think, what's the counterfactual, what is it I would rather be doing?

And sometimes it's just hey, I just don't want to have to go to this meeting, in which case maybe I just should go to the meeting in some instances. But sometimes it's no, maybe I should be living in another country or maybe I should be writing about different stuff. So think about the counterfactual, is my answer.

[01:05:21] Ben: Yeah, that's really good advice. Just think about the norms that you just follow, maybe because you've always followed, and check whether they are still what you want to do. I do, want to have one follow up on that. So apart from stopping and thinking, or maybe even asking chat TPT, is there a good way of doing that?

Because sometimes you don't really know that you do things like you've always done. And you might not be challenged about it. I may have always eaten meat for a huge amount of time and it's quite hard to, you never get the external trigger. I guess this is your point about indoctrinated thinking about children when they don't meet those different ways of thought.

Is there a good way of snapping yourself out of it? 

[01:06:00] Rebecca: That's an excellent question. I don't know. So two things, one in terms of how you work out what the things are, you just do an audit of what the things are you do in your day. I'm a big believer that you could always find a little bit of time to do something you want to do.

So I do 10 minutes of exercises a day and go for a 10 minute run because I can't really say I don't have 10 minutes. I find that's really valuable to me in so many ways. So yeah, just one way to work out whether you're doing stuff just because you do it is to think about what the things are that you do.

[01:06:32] Rebecca: Then how you assess the value of them is difficult, isn't it, right? You want to be thinking about it in terms of whether it's good for you, whether it's good for the people around you. Whether you enjoy it, but that can't be sufficient, because sometimes you enjoy bad stuff and you shouldn't.

Being aware of, how it interacts with basic values, so I'm a big value pluralist. Is this furthering freedom? Is it furthering justice? That sounds like a very fellow affair arrogant philosopher's answer or something. But thinking about how your life interacts with basic values, thinking about what those values are.

Thinking maybe something like, the domains in which you want to succeed or you want to offer something. What are the things that if you, when you die, you'll be sad you didn't do, hadn't done. And there are always these like flippant answers to that, Oh you'll never, you'll never wish you'd gone to another meeting.

You'd wish you'd spent more time with your kids. No! Maybe there are some meetings that you would wish you had done. Maybe you don't want to have kids. I don't want to have kids. I don't want to have kids just because I don't have the instinct to, and I don't think you should if you don't want to. But also I think a lot of people have kids just because they think they should.

That's not to say having kids isn't a good thing. I think it's for many people the most valuable thing they do in many ways. But yeah, think about just what a good life is, and what the things are you think are sufficient for a good life. The things that are necessary, so if you haven't done X and Y, you haven't led a good life.

Or if you have done X and Y, you haven't. If you've murdered somebody, it's gonna be hard to argue you've led a good life. You might do some good stuff. And then what's sufficient? What is going to be the thing? Like I say, for many people, having brought another human being into the world and loved it and made it, set it on the route to being fulfilled itself is a sufficiently good thing to say that you've had a good life.

What are the other options on that? So, there are some easy answers like, Hey, I cured polio, or I wrote the world's greatest novel, although some people might think that isn't a sufficient one. That's, I think, for me, a really big and important question that we should all think about explicitly.

I think we do think about it implicitly. But one of the great things about being a human is being able to reflect on these things and reason about them. And I think if we don't do that, we're really missing out on something that is it's not just part of us, but it's also something that we have the capacity to build on I think that's my answer.

Ben: That sounds  great yeah, think about your norms and think about what it is to have a good life. So with that Rebecca Thank you very much. 

[01:08:56] Rebecca: Thanks so much Ben. I really enjoyed it

Daisy Christodoulou: A deep dive into VAR, Football, Education, and the Art of Learning | Podcast

Daisy Christodoulou is an acclaimed author in the field of education. Daisy has also written a book on video assisted refereeing (VAR) in football. Her substack is here. 

We discuss being a football fan, VAR's impact on the sport, and the controversial decision-making processes involved. We speak about how VAR might have improved other sports but has mixed results in football. We suggest what technology should spring to football and sport.  We debate on how this potentially reflects the limits of rationality in human endeavours. 

"We need to get away from the search for perfection. Whether in education or VAR, it’s about striking the right balance between accuracy, simplicity, and consistency to avoid ending up with the worst of both worlds."

"When you apply a very precise, letter-of-the-law system, it sometimes tramples over the qualities that make the game what it is. VAR has unintentionally highlighted the limits of rationalism."

Transitioning to education, Daisy shares insights from her research and books on the importance of knowledge-rich curriculums, cognitive science, and the challenges of modern educational systems. The conversation delves into the history of self-education, the role of physical school environments, and strategies to enhance learning outcomes. We touch upon the relevance of English literature, fiction reading, and Daisy's innovative projects at No More Marking, utilizing AI for better educational assessments.

“A written sentence is an incredibly efficient way of communicating information. It can do things that video, audio, or computer code cannot. That utility alone makes reading irreplaceable."

Summary contents, transcript and podcast links below.  Video above or on Youtube. Listen on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen to pods.

Contents

• 00:23 The Joys and Struggles of Supporting West Ham

• 01:29 Controversial VAR Decisions

• 02:55 Problems with VAR in Football

• 04:23 Objective vs Subjective Decisions in VAR

• 06:24 Comparing VAR Across Different Sports

• 07:13 Proposed Solutions for VAR Issues

• 10:03 Historical Context and Evolution of Football Rules

• 12:50 Impact of VAR on the Spirit of the Game

• 15:26 In-Game Experience and Fan Reactions to VAR

• 18:55 Broader Implications of VAR and Rationalism

• 27:00 Potential Reforms in Education

• 31:50 Path Dependency in Education Systems

• 37:05 Emphasis on Knowledge in Education

• 38:44 The Myth of 'Just Look It Up'

• 40:57 Cognitive Science and Learning Techniques

• 45:06 The Importance of School Buildings

• 49:55 Historical Perspectives on Self-Education

• 56:55 Balancing Educational Trade-offs

• 01:02:05 The Decline of English Literature Studies

• 01:12:30 Final Thoughts and Life Advice

---

Transcript (This is AI assisted, so mistakes are possible)

Ben: Hey everyone, I'm super excited to be speaking to Daisy Christodoulou. Daisy has written three books on education, including The Seven Myths of Education. She keeps the Substack newsletter at no more marking. Her most recent book is about VAR, or video assisted refereeing in football. Daisy, welcome. 

Daisy: Hi Ben, thanks for having me.

Ben: What are the best and worst things about being a West Ham football supporter? Ha ha ha 

Daisy: ha ha. The best things are The best things are, for me personally, it's, you know, my family support them, my dad supports them. So going with my dad to the matches is really good fun. We're a really historic and famous club.

We play in the Premier League, which is the biggest global sports league in the world. So you get to go and see every week some of the best footballers in the world. Playing, which is, is really amazing. We won a trophy about 18 months ago, first trophy in a long time, which was really good fun. We have some really great players in the team at the moment.

It's great to go along and watch. What are the worst things? I suppose there's lots of ups and downs. We won a trophy 18 months ago. Since then, maybe things haven't been, haven't been too great. We did have a good win in the week. There's a little bit of discontent about our current playing style and Our last home match, we were not our best, shall we say.

So yeah, ups and downs, I guess a lot of football fans would say the same. 

Ben: So did you see, I didn't see, but I read the October West Ham versus Manchester United game. And I was reading there was a last minute penalty decision given to West Ham for a foul in the box, which was given by VAR for video assisted refereeing.

So what did you make of the decision? 

Daisy: Yeah, I was at that match, and it was quite a controversial decision, I think, at the time and afterwards. I think afterwards, the referee's chief, he came out and said, actually, they were wrong to give that penalty. You know, the original on field decision was correct. It shouldn't have been overturned.

I have to say, watching it in real time, even though it worked for West Ham, and it meant we got a penalty and we won the game, I did think seeing it in real time and then seeing the replays, it felt different. Quite harsh on Manchester United. I think if that had happened to my side team, I would have been a little bit annoyed.

And I think the general approach this year, which I probably would support is referees, they're trying to use VAR less. And I think that's definitely one way to cut down on the controversy. So they're trying to say, look, you only go and review it if there's a really big error, don't just go and look at it on marginal decisions.

And so the issue with this particular decision is it didn't feel like a really big error. So in that case. you know, shouldn't have been overturned, should have stayed with the, the on field decision. Of course, one of the things I, I sort of write about is what is the line between a really big error and not a really big error, just a kind of medium sized error.

And that's not always that easy to, to, to tell. 

Ben: So what do you see as the problems of VAR? You know, you've outlined some of them in the book, but do you see two or three as being particularly problematic at the moment? 

Daisy: Yeah. So I think one big issue, which covers kind of handball and offside is Once you apply technological scrutiny to things like handball and offside, it kind of changes the way the law is applied.

So what with handball, what's been really interesting is once you start scrutinizing, We're using slow motion replay, using people to go back and look at things. You suddenly start spotting loads more handballs before. And so you suddenly start giving a lot more fouls, a lot more penalties. And people are saying, hang on, really, that's a penalty.

You know, the ball brushed his hand when it was hit against him from two yards and we're giving a penalty for that. So you're suddenly giving penalties and fouls for things that you would never have done beforehand. And the same time with offside, I think offside before VAR, it was just had to be done by human judgment.

There was a presumption of benefit of doubt in favor of the attacker. In reality, you couldn't precisely measure that benefit of the doubt because it was all being done by the human eye. And now you've just applied a really strict kind of application of it and you've got the, the, the, the reviews.

You're getting much stricter applications offside, which again, I think people aren't happy with. So I think what it's shown is you apply a lot of scrutiny to something. You don't always end up with more clarity. You don't always end up with better outcomes. So scrutiny isn't always the solution. 

Ben: Yeah, there's an over, over precision.

Daisy: Yeah, absolutely. And then I think the second issue. So I think the handball and offside sort of sit in one category of being, if you like, quite objective decisions that have still caused a lot of problems. And then you've got another problem with. Things like fouls, where you're getting like, like that Manchester United West Ham example where the fouls aren't objective.

They're relatively subjective. So you can have different referees who, you know, have different, will apply the law in a different way and have a different opinion about what is and is not a foul. And I think you've seen that with you've seen that a lot with, with, with the judgment of fouls and with this, the rule in the first few years was clear and obvious.

with the idea that you could, you should only overturn something if it's clear and clear and obvious error. But unfortunately, a clear and obvious error, that's another subjective judgment. VAR, when it comes to overturning files, it hasn't reduced subjectivity, it's kind of just added another layer of subjectivity in.

So you've now, instead of having one, subjective opinion from one human being, you've basically got two subjective opinions from two human beings, and who is to say actually the second one is any more right than the first? And as we saw in that Manchester United match, you then have a third opinion coming out a couple of days later from the referee chief saying actually no, you know, that, that second one was wrong and the first one was right.

So again, has that actually added to our clarity or has that actually increased the confusion? 

Ben: And I was reflecting on your book, and like you say, there seem to be two groups of decisions and a kind of spectrum between them, really. You have a decision which is meant to rely on a physical reality. Did the ball cross a line?

And that would be a simple one. And then you have some decisions which really rely on some form of human judgment, and they interact. For instance, handball, under what I presume are the old rules, is yes, it touched the hand, but was it deliberate? So this idea that there's judgment and the intention has to, has to come into that.

And obviously VAR or video or all of that can't, you know, there's just another layer of judgment that, that you say, particularly on, on that one. And I was really interested in, in seeing that deliberation. And it struck me cause I was looking at some of the surveys and before VAR, There was some surveys which suggested people were quite, fans were quite interested in having it, because they thought, oh, it would settle these decisions.

And then in the last few years, it's been much more mixed as a, as a reception, particularly for people actually in the game. The one sitting at home on TV is also maybe a little bit different. And then I was also reflecting that it seems to be really different in some other sports. So in tennis, VAR is seemingly much more accepted.

I think it's a Hawkeye thing. But it seems to be that most of those decisions lean towards that physical reality. Did the ball hit the line or not? And there isn't a kind of deliberate foul element to it. Whereas actually in football, there's more judgment and there's a kind of different set of, of flow.

I was, I was interested in whether those two things are kind of how you would also see it. And you also have some solutions about what you, Might want to do deal with this. So I thought you'd talk about your view on it and whether you think proposed solutions for this challenge. 

Daisy: Yeah. So I think you're right.

There's, there's different categories of decisions. There's ones that are objective or more objective, and there's ones that are more subjective. And I think when technology was first introduced to football, it was goal line technology. It was introduced in about 2013 and it was the same Hawkeye technology that's used in tennis and in cricket.

And it was used to tell if the board would cross the line or not. And I think by and large, most football fans would say that works really well. And it does eliminate a problem, it eliminates that problem of the referee just not being able to see what's going on. Just literally cannot see if the ball has crossed the line or not.

Hawkeye is automated, so it will send a message, I think, to the referee's watch. So the referee will instantly know if the ball has crossed the line or not. And then the referee can award a goal or not, as the case may be. And that, as I say, came in 2013, I think works pretty smoothly. And I think people were hoping that VAR would just be the next level.

you could introduce it and it would be as smooth and operate as well as, as, as the goal line technology. And I think it hasn't because a lot of the other decisions in football are not as straightforward or as clear cut as has the one across the line or not. So obviously the fouls are at the other extreme, they're just more subjective.

And you can, you can just debate them. And again, actually having endless debates about it doesn't necessarily help. Like maybe we just need to have someone on the pitch, make the decision and we move on. But I think the decision where I think we're all probably a bit surprised by just how controversial it has been and how it hasn't helped is offside.

Because offside felt like another decision that was very similar to, to the goal line decisions. It, you know, it felt like the kind of binary yes or no answer, which humans find it very difficult to judge. And technology is just tailor made to solve the problem. And so I think all of us, I certainly thought that technology would be a brilliant solution for offside.

And I think the weirdest thing of VAR has been that it's actually ended up potentially being the most controversial aspect of VAR. So that's something I think a lot of us didn't anticipate. So yes, you're right to say there's a kind of a bit of a subjective objective distinction, but even, even the more objective decisions.

have actually ended up causing controversy. 

Ben: And do you think that's maybe a reflection of the fact that we might need to re look at the offside law within that? Or do you think it's a problem of technology? And I kind of think it's interesting also you reflect on a couple of elements which I'm going to put under the flow of the game and the spirit of the lore, which I kind of think intersect with all of that in terms of, you'd want technology to help both of those aspects as well as get correct decisions, and you kind of want the rules of your game also to help those, those kind of things in spirit, and they all seem to interact, so I'd be interested in your reflections on that.

Daisy: Yeah, so I think, why hasn't offside worked, take that one first I think Why it hasn't worked is it's again a general issue I think with all technology when you apply all the cases we apply technology to sport is that most of the rules of sport were laid down in a pre technological era. So not just in a pre VAR era, but in an era before you even had video replays at all, or TV.

So a lot of these rules are laid down, the bare bones of them, in the mid 19th century. The off siders rule as we have it, I think, was adapted in 1925 or 26. But, you know, the origins of it are like the 18, 1860s, 1870s. And it kind of is designed as an impressionistic law. It's designed to be yeah, the ref, you know, obviously you know a human being's making that, and you're just trying to get him to make a judgment.

And then, over time, the offside rule has been liberalized. And a lot of people will tell you that the liberalization of the offside rule has probably led to, over the last 30 years in particular, So making the offside more friendlier for the attacker has led to probably more attacking football, more goals, more creative football.

There's probably even some quite subtle second order effects where it's led to play being expanded in the middle of the field. There's a persuasive argument that it's allowed for the development of, of, you know, high quality Guardiola's Barcelona and Spain and Manchester City, because it expands the space available in the middle of the park and it stops Defenders pushing up and, and narrowing, compressing band, you know, 20 or 30 yards either side of the halfway line.

So there's all these very subtle kind of things going on offside. And as I say, it was a purely impressionistic, you know, being, being judged in this very impressionistic human way that couldn't be precise. And so then what you've had is you've had this pre, pre technology rule, and then you've come in and applied a really precise technology to measuring it.

And as I say, it's just up, it's changed the way that law has been interpreted. And it's led to, I think, more offsides being given and offsides that people would never have noticed before, like the tiny kind of toenail or dreadlock offsides. Which would never have been given before. And there actually is an analogy with other sports, where you've applied technology and it's changed the game.

So in cricket, they brought in Hawkeye to judge LBW decisions, and it's led to spinners in particular getting more LBW decisions. But what's interesting there is there haven't been as many complaints, because this is, this moves into your next point you made about the spirit of the law, which is that, Even though in both cases, the technology has had a really big unintended consequences, unintended consequence, which was not the intention of the people bringing it in.

In cricket, people are fine with that because they think it's made the game better. And in football, they're not fine with it because they think it's made the game worse. And so in terms of making the game better or worse, I think there is a sense in cricket and in football, in all sports, you want to see skill rewarded.

And what you're seeing with more leg before wicket decisions being given is you're seeing the skill of the spinner being rewarded in a way that kind of feels fair and consistent. And it's actually stopped some of the sort of ways that batsmen used to really kind of have a little work around to avoid getting out of LBW.

They used to stride down the pitch with their pad and that would mean they couldn't be given out. And that didn't feel very fair. So the technology's kind of supported skill, it's gone with, I think, what most fans want to see, whereas I think with football it's gone the other way, and you're now getting, I think, I quote Roy Hodgson in the book as saying, you're getting very skillful moments that are completely in keeping with the traditions and the spirit of the game, being ruled out for incredibly tiny infringements.

Yeah. And it's already very hard to score a goal in football. And I talk about this in the book. It's maybe one of the factors in the success of football, that it is hard to score a goal. But you don't, you know, we probably got the balance right where we were. You don't necessarily want to be making it hard.

You don't necessarily want to have very skilful moments being ruled out for offside. I think all of those things are the reason why it's been trickier in football. It just hasn't, the unintended consequence has been bad. It's not been what we wanted. 

Ben: I think that seems really fair. I, because I was thinking of another example just because of the Olympics it's the only time I watch it, is Taekwondo, where it's actually become a real part of the game, but there's a sense of fairness.

It's they can look at it. Did it hit the head? 

Yeah. 

Ben: Which is usually a skillful moment. And if it did in the, in the referee missed it, then actually we can reward it and there's limits and things like that. I wasn't aware of the cricket analogy on LBW, but I can see that rewarded for, for, you know, Yeah, for spin.

It's also rewarded in that as favor. But I guess there's that other element you talk about is actually in football. It seems to interfere with the flow of the game, particularly I think if you're watching it in person. Yeah. Whereas I guess cricket's a little bit more episodic anyway. So you've got, you know, you know, you bowl in and you, things like that.

And I guess even in Taekwondo, whether I think there are a little bit of thinking, all does it. Does it offset the rhythm of the game? They have a certain rhythm anyway, and actually the fighters don't mind having a tiny little bit of a break. So it kind of works slightly in their favor on, on the fitness part.

Whereas actually in football, all you're doing is kind of waiting around. And so if you had a movement or there was a certain rhythm to the game, it resets that, which, which probably puts it I guess against the team which has got some sort of momentum anyway, so I'm not sure about that. But it seems that fans don't like it.

Daisy: Yeah, I think it's, I think there's a couple of issues. So I think one fundamental issue, which is kind of hard to overcome, is that football is just fundamentally a very fluid and a very spontaneous game with very few natural breaks. And that makes it very different from cricket and tennis. where you've got these successful examples of being used, and as you say, probably taekwondo and other sports as well.

Certainly very different from American football, where there's lots of frequent breaks. So that's one kind of fundamental factor that I think is always going to make it hard in football, that you just don't have the natural pause. And so you're, you're inserting a pause that isn't natural into the game.

I think there's another issue which is where it has been badly managed and badly implemented, which is the in game experience for fans is not great. And this is partly a little bit of a hangover of other issues to do with football. So football's always a little bit uneasy about showing in grand replays because they're worried that it will just, if you show, show an error, then it flat fans will go crazy and you know, it'll inflame people.

So it, it, it's, that's, that's kind of one prior issue, but I would say I watch a lot of cricket live as well as football. And. When the technology was introduced with Cricket, the actual in game experience for the fam is quite good. They would show it on the big screen, you could turn around, you could see the replay, you could see what the umpire was seeing you could hear the audio, if you, if you, you know, you can have that as well, and and they flash up the little graphic for the LBWs of the three red lights, and you, so you, you really know what's going on.

And of ways it added something to the, to the game, both at home on TV and in the ground. And it added, you know, the sense of there would be that moment you, you did lose the spontaneous moment of celebrating a wicket in the moment, but you kind of gained because you got to see it on the screen and there was a moment where you could all see what happened and you could cheer or what have you.

I think with football, as I say, watching a lot of football live too, the first thing that really hit me was just, I just didn't know what was going on. And again, compared to that example with cricket, it just felt like you were, you were just really confused. So I was at the first match in the Premier League in 2019 where it was used and it was Raheem Sterling was given offside against West Ham so he set up a goal and then they went back and checked it and nobody really knew what was going on.

You know, so things aren't flashed up on the big screen, you don't see the replay, you don't see the deliberations, you don't hear anything. They've chosen now to start releasing some of the audio after the event. But, you know, that's not the same. And they've done something now this season where they release a little typed explanation of why that decision was made about 15 minutes after.

And again, you know, that is not, to give that cricket example, that is not, oh, we've got the three red lights, the third red lights go, we can all cheer. It's nothing like that. There's a lot of confusion. And you get a situation where, you know, there'll be people in the ground who are texting people at home to find out what's going on.

And you're like what is the point? Who is the game for? And this is obviously where you get into bigger issues about modern football. Is the game for fans in the ground or is it for the much, much, much bigger TV audiences watching at home in almost every country in the world? And that's a challenge football grapples with in lots of different ways, not just VAR.

Ben: It sounds like you should become a part time football advisor for this Little period because I think you suggested maybe let's have a pause. Let's have a moratorium Let's gather things and get expert opinion and fan opinion say Where has it improved both the spirit of the game, you know? And I think like you say they probably go back to at the minimum the hawkeye for out of bounds decisions and goal decisions and maybe there can be a little bit more of a debate you're right The interesting thing is is one on the off side and I've seen some of those but where it's so close And you kind of feel like well You know, who could really tell it's only going to be, it's only going to be the computer.

Was also really interested reflecting on it. And I think you, you mentioned this as well at the really high level. One of the reasons I think sports are really interesting and particularly football is it seems to reflect a lot of what goes on around humanity, what humans think, creativity, how modernism goes and things.

And on one level, the reading of your book on VAR argues for these kind of limits. Of rationalism, maybe limits of technology. And I think that's a really interesting backdrop because if you take it out to the wider world, there's a lot of debate on how far we go with utilitarian thinking, how far we go with cost benefit analysis.

And even, I guess, in your kind of other day job world, quantitative marking versus a kind of human judgment element. So I guess bringing it all together, where do you see the limits of, of Rationalism. And is it a limit of rationalism or is it a limit of technology or where human judgment is? And how do we best figure out where we should draw the line or how we should move the line with time?

Daisy: Yeah, absolutely. So there's lots of big issues there. So I think one is when you have a very rational and very, I call it in the book, I talk about the difference in the letter of the law, the spirit of the law. You have a very rational, very precise, very letter of the law kind of system that maybe can be applied by, by computer.

I think the problem with that is it sometimes misses some nuance, it misses, it can be a bit bloodless, it can be, it kind of tramples over some of the, you know, the qualities of something that make it what it is. And again, I think the handball, the handball decisions are a really good example of that.

You've applied this very cut and dried letter of the law approach where you've said, it touches the hand, effectively, it's offside. We're going to take away any human judgment about whether it was deliberate or not. And you just opened up a huge can of worms. And, and caused all kinds of problems and actually, you know, the past five years have been so much backtracking and rewriting of the law and what have you to, to kind of try and deal with what they've, what they've unleashed.

So I think in that sense, it has been a case study in some of the limits of, of rationalism and some of the problems with just trying to apply very hard and fast cut and dried rules. But obviously, You can't live a world without rationalism either. And I talk about the limits of the spirit of the law approach, so a more impressionistic approach, as I say, where you're trying to take into account common sense and have a bit of discretion.

Those systems aren't perfect either. They result in a lot of inconsistency, they can end up with bias, they're very hard to scale up and you can just end up with something that looks very, very different. There's this, you know, as I say, the lack of consistency there. So they both sort of have their tensions, and I think you can see these tensions in lots of fields, and there's lots of fields that have to try and reconcile them in one way or another.

And one of the things I talk about in the book is you're always looking at trade offs. So a big thing I talk about in the book is we have to get away from the search for perfection. So I talk a lot about trade offs in other walks of life. I talk about trade offs in an area a lot about with evolution.

So I quote from an evolutionary scientist who talks about, you know, in evolution we could have the amazing long distance vision of an eagle at the cost of not having very good color vision. You know, everything in life, you're sort of trading off on different metrics. And one of the things I say is, I think what we've gone for with VAR is we've tried to maximize, we've tried to dial, turn the dial right up on accuracy.

And before VAR was introduced, you would hear a lot of fans, managers, players, they would say, we just want more right decisions. We just want more right decisions. You know, VAR became this accuracy maximizing kind of system. And then all of a sudden you realized once VAR came along, actually, we don't just care about accuracy.

You know, just like maybe, you know, with eyesight, actually, we don't just care about long distance. Actually, we care about the color vision too. Actually, can you plug some of that back in? And what we realized with VAR is we don't just care about accuracy. And I quote Rio Ferdinand saying this from the very early days of VAR.

He said, actually, simplicity matters too. You can't get carried away spending five minutes on a decision, because one of the things that people like about football is it is simple to understand. So there's all these other things that suddenly we're realizing, oh, actually, maybe it isn't just about accuracy.

So we need to think of the trade offs and maybe two dials, maybe more than two dials, you know, series of dials. And we've got a series of factors that are going into our optimization curve. And this is where you can have rationality to work out how much rationality you want. Yeah. And I talk about this and some people won't like this either.

Some people say let's just stick with the old way. There'll be errors, there'll be mistakes. It will be inconsistent. It might be biased. Get on with it. And I talk about other ways we can maybe start to think in a more mathematical, rational way with the, but the acceptance that you can't maximize for rationality, if you like, and, and, you know, to think about like an optimization curve.

And I say, one of the problems with VAR is it promised greater accuracy. And it's ended up you haven't really got the greater accuracy and you've lost other important things too. So you've ended up with the worst of both worlds. You know, you haven't maximized on any of your, of your values. And so what you want to try and do is to, is to try and get something where you've got a, you know, some level of consistency.

You've also got some room for discretion to get the best of both worlds. We've ended up, I think, with the worst of both worlds. And the analogy I give there is, is racehorses. So another one from evolution. Races have been bred over time again and again, again for speed. And their bones, essentially, if you read them for speed, their bones, their bone density gets, gets, you know, gets, their bones get lighter and, and then they get faster.

And then obviously, but you're approaching cliff edge, right? And then you get to that cliff edge and their bones are so light, they break. So you can optimize, optimize, optimize, bang, and then you end up with nothing. Right. And I think that's kind of where things have ended up with our, we've ended up with nothing.

So what I'm saying is we need to try to strike the sweet spot between all the values we're interested in. We don't want to get to a position where the game's bones break. Yeah, that's my, that's my analogy. 

Ben: And you argue it very well in your book. So if you Given a magic wand and you could change anything about football.

In fact, you can change some of the rules or anything else if you like as well. What, you know, one, two or three things would you change about football today? 

Daisy: I would, as I say in the book, I'd like to pause VAR, I'd like to do some trials around different ways of doing it. I would love to just, you know, kind of a lower stakes league or competition.

And actually they are doing this at the minute and I'm really intrigued to see how it works out. I'd love to trial a player challenge system in football. Because one of the things I write about in the book is that player challenge, you've got it in cricket, you've got it in tennis, although tennis, I think now is moving to a fully automated system.

But in cricket, you've got a player challenge system. And again, what's weird about this is player challenge doesn't necessarily really need some more right, lead to more right decisions. So there are lots of examples of players who make challenges that are just wrong. Like players are worse than umpires at making decisions, right?

But again, this comes back to, do we actually want more right decisions? People are happy with it, with the system. Like everyone's yeah, okay, fine. It works. We move on. And so I find it really weird that a system that has probably not really optimized for accuracy has got acceptance. Whereas VAR is more optimized for accuracy, but hasn't.

And so I'd be really intrigued to see, can you make a player challenge system work in football, given the constraint of it being a very fluid game with fewer natural breaks in play? And actually, I found out recently that they are trialing this in a couple of FIFA youth tournaments women's tournaments, I think.

So I'd be really interested to see how that goes. 

Ben: Oh, yeah, that would be interesting. It's interesting looking at, A couple of other sports, I'm just thinking back to the Olympics. Taekwondo is quite interesting because it's your coach who makes the challenge, although the player can indicate to the coach.

But 

Ben: one of the nice things about that, it just shows the importance of the fact that it's a kind of team, that, you know, the coach is really important within it, and they're having a different view. And I think they are slightly more often right than not, but they're not right all the time. And actually, they use it for different tactics as well.

But then I was also thinking of I remember the the Clay Pigeon Shooter, I can't quite, Skeets I think they call it, and when she saw it, and in fact a lot of people in the audience saw it, but it didn't register but then she was just really sporting, or at least in the interview she said, you know, that sport, it happens, some decisions go with you and some not, and so that kind of felt you know, some uber spirit spirit of all of that.

Maybe that's a good pivot to thinking about rationality and challenges to your other hat you wear, which is within education. And maybe you'll ask the same question within that, although maybe it's a, it's a, it's a bigger one or not. And if you had a magic wand and you wanted to reform, you know, a few things about education, I'll, I'll keep it simple by just saying maybe education in England, although you could tackle the world if you want.

Africa, US or something else. But if you had your magic wand around education you know, what would you do what would you do for that? 

Daisy: Yeah. So this is another interesting one. This is another big trade offs one. If you were just giving me a blank sheet of paper to design the perfect kind of, you know, school curriculum and assessment system, I'd have all kinds of crazy ideas.

But we don't work in that world. No one ever works in that world. You always are working with what's gone before. With the reality of the system that you inherit and particularly in the UK at the moment and there's a curriculum assessment review going on in England at the moment. And one of the issues I think with it is is there are big issues at the minute in England with recruitment and retention of teachers, big issues around workload.

There's an SEN crisis. Students being diagnosed with SCN and not the support to, to, to, to help them with that. And so you're in a situation where, let's imagine again, you designed the perfect system on paper, but it was so complicated that even more teachers left, experienced teachers. Is that then the perfect system?

It's obviously it's not, is it? You know, again, you've traded off too much. So my thing at the minute is I think the English system, obviously it's not perfect. No system is perfect, but I would say there probably needs to be a few, some incremental, improvements as opposed to kind of massive wholesale reform, because I think you have to recognize where the system is.

I think one incremental improvement I'd really like to see, and it's part of my day job, is the way that writing is assessed at primary. at age 11. So I think the current system has a lot of issues, a bit like what I talked about with the handball and VAR in that you've got these rules, these very pernickety rules that are applied very precisely and don't really give you the outcome that you're maybe hoping for.

And that's one of the reasons I got interested in thinking about handball because of the day job, the work I do in writing assessment. So I'd love to see a bit of a change there. I think that would be really good. And the technique that I use in my day job, we use a technique for assessing writing called comparative judgment, which I also talk about in my book about VAR, because I think you could use it to measure fouls.

It's essentially a method of using aggregated, combined human judgments. So combining together lots and lots and lots of human judgments to come up with a more robust decision about something. And by having thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of human judgments, you're able to kind of cancel out the errors and the bias within them.

I'd like to see a bit more of that for writing assessment, and I'd like to see a bit more of that in football. A couple of other kind of smaller things. Again, another thing I talk about in the, the VAR book, which I think is relevant to, to assessment in England I, I am not a huge fan of grades.

So I, I do like assessment and I like kind of scaled scores and robust measures, but grades are essentially they're lines that are drawn on top of a continuous distribution. So a grade, you're just chopping up a continuous distribution of attainment into quite arbitrary chunks. And the problem with that is it's quite distorting.

And I talk about this actually with FAO's and the clear and obvious issues you've had with VAR. About what is a clear and obvious error. It's unfortunate there isn't a hard, a hard and fast dividing line between clear and obvious, not clear and obvious, there isn't a hard and fast dividing line between foul, not foul, there's probably a distribution of fouls, and then we draw an arbitrary line.

slightly messy, fuzzy line and say if you're on the one side of it, it's not a thousand, the other side it is. And that's all a grade is. A grade is a line, a fuzzy line on a, on a continuous distribution. And the problem with this in assessment terms is that you have students who have very, very similar scores and very, very similar attainment profiles, but if the line kind of splits them, they're just either side of it, they get given a different label.

And that actually causes all kinds of real world practical issues. So wherever possible, I would prefer assessment results to be reported as some kind of scout score rather than a grade. And at GCSE, there are nine grades. So the problem isn't quite as acute because nine grades is quite a lot, but at primary there's three grades and three grades is like the worst number and everyone just treats it as bottom, middle, top.

So kids get put into these three categories and they come to kind of, you know, label who they are, bottom, middle, top, and there's just so much imprecision there that causes so many problems. So I'd love to kind of move away from that. I think that would be something that would be a relatively light touch tweak that could have, you know, positive benefits.

Ben: I didn't think about it in that way. That seems really sensible observation. And maybe I've got some reflections on the pros and cons of streaming with that as well. I go back to one of your earlier reflections and try and loop it all together. I think that's really right about, you know, we've been path dependent with the system that we have.

I tell this a lot of people who, so my mom's from Singapore and there's a lot of people say, Oh, we can do it this Singapore way. And I said You can't because Singapore have got this path dependent thing and actually there's a lot of cultural aspects. So in schools, Singapore schools don't have any sort of same problems that we might have with mobile phones.

Because if you're caught using a mobile phone in an inappropriate way in a Singapore school, you will lose your phone, your parents will back it up, and everyone will think you're a real punker for doing it. You don't get that same cultural element. I'm, I just use it as a silly example. And that, and it counts in health all over.

So we think, Oh, let's do the Singapore system. Wow. If you thought like Singapore and you were a city state, maybe you could, but England England is not like that. I think that's a 

Daisy: hugely, hugely important point you make. And I think path dependency is a concept that, yeah, needs to be better known.

My favorite example, actually my favorite example of path dependency is English spelling. So English spelling is a complete nightmare. If you were designing English spelling now, you would not design it to be anything like what you have. But it's, if, if we revised it now on a more rational and sensible basis, again, limits of rationality, you would then be in a situation where it would be incredibly hard to read anything written before that year zero.

So you would lose access to all of that kind of, 1, 000, 1, 500 years, whatever, you know, how much, how much writing you would, you would lose. So I mean, maybe less than that, if you look at some modern English, but you would, you would lose touch with a solid few centuries of writing. You would make it much, much harder to access that.

And you would have huge transaction costs switching from one method to the other. It would just be, be crazy. Right? So path dependency is we have to put up with the letters, you've probably seen that funny, funny thing that you can, you can spell the word fish, G H O T I because of the different ways that all those, all those letters can be pronounced.

And so we're stuck with that. You know, unfortunately we're stuck with having to teach students a very irrational code. That you would never have done if you had designed in the first place. And you can see those path dependencies in every part of a nation's policy. And so the corollary to the sort of path dependencies, you can't cherry pick.

So you're absolutely right, I think there's lots of things to admire about the Singaporean education system. I don't think you can just pick out, kind of, certain things that you like and go, right, we'll plonk them into England. Because those things exist within a whole network of history and policy, and often quite unspoken assumptions.

And that's a good example, if you want, about the mobile phone. But there's loads of these, and I say the same as well, people talk a lot about Finland, and Finland having a great education system, we should copy what they do. And a number of issues with that, one is that actually, almost as soon as people started saying this, Finland actually started to slip down the international league tables, that was one issue.

But another issue is that, again, you look at the history of Finland's education and Finland as a country, and it's got an issue where teachers are very highly regarded. It's a very prestigious job. It's a small country. It's a small country where the role of teachers and, and the role of teachers in the winter war against Russia was, it was a really big deal.

The sort of aspects of people identifying their national culture and, you know, one of the key aspects in their modern history, all of these things are kind of bound up with their education system and the role of teachers. How can you possibly kind of import that into, into England? You can't. And there's another issue too with a lot of countries that have good education, it's often quite small.

Yeah. 

Daisy: And I think there's something as well about reform processes in smaller countries. There are probably things you can do when you can get all of your secondary heads into a pretty big auditorium. That you can't do when your country is bigger than that. And again, these seem I think to a lot of reformers, I can seem really like I'm just nitpicking here.

But these are big issues. These are really big issues. And yeah, you know, you have to look at a whole system and its whole context. Rather than just trying to pick things out and plonk them in. 

Ben: That's absolutely right. Particularly with Singapore, there's things to do with scale, there's things to do with culture, path dependency.

We need a new, some social science, some interdisciplinary social science, which looks at things like path dependency and trade offs, football and education. Some sort of historic things going on. This is, this is the way, this is the way we should do it. So I was thinking back to your book on seven myths of education.

I was interested if the weighting of anything that you wrote then has changed today, because I think it's maybe a decade a while you wrote it. I'm guessing, I'm guessing not. And I'm going to quickly go over some of them. You know, one was about this fact, you know, knowledge based knowledge, rich sort of curriculums, prevention, preventing understanding that on, on skills, teacher led instruction being passive.

The fact that 21st century will say technology changes everything the kind of, you can always look it up, just look up Wikipedia or AI. This thing about too much emphasis on transferable skills, whatever that's meant to be. And we've already alluded to the fact that a lot of these things are much more intersectional than you think.

And that projects being the best way to learn. And then I guess one, which is kind of political or that teaching knowledge is meant to be indoctrination. I particularly, I guess on the first one on this knowledge based or knowledge rich understanding. I think that still definitely seems to be holding up.

Would you put the emphasis on any of the others differently or would you call out that? Because I think, you know, I would just look at it from afar. Not everyone, but I think a lot of systems have tilted a little bit back towards a kind of knowledge rich curriculum if they had strayed towards this kind of skills idea, although, although not everywhere.

But I'd be interested in your view. Would you put anything emphasis or would you, would you put something else kind of different in that, in that list today? 

Daisy: Yeah. So just for a bit of context, yeah, I wrote the book 10 years ago. I was, I, I was writing about how knowledge was important and how knowledge had been a bit downgraded in education.

And I was making the case for the value of knowledge. And that you can't have a skills based curriculum because of the nature of the relationship between knowledge and skills. I think when I wrote that 10 years ago in England, it was a controversial book. You can see from some of the reviews I had at the time people didn't like it I think 10, 15 years ago, knowledge was a bit of a dirty word.

It was seen as something very passive, very low value, very, you know, something that you had to kind of, if you did anything with it at all, you whisper it very quickly to get onto the higher order skills. And that was the thing I took out in the book, the idea of lower order knowledge and higher order skills.

I think things have changed a bit in England in the last 10 years. So the, the, the, I think you can now have more of a conversation about knowledge. There's more things are known about cognitive psychology and cognitive science, which I write about as, as well. So I think the, the, The debate has moved on a bit.

I would say globally, though. And, and outside of the sort of niche English education policy world, I think there's still a lot of lazy tropes around. I think the one that I would, of the seven chapters in my book, each one's in with a different myth. The one that I just come back to again and again, it feels like banging my head against the wall is I think it's number four.

It's you can always just look it up. So this is something I think that goes beyond education. It's just a, an idea that people have about the world that now we've all got a smartphone in our pocket. We no longer need to know anything. And, and the latest kind of iteration of that is we've all got, we haven't just got Google, we've got chat GPT.

So we, we don't just have to Google it, we can chat GPT it. And what I try to show in the book is this is not actually necessarily a technology issue. There's an issue to do with the limitations of our cognitive architecture, which is that we have a very limited working memory that can only handle certain number of new items at any one time.

So whatever kind of fire hose of information is being thrown at you by Google or chat GPT, however easy that information is to access, you have still got this very narrow pipe that you can get that information into, into your mind. And you still need in order to make sense of it, all of the information you have stored in long term memory.

So there's quite a lot of paradoxes here. It's that in order to make sense of something you see on Google, or indeed in order to construct a decent Google query, you need to have already a lot of information in long term memory to help you do that effectively. And actually Google and Chatterjee are not going to be the most effective ways of acquiring that information in the first place.

So in order to gain knowledge, you kind of need some knowledge to begin with. You can't just set students off on independent inquiries to learn everything for they need from, from, from Google. And I think actually in the last few years, we have started to see more and more people are realizing the problem.

If you just let people go off and do their own research and, and, and where they end up in the rabbit holes, they can end up in. Yeah, I think the point I'm, I'm if I was gonna, you know, maybe I'll, maybe I'll do a second edition of Seven Myths About Education. I, I, I might, might try and update that chapter and, and just try and press home a bit further and update it to include some bits about AI.

I 

Ben: mean, it is remarkable as a kind of, again, a far observation about how knowledge from certain domains this is more just kind of in research don't really filter in or the people who can make these kind of comparisons, kind of like you have done with, with football and, and education, it doesn't seem to be prevalent.

So one thing I think, and I think you, you talked about this cause it's very well known in cognitive science is around, you know, spaced repetition, you know, putting things into long term memory. 

And as 

Ben: far as I know, I don't know, do, do they teach that to teachers or is it like a, a common practice within learning?

Cause it still seems to me niche when I kind of talk about it to people and, you know, there's efforts and things around it, but there definitely seem to be cognitive techniques, which are known within cognitive science, but don't seem to have passed through yet. And maybe we can say this a about education.

Pedagogy as well. And the fact that a lot of these debates kind of within education, you know, listening to your sort of history of education podcast as well, kind of go back maybe hundreds of years, maybe even a couple of thousand years back to the Greeks who had some of these debates as well. Yeah.

So I was interested in your reflection on both, both maybe space repetition and, and how much these arguments have been around for such a long time. 

Daisy: Absolutely. So I think on the, yeah, the issue of the space repetition, the cognitive science, this is something I talk about a lot in my book, that we know more now about how the human mind works than ever before.

And perhaps in the last 50 years we've, we've learned so much. And yet a lot of that knowledge isn't necessarily well known in schools or well known by students or even by teachers or in teacher training colleges. I think that is starting to change in England, but I think it's fragmented. I think back in 2014, I was on a government review of initial teacher training.

Which you know, flagged up that there were some issues around kind of, you know, that, that, that evidence being taught in teacher training colleges. I'm not sure how much better things are now. They, they, they, you know, maybe a little bit better, but I think it is patchy. I think across the profession in England, you have got greater awareness of things like retrieval, practice space, repetition, things like that.

Which I think is a good thing. I think there's greater awareness, whether that means everything's being implemented effectively all the time, you know, that's not the same thing as, as greater awareness, but the greater awareness is definitely a start. And there's all kinds of issues as well with, with students and their understanding of, of how they learn.

So I think there's a famous study. What, what do students do to revise their favorite, their favorite revision strategy is rereading and highlighting. And, and, and that's the least effective revision strategy. And I'll always remember seeing students revise and having their binder full of notes and pages that were, there were more words highlighted than weren't.

You think what, what is the value of this? Where is, how is this helping? You're going for it with a nice yellow yellow highlighter. And the most effective strategies are self quizzing, flashcards, spaced repetition. And often students don't know about those. The other thing is they can often be quite hard to set up.

And I think, again, in defense of the students as well, we don't often help them necessarily, not just in terms of what we tell them, but also the structures and the rhythm of a curriculum. So I think that's probably one of the challenges for teachers and students implementing new ideas, is it isn't often as simple as saying, our spaced repetition is amazing, you should all be doing it.

To do spaced repetition properly probably needs completely revamping your curriculum, completely revamping the kind of tests you set, completely revamping how you teach. It's not as simple as saying, I'll do some spaced repetition tonight. So these things, once you, you know, get into them, they're not, they're not always straightforward.

Ben: Yeah, not exactly. If you're doing spaced repetition, you know, really well, you need to come back to an idea maybe two months later or three months later, you know, in short doses. And that's obviously not how curriculums are designed to set up. You know, you do a module and you kind of go on this kind of back and forth and interlinking.

Daisy: And the typical sort of school test, I think typically students want to go away and they want to study for a test in four days time, and they want to cram what they need to know for that test and then, and then forget it. And actually, if you want to remember something for the long term with spaced repetition, you need to be revisiting it on that spaced repetition schedule, potentially over a very long period of time.

So reviewing it more in the early days, but continuing to review it as time goes on. Yeah, if you just cram, if you've got three hours to spend learning something and you cram them into one three hour block, that is not going to be as effective as splitting it into six, just for argument's sake, six 30 minute blocks spread over maybe six months.

Right. So you want to try and try and try and space things out more. 

Ben: That makes sense. A couple of perhaps more niche thoughts or questions I had. Cause I thought you'd been expert on this. School buildings. How important is the place where you study? Obviously you need to have you know, a minimum standard, I would imagine.

But then how much, how important it is to go further? And I guess just from far observations, you know, there are these sense of when you think about large public buildings, you know, Not only is there kind of the actual immunity So does the thing work and does it work? But these ideas of civic pride is it a nice place to work in?

Does it make you feel good those things which interestingness of a judgment thing are probably hard to put in in quantitative things And I guess in in in england, but Broadly, there is this debate about how much money we should spend on on buildings and schools and the like. So i'd be interested to see like how important a factor that the kind of building or the place you're working in or teaching in is versus all this other pedagogy and i'm sure they interact but i'd be interested in your view 

Daisy: Yeah.

So I think buildings are very important. They obviously are. But I think, as you say, you tease out a little bit there, some of the issues around why we think they're important. So if you have a fantastic school building that makes the students very happy, that makes the teachers very happy, that makes the teachers want to stay and work there and not want to leave, and it helps the students live healthy lives, but it doesn't really improve attainment.

Does that mean the buildings don't matter? So I would say no. If, if the buildings are doing all those other nice things. And the Civic Pride that you talked about and their community hubs and, you know, all kinds of features going on. If they do all those lovely things, then I would say that's a good in and of itself.

And you can see it as analogous to having a nice library in the town or having a nice, you know, a nice community center. So I think there's a section of having a nice building, it's just a good in and of itself, and it doesn't necessarily have to be justified beyond that. But I do think there are ways in which buildings can help or hinder learning, and given that we want them to be places of learning, we should probably think about the kind of things that do help learning.

And again, when we have to make the decisions and we have the trade offs, we should go in favour of the things that help learning. To what extent can they sort of help or hinder learning? We can consider examples of students who have learnt difficult things in the most unpropitious and difficult circumstances.

So again, you know, you want to be careful. I don't want you to get the message, if you haven't got a nice school building, you can't possibly learn anything. That's not true. There's one really famous modern British mathematician, statistician, I think Dennis Lindley, who learned a lot of his maths in an air raid shelter in the Blitz.

Right, so people can learn in difficult situations, and I think part of actually what you want to teach students, just as a general character forming thing for life, is you can overcome some hurdles, which is not fair that these hurdles are there, and it's probably not fair that you don't have an amazing building, but, you know, that is something you can, can still overcome.

And I would say even if you have the best design, so I do think buildings can have an impact on learning and can improve learning and make it more likely to happen, but even if you have the best design, best optimized building for learning, kind of what, how much difference will it make? That's an interesting one.

I don't know. And I think it will make some difference, but again, is it, is it, is, is, you know, Is it, is it even necessary or sufficient? I don't know. But then what, you know, what is the ideal building then? What is that? And I would say early in my career, I think I worked in some buildings that weren't ideal.

So I do think it's important to say there is a difference. And I worked in some buildings that I think made learning harder. So some buildings, you know, classrooms without walls. I've been in schools like that. I don't, I don't think they help. I think the noise, I think you need to form long term memories.

I think you need to be able to concentrate. I think silence can help with concentration. I think noise all the time makes it harder to form memories. So I do think there needs to be quiet rooms. There need to be some, some divisions between students who are doing things that are noisy and students who are doing things that are not.

And I think if you don't have walls, it's really hard to have the hat. So a basic, a basic, a basic requirement would be walls. And of course, there are lots of other kind of nice to haves. But again, it is striking, I would say, in modern Britain and kind of throughout history, how a lot of the most innovative and brilliant examples of, of, of learning environments are not necessarily the ones that have always the most brilliant buildings.

So we've got to bear that in mind, in mind too. 

Ben: Yeah. There's a very famous building which no longer exists, which was on the MIT campus, and it was a temporary. building, which then lasted for a really long time. Part of it was that they, I mean, this is more askance, but they were able to set it up how they wanted to set it up.

So that's a different thing, but it was the fact that it was actually very cheap and but had the minimum standards that they needed and for them, they could. they could also do that. So it's kind of an interesting interaction. One other perhaps niche one because I was reviewing some of your podcasts on the history of education and I hadn't realized back in history, I guess before you really had much government sponsored education or when it started around these working class thinkers and people who essentially came through a self education route, which had its pros and cons as well in this kind of history of self education.

And then the idea of why governments came in and tried to formalize education as well, which there were different debates. Some was maybe around status quo and kind of controlling your population. And then some was well, not others. But I was interested in your reflection, I guess, particularly with this intersection of, of working class or those who weren't going to be able to enter the system, which I guess is different today and, and how they came up.

out with sort of self education ideas. I guess it doesn't really argue against knowledge base because actually they came with a, with a knowledge, a lot of knowledge in that. And there's these other intersectionalities with working class and the like, but I was be interested in your reflections on that.

Daisy: Yeah. So I think that Yeah, this, this podcast episode you're mentioning, I talk about a kind of, I suppose the formal name for it is working class autodidacticism. So working class men and women who taught themselves in the absence of a really well established formal sort of state provision of education.

And it's been this, this is a little bit of history that's been forgotten about and it's a fascinating history because I've talked about people who, you know, they're doing great things without having many resources and not necessarily having any kind of building to help them. There's a, this fantastic history of working class people doing just this and founding their own institutes, founding their own libraries, finding the time and incredibly busy and physically demanding day jobs, finding the time to, to go and study beyond that time.

And really inspirational stories and people doing it sometimes to better themselves financially, but a lot of the time, just because they wanted to. They wanted to know stuff. You know, it was a personal development. And the book I talk about is a fantastic book by a historian called Jonathan Rose, The Intellectual Lives of the British Working Classes.

And he goes up to 1945, I think, about 1850, 1945, something like that. And it's, as I say, a very inspirational, very inspirational story. It's a bit earlier than 1865. He goes most of the, I think, a lot of the 19th century. You don't get state education in England until 1870. Even then, it's relatively patchy.

It's only up to 11. But it's, but before 1870, there is a lot of education going on still. And, and so it is really important to, to remember that, I think. Obviously, there's real patchiness with this, both in terms of not everybody has access to it, and that's one of the reasons you have the campaign for state education, and also in terms of what is it people are learning if autodidacts, as I said before, can go down rabbit holes.

And I think perhaps when I first read Jonathan Rose's book, it is easy to really romanticize some of this. I think, as I say, perhaps we've, we've seen in the last few years in, in lots of different ways, there can be a darker edge to autodidacticism there are real strengths and weaknesses to learning things slightly outside of formal institutions.

So one real strength of autodidacticism would be, you look at someone like Michael Faraday, I talk about him in the, in the podcast. So Michael Faraday is a real. You know, but kind of, do you, did he invent or discover electricity? I mean, you know, it's a philosophical question that he does a lot of laying the groundwork for the, the, the basic kind of the basic scientific implications of electricity, which found so much of our modern world, you know, he's a real pioneer and he's a very practical scientist.

He's a lot of practical experiments. He often hurts himself doing them. He's a great scientific communicator. He's. really, his early years are kind of almost entirely self taught. So he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a poor working class guy from London and he attends lectures at the City, I think the City Philosophical Institute.

He kind of just, you know, almost entirely teaches himself, makes that, makes contact, makes contact with people at the Royal Institution, a phenomenal story. What's really interesting is he is not influenced by anybody at Cambridge where they're doing. lots of pioneering scientific stuff at that time. And so he doesn't come across a lot of their scientific models.

And in some ways that's maybe quite good for him and quite freeing. So there's that kind of upside that he can think in a slightly different way. One downside is he's mathematics. He never really develops his mathematics and it takes James Clark Maxwell kind of later on to come along and kind of almost apply the maths to a lot of his work and to sort of formalize it in that way.

So that's the kind of ups and downs of it from someone like Faraday. And then I think you can probably see ups and downs in other ways, as I say, in a sort of slightly different way. Dark Age, if you want to it, but to what extent do you, when you're teaching yourself, do you go looking for things that reinforce what you want to hear?

And you know, is that an issue? There's a lot of research now. I think, again, if you'd asked me 10, 15 years ago, I'd have been quite naively optimistic that better education will kind of always lead to enlightenment and better agreement and consensus and choosing the right thing to do. There's a lot of evidence People who know more about a particular issue are actually, can often be more kind of ideologically motivated.

Ben: They get more entrenched in their view. 

Daisy: Yeah, and actually, when you're, if you know a lot about a topic and you're presented with evidence that disagrees with your prior information on that, again, you'll have more information to argue back against it. So I think they've done this with climate change. But they've done lots of studies where people you know, people are sort of shown information that and actually the people who are better informed about climate change are often kind of least likely to sort of change their minds.

So these things are really complicated. 

Ben: Yeah. There's another, I don't think there's another dimensions there. Which isn't often picked up, which I think it basically is an open mindedness dimension, which actually it overlays on that. And if you don't have that as your dimension, then it doesn't, it doesn't really figure.

And I think that's right. I always think of it as kind of relatively fat tails that actually you, you are perhaps more likely to make these more unusual discoveries and maybe step chain discoveries, but you're also more likely to go off the deep end and go down some craziness, which just ends up not to be true at all.

And so there is a trade off in that. 

Daisy: Exactly. And I suspect again, to come back to trade offs, which is one of our themes is we don't quite like to admit that we want to think again, that we can pick up one end of the stick without the other. 

Ben: But there's 

Daisy: probably an extent to which a lot of really big, groundbreaking, incredible, amazing advances.

I mean, what's that famous thing, you know, Newton, Newton believed in alchemy, you know, Newton, Newton was, was, was, was trying to turn base metals into gold, you know, that kind of stuff. People who are pushing the edges and pushing the boundaries. are often doing so in some ways that are brilliant, in some ways that might be, might be slightly mad.

Yeah, 

Ben: there's a lot of people who debate Elon Musk along those dimensions, right? You just come with all of those things. It would be a, you know, it 

Daisy: would be a good modern example, for sure. 

Ben: Okay, last one on the education thing, we're sort of wrapping up on some quickfire things. I think about this just on the, on this idea of trade offs, you know, there's some evidence that, In england, if you look at piece of scores that the middle is kind of okay, and it's kind of maybe improved in things But there's some observational evidence maybe or some debate around I guess in the tales So those which we could say of high attainment or them high talent in in many dimensions you know, there's some things feeling that maybe they're a little bit underserved And then on the other side those with sort of learning difficulties Or somehow some other socio economic or lens where they're underperforming You You know, like you said, actually the government spend a lot, successful government spend a lot of money on that and people, again, feeling that it hasn't quite worked out, I guess those are things on, on the tails and there's a trade off between concentrating too much on the tails when you've got the 60 or 70 percent in the middle, which you're, you're trying to give good education towards.

But I was interested in your reflections on that. And maybe if there's anything on the margin you'd do for those either kind of high attainment or those where we struggling with learning disabilities or the like. 

Daisy: Yeah, so if you want to think about this in terms of the trade offs and the optimization curves, I think if we're being honest, there probably is, once you get to the extremes, probably a tension between optimizing for high attainment or optimizing for students who are struggling.

However, I don't think we've necessarily kind of reached that point yet because you would only reach that point once you've maxed out the gains that benefit everybody, the improvements that benefit everybody. So to go back to what I was saying earlier about cognitive science based repetition, these are things that benefit every learner from top to bottom.

And there's an element of which, if you do really good teaching, and this is something I often say about, you know, a lot of the things we're talking about, the SEM crisis, there is an element of, not maybe for absolutely everybody, but there's an element of what a lot of SEM pupils need is teaching that's good for everyone, just, just really good.

Right. We do have things about the way we learn that are different. We also have a lot of things we have in common. So again, you can look at this maybe in terms of medicine, but obviously people do react differently to drugs and they do react differently to different dosages and you have to take all those things into account.

Human beings also are human beings and do have some commonalities and they have similarities in terms of, you know, the circulatory system, the digestive system, what have you. And I think there's an interesting way of looking at learning like that, that there are things that all learners have in common.

And there are clearly things that, that are different. But my personal thing would be there are a lot of tactics and strategies that can benefit all learners and we are not maxing out on them nearly enough. And I would say why don't we max out on those because those are low hanging fruit that will move the mean, that will move the entire distribution.

Let's max out on those and be sure we are getting absolute maximum return for things like the things I've mentioned. Greater knowledge of cognitive psychology, greater knowledge of better revision tactics, you know, organizing curriculums to promote space repetition, this kind of stuff. Let's, let's, let's, let's get all the gains we can from them.

Before we then start thinking, okay and how do we now optimize for these, these smaller groups and, and, and try and get the gains there that feels to me the right way to do it. And I think the issue I have sometimes when we want to slice and dice pupils up into ever finer categories and craft a, you know, completely personalized individualized strategy for every individual student is.

You can end up in difficult places there, you can end up in some very un evidenced places. I am slightly worried that their attempt to kind of do that and come up with these personalised strategies. I write about this in my third book, Teachers vs Tech. It leads to a promotion of some ideas that don't have very much evidence behind them, like learning styles.

And you get students saying you know, I don't want to read that book because I'm a visual learner. You know, can't I just watch the film instead? And actually there are all kinds of good reasons why, but you can't. You know, reading is different from watching a film. So my personal thing would be, let's Let's, you know, get these high impact strategies that work for everybody.

Let's try and use them as effectively as possible 

Ben: first. That makes sense. We're not maxed out on good things to do. Absolutely. So let's do that. Great. So a couple of fun questions for, for wrapping up. So in Britain, we have a quiz show, University Challenge. And you were a team leader back in the day.

What did you learn from going through? University challenge, anything unexpected or anything you'd share from that experience? 

Daisy: Oh gosh, such a long time ago, I'm not sure I remember it. If you get the chance, if anyone's listening to this and wondering about whether to do it or not, I would say give it a go, it's an awful lot of fun.

It's quite nerve wracking. Quite, quite tense, but really exciting and kind of a great opportunity. And it's a, it's a bit of a UK national institution that's been running for many decades now. So it's nice to something that you say you've been a part of. 

Ben: I think one of the reflections I had on, you know, watching a little bit of the episode and then your work and the bar book and the education book, and even where there's conversations go, there is something about having a broad base of knowledge.

Which then intersects where you can pull from one domain into another, which is a kind of transfer and it's this kind of thing, I wouldn't even necessarily call it a skill or a knowledge. It's just something where you can draw upon an evidence base, which does seem to go across these things. And actually something like university challenge where you have a lot of a lot across different subjects.

That's something there too. And then I was reading your blog about how fewer people, fewer students are doing, I think, English A level or maybe even English degrees. And actually, this is also maybe in a reflection that people are reading less reading less full stop. Although I think in particular, reading less fiction.

Yeah. Maybe there's arguments that we think somehow STEM, maths, or business want some other type of things. But I was wondering, do you think we should be reading more fiction? Or is this an appropriate trend? And if we are, should be reading more fiction, why should we? 

Daisy: Yeah. So I did a degree in English literature.

And I wrote about in this blog, as you say, there's been a real decline in the number of students doing English literature at A level and at degree level. A lot of, a lot of university departments are closing down and, you know, you talk to people involved in teaching and usually it's a bit of a crisis.

It feels quite, quite raw. And it's one of the things I'm keen to state is that it's not just happening in England. This is happening in other countries too. There are some outliers which are interesting, but there is a global trend to this. Why is it happening? I speculate for a few reasons. I think, what are students doing instead of studying English Lit?

In England, they're studying Maths. So I, I've got a graph on my blog where you literally show the two lines, English and maths going in completely different directions. So maths has gone from kind of, you know, about 10th most popular A level to number one. And, and English, English has gone from the first most popular A level, it's dropped out of the top 10.

So it's, it's really it's really extreme and it's happened in sort of 10, 15 years. Very, very rapid. Is it a bad thing? So there's a lot of people who will, I'm kind of hand wringing about this and saying it's terrible, but a lot of people say, is it a bad thing? Is this just life moving on? Actually people, you know, if you go back 100, 150 years, classics, everybody did classics.

A member of parliament in, in the British parliament could, you know, quote something from Virgil or Horace or, or whoever and expect that the rest of the house would understand that. We don't expect that now. Maybe that's just the way the English lit's going to go. Shakespeare was a touchstone and a lodestar of our culture.

Maybe he just won't be. Maybe people are just not thinking like this anymore and, you know, things change. People are studying maths because it's more useful. They can earn more money with it. I don't want to be anti maths. I say this in the article I wrote about it. I think, you know, It's, it's, it's a little bit mean to maths to just say it's all just utility, but maths has a beauty of its own too.

It's, it's got, it's, it's, it's a, it's a triumph of civilisation as much as, as Shakespeare's plays are, I would argue. So it's not about trying to be sort of anti maths. I think there are a couple of interesting questions. One thing talking about to teachers is, have we got students studying maths who are maybe doing it because they think it's the good thing to do but are struggling with it?

Is that a good thing? Can argue it. You know, maybe if they work hard at something and get better at it, it can be good if, if they're working hard and struggling and then, then and, and then they're not cut out for it. That maybe is a challenge. That's one thing. Does it really generate the economic returns we're hoping for?

Again, you can get mixed views on this. There is a suggestion. I think that mass a level is one of the very, very few A levels that you can actually point to a caus a causative link with increased earnings in future. So that's very interesting. But there's another point of view that says if you really want to focus on on economic returns, actually degrees, there's a lot of non vocational degrees where a lot of it is signaling.

And to the extent they offer a graduate premium, it's not necessarily to do with what you're learning. It's to do with the, the prestige of what that, what that piece of paper says about you. So that complicates any factor, any attempt to kind of work out the value, the economic value of some of these non vocational degrees.

And then to go back to, is it a problem if students aren't reading? Is it a problem? And I think, again, you can, you can see it both ways. On the one hand, is there a particular cast of mind that reading gives you? something more thoughtful, more empathic, the ability to get inside someone's head that perhaps you know, in a patronizing way, it makes you a better person.

Is that true? Is it not true? Is that a sort of part of an outdated ideology in an era that didn't have? video and and podcasts and different kinds of technology. These are, these are tricky ones. I obviously feel being an English literature graduate and reading being such an important part of my life that the thing I say in the blog is even if you strip out the kind of moral and beautiful and cultural aspects of the value of reading, it does still feel to me there is a utility to it that is very hard to get away from in that a written sentence is an extremely efficient method of communicating information.

And it can do things that computer code, video, and audio cannot do. And I still think that's probably the thing where it's not going to go quite the same way as classics because there is a virtue, there is a utility to reading and writing that are quite hard to reproduce in other ways. Whether that will save literature, I don't know.

Ben: Yeah, I'm part worried. I don't know whether it's at the English A level level, but I think it is important communication skills, and maybe we'll touch on one last question to do with oracy, communication skills, so that speaking, I think is still really important. Even more perhaps writing or writing and speaking, which are interlinked.

And I feel very strongly, and I think there's some evidence for that. Your writing and your speaking skills are influenced by your reading skills. Cause they are interlinked. So if you lose reading skills, that does impact writing and speaking to some extent or persuasion and communication, which is still really.

important. And so if we lose too much reading, then that goes there. And I would say, particularly for fiction, I think there is something important about being able to think in the world beyond yourself. And I think we sort of alluded this to, you know, where do you just go to your own rabbit hole? And how do you get out of that rabbit hole to be challenged by things which aren't necessarily of your world or of your character?

And fiction is, I think, a really good way of doing that. In some ways. above non fiction in this sense because you don't have to feel too jealous or emotional about this character because you could always say it's fictional yet the the fictional world of those characters and stories can really influence your own world view in some way and therefore having no fiction in your life would impair that and I think that would make us more narrow minded and I think more narrow minded world is both not as good a world but also not as good for society in general.

Daisy: So obviously I'm inclined to agree. As I say, I spent, I spent a large chunk of my life studying literature and I don't want it to, I quite like to carry on. And when I sort of examine these trends, I can get a bit gloomy, but I, what I want to try and do is just, it's really easy, I think, for literature graduates like me to just get in a bit of wishful thinking and say, of course it's brilliant.

We did it. Of course it's amazing. So I do want to try and be the kind of, the rigorous thinker who tests the proposition. Everything you say, I want to instinctively agree with, but let, you know, let's test those propositions. So first of all, the value of fiction, the value of an imaginative world, does it matter if that imaginative world is in text or if it is, if it is video?

Ben: Yeah, I guess so. It could come from movies. Does that 

Daisy: matter? Now I'm inclined to say, and I would go along with the, you know, Marshall McLuhan's theory, the medium is the message. I think there is something different. So I don't think the two are completely analogous. I said that before, you can't have kids, you know, when kids say, oh, I don't need to read the book, I need to, I can just watch the film.

Your films are different, they are different media, and there's different ways that they allow you to think, and there's things they can do and there's things they can't do. So I'm inclined to say that they are different media. But if you're, if the thing you're saying is just about but in trying to, you know, the value of a story or a narrative, can, can they tell a story or narrative in the same way?

What is it you're losing? What is it you're gaining from, from, from not reading? I think for me, there is something, as I say, that the difference in the medium, the things that are going on in your mind when you read that is different from listening to something or watching a video, how valuable are those things?

I don't know. I mean, maybe we're about to take part in a giant experiment where we find out. 

Ben: And I guess you're right, and the trend is moving away from us, so maybe they will be, maybe. And I think 

Daisy: the other thing, where I, again, I feel quite gloomy about all this, is we can kind of pontificate with this all we want, and let's say we sit here and we decide, no, absolutely, there is a qualitative difference between both, the difference between words and video, and the difference between, kind of, reading lots of, inhabiting lots of other people's minds in fiction and not doing so.

Even if we decide that's really important, there may well be cultural trends that we are powerless to change that are just beyond us. And, and then, you know, what do you do? How do you react in, in, in a world like that? Kind of what, what happens? And I think there's an issue here with schools as well, is that I think things that schools can do, and I think they do have a lot of power, and I think the national education system, I think it is funded to the tune of something like 100 billion a year or whatever, and you know, lots of people work in it, and you know, the things that students have to do because of it, so it does have a lot of power, but it also, you know, it still has limits, and I see a lot of people from a lot of walks of life who think if I can just put something on the national curriculum, then bingo, You know, I'll put, I'll put financial awareness on knitting on the national curriculum and then everyone will have a warm jumper and won't get ripped off by a credit card company.

And you're like you know, would that it was would that the national education system was this magic wand that you could wave and it would, it would respond in that way. So there is a lot of power in the education system. There are also bigger, bigger trends in education and society is in society that.

To an extent, it probably has to reflect as much as it can change and shape. 

Ben: These are 

Daisy: tricky things. 

Ben: I always think to what ability can we teach people to love reading, say, if that's what, even if that's what we wanted to do. Or, you know, everyone says, Oh, I love reading. I mean, read it in business blogs.

We want people who are curious. Is that a teachable thing? And what does that even mean within that context? And maybe you can teach it to some extent, but I'm pretty sure in school, every book I was, maybe not every book, but certainly books I was forced to read or rather heavily encouraged to read never had quite the same joy as the book you discover yourself.

So I don't, I don't quite really know how that. How that works out. Great. Last couple of questions then is would you like to highlight any current projects that you're working on now or in the future? Are you going to be writing another book? Projects. 

Daisy: Yeah. One of the things we're working on at No More Marketing, we have this really nice comparative judgment system of assessing writing, which we've been running for seven or eight years now.

We've got a really cool new addition to it, which does use artificial intelligence. We are, we've been playing around with lots of different ways of using artificial intelligence. We are very aware of its flaws. We are very wary of just throwing it at a system because we know the errors it can make and we've written about them.

But we think we have managed to come up with An idea that works quite well, and it basically allows teachers to give some verbal comments on a piece of writing as they're judging it, and for all of the verbal comments that many teachers make on that piece of writing, the AI, first of all, the first step it transcribes them all, and then second of all, it combines them all.

All of the teacher comments into a nice polished piece of feedback for the student and the teacher. So that's something that hopefully will save teachers spending lots of time writing out comments. So that's, that's a cool thing we're working on at the moment. 

Ben: Yeah, that seems like a good project. Great.

And then last question, do you have any, I guess we'll call it life advice or advice, I guess, to parents or teachers or in your career or observations of the world that you'd want to share? 

Daisy: Oh, good question I don't know, is there anything that's sort of generalizable and relevant for everyone?

I don't, you know, we talked about spaced repetition. I, I really love it. I think it's really cool. I think even if you're an adult and you're out of formal learning, it's a lovely way to kind of just remember more of what you read. And the earlier you start, it's like a pension or compound interest.

The earlier you start, the better it is. So there's a, what the app I really like is called Anki. It's, it's a little bit, it's a little bit complex. It's got a lot of features. It's not necessarily sort of ideal for, for young kids. It's a little bit not necessarily the most friendly user interface, but it's a really nice way of building your own personal library of flashcards of your own sort of personal memory store.

And one of the, there's quite a few sort of power users out there. And one of them says the great thing about a Anki is it makes memory a choice. So you can choose, you know, if you want to remember something, if you put it into Anki. There is a very high chance you will remember it. So I would say, yeah, that's a nice life tip.

I use it and it's something I wish I'd started using when I was younger. 

Ben: Great. So yeah, spaced repetition. With that thought, Daisy, thank you very much. 

Daisy: Brilliant. Thanks Ben.

Peter Gray: Transforming education, play, self-directed learning, parenting | Podcast

Peter Gray is a psychologist and author of Free to Learn. For many years, he has been studying play. He keeps a substack here. 

Gray discusses his perspective on the ideal education system, which he believes should be a bottom-up movement rather than a top-down imposition. He emphasizes the importance of self-directed education where children have the freedom to follow their curiosity and interests. Gray explains how traditional schooling stifles curiosity and playfulness, and traces the historical roots of the current education system. He also highlights the sociopolitical factors that have contributed to the decline of children's mental health, arguing against the popular notion that social media is the primary cause. Additionally, the conversation touches on the impact of economic inequality on parenting styles and child freedom. Gray shares his current projects, including initiatives aimed at encouraging more free play in schools and educating pediatricians on the importance of play, while offering practical advice for parents to support their children's independence and curiosity.

"If offered the opportunity to redesign the entire educational system as a top-down thing, me being the czar of education and telling everybody else what they should do, I would decline the offer...it really has to emerge from the bottom up."

"Education works best when the people being educated are in charge of it... Children are biologically designed to learn through exploration, through play."

"Our school system suppresses curiosity and playfulness...the two primary biological educative drives in children."

"Ask your child: 'What would you like to do that you haven’t done before that might be a little bit frightening but that you’d really like to try?' It’s how children build courage and how parents build trust."

Watch above or on YouTube, or listen on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen to pods.

Transcript and contents below.

Contents

• 00:19 Redesigning the Education System

• 01:41 The Role of Curiosity and Play in Learning

• 05:55 Historical Context of Traditional Schooling

• 08:26 Children's Rights and Freedom Over Time

• 12:11 Cultural Shifts and Parental Concerns

• 15:28 Impact of Economic Inequality on Parenting

• 18:53 Rise of Stranger Danger and Overprotectiveness

• 28:14 Common Core and the Mental Health Crisis

• 38:28 The Evolution of Reading and Technology

• 41:17 Balancing Screen Time and Real Life

• 43:12 Reflections on 'Free to Learn'

• 45:07 Evolutionary Psychology and Its Impact

• 50:28 Advice for a Fulfilling Retirement

• 01:00:04 Creative Processes and Inspirations

• 01:05:45 Current Projects and Parenting Advice

Transcript (This has been AI assisted so mistakes are possible)

Ben: Hey everyone. I'm super excited to be speaking to the psychologist Peter Gray. He is the author of Free to Learn and an inspiration to those interested in self directed education. Peter, welcome. 

Peter: I'm very happy to be here. 

Ben: If you could redesign the entire education system, what would it look like to you?

Peter: First of all, let me say that I would if offered the opportunity to redesign the entire educational system as a top down thing, me being the czar of education and telling everybody else what they should do, I would decline the offer. I think that, I think it has to be a bottom up movement.

No educational system is going to work. unless the families believe in it and want it. So I think that the way that the educational, I'll get to your question, to the intent of your question in a moment, but I think that the educational system, it really has to emerge from the bottom up.

My ideal would not be a single educational system. It would be the many opportunities for learning many different ways of learning, many different and where families would have options of what to do. Some families would homeschool, some families would get together with other families and create little parent co ops.

Some families would would opt for something different. But my own beliefs, of course, are that education works best. When the people being educated are in charge of it, that when the children, if we're talking about children, when children are making their own choices about what it is that they're doing and learning children are really biologically designed to learn through through exploration through play.

They're born highly curious. That curiosity leads them to want to understand the world around them. And they're born with this strong drive to play and play in many different ways and play is how children develop skills so that it's, if instead of the question, how would I design it for everybody?

What I would try to encourage everybody would be to create for their children or for the children that they would like to. draw into it opportunities for self directed education. This is what I've been involved in for a long time, where the children have many learning opportunities. There is all sorts of tools for learning available to them, where there are adults who can help them if they want help and whatever it is they're interested in, but where children are really free to follow to develop and follow their own interests.

That's really the education That I that I believe. I think that the first, that the years of life that we call sort of the school years, especially the early school years, up onto maybe the mid, up as far as maybe the mid teenage years, are really times for exploration, for discovery, figuring out who you are, what you like to do.

And what kind of life you would like to have once you're an adult we're not giving children an opportunity to do that now because we keep them busy all the time. We keep them busy with school work, which is mostly irrelevant to them and with with extracurricular activities outside of school. We don't give them much chance to really, I even asked the question, who am I and what do I like to do?

Though that's what children really need much more opportunity for. 

Ben: And why do you think traditional schooling, let's call it that, stifles curiosity and motivation so much? Is it simply because we've set them this curriculum and we fill it with all You know, our ideas, which might not be their ideas, or is there some particularly strong lines of evidence that you think that why traditional schooling seems to stifle so many children in terms of this curiosity, motivation, and those kind of things?

Peter: Yes both of those are correct. The, first of all, why does it stifle? Of course it does. You can't curiosity. is disruptive in the typical school. You can't have, the child who wants to explore things is disruptive in the classroom. You can't have, you can't have 30 kids in the classroom.

You can't even have 10 in the classroom. And expect them all to be interested in the same thing at the same time. They're all curious about the same thing. Curiosity doesn't work that way. You've got to, if you're going to have a, have an educational system in which you, in which children can explore based on their curiosity, you have to expect everybody to be doing different things.

You can't expect, you can't have order in the classroom, where everybody's sitting in seats and everybody's doing, and you also can't have certain, Expectations that everybody's going to learn the same things at the same time that just can't happen. And of course, curiosity is destroyed. So is playfulness.

Because if you're playful, that's that gets you into trouble in school. That's just so so our school system. So the two primary biological educative drives in children are curiosity and playfulness. This is nature's way of educating children and schools just have to shut them off. You can't run a school in our traditional way.

It has to be an entirely different concept of a school. But a somewhat, more historical answer to this is the original purpose of schools was precisely to shut off curiosity and play. The school, the schools that we have today, the western type schools that we have today, which are now all over the world, really started in the 17th century, even somewhat before in response to the Protestant Reformation, where the belief was that we need to educate children so they can read the Bible and so they will be obedient.

And so the schools were designed primarily in Prussia the German state of Prussia, to educate them. to suppress children's spontaneous ways of learning, deliberately to suppress that, that it was believed at that time that children were born sinful, and that things that they did themselves would be sinful and harmful, and that the primary thing that children needed to learn is to is to be obedient to authority.

And so schools develop deliberately to suppress children's own endeavors and get them to obey to authority, to the school master, as they were called at that time. And so a school system developed that for that purpose and we've still got that same school system. Nobody that I know who goes into teaching says, I'm going into teaching so I can suppress curiosity and so that I can inhibit playfulness and so I can indoctrinate children.

Nobody says that. But. Every teacher who goes into the traditional school system is going into a system that was designed for that purpose. And no matter what the teachers say they're doing or want to do, they are suppressing curiosity and they are indoctrinating. They may not be indoctrinating them in the Bible anymore, but they're indoctrinating them in whatever the curriculum is.

Because it the school system is not designed for questioning, for critical thought, for for people having really different ideas. It's designed for uniformity and it's designed for learning a particular curriculum, whatever that curriculum is. 

Ben: And do you think children have more rights today than or fewer rights, if you trace it back, historically children were allowed to work.

Then they were looking too long hours. We decided, Oh, that might not be such a great thing. But then rather than giving them more time to play we put them in an education system. And then there seems to be over history, talk about 50, a hundred years a kind of. tension between giving children more rights and more say in what they do and less rights or less ability to move around and go out and play or take their own transport and things.

How do you think that's evolved? What do you think we should be doing about it? And do you think children have more or less rights and should we be giving them more understanding of that? 

Peter: That's a really good question. So there's some ways. And there's some ways in which children right now have more rights than they have in at least in Western history, in modern Western history, they have more rights in the home to talk back to their parents to eat what they choose to eat rather than what their parents tell them they have to eat, to dress the way they want to dress.

We're even talking about the rights of children to change their gender if they want to do that, right? These are rights that were not present when I was a child as much as they are today. Certainly not present 150 years ago as much as they are today. On the other hand children in the past certainly when I was a child and before that weren't watched all the time.

We had certain kind of restrictions in the home, but we spent a lot of time outside of the home with other kids, playing, exploring, doing things that kids have always done. And there, children were free. And now we're not allowing that nearly as much as in the past. That's been largely cut off. Children are not free, at least in the United States, to just go out and play on their own and with other children, without adults there guarding them, protecting them, telling what to do, and so on and so forth.

So in that respect, children have far fewer rights. They have, as one author who's looked at the history of this put up, children have more personal rights in the home than they did before, but far less freedom outside of the home than they ever have had before. It's also the case that the school system over time, certainly since the years when I was in school many decades ago, has become far more time consuming.

And far more restrictive of what you can do within the school than it used to be. So school has become less free than it used to be. We used to have much more time for recess. We used to have a long lunch hour. We had shorter school days. And in elementary school, we didn't have homework. So when I was a kid, school was not as oppressive.

It was not as big a deal in children's lives as it is today. So that's the in the long run, in the very long run of human history. We were probably freest, children were probably freest when, back when we were hunter gatherers. The studies that have been done of hunter gatherer cultures that have survived into the 20th century at least, and studied in the 20th century children have amazing amount of freedom compared to children in any modern day society other than the hunter gatherer culture.

Ben: Yeah, I recall when I was 12, I took my first solo plane trip and now I think about it and speak to people are amazed that a 12 year old would take a solo plane trip and it wasn't a big deal. And I think there must be multiple causes of this decline of play or the the freedom or the agency that we give children.

What do you think are the major ones around it? Do you think it's just a cultural shift, the sort of media narrative and these institutions and structures? And if it is that, is it something which is going to be really difficult to reverse? 

Peter: Yeah, I think it is going to be difficult to reverse. First of all, regarding your solo plane trip, I, my son His first solo plane trip.

He, when he was 12 years old, he told his mother and me that he wanted to go to to, to England. He had been playing Dungeons and Dragons and he was really interested in castles and Neither his mother or I at that point had ever been overseas. He knew we were sticking the mud so we weren't going to go.

And so he planned, this was before the internet, this was in 1980 he planned his own trip he, and he announced to us that, and he said that he was going to go and he said, don't worry about the money. I'll earn the money, which he did. He was working, he worked in a restaurant first washing dishes, and then they put him on the line ticket.

At 12 years old and he earned his own money for this trip. He figured the whole trip out by himself at 12 years old. I believe he was 13 by the time he left. He claims he was 12. We've had a discussion about it, but I would have to look up the actual dates. But I think he had, I think he had barely turned 13 at the time.

I think he left after May 25th, which would have been his birthday. So that so that was, now that, at that time even then, that raised some eyebrows. But it wasn't, People wouldn't have regarded his mother and me as negligent. They wouldn't have put us in jail for allowing that to happen, right?

Today, they might. The airline probably wouldn't have allowed him on, unless there were guarantees he was going to be met. And on top of this, he was a child who's, Type 1 diabetes. So he, it needs to monitor his own insulin and all of this kind of stuff. No, I wouldn't do that today. Not because I wouldn't trust the child to do it, but because it would be so against the cultural grain.

So even since 1980, there has been a huge change in the way the culture looks at this kind of thing. So I think that the change in the culture has come from a variety of causes. It is interesting that In the United States, the biggest shift occurred in the 1980s. Some of this was building up gradually before, but the biggest shift in thinking about this occurred in the decade between 1980 and 1990.

And there are several things that happened in the United States that I think all contributed to this. One of them was was the election of Ronald Reagan as president and the and and a legislature that was with Reagan. And what happened beginning in the 1980s is that the economy changed dramatically in the United States.

Such that the gap between the rich and poor increased and has been increasing ever since. There's a lot of research that shows that when the gap between rich and poor is great, when you lose the kind of of safety net that occurs when government provides supports for people who are poor.

When you lose the safety of labor unions, which were more or less destroyed during the Reagan era, and when you begin to greatly decrease the taxes on the wealthy, and therefore have to cut back on safety measures for the poor. Suddenly now, parents become far more concerned about whether their children are going to make it financially or not.

Back when I was a kid, parents weren't that worried about that. I grew up in a working class family, and neither of my parents at that time had gone to college. My uncles, with one exception, were not college educated. They all had. decent jobs. They all could support a family. They could own a home.

They could even own a little cottage out in the country, and without, and it, and the ed, that this educational achievement was far less of a big deal. Then with these changes, people began to worry. And we also began, there were also other changes that occurred that, For a variety of reasons, some of those working class jobs went away.

People began to think that the way that I can make sure. that my child, or at least increase the chances that my child will succeed as an adult, is to make sure that my child is well educated, that they do all the right things in order to prepare themselves in what suddenly now is seen as a very competitive world.

We didn't see it as so competitive, and so there's actually research that shows cross culturally That in countries where the gap between rich and poor is great, parents are far more controlling of their children, far more concerned that they do the quote right thing educationally, far less likely to simply let them have leisure time and explore and all of these kinds of things.

than in countries where the gap between rich and poor is less. So for example, in the Scandinavian countries, Finland, for example, the, there the gap between rich and poor is far less than in the United States. And children are afforded much more individual freedom there than they are in the United States.

There's actually graphs showing that if you plot on one axis, the degree of economic inequality. And on another axis, parents attitudes about parenting and put it on a kind of controlling versus permissive spectrum, as you go out towards more and more economic inequality, you go towards more and more controlling, less and less permissiveness.

So I think that was part of it. In addition to that. In 1979 and then again in 1981, there were very much publicized cases of a young boy being kidnapped, in one case murdered, in the other case lost, never recovered. In both cases, if I remember correctly, there were six year old boys apparently snatched away by a stranger.

And suddenly we now had warnings about stranger danger. People were, you would hear in the United States in the 1980s, public service announcements, do you know where your child is now? And so the concern about watching your child all the time, because they might be snatched away. Now this is, was then an extraordinarily rare crime.

That's why it was so newsworthy. It's still extraordinarily rare. It almost never happens. But people began to become afraid of that. And that became a reason not to let your child out of sight. And that reason has even grown over time even for this irrational reason that, there's this tiny little probability, little chance that your child might be snatched away by a stranger.

It almost never occurs. But people think it occurs frequently because of the way it's publicized. So that, that, that played a role. And then there's one other thing that happened in the 1980s, also at the direction of Ronald Reagan, which was the a book that a federal analysis of our school system, which concluded, in fact, this was a foregone conclusion based on who was chosen to work on this study and write this book, that our school system has become too lax we are not keeping up with other countries, particularly not keeping up with the Southeast Asian countries educationally, and we're going to fall behind.

And so this book was published and that became then that initiated a new way of thinking what then was regarded as a reformation in schools, which was the opposite of the kind of reformation I would be wanting. More and more classes, more and more testing, less and less freedom of teachers to do what they wanted.

And then that ultimately became incorporated into the No Child Left Behind Act and then Common Core. Which greatly restricted what teachers could do in the classroom. So school became ever more rigid, ever more controlled by top down by a curriculum. So all of those kinds of changes, I think, are, have led to the system that is leading children to suffer so much today.

Ben: I hadn't put together the politics of it or the emphasis that Reagan had on, the individual and the ability or opportunity for jobs and that type of thing, as well as say, the stranger danger and articles on school. It's interesting because for instance, in Finland, you don't go to school until five or seven, even it would be, you could easily just go and no one would blink and in some cultures like in japan They make a big deal of the first time you could go to the shops yourself, which you might do at three four Three or four or something like that and have this you know that from the cross cultural and in the uk we had a big splash again with a missing child Maddie, I believe a daughter, which again became very salient, but to your point, the statistics of it are extremely rare, much more likely for all sorts of other incidents than that.

But I guess that brings us to the point today that parents fear that they will be bad parents, or, even there might be some legal act against them if they take their children out of school, if they feel that the school's not working for them and that type of Atmosphere or even within school just to try and give children perhaps more agency Around how they would live their lives even within the school system What would you say to parents who feel that they might be bad parents or what we can do?

Around letting children have a bit more agency in play 

Peter: Yes yeah, you make a good point that, so it has now become a moral imperative that you and in some degree legal imperative, not actually written in law, but treated as if it were written in law, about always minding your child, always watching your child the One of the things that's happened is that social child protective services in most states have a requirement that if somebody calls the police or calls the hotline and says there's a child out there not being watched by an adult, that they have to investigate.

And so a lot of parents who allow their child out in the way that. All parents would have and, decades ago have had this experience of social services showing, social protected, child protective services showing up at their home. If you're white and middle class or above, you will fight it in court and almost die.

essentially always win or win even before it have to go to court. But if you are black and poor, the statistics are there's a pretty good chance that they would take your child away. So people have become vigilant for that reason, even over their children, even if they know that it would be good for their child to go out and do these things on their own.

It would be developmentally appropriate. It would be valuable. The child would enjoy the child would grow from it. So people are afraid for that reason. And then in addition to that, it has really become it has become such a norm and it's been present for so long that people begin to feel that if you're not watching your child all the time, and if you're not there to teach your child and direct your child, that you're not a good parent, you're a bad parent.

And of course nobody wants to be a bad parent and even people who intellectually understand this, it would be perfectly safe for my eight year old, nine year old child to go play in the park by themselves without me. And they're perfectly responsible, they could do that. Even they, And even if they're not so concerned that some neighbor is going to call, but most people are concerned about that.

But even despite that, they might not do it because there's something in their head that says everybody around me says this would make me a bad parent. Maybe it would make me a bad parent. You don't necessarily think it through that way. But we automatically believe if we're not doing what other people do, Is there something wrong with us?

Is there something, we're all creatures of norms. That's part of being a human being. And if we're not behaving like other people are behaving, we begin, not only are we worried that other people are going to question us and criticize us, but we begin to question ourselves and criticize ourselves about that.

So absolutely. What can we do? I try to whenever I speak to parents and when I write articles and books to him towards parents, I really try to talk about all the what are the myths here and what are the things you can do? And given the constraints, what can you do in our society today?

Without that would give your child more freedom, more opportunity to play more control over their own lives, more more possibility that they can grow up with a growing sense of independence and responsibility and therefore become competent, mentally healthy adults. So the and there are things parents can do.

Ben: So you touched on mental health. And there's a lot of concern, in the media about mental health in children, although some of that might be due to more awareness and diagnosis and the like, and some of it might be a trend. I think you've argued for this connection between the decline in free play and the rise in things like anxiety and depression amongst young people.

We've had others more recently, hate who's made a lot of a kind of social media hypothesis, although there's been some pushback from that and some articles in nature. And I think you've been a little bit skeptical about whether the evidence is around that. I guess there's also a complication as maybe if you're if you have too much screen time, you're not out playing in the park, then again screen time might be one of the times when you are able now to get together with your like minded peers and hang out because you're not allowed to hang out elsewhere.

So you might as well hang out digitally. I've seen great adventures in things like Minecraft worlds or chat groups and things like that. So I'd be interested in your view as to whether there is, how strong the phenomena are. of concern about mental health in children is and perhaps the weighting that you would put on a decline in play arguments for it versus say social media hypothesis and the like.

Peter: I think it is primarily the decline in play, the increased toxicity of school, the way we do school and and and the decline generally of opportunities for children to do things independently. It's not just play. Play, I define as an independent activity. If it's controlled by adults, it's not play.

But other independent things, like just traveling around the neighborhood by yourself, getting places by yourself, doing what you did at age 12 and what my son did at age 12 or 13. Those kinds of things. Yeah. We don't even allow kids to go, downtown by themselves at age 12 anymore, in this country.

So that's, so all of that is, of course, that is going to make kids, that's going to stunt children's mental development. Now, in terms of the, in my mind, the best measure of the decline of the, of the decline of mental health is probably suicide rate, even though that's just the tip of the iceberg of suffering.

because it's a solid number that the way that you measure anxiety and depression, you're right, could possibly be changed in terms of people's willingness to report it, to admit it and so on and so forth. But the suicide rate is by 1990 was already about five times what it was in the 1950s for teenagers.

and it peaked in the 1990s. There's actually, let me spend a couple minutes on this because it, this also gets to the difference between what Jonathan Haidt believes and what I believe about this. Between 1950 and 1990, you had an upward slope of suicide rates. To the degree that we can, we have data on Based on assessments of anxiety and depression, those also were upper sloping.

Reached a peak, interestingly, in 1990. That was the peak. That peak was as high as it is today. We're not higher today than we were in 1990 on any measure of mental problems among young people. Fight ignores that totally. So that was all before the internet. That was all before most families had computers in their homes.

We had all, we had already been changing the nature of schooling. We had already been depriving children of free play and a lot of the freedoms that they had before by 1990. Then. What's interesting, and I only began talking about this recently, I tended to ignore it as everybody else did, things got better for a while.

Between 1990 and 2000, suicide rate went down. So did depression and anxiety, to the degree that we have reasonable measures of those things, went down. Not to 1950s levels, but went down by about a third of the way down. Then leveled off between 2000 and 2010. Now, why did they go down? The only answer I can come up with is they went down because of the internet.

It went down because we had by 1990, we had pretty much prevented kids from interacting with one another, playing, exploring, but now they had a new way to do it. They had a new way of doing it. They had they figured out how to use these computers before most adults did. Once that but by the time by the mid 1950s, by the mid 1990s, most families with teenagers had computers with an Internet connection.

They were playing games with one another. They were playing multiplayer video games. They were communicating with one another. They had also some kind of expertise that many adults didn't have. You would go into department stores in the mid 1990s to the computer section, and there would be a teenager there explaining how these machines worked.

So suddenly, kids found a new way to communicate. They gained a new kind of status in a sense, because they had figured this stuff out and I think that's why it went down. It didn't go back because this didn't, this was not as good as what kids had before back in the 1950s, when you could just go out and play and explore and do all these interesting things outdoors as well.

But this was better than what you had in the 1990s. Then So then the question is, why did it start going back up again? Beginning around 2010, it started going back up again, and we're now back at 1990s levels on all of this. We're not above it, but we're back at 1990s levels. We've still got the internet.

We've still got video games. What happened to bring it back up? And it's not that suddenly we're allowing children more freedom. I, my explanation for it, and I've written some blog posts about this. I'm currently writing a book that deals with this. But the, my explanation, Is common core.

This is when this increase, by the way, despite what height says in the book, did not occur worldwide , this increase in it did not occur throughout Europe. It just did not occur. I've looked at the data, it didn't occur there, . The suicide rate has been flat there. It was flat in Canada, it was flat in the whole EU suicide rates.

And as. probably the most reliable measure, did not increase among teens between 2010 And and 2020, which is usually the decade that Haidt is looking at so why did it increase in the United States and not those other places? Those other places, they have the internet, they have social media, they're not deprived of these things.

They're on it as much as our kids are, but they're not suffering in the same rate. Why not? It's because the suffering is not because of being on the internet. It's because the suffering is because we've done too much. What we've done with our schools, their schools changed dramatically with the onset of Common Core in the United States.

There's no question about that. Every study that's been done in which teenagers themselves are asked about what is it is the source of your anxiety and depression. Every study shows that the answer they give you far and away more than any other answer is school. And beginning after 2010, beginning with Common Core, really beginning around 2013 when most states had Common Core, that answer became even more common than it was before.

So just to give you an example of the American Psychological Association did a study in 2013 called Stress in America. They do this study every year with adults, but every once in a while they include teenagers. 2013, they included teenagers. They found that teenagers, by their measure, were the most stressed out people in the country.

And when they asked what the source of stress was, 83 percent cited school. Nothing else came close. You could list more than one thing, but nothing else came close. The same study that was done four years earlier, when they asked teens that question, it was something like 50 percent said it was school. So it jumps from 50 percent to 83 percent saying school is what's stressing me out.

I think that, and that, that was the time, and there were also by, at that time, by 2013, there were many more kids who said they were feeling stressed, they were feeling anxious, and so on, that was true. So Hyatt and some others show this curve, they don't show the fact that things were going down before that, or that we were just as high before, they show this curve and they say what else could it be?

This is when cell phones came into being. And my answer is something else happened at that same time. And that's this dramatic change in school. 

Ben: That's fascinating. I haven't heard that as well articulated and I look forward to reading your book on it. I wonder if there's any data then on depression rates or suicide rates in those who are at self directed places or homeschool, unschooled.

Because there's probably a large enough sample in the U. S. now. Of that, maybe even in the UK, because there's a reasonable home education part, and maybe that would provide some evidence for you. It also leads me to think that means that you're probably less worried than, say, the media would suggest on how children are using screen time.

And would you basically say that, that you could just let them be? And is that from any age, or is maybe nine or ten a little bit too young to have unrestricted screen time? Again, just let children be let them have agency. They can maybe suffer the consequences of a sleepless night. Maybe they'll learn from that.

Are you generally less worried about screen time or is there still an opportunity cost for these other kinds of play, which would be maybe similar to what hunter gatherers or others do have more outdoor play and or does it matter less as long as it's an independent child chosen activity, 

Peter: So I think one thing, if we want kids to be on screens more, we have to let them be outdoors more.

We have to allow them other options. And what that means is not putting them into adult directed sports. That's not play, that's just more like school. That means really allowing them to be kids, allowing them. So in self directed learning centers, kids are allowed to be on screens as much as they want.

And they are on screens a fair amount. Why wouldn't they be? It's the biggest tool we have today. It's a bit, it's a major educational tool but they're also outdoors a lot. They're also playing outdoors. They're doing a lot of things because they can. They've got a big menu and most of them are taking use of it.

Now, there's always been some kids, even when I was a kid in the 1950s, there's some kids, we call them nerds, right? They're indoor people. Back in my day, they spent all their time reading. Why would they read? Why would they want to read instead of go out fishing with me? I couldn't figure that out.

There's still some people given a choice. They want to be on the computer all the time, so that's the but so there's their individual differences. And we've now had this round long enough to know that those who are on the computer all the time, they can learn all. They go on to find lives, they go on to a whole variety of lives.

Many of them become computer technicians or computer specialists of one sort or video game designers, but they don't all do. Some of them go on to become anything they want to be. They develop skills, they build competence. The computer, these computer games are extraordinarily complex and difficult.

They're, they build your intelligence in ways that you can apply in all sorts of ways. So I'm not that worried about it. I do think, here's what I do think, especially for young children. So back when I was a kid in the 1950s, concerning going outdoors, doing things outdoors, parents understood that there are dangers.

And they taught us about the dangers. They taught us safety rules look both ways before you cross the street. If if somebody stops in a car and offers you candy to get into the car, go away. If they try to pull you in, scream at the top of your voice. We were all, Spirits weren't naive, they were, they knew there were some dangers out there.

The risks were pretty small about the stranger thing, but the risk was there and they taught us what to do. There was also general advice, generally speaking, especially if you're going to be out late at night, be with a friend, don't go by yourself, there's safety in numbers. There were these kinds of things taught to us.

I think. We also need to teach young people about safety on the internet. There are dangers on the internet, including the danger of just getting sucked into it and spending too much time, wasting your time more than even you would really want to do. So instructions in time management, how to control your time.

I also think it's appropriate to have certain rules about, I wouldn't take, I think it would be terrible idea to take away the cell phone. It's the most powerful tool we've got, educational tool. It's also a safety tool. If you, if something happens to you, you've got that in your pocket, you can call your parents or you can call 911.

Why take that away? But, There are safety things about it, don't, just like you don't, if somebody offers you candy to get into the car, if somebody meets you on the internet and wants to meet you and you don't know them, don't do it. These are common sensing. Most kids beyond the age of about 13 understand this or about the age of 15 understand more so today than in the past.

They're pretty savvy about this kind of stuff, but there may be some who aren't. Yeah. There are also times in places where none of us adults as well as children should Should allow ourselves to get on our screens like at the dinner table. Let's all put our computers away So let's all put our cell phones away so we can be with one another at dinner don't I think it's good advice to anybody who's tempted to keep their phone on at night to just not take it into the bedroom, keep it outside of the bedroom because it might keep you awake.

You might not, you might hear it pop. You might hear a little ding and be an irresistibly wanna answer it. It's going to keep you up at night. Don't do that. So keep it out of the bedroom. Yeah. If you are involved, if you're going to a place where you're having a meeting with other people, like you or I would be very rude right now if we picked up our cell phone and started checking our email or our social media contacts.

What a rude thing to do. So don't take it to meetings where you're talking, where you're supposed to be there talking to other people. I think it's perfectly appropriate in school settings where you're going to have a discussion about something and you're all supposed to be present to say, park your I also think summer camps would be quite legitimate to say this is a camping experience where we are learning about being present in physically with one another and being outdoors.

And the smartphone is a distraction from that. So no smartphones during camping period. I think those are all legitimate things to do. To do but taking a smartphone away from a child of any age is taking away the most valuable Tool we have in our modern society. 

Ben: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense give them rules and principles you know the advice that you'd want to give anyone including ourselves but don't take away don't take away the actual tool.

Your book free to learn I think it's over a decade old. I was wondering in those years or even from looking all the way back. Do you still feel the core ideas are as important now as ever? I get this feeling as yes. And has anything changed over that time when you would put more emphasis on something now than you would have done previously?

Have you changed your mind about anything? 

Peter: I haven't changed my mind about any of it. The, As I've explained, if anything, the school system has become worse than what I was describing there, and I might have, if I were to do a revision of the book, I might put more emphasis on the harm of of schooling as we do it now, and especially of, especially since Common Core.

Common Core was just beginning to come into effect at that time, and so I didn't really have that data. But on all the other things things have gotten worse. I would have also, however, which I didn't do in that book, talked about the, I did in that book say that, people who are worried about about the internet and online activity, I did say this has been, if anything, the saving grace rather than the cause of the problem.

I would even emphasize that now more than I did that now that I have really looked at the data showing. That things improved, meant improved for kids during this, that decade between the time that we had, we began that most kids now had online access and the time when common core took effect, we had actually improvement in children's mental health.

I didn't talk about that at all in free to learn. That'll be a big topic in my next book. One of a number of big topics in my next book. 

Ben: Yeah, I think we're all very quick to jump on risks, but not so much on the opportunities, which are more slow moving. I guess in terms of your writing as well, you wrote one of the first psychology textbooks.

I looked up, I think the first edition was maybe around 1991 and you introduced concepts of, evolutionary or evolutionary psychology of the time. And I was just thinking about the influence that had on also your work on hunter gatherer societies and learning. And I think you're still updating or maybe that textbook is being updated, but I was wondering over that period of time, what do you think has changed in core psychology ideas?

And I don't know, why were we so late to thinking about evolutionary psychology? And do you think it's still influential in our thinking today? 

Peter: That's a good question. So at the time, so when I was, it would have really been in the 1980s that I was writing the first edition of the textbook.

And you're right, I think it probably came out in 1991. I subsequently revised it for six more editions over many years. And then the book was taken over by somebody else to revise who did two more editions of it. So it's currently in its eighth edition. It's been around for a long time. But at the time that I was writing it the idea of bringing an evolutionary approach to psychology, there was a lot of stigma about that idea.

There were a lot of negativity about it. I think that Nazi Germany put in everybody's minds a bad taste. about thinking about human beings from a genetic biological perspective, because in some sense that was the essential rationale of Nazism. And it was also an argument. It was an argument. There were arguments at that time based on kind of pseudo evolutionary thinking, pseudo biological thinking about racial superiority of whites over blacks, about the superiority of males over females.

There was a kind of There was a kind of general and some of the books from an evolutionary perspective at that time fed into that belief. So the kind of belief that distinctions between men and women, for example, are biologically ingrained and men are going to be dominant and women are meant to be mothers and domestic.

These kinds of. Things graded quite understandably on people. And so it gave the whole idea of looking at human behavior, talking about it in terms of evolved tendencies, gave it a bad name. And feminism was coming into its core, and the feminists at that time were adamantly opposed to biological theories about human beings, at least some of them were.

I had the advantage, and I think this was very clever on the part of the publishing company, of assigning an editor to me, who was not only a very experienced editor, but also was an ardent feminist. And I had to, in order to, in order I made it a goal. Anything that go, went into the book I had the right.

They were very clear. I could put whatever I wanted in the book. The editor was there really for, to help me. And I took that quite literally. I said to myself, if I can't, convince Phyllis, my editor, that this is real science, that this is legitimate, that this is, and that this is not something that's harming women then it's okay to go in.

And I think the book came out far better because I took that on. I didn't want to make the mistake of presenting Things that were biases that were came from a particular way of thinking. So this was also a time when really the evolutionary approach was just beginning. And so my textbook, my introductory psychology textbook was the first introductory psychology book really to bring an evolutionary perspective to bear in a real way.

Into the book and run it all the way through the book. I think it helped change psychology I think a lot of people who then became professors of psychology had learned about psychology as freshmen in with my book And I think it played a role not necessarily the major role, but it played a role in the evolution of psychology as a science to be more accepting of an evolutionary perspective about human behavior 

Ben: That's brilliant.

And it helped you retire or semi retire in your in your fifties. I say semi retire because you went on to do tons of other stuff as as well. I'd be interested perhaps a couple of things is for those who might be thinking about retirement, you seem to really enjoyed it and you've been doing lots of things.

What advice do you or thoughts do you have about retirement? People using their leisure time. I think you put a survey out also on your sub stack. I very much recommend listeners to check out the sub stack. But yeah what do you think people should be doing with their leisure time? And should we be looking to retire earlier?

Perhaps not all of us have got royalties from a textbook to rely on. But this thinking about how you've enjoyed retirement and what to do with our time. 

Peter: Yes. For me, it was a very wise decision. I, I did it for several reasons. I was far from typical retirement age. Professors tend to stay on forever.

Sometimes the administration wants to get rid of them and it's hard to get rid of them when you've got tenure, but some I was far from retirement age from typical retirement age, but I had already been teaching for 30 years. I had been chair of the department for a small portion of that time.

I was often involved in administrative responsibilities and I was And as much as I enjoyed some aspects of teaching, there were, as you might guess from my book, Free to Learn, there were other aspects of teaching and grading and so on that I was beginning to not enjoy and not really believe in any longer.

And I, and I certainly wasn't interested in becoming a dean or working on more administrative ways at the university. And I did, because the book made enough money I was set enough for retirement. I didn't have to worry about giving, maintaining that salary. And also, frankly, the university changed a little bit.

The the, I think people, I think that the spirit of kind of collegialism changed and this was not just at Boston College. This was everywhere. The, it became more driven by, universities wanted everybody to get grants and to get grants, you needed to publish a certain amount of research and people began to publish research just for the sake of publishing research to get grants.

And no longer were people spending, one of the great, leisure things about being a professor is just, like having long lunches with your colleagues and talking about ideas and people weren't doing that anymore. Here's the downside of the computer. They were eating their lunch in front of their computer, right?

Catching up on their email, maybe communicating with their colleagues on the other side of the world, whether rather than their colleagues down the hall. And so there was less of a kind of collegial environment that I had always enjoyed at Boston College. So that was another reason. And then finally, this is a personal thing, but my first wife died around that time.

And I began to realize life doesn't go on forever. And I really want to be sure that I'm spending every day doing what I most want to do and not wasting time doing things that I think are not. near the top of my list of what I want to do. And among other things I wanted to start writing for the general public I wanted to do.

And the research I had in mind doing didn't require that I be in an institutional setting. Although I could have continued to do it at Boston college if I needed to do it in an institutional setting. So all of that played into it. And And it was a great decision for me. What I can say, and I've told people repeatedly every day I wake up and say, whatever I do today, it's because I want to do it.

There's nothing that I have to do except like maybe wash yesterday's dishes. But the but in terms of the great bulk of my time, it's, it is in a certain definition play because it's my choice to do it. Or not to do it. I have, as a consequence, been able to do much more research much more writing than I could when I was when I was a full time, full professor at Boston College.

And I also have time for creating a great garden, for bicycling. I'm big into bicycling, kayaking, cross country skiing. I'm 80 years old and I think that the fact that I retired when I was in my 50s, which gave me time to, For leisure time and X and doing things outdoors that I enjoy doing. And I think it's been great for my health.

So it was a great decision for me. Now. I can't tell other people that it would be a great decision for them. But I can say if you're thinking of it and if you, if there are things you would like to do that, you don't have time to do it. And if you can afford to retire. Retiring early, I think, is a great idea.

That sounds excellent. There are some people who retire and they don't know what to do. 

Ben: You picked up on your own thing in your life. I I followed someone called Bernie DeKoven, who was someone who was all into, I guess we call it adult play, but it isn't. Like that, it's what, what you allude to, it's about independence, it's about agency, it's about fun, it's not about competitiveness, play, which you might think about, but all this playfulness and that comes into a lot of, I think, creativity and artwork.

I was thinking then if you had anything you would have said to perhaps your younger self, I don't know, your 16 year old self or your 21 year old self, or maybe speaking to a 16 year old today with all of this life experience that you have is there anything you would have particularly Advised your younger self.

It sounds like you know retire as early as you can sounds like a good piece of advice Or make sure like you say make sure every day you're trying to do things that you really want to do is there anything you would have thought 

Peter: you know, that's a really good question. I think that it's hard when somebody is fairly happy with their life which I am, it's hard to say that I would have changed something when I was younger, because if I had changed something when I was younger, I might not be who I am now.

So it's a little hard to say that. It's a little hard to say that for sure. I do think that, I do think that I do think that, like many people, throughout my younger years, I was too concerned about other people's judgments. And I think I restrained myself in a lot of ways. I think I'm not the only person who does that by any means.

We're all that way. I tend to be a little bit more that way than many other people. And I think that It was maybe too important to me that people like me all the time. And I think that was constraining on my life. I think I've gradually somewhat overcome that with time. But I think that, I think what I would say to young people today, but it's a different world today than the one I grew up in, is that is don't worry so much.

About school . Don't worry so much about that, because now I've been studying the, I've been studying now people who don't go to school who are self involved in self-directed education, either as homeschoolers following the following, the method of unschooling where they're pursuing their own interests or going to a school.

Like the school, my son went to Bury Valley. where you can follow your, and I see they're doing very well in life and they're discovering their passions. They're going into things that they enjoy. I think if I had opportunities like that, it might have, I might've gotten into what I ultimately got into quicker.

I went through a conventional school. I went to graduate school not really knowing what I wanted to do. I went to graduate school primarily as an alternative to going to Vietnam. I, and at that time you could still get a student deferment. And then by the time that was no longer case, I was married and had a child and had a deferment for that reason.

I didn't go into, I didn't go on to graduate school because I had a particular intellectual passion. I hadn't really developed an intellectual passion at that point. I was interested in a lot of things, but I wasn't passionate about them. And I ended up being a brain researcher, studying the brains of rats and mice and bindings of hormones.

And I did competent work. And I found it somewhat interesting but it wasn't passionate for me and I never was fully into it. I never felt it was really all that important. It wasn't until much later after I was already a professor at Boston College doing that kind of work that I then got interested in child development and that really was interesting to me.

Now the roots of that interest came were really present long before, but I never followed those roots of that interest. I followed what seemed to be a more conventional, safe path of brain research. I I got into a very, happened to who knows why into a fair, very selective university working with Top people who are doing brain research, and I felt boy, I really achieved that, and it was more like, because I could do it, I had to do it, with as opposed to, this is really what I want to do.

And so I think that, this is almost sounds trite because people say it at graduation speeches all the time, follow your passion. But to follow your passions, you have to discover what they are, which means you've got to have time to play and explore. And I, and although I had much more time than most kids have today, I wish I had even more time.

For that and had the opportunity To then by the time I was of college age to really know what it was I wanted in life and would have pursued it in a more direct fashion got into it earlier on 

Ben: That sounds like excellent advice. Don't worry too much about school and don't worry about too much about what other people think as long as you get on with it, that's great.

Okay coming to our last. Couple of questions then You what I had is around your own creative process, you write quite prolifically on your sub stack. You used to keep a blog kind of blog posts before you've also done research. Are you a sort of have to write two or three hours?

a day? Do you write more morning or night? Does it just come to you? You obviously spend a lot of time outdoors as well so you have all of these activities I guess does your walking activity outdoors spark the thoughts that you're having and where do your ideas come from? I just, everyone seems to have different creative processes, so I'd be very interested in how yours come about and how your writing in active day is.

Peter: Yeah, I think that so because my it would be different if I were writing fiction. Sometimes I wish I were writing fiction I could just make stuff up But since I am writing I'm trying to write I'm trying to present to people What we know about? or at least what we have good reasons to believe because of research evidence.

So I spend a lot, I spend more time reading research and doing library research than I do in actual writing, sitting down and writing. So I spend a lot of time in front of my computer. I used to spend a lot of time in the library. Now, fortunately, I can sit in front of my computer and get all the information that way, download articles from the library or from the internet.

So I spend a lot of time doing library research. I spend a certain amount of time doing still empirical research, but it's empirical research that doesn't require being in a laboratory survey research and so on. And but I also do spend writing. Interestingly has never been easy for me and maybe that's why I'm attracted to it.

Who knows when I was in school, I always got A's in math. Math was simple for me, but I never really was that interested in math. Writing was more of a challenge. Reading was more of a challenge. I was a late reader, and here I am, a life of mostly reading and writing. The and it's still a challenge.

I'm writing is and I have to go over and over. I try to make it look in my blog posts and and substack posts. I try to make it look as if it's coming easy and spontaneous, but that's the result of a lot of going over and over for the most part. So the other thing that I think helps in terms of the creative aspect is taking time off from it.

So when I'm out bicycling, which I spend at least three hours on average every day outside, is that an exaggeration? I don't think so. If I were really to average it out at least two hours every day outdoors. I have a habit of going for a 15 mile bicycle ride every morning as part of my routine. When I'm on my bicycle or when I'm kayaking or doing cross country skiing whenever we have snow on the ground in the winter, these kind of rhythmic activities in my mind is very free.

I very often come up with with ideas that hadn't come to me before. I, it's like the back of my mind, even though I'm not consciously thinking about it, is working on this and suddenly this new insight. sprouts into my mind. This is not unique for me. There's actually research showing that people have these kinds of insights when they have been working on some problem to be solved, some general area, and now they take a break from it.

And then suddenly some insight comes to them about what they had been working on before. I think the brain, I think there is a sense in which the unconscious mind continues to work on the things that your conscious mind had been working on before. And it's often in those instances that you come up with what we call insights, come up with a novel way of looking at what you have just been struggling with consciously before.

And so I think that's Part of it I really I really think that it, I believe this is part of the way the human mind works, that everybody who's involved, whether you're in, whether you're a writer, whether it's a fiction writer, whether you're a scientist, if you're involved in things that involve You know, a mental process that involves some sense of creativity combined with knowledge that breaks from what you're doing are really important and the kind of break that's best, at least for me, and I would guess for other people, is the kind of break where You're taking a break.

You're doing something that's refreshing and your body is involved in it, but your mind is not focused on that new thing. Your mind is running free. You're enjoying the scenery. You're enjoying the snow. You're enjoying the physical activity, but your mind is not. consciously occupied in a focused way on some new issue so that, so for example, playing chess would not be a good break for me to come up with insights about my writing, whereas bicycle riding would be a good place for that to happen.

Ben: Yeah, that sounds excellent. I recall reading, there's a Japanese author Murakami talked about it, running and thoughts, and I remember the, probably apocryphal, but the little anecdote, I think, is it Archimedes about his eureka, eureka moment in a bath, or it does stretch back. Yes 

Okay, great.

So final kind of double question, maybe for you one was, did you want to highlight any current projects that you're working on? So we have the Substack blog and your, you, seems to be some ideas writing in your book. And then maybe you want to give us any parting advice particularly I guess to parents and family about what your kind of work says for them.

So it maybe touches on your current projects, but current projects and any final parenting advice. 

Peter: So one, one current project I'm working on is what I'm, what I've been calling the Pediatrics Initiative. I'm, I've I've come to the belief that if the world is going to change on the things that I think they should change on, if parents are going to come to realize that their children need more free play and.

and and freedom in general outdoor freedom, independent activities. They have to hear it from their pediatricians. Pediatric, parents listen to their kids pediatricians and they visit them, at least once a year, all the way sometimes into the teenage years. And my wife initially convinced me of this.

She's an OBGYN and and so I've been working with the, with people at the National Institute for Play, which I've become involved with on developing information for pediatricians about the value of play, which they can then, in their well child visits with, clients, they can then talk about this value of play and even prescribe play to the kids with the parents permission standing there.

And so that's something I'm working on. We've developed a nice brochure to give out. If there are any pediatricians in your, and you're listening to the podcast get in touch with the National Institute for Play and you can get some of this material. We're also sharing this with psychologists who, psychiatrists and psychologists who work with.

Parents were sharing it with schools. I've been working with for some time with the non profit organization, Let Grow, which I was one of the founders with a lot along with Lenore Skenazy and Jonathan Haidt years ago bringing more play into schools. And we're involved with that. I designed a research study looking at the effects of these interventions, where children have an hour of absolute free play at school, age mixed play, and what consequences does this have for the kids and for the school climate, and so on.

I've been, that's some, so those are a couple research projects I'm involved in. And as I mentioned, I'm working on a new book. My working title for the book is Restoring Childhood. I believe that over time we've been gradually taking what is natural childhood away from children. And we need, if we're going to have healthy children, we need to bring childhood back to them.

And so that's what the book is about primarily.

Ben: Last question would be on any parenting advice or advice for families it sounds like that's the whole theme of our podcast is essentially bringing play back to children not being not being so worried, giving them more agency but any final advice maybe as to the principles there and how we can actually put that into action.

Peter: Let me, I could go on for two hours talking about that, but let me say that if I were to make one suggestion that, that isn't exactly what I've already said, as we've talked so far, is that, If you're a parent, it would be a good idea to ask your child this. So what is it that you might like to do that you haven't done before that might be might even be a little bit frightening to you, but you would really like to do it?

And then to have a talk, discussion with that child, with your child about that. And then think about whether you would let your child do that. So maybe your child, so this is a way of counteracting our tendency to restrict our children's activities. This is a way of saying, not imposing, not telling the child to do this or that, but finding out what the child would like to do.

that the child currently isn't doing, maybe because you haven't allowed a child to do it, maybe because the child just assumes you wouldn't allow them to do it, maybe because the child has been over, so overprotected that they haven't even thought about what they really might want to do. But you're raising that question, and Maybe even make a list of things he would like to do.

Part of the and so this is actually something that we are also doing through schools, where teachers are Asking that question. And then they tell the, then they tell the child you have to negotiate with your parents about doing what it is you want to do. And then you can report back to the school class.

We call this the let grow intervention is one of our interventions in schools and it works brilliantly, but it also could work at the. parent level, doesn't have to be a teacher, the parent who says my child really maybe needs more adventures that they're not getting. Let me talk to my child about this, what they would like to do, and then let me think about whether I feel comfortable with them doing it or not.

And maybe it could be even a whole list of things. There's a lot of evidence that this is how children build courage by doing things that they might be a little afraid of and realizing they can do it. And it's also how parents build trust in their kids by realizing, seeing that their parents, that the kids do these things.

And that it makes them happier and makes them stronger to do these things. Why not? One of the things that reinforces this, we did another little research project that I was involved in during the period of lockdown during COVID was a survey of many families about how they were adapting to this lockdown period when they weren't going to school, they were shut at home, all these extracurricular activities that kids were involved in were no longer being held.

And how were, what were kids doing? And we asked both the kids and parents several thousand over the course of two months that we surveyed. And what we learned is that at first the kids were quite bored, they didn't know what to do. But they mostly learned, they mostly figured out interesting things to do.

And parents were surprised that many of the kids wanted to do things that the parent never would have believed. Cook a meal, learn how to cook because here they were at home and they, and the parents were delighted in some cases to with what the kids came up with on their own. And in, in this let grow project that I've just described, sometimes kids say, sometimes they say, I really want to be able to ride my bicycle by myself to my friend's house, those kinds of things, which I would expect they would say, but sometimes they say things like, I would like to.

Cook a meal. I would like to know how to bake a pie. I would like to, and to then be able to do it by myself. Some of these things that we almost used to take for granted, of course kids would learn to do that. We'd want them to learn to do that. Some of these are things that parents are actually not providing their kids the opportunity to do, and they may not even realize the kids want to do it.

So that question of what, At talking with your kids about what they would really like to do that is and what they would like to, maybe they would need some help at the beginning, but ultimately to be able to do it independently. 

Ben: That sounds excellent advice. And what would you like to do? And it sounds to me like it should extend definitely to children, but maybe to all of us, that should be a question we should.

Peter: That's a really good point. 

Ben: And maybe and that's the thing it's like actually what's relevant for children is actually normally relevant for everyone or vice versa and maybe more people will end up wanting to do solo travel perhaps as young as 12, but maybe for all of us, but that sounds excellent advice to question.

What is it? We would really like to do so. With that Peter Gray. Thank you very much. 

Peter: Thank you very much. It's been fun.

Julian Gough: Minecraft End Poem, Evolution of the Universe, being creative | Podcast

Julian Gough is an award-winning writer and musician. We explore the breadth of his creative journey, from crafting the 'End Poem' in Minecraft to writing children's books and rock band experiences

We discuss his latest project 'The Egg and the Rock,' which investigates the universe's evolutionary complexity, paralleling biological evolution, and its implications on life, consciousness, and AI. 

This conversation extends to a critical reflection on current scientific approaches, the importance of interdisciplinary thinking and writing in public and creative processes. 

“…the universe does love us, and we are love, in a way. I think love is a kind of an interface with the universe. You can think of love as our interface with the universe. Love, if you are loving and loved, you're probably living correctly. The way in which you're aligned to the universe is good. It's a feedback mechanism."

Julian’s substack blog is here.

Summary contents, transcript and podcast links below. Video above or on YouTube.

• 00:33 The Creation and Impact of Minecraft's End Poem

• 03:58 Julian's Rock Band Days

• 07:14 Writing Children's Stories: Rabbit and Bear

• 12:35 Julian's Writing Process

• 16:34 The Goat Bubble: A Satirical Play

• 20:06 Exploring the Universe's Evolution

• 38:07 Building Complexity from Simplicity

• 38:43 The Eternal Existence of Matter and Time

• 41:21 The Fermi Paradox and Alien Life

• 42:30 Darwinian Evolution of Universes

• 43:53 The Role of Intelligent Life in the Universe

• 47:35 Predicting the Early Universe with James Webb

• 58:09 Writing in Public and Creative Processes

• 01:07:50 The Egg and the Rock: An Evolutionary Analogy

• 01:09:56 Advice for Future Thinkers and Creatives

Podcast links:

• Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3gJTSuo

• Spotify: https://sptfy.com/benyeoh

• Anchor: https://anchor.fm/benjamin-yeoh

• All links:https://pod.link/1562738506

Transcript (part edited by AI so errors are possible)

Ben: Hey everyone, I'm super excited to be speaking to Julian Gough. Julian is an award winning writer and musician across many forms, including novels, children's stories, plays, and the like. He wrote the ending to Minecraft and is currently exploring ideas about how the universe has evolved on his sub stack, The Egg and the Rock, which you should check out.

Julian, welcome. 

Julian: Thank you, Ben, for that fantastically professional introduction. I feel like a complete human being. 

Ben: Which you are. So you wrote the end poem for the end of Minecraft. These lines have now been read by millions of people and include the line, And the universe said, I love you because you are love.

What do you make of so many fans taking these words to heart? What would you like people to take away? And maybe what does the poem mean to you today? 

Julian: Okay, my relationship to the end poem is complicated in that I don't feel I should take full credit for it. It's one of those strange pieces of writing where about halfway through writing it, I wrote it longhand.

They were first draft, longhand. And about halfway through, it felt like wasn't writing it anymore and this is a common experience for writers and musicians. Keith Richards says half the Rolling Stones songs, he just woke up and something just came straight through and he recorded it and fell asleep and he has no idea where it came from.

So it's, I'm not claiming anything special here, but halfway through I found myself not knowing what the next line would be. And I was watching the lines appear on the page. With great interest, because I thought, I actually do not know what's happening here. I don't know what's coming next.

I got into a really beautiful flow state, which doesn't happen very often in my writing. It happens sometimes. But this is a really clean version of it. It's wow, I have no idea what's coming out until I read this. And that was one of the lines, that line you quoted is one of the lines. And I had this reaction to the line where I thought, I don't think that line's true.

That shouldn't be in there. And I was going to strike it out because I thought that's too much. That's too, my experience of life is a lot of suffering. There's a lot of unnecessary suffering. I wasn't sure, does the universe love you? Are you made of love? I felt it was that it didn't match my direct experience.

So I was going to strike the line out. And I had this very strong feeling that something bigger than me didn't want that line knocked out. I got this very strong resistance to knocking out that line. And I thought, okay, whatever just wrote this through me wants that line left it. So I left the line in.

And then it became people's favorite line. People get it tattooed on. Like I've seen a bunch of people with that tattooed on. And that line really lands with people. And I get a lot of, I get a lot of messages from people who say that the end poem, especially the second half of the end poem, it was read out at their brother's funeral or something like, things like that, like very, it has, it's really meaningful to a lot of people. I, and since then, that's, I wrote that in 2011, since then I've changed my mind. I think the universe does love us, and we are love, in a way. I think love is a kind of an interface with the universe. I think You can think of love as our interface with the universe. Love, if you're, if you are loving and loved, you're probably living correctly.

You're, the way in which you're aligned to the universe is good. It's a feedback mechanism. And you can say that in purely evolutionary biological terms. Love is a great sign that you're interacting correctly with the universe. That's wonderful. 

Ben: And it strikes me also, we have this with a lot of creatives where one of your points is that sometimes the creative process, you're not quite sure where the inspiration is hitting you and it just comes out.

And like you say, a lot of artists have talked about that, but then also when it goes out into the world, it has a life of its own. So the audience and the readers actually bring maybe more importance to it and things that we didn't. Yeah. Initially think about the line and then it, it changes us.

It changes us back as well. Like you said, like the line actually resonated with so many people and you can realize that perhaps it was more important than you thought. You mentioned singing as well. And I know you were in a rock band like earlier, but what's most in this misunderstood about being in a rock band and singing and that part of your life?

Wow. 

Julian: Yeah, I was the frontman with the band. Were we a rock band? Were we a pop band? We used to argue about this all the time. Is this rock? Is this pop? What is this? I end up calling it lit pop. It was literary pop music. Man, what's not understood about it? I, if you're the frontman of a band, that's another job where you're not entirely just yourself.

I think you're incarnating Dionysus, you are Dionysus when you're fronting a band and the gig is going well and the audience are really into it. And so you have to represent all of their desires. So I think that's, I think that's, I think when I was being the front man, I was I felt I should be available to the fantasies of everybody, that you shouldn't be narrowly straight or narrowly gay or whatever you are in your private life, you should be unbounded.

You should be you're representing Bacchus or Dionysus, that may not have come across on stage, but you do end up with this very Powerful moments where again, something's moving through you. That's bigger than you and it's bigger than the crowd. And it's and you can get quite, people can get quite carried away.

I remember doing a gig, but then you snap back into being yourself. So that can be embarrassing. If it happens halfway through the gig, like suddenly you're 

Ben: Channeling a God, then you're mortal again. Yeah. 

Julian: And then you're mortal again. This happened. I remember one gig we did in London at the powerhouse, I think in London, which is a fun venue.

And we had done a very barking. Performance, two of our friends were dressed up in togas with laurel wreaths, handing out grapes to the crowd and it was very over the top. And I was wearing a, I was wearing a one piece cat suit, very tight. I think it was a woman's catsuit that I bought a lot of clothes from second hand shops.

And I think halfway through the gig, it was going really well, a woman in the front row unzipped me and reached into my catsuit and pulled out my genitals. And we just looked at each other, and I was like, do what you've got to do, but, whatever. Carnage and Barker's here, but this is slightly embarrassing for both of us, isn't it?

And she was like, looking up at me and going, I think I've gone too far. And she put everything back and sent me back up and we went on with the gig. So it was, so yeah, you get these moments where it's am I a god of excess or am I just a guy singing in a band who likes books? 

Ben: Yeah. Handling everything else which is going on.

It's almost like an emergent property of gigs or things like that. Emergent properties of a crowd. Something happens and it has to land on someone. 

Julian: Yeah. No, there's definitely emergent properties in crowds and anyway, gigs that have a similarity all around the world, no matter what, there's a type of music that's rhythmic that leads to a kind of, ah, exaltation in the audience.

That's it's really primal and really important and it's very strange if you're just a normal nerdy guy to Find yourself incarnating that, yeah. I thoroughly recommend fronting a band. 

Ben:  I was reading part of an essay you've done, and it had the phrase, I am not nice, friendly, and perfect.

No one we know is nice, friendly, and perfect. And I thought that was also a perfect segue to speaking about children's stories and Rabbit and Bear, which supposedly are written for. Five to eight year olds, but I've now read them all and I think everyone should read them and you had a I think the latest one was out just a few months ago.

So everyone should check them out. But how have you found it different exploring the stories of rabbit and a bear as opposed to works, which are only for adults or anything? Is there something special about children's stories? I guess from my point of view, I think at the moment.

Children's stories, which I think are everyone's stories are almost in a golden age in the sense that we have more diverse, more special stories, as well as perhaps more boring ones. But there's a lot of them coming out. I was interested in your line of children's stories work. 

Julian: Yeah I think we are probably in it, a golden age children's books, yeah. There's an awful lot of crap out there still, but there's a lot of very good stuff. I love writing children's. For children. I love it more than I probably expected to. I think It's incredibly difficult and enjoyable.

You've the constraints are really interesting. I love constraints because I'm a very chaotic person. I'm interested in everything. I like doing all kinds of different stuff. I very easily distracted. I really helps if I've got tight constraints to keep my. expression inside of a frame so that you end up with something that's useful and it just doesn't turn into 3, 000 unfinished things.

And there's huge constraints writing for five year olds, six year olds, seven year olds, because they've got a very limited vocabulary. And they've also got a very limited understanding of the world, but they're incredibly eager to learn new words and new concepts. They really want to know. They're hungry in a way that maybe adult audiences aren't. Adult audiences tend to be more jaded and also adult audiences are more set in their ways. They tend to, you're not really going to change the life of that many adult readers. You can really change the life of a child, especially if you solve one of their problems.

Like one of the, something I've done with the Rabbit and Bear books is I've tried with every book to solve a different problem that I might've had at that age that I wasn't able to solve at the time. It's a way of Writing these books is a way of sending a message back to me when I was like five or six or seven and saying This is how you maybe could how you can fix it But obviously I can't do that for me but I can do it for all these other kids that are the age I was then so it's a very nice process very Satisfying and especially when you get again messages from parents or from kids themselves because they'll dictate to their parents.

I'll get sent the email Saying the books really worked for them really landed with them and parents will often say like we use You Rabbit and bear to talk about, if my kid gets really angry we can, we know how, we have an angle on it now because we read this particular book or if my kid gets very upset by this particular kind of thing in the playground, like we have a, we go straight to rabbit and bear and we have a way of dealing with it now that we, cause, cause rabbit found a way to deal with it.

Yeah. I love it. It's very satisfying. 

Ben: Wow. A letter back to your five year old self. So what problem did you want to solve at five or six, which initially you couldn't, you 

Julian: You've got huge, you've got loads of problems when you're that age because it's better now. I think parents are better now at explaining the world to kids and explaining emotions to kids and things like that.

But you used to be just left to get on with it. Like when I was a kid, it's yeah, you've got problems. Everyone's got problems. I don't know. They wouldn't even necessarily notice you had problems. Yeah. A lot of it's emotional stuff and a lot of it's theory of mind stuff. A lot of it's explaining why other people do what they do because it's mysterious to you when you're a kid.

It's a parent or a teacher or someone in the playground is like really angry with you about something and you get into loads of trouble for something and you can't work out what you did. And it's really useful if you can have a story that explains sometimes it's not what you did.

It's sometimes it's something that's happening in their life or their head. Or their way of dealing with things, or they're overwhelmed, or whatever. So a lot of it's translating the kid's internal emotional life into something, into an explicit sort of story. The way they can see what's happening, played out, and then they can apply that to their own internal life.

Because the characters in the book really are aspects of ourselves. They're not, Rabbit and Bear are both aspects of me. Rabbit's knee on a normal day, bear's knee on a good day. But they're both aspects of me. So what you're doing is you're taking aspects of human psychology, putting them out as animals and watching them play it out in a forest.

And then you can take that story and put it right back into your own psychology, into your own life and go, Oh yeah, I'm being rabbit now. I really need bear to come in and give me a hand. Where's bear? I'm bear too, and it's, I think that's what's going on in those books a lot of the time.

There's a sort of Jungian, a bunch of archetypes fighting it out in the forest. 

Ben: They say sometimes it helps to have a a character in your head who advises you the other way. Like you say, Oh, I need some bear now. Let's bring him. Let's bring him out. Do you, have you come to a particular type of writing process then?

So I picked up earlier that sometimes you write longhand. So maybe you go from longhand then to computer or that. And do you, have bursts in the morning or evening or you've got a thousand and one things like you said and it seems also you quite can call them constricting forms because that almost opens more freedom up to do things because you're knowing what you're doing, whether that's a poem, play, children's story or the like.

Yeah, so I'm just interested. It seems to be there's a thousand and one writing processes or more, but how have you arrived to yours and what do you think about it? 

Julian: I am very chaotic, so I don't really have a set. process. I've, it's changed over the years. It used to involve a lot more writing longhand and then typing up.

Now I do a lot of editing longhand. Sometimes I write stuff longhand. I do still do a lot of stuff now though, straight onto the machine, which I actually don't think is the best way to do it. I've been experimenting lately with transcription with like dictating and talking. I'm always trying to find a new way to get.

First draft down, so I can, and then when the first draft is down, I often print out and edit by hand. I do a lot of hand editing. And if I'm really, if the structure's all over the place, I'll do a helicopter draft. I'll print out 30 pages and lay them out across the floor in a grid and just stand on a chair and look at it and mark bits in colored markers, like this character's here, this character's here, and then stand up and just try and get an overview of what the fuck's going on here.

Oh, I can see from here, now I can see the structure's rolling up. Shuffle the pages and cut bits out. And it's very messy. I'm a terribly messy writer. I think huge number of drafts. 

Ben: And do you write in short bursts, long bursts, or just varies? It's constrained by having a five year old ?

Julian: whenever I can, a lot of the time I do my best work in the morning and I do my best work when I switch off the internet and I often don't switch off the internet and I just wrestle with that every single day. But if, my best work is if I get up in the morning, drop Arlo into kindergarten and then either into the office, I rent a little office or I come home. At the moment I'm working on the balcony at home because I get sunshine and it's nice. And I do a couple of hours in the morning with the internet off and that's ideal.

And then do slightly less taxing stuff in the afternoon and rewriting, catch up on notes. I'm not 

Ben: a morning writer, but I definitely write. Best when I switch off the internet and actually I turn it off everything and all of that. And even actually have to make sure like phone or messages don't ping me as well.

So that's somewhere else because otherwise you get pinged.

Julian: I don’t have notifications on anything. I don't let anything ping. I don't think anything I own pings.  And I use freedom as an internet blocker to switch it off. But then I'm constantly fiddling around with that.

And then sometimes I have to do something in the morning and I have to unblock all my internet blocks because they're, I can't, I need to go online for that period. And it's yeah, my first, the first novel I wrote I was such a procrastinator. I set myself a target of writing two hours a day, five days a week.

So all I have to do is 10 hours. Of actual writing. But if I, if I looked out the window for 10 minutes and wasn't even thinking about writing, I'd stop the clock. If I, went off and made coffee and had biscuits, I'd stop the clock. So it had to be actual to write. But I would relentlessly through writing that book, I would get to midnight and I hadn't started.

I was a student then, I was young then, I wasn't a student, but I was a young guy in a band and I was writing a novel in my spare time. And so at midnight I would go out to a cafe Java's in Galway and start writing, and I'd get two hours solid work done by 4am, because then, because I had baby breaks then as well, I'd be like done, and and then they closed at 4am and I'd go home and go to bed.

having got my two hours done, but I would put it off all day. I'm unbelievably bad at procrastinating. I'm just a terrible procrastinator and there's loads of resistance and yet I love writing. Go figure. I don't know. Yeah. 

Ben: I see. It's probably helpful for marinating in your brain, but yeah, getting over that energy hump to actually write the thing.

Yeah, it's a, there's a technique and trial in itself. You've written a play about a goat and investment bubbles and investment hedge fund managers satire, so why a play and why tackle the financial crisis and all of the issues around it? 

Julian: It, it started, that started as a short story.

Okay. That started as I was reading the newspaper and I saw an interview, it was an article in the independent many years ago. And it was an interview with The guy who was in charge of air traffic control for

Somaliland, which is part of the former Somalia, and he was in, I think, Ethiopia, running air traffic control because it was too dangerous to have the air traffic control run from Somaliland, and He was recounting a story during the interview of how the guy, the airport manager in Hargeisa, which is the capital of Somaliland, had contacted him to say a local guy his goat had been killed on the runway by one of the UN planes landing.

And and he was going to pay the guy twice the price of a goat in compensation because that was the tradition in, in, Somaliland. And the. Air traffic control guy said, you do not do that if you cannot do that. Because if you do, if you pay twice the price of a goat for a dead goat on your runway, you've created a market for dead goats on your runway, everyone's gonna be driving goats onto your runway because that's the quickest way to make the price of two goats.

So he didn't do it, but I read that article, I thought, oh my God, what if he did do it? How out of hand could this get, so in the story I wrote, he does pay out the price of two goats. But the guy I have with the dead goat at the start is a, I have in my story is an economist. He's an economist who's been displaced by civil war.

All he has left is one three legged goat. And he thinks, what can I do with this? He drives the goat onto the runway. It gets killed by a UN plane. He goes to the air, Airport manager gets the price of two goats, buys two goats in the market, comes back the next day, drives them onto the runway, they get killed.

He goes, gets the price of four goats, buys four goats. But then people start to notice what he's doing and they all start to drive their goats onto the runway. And so you get this goat bubble and then the price of goats starts to go up in the market. Because now there's more demand for goats, and then, and then the, they get they negotiate with the airport manager to index link the price the compensation price of the goats to the new price of the goat market.

And then eventually they're running out of, then eventually the UN has to start flying in goats to finance the goat compensation. So now the UN are in the circuit supplying goats to the goat market so that they, to make profit to pay the compensation. And it gets out of hand and eventually there's too many goats on the runway.

for this to work. So they start going to virtual goats and you end up with this virtual goat bubble and then the financial institutions start to realize that goats in Somaliland are the biggest, are the fastest rising asset price in the world. So they all get involved and you get this, all the big Western banking, private equity, everybody gets involved and it becomes this So it's a satire of of financial crisis, but it was I I gave it to my agent and she really, it was, at the time it was Pat Kavanagh, and she really liked it.

She said, where should we place this though? It's very technical, it's very esoteric. I was like, send it to the Financial Times. I said, try The Economist and The Financial Times. And she said, you know they don't publish short stories, Julian. I said, they'll publish this one. And she sent it to The Financial Times and they published it.

It was the first short story they'd ever published it. They published it in their Christmas issue. 

Ben: Ah, excellent. Also your description of the complex system of goat bubbles. Although I guess it isn't that complex. This remind me of thinking about, Evolution and the like, and there's a good segue into your ideas about the universe.

You're writing about the universe and essentially how you think it may have evolved from lesser universes. So some ideas which are around, but you really picked up on this. So how did you come to that? And why do you think our current universe may well have evolved from lesser universes? 

Julian: Okay. I think if you look at my entire career that I've thought about this recently, I think there's a sort of common thread, which is I want to see reality more clearly with the children's books. I'm trying to help children see reality more clearly so that they have a better understanding of their world so that they can navigate it better.

And I think it's been true for all of the art I've made. And the ultimate version of that is seeing the universe more clearly, I think. I've always been interested in the universe as a thing, and I've always been slightly dissatisfied with the way we talk about the universe, the language we use.

It's always described in this very, reductionist materialist way. The standard language about talking, when you talk about the universe is, you're going to it's very likely the language you use to talk about particle physics. It's as though you can explain the entire universe just using the terms out of particle physics.

And I don't think you, you can, you can't there's too many emergent things happening. There's too much, there's too much complexity emerging. And the way that complexity emerges, as I, thought about this and read about it and pondered over the years just seems seem to me after a while to be awfully like the kind of developmental process in an evolved organism.

It's very step by step. It's very, okay, let's describe the primal problem that interested me here. This universe starts out at the Big Bang as a, maybe a singularity, and it expands into a cloud of incredibly hot, dense gas. Completely undifferentiated. No structure. And over time, step by step, it builds out galaxies planetary systems, orbiting stars, those planetary systems that we know from our own direct experience can then complexify up into something that contains life, which can then generate a biosphere that is stable over tremendous periods of time that can then generate life.

Intelligent life forms like you and me, and then we can generate technological a sort of technosphere that, so we're supported from one side by a biosphere and the other side by a technosphere that we've actually built. And we're now talking to each other in abstract language, using technology in a biosphere that can maintain itself for billions of years.

supplied by energy from an external source that is homeostatic, dynamic, out of equilibrium. And we're made out of 90 something elements, stable elements, that have been in turn built and assembled over about three rounds of star formation and distributed out of the bottom of an incredible gravity well by supernova explosions to make the next round of stars, to make the next round of stars so that you can build complex planetary systems out of these 90 something elements.

That looks like a developmental process. That, that does not look like ran. Random, right? And if a universe has, the standard view of our universe is that it has random arbitrary characteristics. It's a one shot universe. We know there's one universe. It's a one shot universe. It's, all of its characteristics are random and arbitrary.

There's no meaning to any of them. And a random arbitrary one shot universe doesn't do what our universe does. It doesn't self complexify to this extraordinary extent. And it, it seemed to me like this looks like it's been fine tuned and the only mechanism we've ever heard of that can fine tune parameters to give you this kind of self complexifying developmental outcome is evolution.

And it seemed to me like the universe evolved and this is something I then at that point I googled and thought has anyone else been Discussing this thinking about this and discovered that like Lee Smolin, the theoretical physicist, had put forward a pretty excellent mechanism for how that might even happen, almost 30 years, 30, 30 years ago now. And I read up on that. And as I got into that, I realized, holy shit, the idea of an evolved universe has not been explored for purely sociological reasons, not scientific reasons. It's completely in the knowledge shadow. There isn't anyone to take responsibility for it. Like imagine you today, it was definitively proved, let's say that our universe.

was an, had evolved from earlier universes that have fine tuned the basic parameters of matter so that it self complexifies. Who's in charge of the research program on that? The cosmologists know nothing about evolutionary theory, so they don't, they're not going to feel qualified to deal with it. The evolutionary theorists don't even know about this theory, mostly, and they know nothing about cosmology, so they don't know how to apply there.

There's literally no faculty on earth qualified to explore this theory. So I ended up for the last decade, exploring the living shit out of this theory. And I've realized that for a while, you can actually make predictions with it. There's the implications of this theory have not been explored to an astonishing extent.

The guy that thought it up is brilliant. He's he's a theoretical physicist, but he's a theoretical physicist. He didn't even understand the implications of his own theory because they play out through evolutionary mechanisms that he had to. A simple basic understanding of, but not a profound understanding.

So a couple of years ago, the should I expand on what's like Smolin's theory is first? 

Ben: We can get to the theory also, I think we'll cross black holes, aliens and the like, but I was going to maybe take one step back. What you said about the societal. Aspect there's a sort of almost history of ideas about why this has come to place because I think you make the point really well and you've written in one of your sub stacks essentially around how Galileo for really good reasons thought, you know what, I'm going to have to couch everything I do in the language of numbers because the church can't attack me with the language of numbers.

And I just saw, one of my mates. Get, doofed by trying to encroach on the church's and church's terms. And I thought also this echoed some of our history of writing in the novel or in the fiction. So today, not quite, but a majority of what we write is in this kind of style of where we think it's quite close to our reality, right?

You have a story that go around, you have a holiday romance and type like that. Yes. Yes. And if. If you're, if you throw in something which seems too fantastical, we go, Oh, that can't be true. We disregard that story. So stories actually, not all of them cause we have magic realism and the like, but quite a narrow amount.

We read now a lot of non fiction, because we go, oh my god, could that really have happened? And it turns out that life is now more fantastical than a lot of our novels, and our novels, there's an argument about the split of why the novel happened, (Tristram Shandy) versus or not, but there's quite a small amount exploring fantastical ideas, and we do have it.

Children's books, fantasy, science fiction, magic realism. But it's actually quite a narrow domain versus the classical novel today, which is a little bit like quote unquote, real life. And we're allowed just one fantastical thing to happen because if you do more than that, the reader suddenly thinks, Oh, that can't be like real life.

And I just thought thinking about that is like the novel has tried to do the same thing that Galileo did, which was like, Oh, we somehow think it's safer to conform to this for all of these societal reasons. So in the history of ideas, I thought when I thought about that, it's and that completely explains why these ideas are under explored and could potentially well, definitely underrated and could potentially be right.

And I thought that was a key insight for almost the human explanation. For why this hasn't been explored before we even get on to the fact that actually the ideas could well have strong merit on themselves. And is that, have I thought about it correctly in terms of your thinking about the history of ideas and why we've ended up in this place?

Julian: Yeah that's basically, I think, in the introductions of the book, I talk about how Galileo, his founding principle was the truth about the universe is mathematical and the language of science is mathematics, and I'm certain that it was partly because Bruno had just got burnt to death for speculating wildly about other stars being other suns and having other planets and other people on, living things on them that had souls and, that, that was one of the reasons, there were other reasons, but that was one of the main reasons he got burnt to death in the, in, in the public square after being tortured by the Inquisition in Rome.

And Bruno had applied for the same job that Galileo had nine years later, when after the years of trial, when he was, when Bruno was executed, they were, they overlapped, a lot. So Galileo did not want to extract the meaning from the data. He just wanted to stack up the data.

He was just going to do a mathematical science, purely mathematical descriptions of reality, nothing about the meaning, right? He's leaving all that to the church, but that leaves out huge areas of truth that are really important. There's, there are truths in, Carl Jung, there are truths in the Buddha, there are truths in transcendental direct experiences, there are truths in the way Aretha Franklin sings, that are not captured mathematically, and, but are nonetheless true and useful.

And we've had this weird flip over the last few centuries where What started out as a vow of humility, science is a limited construct that will just give you mathematical truths about reality. There are many other truths that are more important, that used to be left to the church has flipped to science is the church.

Mathematical descriptions of reality are the only real, valid, important descriptions of reality and everything else is underneath that in importance. And that's a complete reversal of what was like, intended at the birth of science, 

Ben: What's your what's your reading then about this possible theory of the universe and I guess bringing in your humanities and view.

I had a really simplistic take when reading yours and skimming the small and with, you had black holes and a singularity and you have the big bang and a singularity and hey presto, that seems quite a big coincidence. And then let's see where we go from there. But there was a lot of things in that.

So how are you thinking about it? And maybe you can also roll in because from that you have got predictions like you've, Mention and we now have all of these structures and the things that we're seeing from the web telescope Which are going lo and behold they don't fit in our what is it called the standard model of the universe?

I think that's what physicists have said. Oh and physicists have always said the standard model does not explain everything It's just what we have and the web telescope is going. Yeah, and look at all of these structures which are not Explainable without that, but it seems that the theory you're exploring, seems to have some of that.

What's your view? 

Julian: First little point though. I think they used, there was a long period of time where the artists extracted the meaning from the data that the scientists provided. I thought that was a very healthy ecosystem. The, galvanism was just, was it.

was demonstrated by a scientist who was putting electricity through frog's muscles and the dead frog's muscles and they were twitching it. And this was witnessed by, Mary Shelley probably saw it. If she didn't, her brother definitely did. And then she writes Frankenstein. Frankenstein is the artistic extraction of the meaning from the data of the early electrical experiments.

And you, and Jules Verne sends men to the moon and invents submarines and does all this stuff, extracting the meaning from a lot of the technological and scientific data around him at the time. You had people fly around the world in hot air balloons and you've got, he's doing, he's extracting the meaning from the data.

H. G. Wells was doing the same. Heinlein was doing the same in the golden age of science fiction in America. You had, Asimov and Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke. Arthur C. Clarke was not just a science fiction writer, he predicted geostationary orbiting satellites, in a paper he wrote in 1849 or 40 something.

And I think we've, the, as science has got more and more specialized, Writers have retreated from trying to understand science and extract the meaning from it. And they have gone to where you're talking about, where they're doing a lot of gritty realism and a lot of realistic accounts of normal human lives and not really going big. Because it's hard to follow. It's really difficult to follow modern science. It's become a whole bunch of subs, subspecialities with privatized jargons that, and they don't even understand each other. That's one very interesting thing. And I definitely found that talking to a range of scientists about these theories.

They really don't even understand each other. So it's totally fragmented and there's no one synthesizing it because all of the most interesting truths tend to come from taking an idea from one field and applying it to another field where it has wonderful application that nobody's. And there's hardly anyone doing that.

So I think that's my role in this. So going back to the black holes thing John Wheeler had this great American physicist, had this interesting idea that there was, we had two problems in our universe that involves singularities and you described it well, that like one is black holes. Mass energy collapses to a point and vanishes from our universe, and one is the Big Bang.

It's a singularity where mass energy appears from nowhere and expands into a universe. And John Wheeler said, what if they're the same thing just seen from different sites? What if a black hole in a parent universe punches down to a singularity, bounces and forms a big bang in a child universe? Forms a child universe?

That gave you a me a way for universes to reproduce. He thought maybe the child universes have randomly different basic parameters of matter, randomly different laws of physics here. And that might be an explanation for why you have this crazy, complicated, strange universe that we're in, which seems bizarrely unlikely.

random. It's not a great explanation because you're just throwing lots of random universes at a problem trying to get something really sophisticated. But one of his students was Lee Smolin. And Lee Smolin realized, because he was reading some evolutionary theory at the time, he was reading Stephen Jay Gould and Lin Manuel Margulis he realized, wait a minute, if the child universe, If the basic parameters of matter in the child universe, which means like the mass of the electron, the speed of light, the the strong nuclear force, these various little things that make up the basics of our universe.

If they varied, not randomly and completely, Wheeler suggested, but if they just varied slightly, you would get inheritance. And you would get Darwinian evolution of the universes. It just, it's automatic, because if the child universe has its basic parameters of matter vary slightly, that will make it either more likely or less likely to produce more or less black holes.

Which means it will make it more or less reproductively successful. And so the ones that are more reproductively successful will have more offspring. They will be tending in that direction. So some of those will have even more offspring, some will have less, but you'll end up with a, you'll end up with a kind of branching, an evolutionary branching where the number of universes in existence gets dominated by highly reproductively successful universes.

You can get runaway reproductive success because the thing about universes is they're not. They're not in competition for resources. Each one is its own space time. Each one is it. Each one is both organism and environment. So You know, there are limits to biological offspring because they're born into a constrained environment as they, and they fight for resources and, hippopotamus that has 3 million baby hippopotami does not end up being reproductively successful because you can't feed 3 million.

Hypopotamite in that little bit of wherever it was, wherever they were born. But you can have three, three million offspring as a universe and they're all new universes. They're not in competition. You can do that. And universes are essentially flat. Like the mass energy and the gravitational energy in universe net out to zero in our universe.

So you can make them for free. It's not like they get smaller every time. It's not if you make a million babies, they're a million times smaller than the babies you would make if you only make one baby. They can all, because they net out to zero, they could all be full scale, full size universes.

So you can get runaway reproductive success. And our universe, if you count the number of black holes in it, and they've done a recent assessment of that, you have to guess slightly, because, but if you work out the number of stars, the right mass and how long they live and all that, you can work out the number of black holes.

And there's 40 quintillion black holes in our universe. So if black holes are reproductive success, we're pretty reproductively successful universe 40 quintillion already. 

Ben: And does the net zero equilibrium explanation give a hint at the where the singularity comes from, because it strikes me you have potentially a chicken and egg problem around I could see how it starts off black hole singularity evolution and that explosion.

But do you still need the sublime to, to explain the origin of the singularity, even if it might be a net zero construct? 

Julian: I think you don't. I think one of the reasons I really love an evolutionary theory is. You can just, you don't have a starting problem. You don't have a, where did it come from problem?

If you explain our complex universe like ours by invoking your God or something, now you've invoked an even more complex entity. Where did that come from? Cause you've got Gaul's law kicks in here. Gaul's law states that any complex working system evolved from a simple working system. You can't start with an incredibly complex system.

You can't start by building Concord. You have to. Build the Wright Brothers plane out of bicycle parts that flies a hundred yards. You start with that, and you iterate and iterate, and eventually you get Kongol, but you can't start with Kongol. You can't start with a human being. You can start with a protozoic, you can start with some kind of metabolic process happening in mud that eventually gets a membrane and turns into a protozoic, creature.

And prokaryotic bacterium or whatever, and then eventually you get eukaryotes and so on. And you can get your way to human beings. Which are complex working systems, but you have to start with a simple working system, and I think the same thing applies to universes. The, for me, one of the beauties of this is the starting point is there was always something.

There was always something, and it was unbelievably simple. It was as simple as it gets. There was ur matter, right? There weren't 96 elements doing all kinds of complicated things. There was just something that is, as simple as you can imagine, simpler than a hydrogen atom. And all it, all you needed to do is to split in two at some point, collapse into two things.

Some of, if you've got something. And time, and therefore change, eventually, because you've got an infinite amount of time, some it shuffles, it collapses, it falls to, to some point where it collapses into two things. And now you've got two things. And if one of them is more successful than the other at collapsing into things, you've got evolution, right?

And eventually you get to this more complicated version down the line. 

Ben: So I can see from simple, we'll build more complex Your first one of your statements within that was essentially saying that you don't need, I don't think we quite have the language for it essentially, but we don't need a time before because you don't need this time before.

Yeah. The simple, whatever you want to call it Oh, Matt, because we don't have the language for it. It just probably the simplest thing you can imagine just was. And from that, everything can flow. 

Julian: Yeah. There was always something existing in time. There was always something, and there was always time inside our space, time bubble.

Starts at zero for us because space time itself starts at the singularity, but it's emerging from the space time of the parent universe. There was space time in the parent universe as it collapses to a point and then bounces to form our space time. So there was space time in that universe. That universe was born from a point that came out of a parent universe.

There was space time in that universe. There's always time, there's always something. But it gets more complicated as it goes on. In the same way, there was always, at a different scale, there was always matter on Earth. There was always 96 elements in a puzzle. There's a worm puddle, a billion years ago, and you, as you start to get separation and differential reproductive success, you get evolution and it gets fucking complicated really fast.

And I think the same thing happens with universes. And we're in a pretty, relatively complicated universe. There are probably more complicated universes. And ours may well be. There are less complicated universes. And we're spawning more. Let's assume we're mediocre. Let's assume we're mediocre.

And we're spawning more. And we're spawning enormous numbers of universes that are related to ours, that will be variations on ours, yes. Yes. And 

Ben: there's the fact that we don't seem to have detected any alien life as yet. Yeah. Does that have any, I guess some people call this the Fermi paradox, and I believe the scientists actually think that it is actually likely there is alien life out there.

But we lack the technology slash the scale slash haven't been around for long enough. There's a civilization that could detect this thing with like maybe a couple of decades and you need to go a billion years or so to do that. But is this a challenge or evidence for either way? Or actually it's just neutral because we simply don't know on the alien question.

You can make predictions based 

Julian: on theory. So the if this is going to evolve, if our universe is, I should actually walk you through this. The version of the theory I've ended up with in more detail, it's the one that makes predictions. Yes. And it also plays into what we're talking about here.

So the short answer to your question is the theory says there should be a lot of life in this universe. Life should pop up again and again on multiple worlds, probably a lot on icy moons will also sometimes on exposed worlds like ours. Okay. Wherever there's a lot of water and an energy source, you're probably going to get some sort of life form eventually.

But okay, I'll walk you through the theory. So that Smollett, let's go back to Smollett. He predicted That you would get Darwinian evolution of universes and that would ultimately fine tune the basic parameters of matter to optimize for black hole production. That was his version of the theory, right? So our universe has a lot of black holes and that was where the theory stood when he started it out. One reason by the way that didn't get any traction at the time is it's not a full version of the theory. It's been expanded. But he published it in the Journal of Classical and Quantum Gravity, which is read by 200 people, all of whom are really interested in quantum gravity and have no interest in evolutionary theories. And don't know anything about them. So it was, and this was before the internet, so I rang the, I talked to the, I emailed the editors of that journal recently just to double check everything, and yeah, they said yeah, we didn't go online for another six years after that paper. So no one can access it, right?

It's in, on paper, in a few libraries. And it's being read by nobody outside of quantum, the quantum gravity fields. It, it got, it, so it, by the time people hear about it, they're not even reading the original paper, they're just hearing a cartoon version of it that a friend mentioned.

And it just didn't gain traction, and it was dismissed by other physicists. Using arguments that actually don't hold up, but Smolin didn't know that because he doesn't know enough about evolution. Okay but one question that comes out of this is, if the universe evolved, and this is a developmental process that's been fine tuned by evolution, why is there intelligent life in it?

Intelligent life is a very odd, complex, energy intensive thing to generate, and it clearly, this universe puts a lot of energy into doing this. Why? How does that benefit universes, reproductions? If the universe is the, the unit of selection is the thing that's reproducing, what's, why would it generate intelligent life?

What's happening there? And a few people Clement Vidal John Smart Louis Crane Michael E. Price, a few people have they're mathematicians and philosophers and so on, systems theorists dug into that. And they came up with an idea, which I think is definitely true. And. Smallin doesn't like, he thinks it's too science fictional, but okay.

Which is, intelligent lifeforms, they will, they use energy. And they're going to try and optimize their energy use, right? Everybody does. Every creature, no matter how great or small, will try to get the most energy out of the environment they can with the least effort. So we see with ourselves, we've, we used our muscles.

As a power first, then we used animal fossils. Then we used burning wood, burning coal, oil, gas. Now we're using nuclear fission. We're trying to unlock nuclear fusion, and what you're doing is you're pushing up the energy efficiency slope. All of those are more efficient than the previous ones. You're getting more energy for less, out of less matter each time.

The ultimate end of that in our universe is, The production of small black holes, because if you can, if you drop matter into small black holes, you can actually get, if you can extract up to 42 percent of the mass as energy, which is way more efficient than fusion. Fusion you can extract 0. 7%. Of the mass as energy.

Fission, fission reactions, you splitting atoms, you can get 0. 1 percent of the mass out as energy. So by far the most efficient thing is dropping energy into a black hole. And if you can make small black holes technologically, manufacture them as energy and use them as energy sources, that's gonna, you're gonna do that.

That's the ultimate, that's where technological species will end up automatically. It doesn't matter what they think they're here for, that's what they're going to end up doing. I think that was the most interesting thing. And that's About two and a half cuts, right? You need two and a half cats.

Yes, you do. The cat is the, sadly, the cat has become the unit of the unit of energy for, the battery to drop into black holes. But you can, I think you can power all of Norway for a year with, is it two and a half black cats? dropped into a black hole. Yeah. So any universe that just randomly exploring the possibility space of matter generated intelligent life, technological life, they would then be able to manipulate the matter of that universe into making small black holes in a way that nature couldn't.

Nature on its own can't make small black holes. It can make star sized ones. And we know it can make supermassive black holes. It can't make really small ones. But if intelligent life does that, then that universe is going to be colossally more reproductively successful than one that doesn't produce intelligent life.

So intelligent life will be conserved. Once it's popped up once, it will be conserved. It will be very successful. And then, as generations go by, the basic parameters of matter will fine tune to make it more and more easy for life to develop until you get this kind of universe we're in now, which where it pops up pretty easily on this planet and develops into complexity pretty easily.

Other predictions. Okay, so that's where the theory was at when I got involved. And I've met Clement and John and people since then they've emailed me smaller than that. But then the James Webb was coming up the James Webb Space Telescope is NASA's latest space telescope, and it's a really revolutionary breakthrough because It's super cooled down to very close to absolute zero so that it can detect really difficult to detect infrared light from the very early universe because if you after the Big Bang, the light from the first billion years after the Big Bang has been stretched so much by the expansion of the universe.

As it's passed through the expanding universe, that its wavelength has dropped right down into the infrared. All the visible light from there is now right down into the infrared. And that means we can't see it on earth because we did, we radiate in the infrared. Everything radiates in the infrared. Our telescopes radiate way more in the infrared.

You can't pick up the light. So we've got, had literally no data from the very beginning of the universe up until the James Webb Space Telescope. So I thought as this was coming up two years ago, I thought, hang on, if this theory is correct. And if this universe did evolve. I should be able to make predictions about what the James Webb Space Telescope will see that are better than what the mainstream are predicting.

I should be more, I should be able to get a more accurate picture of the early universe. And that would be fucking fantastic for the theory, if I was right, if I was wrong, it'd be incredibly hideously embarrassing. And I would have to slink away and abandon investigating this, but it was a great natural experiment.

So I thought through the implications of the theory from scratch. Okay. And to understand the successful prediction I make, you've got to, you've got to realize. Or you've got to know that every galaxy we look at, all the spiral galaxies we look at and so on they seem to have a supermassive black hole at their center.

They all have a supermassive black hole at their center. You can tell that because the stars near it are going whizzing around something invisible really fast that obviously has a tremendous amount of gravity. So we know there's a supermassive black hole there. And some of these supermassive black holes have masses that are millions of times the mass of our sun.

Some of them have masses that are. Billions of times the massive. So they're really huge. Now a black hole is a point where Mass, mass energy has collapsed to a density that even light can't escape from it. Nothing can escape from it. It's gone from our universe. No information can come back out of the black hole.

But these supermassive black holes are immense. And they're at the center of all the galaxies. Now, the classic theory for how they came to be was that lots of stellar mass black holes, lots of, because when a star gets to the end of its life and uses up all its fuel, there's no longer radiation pushing out against gravity.

It runs out of fuel, the radiation pushing out against gravity that stops it collapsing is gone. The star collapses under its own gravity. And if they're much bigger than if they're, Five times, eight times bigger than our sun. If they're much bigger than our sun, they will keep collapsing until they form a black hole.

They just, they'll collapse to the point where even light can't escape. So that's how most black holes are formed. That's the, those are the black holes that Lee Smolin was talking about. They're stellar mass black holes. They're the mass of a sun, a star. Several times the mass of our sun, but they're the mass of a star, big star.

The old theory was lots of those must somehow come together to eventually form a much bigger black hole that pulls in a lot more matter and gas and therefore it eventually grows to be a supermassive black hole. It was a bottom up process where they slowly assemble from very small star mass black holes. Here's a consequence, here's an implication of the evolutionary theory, which I've never, I never had, I, which nobody had, scene, because nobody's fucking thinking about this. Nobody's thinking. Ten people are thinking about this, and they're thinking about it from their own specialized areas, right? The earliest, most, the earliest, most primitive universes if they reproduce through black holes, would have pr reproduced through really big, simple, direct collapse black holes. direct collapsed supermassive black holes. The simple matter that they were made out of would crunch down to form a really big black hole, because they're not producing very many black holes, so a lot of mass will go into each one.

If you divide a universe by five, you end up with really big black Oh, supermassive black holes. If you divide it by trillions, the way we do in ours, because we form trillions of stars, you end up with lots of very small stardust black holes, right? So the early ones were direct collapse supermassive black holes.

We have supermassive black holes in this universe at the center of every galaxy. If it's inevitable, if it's an evolved universe the way that those direct supermassive black holes were, are produced will be conserved from the earliest universes. They will be direct collapse supermassive black holes, right?

They won't be put together from a complicated process involving stars going through a whole load of processes and then eventually they collapse and then they all stick together and eventually they make a supermassive black hole. No, if we have supermassive black holes, they're almost certainly the mechanism that produced them is going to be direct collapse and it's going to be conserved. My theory was, what we should see in the very early universe is a wave of direct collapse supermassive black hole formation. By direct collapse I mean they don't form stars first and then burn out and then collapse. They just go. You're going to see direct collapse, supermassive black hole formation.

And after that, you're going to see star formation and galaxy formation. And here the early universe is incredibly smooth. The gas is really smooth. Okay. It's actually hard for cosmologists to work out how you get star formation in the early universe because it's so smooth. What you need are density areas to nucleate out little, you need seeds of gravity to nucleate out stars.

And you don't really have that in the early universe. It's super, super smooth. It's not optimized for star formation. So my argument was, it's gonna be optimized for supermassive black hole formation because huge areas will collapse. And as huge areas collapse, they don't nucleate out into stars and form lots and lots of stars because it's too smooth.

They form a supermassive black hole. And that supermassive black hole then optimizes conditions for star formation. That supermassive black hole, matter will fall into it, gas will fall into it will heat up and give out. Absolutely tons of energy as it does. All the brightest things in our universe are matter falling into black holes, quasars, they're all matter falling into black holes.

That supermassive black hole, as the energy falls into it, they, what they, what happens is they get really hot and they generate huge relativistic jets of matter shooting charged particles shooting up at the north and south magnetic pole of the spinning supermassive black hole.

Supermassive black holes have enormous magnetic fields and they jet these. Particle jets at close to light speed. They accelerate and close to light speed north and south. We know this from looking at quasars in the more recent galaxy. In more recent universe, in closer galaxies, we know this happens.

Those radiat radiation jets, these, those jets are charged particles shock the surrounding gas. And those shock shockwaves nucleate out. They shockwaves are density waves. They nucleate out star formation. So what I predicted you would see is a super massive of black holes rapidly generating. Spiral galaxies and so forth around the supermassive black hole nucleating out tons of stars.

So you would see rapid early galaxy formation around an ex a pre a supermassive black hole which precedes the galaxy formation. And the galaxy forms around the supermassive black hole rapidly and early. That's what, so you can get compact early galaxies. Built around supermassive black holes, dominated by their supermassive black holes.

That's exactly what you're seeing with James Webb. And it wasn't predicted by anyone else. Now, I want to give credit to one group of scientists, Priya Natarajan in Yale, and a few other scientists had done work on direct collapse supermassive black holes, and they knew they were theoretically possible.

And I drew, when I was making my predictions, I referenced their work and drew on their work, because I knew that direct collapse supermassive black holes were theoretically possible in our universe. But I was saying, they're not just, they're not just theoretically possible, there's going to be almost a phase transition in the early universe where, pretty much all the supermassive black holes we see today will all pretty much form first and then generate the galaxies around themselves.

And it's what we're seeing. 

Ben: That's amazing. I don't know enough to know if there might be alternative theories, but the fact that this theory, your interpretation of it, predicted this in advance, and then we saw it, seems pretty amazing. Pretty strong evidence for me, particularly at the very least that this is an underexplored idea that more people need to think about.

Julian: It’s always possible I'm wrong but it's always possible I'm wrong, but this is very strong evidence. There's something seriously worth exploring here. 

Ben: And that actually more cross, Disciplinary thinking, probably from non mathematician quantum people, or mathematician quantum people need to go and think about evolutionary or other ideas around that complexity.

It does strike me, this might be completely left field, but I don't know whether there's our current thinking around consciousness, or the fact that we don't understand that much about consciousness, have anything to say about this. 

Julian: Okay I'm leaving consciousness out of my book because it makes it a whole other book, a whole other book, a whole other ten  books.

But yeah clearly an evolved universe that generates conscious entities like you and me. And the listeners, I assume the listeners are conscious of it if they fall asleep. You're gonna have some very weird dreams, you're gonna have some very weird dreams. Universe that generates, builds out through a very complex multi step process.

Conscious entities like us is a very weird universe and frankly I'm out of my depth when I, when it starts, when we start to think about what the implications are for consciousness in in, in evolved universes. I have my thoughts and theories, but they, but I'm, that, that's me. When I do those, I'm starting to move into a kind of a transcendent realm of direct personal experience of the universe that would freak out the the kind of materialist reductionist that I want to talk to in, in this book.

It does definitely have huge implications for consciousness in the universe. It does huge implications. I, again, there was consciousness in the previous universes that generated our universe. 

Ben: I know. I would also say like we, humanity itself knows so little about this consciousness thing.

I spoken to some people who think have got to potentially some sort of enlightenment states, those who've taken sort of mushroom type stuff, or even neuroscientists who've just said, look, what we understand about consciousness. is very little. All of this stuff is really very weird, which is what you get.

So it's really interesting around that. But you're writing this work you're writing it in public on your sub stack and, it's coming through and there'll be there'll be a book as well. So I'm interested in how you're finding writing in public and also, you know that mixes up with personal story as well so how you're finding that and maybe how perhaps readers or listeners can interact and help evolve your theory or thinking but I guess this writing in public is a In some ways, there's a relatively new creative phenomena.

Obviously we've always had like serials and stuff, but the fact that people can comment in, with a newsletter format and then next week there might be another newsletter which interacts with it. I guess it's an offshoot of blogs. 

There seems to be a creative a growing creative outlet for that and also explores ideas like this.

So I'd be interested in, in, in how you think, how you've been finding it and and how people can help. 

Julian: Yeah I think new technologies always generate new art forms and I'm, one way of putting what I'm doing is, or phrasing what I'm doing is I'm writing the book in public. Another way of putting it is I'm, there's a, there's an art, I'm exploring an art form, which is.

Which you can call writing a book in public. So I use the Substack platform to do the, I've got a custom domain for it now because, for various reasons but I'm basically using Substack and it's, writing it in public is, has been fantastic. I you end up meeting people that you wouldn't meet otherwise, you end up in conversations you wouldn't have otherwise.

The Substack version of the book is re, is a really important version of the book. There will be a print book at the end of all this But I think they're both vitally important. The subsec isn't just a means to, to, to the end of the book. It's also a thing in its own right. And, there's a lot of material on the subsec that won't end up in the book, because, the book has to be tight and focused and go in this, beginning to end tell you the story.

Whereas I can ramble around the place and explore little various offshoots of the ideas. 

Ben: Have you thought of making a kind of GPT version of the book? Tyler Cowen did one on greatest economist of all time or something like that, Goat which was a much more entertaining way of actually engaging with the book and actually exploring it deeper than simply reading the text I felt for that.

I am thinking about doing something like that. Yeah. 

Julian: Cause also I have this, I use Roam and Scrivener to do my, I put all my rough stuff into Roam and then, which is a kind of a graph tool for connecting data and all kinds of. Texts in all kinds of interesting ways. I think and I, and then I bring stuff across into Scrivener and I make a more formal post or chapter in Scrivener over multiple drafts and then something goes up on the subset, but there's a huge amount of information left behind, it's also quite interesting.

So what I'd like to do is throw all of the material, all the Rome stuff, all the subset stuff into, yeah, into a bucket and to have a, Have an AI be able to answer questions from that huge bucket of information, which is way bigger than we'll end up in the book. Yeah. I would like that. Yeah. Yeah. I might talk to you about that if much about how best to do it.

Ben: I think the cost of doing it was going to drop dramatically and actually will be really interesting. 

Julian: The number of tokens, yeah, it's dropped a huge amount.

Ben: That little thing about AI as we've entered into the conversation, also strikes me as hearing what you've said about being more efficient and energy and where evolutionary processes go.

And I guess some who speculate around AI think AI heads to its own singularity as well, but just reflecting what you've said, it seems to me that this could simply be an energy efficiency type thing, which you don't necessarily need to get to a singularity for. But have you had any speculations on how your thinking has been impacted by what we're talking about?

By the technology that we're seeing in AI agents. 

Julian: I think, okay, in an evolutionary universe that there are implications I think for our future as humans and our future And are the future of our technologies. I think it's all one thing. It's all one thing like human beings. It's just in the design of a human being to feel that they're separate from the universe and they're separate from everything else because you need a an ego.

You need a sense of self. You're just you're this membrane bound isolated thing. To function and to survive, and that's fine. But we're not membrane bound isolated things. Oxygen is flowing through us. Carbon dioxide is flowing out of us where food is flowing through is flowing out. The cells are replacing themselves all the time.

We're completely social creatures and isolated human being dies. We are completely in social relationship to others, and we're completely in relationship to our technologies and we're all part, and the technologies are changing the biosphere and the biosphere is pushing back against the technologies and we need to find a kind of an equal.

Not a dynamic out of equilibrium balance as we move forward into the future that where we can maintain ourselves, the aspects of ourselves that we like. And so I think we are going to, we are going to merge with our technologies to a huge extent, and AI is going to be part of that.

But I don't think, I don't think AI's, in a way, I don't think AI's are as separate from us as we tend to think of them. AI's so far, large language models in particular, they're really the collective unconscious made manifest. They're only, all they have are the thoughts of millions of people encoded and then linked.

They're just the collective mind of humanity, they're not separate from us in, in a lot of ways. And I think as we move forward, we'll find that we're, our relationship to AIs will become very symbiotic over time. I don't think one has to annihilate the other or replace the other. I've clearly limits to biological development that we're constrained by the fact that we are this biological memory and there aren't similar constraints on aspects of AI because you can throw more compute at it.

You can do, you can change the software. You can, there's a lot more but ultimately I think we, we are both. It's part of the development of our universe, both the biological and the technological. And you're never going to just have a purely technological universe. It doesn't, I don't think it quite makes sense to have a purely technological universe.

I think there's a role for we're, I think we measure, I think we measure, I think we're important we're not going to have a purely biological future. It's going to be highly technologically mediated. What that does is expands out what we're going to be able to do then is explore the possibility space for this universe to explore the possibility space for matter in this universe.

There's a lot of rocks floating around the asteroid belt that were just. Be having a lot more fun if we were turning them into weird disco globes full of dancing semi human, offspring that, that are maximizing for techno happiness, that would be great. And there can be a monastic asteroid conversion somewhere else where people can just pray all day to their specific God and there's going to be another asteroid somewhere else where people just do maths.

Thanks. With their AI friends constantly, and we can massively expand the possibility space for consciousness and life and matter itself over the next, next few centuries. I've never heard that expressed by AI doing it. 

Ben: I've never heard it expressed like that, but I think it's plausible.

I spoke to someone not podcast who essentially had grown up deaf and now can hear. And she has a very different relationship technology because the technology is part of her. I said, this is one way of doing it, which might be like a 3PO (Star Wars), but also how she interacts, how she speaks to technology.

Isn't quite like a person, but it's beyond is beyond the pet say. So I know it's a whole other, but it's like, why would you treat something where you can? It's completely, profoundly changed your interaction with the world. You're dependent on it and you have this sort of symbiotic relationship.

She jokes about the fact that, she is part cyborg and what does that mean? And it's actually completely plausible, completely great for all entities. Imaginable. Yeah. 

Julian: Yeah. I think that is very plausible. Yeah. And she's a vision of the future and the future isn't scary when you meet it.

It's like someone who used to be deaf and now isn't, and it has a beautiful relationship with the technology that helps her become fully what she is capable of becoming. And we can be in that, we can be in a beautiful relationship to our technologies. 

Ben: Yeah, great. So any couple couple of closing questions then would be any other current projects that you're working on?

It seems like you have a thousand and one things to do, but Substack is obviously an important one. You had the children's book this year. Anything else on your mind and you combining it or anything else you'd like to highlight? 

Julian: My various publishers want me to write more children's books, but I want to finish the I want to finish The Egg and the Rock.

I want to do this book first. That's what I want to do next. And I want to do it on Substack in public and I want to talk to people about it and get ideas. Please, if you're listening to this and this interests you at all. Go to TheEggInTheRock. com subscribe to it and comment and answer the emails and I read everything, I don't necessarily answer everything because sometimes I'm overwhelmed, but I do read everything, and the feedback from readers has been unbelievably helpful to the book, unbelievably helpful, because I don't, I, and you don't have to be a, some kind of, expert in a particular domain here to be really helpful here, but it's wonderful to have someone say you haven't explained what a black hole is, and I don't really get it.

Or to have someone say, I literally can't tell the difference between a galaxy and an asteroid, please explain it. I don't know what people don't know until they tell me. So it's really improving the book to have people give you feedback, yeah. 

Ben: And I didn't pick up, why is it called The Egg and the Rock? 

Julian: It's the analogy I'm using at the beginning of the book, I'll send you chapter one and it will explain it, that the the, at the beginning, I talk about an egg, which the egg developed into my son, Arlo, the fertilized egg that developed into my son, Arlo. And I talk about a rock, which is the rock of Cashel, where my family were buried.

It's a big limestone rock sticking up out of the ground in in Tipperary. And I talk about the fact that they contain exactly the same atoms, they all contain, carbon and hydrogen and oxygen, calcium. And yet they, you watch them over the next few years, that egg becomes my son Arlo, a very complicated little individual running around, and the rock just sits there and decays slightly over time.

And what's the difference? The difference is the egg has an evolutionary history. The egg has an evolutionary history that has fine tuned it so it undergoes a developmental process, the energy flowing through it is organizing it. But the rock does not have an evolutionary history. The energy that flows through it is disorganizing.

It's not organized. And my question is, when you look at our universe, going from the Big Bang and a hot ball of gas to this here now, Does it behave like an egg or a rock? And the answer seems pretty clear to me. It's behaving much more like an egg than a rock. It's getting more complex and there's more structured order emerging over time.

Energy is being, channeled so as to enable complexification over time in a way that is far more like an egg than a rock. And if that's the case, you have to explain why. And I think the only possible explanation is an evolutionary one. The only explanation we've ever come up with for entities that behave in that way is an evolutionary explanation that there were earlier, more primitive ones that couldn't complexify that much, but they've, They fine tuned and fine tuned iterated, and the feedback comes through reproductive success that the offspring that will, if the increased complexity leads to increased reproductive success, it's, it is conserved.

You get to this kind of universe and then, yeah, and that's why the egg and the rock. So which is it? Is this an egg or a rock? Are we living inside an egg or a rock? 

Ben: Great. Okay. And then final question is, do you have any advice for people? Maybe this might be life advice, those who want to be creatives or explore this thing or we've talked a little bit about the importance of being creative.

Into, in, across disciplines, how to live a kind of a life well lived. But any closing thoughts on advice for listeners? 

Julian: Wow. I don't I'm, you are all, everyone's on their own journey and their own path, and I've had a very idiosyncratic and strange life, so I'm not sure if my, the advice.

That I can think of would be generalizable but I do think there's a specialization across everything that has had tremendous benefits, but there haven't, there aren't enough people putting it all together again. So if you think you can, if you think that there's some field you're involved in has missed something really big, that everybody has missed it because you have some information from somewhere else.

You're probably right. It's what you might not be right, but you there's a better chance than you think that you're right. Whole fields go wrong and nobody notices. So I think, try and put things back together because at the moment we're in a very fragmented era, and there's wonderful ideas lying all over the place that are in the wrong box, and they need to just being taken over to here where they were doing even more good at that.

And I think that people are doing that. We have an unbelievable number of PhDs in hyper specialized subjects, and we've got hardly anyone step, standing back and putting it all together. All the real, all the interdisciplinary stuff that people actually do, it's mostly bullshit. Like they'll have three meetings a year and they'll talk to each other and go, that's weird.

There isn't nearly enough putting it all together again. That's not really probably useful to most people, 

Ben: I don't know. I didn't hear about that. If you see an idea or a thing, which you think is in the wrong box or suspect it might be in the wrong box, go in, go and find it, drag it out into the light or put it into a different place.

That seems to me like a great idea. 

Julian: Yeah. I think we're moving into a golden age where science can be more, I think science that we need, I really want to pin some theses to a door here. I think we need a reformation in science. Science needs a reformation. Science has hit the end of a reductionist, materialist road, and its wheels are really spinning in the mud at this point in a lot of areas.

And it really needs input from people that aren't just reductionist materialists. 'cause reductionism is a phenomenal tool. It's the best tool we've ever come up with for uncovering certain kinds of data, certain kinds of truth. But at the scale of the universe, it breaks down. Reductionism will not explain the universe to you and it will not explain an entire society to you, and it will not explain the entirety of a human heart to you.

And, we need a reformation in science and there's, I'm trying to do it. Adam Mostriani, who has a subset called experimental history is trying to do it. There's a bunch of people, Matt Clancy's trying to do it. There's a bunch of people out there trying to help science realize that it's reached the end of a particular kind of problem.

way of doing things and we thank it and we're very grateful and we will continue doing reductionist material science forever because it's an unbelievably great tool but it's not enough for some of the problems we're facing right now and some of the mysteries we're trying to solve. Yeah and it strikes me It's a reformation in science.

Ben:

If I listen to a lot of cutting edge scientists on neuroscience, physicists, Nobel Prize winning speeches Oh, neuroscience is a really bad case of this, yeah. They always talk about we, the frontier, we need something more like this. But it's but we don't understand it. Yeah, it's 

Julian: unbelievable how many Nobel Prize winners in their speech will say, Reductionism isn't enough.

We are drowning in data, but we don't have knowledge. We're drowning in information, but we don't have wisdom. Some equivalent of that line has been said again and again by Nobel Prize winners. They all know there's a crisis. And they don't know how to get out of it, and it's, the trouble is the escape won't happen from inside the field, I think, at this point.

This is why I'm happily doing this from outside the field. I'm I think I have to disrupt it from outside. There's no point in me trying to get a paper into the Journal of Classical and Quantum Gravity that will be ignored for 30 years. That hasn't worked. It has to be disrupted from the outside.

And the problem there is most people who want to disrupt science and think they have a big idea that's better than the current idea are wrong. Most people are wrong. Most people, there is, the Dunning Kruger effect is real. A lot of people don't know what they don't know. But there are certain areas where the scientists themselves are not going to be able to find the solution to the problem because the problem crosses too many boundaries.

The boundaries of science are in the wrong place for understanding the universe. That's a big problem. That's a big problem. 

Ben: That sounds excellent. My takeaway is Try and go beyond the data or sideways to the data to the meaning or to the something else. Go to the meaning, 

Julian: But hang on to the data.

Don't deny the data to make your crazy theory true. Your crazy theory has to map onto the data. That's the difficult, that you've got to, you've got to just, you've got to hang on to the incredibly important data we do have. And then find the meaning in it. Yeah. 

Ben: That makes a lot of sense.

So on that note, Julian, thank you very much. 

Julian: Thanks. Thanks, man. That was a very enjoyable conversation.

Ruth Chang: Making hard choices, philosophy, agency, commitment, Derek Parfit | Podcast

Ruth Chang is a prominent philosopher known for her work in decision theory, practical reason, and moral philosophy. She is a professor at the University of Oxford, holding the Chair of Jurisprudence. She is well known for her theory of "hard choices," where she argues that many choices are not determined by objective reasons but instead involve values that are incommensurable. Her Ted Talk on the subject is at 10 million views.

Chang challenges the traditional framework of decision-making, which views choices as being simply better, worse, or equal. She introduces the idea that some choices are "on a par," meaning they are qualitatively different yet in the same neighborhood of value. This perspective suggests that the balance scale often used in decision-making wobbles without settling, reflecting the complexity and richness of our values.

The conversation explores how this understanding can be applied to career decisions, illustrating the importance of identifying what truly matters to us and recognizing that our agency allows us to commit to paths that align with our values, even in the face of hard choices. Ruth discusses the importance of commitment and the role it plays in rational agency, highlighting how it can guide our decisions and bring meaning to our lives.

The episode also touches on the implications of this theory for public choice situations and AI development. Ruth emphasizes the need for AI systems to account for hard choices and incorporate human input in decision-making processes. This approach could ensure that AI aligns with human values and contributes positively to society.

Further, Ruth reflects on her experiences with influential philosophers like Derek Parfit and shares insights on the state of philosophy as a discipline, particularly the challenges it faces regarding diversity and representation. She offers her perspective on philosophical movements like effective altruism, emphasizing the need for depth and complexity in philosophical discourse.

The episode concludes with Ruth sharing her "A.U.T.H.O.R." framework for making choices and becoming the author of one's life, encouraging listeners to embrace hard choices as opportunities for agency and self-expression. This insightful conversation invites listeners to rethink their approach to decision-making and consider the profound impact of values and commitment in shaping their lives.

To become the author of your life, ascertain what matters, understand how alternatives relate to what matters, tally up pros and cons, and then open yourself up to the possibility of commitment. Realize yourself by making new reasons for your choices.

In facing hard choices, if you can't commit, it's okay to drift—dip your toe into an option. This way, you gather the information necessary to discover where you can truly stand behind a path."

Transcript below, video above or on YouTube. Available wherever you listen to podcasts.

• Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3gJTSuo

• Spotify: https://sptfy.com/benyeoh

• Anchor: https://anchor.fm/benjamin-yeoh

• All links: https://pod.link/1562738506

Contents

• 00:36 Understanding Hard Choices

• 04:37 Applying Hard Choices to Careers

• 08:55 Rational Agency and Commitment

• 18:37 AI and Hard Choices

• 25:35 Philosophical Influences and Effective Altruism

• 45:34 Current Projects and Life Advice

Transcript (errors are possible as this has been AI aided in generation)

Ben: Hey everyone, I'm super excited to be speaking to Ruth Chang. Ruth is a philosopher and Chair and Professor of Jurisprudence at Oxford University. Ruth, welcome. 

Ruth: Thanks so much for having me. 

Ben: I'm trying to decide who is better, Taylor Swift or Paul McCartney? How do you think I should think about that decision?

I guess traditionally we've argued for three positions. Taylor is better than Paul. Taylor is worse than Paul. Taylor is equal to Paul. But your thinking from what I've read suggests that about hard choices, that might not be the context that we should use. We shouldn't perhaps think about it differently.

What do you think? 

Ruth: So that's a great way to enter into my world. I'm interested in trying to understand a very structure of normativity and value. Okay, so what you just said, that we think that when there are reasons to do things or things are valuable, we can only array them in one of three ways, better, worse, or equal.

And I think that's a mistake, and I think there's a diagnosis for why we make that mistake that's perfectly reasonable, and that is, we, when we're trying to tame the external world by measuring quantities of stuff, we find more or less than equal the right framework with, within which to operate in understanding the external world.

But the external world. Also includes values, reasons to do things, and we may, we need to make a distinction between non evaluative properties and evaluative properties, or non normative property and normative properties, and the normative properties in the world aren't like the non normative properties, so they can't be represented as quantities.

And once you recognize values, they can be so different in quality. They also have different amounts and so on. They're much more complicated. Then things like length and weight, which can be fully represented simply as quantities. Then you start to think maybe this framework, what I call the trichotomous framework, better, worse than equal, more or less equal is not the right framework for thinking about how to live, how to deal with values and reasons.

So if you think about Taylor Swift and Paul McCartney, if you're a certain kind of person and what matters, And let's say a choice between how to spend your hard earned bonus concert there. You might think that's a case where it's a hard choice Now, it's important to figure out what do we mean by a hard choice?

What is a hard choice? And if you go out on the street, most people will say a hard choice is a choice where I just don't know enough. I'm uncertain. Or something else they might say is a choice is hard because I can't measure the values of the options. But I think both of those common answers are mistaken.

The lack of measurability is a kind of surface symptom of something deeper, and that deeper thing is that the value of going to a Taylor Swift concert, and the value of going to a Paul McCartney concert, they're qualitatively different. And so the choice, Is hard because the options are what I call on a par.

So one, one way I think about this is, I think that most people when they make decisions they take out of their back pocket, a balanced scale. I think, okay, I put one alternative on one side of the scale and the other alternative, the other. And then you wait and you see how the balance scale settles.

And on the trichotomous framework, of course, it's going to be like this, or like this. But I want to say that in most of the interesting voices we face, It's going to be like this. The balance scale is going to wobble. It will never settle. And that's because the options are qualitatively different.

And yet, in the same neighborhood of what matters and the choice between them overall. So they're on a par. 

Ben: And so how might we apply that to thinking about careers? So I can see that these choices are hard, might be on a par. And you've spoken about this, but maybe I'm thinking about being a yoga teacher, or maybe I'm thinking about being a lawyer, or I guess you had to choose at some point between being a lawyer or being a philosopher.

And I guess. If you think about society, they're paying lawyers more money than yogi teachers on general. So that's one element But it strikes me that this is a hard choice And I was reading some of your work and you had this notion of I guess commitment a willful commitment potentially having agency in your choice Being something to take into account So if people are thinking about some of these difficult to measure and hard choices like in a career or something like that. How should they think about that framing?

Ruth: Okay. There are two points that you raise. One is whenever you face a choice, hard or easy, the number one thing that you have to figure out is what matters. And you have to frame a choice in terms of what turns on this choice, what matters to me, or to society, or whatever, in choosing between A and B.

That fact, that all choices are relative to what I call a covering consideration, Is still extremely under theorized in philosophy. And, quite frankly, if you think about a huge part of decision making, theorizing about decision making is focused on the surface phenomena, things like what are the circumstances?

What are the background social structures that create a social choice architecture? Tell me more about the alternatives. Which is better for me, so on, but really we can take all of the questions that have been swilling around the surface phenomena in decision making and recast them in terms of features.

Of what matters in the choice, that is features of the covering considerations that matter in the choice if you really understand what it is that makes for a good career, right? Goodness of a career is your covering consideration when you're choosing between being a lawyer and a philosopher will immediately see that the trichotomous framework is silly.

Because there are lots of qualitatively different ways of having a good career, and we shouldn't try to force them into one of the three boxes or onto the balance scale because that's just a mistake, right? So one way to think about approaching hard choices in choices between careers or, how to spend your life. The first thing you have to do is you have to really sit down and think hard about the covering considerations that matter to the choice. Having said that, second, if the choice is hard, if the alternatives are on a par, if they're qualitatively different with respect to what matters in the choice, and yet in the same overall neighborhood of value, then we're stuck, it seems, because what it is for the

that are relevant, given what matters in the choice, to have run out. So that's it. You're out of reasons, you're out of values. So now what? You might think the thing to do is to just flip a coin. But if, as I think, these kinds of hard choices are ubiquitous, they're all over our lives, that gives us a picture of life that is It's mostly random.

We don't seem to have any authorship or agency over. It's just the world throws us a bunch of things that are on a par, and so let's just flip a coin and go one way as opposed to the other. That strikes me as unsatisfactory. So what I suggest instead is that we need to expand our understanding of what it is to be a rational agent.

As something that isn't simply recognizing the reasons and the values that the world throws at us, figuring out how they relate, and then responding appropriately. Rationality essentially, and centrally, involves this other capacity. It's a capacity to put our very selves Right to stand behind something and thereby endow it with value or normativity and this capacity it might sound a little strange, but I think we do it.

Most of us all the time. Here you and I are, we're sitting and chatting about philosophy, but guess what? There's a bunch of other stuff we could be doing.

We could be writing checks to Oxfam. We could be saving lives and many other things. I could be having some tea. You could go play with your child. So what explains and what justifies our being in the choice situation where right now we're chatting about philosophy and maybe The choice you face is between asking me one question as opposed to another question and the choice I face is how much detail should I get into this?

And, what should I say? Why are we in these choice situations and what justifies our being in these choice situations? So if you zoom out for a minute and think, wow, our entire lives are filled with these moments in time in which we're in a choice situation, but we could be in so many others.

You might wonder what explains why we're in the ones we're in and what justifies Are being in the ones we're in and here I think we have to appeal to the idea of our agency or our commitment to a certain path that makes certain choice situations, the right ones for us. You at one point committed to creating this podcast and, that commitment then makes certain choice situations pop up and be more salient for you than others. Your agency is what makes true that you're justified in being in the choice situation you're in. And we can't explain why you're justified in being in the choice situation where you're contemplating what should I ask her next?

In any other way, that gives you agency over your life, right? The standard, if you ask someone on the street how come I'm in this situation? The standard answer will be entirely passive. It will be done in terms of causation, like you just cause you to find certain things salient, and then you form an intention, and then there are norms of structural rationality given that you form this intention to make a podcast, then, if there aren't countervailing reasons, then you're structurally rationally forced to be in these kinds of choice situations, supposedly those But notice you drop out of the story, like where are you in this story?

It's just stuff happening to you. So probably the kind of deepest thing I want to say is that rational agency shouldn't be understood as this essentially passive set of capacities passive in the very deep sense of There's no room for us to actually create reasons for ourselves or to add normativity to things.

Ben: That's very attractive to me because it strikes against determinism. It brings in agency as well in this kind of willful commitment idea. I was also wondering how you might apply that to public choice situations. So here in the UK, we have a a budget on healthcare, and one dilemma which comes up quite often is this idea of do we give money to the preterm baby?

And save their life a cost of something like half a million or a million dollars. And do we spend more money on diabetic patients who tend to cost twenty to forty thousand dollars? And there's a complicated way that they adjust this into kind of dollar per life years to get some sort of comparable measure.

But then actually here in the UK, we've said we don't think that's quite the only way and the kind of narrow thing about just cost benefit and expected value doesn't chime with what everyone thinks. And so then we also ask people, how do you think that calculus should be done? And we weigh it to that.

So that's why we do spend some money on preterm babies. If you were just narrowly thinking about a dollar per life, you might always choose. The diabetic, there's this thinking about how actually maybe that kind of way of thinking isn't as helpful help in that decision, or is it to comment that you made?

It's just we haven't quite still got the theories and structures to really help out in making some of those tough choices. 

Ruth: I think a lot of the work that is currently being done in healthcare policymaking and, bioethics and so on, is extremely important because what it helps you do is zero in on the kinds of factors that are relevant in determining, what we should do overall in these difficult cases.

And that's important because, you got to understand what's at stake. And I assume what matters in these cases is, what is it that matters? Doing the right thing? No, it's probably not just morality. It's probably some plurality of goods that matter, and it's very hard. To me, I think it's interesting that the philosophy of healthcare stuff that I've seen doesn't actually try to list the things that actually matter because it's controversial, but you need to do it.

There's no shortcut. You got to roll up your sleeves and have the arguments about the things that matter. And that will then constrain the merits and demerits of the alternatives. Having said that, the kind of case that you raise seems to me probably a hard case. And if my theory is right, the thing to do is to understand that there's no right answer that you have to try to figure out.

But instead, you have to actually shift your decision making protocol. To recognizing that there's a hard case here, and then realizing, we as a hospital, what we can do is we can commit to treating preterm babies, or we can commit to half of the money going to preterm babies and half going to diabetics or, but recognizing that we just, that there's no right answer, that if we can stand behind spending our money, In this way, as opposed to that way, that gives us a kind of identity and clarity of purpose, right?

I think this is probably happening in the US, at least legal system, right? Different jurisdictions have different characters, right? They stand for different things. In this appellate jurisdiction, they care about. Actually it's more plausible district courts. The example I'm about to give, they care about indigent circumstances and vulnerability while committing the crime over here, this jurisdiction.

No they just care about the cost, the economic costs of the crime and so on. And that's a little crude, but there's a way in which a judge. Who has authority over jurisdiction can create the character of her court by committing to certain values over others. In the hard cases that she faces.

Ben: That's a lot of food for thought. So I can definitely see that being hard cases and how you might think about that. It brings to mind, then currently there's a lot of talk about how now in the future we might use AI to help us do decision making and it strikes me that this is something that we might want to think about in terms of what we put into.

Algorithms and choices, or even if we're using AI somehow to help humans make choices that this idea that there might be for hard choices, a different way of thinking about it. Quite important. Do you think this is relevant to AI? And what is your thinking about how we might have AI aligned, make sure that AI is.

Helping and enriching humanity as opposed to the other way around. 

Ruth: Absolutely. You put your finger on, I think, probably the most important application of this idea to the near future. And that is AI. It's coming like a juggernaut down the pike. And if you look at machine learning algorithms and even most symbolic systems, they're built on trichotomy.

Right now, a machine learning protocol will give you only three good results in the context of decision making. This is better than this, it's worse, or they're equally good, and then everything else is a bad case. I just throw it out or do something else with it. That means if, in fact, You and I are facing a hard choice about whether to spend the hospital's money on preterm babies as opposed to Diabetics and we get an algorithm to help us.

It's going it's already designed to force the choice into one of the three Categories, it's better to treat preterm babies. It's worse or it's even worse Toss a coin. But we know that the choice is a hard one. So if we could redesign our machines to allow for four good positive outcomes, to allow that there are some hard choices, that is in addition another way, it's a kind of new interesting way of getting the human in the loop in machine processing.

So the machine hits a hard choice. And it sends up a flag and says, Humans, I need some input and it's at these points that a committee can review the information and actually make a commitment or do this other thing, which I think is okay, which I call drifting, but let's stick with the commitment case, commit to, preterm babies.

Let's commit to. To spending money on them and sends that information, then back to the machine. And now the machine adjust its algorithm so that the, what was a hard case, right? Preterm baby or diabetes. Now becomes an easy case, right? That the preterm baby is better than cheating diabetes, and it adjusts its algorithm the minimal amount to make it true that's the right outcome that would reflect the commitment of the hospital to put the money on preterm babies. Two things, right? We need AI to have four and not three good outputs. In order to match human values, right? Because human values, you and I, we face hard choices all the time. And so why are we building these tools or decision makers who don't face hard choices? They need to face hard choices too. And second, these machines cannot.

Ever be fully autonomous because when they hit a hard choice The human has to come back into the loop and provide some input. Because this idea means that you have to have small AI, you have to have AI that's carves at the joints. It's got to be, it's, you need a design for each joint and figuring out which those joints are. That's hard work. Someone's got to do that. But I think that's the only way we're going to get value alignment.

And it's just, it's sheer lunacy to think that without putting hard choices into machines that we're going to get value alignment. It's just not going to happen. There are going to be many people who are harmed by machines deciding A is better than B when in fact, A is on a par with B. 

Ben: I think there is room potentially for a small AI or small AI startups, they will probably always be. In the minority versus the juggernauts, but at least then they could be developed. And if they do turn out to be potentially better, we'll have these uses than that.

That will still be useful. It also strikes me coming back to the individual choice, that we should probably not feel as bad as many of us do when faced with. hard choices that actually if we commit or maybe you can touch on drifting that both of those are plausible ways of trying to weigh up these choices and actually we should perhaps not feel quite so bad about making these choices if we do commit to one or even if we chop and change and drift would that be a way of thinking about it or not?

Ruth: Yeah, so we shouldn't think of hard choices as these horrible things that that we all have to face in life. They're amazing thing that we face in life. Because they're the junctures at which we get to express our agency. We get to stand behind something and add value to it. We get to direct our lives in a certain direction as opposed to another.

So the standard picture of rationality is here's your job as a rational agent. You've got to wake up and figure out all the reasons and values that the world throws at you, figure out how they relate, and then respond appropriately to you. That's the standard picture for millennia, okay, and that picture leaves no room for us as agents, and I call it the pacifist view of rationality on an activist view.

The picture is the world. You wake up and the world's going to throw a bunch of hard choices at you and each of those is this precious thing where you get to express your agency and commit to one thing as opposed to another and add value to it and in that way craft your life, right? You justify living like this as opposed to that.

Even though that alternative path is not better, worse, or equal to the path that you've committed to, they're just different. They're on a par. 

Ben: That makes a remarkable amount of sense to me, on a par. We've talked a little bit about this phrase, what matters. And that's perhaps a good segue into Derek Parfit, who I think you studied with.

And I was podcasting with David Edmonds and reading his book on the Derek Parfitt biography. And it struck me that he influenced the thinking, or in fact helped the thinking, of so many philosophers and wider thinkers. And there was a particular point in time also when he was with Amartya Sen, who went on to win the Nobel Prize and had a lot of thinking within economics as well.

And I'm wondering a couple of things. One was, what do you think might be most misunderstood about Derek Parfit? And the second is, how, what was it like listening to and debating with Parfit and Sen and to give a sense of what it is to be a a philosopher during our times? 

Ruth: That was a very heady time, and I feel extremely lucky to have been in Oxford during that period.

So there was something that was called the Star Wars Seminar. It was Ronnie Dworkin, Jerry Cohen Amartya Sen, Derek Parfit I think I'm missing someone. Let's see, who would I be missing? Anyway amazing lineup all in a row and All Souls old library and the room jam packed. It really makes a difference having a bunch of Very accomplished and interesting thinkers, all working together in a way not working on the same idea, but working in a way that they can feed off one another. And I think that was very important. I think one of the most important things that we academics can do for our students is to just give them a sense.

of what, philosophy at the highest levels is like. So too much philosophy today is just people writing down and publishing things that are just not the sort of thoughts on the way to something worth saying, but not really worth saying. And I know there's so much pressure to publish, but I think it's ruining the profession.

If we could all chill and just write down things that are worth. saying I think the profession will be much improved. And I think that generation of amazing thinkers did exactly that. They just wrote down things that were worth saying. So it was a great model. For how to do philosophy.

As for Derek, I feel so fortunate that I was able to study under him. And he was someone who gave me a sense of what philosophy at the highest levels is like. And we want to impart that to our students. But of course the flip side of that is that you spend your life falling short. But it's important to know what that is.

Instead of thinking, oh this is what philosophy is. It's just writing down anything I happen to think that has a little bit of rigor. So that's, I think, the most precious thing I learned from Derek. And of course, I am constantly falling short. So it makes for not a great life in some ways.

But if you accept that you are what you are and you do the best that you can I think that's better than, and while you know what it is to do philosophy at the highest levels I think that's a better situation. It's better for you, and it makes you a better philosopher than someone who doesn't even know what that is. Yeah. Okay, so Derek, it was just amazing, it's just spending. Eight, 14 hours with him just talking. And, to be frank, most of our discussions were not about my work, right? He wanted to talk about the things he was interested in and I was all too happy to oblige. So it was a way of cutting your teeth as a young person and being critical and, thinking about interesting ideas at a pretty high level.

And it was great fun. He really was indefatigable as far as how he's misunderstood. I guess it's a shame, I think, for him to be blotted into a certain type of philosophy, which I think is not fair. I think he admired and was glad for Effective altruism, that's not who he was as a philosopher.

So people who want to paint him as this flat footed, quasi utilitarian, I just don't think that's right. And it's convenient to take someone who's a big figure and use him as a foil, but I don't think it's accurate. 

Ben: His work's just that much more complex than, like you say, effective altruism or quasi utilitarian thinking.

Ruth: And that's not who he was as a person either. , I was just reminiscing about, lunches we'd have together and he would just suddenly burst into tears, he was a feeling person and and he believed in respect and duties and obligations and all that stuff. And he was extremely empathetic, right? So you can be like an old world British socialist who's got empathy for a group or some abstract entity. He wasn't like that. And I sometimes worry that people paint him as that. He was empathetic individually, for individuals. And he could occupy other people's shoes.

I think the thing that was most remarkable about him, maybe the thing I admired most about him, was that philosophy wasn't about himself. There was no ego in what he did. He was, he had, I think, a healthy ego, but when he did philosophy, it was all about the ideas. That's all he cared about.

And it wasn't about putting other people down and showing that they're more, he was more clever than them. So he was a role model for how to be a philosopher in that respect. 

Ben: How to concentrate on what matters, there. That scene that we come back to that's a good segue into whether you have any thoughts on How good effective altruism is or what its state today?

I guess some people would say that Derek Parfitt's kind of the grandfather of that kind of movement Although some of it, you could only take maybe a handful of his pages to get some of that. So I don't know if you have any thoughts on that

Ruth: Are you asking me to say what I think about effective altruism? Maybe I 

Ben: could answer. We could do a little, I was going to do this in maybe underrated or overrated or maybe something else without that. But you said, yeah, maybe if effective altruism is a underrated philosophical idea or overrated, it probably hard to boil it down to one thing or any thoughts about where the movement is.

I guess it's been more. influential with young university goers than perhaps they they might've thought. But in recent years, it's also attracted quite a lot of criticism, maybe because of this perception of it being a kind of narrow cost benefit utilitarian idea. I'm just intrigued and what you make of it as a movement and how it's doing. 

Ruth: There's the movement and then there's the philosophy. And as far as the philosophy goes. My own view is that it's worth taking an idea and exploring the heck out of it, right? Go down all the alleys, that's what we should do. But then there's also kind of judgment about which cluster of alleys, you're looking down at which ones are worth spending a huge amount of time on. And I think that effective altruism, The philosophy of it is an alley that it's worth going down, right? Go down those alleys. That's great.

As far as the activism side, I guess I'm a little worried as to why this cluster of philosophical ideas has got so much traction, especially among young people. Like, why do they find it so attractive? And I worry that the reasons are not the right reasons for a theory to gain traction. To have something neat and fairly clean and in some ways not terribly complex and gives you a sense of virtuousness. I think that if that's what's going on, those are very bad reasons to cotton on to a philosophical theory and champion it. 

Ben: Yeah, that makes sense. 

Ruth: Yeah if those are the reasons, then things will peter out, right? Because the philosophical theories that have, Insight to them. Those are the ones that need to live on, even if they're messy and complicated and not easily summarizable.

That's what we need to be championing. 

Ben: And with that, with the sort of reasons part, how much weight do you put on intentionality when we come to choices and thinking? 

Ruth: So according to some studies, about 40 percent of the actions An average person performs a day are automatic.

So there's no intentionality at all. You just turn on the alarm, you make the call, right? And sometimes it feels like we're just on autopilot, right? We just go to work. This is what we have to be doing. We have a script that we're following. I'm trying to fight against that. And I think your use of intentionality is something I would call here's this opportunity we have for commitment where we can actually put ourselves behind a certain course of action instead of just drifting into it. Intentionality as you mean it, that is there are two things you might need. One is something that's close to what I think of as commitment. The other is, let's reflect and think about which path we should be taking and we should certainly be doing that. I think no one thinks we shouldn't be doing that.

I want to say that there's something else we should be doing that is not cognitive, is actually volitional. So yes, we need to think and contemplate whether this course of action is better than that one. But we also have to understand that our role as rational agents is to Throw ourselves behind something and create value for ourselves and thereby become the author of our lives by adding value to things for ourselves, right?

We make it true that being a philosopher is better for us than being a lawyer. 

Ben: And It leads to your point that hard choices are there for an opportunity. They can be great because you can bring your commitment, intentionality to it and bring it value to yourself. 

Ruth: One thing is that most people who have written to me about their hard choices, trying to get some help, they're in a position where They can't commit.

So it's all well and good for me to say, Oh, yes, and hard choices. You have this capacity to ground new will based reasons to create value for yourself, for an ordinary person when they face a hard choice, usually they're not in a position to make the commitment. So in that case, what do you do?

Like you're torn between being yoga instructor and lawyer. If you can't throw yourself behind one option as opposed to the other, what I tell people is to go ahead and drift in the sense of dipping your toe in one of the options as opposed to the other in the hopes, right? In the broader context of seeing whether you can commit to that option.

So in my own case. Should I be a philosopher? Should I be a lawyer? I was really torn. It seemed very clear to me that dipping my toe into law was a kind of safe thing to do because I'd be financially secure. Philosophy is a very dangerous, risky profession. So I dipped my toe into law, and I found myself unable to commit to being a lawyer.

So in law school, I took as much philosophy as I could. I couldn't commit to the way of being a successful law student, right? To be a successful law student, you have to do what's called issue spotting, and they give you a scenario and then you got to spot a bunch of issues and what I would always do is I pick one issue and I try to think about it philosophically, that one issue.

And so I'd miss the other dozen issues. So I wasn't a very good law student. I just couldn't do it. I just, I couldn't stand behind doing that. And when I practiced law, I kept thinking, I really want to go to foster graduate school. So that was a case of drifting into one option, dipping my toe in, seeing whether I could commit to it, and discovering I couldn't.

And that's a way to get information about what you can commit to. It gets you in a position where you can then throw yourself behind a path that looked too scary, five years ago. 

Ben: . 

Okay, I've got a couple of more big ideas, which I hear around and I'd be interested in your opinion as to whether they're overrated or underrated and in the same thing, and then finish off with a couple of current projects and perhaps overall advice or life advice questions.

So one is, there's some thinking around so called existential risk or tell risks of bad things happening. Some people talk about man made pandemics or I guess nuclear war or rogue artificial general intelligence. Do you think those are underrated ideas or overrated?

Should we be spending more time thinking about them or less time or maybe is it about the right amount of time that people are spending thinking about existential risk problems? 

Ruth: Existential risk is very sexy, but it's way off. I think we should be spending more time now trying to solve immediate problems. 

Ben: I guess there's two parts to sustainability, which is meeting the needs of today, as well as meeting the needs of tomorrow. But if your tomorrow is perhaps a thousand years or 2000 years in advance, or some people talk about a million years in advance, it does seem a little bit far away. We touched on the ideas of pluralism, kind of putting weight on a few things. I guess some people mean a bit differently by it. But do you think that's a kind of overrated or underrated explored idea, this idea that perhaps we should be more pluralist in our lives?

Ruth: I, it depends on what you mean, but in a kind of broad brush way, yes, let's be more pluralist. And one way we can be more pluralist is to have different communities. that are very fixated on one single idea or one religion or way of being and so on, so long as there's peace, right? And as long as one recognizes that mine isn't better than yours, they're all on a par.

Ben: Great. We just happen 

Ruth: to commit to this religion, and they've committed to this other religion or this other way of being. 

Ben: And that's okay, right? 

Ruth: That's okay. 

Ben: Okay. And then last one on this would be a universal basic income, some sort of UBI. Good idea, bad idea, neutral. We don't know enough about it.

Ruth: I don't know enough about it, but other people must on the face of it. It seems to me really intriguing. And I know there've been little pilots. Studies in small places. Just speaking personally without knowing anything about the topic. I love it. Like I'd love to try it and just see how we evolve as humans.

Ben: Great. Okay. And then last one I guess this is sometimes comes up in your work as well, but what do you think about the value of transformative experiences in terms of, big experiences that we have, which might change our views or things, or perhaps also how we should go about either kind of being more open to transformative experiences or not. 

Ruth: I think of transformative experiences as of a piece with ordinary experiences. You could have an ordinary experience that makes accessible to you, some value that wasn't accessible to you before that changes the weights of values that were accessible to you. Transformative experiences are ordinary experiences on steroids, where they're, they have this funny effect of.

Changing a huge swath of your value profile in a way that you couldn't have anticipated, right? Perhaps. Whether the epistemology is as people think is one, one has to argue about that, but, you can have experiences in life that change what you consider valuable and how valuable you consider it. And those are, as it were, small scale transformations, but you can also have these big scale transformations. And transformative experiences understood as the big scale ones, I think, are interesting. But I think they should be understood in a broader context of different ways in which our value profiles can change.

Ben: Great. And final couple of questions would be are there any current projects that you're working on? That you want to share. And, last one would be, life advice or advice that you have. But maybe starting with current projects that you're working on, or in the future that are interesting you at the moment.

Ruth: So the two projects That I'm working on now have to do with trying to locate and propose changes for what I consider two fundamental misunderstandings about value that are currently embedded in AI design. And I think that unless those two mistakes are corrected for, we're never gonna get alignment.

So they're not just random mistakes. 'cause any ologist will tell you AI when it deals with values gets a thousand things wrong. But these are two things wrong that I think are absolutely central to human alignment, human machine alignment, value alignment, and of course. As a philosopher, you can just say stuff, but no computer scientist is ever going to listen to you.

Especially if you have a proposal for how to fix what you claim are fundamental mistakes in AI design, you better speak their language. Kit Fein, I have prevailed upon to help, to create a mathematical model that could fit. What I think are the ways to fix these two fundamental mistakes.

So that's one project. 

Ben: And just to say that the two mistakes, because one was about hard choices, that there should be four ways rather than three ways. 

Ruth: Yeah. 

Ben: And what was the second mistake? Or is, and that, because it has to hand back to humans. Is that related? 

Ruth: No, the other mistake I haven't talked about yet has to do with an assumption that the way you achieve a value.

is through a non evaluative proxy. If you're trying to build an AI to hire the best candidate, right? Best candidate, that's evaluative. How do you achieve that? You put in the reward function some non evaluative goal, like Sort all the resumes that look the most similar to the resumes of the people we've already hired.

And all machine learning is like that. And that's a fundamental, I think, mistake about how it is to achieve an evaluative goal. You can't do it through a non evaluative proxy, and certainly not at scale. You can jimmy up a small AI that will work for, but that will be useless. This goes back to what I was saying before about how I think we need to have small AI that carves at the joints and getting the right joints is absolutely crucial.

So those are the two mistakes, values proxies and making no room for hard choices. So the second thing I'm working on now is related to something we talked about earlier and it has to do with how, here's one way we can get meaning in our lives. So it's about how do, how is it that you achieve meaning in life?

And, it's not about achieving things or having great relationships, although those things could be important, the ways of having meaning. I think it's about

committing or putting yourself behind certain, what I call well formed choice situations. as opposed to others. Like you and I get meaning in our lives by putting ourselves behind well formed choice situations that have to do with executing being thinkers or, talking about ideas. Other people get meaning in their lives by putting themselves behind being wolves of Wall Street.

And the idea is that you can contrast the case where you put yourself behind a certain set of choice situations. As having more value for you than others. Contrast that with a case where you just passively, look your father worked on Wall Street. His father worked on Wall Street. You went to fancy schools and Wall Street firms came a callin and handed you a job on a silver platter.

But where you just drift. into a path, but you don't stand behind that path. You haven't actually added value to that path. You're just blindly drifting. And a life like that, I think, doesn't have the kind of meaning that I'm interested in. 

Ben: That's fascinating. Oh I look forward to reading more about that.

And I guess final question then is, do you have any Advice that you'd want to share to listeners. It can be advice about choices, although I guess we've talked about that or life advice about career or how to how to live a flourishing life. It sounds like you're alluded that to you and your sort of current project around thinking about being committed to choices and the like, but I don't know if you'd sum that up in a particular piece of advice you'd like to share. 

Ruth: I have this kind of cute. Recipe for making choices and being the author of your life, right? A, ascertaining what matters, U, understand how the alternatives relate with respect to what matters, T, tally up the pros and cons of the alternatives with respect to what matters. And then here, we tend to draw a line.

That's it! After we've tallied up, we can figure out what we should do. We'll recognize that

often, we don't get an answer. So what we do is we go back to A U T again, and try to figure out where did we go wrong? We have to just be more careful. Instead, I think we need to move on and go to H, which is to home in on the fact of parity, right? There are hard choices. And then O is to open ourselves up to the possibility of making a commitment to one of the options.

And R, by opening ourselves up to the possibility of commitment, and then committing or drifting, right? We realize ourselves by making new reasons for ourselves if we've committed. By not making new reasons for ourselves, if we drift. So that's how we can become the author of our own lives. 

Ben: Great.

That's a really neat little recipe. A U T H O R. Author. Great. So with that, Ruth, thank you very much. 

Ruth: American spelling! 

Ben: Yeah! 

Ruth: If I were British, I'd have to add a U. Anyway. Okay. Alright. 

Ben: Thank you. 

Ruth: Thank you for having me.

Bluets, meditation on seeing the theatre production

Bluets dances with a multitude of threads. Threads that fray.  Threads that loop. Threads that splice. Threads that twist. 

One thread is a form of love story which is also a sex story which is also a blue story which is also an identity story which is also a grief story which is also a loss story. 

Maggie Nelson’s Bluets is structured as 240 numbers prose-poem-aphoristic-sentence-paragraphs.

The numbers are linear.  The threads are non-linear. 

I see within Nelson’s Bluets a kaleidoscope of threaded images. Micro-vignettes. Fractured tableaus. 

I say I see

as this is the readers’ share, the audiences’ share, the viewers’ share of the work. 

In Katie Mitchell’s Bluets I see these vignettes created into physical on stage tableaus. Images projected on screen. Images made by the performers. Vignettes shapes by the stage hands. The stage hand who cast shadow and light and absence, who cast negative space and liminal space and forgotten space. 

In Margaret Perry’s Bluets I hear the breaks the caesuras the cuts for the performers. 

All of these Bluets orbit the feminist. 

In Katie Mitchell’s and Margaret Perry’s Bluets I see no numbers. In that Bluets, the one I saw and experience in that time and space, time move forward - more or less linear - although with skips and jumps and pauses.  

Perhaps forward numbers are unneeded if time parses forwards. 

Yet this Bluets drifted in and out of kairos time. Where time flows and stops, not experienced in a line. 

In Nelson’s Bluets some words are intensely blue. More blue than the images in performance. Yet some  images in the performance Bluets transcend the text or at least derive from a world at least as deep and expressive as the words. 

On occasion the performers are lost in their image. Eyes zoned on their making on the camera on the screen and rarely the audience watcher. 

The lost moments past quickly. I see them as from a liminal between space.  Perhaps one could seem them as the space between. 

At the level of the idea these concepts swirl around me

Sex and love

Identity

Disability

Grief

Blue 

You will find more or less, and different for sure.

In Nelson’s Bluets: 

Numbered Fragments: Each fragment is sequentially numbered from 1 to 240. This numbering provides a sense of progression, even though the content within the fragments often jumps between different times, places, and ideas.

Prose Poetry: The fragments blend elements of prose and poetry, featuring lyrical language, vivid imagery, and poetic rhythm. This form is in itself unique. The structure allows Nelson to weave together personal memoir, philosophical musings, and cultural analysis

Non-linear Narrative: The fragments do not follow a traditional narrative arc. The fragments are associative and often jump between different subjects and moments in time. This mirrors the way memories and emotions can be experienced in a non-linear fashion.

Intertextuality: The fragments frequently reference other works of art, literature, philosophy, and personal anecdotes. These references create a rich intertextual tapestry, adding depth and resonance to the themes.

From the view of grief:

Personal Loss: The color blue is a central metaphor.  There is a riff on feelings of sorrow and longing following the end of a romantic relationship. The fragments capture the rawness of heartbreak and the enduring pain that accompanies the loss of a loved one.

Philosophical Inquiry: Te work it not only a riff on  personal grief but also interrogates the nature of grief itself. How grief shapes our understanding of the world, our relationships, and our sense of self. She examines how grief can be both a deeply personal experience and a universal human condition.

Sensory and Emotional Connections: Grief  connects to sensory experiences and emotional responses. 

The work attempts the paradox to  articulate the inexpressible aspects of grief.

Fragmented Narrative: The fragmented structure mirrors the disjointed and often chaotic nature of grief. (Of love, of disability, of identity). The non-linear format jumps between memories, reflections, and observations. Grief can jump and spiral like this. As can love. 

Healing and Continuity: The work is steeped in grief. Yet I see it also touches on the process of healing. Grief does not have a neat resolution. Grief can be a part of one's ongoing life. The act of writing and reflecting becomes a way to live with and through grief.

On feminism and identity

Personal Autonomy and Female Voice: The power of the female voice.

Exploration of Female Desire: The complexities of female desire, addressing themes of love, longing, and sexuality from a distinctly female perspective.

Interrogation of Gender Norms: Nelson subtly critiques societal expectations and norms surrounding gender and relationships. The audience is caught on the phrase of a passive top and an active bottom.

On Disability:

Personal Connection to Disability: There is a portrayal of a friend's (?) paralysis. This relationship provides a lens through which she explores the physical and emotional impacts of disability on both the individual experiencing it and their loved ones.

A riff on  the daily realities and emotional complexities faced by disability . 

Interconnectedness of Grief and Disability: The  onset of disability can lead to profound personal and relational grief, as both the individual and their loved ones mourn the loss of prior abilities and navigate new realities.

Philosophical Reflections on the Body: Philosophical musings on the nature of the body, its vulnerabilities, and its resilience. How disability can alter one's perception of their own body and its capabilities, prompting broader questions about identity and self-acceptance.

Visibility and Invisibility: The fragments touch on the themes of visibility and invisibility related to disability. 

Interdependency and Care: How relationships are reshaped by disability. A friend and caregiver, highlights the mutual dependence and emotional labor involved in such dynamics.

On Blue: 

Emotional Resonance: Blue serves as a symbol for various emotional states, particularly those associated with melancholy, longing, and grief…. a vessel for expressing sorrow, heartache, and a sense of loss.

Sensory and Aesthetic Appreciation: The beauty of blue in nature, art, and everyday objects, - its ability to evoke profound emotional responses. The visual and tactile allure- connections between the color and moments of aesthetic pleasure.

Philosophical Inquiry: Blue is a subject of philosophical inquiry. The nature of color itself, its impact on perception, and its role in shaping human experience. How blue can represent both presence and absence, depth and distance.

Interconnectedness with Memory: Do I see that blue is connected with memory here? blue evokes and anchors recollections - those related to love and loss. Blue becomes a conduit for accessing and articulating past experiences. 

Symbol of Desire and Longing: Blue symbolizes desire and longing - a sense of yearning, whether for a lost lover, a past moment, or an unattainable ideal. The color captures the essence of unfulfilled desires and the bittersweet nature of longing.

Cultural and Historical Contexts: the work situates the exploration of blue within broader cultural and historical contexts. Referencing various works of art, literature, and philosophy that engage with the color blue, from artists like Yves Klein to poets like Wallace Stevens. 

I note in blue there is very little (or arguably no) black.

Is Bluets the performance or the poem -  good or bad ? I can not answer that.

Should you see or read the work ? 

I think if these ideas - grief - love - sex - identity - poetic form - language form - colour - culture - philosophy - queer - non-queer - engage you or you want to be engaged by them then this is a work to be engaged with by deep thinking artist creators at the height of their powers.

Hansong Li: China, Tangut, political economy, history | Podcast

A podcast with Hansong Li, a political theorist and historian of political, economic, and legal thought. We discussed a breadth of topics ranging from the Tangut language, Eastern philosophy, development economics, to modern political ideologies and cultural expressions. Hansong’s insights shed light on historical contexts while drawing connections to contemporary issues.

The conversation delves into broader philosophical and economic themes, comparing past and present political thoughts and examining the effects of international aid on development. Hansong emphasizes the importance of learning from history and cultural interactions for a more nuanced understanding of contemporary global dynamics.

Transcript, contents and summary below.

• 00:18 The Tangut People and Their Language

• 11:16 Modern Interpretations of Chinese Philosophy

• 22:07 Global South and Regional Concepts

• 27:09 Montesquieu and Sea Imagery

• 32:55 Rousseau's Plan for Corsica

• 37:56 Economic Development in Northeast Asia

• 40:34 International Aid: Help or Hindrance?

• 46:56 Global Economic Thought: East vs. West

• 56:29 Hamilton: A Political and Cultural Analysis

• 01:01:51 Underrated or Overrated?

• 01:06:04 Current Projects and Life Advice

The Tangut Legacy: A Journey Through Language and History

Our dialogue began with an exploration of the Tangut people and their language. Hansong provided a richly detailed account, explaining that the Tangut were referred to by the Mongolians, while the Chinese knew them as the Western Xia. Significantly positioned along the Silk Road, the Tangut introduced their own script, imitating Chinese characters but retaining a Tibetan-influenced grammar and syntax. 

"Learning the Tangut language is fun," Hansong remarked, pointing out its synthetic nature, blending elements from Sanskrit, Chinese, and Tibetan. He also emphasized the diverse cultural fabric of the Tangut, mentioning Tibetans, Uyghurs, and Han Chinese influences, and how insights into their daily lives reveal much about medieval Northwestern China.

In discussing the Tangut’s military prowess and strategic diplomacy, Hansong noted their frequent military victories over the Song Dynasty. He highlighted how Genghis Khan's frustrations with the Tangut contributed to his deteriorating health.

When questioned about the regulatory landscape for something as mundane yet fundamental as opening a bakery in that era, Hansong illuminated the extensive yet fascinating legal codes and contractual details. This granularity highlighted the historical depth and richness often obscured in conventional narratives.

Modern China: Misunderstandings and Moral Vacuums

Transitioning to contemporary topics, Hansong challenged the notion of a moral or spiritual vacuum in modern China. He argued that, despite China's complex relationship with its traditions post-1950s and post-1989, a rich tapestry of normative traditions persists, driven by intellectuals and everyday people alike.

"There is a world full of normative traditions, contentions, and intercultural contestations in China," Hansong asserted, adding that today's intellectual landscape thrives on the interplay of Marxist, Confucian, and other philosophical streams.

Economic Thought and Development: Lessons from Rousseau and Modern Implications

Hansong's reflections on Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s plan for Corsica drew fascinating parallels with contemporary development economics. He praised Rousseau's stage-by-stage approach to building economic surplus, emphasizing its relevance to modern East Asian economic models where initial industrial policy laid the groundwork for technological and innovative leaps.

This led to a critical discussion on international aid. Hansong acknowledged its varied impact, cautioning against viewing aid as a one-size-fits-all solution. He stressed the importance of domestic capability in creating surplus and self-reliance, advocating a balanced approach akin to China’s industrial policy.

Western Economic Philosophies: Evolution and Reflection

Discussing Western economic thought, Hansong spoke about the ongoing evolution from 1970s neoliberalism to today’s reflective and sometimes critical stance. He emphasized the significance of considering both distribution and production in economic models, rejecting binary views in favor of nuanced, context-specific strategies.

Cultural Reflections: Musical Theater and Classical Music

We concluded on a lighter note, reflecting on cultural phenomena like the musical "Hamilton." Hansong critiqued its oversimplified portrayal of social mobility and individual heroism, while acknowledging its power to communicate complex narratives. He pondered the power of performative arts in shaping social and political discourse across cultures.

Travel and Inter-Normative Thinking: Life Advice

"Traveling a lot and being open-minded to different ways of life is essential for any public intellectual," he emphasized.

Transcript (AI derived, mistakes are possible)

Ben: Hey everyone, I'm super excited to be speaking to Hansong Li. Hansong is a political theorist and a historian of political, economic, and legal thought. Hansong, welcome. 

Hansong: Thank you so much, Ben. So glad to be here. 

Ben: What can we learn? from the Tangut language and people? 

Hansong: The wonderful question to start us off to start, of course, the Tangut and the word Tangut is the actually was a Mongolian reference to the people whom the Chinese call Western Xia.

And they occupy to the [ ] corridor so somewhere between modern day, [Gangsu and monglia] there were people who basically occupy this very strategic place in what we today would call the Silk Road as we reimagine it. And at the time of course, it creates some troubles for the Song Dynasty because they really blocked the pathway to Central Asia and to Eastern Europe.

We can learn a few things from the Tangut groups. First of all, the way they created their own script in imitation of Chinese characters, but also preserving that [ ] somewhat, it was rather close to Tibetan in, in grammar and syntax, but with a lot of loan words from across the board from Sanskrit, from Chinese.

So it's a very synthetic language, and it's just so much fun to learn. I started learning it when I was 13 or 14 reading martial arts novels, which involved some characters from the re imagined Tangut dynasty, but and then I wondered, I really wanted to know how they spoke and what they really thought and what kind of buddhism did they have and how did they treat people of different cultures, religions and ethnicities, because it was not just a regional kingdom, but there were [ ] medieval Uyghurs the [Hui] people who were conquered and incorporated in there. There were Tibetans, there were more Central Asian peoples.

There were obviously also a lot of Han Chinese influence. And it was a very diverse. And incredibly rich source of historical imaginations. And we can also look into the daily lives at the micro historical level, the way they contracted loans and investments. And my favorite piece of artifact was really just a piece of paper saying all the things you need to start a bakery shop and all the utensils you need and how much it cost it. And of course, you have to rent the room to open that bakery shop. So all the details you need to know about ideas, we would call it high medieval, late medieval Northwestern China.

And their interactions, their diplomacy, their economic life, their total activities it was just a kind of black box because it's not officially classified as 1 of the 24 histories and dynasties of Chinese history for complicated reasons. But this mysterious dynasty really has a lot to offer once you open up this black box and you see all the treasures inside. 

Ben: I mean arguably it was on a par with the Song dynasty. Is that correct? ... the 1100s to 1300s 

Hansong: Exactly and it overlapped with both the northern southern Song dynasty. So it started in the really in the heydays of northern Song dynasty So [they] able to battle off both the Khitans and and Han chinese And then later on, the Khitans were replaced by the Jurchens and the, the Song Dynasty, the Imperial Dynasty, then retreated to the South, but it continued to exist until the Mongol conquest.

And obviously the Mongols had a lot of troubles conquering the Tang groups. And it's rumored, several sources, including some Mongol sources, that Genghis Khan really was infuriated at the slow pace that Which they were [attacking Tangut] territory. The Tangut was really good fighters in terms of military power, not in terms of economic power.

They were probably much superior to the Songs. There were more victories on the Tangut side than on the Song side throughout the North and Song dynasties. [it is said on Ghengis Khan... that] The frustrations he had with his Tangut campaigns might have contributed to [his] the worsening of his own health situations and might have even contributed to his death. And, but of course we can't really verify that. 

Ben: And were there many bakery regulations? Is it like today where you needed lots of licenses and tax inspectors, or was it relatively simple still to open up a bakery? 

Hansong: It involved, of course, the regulatory regimes and and the legal code was extensive.

The Tanguts ... learned from both the Tibetan and [ ] their Chinese sponsors, patrons, peers at the time, and they also compiled they learned both from the [Tang] and the [Song] codes. And to open up a bakery shop, of course, you have to have a certificate. You have to have the permission to do that.

But then the taxes, right? All the the loans, the pawning and the transactions the land. Ownership and all of that have to be sorted to legally and we do have these legal codes, both the code itself and how it actually applied because we have the contracts and the laws and you can compare if in practice, they were really enforcing what the law says.

It's incredibly fascinating that you can do a lot with these materials. Then sometimes you can do with the seemingly richer Chinese sources at the time. 

Ben: And was it predominantly a steamed bread or a baked bread? And I was bread more popular than noodles, or I'm assuming rice at the time.

Hansong: Yeah. Northwestern Chinese. [The Tangut] took over basically the agricultural zone of the yellow river[ region quickly but] they never gave up on nomadic ways of life. They kept herding hunting and other activities, but they also took over the local agriculture of Northwestern China.

And so these are rough. pies with, I I don't think there was a lot of filling in there. But then there is also this question of the evolution of things like. Momo for example, in this Northwestern Chinese dialect, it really just nowadays, it meant just a bun without any filling in there.

But and then what the Chinese would call baozi and jiaozi nowadays are closer to samosa and momo and manti. But all of these words, of course, come from Tibetanized Chinese. Or other like Turkified Chinese. And so all of the new, so you can basically, like an average Chinese tourist would go into these Central Asian or Eastern European restaurants and order by speaking Mandarin.

Ben: What would have been the greatest cultural artifacts of the region in the time? 

Hansong: In the territories, it would be, architecturally, these magnificent pagodas and the imperial mausoleums actually, it's been the government of Ningxia has been petitioning for a UNESCO status for the Tangut Mausoleum, and I was involved in translating some of the documents that was also very tricky, right?

If you want to call it the tombs or mausoleums, and if it's like classifying it as a kingdom or an empire, it also has geopolitical implications hence also political sensitivities. And these are architectural wonders. On the other hand, you also have Buddhist sutras and also block prints, because the Tanguts were very advanced in book printing.

Towards the end, because of a lot of fiscal disasters and also because of the high expenditures on military campaigns it suffered a dearth of resources. So at the time they were using a recycling papers a lot. So in, in towards the end of the Tangut Imperial history, you will see that all the sutra pages were recycled and you would write your personal like diaries or practice your calligraphy or even write out your contracts On the flip side of maybe a sutra or some kind of textbook so it becomes messier at the time. It's a combination I guess to answer your question. It's a combination of textual artifacts and then there are a lot of These Buddhist artifacts these boxes where you will put in a tooth or it's or there, there will be like larger architectural artifacts.

So we, we have a lot of these and also inscriptions and steels and other things spread out across mostly Inner Mongolia, Gansu and Ningxia. 

Ben: And what would have been the dominant philosophical thought of the time?

So there was obviously Buddhist influence, a kind of Tibetan Buddhist influence.

You also had the nomadic people. There was, a spirit influence. And I guess there's a little bit of a, one of those medieval diverse melting pots we would, might say today, but I was interested about that philosophical thought either I guess a little bit is economic military philosophy, but also the kind of [ ] spiritual, how should they live their life?

Hansong: Absolutely, it's also fascinating if I could time travel, I would definitely try to reconstruct a kind of cosmology of the 10 groups, but I also, I guess it would have been a melting pot and even just officially the 10 groups had bureaus, they had bureau, Creative structures, which regulated Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism.

So you have the Confucian academy system. You have a regulatory regimes overseeing the conduct of the Taoist monist. Of course, part of it is also to make sure the religious sectors don't get subversive and they're well regulated. So there's that kind of state to view it through the eyes of the state.

There is that regulatory intention there, but also it says a lot about the prosperity of Buddhism and even Taoism, Confucianism. And of course, at the imperial level, there were all ways. These more like pro harm confusion. Sectors, and there are these more Buddhist state sectors, and there are the more kind of authentic, if not indigenous 10 good intuitions about, we should be more nomadic and less sinicized.

And so there's always this contention from within the Imperial household. Sometimes the the clan, the maternal clans of the Empress would be a little bit more pro Tengu, pro like more indigenously minded and sometimes the male clans would be a little bit more pro Confucian. And then on top of that, of course, you have military treatises, which are also very philosophical.

You have. receptions of all kinds of thinking from the Central Plains, from Tibet, from, India directly, indirectly through Tibet. And so you have this kind of synthetic cosmology in which different sources of normative and philosophical religious thinking would come together. And usually the Tengu are very versatile in synthesizing them and they print all kinds of texts in all across traditions.

And they're quite proud of that. 

Ben: That's a good segue into thinking perhaps around today's thinking, tracing it through a sort of history of economic thought or philosophical thought. What do you think is maybe misunderstood about China today? Or perhaps another way of thinking about it is, it seems to me that an understanding of Chinese philosophy or, different parts of it still seems to be an underrated way or lens [of thinking about China].

You've already mentioned a few the Tao or Confucianism and obviously you've got that through to thinking about modern China today. What do you think are the important to understand about how China's come about and it's thinking tracing it through the history to where we get today?

Hansong: Yes, absolutely. I think there are several intuitive assessments of the situation in China that I think needs to be more qualified or enriched or expanded. And the first is that there is some kind of moral vacuum, a spiritual vacuum if not post 1950s. ... at least post 1989. So this thesis about moral vacuum or spiritual vacuum could either come from neo left reactions to China's integration into global neoliberalism is a kind of discontent with the fact.

And now we only care about the market and no longer about the morals. So that would be one critique. And the other critique is, Oh, you've got, you've lost all of your Confucianism since the 1950s. This obviously is an oversimplification because since I would say since early modern China, at least not since the Jesuits came in, there was this kind of a first and the Jesuit pivot to the Buddhists.

And then they gave up on the Buddhists. And decided to align with the confusions against the Buddhist and talking about the material moment. And and then after that you still have this continued legacy of inter cosmic or inter epistemic contention, which exploded of course, in the aftermath of the Western.

Interventions in China since the open war. And this and then with the the reception of Marxism, you have traditional, and it must be emphasized this, a very heterogeneous traditional world of Chinese philosophies, which shouldn't be too Confucian centric about it the Confucian, Buddhistic other Traditions of thinking heartening back, of course, to the late spring, autumn, early warning states periods.

This entire internal world of contention descent then interacted with, of course, the Marxists and the liberals. And you literally see the receptions being parallel and also crisscrossing overlapping with each other. And we're very much in the aftermath of that kind of molten. Multiplex reception and today, of course, you still have intellectuals adhering to or mixing and matching these very different traditions.

And it's really not the case that you have a vacuum. If anything, you have a world full of normative traditions. Contentions and inter normative, international, intercultural, inter religious contentions. And I think that's a very healthy thing. So I don't think there is a moral vacuum. And I think it's actually a, an exciting moment to look at the ways the Chinese not just intellectuals, academics, but also the ways that people on the middle or bottom level.

Understand and different sources of normative. Imaginations, right? So that is one big thought that I think it's there, there's a lot in there. And secondly there is a kind of post colonial reading of China, or a And also it's not appropriate to say indigenous, but it's kind of NeoCon confusion or neo post-colonial reading of China, as you know now that China's reacting against the whole, the entire legacy of post imperial, then post-colonial, and then post-war liberal international order.

And it's responding to that, reacting against that with his own tradition. But then here are my responses again that the Chinese tradition must be unpacked and and deconstructed. And it's not just about Confucianism. It's a lot of things in there. And to what extent China's opposed colonial has a.

Post colonial mentality, it's certainly strategically and geopolitically identifies with the post colonial moment, but it's also a very special case. So I think the best way to approach the thinking world, the thought world of China today is to look at, first of all, the genealogy of these ideas and how they contest each other in the long duration, not just in the past 10 or 20 years after reform and opening up.

But throughout the 20th century, going back to the late imperial moment but also to be open minded about the many ways that different sectors of the Chinese public sphere part choose to participate in these different kinds of problem consciousnesses. 

Ben: So that's a rejection of both. The simplistic view that you could understand China today just as a post colonial thinking, or also a rejection of just thinking about China entering a free market, neoliberal type of thinking, either way seem too simplistic.

And the best way of thinking about it is still a pluralistic melting pot of many traditions which have been there for hundreds to thousands of years To, to where we are today. So perhaps thinking today and crystal ball into the future, how do you think this might pan out? And maybe we could maybe make it a little bit simpler because you already pointed to the fact that different parts of Chinese society think differently, and you can think about this almost urban countryside, elite, non elite.

Technocrats merchants versus bureaucrats. So it there's no one answer either because it's a pluralistic kind of view of the world. But I guess with the dominant thought on the government side, or perhaps trading merchant side, where do you think it might be going? Is any one of those threads of thought potentially becoming more dominant or some intersection of that where you think this is maybe a little bit misunderstood and seem to be a more dominant piece of thinking which might last for now and into the immediate future.

Hansong: I see the continued relevance and prevalence of this idea that we we're bear, we're torch bearers of this particular socio political economic tradition that Situates us somewhere in as a kind of dual track policy thinking mode and in between big bang neoliberalism and old fashioned collectivism.

So I think that kind of middle ground, the post 1980s, 1990s. Eastern European moment when, of course, China sent economists to the Eastern Europe to discuss what to, what should be done or what is the old Leninist question what is to be done now that we share the kind of global East mindset, we don't want to go back to this basically empirically.

Ineffective mode of collectivist economic production, very imbalanced, very unhealthy, does not even deliver on social welfare that we pride so much we pride our system so much on and but on the other hand. Not only the symptoms of, the old Martian language, the inner contradictions, but not so much.

The, just the state of crisis in a blind and unreflective kind of neoliberalism. So I think it's now become a kind of implicit tacit doctrine that we are somehow a dual track. Political economy, and that's when the state comes in to correct, say, during a crisis panic moment all the prices go up irrationally.

Of course, the state will come in and instruct some state enterprises to lower the prices and to stabilize the markets. So the there was no no, no feeling that this is somehow working against the logic of the market. It's if anything, as opposed to moderate, the irrationality is propping out here and there and not wait until a hundred years when, for the market mechanism to really work out.

And but on the other hand, the idea of the market primacy as the main market. Place for for transactions and as the way to distribute resources. I think that's not going to be shaken. With whichever administration comes in place, which, whichever kind of ideological orientations.

Is taking precedence within the standing committee within the Congress. I think that stands that socioeconomically. We are a dual track political economy. We stand ready to use whichever instrument that will deliver. We will use industrial policy to support new energy, knowledge, technology, Economy based, I know the industry, there is no qualm about using industrial policy.

And so it's, if anything, it's harmonized with the market reform logic. So that's something I see at the end, since you were asking about the governmental side, I think that's going to be like a very. Stable policy, but as for how to interpret that kind of dual track identity, and as for which one to use at what moment, that is definitely a matter of prudential judgment.

And you do see ideologies coming in when the committee members or the, the top leadership. Selectively uses the different elements of that dual track identity to further its own vision of what is better for the country going forward. So it's so I guess it's not purely ideology, but it's not purely like 1 of the 2 political outlooks.

Say it's it's, there is something stable there, but also it depends on the floods and the reflux of ideological leanings. 

Ben: That makes a lot of sense. So in principle, dual track, but case by case, hard to know which track [has most of the waiting and in the moment] 

Hansong: But having, but basing your legitimacy on the dual track identity, I think, I personally find it a better alternative than many others, but I think it provides a source of stability because if you can't walk back on the dual track ideology, [...] Then at least you wouldn't go full mode, [Thatcher, or]

[Reagan] on the other hand, you wouldn't go full mode.... let's return more power to the state. If you can't really say that within the framework of legitimation then if you must provide some kind of explanation for why you're sticking to the dual track identity, then I think that's at least a constraining force and it's a good thing to have it because otherwise you could have much more unstable policies that confuse people and potentially damage the ecosystem that has been built over the past 40 years.

Ben: Sure. That makes sense. And I guess a lot of western thinkers have come out with large, broad based concepts, sometimes geographic or things. The Global South and South Asia, you've done some work on Indo Pacific. But actually, on some of those concepts, Take one, which has talked about when you unpack something like the global South, it seems so much more con complex than that broad based element.

How helpful do you think some of these concepts are? And maybe if we would unpack global South, or we could also comment on South Asia and Indo Pacific, are they. too simple as to actually being potentially not helpful or as a way, particularly for those in the West, or maybe when you're thinking about some of the causes that the global South tend to campaign for is that a useful framework for them for now and into the future?

Hansong: Yeah. Yeah. That's a great question. I think these spatial concepts are becoming more and more ambiguous and fluid. There is a narrow reading of the global South. And there's a narrow reading of the global East and the narrow reading of the global South is the Latin, Latin American, African, Asian solidarity in the 1970s moment.

When these postcolonial states sought statehood and autonomy and self rule and self national determination, UN seats and all of that, they did share and you can All that entire blog, global South. But of course now in that post 1970s moment, what is global South? That becomes more ambiguous and the global East.

Also, there was a narrow definition, all the post Soviet Eastern European or central Asian moment of, what to do now. And do we preserve the Soviet institutions? Do we mix and match? Do we grow food like EU mode? And where are we turning? Is there a third path? So that's a narrow reading, but nowadays you have plural and parallel solutions to that.

You can for example, if you're a post Soviet Central Asian state, you can go to the Turkic coalition. It's not only not yet a Turkic union, but it's a kind of international society. You can go to an Islamic world. You can go to the Eurasian, the Neo Eurasian you can do the Eurasian project of Russia.

You can do belt and road. You can do Shanghai cooperation treaty. You can do all kinds of things. So nowadays it's hard to say, what is the global East? What is Eurasia? What is global South? And it's hard to say what is the Indo Pacific? Because even if you're looking at it from the point of view of institutions, political institutions what are you going to do with South Asia?

And even just India looking at India... western all cruise type of think tankers who would like to simply impose Western liberal assumptions on the largest democracy in the world always have trouble understanding ... what exactly India is doing. It confuses them profoundly because they don't really look.

Go into the cultural aspects. So it, it's hard to pinpoint these concepts nowadays, but to look at them as intersected regional phenomena of intercultural and international development to look at them as for example, to look at. Southeast Asia as a whole, as a source of innovation.

I think that made sense to look at the global south in the South Africa and South Africa's pleading at the ICJ and all the signatories too. South Africa's case against Israel, you can definitely see some kind of coalition building there, and that's most. Around the global south. And then that kind of goes and then it conquered the global north.

'cause all the European states then decided they must side with South Africa on this limit. [At least on the li more limited] limited side of the argument that and then you have China coming and say that we have to go back to the 1970s- mode and say that anybody under occupation has the full right to resort to even violent means to to regain their territory.

And that is a pretty strong argument. So China clearly is also trying to give itself a post colonial, anti colonial identity. So you have these moments where you say, okay, these kinds of regional spatial concepts somehow make sense, but when you really try to pin down where is where it's, it becomes very fuzzy because we now live in a very, we now live in a world of parallel alternatives and all of these overlap is very hard to even single out. If there is a US backyard, a Russian backyard, if there is a region that's dominated by a set of cultural norms, because it's all very fluid. And so we live in this kind of world of of normative and in geocultural fluidity.

Ben: That makes sense. So in the historic moment, the narrow definitions make sense descriptively, like you said, East Asian moment global South moment, post 1970s or post that. But in, in today's case it's much more complex where even nation states have different things going on in them.

I'd like to turn to a couple of pieces of your work, which are I guess slightly esoteric, but still seem to tie up to me. I'm going to turn to Montesquieu and sea imagery. So I was reading that someone interprets Montesquieu as saying his law is like being a fisherman's net. So this idea that often you can swim through it and only big things get captured.

So you go through most of the time and the laws don't really affect you and obviously he was very influential to many legal systems and constitutions like the U. S. Founding Fathers and a lot due to this idea of separation of powers. But I think you've done some work on the sea imagery in Montesquieu.

So what's going on with this, the sea ocean trade and is this a way of understanding Montesquieu and economic thinking of the time? 

Hansong: Yeah, it's of course, it's one of my passion projects and Montesquieu being one of the first Western readers I came across when I was a child growing up in China.

And he's very hard to pin down because Montesquieu is very versatile and is all over the place. It's very hard to know what is Montesquieu all about? Of course, the Americans have a Separation of power in their mind and it's that kind of label Montesquieu Montesquieu wanted to be a natural philosopher.

He wanted to be even an engineer at some point. He there was a famous story where Montesquieu, of course, would go to the school. And we know this from the Asian experience. Teacher would tell you all the, horrible things happening with your child and why you should help the teacher and inculcate and infiltrate the mind of your child at home and make it easier for the school.

Also someone just went up there and asked the teacher, what's happening with my son and the teacher said I'm not sure if you're smart enough. Is really into the natural science. So he seems much more interested in the literature and the humanities. And won't just to hearing this fell back onto the chair and all growing pale in his face, Oh, no, he's not going to be another useless humanist like me.

So he's really he would rather be and a hard Art science professor and not a a rambler about law and philosophy. And and I find some of that, of course, in his early writings on the natural sciences. And he was chairing, coordinating, and sometimes writing natural science words.

And when he was traveling and noticed that he was really interested in the sea, the lagoons, and these water projects, these aquatic engineering projects. And he even had thoughts that he was going to build a machine that takes out all the mud from the lagoon. So that as to so as to facilitate a maritime traffic and trade and on the other hand.

So this is the natural scientific leanings. On the other hand, I read a lot of very classical Western thinking about the sea and land and starting with Plato and Aristotle, they wonder. Plato famously was skeptical of the port. He decided that if you have a port and everybody's coming in through the port, what's going to happen is that you will have a lot of different normative thinking and a lot of ideas of how to live your life.

What is the best way of life coming in? And it will be very hard. Yeah. To to implement what you think is the best form of civic life. So it's very dangerous to have a port. You don't know who's coming in. You don't know what's being talked about in the marketplace once you open up the port. On the other hand, he realized, oh, if we have to have a port, let's have a port.

You have, I have to have some kind of trade with other cities, other polyas. Plato never was that autarkic. He always conceded, especially in the laws, not so much in the politics. That you need to have some kind of intellectual exchange between the police. You need to have certainly some kind of trade as well.

The Montesquieu was living in a moment when commerce was really taking over with the post Machiavellian moment where there was no return. You have to have trade. And the question is how to tame trade and use trade. In a way that doesn't end up in disasters, but actually benefit your physical well being and all the entire health of the civic body as a kind of in a physiological sense as a body politic that the money is circulating through your body.

Rousseau would call it would make the metaphor. The money has blood going through your your body. But if you have too much finance, unregulated finance, it's almost like having too much fat clodding your veins. Montesquieu was already thinking in those terms. He said that Marseille classical, like ancient Marseille, and also in his own time, was it, it's good to have all the ideas coming in and all the different groups and services coming in.

But the question is how do you think about it legally, philosophically in such a way as. To promote and not to damage the health of the citizenry. And so those two strains of thought, his interest in the sea as a natural phenomenon is interested in the fact of human sociability on the sea.

So maritime sciences or oceanography, there wasn't like proper oceanography yet, but some kind of oceanography. And maritime sociability and the political philosophy, legal philosophy of of human movements of people, ideas, goods, materials, tests on the sea or came together and made Montesquieu this this, I think a major thinker of the sea.

I identify him as a pivotal moment in history, political thought. And and I think he really made a huge Impact his nose, his diaries during his voyage went directly into it. So the the spirit of the laws where, you know, the founding fathers of America founding moment they drew a lot of inspiration from it, but I think it really was a kind of collection of reflection on what he saw and thought during his travels.

And he thought a lot about the sea during his travels. 

Ben: Okay, I hadn't appreciated that and then the interlink obviously at the time that to see was so important for trade and trade being the lifeblood of what's going on there. But like you say, needed to be tamed. You don't want it to be clogged. You mentioned Rousseau as well, and I hadn't realized until reading your work that he had a plan for Corsica and its government in the mid 1700s.

And this kind of plan has echoes today about. Or perhaps it doesn't we can discuss that relevant to thinking about what do we do for developing countries? Yes, should other richer nations have a plan for these countries? What should that plan be? Is international aid good or not? Do you wrap it into your own political ambitions... like give cheap loans... buy land... belt and road or international aid or whatever but maybe we could start with what do you think about Rousseau's plan for Corsica in the 1700s? What did that mean? And has that actually influenced our thinking about global development today? And then what people think about, these supposedly less developing countries and what other thinkers should demand or suggest for them in terms of their own development economy?

Hansong: Absolutely. It's a wonderful question. It would allow me to be very honest about it because when I was looking at Rousseau's historical thought on what to do with Corsica, I was completely, my mind was completely filled with development economics as a discipline and my reflections and critiques Of that and my own preference when it comes to thinking about development in our own time.

So I think they're really connecting. It's very personal as a piece of history of political thought. It felt very personal to me. So Rousseau was invited to give a constitutional plan. It wasn't really like a constitution in like strict doctrinal legal sense, but he was reflecting on the situation in Corsica, so it's a very contextual piece.

Not only that we need to contextualize him in that moment, but that piece itself reflects the way he contextualizes Corsica at that particular moment. And occasionally he made the essentialist remarks on the, how the Corsicans are brave and they're just intrinsically good as a people. But of course, you have to say that when you're legislating for them, you're all stupid.

And here I am, I'm your legislator, but he certainly thought a lot about an African. of an affinity with the core students. But more largely, he was thinking systematically and it was thinking he was trying to apply, really what he thought about the the questions bothering Europe at the time, which is the physical, the fiscal and financial imbalance, which Took many years and centuries for France to resolve.

At the time, the question is, are you going to use finance? If you use finance, and if you finance your your military campaigns, are you ever going to pay it back? Is there something else? There's some other way to finance the army is, They're another way to finance these other development projects.

Rousseau's answer is surprisingly pragmatic, but it's also, at the end of the day, I think it's quite radical. He believes that Corsica first of all, since we were talking about the sea, the Corsica is an island. He says you should close it up for a while. Most readers of that piece think that he's autarkic.

He wants to close the entire island to the outside world. I disagree. He clearly, there is a temporal thinking there. He wants to close this, the island to the geopolitical threats for at least a while enough time so that Corsica could grow into an economic not an economic power, but at least grow to a sufficient degree where it would be able to finance its own defense. So in the here and now Corsica should start with agriculture, and that's why people think he's autarkic, but you have to start with agriculture and then go into industries. And for now, the different regions of Corsica, given these different geographical features, they should trade inter regionally.

And if you don't have a healthy cash flow- barter, no but you trade by goods first, and then you can have a currency system. So he's not against currency, he's not against trade, he's not against opening up, he just thinks that you need to do it step by step, stage by stage. And then we're getting very close to the kind of economic development idea there.

And he thinks that you should build up a surplus in course of time, a very rudimentary sense of surplus by agriculture and industry and collect that surplus invested in where you think matters the most and in a sustainable way. The extraction of salt should be very carefully deliberated because there are these easier to extract harder to extract or higher quality salt that you want to export 1 day.

So please try to do it sustainably. There are woods of different calibers. You need to save up the best wood that in the future will be used to construct warships. But for now, you're not having a Navy because you're not there yet. And let's. Use the worst would for just daily consumption. So he's very careful at every step.

He wants to make sure you're doing the right thing so that the plan would evolve into the future. And how does that teach us? What does that teach us about economic development? This whole idea that look at Northeast Asia, look at Korea, Japan, China and Taiwan for a while, when during the cold war They were very much using industrial policy to build up surplus at home.

And then they were using that surplus in a very centralized way. The Republican Chinese government in Taiwan, of course, used industrial policy. Korea, South Korea used a lot of industrial policy to build up the surplus. And Japan, under all the influence from the U. S. Still, it tried to really concentrate its energy on certain sectors and to succeed from that from there.

And China is also a [an example..] China is a great example that we built a surplus from, manufacturing and other industrial activities. And then selectively and concentratedly use that surplus to advance other knowledge, economic productions. And so as to to leap across certain stages of development and to go straight to the more innovative parts.

And there is a certain level of success. Empirically it, it worked to some degree, at least that's from the anxieties we see now with Chinese export of EVs back to Europe that this idea of. Building a surplus investing strategically and then going straight to the more innovative sectors and then while maintaining an overall balanced healthy economic development.

That is very resilient to me. That's very resilient. And it's not just about opening up. And then you naturally see the. Then the resources will flow and the incentives will work. And then somehow in 300 years, it will grow to a some kind of natural, naturally grow into a political economy that you're teleologically determined to be.

There is, there's not that kind of big band full blown. I don't think any economies, even my Chicago teachers, I don't think any of them really think like that. I think there was Rousseauianism in every. Economic thinker of development. So that's what I learned from it. And I think we can learn a lot from Rousseau's thinking.

Of course, it's not just authentic agrarianism. It's very sophisticated in step stage by stage. He walks you by the hand and tells you what to do. And and it's a very open minded outcome there. 

Ben: It's really fascinating. And just seeing how these patterns of economic thought, go back and where they start and how they then express themselves today.

I guess that leaves me also with a couple of thoughts. So one is for particularly the poorest nations is international aid potentially then more detrimental than not, I guess there's a couple of schools of thought. So one school of thought which Deaton, the economist suggests is that if you give international aid, the country itself cannot develop its own... that well, its own infrastructure, its own form of government or institutional capacity. International aid will often misallocate not very well and therefore produce more harm than good. The opposing thought is that. You get there's a kind of hump that you need to get over in terms of some sort of surplus or you need some capital they don't have access to cost cheap call it cheap capital so if you get cheap or free capital from other places you can make really big differences in terms of things and the so that's One blob I'm thinking about and then the second kind of almost riffing off You're saying is I can see the success of so Korea or Singapore and in Japan And then you've got those which look like they might be doing something similar So say Vietnam, which is still a little bit manufacturing But you can see is going up into some higher knowledge even Bangladesh Which has been pretty successful in clothing other manufacturing seems to have other elements going through you parts of India, whereas that whereas it looks like this could be quite hard to replicate in places like Africa, where it's hard to see what even their domestic surplus would be.

I don't know. There's kind of arguments Other side of that. And so whether that playbook will still work for some nations, it could actually still definitely work in places of Latin America. Arguably Mexico is actually doing this similar idea as well. So I guess there's two components because international aid listed on that.

So do you think it will still happen that way? And we should encourage that. Today and where does international aid play if that playbook is the one to follow or not? 

Hansong: Absolutely so the part one of the question is about international aid and I think there are different levels on which we can think about it.

Some international aid is through international, Organizations institutions and humanitarian aid, and that's one thing. There are compensated compensation, motivating international aid. And then there is also this kind of development oriented loans and other forms of aid. And if you're talking about.

Political science literature is on the effectiveness or political economic literature is on the factings of these international aid. It's very context dependent. Once the aid or FDI, in more like classical or neoliberal terms, come in and gets injected into the domestic political economy, a lot depends on the ecosystem in that country and how it's being channeled into the economic lives of the people.

I think it's the aid loans and foreign direct investment, and then they certainly form an important channel through which the initial surplus, the initial capital could be found. But we shouldn't simply. Assume that the allocation will be uniform across the board because it depends a lot on, again, on the ecosystem at home and the ecosystem cannot always be dependent always be dependent on because it fluctuates from government to government from, factors like corruption to simply how favorable it is to do business and invest in these projects.

And from the bottom up, we also see entrepreneurs Either from homegrown entrepreneurs or entrepreneurs with education from abroad who need to then adapt to their home environments. They could also come in and feel those institutional voice when you can't really rely on the government and providing a perfect Martin environment then you can do something that will also alter and hopefully optimize that that environment.

I think a lot of the. I guess the ways that this model cannot be simply generalized and applied in across geocultural regions is has to do with that. But I think the people on the ground and with, if you can negotiate different kinds of expertise is a little expertise scientific expertise and marketing incentives an effective way to negotiate these Different sources of knowledge, so this kind of epistemic synthesis, if it works well, then you can adapt in different contexts.

But I think across the board, what is general about this? So an insight is that you need to before you can strategically invest in anything that then make up your political economic identity to even get to that stage of being able to choose. The Milton Friedman says the free to choose, but you have to have a base from which to choose.

And how do you get that base? Is I think all the African students whom I've come across at Harvard, they tell me that what they envy about, or they, what they want to emulate from like these Northeastern nowadays and Southeastern Asian countries is is to get to that base. And not to emulate or imitate any of these models, there is no such thing as a Chinese, Korean, there's no, no such thing as a Northeastern or Southeast Asian model of development, but there is that sense that you need to have a base and just blindly waiting for FDI to generate the base for you, or to simply let loose your speculative financial system and wait until the free investments from random incentives takes place.

To do the magic of building your base is probably not going to be as effective as if you're also willing to combine it with some kind of industrial policy or some other kinds of planning that of course, should not interfere then with the market mechanism. So it again comes down to if you can do a dual track or multi track kind of development.

Ben: That makes a lot of sense. So that, international aid compensation or humanitarian, whatever it is, can work on a context specific basis, but you need to get all of those things together, but in terms of overall development, if you don't have a base [to] work with some sort of foundation where you're at least neutral or ideally have some surplus, then it's really hard.

So you might be aiming at the wrong question. If particularly for really poor, say African nations where, you know, where they are below that. Okay. So trying to put a lot of this all together So this is impossible task. I'm going to put some things to decide because obviously we got Chinese political and economic thought.

We're going to loosely call that dual track. You've got actually another kind of geopolitical axis centered around that. Perhaps you have Russia, India, Indonesia. So this is one whole axis. I'm going to slightly put that to the side because we touched on it slightly in terms of development economics and Chinese thought.

And then if you put the other side, the kind of Anglo Saxon, Europe, UK America, North America. There's a sense here that there's been a split as well. So I guess we've called it a neoliberal or free market, although they would argue how free it, it really was. And now there's a kind of pushback.

You've got the extreme pushback, which I would say, they tend to call this then, late capitalism or post colonial and leads into arguments around degrowth, which is a kind of very Malthus, Malthusian idea, actually which, we can comment on, but really backs away from economic growth, which is problematic in its own sense, but it's a kind of backlash from some of this.

And then you've also got, even in Western thinking it comes and goes, but in terms of industrial policies, but the U. S. with the Inflation Reduction Act, IRA is a kind of industrial policy piece. Actually, if you unpack it, if if China or Russia announced it, you go, Oh that's definitely industrial policy.

It's interesting that you've had that and some supply side, economics with it. When we stretch it all the way back to economic thoughts, you can go back to Adam Smith, you can even go back earlier to some of the the Roman or other thinkers or trade thinkers.

It just seems that we're having another evolution in, in, in the thinking about what what markets or what capitalism would be. How do you think that that balance is at the moment between the opening up that we had over, the Thatcher, Reagan years Friedman with, much more free markets less regulation, but what do we do with the lifeblood of trade to where we are today, where there's been a partial backlash.

Some of it is still going on. We've got some places which have some industrial policy. We've got pushback on both sides, from left and right as to working out, particularly in Western thought. But if you look at growth today, it's muddling through, it's positive, not as high as it was, but it's certainly not is not yet sort of recession.

And then these are just tensions between free markets, industrial thinking, Or all the way, is that how you would think about that Western part of the world? And do you see that balance shifting anymore into where we see the near future? 

Hansong: It's an enormous question. I certainly now as a now, as I'm pretending to be an international lawyer in Germany, I I always hear this nostalgia, of course, for the 1990s and nostalgia coming from the legal, juridical community is that it was a time when global institutions diffused.

Of course, that meant Western transatlantic values and institutions diffused, but of course it diffused. Until recently only because of this 2 reasons. 1st of all, there is the Western and transatlantic NATO domination in the security sphere. And then there's the economic consensus that free market has 1 and so there are these 2 reasons.

So it values institutions only diffused under these 2 umbrellas now, both are being challenged because with the diffusion of material power and agency no, you no longer have those kind of us Western European led global security system on the 1 hand. And you also don't have this universal uniform consensus that there is 1, only 1 way to advance economically.

So I agree with you that we're not in the complete, moment of rejection of of the post 1970s, 1990s the golden era of a global liberal economic doctrines. We're not there yet, but there's definitely a lot of reflections, as you also pointed out and critiques of that, and both from the left and from the right and part of the critique.

At home across Western nation states especially in the U. S. and Europe with where you, I didn't really see this so called back right wing populist backlash has to do with socioeconomic inequalities and different the hierarchy of priorities when it comes to socioeconomic distribution. So it is fundamentally a question about distribution- distribute distributive justice. Now the right things we have the wrong priorities. We prioritize all of these global projects or liberal elite projects and spend a lot of money on these leftist ideological programs, but do very little about the very basics. If you go to a [poor/run down] in the rural areas of Northern Netherlands.

Of course, the peasants used to vote for the Communist Party, but now they have no viable leftist alternative. So they do turn to the right wing parties for simply the socio economic quest of, more egalitarianism or something like that. And then on top of this kind of distributive discontent, you have a productive reflection, which is holding production constant, we're moderately growing. The question is how to distribute more fairly. You also have this question of can you sustainably grow or even grow further into the future? And then you look at different modes of growth and not necessarily the rates of growth. That transatlantic economies are no longer the sole drivers of innovative economic productions, right? You now have productive hubs, innovative hubs across the metropolitan areas of East, South, Southeast Asia, Latin America. Occasionally also, in Africa, there was a lot of, it's just not as systematic, but there are a lot of these innovative hubs across Africa.

And and of course you still have Silicon Valley, you have Boston, you have Frankfurt, you have other places, yes, but this diffusion of innovative capacity and agency is definitely a fact. So now the question is, are you going to have something to say about production, not just distribution?

Are you going to have something to say about both? And to think about it more productively, I, on the level of production, I think. There is a kind of sober moment where this idea of the, reindustrialization in it may be not in, in the literal sense of it, but it's introducing some industrial policy elements or to think about, is.

Technology uni is technology linear in its development evolution. Do we have different preferences and aesthetic tastes when it comes to what to innovate? If we have scarce resource to invest in Potentially 10 different things, which ones do we care more about at the normative level? And to go back to the Chicago school, if you look at Frank Knight and these 1st generation, 2nd generation, even and even Milton Friedman and certainly higher and others, they draw a clear line.

Between aesthetic taste and market efficiency. And so the whole idea is that only if you hold taste and aesthetics constant, can you have a framework of price theory or can you have a framework of market mechanism to allocate resources effectively? But of course, we have different philosophies of aesthetics.

So I think that- that also means that when it comes to technology there is not a linear progression towards something like a particular kind of AI or something. You can choose what to develop. China chose to invest fully- emotionally also- but also financially in EVs, but you don't have to do, you can do something else because there's only so much you can do with your limited time and resource.

So I think we need to rethink at least on the level of production, what to invest in, which ones are worth our time and energy and thought. What do we care about as a political community? And as humanity as the human collectivity. Yeah. Altogether, but whichever way we go and whatever we think it's no longer viable to simply sit there and say that the global distribution of labor and the way we invest in these alternative projects of economic production is simply.

Something according to a magical algorithm embedded into whatever we received from the 1970s and 1990s global economy, because that has drastically and dramatically changed. 

Ben: I hadn't picked up on that point on aesthetics about having an agreed set of taste, which does it. And actually that you can see in some places, for instance, in the Nordic countries where they become more heterozygous, they just weren't, they weren't as, they were more homogenous than perhaps they had realized.

So with this has produced. Difficulties in terms of setting that and that interesting thing about actually nation states will maybe have to decide what they want to focus on and they can focus on all sorts of things, whether it was, EV or batteries or art or whatever it will be, but they might have to focus.

Excellent. Okay. Running through the last couple of sets of questions, something a little bit more fun for, although also with that it's thinking about Hamilton, the musical. And I hadn't realized in your reading of Hamilton that actually there is, in some ways, if you look at it today in its reading, there's a kind of almost pro Democrat, pro Biden sense to running through Hamilton.

And that actually. It's it can be thinking slightly selective in terms of what you want to emphasize or not emphasize within the musical as well as all the dance numbers and songs and things. But do you think is your reading of Hamilton that its current reading is actually slightly more democrat than Republican?

Does it have a politics to it? And how else should we understand both the songs and the story narrative in the musical version that Lin Miranda did for us? 

Hansong: Thank you for asking that. It's a very fun question. I, my reading is that the Hamilton is A great piece of art but of course it was produced in the late Obama context where a more progressive and appealing sense of social mobility was used to provide a kind of.

Common ground on which we can reason together as as, one American nation. And so the idea is that Hamilton technically it's not an immigrant. If you went from one British colony to another and Lafayette somehow, they like they. A clap hands and they feel like we, we immigrants do the job and something like that.

I'm Lafayette was certainly not an immigrant. He was a French. But this whole, I, this emphasis on immigrants rising right from random, from poverty, all the way to the founding father status and and this kind of heroism in that story of social mobility. A very individualistic heroism and romanticization of social mobility in a pivotal moment in American history.

So that's, of course, a, I think there is that's definitely a, an undertone that a basso continuo throughout the musical. And is it's, of course, a lot of the in that historical inaccuracies come from the book on which it was based. So I wouldn't blame the production team for that, but at least the kind of ideological message there.

That America is socially mobile, that you can be an individual hero from just being ambitious and hardworking. And this idea that Hamilton started with calling his mother a whore and son of a whore and goths and Scotsman. It's not true that his mother was called a whore by in the court by someone who was trying to abuse and and and vilify her, but what's she.

So this over emphasis on him being from very humble backgrounds, but just through his own exertion of energy and and effort rose to what he was. And then where is Hamilton's financial ideologies? Of course, not emphasized. His hawkishness is neglected. So all of the troubling things that still matter.

America today, right? Hawkishness in foreign policy. This trust in, of course, we shouldn't over, shouldn't oversimplify that either, but his trust in them the financial system that he created and all of these are omitted in preference to, to give time. To glorify this individual heroism and social mobility story.

So I, I think that is quite ideological. And then, of course, at a superficial level, we can also look at the way the production team and the actors and actresses literally intervened, lecturing Mike Pence, not that he shouldn't be lectured on, but it just, now that you've seen the show, here is something we want to say to Mike Pence, who's sitting right there and the way they gave free tickets to the Hillary campaign.

It's quite obvious also at that kind of campaign political level. But I care more as a political philosopher, I care much more about the messages it delivers. And. Of course it resonates with Upper East Side, Upper West Side, New Yorkers who see it. But if you go to the Rust Belt, if you go to the Deep South, if you go to rural America and play Hamilton does it resonate with them?

Are you going to use Hamilton to turn around the upcoming election? I am seriously skeptical of that. 

Ben: Maybe not. Although that that doubling down on this idea that the underdog through Just hard work and become the pinnacle of being America is the American, I'm going to say myth in the kind of most positive sense, like every nation state has to have it.

It's missed the British like underdogs and we like royalty, right? And the Americans like this American dream that, immigrants and that. And so it's really interesting the way you see it. And you can see from the outside that's being constructed. And yeah, there is a Democrat slant, but the actually it's, it is a left and right thing.

This idea that no matter how poor you start off with hard work, you can make it to the top, even how mythical in actual practice. That is for the average anyone, but average Americans, that's interesting. Wait, okay, we have a short section of underrated and overrated, and then we'll finish on current projects and life advice.

So just a couple of things random things about whether you think these things are underrated or overrated. 

Sauerkraut. 

Do you think sauerkraut is underrated or overrated? 

Hansong: Underrated because of how global they actually are. And of course, German sauerkraut is overrated, but there is a global sauerkraut phenomenon.

Ben: So that's like kimchi and all the fermentation foods. Yeah. Okay. All right. Global sauerkraut. Underrated. The German version maybe not so much. Great. I stick on the food theme. Rice porridge or congee, do you think it's an underrated or overrated dish? 

Hansong: Overrated in the white rice version of it.

Of course, you can have millet and other things we eat in the north. So I think because of the Cantonese influence, we always think of it as white rice. So again, I think it's. The narrow sense is overrated, but the broader idea of the porridge with grains in it. It's... underrated. The grain porridge.

Yeah. I've been cheating. I've been cheating. It's always the same. 

Ben: Go into politics. On the one hand. Yes. On the other hand. No. So I'll take votes from both sides. Very good. Classical music today. 

Hansong: Today. Yes.

Ben: No, I guess in the, in history, but I guess how we do it today. So is it underrated or overrated?

Hansong: Oh, wow, that's very difficult. I think it's I think it's still underrated. 

[Cross-talk] Neutral. Yeah still under Yeah, I think it's the right amount in terms of the I think it's overrated in the industry. 

In the industry I think the musical the classical music industry is in terrible shape so it it's not healthy but I think in terms of it's impact on the way of the way of thought.

In the way that we talked about the musicals it's underrated because we don't realize how it actually shapes society in very profound ways. But I think the classical music as an industry as a group of people doing what they're doing, I think it's overrated in the sense that there is inflated and it's not it's not.

It's all the market incentives are distorted and you don't have jobs for the musician, it's in horrible shape. 

Ben: Okay. And last one on this, then maybe harking back to Hamilton, musical theater overrated, underrated. Should we have more or should we have less of musical theater? I 

Hansong: think the right amount or a slightly overrated because but I shouldn't say that.

Let's say the right amount, because I think the at least by Broadway standards, I think it's still healthy. Yeah. 

Ben: Yeah. It's still very influential on, on the world. I think that's the one thing about arts and humanities, because we don't realize how. Yeah, so you don't have like in the hard sciences, you don't have exact answers and they change we know in the moment in the context. 

They are so influential on [absolutely] how we are

Hansong: I would say it's underrated in China where I write these musical reviews.

Musicals have not become the standard currency of language or currency of thought In east asia yet. There are a lot of fans because But they don't really delve into the musicals in the ways that musicals are obviously scrutinized and interrogated very deeply in in Anglo American art.

So I think it's underrated in East Asia, I would say. 

Ben: Yeah. It's interesting if I think of performative arts in the broad sense the popularity of TikTok to me. is a slight sign about both the power of essentially performance. These are just mini performances done by individuals.

Some of them are that, but the fact that it draws in such an audience and you have everything from the really banal and not to quite political thought embedded within essentially these performances, they were a form of performance. And I think it's a form of social artifact. Really social media overall, but even in the TikTok form I think it's a, it's a broadly thinking it's a kind of form of art or expression and actually it's a form of social expression.

[So absolutely] Yeah, it's really intriguing. Great. All right. Last couple of questions. What are your current projects that you're working on or anything in the future that you'd like to share? 

Hansong: I'm working on a few projects. One is a global micro history of Shanghai's sand shipping industries in, 17, late 17th to the early 20th century. So from when sand shipping... 

Ben: is that shipping literally gravel? 

Hansong: In this, it started as a way of shipping on sandy maritime terrain. So you could easily run into these sandy rocks and other things. So it requires a slightly adjusted technology when it comes to navigation, but then it got into deep oceanic waters.

So at least start at the start, it was more like on the. In the yellow sea in the northeastern Asian seas, and then it slowly was able to go into the deeper and stormier waters of the South China Sea. The, but it's I also looked at the sociological phenomenon of sandshipping merchants, the way they integrate in an infrastructure.

Urban development in Shanghai. They were financing police stations. They were financing lifeguards along the seacoast, and they were building theaters for the city. And they also were increasing the enrollments of local academies and sending more people to Beijing for civil examinations. These are like, Shanghai is the Gentries who were generous who generated the profit from from shipping and they went to Japan, Korea, Southeast Asia, but also just between North and South China.

And then used to use our language of the surplus, to use their surplus to do these projects, these cultural projects, these political liaisons they've built within. And so it's a kind of global micro history of a. Of Shanghai as it turned from the late imperial to the international status.

So that's one project. 

Ben: It's interesting how a lot of these big, important organizations, companies even call them put this, call it civic arm onto themselves as they get to a certain size. Even if you look at a Google alphabet today, they have a Google culture. Thing Apple have the same Facebook meta has the same micro Microsoft of this, the same.

And some of it is now called this. Social responsibilities here, something, but a lot of it is this, you're influencing the humanities and arts for either locally. So local companies always do it in their community, but then when you reach this global scale, because of this interaction of essentially social phenomena, which you then become a part of.

And if you don't influence it or steer it into your favor you're not as You're not thought of as the same as you're not as important. Absolutely. Anyway...

Hansong: As a historian of political and economic thought, I would add that in the early modern moment, the idea of the state as a corpus, as a body, and the idea as a of course the body and the state and the corporation.

And that's how it the, these ideas ran in parallel that the corporation was a corpus and was also a kind of state and the state was a kind of corpus and a corporation. And these three metaphors really were blended since the early modern era, and we're still living in that kind of intellectual legacy and thinking of states and enterprises, right?

We still draw these analogies between states and enterprises, but that's a small note. Yeah. Yeah. And the other project I am working on is a book on the ideas of interpolitical justice. In. In Western Indian Chinese traditions. So I draw from my classical and in analog chronological musings to shed light on how political communities have thought about ideas of justice across.

Territorial and cultural borders. And so it's a kind of comparative and connective a study of ideas of common justice in 3 different thought worlds. And so that is the more theoretical and normative project. And the Shanghai merchants are the fun project. 

Ben: Excellent. Great. And then last question is, do you have any life advice or advice that you want to share?

Maybe advice thinking about being an international public intellectual or scholar or advice on music or the arts or your career or anything you'd like to share with us? 

Hansong: My advice would be just to do a lot of travelings, because I'm a enthusiastic traveler, and of course, to the idea of being open minded to different ways of life, I think it's a very Herodotian anthropological starting point to be, to be in any but of course, certainly to be a public intellectual nowadays you have to be an inter public intellectual.

It's hard to be a public intellectual in the U. S. or in Europe without having something to say or just being able to understand what's happening in Ukraine and in Gaza. So it's no longer viable to be a public intellectual, you have to be inter public, and to be inter public you have to be able to think inter normatively.

How do you think inter normatively between different ways of different cosmological approaches to making sense of what's happening around the world of course learning more languages and talking to people from very different normative backgrounds, and of course to go there and take a look. So it's but it's also not this kind of globalist ideology of, Traveling around and it's, it could be very, it's in China, it's a medieval ideal of traveling around and blending in with with the landscapes wherever you go.

One of my favorite thinkers, poets writers, literati from the Weijing period, late Three Kingdoms, early Weijing moment Renzi, he was famous for having said, I think he said he his ideal life is Huo Bi Hu Shi Shu, Lei Yue Bu Chu. I would rather stay at home and close my windows and read for months and not go out.

Or he would travel around and and and forget to even return. So you can go in between these two modes and but the idea is, That is no longer viable to stick to a very enclosed a normative framework. Now that we have no choice, but to have something in mind about what's happening around the world and all the, and even just locally, how a global divisions of labor are affected.

In our local lives, and how we can no longer take anything for granted without regard to what kind of global understanding. So I think that would be a nice to travel a lot like Herodotus did Montesquieu did, like Montaigne did, and keep a travel journal as I do. Write down your conversations with the locals and reflect on them many years later, show it to your friends and families and hear what they think the more communicative assets to invoke the Harvard Marcian concept to globalize it, because Harvard must distort ethic is still quite limited in my view, but to expand it and have a kind of global discourse assets and do the conversations like we're doing right now with more people.

Ben: That sounds great. Yes. To travel is to learn. With that thank you very much. 

Hansong: Thank you, Ben. It's been a pleasure. Thank you so much. I enjoyed the conversation.

Garrett Graff: Aliens, Mysteries of UFOs, Watergate, 9/11, Government trust | Podcast

Garrett Graff, a writer and historian who specializes in 'near history', discusses his book, 'UFO', about the US government's search for alien life. He touches upon how we often misunderstand UFO sightings, suggesting they could be due to a mix of physical anomalies and governmental or adversary secret flight technologies. Graff also shares his belief in the possibility of alien civilizations, arguing probabilities suggest the existence of life outside Earth. He then relates UFO conspiracies to a societal mistrust in government and institutions, tying it back to events like the Watergate scandal. Graff finally introduces his forthcoming oral history book on D-Day, emphasizing how his work emphasizes explaining and organizing complex events in an understandable and comprehensive way.

"When people ask 'do UFOs?'...That's not actually the question that they mean. The question that they really mean is, 'are we alone?' Because the truth of the matter is of course UFOs exist. All a UFO is an unidentified flying object, and there are things out there that we don't know what they are. Whether those are extraterrestrial is a very different question and potentially unrelated to the question of, are there extraterrestrials."

Transcript and podcast recording below. 
Contents:

• 00:31 Exploring the Mysteries of UFOs

• 03:05 The Probability of Alien Life

• 06:21 The Government's Role in UFO Research

• 19:03 The Impact of Conspiracy Theories

• 29:40 The Connection Between UFOs and Politics

• 33:28 The Importance of Trust in Government

• 47:21 The Writing Process and Future Projects

Podcast wherever you get podcasts or links below. Video above or on YouTube. Transcript follows below.

PODCAST INFO

• Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3gJTSuo

• Spotify: https://sptfy.com/benyeoh

• Anchor: https://anchor.fm/benjamin-yeoh

• All links:  https://pod.link/1562738506

---

Transcript (this is AI assisted and errors are possible)

Ben: Hey everybody, I'm super excited to be speaking to Garrett Graff. Garrett is a writer and historian. His latest book is UFO, about the US government's search for alien life. Previous award winning work includes Watergate, exploring the political scandal, The Only Plane in the Sky, which is an oral history of 9/11, and Raven Rock, about US government plans to survive existential threats.

Garrett, welcome. 

Garrett: Thanks so much for having me. It's great to see you. 

Ben: In your latest book you weave the machinery of government The search for extraterrestrial life and the mysteries of unexplained flying objects. What do you think was most misunderstood in what you learned? 

Garrett: Oh, that's a good question. I think, to me, there were a couple of things that stood out.

One is the possibility, when people hear UFO, we immediately leap to think extraterrestrial. And part of the challenge is, UFOs probably don't have one answer or one solution. It is probably a mix of physical objects that we don't understand currently. Some of it is our own government's secret flight development efforts.

Some of it is adversary government's secret flight development efforts. And then, some of it is almost certainly phenomenon that we do not yet understand. Meteorological, atmospheric astronomical phenomenon that we don't yet understand. When people ask do UFOs? Which is the question. that a lot of people start with when they hear something like, oh, you're working on a book about UFOs.

That's not actually the question that they mean. That the question that they really mean is, are we alone? Because the truth of the matter is of course UFOs exist. All a UFO is an unidentified Flying object, and there are things out there that we don't know what they are whether those are extraterrestrial is a very different question and potentially unrelated to the question of, are there extraterrestrials which I think is like part of the question.

When I spend some time in the book attempting to untangle because it is simultaneously possible that there are alien civilizations, life and intelligent life all across the universe and that all of it or most of it is too far away for us to ever know or have Meaningful contact with or might just not overlap with us and our civilization at this precise moment in the history of the universe, which is something that we can talk about, too.

Garrett: But One of the biggest revolutions that I try to capture in this book is the idea that the math is very much now on the side of the aliens. That we, as late as the 1990s, did not realize that there was a single planet outside of our own solar system. And we now believe that there are effectively planets orbiting every star in the universe.

And as we've come to understand the scale and size and scope of the universe, we've come to understand that number is on the order of magnitude of one sextillion of those planets might be habitable. Which is to say they fall into what scientists call the Goldilocks zone. They're not too hot, not too cold.

They could support water. They could support an atmosphere. They could support life as we recognize it. There's a whole other question, by the way, of what life could look like that we wouldn't recognize it, that we wouldn't be able to identify the characteristics of a planet that could support intelligent life or life That we would not recognize, that would not be carbon based, oxygen breathing life.

And there's a lot of interesting science around, what that could be as well. But that, to me A lot of what this book was, and a lot of what this research process was attempting to untangle all of these different threads. That people start with this question of, are UFOs real? Which is the wrong question to start with, and then breaking that down into what the right questions are to ask, and what the individual pieces of those answers end up being.

Ben: That was very clear in the book, that you had these two threads. One was Alien life outside of the planet and the other was these unexplained objects, as you say, which have on the surface, quite a mundane definition. So do you think for the, starting with the mundane ones and you listed all the likely explanations.

physical phenomena we don't understand yet government plans and the like. It seems that most of those you're tilting to having essentially a mundane explanation. Would you say that's correct? So like over 90 percent of them you think will maybe, may be mundane. Whereas also for the aliens, things out of this world, you're essentially saying the balance of probabilities, sextillion, I can't quite remember how many zeros that is, but it's a lot.

It's 15 or 20 zeros after a one, just on the balance of probabilities. Even if you put very low chances, you're going to have something, but also with those distances from the lifespan that humans might be around, if you say, draw it to how long dinosaurs been around, we might never meet any of that alien life because it's too.

Too far for distance travels. Do I have those two threads correct in terms of the arguments you're weaving into the book? 

Garrett: Absolutely. And what I think you see is this challenge that normally scientists and journalists and historians try to treat these two threads differently. They poo the like wacky conspiracy UFO people here on earth and then talk about the like serious astronomers doing serious science work on the search for extraterrestrial intelligence out across the universe. And the truth of the matter, of course, is that these threads are not unrelated. And so my book really tried to weave these two stories together.

In part because for very obvious reasons, a big part of the question of are aliens visiting Earth is are aliens out there at all? And what's interesting as you get into it is Even the scientists who are dubious about UFOs being extraterrestrials don't necessarily argue that aliens don't visit Earth.

Carl Sagan in the 20th century, probably the most famous astronomer of the 20th century, was simultaneously the lead skeptic that UFOs represented extraterrestrial visitors and also simultaneously the lead proponent of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence SETI across the universe. And his argument was that statistically, when you look at the percentage of planets and the probabilities of intelligent life arising et cetera, et cetera, The vastness of interstellar space.

You would expect aliens and other intelligent civilizations to visit earth about every hundred thousand or 200, 000 years. So his argument wasn't that aliens don't come here. It's that the thing that you saw last Tuesday night out your window is unlikely, statistically, to be the one day that the aliens stopped by in the last 200, 000 years.

Because Sagan's argument, the argument of a lot of the scientists who work on SETI is that our civilization is too new and too insignificant for anyone to care about, even if We exist and that alien, we have this like wonderfully human centric vision of us being worthy of other intelligent civilizations wanting to cross interstellar space to come visit us either out of friendship or because they want to invade us and harvest our organs for food or energy, what have you.

Whereas aliens are probably much more likely to treat Earth much like we would treat a rest area on the Jersey Turnpike, which is a stopover on the way from one interesting place to another. And that one of the things that we probably misunderstand is how first contact would actually exist.

Hollywood has given us over the decades, really three scenarios for our first contact with an alien civilization. And they are all very clear, unambiguous and earth focused. So you have the independence day flying saucer over the white house. Take me to your leader version. You have the Jodie Foster contact radio message from outer space version.

And then you have the E. T. Stranded Lone Traveler version. The much more likely scenario is that we will first encounter or detect effectively a piece of space trash. We will see a piece of a defunct spaceship or old space probe or some piece of wreckage floating through our solar system and know that it doesn't come from us.

But not know who it comes from. Harvard astronomy chair, Avi Loeb talks about this as the equivalent of the like empty plastic bag blowing through our cosmic backyard. That doesn't come from our Walmart. Like whose Walmart does that come from? And that the, we're going to be left with this puzzle of, where does this.

Is this civilization still around? Is this friend or foe? Where was this located when it launched, when it started? And it's possible, by the way, that we've actually already detected that. There was this In 2017 scientists belatedly detected a Interstellar object moving through our solar system that they named Oumuamua.

And we know very little about Oumuamua because we had missed it until it was already on its way out of the solar system. So we have this like far off trailing and deteriorating set of data about it, but it had pretty weird characteristics and we know that it came from outside of our our our solar system and galaxy we don't really know where it came from.

And some scientists, including that Harvard astronomy chair, Avi Loeb have speculated that it might have been a piece of wreckage of a spaceship or a space probe and that it's characteristics mimic what we would expect the characteristics of a. Light sail to be which is a object that scientists here on earth are just in the early stages of developing, but are the way that they this incredibly thin, incredibly wide.

Object that would be able to be powered basically by light from the sun or a laser that you could speed up, that you could get going pretty quickly and that maybe a muamua was some incredibly old light sail from some other civilization. And that one of the challenges of this is our technology just isn't that good.

One of the things as you, we begin to think about how and when and where we might detect. Other intelligent life or pieces of that space wreckage or probes from other planets, if they're not coming here, is that we don't actually have a piece of technology on Earth right now that could detect it.

And so I think A probe or spacecraft moving through our solar system at a fraction of the speed of light that, you would expect that any intelligent civilization that had mastered the vastness of interstellar space would have figured out a way. to move at a fraction of the speed of light.

And right now we don't have the technology to detect those objects. And one of the weirdest outcomes, one of the weirdest thought experiments of this is our solar system could be being passed by Interstellar spacecraft and space probes on a daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, once a decade, once a century.

Level and we wouldn't have any idea. Like we wouldn't know if aliens were actually just flying by earth right now. And we just didn't, we just weren't detecting them. And 

I was just saying, we only invented the radio not too long ago, 

and that ends up being a lot of the the science of these questions is coming to understand that, we're just a really young civilization in a pretty young and average planet.

Around a pretty average star located in the outer suburbs of a pretty ordinary Milky Way galaxy. And that, humanity is, on the order of a few 10, 000 years old. Certainly our level of technology for, space travel is like less than a century old. And our planet is about four and a half billion years old in a 14 billion year old universe.

And that the James Webb space telescope in the last couple of years is on an almost daily basis. It's transforming our understanding of the universe's size, scale, scope, and formation. And it has detected galaxies and stars that began to form as little as 300 million years ago. After the beginning of the universe.

And one of the weirdest aspects of this is the possibility that, again, life could be very common across the history of the universe and intelligent life common across the history of the universe. And that we are functionally alone right now. That, you could have had a billion year civilization.

Something that was far more advanced than anything we could possibly imagine. That could have risen and fallen. Perhaps a couple that have risen and fallen over the course of a billion years. across the history of the universe that we have still missed by several billion years. That came and went before our solar system ever began to, gather out of dust in the first place.

Ben: I really got that sense from the book that, that what, there was so much that we don't understand and we've only just Beginning to glimpse and the way you explain it is really well is that sort of my own, I hadn't thought about it too much, but I essentially the probability that there is some sort of intelligent life out there seems to have really risen amongst people who look like it.

People would say maybe 80, 90 percent chance this is true, whether they visited Earth is much smaller, but not zero. That was the interesting thing that maybe 1 percent or something above 0, 1 to 5 percent over some time, like not necessarily when humans have been about, like you say, what, would that be your sense of the probabilities?

And then I'm interested in exploring something you mentioned, which is a sort of segue, which is another theme through the book, these elements of conspiracy and also where governments or actually any organizations, but governments are really bad. Dealing with things that they don't that they know they don't know the machinery of government seems to be Really bad with dealing with uncertainty and conspiracies.

I guess are a sort of adjacency to that we see but is that my sense of where the probabilities have got to and what do you think about how Governments have essentially tried to cover up what they don't know, but it seems to be almost like an incompetence. We don't want to be seen not to know type of thing rather than anything malicious.

Garrett: Absolutely. There are three questions there that I will try to answer in turn. One being the probabilities across the universe. The second being the the government cover up. And then the third being the adjacent conspiracies. So the yes, I think The Easiest way to think about this is we're just too new to really have any understanding of what the likelihood of life around us could be or intelligent life around us could be and when the SETI field started spread.

Spread. 1950s, 1960s, the, one of the pioneers in that Frank Drake came up with this what is now probably the most famous equation in SETI, which is called the Drake equation. And it lays out the variables of calculating how many planets are, how many planets there are, how many.

What percentage of those planets might be habitable? What percentage of those? Planets that are habitable, does life develop, what percentage of planets that are habitable, where life developed, does intelligent life develop and on. But the most important variable in the equation is what scientists call L, the length of time an intelligent civilization exists.

And L is the whole ball game, which is. If the length of time of an intelligent civilization is in the tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of years, then we are functionally alone in the universe. If L is a million or hundreds of millions or a billion years, our universe might team with life.

If you look at humanity as a as your test case we're in that tens of thousands of range and there are a lot of reasons looking around the world, right where we are in the winter of 2024 to think that like humanity probably doesn't get another 10, 000 years. Like we, We might not get like another 150 or 200 years based on, the trajectory of, climate change and AI and technology and nuclear war and, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

There's also a big part of that equation, by the way, that is also it's not just how long a civilization lasts, but how long a civilization lasts that remains curious about its place in the universe. There's a sort of dark dystopian path in the years ahead for Earth where Humanity survives, but is, effectively so poisoned by a combination of misinformation and A.

I. And societal collapse that we just lose interest in exploring whether there's life out there in the rest of the universe. So that's the answer to the first question. So then you get to this question of. Is the government covering up its knowledge of extraterrestrials?

And I think that there's a lot of evidence to believe that the U. S. Government or governments anywhere in the world really are not covering up meaningful knowledge of extraterrestrials or what people intelligences. And, my most basic reasoning for that is I've covered national security for 20 years.

I come at this not as a lifelong ufologist who grew up on Star Trek and the X Files and read sci fi novels. I come at this as someone whose, previous books are about the Cold war and cyber security and counterterrorism and american presidency and you know I doubt government conspiracies mostly because They presuppose a level of competence, strategy, and forethought that is not on display in the rest of the work that government bureaucracies tend to do on a day to day basis.

And, I'm happy to talk more about that if you want. But that is not to say, though, that the government is not covering up It's knowledge and understanding of UFOs. The U S government governments all around the world are absolutely covering up their knowledge of UFOs. It's just not there for the reasons that people generally think part of this is there are two very obvious cloaks of secrecy that surround a lot of this subject.

One is what the, a lot of what the public thinks are UFOs. Are the government's own secret test projects. A huge percentage of public UFO sightings in the 1950s were the U2 spy plane which was a UFO. It was a, if you were a commercial pilot flying across the United States and you looked up and saw the U2 above you.

It was a plane that didn't look like anything that we knew planes to look like it, that flying at an altitude that planes were not known to fly and flying at speeds. Planes were not known to fly in the decades since you've had the same experience with the SR 71, the a 12 ox cart, the stealth fighter, the stealth bomber, and all of that stuff is still going on today.

You've got new secret drone projects. The U. S. government's, U. S. Air Force's new generation B 21 stealth bomber just had its inaugural flight test in November. These programs are still going on, and the government doesn't really tell us what they all are. Now, there's a second layer of this, which is, it's not just our government.

Some chunk of these UFO sightings are advanced adversary technology being tested against us. That's Chinese drones, Russian drones, Iranian drones. There's a lot to those technologies that we do not currently understand. About our adversaries capabilities. And one of the things that the Pentagon has talked about is in its renewed effort to understand UFOs and, what the government now calls UAPs, unidentified anomalous phenomenon.

It identified a heretofore unknown. Transmedium Chinese drone, which is to say a Chinese drone that came out of the water and transitioned to flight, which was a technology that the U. S. government did not understand that China possessed. The government gets real squirrely talking about what its sensors And radars and surveillance networks detect and don't detect and what it understands about those adversary technologies.

So big, some sizable percentage of our, what the public thinks are UFOs, the U S government may have a better understanding of, in terms of what a, what might be, revolutionary. Technologies around You know our adversaries so then you get to the last part of your question which is the conspiracies around the government cover up.

And this was actually to me one of the biggest surprises of the book, which is, as you mentioned when you were introducing me. The book before this for me was my previous book was a history of Watergate and the scandal around Richard Nixon's presidency in the 1970s. And in a very weird way, the second half of this book on UFOs ends up being a sequel to a book about Watergate, because what it ends up being about is a The collapse of trust in government institutions, the collapse in faith in institutions, the collapse of agreed upon trust and truth that the U.

S. in particular, but societies around the world, underwent in the wake of the Pentagon Papers, Vietnam, Watergate, the Church Committee, the Pike Committee. And this recognition, the government can lie to you. And where you see that actually first take place in the U S in our politics is in the 1970s and eighties around UFOs.

And there is this series of revelations and conspiracies in the 1980s, some self proclaimed whistleblowers coming forward and some, quote unquote new evidence about things like the Roswell crash that come forward in the 1970s and 80s. that plant for the first time the idea of what we would now call and recognize as the deep state in the American political tradition.

This shadowy cabal of, professional government operatives working at cross purposes with elected officials and the American public, that there's like a hidden government inside our hidden government and that they this idea first exists in the context of UFOs in the 1980s.

The, those figures in some cases go on to become the founding members of the far right. conservative fringe in the 1980s and 1990s, including very specifically one guy named Bill Cooper, who is one of these UFO whistleblowers in the 1980s. He says that he's a, intelligence officer who's seen evidence of, the government's dealings with alien civilizations goes on to become one of the nation's most popular, real far right fringe talk radio hosts of the 1990s, up there with with the Rush Limbaugh's of the country, helps to inspire through his conspiratorial view of the world.

Tim McVeigh, who goes on to bomb the Oklahoma City Federal Building and carry out, the worst domestic terror attack in U. S. history. And also inspires and becomes the mentor, really, to a young Austin, Texas public access host named Alex Jones. Alex Jones, of course, becomes the founder of the 9 11 conspiracy.

myths, what we now call 9 11 truthers and that it's really Alex Jones who carries this forward into a new generation and, picks up the idea of the deep state and really carries it forward into the Trump era. And in a very weird and twisted way that I think most Americans don't realize and I certainly didn't realize until I was working on researching this book, I think you don't get January 6th.

And the big lie and the attempt to steal the election without the foundation that was laid intellectually by the UFO conspiracies of the 1980s and 90s and that this really ends up being This weird journey through 40 years of American conspiracies. And yet ends up in something that really threatens, starts with UFOs and then, threatens to upend American democracy in 2020.

Ben: That's really where the truth just seems larger than the fiction. And that's one of the remarkable things I picked up on the book in that second half is this, the stories we tell ourselves are so important, the narratives to get to where we are and these events. And I was wondering, reflecting back on that thread that you get from Watergate to today through these conspiracy theories.

Theories of which aliens is a big chunk. Is that one of the lessons we need to take away from political scandals and Watergate and the like? That when we harm trust in government and trust in our institutions, it allows These conspiracies, these tailways of thinkings to occur, and then they have all of these second and third order effects, which are just really hard to go through because they're going on their own narratives and putting the two books and the works together.

It seems to me there's that and that it seems to recur at least in modern. History, we've had this little bit of recurrence and where we are in trust in government Therefore and trust in institutions is potentially a more important thing to be worried about is that one of your takeaways from watergate?

Or was that is there something else that I should pick up on?

Garrett: Yeah, I think you're right. I think that there's you know to me the shame of watergate the Is You know, the way that it has, it poisoned a generation of politics that followed and caused or at least accelerated that collapse of trust in government institutions.

I think part of the challenge also, when you get into the conspiracies around UFOs, coming back to, what is my working theory, which is that the government is not covering up meaningful knowledge of of contact with extraterrestrials or non human intelligences, NHIs. You addressed a little bit in your original question to me, which is, it's really hard for governments and bureaucracies to say, I don't know.

And, I think in many ways the government is just as puzzled about the reality of UFOs as anyone else. Now the government, for the reasons that we talked about, advanced technology tests. Advanced sensor systems. It knows more than the average public. But it doesn't know what all ufos are and across 80 years of history there has been a stubbornly small percentage of public UFO reports that also puzzle the government.

In the earlier days, that was about 20 percent of public sightings the government couldn't solve. Today, with better technology and better data, that number hovers closer to 2%, 5%. Of public UFO sightings that also puzzle the government. Those, of course, are the only, to me, interesting UFO sightings, are the ones that actually puzzle the government.

Humans are incredibly terrible witnesses. for UFOs. A vast percentage of UFO sightings are things like the planet Venus, which is just a really bright star in the night sky. Or, in the modern era, a lot of UFO sightings end up being starlink satellites, which are bright and array themselves in weird lines in the sky, in ways that, people get alarmed about when they see them.

But, we know what those are once, once they're reported and, can untangle them. So the question to me is always what are the things that actually puzzle the government? And, the Pentagon office that works on this right now says it's about 2 percent in the, in, in this particular moment.

But it's really hard for a bureaucracy, particularly in a country like the United States, where we spend, 60 billion a year on intelligence and, round numbers, a trillion dollars a year on national defense and homeland security, to come out and say, there's some weird stuff out there that we don't really know what it is, flying around in our airspace.

And, that's a really unsatisfying answer. And it's one that bureaucrats don't like to provide to their bosses. And I think the problem is that's actually the best answer, which is the government doesn't really know. And one of the pieces of evidence that I point to in the book is what, to me, was the moment that I got interested in writing this book, which is since 2017, there has been a radical shift in the way That people in Washington talk about UFOs and you have begun to see serious people talk seriously about UFOs.

And it began in 2017 with a series of blockbuster reports from the New York Times and Politico that both laid out the details of a. then unknown government UFO study program by the Pentagon, by the Defense Intelligence Agency. And then a series of puzzling encounters across many years by Navy fighter pilots, Navy aviators, who had encountered craft or objects that behaved in ways that they could not explain.

And that they did not believe the U. S. had technology to match. And that there was video that backed up those Navy pilots testimony that the Pentagon eventually released. There's a series of videos that are called the Tic Tac video and the gimbal and the FLIR. And on them, there are these objects that sort of move in weird ways or appear to move in weird ways.

And you began to see some congressional attention around this. It's actually an issue that has remained pretty bipartisan heavy in terms of getting attention from both panic from Democrats and Republicans in places like the Senate Intelligence Committee around trying to push the government towards greater levels of transparency about what it does know about UFOs.

And that there was a specific moment for me when, again, we began 2020, John Brennan gave an interview to a DC journalist named Tyler Cowen. John Brennan had just wrapped up the better part of a decade as President Obama's CIA Director and Homeland Security Advisor. He was a career intelligence officer.

I've covered him. I've interviewed him. He's a very serious guy. And he'd spent the better part of a decade atop the U. S. intelligence committee, or U. S. intelligence community. And he said in this very weird, tortured syntax, effectively, there's some weird stuff out there, we don't know what it is, and some might say that this phenomenon could constitute what some might recognize as a new form of life.

It's a really weird sentence. And also, to me, stuck out because I figured there can't be that many things that puzzle someone like John Brennan. Like, when John Brennan woke up in the morning as CIA director or White House Homeland Security advisor, Any question that occurred to him, there was a massive intelligence apparatus that would go out there and try to answer it.

Analysts and undercover operatives and intelligence officers and satellites and signals intelligence intercept networks. If John Brennan woke up and said, tell me what Ben had for breakfast. Last Tuesday, like there's probably a reporting system and surveillance system that could come up with what that answer is, by the end of the day.

And so if John Brennan is leaving office at the end of his entire career, at the end of these eight years as CIA director and Homeland Security advisor, and he's saying, man, this UFO thing, it's really puzzling and I don't know what it is. And I don't think we know what it is. That felt to me like something that was worth diving into and trying to better understand.

Ben: That's fascinating. 

When I put all of your work together, reading your books, one of the things which stood out about you then taking the 9 11 oral testimony was that was based on primary evidence, people's actual truths. And you were writing it. writing it down. And so that almost strikes us in comparison to some of these other conspiracy things as well.

And I was stuck in Manhattan over 9 11 and one of the things I remembered very much was the smell and the visceral feeling and you get that in a lot of the oral testimony. Do you see that as your work as a modern historian taking this? You looked at You've looked at government, you've looked at conspiracy, you've looked at this, and then you've also taken primary evidence and the truth.

Is there something that you think people might not appreciate around the oral testimony in 9 11 and how you see that in your overall work? 

Garrett: Yeah, it's a great question. The way that I talk about my work and the subjects that I write on books wise is that I mostly do near history. Things that are just old enough that they're not current events anymore and are slipping from memory into history, but are new enough that there's research that hasn't been mined, archives that haven't been mined and that is recent enough that, We probably misunderstand it.

A big part of my work is basically like returning to these things, 10, years later that have this, popular mythology built up around them and then trying to put together all that we have learned. Since that event, to better understand what that event actually was when it was happening.

Because, journalism is, as famously said, is, the rough first draft of history. But it generally gets things pretty wrong as more details come out. And that we better understand, motivations and and even in some cases, basic facts, only as documents are declassified or memoirs come out years later kind of thing.

And so I generally try to choose topics that have a Modern salience that and then tried to help us help use that history to explain why we are, why America is, why the world is the way that it is today based on our understanding of how this history went down. What drew me back to Watergate.

Was covering Donald Trump and covering the investigations around Donald Trump and, wondering what was it like the last time America confronted a corrupt and criminal president in office, and how did it work, and how did the system function, and what really happened in and around the White House as that was going on.

Which, we've really only come to understand Watergate really in the last 10 or 15 years. That the Watergate that Americans thought that they were living through in the 1970s turns out to be, just this like incredibly narrow slice of what was going on beneath the surface and the motivations and the personalities and the players who were involved in all of these events as they transpired.

Ben: Yeah, it's very hard to know when you're living in the moment or very near moment, what are the actual forces and truth around it. So my final kind of trio of questions then would be when you alluded to that is, do you have anything around your writing process that you'd like to share, whether it's either unique or just how you do it?

Are you a morning writer, afternoon writer? You obviously do a lot of deep research and it's interesting you're interested in this near history. But do you just, does it all just come out after the research? And as a segue to that, are there any current projects you'd want to, you'd want to hint at?

And the last one would be if you had any I guess it's life advice or writing advice around how people should think about the world or what you've learned in general. So writing process. Into into those final thoughts. 

Garrett: Yeah, so I try I generally try to describe my career as explanatory journalism which to me is really distinct from Like investigative journalism, like I am not someone who has a particular skill in you know sussing out the document that like no one has ever seen before or you know getting the testimony of some secret source that no one has ever talked to before.

The thing that I do is the like hoovering up of an enormous body of research and then trying to organize it and explain these events and stories and histories in, oh, the most clear and most comprehensive way that anyone has yet tried to do. And, that was really what my Watergate journey was, which is, here's a, story that is one of the most covered subjects of all time.

And yet it has been covered in all of these narrow slivers and individual memoirs or, time limited books. And, now let's collect all of that work over 50 years and tell the story. In a more comprehensive way and a more clear way than anyone has ever tried to do before. That was, in many ways the same thing I was trying to do with UFO, which is, here's a subject that has an enormous body of primary sources behind it, but that no one in a long time has tried to sit down and explain and organize in a Clear.

And I would like to think objective and open-minded way. You know that probably a lot. I think a lot of the challenge of the literature around UFOs is almost everyone comes to writing about it with a very clear agenda at the start. Either you are a total believer. And are writing something to convince others that aliens are visiting.

Or you're a total skeptic and are trying to write, a grand debunking. And, I think if people read the UFO book, what they'll see is, I'm not trying to do either. And I think that the truth is probably somewhere in the middle, that UFOs probably don't constitute alien visits, but aliens probably exist, and there is something real to UFOs that we don't know what it is, and the answers to which could end up being just as world transforming and Fascinating and revelatory As if the answer was aliens, that it, we could really see our understanding of the world transformed just by solving the mystery of UFOs.

Now I just finished actually my next book, which comes out in June of this year and will be published both in the U. S. and the U. K. In, in June, that is going back to my oral history work, and it is an oral history of D Day. And June 6th of course, is the 80th anniversary of D Day. And this is a moment when the generation of D Day veterans is really passing from the earth.

And this book tries to in a very classic me way,

capture This incredibly broad set of voices and participants in that day, American, British, Canadian, German, French Polish Norwegian Kiwis, Australians, all sorts of different perspectives of that day. And and tell that day in a very comprehensive and definitive way using the voices of the participants themselves.

So you can't quite see my office floor here, but I am surrounded by two foot tall stacks of D Day histories and memoirs and military reports. And it's about a hundred and fifty or two hundred books on my floor here. And I went through another couple thousand oral histories in archives in the U. S. and Canada and U. K. And the sort of final bit of your question about how I work is what I do is I take all of this research and then I write these like incredibly long first drafts and then basically, Over some period of time, really whittle them down to the essence of the story as best I can.

And so the D Day oral history. I started in August and September with a first draft that was about 1. 5 million words and then whittled it down to the, 166, 000 words that it will end up being published around. And went through that vast draft and ended up cutting, basically nine out of every 10 words out of the book to get it down to, the essence of the story as best I could.

Ben: That's amazing. So I very much look forward to that. So that will be mid this year, June, 2024 book on D Day. And a reminder, latest book also on UFOs. Book on Watergate and the oral history on 9 11, The Only Plane in the Sky. That was a really excellent conversation and I thank you very much.

Garrett: Absolutely a pleasure. Thanks so much for having me.

Hannah Ritchie: sustainability, progress, Not The End of the World | Podcast

In this in-depth conversation, data scientist and researcher Hannah Ritchie delves into key insights from her new book 'Not The End of The World', which challenges the pervasive idea that human society is doomed due to environmental degradation. She explores various environmental problems, including climate change and plastic pollution, and emphasizes the potential for progress in tackling these critical issues. Hannah also discusses the essential role of technology and outlines the importance of lifting people out of poverty as a measure against climate change. Her argument centers around the balance of environmental change and human impact in achieving a sustainable planet. Furthermore, she provides advice on dealing with climate anxiety, career progression, and essential work ethics. Transcript and podcast recording below or link here.

Approach: Hannah's work is primarily driven by data, focusing on the interplay between sustainability, climate change, and patterns of global development. Her new book, "Not the End of the World," addresses one of the most significant challenges of our time - environmental sustainability. 

In the book, Hannah dispels a range of myths associated with environmental issues. She counters the prevailing narrative which claims we are doomed and there's nothing left to do about our environmental crisis. Instead, she believes we can change the narrative and become the first generation to build a sustainable planet.

Tackling Climate Change:   

Hannah's optimism for combating climate change stems from the significant strides made in technology, especially renewable energy technologies. These technologies are no longer mere futuristic imaginings. They are realistic, economical, and deployable on a large scale. 

However, she acknowledges the difficulty of the task at hand. The world is on track for 2 and a half to 3 degrees of warming which puts us in challenging terrain. We need rapid technological change coupled with significant societal transformation to alter our trajectory. 

Addressing Biodiversity Loss: 

Biodiversity loss, according to Hannah, is among the most challenging problems explored in her book. The manifestation of this crisis is nuanced as it involves intricate geo-political and economic dynamics. While technology can help, solving the biodiversity crisis will require simultaneous action on many fronts, from controlling deforestation to addressing climate change and overfishing. 

The Question of Plastics: 

Plastics are universally ubiquitous, presenting a significant sustainability challenge, especially concerning disposal. The key lies in addressing waste management infrastructures in low-middle-income countries where plastic waste management is weak. 

Moving Forward:

The path to sustainability is riddled with challenges. Two significant policy levers that Hannah identifies are transitioning to electric vehicles and investing in electricity grids. Electric vehicles can play a crucial role in reducing environmental impact, and improvements to electricity grids have the potential to facilitate the swift build-out of renewable technology.

Small, rich nations, despite their less significant carbon footprint, must lead the charge in driving innovations and creating technological spillovers used by other countries. 

“I think one of the best antidotes to too anxiety is to get involved in stuff. I think one of the worst feelings is feeling like you're helpless and there's nothing you can do and nothing works. I think actually getting actively involved in stuff that moves us forward can alleviate some of the anxiety.”

I think I would advise people like taking the initiative, whether it's a blog or a project or whatever you're interested in is like having some online presence where people can see what you're up to. And I think often like spontaneous opportunities come from that, like someone willing to fund you might stumble on your work and really like it and back you. So I think that would be a main piece of advice is to start putting yourself out there. It's also how you learn. I look back on my old writings and they make me cringe. They seem really bad, but I think that's just how you develop the skills. And I think it's really useful to learn in public rather than learning in private.

Transcript is below.

• 00:23 Debunking Environmental Myths

• 01:29 Sustainability: A Dual Perspective

• 03:43 Population and Degrowth: A Skeptical View

• 07:47 Technological Optimism vs Realism

• 09:34 The Dangers of Doomsday Narratives

• 12:50 Climate Change: Challenges and Solutions

• 15:27 The Role of Technology in Sustainability

• 17:44 Addressing Biodiversity Loss

• 25:07 The Plastic Problem: A Practical Approach

• 28:58 Investing in Conservation and Restoration

• 36:15 The Challenges of Heat Pumps

• 37:10 The Potential of Meat Alternatives

• 37:46 The Writing Process and Charity Contributions

• 38:23 The Importance of Lifting People Out of Poverty

• 40:35 The Writing Process and Research

• 45:10 The Importance of Transition Metals in Technology

• 45:40 The Role of Small, Richer Nations in Climate Change

• 45:53 The Controversies and Challenges of Cobalt

• 01:03:15 The Future of Energy Transition

• 01:04:09 Advice for Dealing with Climate Anxiety and Career Paths

Podcast wherever you get podcasts or links below. Video above or on YouTube. above or on YouTube. Transcript follows below.

PODCAST INFO

• Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3gJTSuo

• Spotify: https://sptfy.com/benyeoh

• Anchor: https://anchor.fm/benjamin-yeoh

• All links:  https://pod.link/1562738506

---

Hannah Ritchie Transcript

(Note this has been automated and errors are possible)

Ben: Hey everyone, I'm super excited to be speaking to Hannah Ritchie. Hannah is a data scientist and lead researcher at World in Data. She keeps a substack at Sustainability by Numbers and Hannah has a new book out, Not the End of the World, how we can be the first generation to build a sustainable planet.

Hannah, welcome.

Hannah: Thanks so much for having me.

Ben: What do you think was the biggest myth or piece of misinformation you discovered in your research?

Hannah: I think the biggest myth that I'm trying to combat in the book is that this message that seems to be coming through more strongly now, which is that we're doomed and there's nothing we can do about it.

I feel like, especially in the, in the book, I tackle seven different big environmental problems, but I think everyone tends to focus on the climate one. And I think in the climate one, I think we're like very quickly tipped from like this kind of part denial that we're facing a big problem.

Like we've somehow done a 180 into like now a big prominent message is, it's too late. We're doomed. There's nothing we can do about it. And I think what I'm really trying to push back on in the book is that I just don't think that's true. Like I think. There's a massive, we have a massive problem in terms of climate, it's very serious.

But I think there are solutions coming through now, so I think at a point in time when we need to be moving most quickly and have the most action, my concern is that people turn away because they think this is an unsolvable problem. So I think that's the overarching like big myth I want to try and combat in the book.

Ben: And in the book, you argue that the present time today might be the first time that we can both grow human flourishing and diminish our environmental impact. And you're quite clear that sustainability really has two parts to it in the sense that there's forward looking, and we want to sustain future generations and the future planet.

But actually, you've got to think about current generation as well, which is poverty as well as climate and the like. What's your evidence or argument for why that might be so today?

Hannah: Yeah, so I think when we think about sustainability, like I'm from an environmental background, so we think of this, often think of this forward looking of, we want to protect the environment for future generations and other species.

I think our ancestors like did achieve that. Like they, did have overall quite a very low environmental impact. But I think the challenge there is that often like human wellbeing or human metrics were not great. So if you take an example of child mortality, like for a lot of human history, like around half of children wouldn't reach adulthood.

Now, what we've seen over the last few centuries is the scales on that have tipped, right? So we've made amazing progress on many of these human well being metrics, like extreme poverty, child mortality, maternal mortality, life expectancy the list goes on. And of course, the world is still very unequal today, so it's not like we're done with this human progress lens but things have got much, much better.

Now, they've got much better. to a large part to the detriment of the environment. So we've, burned fossil fuels for energy, we've expanded farmland often at the cost of forests and wild habitat. So we're now putting lots and lots of environmental pressure on the planet. Now what, where we are today.

I think it's now possible that we continue human progress, so we continue to make progress on all of these marine metrics, while also reducing our environmental impact at the same time. And I think a big driver of that is that we now have the technologies to switch away from fossil fuels, to switch away from using lots of land for farming, and I think we're now in quite a unique opportunity, a unique position to do that, where I think these things are no longer incompatible.

Ben: And the book seems to be fairly skeptical on the idea of depopulation. So this is the idea that we should have fewer people to solve the problem. And also relatively skeptical on degrowth, which sort of follows that humans should grow and consume less to be more environmentally sustainable. Although there's some sort of overlap in some of the ideas, like food waste.

You could easily call a degrowth idea, although you might solve it technologically. Would you explain why you've come to the conclusion that population is not depopulation is not going to be the solution and why you may a little bit skeptical of the degrowth idea?

Hannah: I think a big part of this is.

So I think if you look at, if you take the population example global population growth rates peaked a long time ago. They're actually falling. Like I think people still have this impression that the world population is growing exponentially and it's not. Population growth is slowing quite quickly and we expect that.

The latest UN projections are that by the 2080s global population will peak. So we're going to see much, much slower population growth. And that's because we fertility rates across the world have dramatically declined. Now the question in there is, should you try to drive that down much faster?

I think one point is no, we shouldn't do that through coercive. policies. And then the other lens is, do you invest in women's education? Do you invest in women's rights to contraceptives, to employment opportunities? All of, we know that all of these things tends to reduce fertility rates, especially in low income countries.

Now my argument there is, yeah, we should do that. We should just do that because that's a good thing to do. I think the putting the climate lens on it. doesn't make sense. Because if you're looking at where fertility rates in the world are still high, they're generally in the poorest countries.

And the poorest countries have very low CO2 emissions. The population numbers in these countries actually don't make a massive difference to a global CO2 emissions. And then if you take it at a broader level Even if you were to see really rapid drops in fertility rates across the entire world, I still don't think it would massively shift CO2 emissions on the timescales that we're talking about.

We're talking about addressing this in decades, and I think demographic change tends to be much longer term. I think on the degrowth thing, I think, I think the intuition for this makes sense. Like CO2 emissions have been really tightly coupled to GDP over history. As you get richer, you use more energy and we were getting that energy from fossil fuels.

Therefore we had higher CO2 emissions. Now why I'm not, or why I'm very skeptical of it as well. One is that. I don't think we can have global de growth because we still have billions of people living in poverty and I think it's well within their rights to move out of that and I think a de growth global strategy would basically leave them there.

And then the question is in rich countries, should we shrink our economies a bit? I think they are the biggest challenge for me, is political. Like I just don't see Any leader standing up and getting political support for this, so like we could spend the next 10 to 20 years trying to get this enacted, but, I'd rather just spend that time trying to decarbonize, because we know that can work, whereas I think on a de growth strategy.

Like I just don't see it happening on the timescales by which we need to solve this problem. But it's true that, like in my book, like I, I outline a range of good behavior changes that in some sense would reduce resource use. Like I'm, like I advocate quite strongly that a big environmental impact is meat consumption.

Is degrowth strategy? I don't know. I would like to see less food waste, so sometimes maybe some of the behavioural changes we need are somewhat in line with degrowth strategies, but I think specifically going on with a message of, we would like degrowth, I just don't think will actually work politically.

Sure,

Ben: and you give the example of your brother. Eating a impossible burger or one of the alternative burgers. And if you can't tell the difference, and I guess Bill Gates has this with his argument as well, the green premium, if it's basically zero, then you transition, like you transition with any technology.

I read that you didn't really think of yourself as a techno optimist, more of a techno realist, or sometimes heard it as a techno pragmatist. Is there anything about your views which you think distinguish that? And I'm interested also in some of those intersects such in fact, we heard this from Chris Stark, who's on the podcast, who said, you should just call climate jobs.

And, intersectionality with healthcare, you can also just call them jobs or intervention. And there, there is a little bit. Of that so I think that's the sort of theme. But I was wondering why you wouldn't call yourself a techno optimist and more of a techno realist.

Hannah: Yeah, so I think where I distinguish that is that I'm very bullish on technology, like even if, so even if you were to go for degrowth you still need massive deployments globally of renewable technologies, transport technologies, like you still, there's still a massive technological lens that even if you reduced energy demand where I see myself as a techno realist is that I'm just really yeah. bullish on many of the technologies that we have, like solar, wind, batteries, electric vehicles. I think there's a range of technologies there that aren't like high in the sky. They're like very realistic. Like they're becoming really economical. You can deploy these technologies very quickly.

So that's where I think like a lot of my optimism lies. This isn't a technology that seems very realistic to me. I think there's probably like another. segment of the population that are like more, like way more optimistic on like really dramatic technological change, which like some of these technologies I'm like a little bit skeptical of at the moment, but I'm very like hell bent on, the technologies that we have now that are good, that are scalable, that are cheap, like we just need to build them very quickly.

Ben: I see, yep, that makes sense to me. The book was perhaps a touch more critical of the Doomsday narrative than perhaps I was expecting. Obviously, the argument is that it was unhelpful, and I think it can be really unhelpful to people to one of the things you mentioned, which is you get from animal behavior, you see this learned helplessness.

If you think you can't do anything you stop doing anything. But you argue further that actually they might be dragging back people who are doing something. I was interested to see why you've come to that view or whether there's more nuance to where the Doomsday narrative is.

Hannah: Yeah, I think I think one thing is to clarify what I mean by doomstir.

It's not people that think it's a big problem or it's really silly because I think all of that, like I think the impacts of climate change could be really catastrophic. It's not about that. It's more about this message that I see coming through, which is, we're doomed. It's too late. There's nothing we can do about it.

And I think that's a, I see it and I speak to climate scientists where they are also noticing a real uptick in this where, we used to spend a lot of our time. Pushing back like climate denialism and we spend as much time if not more pushing back on people saying, we're doomed and there's nothing we can do.

And that's, that's not, that's completely out of line with the science and I just don't think it's helpful. I think it's unhelpful for several reasons. I think I think it was really damaging for many people's mental health. Like I get a lot of young people that get in touch and they're really in a dark place and they're often in a dark place because, and they'll send links to like some blog or some YouTube video where this is the message.

And this is not the message coming from mainstream climate science. This is people taking that message and extrapolating it way further than it actually should be. So I think damaging mental health is one thing. But I also think that Yeah, I think it's just not helpful when there's so many people trying to work on solutions, trying to push forward, to continually get the message of you're wasting your time, there's nothing you can do about it.

To me that just leads to inaction.

Ben: And I think you made the argument that it damages the science which you quite make quite forcefully, and I can see this all around obviously there's a scientific method and there's all of this, but anything which actually is going to damage that further plays into the hands of deniers, and actually at a meta level, Impacts all sorts of things where science is useful.

That's vaccines, healthcare, all sorts of these other things do you think that's true? And if anything, do you think that might be getting worse with that or what's your impressions? Yeah, I think it

Hannah: is true. I think Often there are really exaggerated claims and they're often said with the phrase in front of it, the science says, and then they say a statement that's not what the science says.

And I think these voices often get a really big platform and I think it is damaging to science. I think one thing is that if you continuously say, it's only X years until disaster, X years until disaster, once that period of time passes and the world hasn't ended, then scientists look stupid because people expect that this is what scientists said and it wasn't what they say.

So I think this deadline framing is often really unhelpful. And then I think in some sense, yeah, it does push. Push people away that would have been really engaged in the topic because they see these messages and they seem so far fetched that it's impossible for them to engage.

Ben: And so if you did have a magic wand and you could do perhaps one or two policy levers, so let's put this at the big systematic level do you have one or two policy thoughts that you particularly favor?

Hannah: I think that, I think a big one. I think if you look at where countries have actually made a lot of progress, it tends to be on electricity. So the UK, for example, like we've actually done a pretty good job of getting coal out of the electricity mix, like it's basically gone when in the past most of our electricity was coming from coal.

And I think for many countries they are making progress on that. I think one sector that's really made zero progress is transport. So we've made, in the UK, we've made basically no Progress on transport for decades. So to me, like a big policy lever there would be trying to bring forward the deadline or giving support for people from moving from petrol cars to electric vehicles.

I think a big The issue there is that when someone buys a car, they have it for 15 years or so. So that's 15 years of emissions from a petrol or diesel car locked in. So I think on transport we need to be moving much faster. And then another big policy lever

it would be something around the speed of building electricity grids. Like I think on electricity there's a range. Of issues that are getting in the way. I think one is just, and this is going to be probably pretty boring for people, but just like permitting, like getting a permit to build renewables or getting a grid connection, like getting a grid connection, like people would never think about.

You know how to get a good connection or the time it takes to get a good connection. So we actually have loads of renewables basically waiting to go on the grid. They just can't get a good connection. So I think there's like lots of what sounds like really boring stuff but really essential stuff on just providing the infrastructure and the setup to actually for stuff to actually get built and get plugged in.

I think this is this decade in particular, we need to build these technologies very quickly. And I think there's currently some barriers really getting in the way of that.

Ben: Yeah, the planning issue, there's actually lots of wind farms ready to go in terms of, they can be deployed, but there's planning and political economy things around that.

Transport's one heat pump sometimes comes up. Maybe we will get to that as well. A couple more and then a high level before diving into a couple sections in your book. Do you have a favorite visualization? Or graph that you like. Could be one of yours, could be one of the others. I know you're inspired by a lot of Hans Rosling's, which people have been.

And I know people in the visual data world really hate pie charts. So I'm always very intrigued how that's come about. But do you have either a favorite visualization or way of visualization that you'd like to share?

Hannah: I think I'll actually pick one that doesn't have data in it, but I think is just really core to the framing of the book.

And, just like really core to like most global problems that we face. And it's a Venn diagram that Max Roser, who I work with at Our Own Data Drew, and it's a basically it's about being able to hold three thoughts in your head at the same time and it's a Venn diagram of three different circles and in one it's that the world is still awful.

So on all of the problems, even the human metric problems, but especially also on the environmental problems, we're not in a good position like the world is still awful, but the world is much better on many of these metrics we have made. Progress. And the final circle is the world can be much better.

And I think it's really important to be able to hold all three of these thoughts in your head at the same time. I think many people get stuck on the world is awful. And they can't see that in many ways we've made progress. And they can't see any way by which we can make more progress. Equally, their people get stuck in the world is much better.

So then they become complacent and they just assume we can just sit back and progress will continue when it won't. And the key is that you use all of these, or you use the understanding that there's still problems to solve, combined with the fact that we can actually tackle problems in order to get the third circle, which is that the world can be much better.

So I think for me, I think that's just a really important summary of all the stuff I tackle in the book, but in general, all of the big problems that we face.

Ben: I really like towards the end of the book although you were inspired by someone else with the arrows, we referred to earlier about people who are pointing roughly in the same direction should consider themselves on the same team as opposed to people who are pointing in a different direction.

And I feel that applies to a lot, but it particularly applies to the climate. And I hadn't seen visualized as much. So in the book you. speak about quite a few sectors, climate, biodiversity, food and the like. So maybe we touch a pull of theirs. And I guess climate's on the mind of everyone. So we could maybe start that.

And perhaps your framing of that was quite a good way of doing it about what has been good and what the challenges are. But perhaps through the lens of climate, again, why do you think that we are in a position to be more sustainable and what gives you hope?

Hannah: On the world is awful bit, the bad news is that the world is currently on track for two and a half to three degrees of warming.

Now that's well above, our climate targets and it's a really bad position to be in. Like this, the impacts there will be really severe. So the trajectory we're on at the moment is completely unacceptable and we need to bend that curve. I think on the frame of the world is much better. I think we are.

actually on a better trajectory than we were 10 years ago. Like we were often talking about four or five degrees of warming and we're talking about less than that now. And why I'm cautiously optimistic on climate or where I think a big change is that the climate problem is that humans need energy for development and historically our only sources of energy were wood or fossil fuels.

And there was no way of. Producing low carbon energy in an economical way. And this was still the case even like 10, 15 years ago, right? If you were looking at solar or wind or batteries or EVs, like they were way more expensive than fossil fuels. There was just no way that the world was going to deploy these technologies.

What we've seen now is a really dramatic decline in the cost of these technologies, such that there's no longer this, trade off between, do you reduce CO2 emissions or do you provide people with energy? Like you can provide low carbon energy in a cheap way. And actually the cost of these technologies is still falling.

Like solar like continues to be all of our expectations. And in terms of prices, but also in terms of how quickly we are deploying them. So there's this kind of trope of the International Energy Agency and many other agencies, they, they come up with forecasts of like how much solar will grow.

And year after year after year, like they consistently underestimate the growth in solar. Like you would think that they would just for a year say we're just going to go like wildly overshoot. So we have a chance, but no, they still undershoot every single time. So I think many of these technologies are completely defying our expectations.

And I think what's really important about these is that these technologies do not necessarily scale linearly. I think it's, I think you become quite pessimistic if you look at where we're today and just draw a line out from where we are in a kind of linear fashion. But that's not really how these technologies work.

They tend to follow what we call an S curve, where initially growth is very slow, but then you reach a point where the, you can get very fast growth. And I think on many of these technologies, countries are now starting to hit that inflection point where they really do accelerate.

So I think that's why I'm cautiously optimistic on climate. I think because our need to address climate is now aligning with people's like short term economic needs. I think in the past it's been really hard to convince people, you should just have higher energy bills or or yeah, you should move to a much more expensive electric car or a much more expensive heat pump.

That's just not going to work. Like you need these two things to align. And I think we're very quickly getting to the case where they are aligning. Yeah, I always think about

Ben: it as ideally you want cheap energy, green energy, and I guess in today's world secure energy, and they are in a much better place than before, although obviously we have a long way to go.

When I was reading your chapter on food and the like I hadn't been aware that we were perhaps close to peak fertilizer use. That there's some arguments that maybe might increase a little bit, but it's not going to be the trend that we had before. And intersectional, I hadn't realized that maybe in terms of farming land, we may be approaching peak farmland.

And I was aware that forests had Restored in some countries, although not all over the world, but actually the restoration was probably faster or it looked better than I thought. So I guess with the same sort of framework, how are you thinking about food and the deforestation land piece in terms of what's going and what's not going so well?

Yeah. So

Hannah: again, historically. The only way to really increase food production was to use more land, right? For a long time we just got really low crop yields, and they just weren't increasing. Now, over the last century, and over, in particular, over the last 50 years we've seen crop yields across the world rocket, like doubling, tripling, quadrupling, like a really significant increase in crop yields.

Now what that means is you can grow much more food using much less land. So we can produce food very productively. Now I think the caveat to that is that often there's like some trade off there okay, you can maybe get higher yields with less land, but you will use more fertilizers or pesticides or all of these inputs, as a substitute for one for the other.

But I think what we've also seen is that I think we are now learning to produce food. Using less fertilizer, not no fertilizer. But we are learning to use fertilizer much more efficiently. And I actually think our potential to do that in the future is even greater. Like I think the range of technologies by which we can use fertilizer much more smartly, like for example, like you can use.

drones to see map out where on the field actually needs the nutrients, whereas before you would just spread it on everywhere. So I think there is actually the potential to, to reduce fertilizer use. I'm, yeah, I put a question mark over the peak in the book because I don't think we're at a definitive peak, but we're certainly seeing much slower rates of growth than we were like a decade or two ago.

Defore like so on, on the land use piece croplands across the world are still expanding. And I think that's the cause for concern. They are still expanding and we are still seeing like very high deforestation rates. Now I think there's two dimensions to that. I think one on the solution side is just continuing to increase productivity.

Of farmlands, which will save land again. And I think another big one there is also dietary change, like the leading driver of deforestation is cattle ranching. And just in general, meat can meat production uses much more land than plant based foods. So I think there's two dimensions to that.

One is we need just much more productive agriculture, but I think we also need to see significant dietary shifts. If we're to, Okay. To not only stop deforestation, but I think we have the potential to massively reduce the amount of land we're using for agriculture. And that would be able to restore forests, that would be able to restore wild habitats but it would need a significant shift in global diets.

Ben: The story I heard on fertilizer maybe it was a world in data or a tweet or an essay, has a sort of elliptical sense, is that there's is Haber-Bosch. But one of the reasons that they worked so hard on the fertilizer problem is that they'd experienced severe famine in their childhood. And so because of that, they were determined never to see that famine happen again.

And so that sparked the innovation which led to that. And I wonder whether there's a little bit of that now, that of the innovation that we need to spark, because we don't want to see these type of things happening again. issue of plastics, which you raise you're admit or appreciate that actually plastics have a lot of use.

There can be a really useful material and that probably some in the climate movement might underrate them a little bit, but there's obviously the problem on waste and all of that, the like. So I was interested how you went about researching that and what your kind of conclusions were in terms of plastic and plastic waste.

Hannah: Yeah, so I think there's a couple of angles to the plastic. I think one that's becoming much, getting much more attention now, but is a very open and unanswered question, is microplastics and impacts on human health. I'm very clear in the book I, I, if we want to stop plastics I don't have the solution for that.

And I think whether we want to stop using plastics also depends on If there is actually an impact on human health from microplastics, there's a range of stuff. There's just an endless range of studies saying, there's X amount of microplastics in your water and then your food and like we know microplastics are everywhere, but the open question is Do they have an impact on human health?

And what is that impact? And I think that's a really open, but like really important question. But the problem I tackle in the book is like more focused on like plastic pollution flowing into rivers and flowing into the ocean. And for that, for me, that's a much more practical problem.

That is actually a problem that like, with just some like reasonable amount of investment you could solve, and you could actually probably solve it quite quickly. It's less of a problem of plastic use and it's more a problem of waste management. Around, so estimates that are around half a percent of the world's plastic waste ends up in the ocean, and it ends up in the ocean because after people have use the plastic and dispose of it, there isn't sufficient waste management infrastructure to store it safely.

Now most plastic waste that's flowing into rivers and oceans tends to come from middle to low income countries, and that's because plastic use has massively increased as people have got richer, but waste management infrastructure hasn't kept up. Now there's a, in some sense, a quite a simple solution to that, which is just build waste management.

The problem there is it's quite expensive and not necessarily really high on the priority list. But even just la just putting it in a secure landfill is better than it leaking out into the environment. So you don't even need really really efficient recycling facilities or incineration facilities, even just a really secure landfill would go a long way here.

So that's one element to the problem is just like massively improving waste management. There are like more like techier solutions. So I cover in the book Boyan Slat who launched like the ocean cleanup. Project and their initial project was to get plastic that's already in the ocean out of the ocean So not necessarily stopping it going in but like dragging up the stuff that's already in there But they've also now launched what they call like the interceptor, which is basically the they basically put machinery at the mouth of rivers to stop and gather the plastic that would otherwise flow into the ocean.

Now technically you could put all of these in all of the major rivers that emit plastics and in some sense that would tackle the problem, but I think you would Rather do it by massively increasing waste management infrastructure and in these countries

Ben: That he has some very impressive pictures of the cleanup in the rivers, particularly the rivers in a lot of those places going So yeah, very impressive, but a bit open on the microplastics question another part of the book which I thought was somewhat open was on Essentially biodiversity or the potential for mass extinction, and I guess we sometimes see headlines with all we're losing all of the insects and we've had a lot of these massive extinction events.

It wasn't perhaps quite as bad as some of those headlines but you do seem to leave a couple of open questions in the book in terms of where we're heading. What were your thinking on the mass extinction risk and the biodiversity challenge.

Hannah: Yeah, I think biodiversity loss is probably like the hardest problem in the book and the, where I'm probably like most pessimistic.

I think biodiversity in general is very hard to measure and also really hard to communicate. Like I think the, one of the statistics you referred to comes from like the living planet index, where they try to summarize what's happening to the world life into a single number. And often that numbers misinterpreted and it's not actually what people assume it is.

So know. The numbers, I think it's 69 percent now they basically measure the population change across like thousands and thousands of different wildlife populations and then they calculate like the average change. No, that then is reported as. The average decline across the different populations is 69%, but people interpret that as 69 percent of populations have gone extinct, or we've lost 69 percent of the world's wildlife, and that's not how that metric should be interpreted.

So I think just in general, measuring and communicating such a varied range of biodiversity is very difficult. But I think when you look at rates of biodiversity losses is a question of, are we in the midst of the sixth mass extinction? Now mass extinction has quite a specific definition, which is that you basically lose 75 percent of species within, it's called a like short timeframe, but it's 2 million years or something, but it's like geologically short timescale, but for us, obviously very long.

Now if you look at the rates by which we are. Our animals are going extinct, mostly because of human pressure they are actually going extinct at a faster rate than they were in each of the five previous mass extinctions. So you'd go on the basis of that yeah, we're in the midst of a sixth mass extinction.

I think where I differentiate from that perspective is that, we would need to carry on with that rate of loss for a really long time before we would hit a mass extinction. And I have some faith that We can be, we can stop that and we just won't continue this really consistently high rate of loss.

So I think, yeah, on biodiversity, the signs are very worrying, but I think there are reasons for cautious hope that we can tackle it. I think what's key to it is being able to tackle basically all of the other problems in the book. I think we often biodiversity loss is often framed as like death by a thousand cuts so we need to tackle we need to tackle direct exploitation of animals.

We also need to address deforestation agricultural land expansion, climate change, overfishing, like I think there are a range of environmental problems that we need to solve and only then will we actually be able to get a grip on biodiversity loss.

Ben: I saw a film about a person who's trying to bring back the woolly mammoth.

I didn't know quite how I felt about it. I actually felt fairly positive on the plant and fauna that I think bringing back a lot of plants and things. The idea of bringing back the woolly mammoth, I think also because it could help the tundra and there's a kind of climate systems piece.

But I think that type of thing gets critiqued quite a lot within those who think we have hopium and techno optimism. On the other hand, I also did think that sort of technology and things might be useful in some, rewilding and reintroducing in some ways are adjacent to that type of thinking about what can we do?

Humans have caused the problems. Maybe humans are going to. Have the solutions what do you think about bringing back the woolly mammoth or some sort of those sort of technologies? I guess this is mostly on biodiversity, but it's intersectional with some of these types of things

Hannah: Yeah, I think it would be cool.

I think i'm a bit skeptical about the Tundra benefits and I think i'm a bit skeptical of that like i've seen arguments about like methane and being able to manage these environments better, I think I'd mostly just be in favor because it would be cool but I think they are like less on a like bringing back extinct species.

I think the, there are actually like pretty positive conservation stories, like for example across Europe or North America where we've managed to massively restore populations that were really on the brink. of extinction for example, in Europe, there are like a range of like really significant mammal species that we're doing really poorly.

And actually with rewilding, with reintroduction efforts, with conservation efforts, we've mass managed to massively increase the populations of these species. So I'm probably more in favor of investing. investing and protecting the species we have and trying to restore the species we still have left rather than trying to restore extinct species.

I don't know how much money is pouring into that. If it's non significant, then I think it's quite cool. But if it's like actively taking away money that would otherwise be spent on conserving existing species, then I'd be in favor of that.

Ben: The talking about money, that's a good segue to one thought I had, which is, therefore, if you had a billion dollars, actually, let's make it larger, because actually, in the grand scheme of things, a billion doesn't go very far.

If you had a hundred billion dollars, what would you do with that? And perhaps an adjacent question to that, because it might not all be climate related, but do you have a favorite charity or a favorite non profit, apart from World in Data, which we should obviously support, certainly at the meta level, because without the data, we don't know where we're going at all.

But what would you support if you had a hundred billion? So I guess this would make you like Bill Gates, but yeah, how would you think about

Hannah: that? I

think one key area where I might invest a significant sum is in cultivated meat space, I think that I think energy is already getting, we still need massive investments in energy, but I think overall, like there's more money flowing in that direction. And I actually, I'm much more optimistic about the energy transition than I am about like the food transition.

I think food systems in general, create a range of. pretty large environmental problems. I think dietary change away from me is like really key to us alleviating a lot of that pressure. And I think at the moment progress on that is going very slowly. Like diets are just not shifting very quickly at all.

Even though we actually have a range of like really Or what I think are really good meat substitutes on the market, like I think the Impossible Burger is really good, Beyond Meat's really good, I think there are really tasty stuff on there. But I think for a lot of people, I think they will just want to eat meat and they will only move away from meat from a farm in the field if there's almost like a direct substitute.

So I'm, I have a little bit of Hope and lab grown meat to be able to do that and move that transition forward So I think I would definitely invest like a significant sum there

maybe No, maybe a bit local. Maybe I agree with your earlier comment on heat pumps. Like I think for Renewable technologies, I think for batteries, I think for electric vehicles, they're getting very close to price parity, even up, upfront cost. And I think they will continue to, the prices will continue to fall.

On heat pumps, I think like upfront costs is still like a massive issue. So I'd probably invest a lot on that. I don't think it would go very far at the global level. So I'd probably have to just give it to Scotland or the UK. But I think for a lot of people, yeah, upfront cost of heat pumps is. is still a big challenge.

Ben: We could do a lot of learnings with heat pumps as well, because I think maybe you could use heat pumps from water sources and rivers. And part of the political economy skills issue is, I'm not sure if you've met Many Scottish engineers, but they're quite skeptical of heat pumps because they're really used to installing gas boilers.

And although actually in Scandinavia and even Germany, it's not a problem. They just think they're not reliable. They don't really know how to install them and there isn't this kind of mass adoption. So you need a lot of heat pump engineers as well as the coordination. Yeah, I think that's viable. And meet alternatives.

Yeah, for sure. I think we need a tasty alternative ribeye steak. I think if they crack the ribeye steak, because they're there on the burger, but if they really crack the steak, they did it. And then you need someone like I don't know, Arnold Schwarzenegger to be your front, maybe Schwarzenegger with a Kardashian or something like that.

So you've got the kind of pan I guess that's the sort of celebrity signal change or something that you will need to provide that adoption. But yeah you're going to say a third one with your a hundred billion. No, I

Hannah: think that was my 100 bow and spears.

Ben: It's all gone. Great.

So when you were writing the book, I was interested, did you have a particular writing process, or a process that you have when you think about data and how you want to visualize it, or how you go about researching? Are you a kind of write in a three hour burst kind of person, or do you write all day, or how do you come about your writing process or research

Hannah: process?

Yeah, I'm going to answer that, but I'm going to go back to the charity question. Oh yes, we didn't answer that one. Yeah, so I think I think I, so I took the giving what we can pledge where I give like a 10 percent of my income to effective charities. Now I think like being in the environmental space, like I think you'd assume that I would just give them to environmental charities, but actually I think like a, I hope what people take from the book is that I think the Human, poverty standard of living part of the equation is just as important as the environmental bit.

And I think especially when we're thinking about stuff like climate change, like one of the biggest ways to mitigate impacts of climate change is just to lift people out of poverty and to progress human development. Like those at biggest risk of climate change are typically the poorest in the world, but they just don't have resources to adapt.

So I think it's like equally. Viable to, to give money to just overall like global development charities. And I think that is just equally as useful as environmental charities. So I give a significant amount to like global health funds and in particular the Against Malaria Foundation which has like quite consistently came out as like one of the most effective ways to spend a pound or a dollar.

So yeah, I think that's, I think that's, a useful way to think about this, where do you give your money that I think the we need to keep in balance one the environmental change, but also the human impact lens. And I think it's just equally as valuable to just try to lift people out of poverty as a measure against climate change as deploying renewable energy.

Yeah, and I think

Ben: that's one of your themes is that actually we can work on many things at once and that's okay, maybe not the same person because the same person isn't going to be doing all of this but across that and that's okay too, but also that we should be thoughtful about it so I think you mentioned give well as well, which looks at, Assessing the effectiveness of charities, again, there are many different sort of options, but if you are want to give, you might want to just give a little bit intentionally.

So I thought that was a really strong theme, because there's so many things that we need to solve across so many dimensions, that you can just choose the thing which suits you when you're doing something. And you might want to do something else, because you might want to work on health, or you might want to work on your art, and you might want to work on all of these other things, which are important too.

And that. Pluralistic value within your book came across and was a nice theme. But maybe circling back to the writing

Hannah: process question. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I, I loved writing the book. Like I really enjoyed it. I think I just really like writing in general. I think. Part of what I enjoy is one, having a question and doing a lot of work to figure out the answer for myself that's just really fun to me, and then on the end I have to tell everyone what I found, which is the writing bit.

But I do, I really enjoy writing. I think it helps me develop my thinking. I think I use writing to, to get my thoughts in line, to work through stuff I maybe don't understand. I think that's a really effective way to understand do you actually understand what you're talking about?

So I, I loved writing. I would My routine is that I would get up really early in the morning, like it was really calm, like no one was expecting me to reply to emails, no one was expecting me on Slack, or, so I felt really peaceful really early in the morning, and I'd just sit and write for like several hours.

I'd probably write for two to three hours. I think actually, I'm skeptical that if I had more time to write, I would make more progress. I think after two to three hours of really intense focused writing, I think you're done. I think you would start to, or at least I would start to really wane after that.

So I would do that really early in the morning, and then I still had my normal job around data and other stuff. So I'd do that for the rest of the day. But it was like, I tried to like, keep a really like rigorous routine. It's very easy to like skip a day and then skip another day and then skip another day.

So I tried to just take it like really rigorous, like day by day. And I got there in the end and I didn't really have a last minute rush that, that you might have if you like keep putting it off and off.

Ben: I was that almost. every day, five or six times a week, that you'd do the two, three hour stretch in the morning, or was it not quite, or was it

Hannah: every day?

No, it was pretty much every day. I would sometimes take a Saturday off away from writing, but yeah, no, it was pretty much every day.

Ben: Excellent. There is one theme with that. Some people say that actually one thing which links creatives and writers is to have all sorts of different routines and they write at all hours of the day.

Some write at night, some write in the morning, some write at lunch. But the theme is they all write and they all write consistently no matter maybe it's an hour, maybe it's five and it's really regular. It's almost every day or. at least on a very regular basis. So that's interesting to see that it that it echoes with your process.

Was there anything you found really surprising or maybe you had a conception which went then the other way? You talk about some of the kind of typical misconceptions, but it seemed a bit counterintuitive. But I was wondering if there was anything that you came across either about how you thought, Oh, I would be writing like this and it didn't turn out that way.

Or maybe something when you did the deeper research it's Oh, this isn't exactly how I thought it was going to be.

Hannah: I think on the research front, I think the re, it was a build up of research I'd done our own data over six or seven years or so. So I think in terms of like hardcore research for the book, I think a lot of that was already done.

It was about how do I distill this? Every environmental problem gets one chapter and I could have written a whole book on each problem. So I think the challenge was how do I distill this into a really. Simple, but nuanced narrative by which people can understand the nature of the problem and understand the really key solutions.

So I think the shrinking everything down into to a much smaller package was really difficult. And I think as a, what I always find difficult is like as a scientist or kind of academically minded person, like you, you really want to provide every single caveat. And we often do that because we think we're writing for our peers in our given field.

So when I'm writing about, I don't know, something specific on climate change, the temptation is to write to other climate researchers and put loads of detail in and show that you know all of the caveats and all of the assumptions. But that's not who the book is for. I'm not writing the book for climate scientists.

I'm writing it for a very general audience, which means that you have to let go of a lot of the intricacies and the caveats and try to write it in a simple and accessible way while also sticking to the truth and the science. And I think that balance is quite. Yeah,

Ben: and I think you've done really well in achieving it.

I think I read an anecdote about Stephen Hawking, the physicist. I don't know if it's true or not, but he was told for every equation he put into his book, his audience would halve. So in the end, he was only allowed one equation in the whole of the book because he didn't want to halve the audience. So there is.

There is something to that I wanted to touch on two or three things which kind of run adjacent to the book But comes across in your on in your sub stack two or three questions that you answer there. Because it often comes up in conversation Although some are a little bit niche, but I think really important So one was around the controversies or the challenges and opportunities on cobalt Another was on transition metals In general, and the third was around this argument that perhaps smaller.

Richer nations don't have to do so much because they're not such a large slice of the greenhouse gas pie today. What have they got to do with the problem? I put all three together in case you want to dwell on it in the back of your mind. But maybe starting with Cobalt, because I think that it's really interesting.

So one is that Cobalt is in a lot of technology we have. So particularly. batteries, EV batteries, but anyone who's got a smartphone has got cobalt within that. And a lot of the cobalt comes from the DRC. So people might know that as the Congo, which has a lot of issues. It's really poor geopolitically unstable.

But a lot of people because of that poverty mining is actually a really useful source of. I think the majority, or a huge percentage of people in the Congo, you probably know in DRC, live on less than 2 a day or something like that. But it's obviously an important transition metal and we can talk about transition metals in general.

On your thinking around copper, what did you discover and how do you think about the challenges around that?

Hannah: Yeah, so as you say, cobalt has been like a key material in lithium ion batteries, which is generally like all of the batteries on your smartphones, your laptops, like all of the batteries we tend to think about are generally lithium ion.

And that's been the case for decades. I think what's changed is that, yeah, we are now going to massive, need a lot more batteries. Like we're going to need batteries for just energy storage, but in particular for electric vehicles. So that's going to significantly increase. Cobalt demand. Now, as you say most of the world's cobalt comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo, where a large share of the population are living on like less than $2 a day, like the international poverty line.

And and especially in the artisanal so like informal mining sector there working conditions are really poor, like they've got. Like high rates of child labor, working conditions are like really poor, like there's very little regard for safety, like it's really poor and exploitive working conditions and they get paid very little.

Like they may bring them a bit above the poverty line, but it's not like they're like making really good money. That's why often. Families have to use kids in the mines because they can't afford to send them to school or they need income because income is so low. So it's a really bad human rights issue.

Now on the question of where we're going and the energy transition of that, is that actually surprisingly I could see a future where we actually just don't use cobalt in electric vehicle batteries. Now, Tesla, for example, has already started moving away from traditional lithium ion with cobalt. So they're now, a lot of their vehicles have shifted to lithium ion phosphate, which does not have cobalt.

And I wouldn't be surprised if many other manufacturers move in the same direction. So you could actually see that just EVs just don't have any cobalt in them. I think there's a broader question of, is that actually the best outcome for the DRC? Now people just do rely on that income to get them slightly above the poverty line, and if you take that away, they might fall below the poverty line.

So from an economic perspective, it's not necessarily beneficial for the DRC if we move away from cobalt and EV batteries. At the same time, we shouldn't accept that working conditions are really bad. I think the optimal outcome there would be that One of the poorest countries in the world actually gains significantly economically from a transition metal that the world really needs and you can provide a better income for workers.

You can provide like better working standards. But my fear is that the technological change of just switching to a different battery type is actually easier than confronting like pretty hard governance and political issues. So I think on that, I think actually we will probably just move. To batteries that don't have cobalt.

And I

Ben: think you had a blog discussing whether there aren't enough transition metals in general, and your answer, I think was short term. Yes, but medium term, there was perhaps a little bit of a question mark. What's your thinking around that? So I guess this is lithium. There do seem to be quite a lot of lithium, but there's copper, there's cobalt, there's rare earth metals.

There's quite a lot of transition metals and this kind of issue about what we use or what we don't use. How are you thinking about that now?

Hannah: Yeah, so we will, as we transition, we'll need a much broader range of transition metals. I think there's the question of will we have enough? And I think if you're talking about like absolute quantities of minerals in 2050, I think many organizations that study this say yes.

So like the International Energy Agency or Bloomberg, New Energy Finance or the Economic Transitions Commission or Payne Institute, like they seem. All generally comes to the conclusion that in absolute amounts, yeah, we have enough in longer range scenarios. I think the, some of the bottlenecks could come in the kind of medium term, where it often takes a long time to get permitting and infrastructure there to open a new mine.

And we will just need to open new mines if we're going to meet demand. So the challenge is in 2030 will we have enough? Mines open and supply that's sufficient to meet demand. And if we want to do that, we need to be opening up mines now, because like often the lead time is like seven years.

I think the medium term bottlenecks, there's a potential to, to hit some roadblocks there. I think the impact would be on higher prices, like I think in general you'd just see a higher price if they, you started to hit supply dema supply constraints. I think the there are various changes that make this like a little bit hard to predict.

I think markets actually respond pretty well to scarcity by, one, either just really finding more minerals. Like I think for many of these minerals we just haven't really looked for them and I think we'll just find more. But often in the short term, like cobalt if prices go up we're actually quite good at substituting for a different material that's more abundant.

So for example, in copper when copper prices are high often you'll switch to aluminum, which is not as good a material for conductivity, but, if it's cheaper it will get used instead. So I think it's quite hard to definitively Pinpoint, this is what the market will be in 2030 because I think actually technologies can adjust quite well to scarcity.

Ben: Excellent. And then the last question in the sort of sub stack series was one I hear sometimes speaking to some people, they say we seem to be such a small part of the problem when you look at absolute share of emissions today, should we be the first with sort of the first move at disadvantage?

Oh, China and Indonesia or Russia? Name some country aren't doing their bit. Why do we face in UK, Belgium, or something like that? A richer nation has a has an issue. And you wrote about this subject. What are your arguments here? And is it still the same as

Hannah: when you made them?

Yeah, I think it's still the same. Yeah, I hear the argument often in the UK that, we met around, 1 percent of the world's emissions. Now, if you just for trade, so take into account the goods that we import, it's like 1. 5%. But it's still less than 2%, so people will say it's so insignificant.

Like, why are we working so hard on this? I think there are, like, several core arguments. I think one is a moral one. And some people have told me like, just don't make the moral one because some people don't want to hear about your morals. I think there's just a moral one of historically we have contributed a lot to this problem.

We've gained a lot of economic prosperity through burning fossil fuels. Now, I don't criticize my ancestors, Yes, there's fears ago for doing that, but like it's just the reality that we're in a position where we have a high standard of living because we've burned fossil fuels. So I think there's this like moral lens to us taking action.

I think there's just a a very clear. Mathematical one, where if you break down the world's emissions, around a third comes from China. So just under a third comes from China. Another third comes from countries that emit more than 2 percent each. So you might call them like other big emitters, but then the final third.

Actually comes from countries that emit less than 2%. So they are all countries that would, you could use the excuse, we're too small, what we do doesn't matter. But if they all say that, then you miss like a third of the world's emissions. So it's very clear that, we can't, it just cannot work if countries with small emissions all say we're not going to do anything about this.

I think the other big Part of this, especially for rich countries, is one, we need to get domestic emissions to zero as quickly as we can. But I think they can also play a much bigger role when you think about technological change and driving innovations that other countries can use. As we mentioned earlier I think what's really key for me is that these low carbon technologies are cheap, right?

For middle and low income countries to deploy them, they need to be cheap. They need to be much cheaper than fossil fuels. Now, for me, there's a big focus for rich countries to deploy these technologies early even if they're a bit more expensive, to invest in R& D and deploy them such that they pull down the cost for other countries, so that India's not faced with a dilemma of, do they burn coal or do they burn coal?

Use solar because solar is so cheap that they wouldn't even think about burning coal. So I think that for me is a really core argument for why I think small emitters, but in particularly rich small emitters can have a much, much bigger role than just, that 1 percent would suggest.

Yeah, I think the

Ben: moral argument is important. And if you look back in long history on things where you've had transitional social transition, such as slavery, women's rights, the moral argument came before the economic argument on that. And I think you're right, that technological spillover from lead countries is really important.

We had that with say HIV, HIV drugs go to Africa, partly because of moral argument and partly because of the technological spillover that yes, they were invented in rich nations first. And so yes, rich nations benefited. For the first 10 years, but now the world benefits. And I think a lot of people have that as something which makes sense.

Great. So we'll do a short section of underrated, overrated, and then wrap up with current projects and maybe any advice you have. So you can pass, you can do underrated, overrated, or a short comment or however. So underrated, overrated, carbon offsets.

Hannah: Overrated. Overrated. Yeah, most of them are scams.

Ben: Very fair. Most of them are scams and we should work on decarbonizing first. Okay. Overrated, underrated nuclear power?

Hannah: For me underrated I know it's often not popular but I think yeah. I think it could play like a, an essential role in our future low carbon energy system. I don't think, if you look at trends, like I don't think it will grow really quickly.

It won't grow anywhere near the rates of solar and wind now, although you could have argued like a few decades ago, it was growing really quickly, but I think if you want to build a. Reliable grid. I think in some countries nuclear could play an important role and specifically we need to keep our existing nuclear power stations open.

Don't shut them and burn coal instead.

Ben: That seems very fair. Okay overrated or underrated? Utilitarianism.

Hannah: I'm neutral.

Ben: Neutral. Fair enough. Carbon tax.

Hannah: That's a tricky one because I can't gauge what public perception is. Probably underrated.

Ben: So in general, the public. don't like it which is why it struggled but economists really love it. Political economists less so it's interesting it comes about. I do think actually, as we're referring back to transport, it's interesting that for some sector challenges, although a carbon price really helps and the price part helps, you can actually get a sector decarbonization strategy, which doesn't rely on a tax.

So although actually doing things but for instance, at the extreme, if you said we have to convert to EVs by whichever year and raise your standards and help people along that way, you can do that without having to do a tax. Because generally people are quite skeptical about a tax, even where you have this kind of tax and make it progressive by giving back some sort of dividend.

A general population seem to be somewhat skeptical even without the technicals, but There's arguments either

Hannah: way. Is it just that people don't like taxes?

Ben: Yeah, it's partly that they don't like taxes, but they partly don't like the fact that It taxes essentially poor people more right and that also that there isn't a In some cases there isn't a really good substitute.

So when you tax, it'd be really good. It's a little bit like our example with copper and aluminum. You can move to the aluminum, but with energy, particularly for poor people, they can't move to anything else, really. So they might be able to reduce their consumption a little bit, but a lot of them are already, they're not the ones who are over consuming.

It's actually the people who can afford to pay. The other argument is that the signal on those who can afford to pay is still quite powerful. But there's

Hannah: Put some Sure, but you could have a redistribution, right? You could tax and then redistribute to the lowest incomes.

Ben: Yes, so you can, the dividend. It still doesn't seem to be popular, although that would be that would be progressive. So implementation issues political economy issues. But yes, in theory, that's what the economists like. And actually in the U. S., both the left leaning and the right leaning economists got together and wrote, I think there's a 2000 of them said, this was the idea but it didn't manage to go through.

Political economy.

Hannah: Overrated by economists, maybe underrated by the public.

Ben: Yeah, exactly. I think that's probably, I think that's probably right. And I think actually that's probably right on that sort of charitable giving type stuff, or even with utilitarianism. So people who think about cost benefit analysis a lot, think about it too much because they think that's the only thing which really counts.

But the average person who doesn't think about it at all, could just do with a little bit more thinking about about how they could do it. At least

Hannah: I think that's why I was neutral on the utilitarianism because I think, it has very I mentioned like the against malaria foundation and the like, how far does your dollar go, but I think leans into that.

But I think most people don't necessarily think in that way.

Ben: Yeah, exactly. And then when you get to the extreme, you get all of these issues and say, if you only. We obviously came up with a pluralistic thing, but say if you only valued human life and not, say, art or anything at all, then you have a lot of people and you have no art.

No one wants to live in that world at the extreme ends. So it's one of those things, which has all of these kind of fancy paradoxes with that. Great. Okay. And the last one on overrated, underrated Edinburgh. Oh, underrated. Yeah. What do you love about your city or what's most misunderstood?

Hannah: I think it's underrated for people that have never been, I think like I've spoke to those people that have been to Edinburgh and like they love it and I think it's really beautiful.

Yeah, it's just a really beautiful city. Like it's pretty cold. So I would suggest coming in summer, even Scottish summers are not really summer for most people in the world. Yeah, it's really beautiful. Very varied people are, like, super friendly just tons of history it's managed to preserve a lot of its historical roots really well.

I think the downside is that often when you try to preserve historical stuff, it comes with really poor building standards and renovations. So I remember as a student living in old Edinburgh flats where you can't. get rid of the leaky windows because they're part of the cultural heritage.

So I think that's like part of the downsides of it. But yeah, I think Edinburgh is a really

Ben: beautiful city. And do you feel you are in a big enough, say, innovation or human capital cluster, as the economists might say that you've got enough spillover of ideas that it's a large enough cluster there?

Because I guess people talk about Silicon Valley or the London Triangle and these type of things. Edinburgh's got a few things that it's obviously quite beautiful, but some people might argue, oh, is it too small to have these kind of impacts?

Hannah: It's much I used to live in London, and it's much smaller and there's much less of it than in London.

Yeah, so in some sense, I think I'm probably missing a little bit out on the London hub building. But I think for me the trade offs were worth it, and now a lot of the stuff you can now do online.

Ben: No, exactly. Great. And to finish up any other current projects or future projects that you'd like to mention?

Obviously the book will probably take up quite a lot of this year and all of your work on a world in data, but is there anything else you'd like to mention?

Hannah: Yeah. Yeah. So currently just doing loads of stuff on the book. I would have to say like doing like press stuff is like not my favorite thing to do.

So I'm like really looking forward to getting back to doing like research and writing. Yeah. Like looking forward to getting stuck in again at our own data research. And then again, I think a big focus for me is going to be like. Again, like energy transition stuff, like I feel, again, I feel like this is like such a critical decade for us to move on this.

And I think there's like still lots of, and sometimes growing misinformation about many of the solutions. And I think there is the potential risk that it holds us back and slows us down. So I'm keen to just continue doing a lot more on these big questions about. The speed of transition, the cost, the minerals, the land, like all of these very valid but open questions that people have and try to put like good information out there.

Excellent.

Ben: And then finally, do you have any particular life advice for people? So that might be people who want to work in climate or some thoughts about how you end up as a independent researcher or a writer or anything you'd like to share in terms of life advice.

Hannah: Yeah, in general, a big part of my book is trying to push back against a little bit the, Doomsday thinking and actually reaching out to people that are like really struggling with climate anxiety stuff.

And I've definitely been there and I've, I'm like, I still struggle with climate anxiety and what the future will look like. But I think what I hope comes through in the book and my advice would be to try to come, try to combine that with a sense of cautious optimism that we can tackle it and we can build solutions.

I think one of the best antidotes to. To anxiety is to get involved in stuff. I think one of the worst feelings is feeling like you're helpless and there's nothing you can do and nothing works. I think actually getting actively involved in stuff that moves us forward can alleviate some of the anxiety.

I think in terms of, I think it's hard on career stuff, I think it's hard to give concrete advice because I feel like my path is not really being linear or straightforward, like I never really knew what was coming next. So I think part of it is just being Trying to create a large surface area by putting yourself out there.

I think I've got the blog and even before I started Our World in Data, I had a blog. And I actually think it was really useful for me Getting to work with Max in our own data because he could see that I was actively writing, I was interested in these topics, I was putting my stuff out there and I think if you don't have any of that online presence and you're like trying to get involved in a project or work with someone, I think if they can't see evidence That you're doing that stuff already I think it's really to your detriment.

So I think I would advise people like taking the initiative, whether it's a blog or a project or whatever you're interested in is like having some online presence where people can see what you're up to. And I think often like spontaneous opportunities come from that, like someone willing to fund you might stumble on your work and really like it and back you. So I think that would be a main piece of advice is to start putting yourself out there. It's also how you learn. I look back on my old writings and they make me cringe. They seem really bad, but I think that's just how you develop the skills. And I think it's really useful to learn in public rather than learning in private.

Ben: Excellent. So that's by doing something you can feel less anxious and speak to people and build in public as a way for learning for yourself but as a way, as a signal for everyone else out there as well. Now that seems to me like excellent advice. So just a reminder for everyone. Hannah's new book is not the end of the world and which I highly recommend.

And Hannah, thank you very much. Thanks so much.

Hana Loftus: architecture, regeneration, planning, resilience, design | Podcast

Hana Loftus is a co-founder of HAT Projects.  HAT are award winning  architects, planners and enablers for the built environment.  Projects include: London’s Science Museum Smith Centre, transformation of Trinity Works (a disused church), Ely Museum, Jerwood gallery and Jaywick Sands’ Sunspot. As well as practising planning and design, she writes on the subject and plays a great fiddle and violin.  

Architecture: Building Answers for Systemic Problems & Rethinking Urban Planning

The overall podcast discussion is around the challenges and opportunities in architecture and urban planning. The topics range from finding systemic housing solutions for poverty-stricken communities in Alabama, exploring the importance of practical real-world experiences for architecture students, 

"I think as a young architect, firstly learning how a building is actually put together; nailing bits of wood together, wiring a house, plumbing a house, pouring foundations, all of that practical stuff is critical... And anybody can do that. Anybody can get tools and learn how to build something."

and discussing the Sunspot project that addresses affordable business units in Jaywick Sands, a poor area of east England. Hana talks about the lifespan and adaptability of buildings. She highlights the critical aspect of maintaining quality in construction and the risks in cost-cutting, referencing the Grenfell tragedy.

We discuss the political challenges of the Green Belt policy, proposing a 'finger model' for development, and the importance of exploring rural domains. Hana emphasises acquiring practical experience and making a concrete impact in the world.

Transcript and summary bullet points below.

• Building Houses and Rural Studio Experience

• Understanding the Realities of Rural Alabama

• The Impact of Building with Your Own Hands

• Working with the Community: The Story of Miss Phillips

• The Importance of the Front Porch in Southern Homes

• Reflections on Building Experience

• Transition from Alabama to East of England: Jaywick Sands

• Understanding the History and Challenges of Jaywick Sands

• The Regeneration Strategy for Jaywick Sands

• The Complexities of Place-Based Regeneration

• The Role of Consultation in Community Development

• The Sunspot Project: A Case Study in Localised Economic Stimulation

• Reflections on the Success of the Sunspot Project

• The Balance Between Planning and Unplanning in Community Development. The role of beauty.

• Nationwide Economic and Climate Perspective

• Local Agency and Development Opposition, Challenges in the Planning System

• Inequality and Climate Resilience 

• Design Codes and Pattern Books: A Debate

• The Aesthetics of Development and Cultural Relevance

• The Lifespan of Buildings: 

• The Future of Building Design and Sustainability

• The Role of Transport in Sustainable Planning

• The Impact of Construction Industry Structure

• Rethinking Greenbelt Policy for Sustainable Development

• Current and Future Projects: A Glimpse

• Life Advice: Making a Mark in the World

Podcast wherever you get podcasts or links below. Video above or on YouTube. Transcript follows below.

PODCAST INFO

• Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3gJTSuo

• Spotify: https://sptfy.com/benyeoh

• Anchor: https://anchor.fm/benjamin-yeoh

• All links:  https://pod.link/1562738506

Hana Loftus and Ben Yeoh Transcript

(Only lightly edited with AI assistance, there may be errors)

Ben

Hey everyone. I'm super excited to be speaking to Hana Loftus. Hana is a co-founder of HAT Projects. They are award-winning architects, planners, and enablers for the built environment. Projects include the London Science Museum Smith Centre, a transformation of Trinity Works at disused church, Ely Museum, Jerwood Gallery, and Jaywick Sands. As well as practicing planning and design, she's a writer on the subject and plays a great fiddle and violin. Hana, welcome.

Hana

Thank you so much, Ben. So nice to be here.

Ben (00:33):

Let's start with building houses. You spent some time in Alabama at the Rural Studio where they try and build houses for $20,000 or so, and you helped build a house. Tell me what that was like and what you learned?

Hana (00:00:48):

Well, the Rural Studio is a really unique program, and for people who might not know anything about it, it's an outreach program of the University of Auburn, which is one of the state universities in Alabama. It was founded by an extraordinary man called Sam Mockbee, nearly 30 years ago-- It'll be their 30th anniversary coming up this year. Because he felt the architecture students weren't having enough exposure to real life problems and real life communities. That they were too stuck in their studios in the world of theory and not really learning how to build things, nor in fact how to work with real people who needed buildings built for them. Alabama obviously has some of the most poverty stricken communities in the whole of the United States, and he had grown up just in the other side of the Mississippi/Alabama border in very similar situations and been working in those communities.

So he thought, "I'm going to just take a bunch of students out there and make them build things; make them actually build practical, helpful projects in the community as a way of educating them very differently." So it's a really extraordinary program, and it has been going since then. Samuel sadly died about 10 years after he founded Rural Studio, but it's actually been continued funnily enough that the director for the last many years now is actually an Englishman, a Yorkshireman named Andrew Freear. It is a really extraordinary program. Over the years, the Rural Studio has built dozens and dozens of buildings; many houses, but also some public buildings, library, fire station, park projects, lots and lots of different things in the community. The project, when I went to study there as what's known as an outreach fellow, we were tasked with trying to crack open really a systemic housing problem-- a problem of kind of failure in the housing system in the United States, which has many failures.

I think when you try and understand the context of this going to these small, very rural communities in West Alabama, it's like nothing else. To my mind when I went there, it was such a surprise even though I'd had friends who'd been there and heard obviously a lot about it to find in the richest country in the world. These communities that are living essentially in shacks and shanties; no running water sometimes, no sewage system functioning a lot of the time, in trailer homes that are often second or third hand; terrible, terrible housing conditions. And whilst in theory there is funding available to construct new affordable homes and practice the way that that funding worked, negated any practical solutions because it was essentially a low cost home ownership grant that you could get.

But if you are on the very minimum social security payments that families might be getting-- so in the States at the time, that was a disability payment of around $500 a month. The maximum loan you could get would be $20,000, and nobody would bill you a house for $20,000. So there was this problem. So my group of outreach fellows were the first fellows to be tasked with trying to crack this and say, "Well, actually as architects, as designers from a multitude of different backgrounds-- actually, the Outreach Fellows is this kind of multidisciplinary unit at the time-- Could we think more creatively about how to solve this? Our house was the first in an ongoing series. What's so fantastic about the Rural Studio is they can iterate because they've been in the same community for such a long time.

They have now iterated the $20,000 house for the last 15 years or so to learn every year the lessons of the last ones. Now, it has grown into a much bigger initiative known as the Front Porch Initiative, which is actually rolling out partnership programs that are building these very, very low cost homes across not just parts of West Alabama, but other parts of the Southern United States as well. In terms of what you learn from doing that, I think as a young architect, firstly learning how a building is actually put together; nailing bits of wood together, wiring a house, plumbing a house, pouring foundations, all of that practical stuff is critical. And I think that Samuel Mockbee, when he founded the Rural Studio thought about the disconnect in architecture education, I think sadly is still very, very true today.

Most students that come out of architectural education are often actually scared of the process of building. They find it kind of terrifying. They find it mysterious. They don't understand how a building can get put together. They feel that it's somehow beyond them. And actually, the process of building with your own physical hands in mud, in the sun, in all different weather conditions is really demystifying. You realize that a building is just a series of things that are put together in different ways. And anybody can do that. Anybody can get tools and learn how to build something. So whether that's small or big, I think that's a really important lesson.

But the second piece is obviously working in a community like those communities in West Alabama, to see how you actually communicate and work and collaborate with people from a very different background from oneself with a very different life story, with a very different set of priorities and principles. And how do you not only just design with them, but work with them as human beings. The client for our house was an extraordinary lady called Ms. Phillips. She was in her late eighties when we were trying to build this house for her. She lived in a house where the joists of the floor were so rotten. You would walk on them and you'd have to take care to not kind of fall through the floor. She was diabetic-- she had type two diabetes brought on by the kind of diet in West Alabama. She was descended from obviously an enslaved family and then a sharecropping family in that part of the world. She grew collard greens in her backyard. She loved gardening, but she lived in what can only be described as a really precarious level of poverty. But she was amazing. She would sing songs and she would kind of make some food for us sometimes.

You learn how to both be really humble in those situations. Not to step in thinking you know the answers. And also, how to see beyond someone's current situation to kind of imagine what a future might look like that is a little bit more sustainable, a bit less precarious without destroying what is sort of fundamentally important. The reason the Front Porch Initiative is called the Front Porch Initiative now at the Rural Studio, is this cultural importance of the front porch in southern homes. The front porch is where everything happens. You really cannot have a home without a porch. In fact, you might almost be better with the porch and none of the rest of the house sometimes because it is so important to have that space in the heat and the humidity. So there's a climate element, but also socially. So the house that we built for Ms. Phillips, the house itself was pretty tiny. The porch was nearly as big as the house-- the screen porch-- because actually, that extends the living area and gives that continuity in terms of how the kind of culture of family life, the culture of those communities work.

Ben (00:08:52):

What was your favorite part of building, or maybe what was perhaps most misunderstood that you came to realize, "Ooh, when you put this together, this happens?" Or you could also reflect on what was your least favorite part of building, maybe when it was raining on you. But yeah, what was your favorite part of building?

Hana (00:09:10):

I love learning how to do wiring and plumbing, actually, because I gave up science subjects relatively early after GCSE. I felt that that was something that I was never really going to understand. Actually, now I can do the wiring and the plumbing in our house, and I feel confident with all of that which to me, that was good. I'd done carpentry before because I'd worked in theater and I'd built sets. So carpentry was a sort of relatively familiar skill set and sort of allied trades to that. But I think for me, it was great to actually learn how to wire and plumb a home and that stuff. Again, it's not mysterious. It's just gravity and basic physics and being rigorous and systematic in your work and you will get there in the end.

Ben (00:09:59):

Yeah, very in demand. So I'm going to jump from Alabama, to the East of England to Jaywick Sands, because I've observed your work over the decades and I see there's a lot of interlinks. Jaywick Sands is also a relatively poor place. There's a lot to do with working in the community and what they really want. Would you maybe describe what you learned from working on Jaywick Sands and where the project stands now?

Hana (00:10:23):

Yeah, I think it's a really pertinent analogy. I remember actually saying to Andrew Freear, the director of the Rural Studio a number of years ago, probably the place that is closest to West Alabama in the UK is Jaywick. So again, for those who might not know anything about the history of Jaywick Sands, I think it's really interesting to give a little background. A hundred years ago, this community that is now over 3000 people on the Essex coast, there wasn't a single home there, there was nothing. It was just a salt marsh. But something happened in the late twenties and early thirties in the UK, in parts of Southern England, which was called the Plotlands Movement. And what this was, was at the time, there was an agricultural depression. Developers started to buy marginal agricultural land and divide it up into tiny plots and sell those tiny plots off mostly to working class or lower middle class Londoners as holiday plots where you could then build a little chalet, a heart, bring a railway carriage or something if you wanted. And in way, have your weekend escape out of the crowded city, out of what were quite often difficult conditions in the city, but enabled by the fact we now had railways. We had omni buses and things that could take you out of the city quite quickly.

You could have a little kind of slice of the English countryside to yourself because there were no real planning rules at the time in the way that we have them now. Jaywick Sands was one of those plotlands communities that was founded at that time by a developer called Frank Stedman, a land speculator, who was a sort of funny mixture of a socialist utopian and a kind of speculative investor. It grew quite quickly. Tiny, tiny plots, really glorified beach huts. You could buy a kind of prefabricated one or one out of a catalog of little patterns that he had or you could build your own. It was a fantastic holiday resort in the thirties; wonderful pictures of people enjoying themselves, splashing around on the beach, having this amazing time.

But after the Second World War, when many of those Londoners had been bombed out of their homes in East London, many of them started to think, "Well, why can't I just stay on my plot full time? Actually, I've got this little piece of land. I've got the basics of a small house there. Maybe I'm just going to stay here. Seaside is nice, have happy memories of it." So what was intended to be a holiday community without any permanent residence started to have a permanent full-time population but with no infrastructure. So Steadman had always struggled to try and get the council to make kind of water connections and sewage connections through the water boards and so forth at the time-- continued to struggle. So you've got this community growing up-- Again, very like those West Alabama communities in some senses with very, very little basic infrastructure, but people wanting to be there and starting to assert their rights as well to say, "Well, we are living here. We should be having services. We should be having our rubbish collected. We should be having water and sewage and electricity."

But really for most of the next decades, the story is one of a struggle between the local councils who really didn't want anybody to be permanently living there, and the freeholders and the residents themselves who wanted to be there. The councils really-- to simplify-- took the view that if they did not provide all of those services, people would not be there. But that eventually had proved to be an unsustainable situation and gradually over the years, some services were introduced. So it's a community with this really extraordinary story of resilience and this kind of self-made DIY ethos. It looks very unlike anywhere really in the rest of the country. There were other plotlands communities around the place. So Laindon Hills near Basildon, which was pretty much demolished when they built Basildon New Town. Down at Shoreham-by-Sea there are still some remaining plotlands-- Canvey Island, a few other places at the Thames Valley as well.

But most of them have been translated over time to what I would call a fairly normal suburbia for England. Jaywick still has a completely different pattern, a completely different look as a place. Still, very much the bones of those original tiny timber frame chalets very, very tightly plotted, much more like you would see in the states in some sort of shotgun house communities in places like Houston. Little gable fronted houses onto the street, tiny, tiny backyards very, very, very tightly packed, and everyone different. They've all been customized and adapted by their occupants over time.

So it doesn't have the sense of that kind of if you like regular housing estate with this sort of uniformity that we might expect in other places. It's got this very ad hoc nature. The residents are fiercely proud of their community and they are very, very fond of its character. But the reality is that unfortunately, Jaywick is mostly in the news for having the worst deprivation statistics for the whole of the United Kingdom, which goes across all of the indices of multiple deprivation, health, employment, access to services-- education outcomes, et cetera. So it's a community with some really big challenges. And coupled to that, it was built on a salt marsh and it's in the tidal floodplain. In the 1953 floods, 37 people were killed there. And with climate change, obviously the flood risk is increasing all the time. Now, again, even though the flood defenses were improved after 1953, but they're starting to reach the end of their lifespan again and there need to be some improvements. Sorry, that's a long piece of background, but I think it's important to kind of situate both socially and historically as well as environmentally the place.

Our practice were commissioned by Tendring District Council as the council of the area back in 2018 to try and look at a regeneration strategy for Jaywick Sands to address the housing quality issues. Because whilst some of the homeowners look after their homes really well and are very house proud, the reality is there's a lot of homes that have become part of portfolios of private rented accommodation in very, very bad condition. That in terms of housing policy and how our world works in this country at the moment, I mean, I think it's a huge, huge scandal that we have essentially allowed the outsourcing of affordable housing provision into the hands of private landlords who are being paid by the state through the benefits system.

But the consequence in a community like Jaywick is if you have parts of that community, some streets where we'll have 50, 60% private rented accommodation that has a really serious impact in terms of blight on the wider community and serious social impacts because there's no sort of support. So they wanted to look at housing quality, they wanted to look at the issue around flood defenses, and in the longer term, what is the strategy here? We did some initial research in late 2018, 2019; some initial engagement and consultation with members of the local community there. Pandemic then came along, bit of a pause during the pandemic. Although actually, one-- if you like-- sub-project of this wider strategy got picked up through stimulus funding from the pandemic. That's a building that we have now designed and built and opened earlier this year which is called Sunspot, which is 24 affordable business units there as part of the kind of economic approach.

Anyway, after the pandemic, late 21, early 22, we started back on the kind of regeneration strategy. And now, we're actually at the moment in consultation on what we think that looks like. We did a further consultation last year on some options and scenarios. This year we've kind of gone back with what we think and with the council the kind of best strategy might be. And it's really complex. It's a fascinating and complex place because-- I won't go into all the details of the strategy. Everyone can read it online. But it's a place where the issues around climate change and deprivation really intersect in a way that kind of amplifies and multiplies their effects. 

A community that had that level of climate change threat, flood risk but was more wealthy, frankly, one wouldn't worry so much about because the people who would be living there would have the resources to be able to firstly know and understand those risks. And secondly, if the bad thing happened, the financial resources as well as their own personal capacity to probably be able to cope a lot better. But when you're talking about a community which is firstly very aging now-- So the demographic skews very old although there are patches of families with very young children, so it's kind of quite a divided demographic. Secondly, has very poor health. So mobility, people with oxygen cylinders, people with diabetes-- very serious health problems in a lot of parts of community. And very low cash resources. A lot of retired people who have sold up their house in East London bought a little homey house in Jaywick Sands based off the back of their happy childhood memories of seaside holidays there and are living off the difference. They're eking out that difference in the kind of cash value of a house in London for half a million quid, and a house in Jaywick Sands for 60 to a hundred thousand.

So they've got very little resources to fall back on if a bad thing happens. This question about, "What is the duty of care of the state? What is the duty of care of us to our fellow citizens in a time of climate crisis, in a situation where people do not have those resources?" We are seeing that with the cops obviously globally in terms of small nations and so forth being threatened and saying, "Hey, there is a responsibility, but we have that right here in our own country. We have this really, really pressing question about what is the responsibility. Is it sustainable for communities to even exist in these locations? If so, what should they look like? What should they feel like? How would they be best defended against the floods and against the tidal flood risk? How is that equitably dealt with when we've got such disparities and resources across the country? How do we find a system that is fair here?" Because there are parts of Central London that are as bad a flood risk as Jaywick Sands. But the real estate there is worth billions. The owners of those parts of land and the councils and so forth are very different. How do we find some way of calibrating that? If I'm frank, I don't think at a national level we have that sorted out at all.

Ben (00:22:29):

That's really fascinating on the policy level. So perhaps we can dwell on that. And maybe you want to comment about the actual little business unit project as well because there are so many things within that. So some of what we hear in other places where you've got rural communities, I guess is as often the very naive urbanite view, which was expressed by the councilors is, "Surely they should move. Not sustainable, climate risk, why should we give them a hospital for 200 people when that or schools and services and all of that." So I'd be interested in what the responses and the kind of things that you talk about which have been in this discussion. And I guess the second one then going one level down from that is this sense of the balance on consultation that some people think, "Oh, we're doing too many consultations of the wrong sort."

Then if it's something that government doesn't like to hear, they don't follow them anyway. And if it's something that they like to hear, it feels like it was a setup. On the other hand, often a centralized or even a regionalized area or government zone doesn't really know what a local populace wants which is the whole point of consultation. Then you have this higher level-- I guess it's kind of the paternalistic versus not as does a centralized force ever really know, "Should it do it, should it just let that," which is, I guess this on the extremes between completely planned to versus unplanned and everything in the middle. It seems like Jaywick is at the center of a lot of those debates. So I'd be interesting in any reflections that you have about whether we should be abandoning communities or not, and even how you do that. And then that level down about do consultations really work or how do you get them to work-- would probably be the better question. And then maybe how you then through an economic lens seems to be one bit, which at least there's some agreement from some sides is possibly a way to work through this.

Hana (00:24:35):

Well, to address that sort of question about should we be "abandoning communities," there have been some tentative moves towards what's known as managed retreat. The world of risk management and climate change is full of these wonderful euphemisms. But managed retreat essentially says, "We won't no longer maintain the flood defenses in a particular area." I grew up in the coastal floodplain-- Actually, my parents' house is in the coastal floodplain, and my father has lived there since 1947 and lived through the 1953 flood. So this was all quite sort of familiar territory to me on a personal level. Fairbourne in Wales is actually the kind of first community of homes where a decision was announced a few years ago to say the defenses would no longer be maintained and essentially that community was going to have to look to be decommissioned, which of course, the residents there were furious about.

I think there's an interesting question because this country has so far sort of said, "We won't compensate people." Sort of what they're saying is, "We'll give you warning, we'll give you kind of 20 years warning that we're no longer going to maintain your defenses. It's up to you in that time to make your own move. We're not going to give you a relocation package. We're not going to actually financially support that" which is unlike many other countries. So other countries are providing relocation packages, whether it's looking at some of the Nordic countries, whether it's looking at parts of the states even actually. They are looking at supporting people to move.

I kind of think that we have to have a bit more of a national debate about that because I think the reality of these communities, as I said, is that you can have great disparities of wealth. Where I grew up is near the Suffolk Coast, and there are communities on coasts there which have some houses in the floodplain and they're owned by very, very wealthy people. Sure, I don't think we should be subsidizing them to have to relocate. They could relatively easily fund their own support. But when you're talking about communities in these much more deprived places, the reality is that people don't have that money and people therefore won't move. So Fairbourne, from what I've heard recently, in a strange way, the property prices have actually gone up there which is very unusual and the sort of relocation decommissioning program seems to have gone quite quiet.

We need to have a national debate about this. And I think this leads to your second question around consultation. These are really hard, big, tough questions for which there are no answers that are going to make everybody happy. It is not possible to somehow make some magic consensus where everybody is going to go, "Oh, you know what? We've just found this magic bullet for this. What a brilliant idea. God, you've cracked it. Here's a perfect solution to making it fair and affordable and all the rest of it."

Ben (00:28:11):

We've discovered a magic floating islands where we can live.

Hana (00:28:13):

Yes, there are no easy solutions. So this takes leadership, but it does also take that consultation and engagement with people. There's an intergenerational aspect here. When we do consultation in Jaywick, some people are saying, "Well, frankly, I'm going to be dead. This is not my problem." That's a totally fair point for them to make. They just want to live the rest of their however many years happily and in their community with their friends with the sea view that they love. What comes after that is not their problem. At the same time as obviously there are generations to come not only in that community-- children and the younger people, but also nationally, the generations that we're going to have to pay for and look after and take care or take the actions that are needed. And how do we make that fair?

My personal view is that I don't think that there is too much consultation. I think in many cases there is too little, but I think the kind of consultation we do is very, very flawed. So we do a lot of work around community engagement, consultation, participation-- call it what you wish. I'm kind of constantly trying to shift the emphasis of that away from the sort of stereotype of, "Have your say." To me, that's a phrase I ban from our office. Never advertise a consultation with, "Have your say," because really what you're just saying is come and spout off and shoot your mouth off about what you do and don't like, and we'll just listen to it and do absolutely nothing about it. That's not the point.

For me, the point of talking to people-- and I think we've got to call this what it is. It's just talking to people. Talking to people, normal people in the street could be your neighbors, could be your friends. It is a research tool and I think we should be taking much more from the social sciences and less from the way that policy makers have often approached consultation as part of a sort of systematic process towards getting a policy agreed. We need to look at it as research. We need to look at it as insight. Understanding those very human factors that are at play, understanding how people understand their own environments, their own situations in life and being able to take that research away, analyze it quite methodically and use it to inform better decision making. 

So it's understanding that those people are the experts in their own condition and the job of ourselves as "experts, policy makers, planners," whatever you might say. Our job is to try and untangle what they tell us about their lives and their environments, and understand where the interventions can be most effective in that based on what that research is telling us. Then there's a secondary job, which is about education and capacity building. We have communities-- particularly low income communities, who the kind of failures of our education system over the last decades really fall heavily on. Their ability to understand the very complex nature of these risks-- and risk is hard for anyone to understand. We are notoriously bad as humans understanding and quantifying risk. When you are trying to talk to people about a 0.5% AEP probability of a tidal flood risk happening, that just means nothing to anybody.

We need to be able to take the time to sit with people and explain that to them in simple terms, step by step. Allow them to absorb that, allow them to cogitate on it, allow them to come back with more questions and say, "They don't understand it, or can you go through that again? Or what does that really mean? I've been thinking about what you said and this bit doesn't make sense." That can't really be achieved in a six or eight week consultation period which is this kind of process that typically has gone through. That is a much more embedded process of saying, "Well, actually, how do we allow people to make good decisions about their own lives?" So I do think that we need a bit of a rethink on this. Of course, as a role for if you like the sort of statutory consultation where you go out to your statutory consultation bodies-- Natural England, or the Environment Agency or whoever, they're professionals. They know how to respond to things within a six or eight week period and write you a very lengthy response. And you can go through it point by point.

But when you're talking to communities, it's just a bit of a crazy system. So we try to advocate with our clients for a rather different approach. As always, they're local authorities and they have to abide by certain rules. So we have mixed success with that and I think we try to carry that through. But having worked in Jaywick for nearly five years now, I think what is interesting is that at least I feel like our team has started to grow some of those relationships in a different way. It's slow, slow steps gaining trust, not being seen too much as the sort of consultants from outside who just come in to try and tell people what to do, even though we're quite local in the sense of our office is very locally based. So yeah, it has been a really interesting process and a lot of lessons for wider policy making, I think.

Ben (00:34:08):

How did you arrive at the structure that you arrived at? And I have so many other thoughts as kind of like, I'm thinking why do we not really have a Rural Studios here in England or the UK and all of these other types of things. But maybe we can see it through the lens of the actual building that you came up with and why it is how it is, and the process you got to.

Hana (00:34:31):

Yeah. So the building that my practice completed-- and I think what's fun about our practice is that we do operate across these scales. So we kind of work on these strategic projects and planning projects as well as on individual buildings and spaces. The building that we completed is 24 affordable business units for affordable rent plus a covered market, plus some public open space; community garden, bus stops, and practical things like that. It came out of the fact that when we started to talk to people in Jaywick about their issues, whilst the council was saying the focus is on flood risk and all these sort of big, naughty, wicked problems, the thing that people were saying to us in the community was jobs and services. "There are no jobs here and it's impossible to get to any work." It's a relatively isolated community. Clacton-on-Sea which is just up the road is not so far, but Clacton is also very deprived; not many jobs there. The next nearest economic center, to get there you would need to take a bus which would wind its way through villages for an hour and a half each way, and actually wouldn't ever get you to work on time and couldn't get you home. So there's this really big problem.

And by the way, around half of the households in the most deprived bits of Jaywick Sands do not have access to a car or van. So you've got a community who are totally dependent on foot, public transport, or bicycle. So people were saying, "They're no jobs here. They're also saying there's no services here." There's no kind of basic-- lack of shops to buy things in-- food, as well as in a way the things that make you feel good about your life-- hairdressers, things like that. Very little in the way of local economy. So we sort of thought, "Well, actually this is something that something can be done about more short term." We were talking to the councilors, our client about this and saying, "Maybe you should consider looking at this economic question a bit further because don't these two things go together? As in if you have more local services, there's also more jobs in the community that can also employ people." And actually, this question about how do you make an economy in these sorts of places that is kind of for the community and by the community, that keeps that spend local. It's not about trying to attract some sort of big external investor who's going to open a factory or something. But all of that money kind of disappears into the wider world. It's, "Can we look at a more localized way of simulating the economy?" 

So happily they were interested in that idea and commissioned us to do a little bit more research and market testing to see whether that was feasible. We did that market testing in a rather different way than you would normally do it, because normally if you ask someone to do a market study on making new business space or workspace somewhere, they'll bring up a bunch of estate agents and say, "How many people have you got on your books looking for an office or an industrial unit or whatever in area X?" Well, obviously nobody was going to be on the books looking for a workspace unit in Jaywick Sands because it wasn't a sort of established employment location. Didn't already have a kind of pool of businesses that people just not thinking about whether they wanted to locate there.

So we did two things. Firstly, we looked at the wider data across the area. So there was a quantitative aspect and we found that there was a shortage in the wider area which was actually in the council's own economic studies. A shortage of startup and grow on sort of small units for obvious reasons; not very viable commercially for developers of commercial space to provide that kind of space. So actually, there was a lack. So then we sort of said, "Well, that means that there's a hidden economy of people who are needing space but are not finding it. And in the meantime, they're working from home or they're working out of kind of garage, or they're working out of a sort of rather ad hoc, renting an old stable on a farm somewhere or whatever it might be, or looking to Colchester and other further afield places."

So we sort of thought, "Well, if we can go and talk to some of those tenants and we can establish whether they would see it as a barrier to come and actually locate their business in Jaywick Sands." So we went out and actually just talked to a lot of businesses. What we found was no, it was absolutely not seen as a barrier for them to come and locate in Jaywick. They weren't put off by the unfortunate stereotyped bad reputation of the community and the press. They were mostly local people, that didn't really bother them. Really, they just needed space. It was affordable, suitable-- obviously for their needs, and accessible, which if you are a business with, it's actually got fairly good road access or public transport access.

So we managed to demonstrate that we felt there was a sufficient pipeline of businesses who would be interested and take up space, and particularly at two ends. One being small retail. So this point about actually, there's few shops and services there, but you've got this beach as well, and you've got this opportunity to really trade in the summer off of visitors. And secondly, at the kind of smaller workshop through to the small end of light industrial type scale. So kind of small type manufacturing type businesses and things like that.

Ben (00:40:28):

And how many have been taken up? Is it all full already? Do people pree these?

Hana (00:40:33):

Yeah, it's full. I think they may have one or two units left, but it's full. It opened in late September and it's doing really well. I think the other bit is the market. So the market's really important both as a way of providing additional retail for the community. So being able to have food stalls and things like that. But also it's a stepping stone towards startup business. It's the cheapest way you can try out a new business idea is to rent a market store for 10 pounds or whatever a pitch, and have a go at your idea. It brings a community together as well in a way that's social. So yeah, it's exciting to see it really be busy now and bustling and a huge diverse array of businesses working out the building.

But also the building, I think from a design perspective, it's really important that it's a visible symbol of change in the community. We aren't just interested in making space for space's sake, but it's also got to say something. Buildings, spaces, environments - they have meaning-- they carry meaning, and the value and the quality of those spaces says something about how valued that community is. I think too often we are-- particularly in the public sector, I'm afraid to say at this time-- unwilling to have higher ambitions and aspirations for the sheer beauty and quality of spaces that we make for people. It's not really a cost question in my view. It's not more expensive. It's just about actually how do you procure, what kind of procurement do you have of your teams that are working on these projects, and how much do you really care about the communities that you're building them for? Don't look down on them. Don't give them sort of the dumb answer just because they might be poor or more deprived communities. Give them something that is bright and bold and exciting and is something that people can take some joy out of in their everyday life.

Ben (00:42:38):

And what do you find beautiful about the building? I've heard people note the colors-- the color palette. And also the space and the quality of materials, which actually to your point, aren't super special. You're not talking about imported granite or anything like that. But what made you think this building is of quality or of beauty?

Hana (00:43:01):

Yeah, I think it is a very economic building. It's built in a way that the technology of it is really just the technology of a normal kind of light industrial shed. But there is so much you can do with shape, firstly; just sort of subtle changes to the way that the shape of the building is designed. The fact that when you see it from the beach it has this kind of zigzag profile rather than just seeing a kind of long, monolithic, eaves profile like a sort of typical shed building might have. And color is really important. On a gray, rainy, February day, a community even on the beautiful beach that there is there right in front of the building can feel quite grim. So it was really important that the building never felt grim; that it always felt joyful, uplifting, and generous.

Color is part of that form. Also, there's things like the canopy; the canopy that shades and shelters space around the building. That's practical. It prevents the south facing units overheating in the summertime. But it's also about saying actually, it's dry. The building is kind of bigger than it would otherwise be. Things like the bus shelter which no one had really thought of, but we kind of said, "Well, there's no bus stop here, and the bus stop just down the road is literally a pole and there's not even a pavement to stand on." So we moved the bus stop and we made a bus shelter with a bench, and shade, and shelter, which sounds extremely simple, but actually makes a huge difference in a community where most of the bus stops have no bench and no shelter.

The work was put to try and say, "Well, without it costing more money, without it being impractical, using materials that are extremely robust, using profiled metal and things like that, that are typical for modern seaside buildings-- like buildings that are built on the piers or buildings that are built in seafront arcades and amusements, the similar language to that." This is not about parachuting in a design language that is alien to the place, but it's got to feel joyful and people have got to feel proud of it in the community. Something that they can actually say, "You can't miss that building. You can look out for it. It's a landmark."

Ben (00:45:43):

Does it have a nickname yet?

Hana (00:45:44):

It's called Sunspot, which is great because actually, that's the name of the old amusement arcade that used to be on the site which was pulled down when the holiday economy started to tank. So it sort of also revived that name and the kind of hopefulness of that name, which is really sweet.

Ben (00:46:03):

That sounds like just such a brilliant example of place-based regeneration done right. I guess there has been a lot of debate around it because quite a lot of place-based regeneration hasn't worked so well, and this tension between people and place. I thought for a moment, "I might go up a level in thinking about policy or some of the ideas behind that." Although reflecting on this, it seems that it's just getting a lot of detail and right on the local level. But that does seem to be one of these arguments about place and people. And I guess at this very high level in thinking about globally, there are these people who believe places or cities or towns should generally be driven by jobs; maybe put in some transport and service infrastructure, but essentially let it be unplanned or limited planning. And I guess particularly you see this in some of the non-Western countries. That's essentially how they develop.

Some of those develop really well and some of those develop into slums. So you can kind of have arguments on both sides. Or you go to the other extreme when you think, "Okay, can I completely plan this place or city?" And maybe sitting around that you have this idea of charter cities, like maybe we can just completely plan something from scratch. And actually, you have some examples of planned places which work quite well, and some examples of planned places which don't work well at all. So there's probably no real consensus on it. But I guess given that policy and maybe either reflecting globally on cities or in the UK, do you think you lean more to elements of planning or more elements of un-planning or jobs, or how do you meld the best of both of those sets of ideas?

Hana (00:47:46):

So yeah, I'm a planner as well as a designer, and I think there's a really important role for planning. But I think you touch on a really critical point, which is actually human behavior is not a plannable thing. People are going to do things that confound the expectations of economists and planners who like everything to be extremely orderly. But people just don't behave like that. And people also want to feel that they have freedom and they have choice. One of the things that's so important in Jaywick Sands and why people love it so much is-- coming back to this point-- that every house looks different. They love the fact that it's their own identity; it's stamped on their own physical environment. One of the things that they said to us through the consultation when we talked about kind of new design guidance and coding for Jaywick Sands is, "It's really important that we don't lose this sense that every house is different. You can't make them all look the same."

People do want to feel that they have agency and have capacity to make choices. So whilst I think the economic planning-- and I think strategic spatial planning is really important. It's something that we have completely lost in the UK, I'm afraid over the last 15 years. We used to have regional spatial plans and strategies. We no longer have them. So it's a very, very disjointed approach to planning that we have and I think that does urgently need to be addressed. We cannot look at this country from an economic or a climate perspective and not look nationwide. We're not that big of a country. We really do need to be looking across the whole country and having a joined up economic and spatial strategy.

But I also strongly believe that we need more ability at the local level for people to feel that they do have some agency. That's a really difficult one because the reality is that the person who moves into a new build house on a new build housing estate, practically the day they move in, they become opposed to any more development in their local area. That is a known fact that just happens. They've been the beneficiary of housing development. But as soon as they're in that house, they want to be the last house that was ever built in the area and never see anything change again. So trying to find a way to say there are some tough messages here that actually, "You know what? Maybe you can't be that selfish always. You're going to need to see change." But also, there's a quid pro quo there that actually you might have more ability to change your own house, to be able to extend or adapt your own building.

People get so frustrated when they see their own back extension or not being able to do simple things get held up in the planning system at the same time as it appears that major housing developments-- thousands of homes get sort of waved through. I know behind the scenes those are not waved through. Those big schemes go through a tortuous and very time consuming and very rigorous process, not always with the right outcomes, but they do go through a process. However, to the person on the local level who doesn't see any of that, they see a system that is not working for them. They see a system where they can't add a conservatory or change the color of their front door sometimes in some cases, or put solar panels on their roof or whatever it might be. We've got to look at what the quid pro quo is in the planning.

But to come to your wider point, to the wider scale of unplanned development and some development and so forth, it's really problematic. Obviously, I think we are very far in this country from going down that route. But globally, when we're talking about inequality and we're talking about resilience to climate as well, you look at some of those very precarious slum communities and they do tend to also cluster to the parts of the land, whether it's favelas in Rio that are on the very steep mountain sides, very vulnerable to things like lands slips and landslides and heavy rain, through to development in India and places in flood plains along rivers. The poorest people often end up in the most physically vulnerable places. So I think there is a real obligation on city authorities and regional authorities to be more strategic about that, to take more of a grip on it, and to actually help provide for citizens in a way that isn't going to endanger them.

Ben (00:52:39):

One last thought on policy before turning to perhaps another project or two. So there has been a little bit of talk around design codes or use of pattern books, which actually, I think it was a conversation we had either on email or X Twitter or something like that about the fact that they've gone back in time. I think that Dutch had quite a few of these in the 16 or 17 hundreds as a kind of way forward. Critics might say you get these very identical, no identity, but perhaps also poorer quality poor materials particularly on the edge of towns and suburbs where you're going, "This is not housing which makes anyone filled with joy." On the other hand, proponents are talking about-- I guess they say gentle densification in urban areas where you've got stuck in this planning or can you do extensions or things like that. I picked up that it seems that some architects seem to be a little bit tentative or not particularly involving themselves in the pattern or patterning decision or this debate, which perhaps surprised me, but I'm not particularly hooked into the system. So maybe there is more debate. But do you think design codes or pattern books are one way of some sort of compromise unlock on here and do you think that's an interesting policy idea?

Hana (00:54:01):

Yeah, so we work on some design codes, and I guess that shows that we do think that there's some value in them. I think we've gotten into a kind of rather curious situation at the minute with regards to the aesthetics of development, the style of development with some odd politics, if I'm perfectly honest. I think around what's seen as kind of good, "attractive," "beautiful," "development," stemming from things like Building Better Building Beautiful Commission, which was chaired by Roger Scruton until he died and things like that, which are seen by many as quite backward looking, sort of everything needs to look like a Georgian or a Victorian street or terrace. And not maybe acknowledging some of the ways that culturally we need to be building for today and for today's communities.

Obviously, the Georgian and the Victorian and the Edwardian stock that we have is in many ways wonderful and in many ways synonymous with England. But I think when you cast a look at the economic systems that they derived out of and the social systems that they derived out of also, and question what are the lessons that we take from them from today and what are the lessons that maybe are not relevant. It's an area that I think we are treading carefully around at the minute because I think that there's a real, real value to having more of a pattern book approach. But I think it's got to be much more genuinely based on how is the functionality of these buildings working on a number of levels, not just a technical functionality.

So building regulations and so forth obviously should be taken for granted. But things like climate-- so overheating is a huge, huge problem. We must be designing and if we are having new pattern books, they must be including things like external shading for south and west facing windows. Really basic stuff, but really important. And other climate adaptation measures actually as much as mitigation because the reality is we are in a very different world. And secondly, that I think this focus on aesthetics needs to focus on the different communities that we have now. There's a question around the meaning that's attached. I suppose this is where sometimes I'm a little bit surprised because the kind of gentle density proponents-- and I think it's a well-chosen phrase because you can't really disagree with it. We all want to see that.

But when I see the buildings of Whitehall be held up as kind of an example of how everything should be built now and why don't we build new office buildings like the Foreign  and Commonwealth Office was built in the early 20th century. I think one also has to say, "What are those buildings really--? What are the meanings that they're embodying for a more diverse society with very different backgrounds and cultures?" They're quite problematic buildings. They are loaded with meaning around imperialism, around their references back to ancient Greece and Rome, of course, through their kind of neoclassicism. There's a lot going on there. And I think it behooves us to unpick a little bit more around this question of style that's not just, "Isn't it pretty? Isn't it attractive to the eyes" of whoever it is who's making that statement? I think beauty comes in many forms. I think we could be a little bit more generous in finding beauty in different forms. But also I think we absolutely need to push back on the lowest common denominator meanness of design that one sees from a lot of the commercial development sector.

Ben (00:58:32):

Yeah. That's really nuanced. So obviously there has been ongoing debates on form and function and this unspoken-- well sometimes spoken as we know humans give meaning to any big endeavors, building places, art, all of this, spaces porch, all the way back to what seems like simple structures and the like. That's before you consider that buildings designed 17, 18 hundreds or even 50 years ago, are not designed for technology, sustainability, climate, all of the things of today. I've been in some of those Whitehall-- in fact, I've even worked in things like Corbusier buildings and the like which are just very poorly considered in terms of heating and all of that because it wasn't a challenge of the time, it wasn't of their consideration.

Hana (00:59:22):

Or it wasn't even a priority. Sometimes those buildings function badly from the outset.

Ben (00:59:27):

They did.

Hana (00:59:29):

I think what is wonderful about us as humans is that we are really able to adapt things. And I think we shouldn't be demolishing all of these buildings-- their embodied carbon, their structures. But actually, the ability to adapt them over time, adapt them to be quite radical about how we adapt and change them, and then learn from that as well. This is where I think we can afford to relax a little bit more. To say, "Well, actually, the most important thing is that we kind of build well, as in the structures that aren't going to be needing to be pulled down in 20 or 30 years’ time. The buildings that actually can endure and have that ability to change and adapt as we learn, as our technology changes." We are working on all sorts of ages of buildings at the moment and that kind of robustness to be able to say, "Well, yeah, it can take a bit of a bashing and it take a bit of a change" I think it's really important.

Ben (01:00:28):

Yeah. And that begs the question of how long should a building or structure last? Because if you do carbon analysis and you're assuming the building is going to last a hundred, 200, we have buildings which are 500, arguably a thousand years old. It's a very different calculation to 10, 20, 30, 40. Perhaps that's one to consider about the age of buildings and that in public space. But maybe you could do it through the lens of just choosing another project that you'd like to talk about. Could be one of yours, could be something else, but obviously you've done a lot of this public space as sort of museum and gallery work which I guess we would assume is going to last a long time as well as some private space work. You could also comment on other projects or things that you see in the world. But yeah, any other project you'd like to pick on and maybe picking up on the themes of how long building should last for-- I guess we've done aesthetics a little bit and sustainability a little bit. So any project you like.

Hana (01:01:30):

Yeah, I think that time dimension is something that we're really interested in and that spans across all of the kind of planning projects as well, where we're talking about 20, 30 plus year strategies. I mean, a hundred years is what we're planning for in terms of flood defenses in Jaywick Sands. Who knows what the world is going to look like in a hundred years and what kind of homes, but the flood defenses need to look at that time horizon. We do work with quite a lot of existing buildings. For some reason we've worked on quite a few town halls actually, which came from the late Victorian period, kind of great municipal flowering of all of these big municipal structures that were built for a very particular point in time as a very particular expression of civic pride. Fast forward another 120 years, and the way our civic bureaucracies work is really different. So a lot of those structures have fallen into new uses or into no use at all, and a lot of the time we're charged at bringing them back into use. I think they are fascinating. So we've worked on a number of them. We worked a little bit on Shoreditch Town Hall a very long time ago, early days of its conversion into kind of arts and cultural use. We've worked on Redbridge Town Hall which is in Ilford town centre, and that also was working with Space Studios to make artists workspace and gallery space there.

We are currently working on Lowestoft town hall up on the East coast in Suffolk which is a quite a major project to bring this civic building back into use. This question of robustness and what you keep and what you have to adapt is really pertinent to them because ultimately it's the kind of basic structure as well as the external materials of wall and to a degree roof, that matter. If those are starting to fall apart, you've got a really big problem. So long as those kind of basic elements remain in fairly good shape, it's an onion. You can replace other layers in and around that. It's quite easy to replace a roof covering and renew that over time; much easier actually than replacing walling to a lot of degrees. Part of that is also about the aesthetics. You can replace wiring, obviously plumbing, floors, wall finishes. You can make partitions or take partitions out that are non-structural. You can kind of rethink a lot of things around the building, but still, there's something of that physical essence of it that is remaining. And I think that continuity is really important for communities as well, that these buildings are landmarks within your mental map of your community. You want to have that continuity at the same time as, "Look what you could explore, this kind of very different way of using that building into the future."

We do talk a lot about the age of buildings. We've worked on some buildings much, much older. So back to 13th, 14th century bones of a building. They're these remarkably enduring things. And I think it's wonderful to observe the completely unpredictable ways that these buildings have been used. Someone who built a church in-- I mean, we're doing some public realm around a church that was built in 938 or something. A Saxon Church Tower which then was much adapted in the medieval period. They couldn't possibly imagine the environment that this now sits in, the kind of world that that sits in. But it sits there as this kind of artifact. It's like a sort of sentinel observing this really long time scale of change. I think that's kind of remarkable and wonderful, and I would love us to take and to be able to persuade our clients to take more of that approach to new buildings that are built now.

We often talk about trying to create the heritage of tomorrow or the next generation; the buildings that are going to be those much loved, really enduring buildings that do stand the test of time. I wrote a piece recently that was sort of talking about this a little bit and noting that a little bit like children, when a building is first finished, actually it's the start of its life. The completion of the physical building is the beginning of its life as a thing in the world. And like a newborn baby, everyone kind of goes, "It's so beautiful and it's so great and cute." Looking and can't get enough of the pictures of it, and it's all shiny and perfect. Then they do tend to go through a period which is like the sort of awkward teenage years where everything just seems to go wrong. They're starting to look a bit shabby. Things are starting to age. Even wiring and plumbing and all those sorts of things don't have a very long lifespan. They do need to be renewed on a relatively quick timescale.

Maybe the original owners or clients for the building have moved on and you've got new management who maybe don't really understand it so well, or don't love it so much, or are stretched on their budgets and they can't afford to maintain it that well. There's a common misperception that new buildings don't need any maintenance. They still need a lot of maintenance. You need to invest in your maintenance from day one. So they go through this sort of awkward period. And then also their aesthetics tend to go out of date. So people start to not find them that attractive. This is a danger point because at that point people can go, "Let's pull it down. It's just too expensive to maintain. It's not working, kind of ugly." We've seen this with Victorian buildings.

The great campaign to pull down loads of Victorian buildings in the kind of mid-20th century, seen as overly ornamented and too gawdy and too this and too that. "God, we just don't need them. They're just so out of date." Now, we see it with brutalist 1960s and 1970s buildings. People saying, "Oh God, they're just big lumps of concrete. Let's pull them down." But if you get beyond that, actually people start to love them again. They start to have this kind of different life again. So I would almost like to see a rule that you couldn't pull down a building, that you were forced to look after it, that you had to look after it for at least a hundred years and see what happens over that span of three or four generations. What new things come out of that? There are some wonderful examples of buildings that have been completely reimagined. I mean, you could go to the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, which is an amazing art center and this kind of old grand palace; very radical. You could go the other extreme and look at-- There's a car park in mid Wales which has been transformed in an art center and a market. It's a very ordinary concrete car park structure. There's so many amazing examples. I think we need to be a little bit less quick to judge on the successful failure of a building before it had time to grow up into its adulthood.

Ben (01:09:01):

That's a really insightful way of thinking about buildings which I hadn't really come across. And it reflects on a couple of things around this idea that buildings can also have a part of humanities or art in them. They are still, in some cases, a kind of vector for ideas that has meaning. And actually, there are so many parts of humanities which are no longer so much vectors for ideas because of the way that things have gone. Arguably, even economists are now dealing in the micro of business, whereas a hundred to 200 years ago, they were dealing with socialism, capitalism, what systems that they were vectors for ideas which broadly speaking, they are no longer. And I think about this in terms of theater, because plays, still are, although again, perhaps fewer, but they are vectors for ideas as well about how maybe we should aspire to be on a big scale or little scale.

Actually, they sometimes go through a similar lifecycle. Sometimes the beginning, the really good ones are great and then you don't hear about them again. And then maybe they reemerge with a lot of arts practice. which is perhaps a good segue to your very early life where you did have some theater practice actually, both in helping design theater buildings, but also as a theater and opera director. You worked a little bit with Peter Brook who was one of my most famed theater and opera directors, but also found and I guess light touch rejuvenated a theater space in France, Gare du Nord, which you worked in and which I've seen work in.

So I guess this is a multi-part thought question, which you can handle which was why did you lean into architecture and design when you could have lent into theater? So the roots of your own thing. And what did you learn perhaps from Peter Brook, or that theater or that space, or your work within design? I kind of think when I reflect on looking at your wider work that because you've been so sensitive to humanities-- I think your music playing is great. You've done theater work and things. There's something about your places and your design, which reflects this humanities. Yes, you've done the consultation and that. But actually, you have got an eye or an ear out for not to channel Marie Kondo too much, but the kind of a spark of joy, something other, something to aspire to, which are what humanities and arts have as a question. So anyway, bringing it down theater, Peter Brook, design, why architecture?

Hana (01:11:52):

Oh, gosh, great question. And maybe if I was to speak to my 20-year-old self from today's perspective, I might tell them to just stick with the theater. The thing with architecture, the built environment or the environment more generally is it's kind of inescapable for everybody. Theater and the arts by and large, the audience makes a choice to go and engage with that. But actually, you walk down the street or you drive around the city or the countryside, wherever you might be. Whether or not you want to be affected by the environment, you are affected by the environment. And I think that felt to me really important that one was trying to influence that process to the best possible degree. I think it was a really interesting time and maybe we're going to come full circle with this in a bit because it was kind of early 2000s when I graduated and I was sort of working in the various different things and as you say, in the theater and thinking about what to do.

We'd come out of obviously a period of quite difficult time and there was a huge amount of energy going into regeneration and urban development; a lot of ideas, as you say, a lot of really big ideas about what that might look like. It was a time of people like Richard Rogers writing ‘Towards an urban renaissance’ and advising government at the highest level. I don't think we've ever had an architect since him have that actual influence in government saying, "This is a picture of how our society and our cities could look really different." So it was a sort of interesting time to be moving into the built environment. But I think what I've taken from theater and from working with Peter, which was a huge privilege and an amazing thing to be able to do, was this idea that it's the human activity that is the center. The kind of job of the person shaping the environment is to make the conditions for that human activity to be as meaningful and as joyful and as fulfilling as it could be.

That way that as when you put a play on the stage, the focus is the actors. The focus shouldn't be the set or the lighting. If the set and the lighting is wrong, you notice it. If you go to a play and you are noticing too much about the set and the lighting, it's probably a problem. If it forms the perfect setting for the human drama, that's when it's really working. You almost don't remark on it because it's just working so brilliantly. Peter took that to an extreme where he had barely any sets for anything; a prop here or a bench or a curtain or something, but almost nothing. He was really paring back to the idea that you just needed a space and a group of people watching.

I think there's something about that to say, "Well, actually, what is the least one can do?" It's not about putting your own ego on the stage as an architect or as a designer or as a placemaker. It's what is the least you can do and what is the most strategic and clever way you can do those things that they have the greatest impact. Just subtle placement of elements and space or subtle sequence of spaces that can be made. Then what are the moments where you do need drama, surprise, joy. Those are the things when you turn a corner in a building or down a street and you see something that you weren't expecting and it makes you kind of amazed or surprised or maybe shocked as well. It's important sometimes. 

These are sort of human emotions that are really important. The built environment can only not just be about things that you could have love. And coming back to our earlier point, not everybody loves the same thing. Some people will find a building or a space amazing, and other people will absolutely hate it. Doesn't mean either of them are right. But I do think it's important that we try and actually engage with those emotions and create some response a little bit from people. We're not trying to make everything kind of gray mush just because it's a path of least resistance, but actually, sometimes you need to do something that is really surprising,

Ben (01:16:27):

That seems to be a call to arms to designers, planners and architects everywhere. Great. So I have a short section on underrated, overrated, and then wrap up. So if that's good for you. So you could pass, you could just quick overrated, underrated, some semi-random things here. So overrated or underrated, concrete.

Hana (01:16:50):

That's an interesting one. So I actually think that concrete currently, at least if you talk to those who are sort of talking about embodied and energy and so forth, is actually underrated. There's this great push to get rid of concrete out of buildings which is entirely understandable for many, many reasons. However, done right, it is an extremely durable building material to this point of longevity. You can look at the past and you can look at all these Roman buildings built with concrete thousands of years ago. I think we need to be much more discriminating about where we use it. But used selectively, carefully, smartly, it is a hugely important material. I think that we just have to be clever about where we choose to use it. There's a huge wastage of concrete, for instance, I mean, road construction. Let's forget about buildings. Road construction is the single biggest use of concrete. The amount of concrete that goes into our infrastructure is hideous and I think we should do something about that. But in buildings, I think it's actually quite an important material to use still.

Ben (01:18:04):

Yeah. And I think, as we said, if you take a two or 300 year view, not as bad. I've been announced to a couple of sites. There's one outside Copenhagen, whereas at Brownfield they managed to use a process of recycling the concrete and the studies for that showed it was pretty good in terms of carbon. Okay. Second one, heat pumps.

Hana (01:18:25):

Oh, heat pumps, definitely underrated. Heat pumps are great. Heat pumps should be everywhere. We should be making this really easy.

Ben (01:18:35):

And planning means it's kind of not easy sometimes.

Hana (01:18:38):

I think it's a little bit of a misconception actually.

Ben (01:18:42):

Is it just heritage areas?

Hana (01:18:43):

Yeah. And not even that. This is an area where I think codes should be used because I think we just need much clearer rules.

Ben (01:18:49):

Yeah. And you should be able to pattern code.

Hana (01:18:51):

Yeah. Really simple, really clear rules. Can be quite challenging actually with the retrofit of historic buildings because they need air and they need to be out in the open. They can't be hidden in a basement boiler room like an old boiler. But they are good. I think the other thing that is good about them is essentially they are a kind of plug and play system. So what I mean by that is this technology is going to continue to change and evolve and maybe in 20 years, everyone would be like, "Heat pumps, what was everybody thinking back in 2020s? What a daft idea. We've now got whatever-- some next generation." But actually, they still work off-- broadly speaking, pipe work and so forth that you could cut that heat pump off and put something else in and make it work. So I think that they are an important one. Making space for them in development, making enough space and making it easy to actually change that technology later down the line is really important.

Ben (01:19:53):

But the infrastructure of heat pumps or say heating networks and the likes could well last for a very long time. The physics of it aren't going to change because it's built on a fundamental physics principle.

Hana (01:20:06):

Yeah. They heat water and water runs in pipes and that's pretty straightforward.

Ben (01:20:12):

And that's likely to remain.

Hana (01:20:13):

And the fact that they're electrically driven and we obviously are decarbonizing our electricity grid pretty successfully so that kind of all works.

Ben (01:20:22):

Sure. Underrated, overrated, self building?

Hana (01:20:27):

Well, a little bit of a mixture actually of underrated and overrated. I think it is hard for people to build a home themselves. And when we say self building in this country-- and this obviously doesn't apply to Africa or parts of the subcontinent that are seeing shanty towns and things. That's a totally different thing. But if we're talking about-- broadly speaking-- developed economies. When we talk about self building, we're not actually talking about building one's own self with one's owns arms. One's talking about employing a small contractor, a small builder to build a house that you have gone and gotten planning for that has been drawn by somebody. You are paying for a small scale construction industry to take place on your plot. I'd love to see more of it, but we have a big skills gap. 

I think we are not confronting the skills gap here in terms of the technical knowledge and skills within the construction industry. Actually, it's bad at all scales. It's bad at the big company scale as well if you go onto job sites and see what people are doing. But if we're trying to build energy efficient buildings and we're trying to build durable buildings that are going to last and not need to be pulled down or have terrible failures in the future, we need to have a far better sense of training and system and value really for construction trades as things. We slightly do need to get back to the idea of a master mason and people who were the most valued members of society at the time because it's difficult to build well. You need to care, you need to have an understanding of physics, you need to have an understanding of technology, and you need to have pride in your work. The conditions in a lot of job sites aren't that at the small or the big scale. So I'd like to see more self building, I'd like to see our system set up better for that. But I don't want to see it if what it really means is poor quality construction, poor quality design coming through.

Ben (01:22:44):

And is that an education and training challenge or like you say, a value in society challenge. Arguably, we have a similar issue with teachers and nurses. Or is it a money problem as in, "We're not paying them enough in the value." I guess all of that is a little bit interlinked. But would you put equal weight on all three or do you weight one of them a little bit more as a priority to try and invest in?

Hana (01:23:11):

Two things I think are a problem. Firstly, I think there's an issue around the structure of the construction industry, the economic way it works, which is essentially a system of subcontracting and subcontracting down to the individual. So if you are a very large construction firm building however many hundred homes, you are essentially just a layer of managers. You then subcontract the brick work, or the concrete, or the timber, or the plaster boarding, or the electrics or whatever. Let's just take one of those as an example. You're brick laying so you'll employ a brick laying subcontractor and you'll say to them, "Please do all of brick work for these 300 homes." They actually then end up subcontracting that again and again and again down to the individual so that actually that individual brick layer who's on the site will be a self-employed brick layer. They're not within a structure that is valuing or sustaining or helping them grow their skills. It is a system that rewards, "Get it done as quickly as possible, get my day rate--" which is actually there are good day rates in the industry. I don't think the problem is necessarily money. "Get my day rate and go off and never be seen again." Then if there's a problem with it down the line, it's like everyone has sort of vaporized into thin air.

Ben (01:24:44):

Yeah. And the risk doesn't sit at the proper level, if it sits anywhere because it's essentially being atomized away in legal contracts which is fine on paper, but doesn't address the practicalities of, "Do these people know how to build whatever they're building? Are they aware of the right materials and design to use regardless of what's told to them from above?" Because they can look and go, "Well, this isn't the right sort of material. This is going to be flammable. I don't kind of care what something said. It's just not right because I know this." Yeah, I think that's a very good point.

Hana (01:25:15):

So I think it's a really big problem. And when you get to the individual workmen on the site, they're not bad people. They're not necessarily even that ignorant, but they're being incentivized all the time to cut corners. We haven't mentioned Grenfell, which we should really because that is absolutely-- That's laid bare in that project and that terrible tragedy. It's really disappointing for me as an architect to walk onto a job site, to inspect work on site and talk to operatives and see things being done wrong and be told, "Well we were just told to get on and do it like that because we needed to get off site and get it done in this amount of time." There's just no custodianship of quality. With some honorable exceptions, very little custodianship of quality in the process.

Ben (01:26:10):

Yeah. And we don't seem to have learned-- Actually, I did a recent podcast with Lucy Easthope, who's a disaster planner specialist, and that's a similar theme coming through from that. We're currently recording in a studio which is in the shadow of Grenfell, so it's definitely something on the mind. And that's it. You've got the causal problem, fire and cladding. But actually, those are the surface elements of the structure and system whether you want to think about how we do social housing and things that we touched upon, or the nature of contracting and subcontracting and risk and how it's all thought about which could do with a real strong rethink. 

Okay. Last one on the overrated, underrated and the wrap up would be green belt land.

Hana (01:27:00):

Well, I'm not sure how you can either overrate or underrate it. I suppose the land itself is just land. The concept of the green belt, I suppose is maybe what you mean as a planning construct.

Ben (01:27:09):

Yes, I guess as a planning construct. So I guess to unpack it a little bit, people seem to think there is actually good parts of the green belt and bad parts of the green belt. And because of the construct of the green belt, we can't at the moment develop anything on what probably geographers and planners and people would say, "Oh, these are bad bits." And then because of the politics of the matter, it's very log jammed. But people accept that there are good bits and bad bits. So that's why it's kind of interesting to see whether net it's an underrated or overrated concept or neutral.

Hana (01:27:45):

Overrated, I'm afraid. I'm not a big fan of green belt policy. I understand politically why it arose, but it's like so many parts of our system-- politics and this applies in many different fields and subject areas. Sometimes something that was kind of put in for short term pragmatic political reasons to try and get a bigger picture question pass through ends up being so enduring. One can think of, for instance, the decision to allow GP practices to continue to be essentially self-contained businesses. It was sort of seen as just really necessary at the time to get the NHS over that hurdle. But boy has it created problems for us. And I think likewise, the green belt was seen as a sort of necessary adjunct to other forms of planning that were coming out in the post-war period to allow people to feel like, "Oh, this is just not going to be uncontrolled sprawl."

But it has really provided a problem for us ever since. I'm a strong proponent that we need to be transport led with our planning in terms of where we plan for additional development. From a sustainability perspective, it is really imperative that we stop having to use our cars so much. Electric cars are not the answer here. EVs are great, of course. They are part of the decarbonization process, but it is completely unsustainable and insane, frankly, how much land and resource we give over to road infrastructure and how much time as well. So I am a strong proponent that we need to look at planning along transport corridors. What that means in practice is more of a finger model of development than a kind of donut ring form of development.

I would like to see more of a green finger approach than a green belt approach which says, "Let's protect and enhance the green spaces that sit between these transport corridors. How do we make them work best for not just agriculture, but also for nature and biodiversity, and also for people to enjoy? Let's refocus our strategic planning along those transport corridors rail mainly and rapid bus and tram and so forth so that we can intensify those communities as huge amount of wasted space. I did my dissertation for my architecture part two, a billion and one years ago on exactly this, looking at a rural rail line and the tiny amount of land that was actually available for the development around it because of all of the various restrictions and how completely mad that was, which still 20 years on or more, this hasn't being addressed

Ben (01:30:43):

Very clear. Great. So would you like to comment on any current projects or future projects that you've got in the works, either in terms of writing projects or design and planning projects?

Hana (01:30:54):

Well, we've got lots of really fun projects in the studio at the moment. Mentioned this kind of project up in Lowestoft Town Hall taking up a lot of our time at the moment, but really interesting and hopefully quite impactful. Also, more sort of policy space projects and things like that as well. We're really interested in rural questions. So London and the big cities, loads of great architects and thinkers and people sort of constantly pouring over them. The rural space is relatively unexamined so I think we feel that there's a need for more thought and interesting approaches to be looked at in the rural domain. On a more sort of personal level, a few projects sort of developing. One little project that I don't know where it's going to go in the new year, but I'm actually going to be doing a little bit of recording work with someone who runs an amazing apple farm near us.

He knows more about that land and that climate than really anybody I've ever met intimately. And I think it might be a really interesting lens to talk about climate change as well. I'm very interested in these kind of long-term futures and how we go and look beyond the sort of immediate short-term generation that we live in. I guess a tree and an orchard is a kind of good vector for that in terms of those wider processes of renewal and change. So yeah, looking forward to talking with him and recording him and hopefully doing something with that in the future.

Ben (01:32:43):

That sounds really exciting. And would you like to end on any life advice or thoughts that you have either about someone wanting to have a career in design and architecture, or someone wanting to make their mark in the world in terms of sustainability or arts or just anything you've observed. We haven't touched upon actually, your music which is also something which you perform really highly at. So any life advice or thoughts.

Hana (01:33:15):

I mean, I always hesitate to give too much life advice because it always just sounds like an old person being kind of patronizing to young people to a degree. You and I, I think we were actually very lucky in the generation that we grew up in, in terms of the way that the world opened up for us more than generations before, and in many degrees, more than the generation that's coming up behind us. So I do feel that we were very, very lucky to be able to broaden our perspectives; still have a pretty good education at low cost or no cost. 

I would say the thing I think is really important is to actually do things in the real world. Do projects that get your hands dirty, practical things, and probably not just things that exist online. Maybe they could be online, but I would tend towards saying make something. Like run a market stall or make some furniture and try and sell it. Or try and design some clothes and see how that process works, or take a disused space in your community. You walk past a derelict lot and you think that could be amazing community garden or something. Try and make something practical happen in the world because what you learn from that is firstly, you can actually make things happen. You don't need to be scared of it. Really, it just takes someone with some persistence and energy to make things happen and then it can happen. 

But also, you learn an awful lot about the nature of bureaucracies and about the barriers that exist systemically as well as about how to talk to communities, how to work and collaborate with other sorts of people. I think getting out from behind the screen and into that space where you're having to negotiate and work with often frustrating things, but also with real people, learn to communicate, not be shy, just get out there I think is really important. I would definitely encourage anyone certainly coming up into my field, but I think more generally, it's wonderfully liberating to find out how much you can actually make happen if you just sort of dare and go out there and aren't afraid to break things and get a bit messy and dirty in the process.

Ben (01:35:49):

That sounds like excellent advice. Be a builder, be a maker. So on that note, Hana, thank you very much.

Hana (01:35:54):

Thank you Ben. Lovely to be here.