💬 "Can people really change?"

Hosts: Bill Gates, Rashida Jones
Guests: Kerry Washington, Bono
Category: Society & Culture | 💬 Opinion

Podcast’s Essential Bites:

[7:39] BG: “I think the chance of world wars is less because we get to know people from all over. The whole idea of go there, meet people from that location, understand their point of view. I hope the digital world is facilitating that, and that's why I hope we won't have conflagrations like World War II in the future. […] Exposure is key.”

[9:04] BG: “I hope, post the pandemic, that kind of [international] outreach is broad. After the World War, the world came together and created the United Nations and I think we'll see some of that now. We need some people speaking up for the benefits of cooperation.”

[9:36] BG: “I'm not a radical, a revolutionary, and I worry that people see radical solutions as the only way to move forward, whereas I see more centrist ways of being able to tackle problems. Not overnight, but I don't think the radical approach works overnight as well. The extreme views, that's a bit scary.”

[10:03] RJ: “I wonder what it's going to be that unifies us. If it’s not going to be a pandemic, and it's not going to be politics, what is it actually going to be? I believe that art can be a great unifier. I believe that humor can be a great unifier. Music can be a great unifier.”

[19:59] Bono: “Certainly our politics is a product of storytelling. Poor storytelling brings about poor politics and I consider myself to be a top line melody person. […] It might surprise you that I don't just look for that top line melody in music. I'm looking for it in ideas, in the world of ideas. I'm looking for it in politics and activism, all over the place. […] But Bill is also. You don't think of him as a singer, but he's also looking for that clear thought. […] Actually the [….] storytelling's become really important in the last years because in a time of fables, we need truth tellers. […] For this period our best story tellers are truth tellers. You don't think of Tony Fauci […] as a singer. He's fucking Frank Sinatra to me.”

[30:21] KW: “When we say to a celebrity ‘You should not be political,’ we're actually living in opposition to the reality that we all need to be political. We shouldn't tell anybody to not be engaged. Democracy requires us all. It's not a spectator sport.”

[43:40] BG: “I think there's limits to how much people can change. You can mellow. You can learn other people's points of view. You can give your kids a chance to be more enlightened than you are. […] A lot of the big change sadly requires generations to go by […].”

[45:31] BG: “If you look at the world 200 years ago, a third of all children died before the age of five and we didn't have electricity, we didn't have communications. Most people in the world were not literate. There has been this trend, it gets interrupted by wars or pandemics, a lot like the one we're experiencing right now. But the basic through line is that we learn together. Even in politics, the idea that the safety net should be more generous over time. Both parties, slowly but surely have taken the extra riches and tried to be a bit more fair about sharing that. I can't guarantee that it won't be a zig-zag, but between innovation and people's basic humanity, yes, I think the trend of the past we'll see, even during our lifetime, healthier, safer, somewhat more equitable world.”

[47:23] BG: “America's gone through several hundred years, including a civil war, a depression, two world wars, and you would have been scared at many of those points in time that we were off track. And yet, we've done better. Poverty, education, we've improved those things. Why would our generation be the one where the basic idea of democracy falls apart? Yes, we need to stay involved to make it work, but I don't see any problem harder than the ones that were faced by our ancestors.”

Rating: 🍎🍎🍎🍎

🎙️ Full Episode: Apple | Spotify
🕰️ 52 min | 🗓️ 12/14/2020
✅ Time saved: 50 min

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