Trevor Noah Makes My Brain Hurt

26:20No, I don't think it's conscious. I don't think we think... Yeah, but I'm saying even... Let's take the word enemy away. What we shared is we didn't have a choice, Simon. So let's take enemy away. Okay, okay, okay. State it a different way. Yeah. Yes. What you shared is you didn't have a choice. We shared this non-choice. And so when given no choice, you have to make it work. If a plane crashes and everyone survives and everyone's on this island together... You have to make it work. We cannot now say, how did you vote in the midterms? Hey, man, it doesn't matter right now. We have to make it work.

26:53I need you to get those coconuts. I need you to help us build a raft. So what is it about our current society that we don't feel we have to make it work? Because it's not like you can just sort of execute half the country and be like, oh, finally, they're gone. You know, short of half the country moving to one part and the other half moving to another part. Yeah. Like what is it about the current society that we don't feel like we have to cooperate? That's what I mean. There's the gift and the curse. We got the choice. It's impossible to go back from choice. And it's one of the great dilemmas.

27:24You can't ignore the apartheid government. You can't ignore. No, no, no. But remember. There was a confining. Yeah, exactly. So water. Water is a confining. Yeah. Water is a confining. The ocean is a confining factor. We are the people of this land. And then someone builds a ship. And it's like, well, now do you want to be the people of this land? Because you can go somewhere else. And then what happens? Someone goes like, I'm going to go to this America place because I don't like how the English are treating me. So what's that wetter neighborhood like now that people can leave and travel? Are they as tolerant as they used to be?

27:53Now what's interesting is I would argue, and because I don't spend as much time there anymore since my grandmother passed, I don't think that it's the same. but I still think a lot of it is the same because now the thing that's forced people is class and income. So still many people are forced. So the confining forces change. That's why I say forget the force. I understand. But there's still a confining force. Exactly. It went from government policy to... Yeah, socioeconomic. To social economic. Yeah, so now people cannot... The people who cannot afford to move out of Soweto still live in Soweto.

28:28And the people who have left have left. And just from my little anecdotal experiment and my anecdotal experiences, they're lonelier, they are sadder, they feel more isolated, they feel less purpose, they're caught up in like a drive that never ends, but they've just got to... And it's amazing to see. They have more than every generation that came before them. And wow, Simon, they are like... And it's amazing to see. And I think this is the thing that's tough. You can't undo getting something. I grew up religious and what I loved about the Bible is whether you think it's real or not, the stories are fantastic.

29:07They truly are. Once you have eaten the apple in the Garden of Eden, you cannot unsee that you are naked. And that's like almost what God tells Adam and Eve. He's like, oh, you guys messed up, man. Before this, you didn't know you needed clothes. And now you will spend every day thinking, I am naked. And he's like, that's why I didn't want you to eat the apple, but you guys ate the apple. This is the paradox of choice. The temptation is to conclude that it's money. The temptation is to say, but once you have wealth. No. But I think that it's more like the absence of struggle. In the cases, there's some sort of hardship that...

29:47Let me think about this. Your plane crash example, Soweto example. So it's like as hardship is relieved, and choice is a relief of hardship, then for some reason our ability to cooperate and put up with each other seems to go down. So I will agree with one part of it. I still come back to I don't even think it's hardship. I think it's just the constraining factor. Here's why I say this. Let's say there is an island of mega rich people and they go hang out together and they're on this mega rich island and they do whatever they want to do, right? It's the mega rich. They're having a great time. If they are confined or constrained in some way, they will find the same thing and they do find it temporarily.

30:41So if you've maybe been to them, I've visited them on occasion, but you know, you get these places where people go to these like golf resorts and it's like, wow, what is this place. And in that place, I have found people have a different level of community, a different level of enjoyment, a different level of, you know, it's like people buzzing around on golf cards and people meeting. And there's only the four restaurants. And all you can do is choose from one of the four. And so you just rotate. I will do the Spanish place on Monday. And then we always love doing the Italian place on Wednesdays.

31:14And I'll have the eggs again. Exactly. Because all of a sudden you're constrained so there's this weird thing that happens i even think about it for my life as i go the great curse is going to be the choice the great curse is going to be knowing that you can choose so how do you create artificial constraint for yourself to help yourself because i don't think it's about hardship at all i think you can have a good time together but if you cannot change the people or the situation it changes your ability to appreciate or get along with the change or the situation. So there's a story about a shoe salesman in Los Angeles in the 1950s.

31:50I can't remember his name, but he was a very successful entrepreneur who owned a whole bunch of women's shoe stores. A journalist asked him, what's your secret? And he said, two, not three. And they're like, what do you mean? He goes, if a woman comes into my store, I'll bring her a pair of shoes. She'll try them on. And she'll say, could I see that pair, please? And I'll bring her a second pair of shoes. And she said, could I also see that pair, please? and he'll say, which one would you like me to take away? Because what he found is when they had a choice of three, they bought none. And when they had a choice of two, they bought one.

32:23Ah, I love that. Right? Two, not three. Too much choice is overwhelming. Oh, man, I need to apply that to my life. You see, that's brilliant. I love it when people find the nexus of how you're supposed to do it. Because I understood it as a concept, but that's a nice way to think about it for anything, really. Yeah. And so what I've started doing in my life is I've added constraint, right? And I didn't even realize it until we're talking right now, which is like I've got all these options on the table. I mean, it doesn't matter what it is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I know what you mean. And what I'll start doing is I'll start pairing them off.

32:56I'll be like, okay, between these two, okay, get rid of that one. Okay, between these two, okay, get rid of that one. Between these two. And the choices become really easy. And then I get to the final two, I'm like, oh, it's obvious. It's that one. Whereas I'm looking at six or five or four or three, and I'm like, ah, but this one gives me this and that one, and I'm playing them off and doing sort of, you know, pros and cons. Yeah, I love that. But it's, you know the trick of the flipping the coin? Yeah. You know, I don't know, should I do this or that? And you like flip a coin. Yeah, and you accept fate's decision.

33:22Well, the question is, do you want to flip again? It's whether you're satisfied with the coin flip or not. And it works every time when people are stuck between a choice and you force them to flip a coin, you say the coin decides. And if they're happy with what the coin decides, they go with it. That is what they do. And if they're unhappy, then obviously go with the other one. Yes. because I think to that point because we are so terrified of making the wrong choice. And rightly so, by the way. If you're living your life well, you don't want to make the wrong choice. That's why when you book something, you go, sort by price.

33:50Because you're like, okay, I'll make it a price choice because the world has told me that price is the most important. But if they added other ones, I mean, like Google Flights does this, they'll go, oh, here's duration. Then you're like, oh, well, time is more important to me than the price. And another one will be like, sort by best value. And you're like, okay, I'll go for value. What is the price relative to what it normally costs? etc but they at least give you something to give you like a clear distinction and you only look at the first few because that's whatever your hierarchy is this idea of constraint is really important so the question is is like how do we add constraint at a social level at a societal level in order to help people better find community or at least get along and maybe that's not possible i think i think it happens naturally whether we like it or not it's the unnatural natural order but it seems not to have be happening right now yeah because exactly your last two words right now.

34:38We love everything right now in life. Everything is right now. People think this and I don't agree. I think it always goes to where are you zooming in and where are you zooming out? Genuinely, where are you zooming in and when are you zooming out? Because I think of everything, whether it's markets or whether it's countries or whether it's the world or whether it's terrible but it's the best it's ever been. And I will never minimize someone's experience because it's the moment that you're in. The moment that you're in is the most important moment for most of us. And then the larger thing is how you aggregate all of the moments and what you think of or how you remember them.

35:15So when I think of the right now, I go, let's use an example, which is a crazy example. I'm acknowledging this. But let's look at the United Healthcare CEO who was assassinated. I found it fascinating. And I'll throw all the disclaimers out there. So let's just say this is me using what I like to call my lab hands. I'm thinking of this more like a sterile lab. This is a thought experiment, not a social commentary. Yeah, forget all of it. I just go like, wow, what a crazy moment where one person was killed and I would argue most of the country was united in their joy, elation, frustration. Or at least being quote unquote fine with it.

36:02Schadenfreude, whatever you want. weird yeah yeah yeah but i i think to myself wow what just happened here yeah i'm willing to bet if you asked let's say we did a cross-section or you know we we selected people from all walks of life who were happy or fine or celebrated or whatever it was we asked those people hey what are you uh what are you happy about here what are you oh let's do it this way you said to them separately do you like it when people get killed they go no no no i'm i'm willing to bet all of them would 100 % against murder. Yeah, and you go like, do you like it when people don't like how the world is going, and so they shoot someone?

36:38They'd be like, no, no, no, no, no, that's chaos, that's anarchy. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. And if you broke this incident down into many different things, they would basically say no to all of it. 100%. So then I found myself asking, what was it about the collective action that brought so many different people together in a country where we're constantly told people are not together, right? We're always told, America's more polarized than ever. America's more polarized than ever. I go, but why weren't they polarized about this? And what's your conclusion? My conclusion is everybody is experiencing the same constraints.

37:13Whether you are a rich person or whether you're a poor person, the healthcare industry in America has constrained you to living in a world where you don't know whether you're going to be able to pay for the next bill, where you don't know if you'll go broke because of an incident. You don't know if you'll have enough. Or even just the frustration of being forced to jump through hoops. You see, it doesn't matter who you, and imagine that. Even a rich person goes, ah, the healthcare industry. And so in a way, in this moment, because of this action, we got to see how that constraint works. You're like, oh, because everyone is constrained to this, they are all then having the same experience.

37:50They're coming together in ways that nobody thought people could. And again, as I say, I'm not like happy about how it happened. No, no, no, of course, of course. But you're like, wow. It's an observation. But the last time I saw this happen, and again, it's an extreme example, but it's just data, right? It was after September 11th. After September 11th, there was this big concern that the Muslim world hated America. And so there was research done. They went to the moderate, average Arab on the street in Egypt and Jordan. And they asked them, what do you think about September 11th? A huge, huge number said, I think what happened was abhorrent.

38:21I think it's terrible. And then they added, but I understand it. And that's the part that I found very scary, which is the minute that a rational person can rationalize an abhorrent behavior, there's something under the surface that has to be addressed. I agree. But I understand it. Yeah. And this is what's happening now with this assassination, which is I think murder is horrible. I think that his family loss is horrible, horrible. But I understand it. Yeah. And it's that part that we need to explore. And we all know what it is, which is what's happening in the insurance industry in the United States has become so unjust and so unbalanced that we are able to rationalize and let go of our ethics and morals because of this.

39:03The opportunity is to somehow understand how it got to this place and try and back away from it. Because the last thing we want is for these unjust experiences to happen in the world and then you have vigilante justice is the only way to calm. Because what it is, it's frustration. It's the schadenfreude. It's an alleviation of frustration. Like I can't solve this problem. I'm still stuck in this problem. But I feel like I got some relief, which is a horrible thought. But is it though? Think of it, okay, let's flip it the other way around. I think we keep saying that because we don't want to be...

39:36Yeah, but let's flip it the other way around. This is again what this made me think about. What are laws? What are laws fundamentally? If not, how a society wishes... The constraints on... We agreed upon constraints on our behavior. Laws are fundamentally a fence that we build around a yard that we choose to agree to, yeah. So we all go, where's the fence for everything? Where's the fence for the speed limit? Where's the fence for shooting a person or not shooting? Where's the fence for food? And if I go outside that fence, I know there's a consequence. And people agree on the fence, right? Then what happens?

40:11Because of how power isn't equally shared, because of how some people are able to manipulate, all of a sudden, somebody's jumping over the fence, and you're like, hey. And the person's like, yeah, well, look how big I am. I'm a corporation. and you're like, yeah, but we agreed on the fence. And they're like, yeah, well, I didn't break the fence. I just climb over it. And you're like, I mean, yeah, but we... The whole point of the fence is that you're not supposed to get over it. And they're like, no, no, the law says I'm not allowed to break the fence, but I can climb over the fence. And then what happens to the people?

40:42If they can't do anything within the fence, they then go, okay, look, you get over the fence. I can't get over the fence. And then one person, this kid, allegedly goes, actually, you know what? I'm just going to break the fence. And so then people go Actually in a weird way And this is what's so complicated for people to understand Especially people if they're in like power or whatever Because of how close it is to them They panic We're going to live in a world where there's just chaos Do you know why so many people agreed with it? Because it wasn't chaos I think that's what a lot of people are missing And I'm not saying I'm for it But I'm saying we miss it if we don't realize It wasn't chaos We're trying to understand Why people understand and we're trying to understand why people are fine.

41:25Yes. Or at least able to rationalize it away. Because I go, they are in many ways going, if this had happened to anyone else or to anything else, we would then apply the rules and the values. But just like a legal system, how we respond to the situation will change depending on how the person has responded. I think what people are missing is that he's not a father or a husband. He's a symbol. Yes, and an active participant. More than just the symbol. You're the CEO. But people feel a moral rebalancing. Completely. Yeah, completely. And this is why I say in the same way, funny enough. Like, quote, unquote, that seems fair.

42:06Which, do you know the concept of ethical fading? No. So ethical fading is a concept where we're able to rationalize unethical behavior. And there's a few things that contribute to ethical fading. We see this inside corporations. We see this inside governments. So one of the things that contributes to ethical fading, sort of peer pressure. Like, well, everyone's doing it. I mean, if I'm not going to do it, they're going to do it, and they're going to have the advantage, and I won't. So, right? The other one is that's what my boss wants. It's what I need to do. The other one is sort of self-talk, that rationalizing, like, I've got to put food on the table.

42:42Right. Like, I have no choice. Right? And then there's the slippery slope. Well, he did it. Nothing happened to him, so why can I do it? And when cultures with weak leaders allow ethical fading to happen, what you do is you get Wells Fargo with people opening up fake bank accounts to hit their numbers. They all know it's wrong. What you do is you get pharmaceutical companies who have patents on essential drugs raising the prices 500%, 1 ,000%, 1 ,500%. What you get is insurance companies saying, well, pay for your anesthetic up to one hour of surgery. Anything more than one hour, it's on you. Knowing that most surgeries are not going to be that hour.

43:16And they pull numbers out of their ass, and everybody knows it's wrong. It's unethical. But in weakly-led companies, good people, because we say things like, how can they sleep at night? They sleep fine, right? Like, good people are able to rationalize away unethical behavior. If we're really honest with ourselves and we peel away the onion from a lot of companies, and I think it's particularly egregious in public companies, ethical fading runs rampant in America today. And I think what we're starting to see is a responding to that in the rise of populism and the rationalizing of apparent behavior, because we're seeing a rebalancing of you did something so unethical to us.

43:57One point on this side of the team, one point to the powerless. Right. Right. And the question that we have to ask as a society is, yes, he'll go to jail and justice will be done because he went outside the fence. but we have to address the thing but i understand it if we don't all the fears the executives have will all come true unless we actually address the yes but i understand it but i who's going to do that i would also argue this though and maybe okay maybe i'll stop asking you this this is a very deep conversation that you said you don't like small talk no no but people but i but i put a you know we when we when we promote the podcast we've got a picture of trevor noah and we'll put a little clip and people like i'm gonna listen to this one it's gonna be so funny i mean we can still make jokes um the so so here's the question i have for you do you think that this alleged shooter do you think that that was an ethical fading no i think the ethical fading happens on the side of the insurance companies okay so you don't think it's of the like the people who even like go like yes we're fine with this oh that's actually interesting it's on both sides because we are rationalizing we are okay so the ethical fading is i mean so i'm asking i don't know i'm thinking i don't i'm not 100 sure of the answer so because the definition is our ability to do unethical things make decisions outside of our ethical frameworks rationalizing that they're okay right and so i guess yes so you see that's that's where i don't think so so so this is this is what this is what i mean so this is this is what i've been wrestling with no i know you know what i know Okay, go.

45:33He knew what he was doing was illegal. He knew what he was... Okay, yes. He had an awareness that what he's about to do is illegal, which is why he took all the steps to hide himself. Whereas in the companies, there's literally a mis... Like, no, no, no, everything's fine. Everything's fine. But they know. I argue... Deep, deep, deep they know. I don't even think deep. I think shallow they know. Okay, here's why. Here's what I think it is. Let's stick on the healthcare industry because this is like really where most people, I think, have a loathing, you know, where people are, what's brought people together.

46:04Let's take a step back from this story that was in the news. Let's look at like the opioid crisis where millions of Americans died, lost family. We always forget like the secondary effects, right? We always think of the earthquake. We forget about the aftershock. Think of everybody who lost a family member. We know what that does to a family. A breadwinner disappears. What does that do to the kids? What happens when a community has breadwinners that disappear? Right? And then we look at the people who benefited the most from it and what happened to them. Arguably nothing. Oh, they lost a little bit of money.

46:44Not all their money, by the way. Not all their money. A little bit of their money. I always found it particularly interesting that El Chapo would be arrested and the U.S. government would take all of the money that they could, all of it, and go like, yeah, it's ill-gotten. money. They wouldn't go like, well, El Chapo, some of this you earned from interest and some of this you earned from other ventures that aren't actually drugs. And some of they just go like, no, no, we're taking all your money. But then for the Sackler family, they don't take all their money. They go like, I pay a fine. Do you know what I mean?

47:18Pay a fine. Why not all their money as well? Look at what they did and look at how many people affect, not even jail. And so what starts to happen then, I think, and this is what I think we have to grapple with as a society is beyond like the, this is what I always try and talk to people in power about is I go, it is easy when you are close to power to assume that the actions of the powerless are devoid of morality because you have the levers of power. And so power responds to you accordingly, right? But when people live in a country where their health care gets denied, they pay insurance, believing they will be insured, and then only when they're on their deathbed do they get tricked out of it.

48:01People are like, what has happened here? And then the recourse is almost nothing. There's nothing you can do. The difficult thing for us to grasp is when do we say that a person has done something wrong? I always think about this with history. It blows my mind. The British did not think that the Americans were heroes. They did not think that, right? When Paul Revere and all these people are riding around on horses, the British aren't like, ah, these heroes, man, these heroes. Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah, I'll start terrorists. The Spanish did not go like, ah, Che Guevara, what a hero, fighting for his people.

48:40Ah, Che Guevara, doing his thing. You know what I mean? History is littered with examples of people who did the wrong thing by the confines of what that current time agreed on. And then afterwards, the people were like, this was for the greater good. And so this is why I say I'm wrestling with it. I'm wrestling because it is a complicated thing because the one side of my brain, as Trevor goes, hey, man, I don't want to live in a world where someone goes around shooting somebody because they feel like the thing doesn't work the way they would like it to and it's affected them. I don't want that.

49:14You know what I mean? And I would argue that's what a lot of, let's say, even gang violence is. you did me wrong, I'm going to shoot you, or the mob did the same thing. Vigilante justice is not a thing we agreed to. There's one side of my brain that says that as Trevor, completely. Then the other side of my brain goes, yes, but we don't seem to have mechanisms that work effectively for when large bodies do these things. So what do we do? Someone will be like, oh, with the legals, but we've seen it doesn't work. So it's like, what do people do? And I think that's why I'm so interested in answering the question because I think CEOs of, let's even just stick in the healthcare industry because that's where the thing is aimed, by the way.

49:52It's not, like, I love how they're going to try and make it seem like it's CEOs. It's like, no, no, no, no, no, no. Let's be honest here. The CEO of Ben & Jerry's is fine. They don't have to get any extra security. None whatsoever. Don't try to rope CEOs in. Let's make it industry specific. Yeah, yeah. Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is like a dictator being like, us world leaders, we have such a tough time getting the people and it's like whoa whoa whoa whoa yeah there's world leaders you know what stalin said right which is the death of one man is a tragedy and the death of a million is a statistic right and that's what we're dealing with here you're dealing with the emotions of a person with a name and a face yes and the emotion of that versus the statistic of how many people have suffered as a result and you and it's very hard to compare thousands to somebody with a name and a face one is emotional and the other one is rational yeah and i that's why i think it's important for us whenever those types of things happen i think it's important for us if we if we want to think of ourselves as thinkers, we have to then go, hmm, what is this actually telling us about society?

50:50Like if I was a lawmaker in Washington, I'm thinking less about the fact that a person was killed. And I'm thinking more about why my population, for the most part, thinks that it was everything from understandable to great. That's what I would be thinking of. I'd go like, ooh. Because the people, exactly. I think at the base level, I understand it. Do you see what I'm saying? And unfortunately, we all understand it. That's the thing. And now if I'm a CEO of a health insurance company or whatever, yes, as much as I think about getting security, the thing I would think is like, whoa, how do we change the way we do business?

51:24Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute, wait a minute. Do I want this company to be a thing that the majority of a country wishes death upon? Whoa. You have just defined politics in America, which is regardless of who somebody voted for, if you just look at the way people voted, and if you don't understand why they voted for it, then you don't understand what has to be fixed in America. Yeah. The person who voted for Trump can say, I can tell you why I voted. And the person who didn't vote for Trump has to be able to say, but I understand it. Yes. Or even, I would even say this, though. I sometimes pose it this way to people who don't agree with that.

52:05They'll go, no, I don't understand how you could, because the Democrats have a more robust policy for doing that, and they're going to bring the poor up. So I go, okay, let's do it another way then. Let's actually do it another way. I don't force you to understand. Let's do it another way. Would you agree that this person's concern is real? So now, let's not say that they did or didn't do the thing. Let's not say that you, like, because you'll go, like, no, but it's not true. Do you agree that there are fewer jobs and people have fewer opportunities and they can't catch up with inflation and towns are falling into disrepair and they're becoming, do you agree with that?

52:47Yes, but Trump's not going to fix it. Ah, okay, great. But at least now, you may not understand, but you do see that these things are real. And I think this is what we struggle with sometimes in life is we don't realize that issues are real. Politics are an imagined way to solve the issues, right? But the issue's there. Issues like a pothole, it exists. The politics is arguing about who pays for the pothole or how we get to fix the pothole, but the pothole is very real. And so I think sometimes what we do is we don't spend enough time just acknowledging the pothole and we spend more time arguing about why the other person thinks the pothole should be filled with sand instead of concrete.

53:26But if we just spent a little more time on that, and I've said this to any Democrat I meet who's in power or whatever, I go, why don't you just make your thing, like, irresistible? You know? It's the same way I would say, like, Americans as a concept of democracy. Yeah, yeah. I'm like, just make it irresistible. That everybody wants it. You won't have to force... You know what's irresistible? Movies. Have you noticed that you don't have to go to any country and bomb it to force them to watch The Avengers? Have you noticed that? You know how you know this, Simon? People bootleg movies. Exactly.

53:55They steal them. America has never had to fly to a communist country, to a socialist... They've never had to fly to any of them and drop DVDs on them and be like, you watch these movies! Those people have bootlegged them and translated them into their language without you forcing them. Why? Because that thing was amazing. The film industry made something that was irresistible and if you make something that is good, people will want it. And because Ben and Jerry's is good, people will want it. And so I go, think of it like that. Make everything good. So I say as a Democrat, if you are a Democrat, I go like, okay, just find the states where you control.

54:34You're the governor. You are the senator. You are the mayors. Just make it good. Yo, yo, yo, yo, yo. So then make your state so irresistible that people are like, I want my state like that one. I'm either going there or I like my state like that one. Exactly. As opposed to saying, we could, we could. Because I don't think that the one has to wait for the other. And I think that's something that we take for granted is if the thing is good, people, yo, people are always going to come for a thing that is good. you don't have to force them to believe in it. That is a perfect place to end this. This was good.

55:03And hopefully we won't have to force anybody to come to it. The problem with talking to you is I never want it to end. I have endless energy. My brain hurts a little bit. And I really love it. It's like, you know, you go to the gym and you get muscle pain. You're like, ah, it's good. You know, that's how my brain feels right now. And I absolutely love it. The feeling is mutual. Every time I sit down with you, I sit at the beginning, I sit at the end. I absolutely, absolutely love talking to you. You have an insight into how the world works and how people work. Clearer than most people in the world.

55:36Such a joy, such a joy, such a joy. It really is. It's mutual. That's why I love sitting with you. No small talk. Maybe, yeah, I mean a little bit. But maybe that's what makes our conversation so great is that at some point they have to end. And so that constraint is what keeps them being amazing. Exactly. If we did it all the time, it wouldn't be as fun. Thank you, my friend. Thank you.

56:00If you enjoyed this podcast and would like to hear more, please subscribe wherever you like to listen to podcasts. And if you'd like even more optimism, check out my website, simonsynic.com, for classes, videos, and more. Until then, take care of yourself, take care of each other. A Bit of Optimism is a production of The Optimism Company. It's produced and edited by Lindsay Garbenius, David Jha, and Devin Johnson. Our executive producers are Henrietta Conrad and Greg Rudersham.