Tight Values, Loose Ideas with Malcolm Gladwell

Malcolm Gladwell sits down with Trevor and Christiana to discuss his new book, and why values should be held tightly but ideas should be held loosely. The trio also delve into the importance of television in shaping culture, and into their respective African roots (yes, Malcolm has African roots).

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Trevor Noah?

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• 0:42Trevor Noah?

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• 1:25Trevor Noah?

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• 1:58Speaker 01

  Trevor, you don't know this yet. You will someday. The, you know, the, the market share capture, the brain share capture of toddlers by Sesame Street is like 95%.

• 2:09Speaker 02

  It's insane.

• 2:09Trevor Noah?

  Wait, it's still that high?

• 2:11Speaker 02

  Oh, yes.

• 2:12Trevor Noah?

  That's amazing.

• 2:12Speaker 02

  It's a classic.

• 2:13Trevor Noah?

  No, no, but I'm happy about it. I thought like it was over for Sesame Street. And now it was all like Cocamelon and...

• 2:19Speaker 01

  No.

• 2:19Trevor Noah?

  Oh, that's really good.

• 2:20Speaker 01

  They have got to strangle. They got to, they have your kid in a head.

• 2:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's Sesame Street.

• 2:24Trevor Noah?

  That's a healthy headlock.

• 2:25Speaker 02

  Peppa Pig and Cocamelon.

• 2:26Trevor Noah?

  Oh, Peppa Pig is fire.

• 2:27Speaker 02

  Cocamelon is like crack.

• 2:29Speaker 01

  Cocamelon, I outlaw Cocamelon.

• 2:31Trevor Noah?

  Cocamelon is dangerous. I don't know what's happening.

• 2:33Speaker 02

  I call them the Cocofellas, the kids that watch that stuff.

• 2:36Trevor Noah?

  I don't know what's happening with Cocamelon.

• 2:37Speaker 01

  If I have to listen to any more Cocamelon, I'm bringing back Stock and Frisco. That's, that's how much it would radicalize me.

• 2:49Trevor Noah?

  This is What Now with Trevor Noah.

• 3:00Speaker 02

  We were telling people, when we talked about you, I was like, do you know black people don't know Malcolm's black? But white people don't know Malcolm's black.

• 3:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:07Speaker 02

  We were talking about, I was like, white people don't know.

• 3:09Speaker 01

  No, I'm stealth. I would have, back in the day, would have been very, I was born in the wrong century. 19th century, fantastic for me.

• 3:21Speaker 02

  You would have taken the system down from the inside out.

• 3:24Speaker 01

  They're like, wait a minute. Like historians would have uncovered 100 years later, wait a second, he was black. What was he doing in Congress?

• 3:31Speaker 02

  Talking about Malcolm being passing to white people. Black people see the hair, they're like, nah, nah, nah, nah.

• 3:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a tell.

• 3:38Trevor Noah?

  It is a tell. It's completely a tell. But now you'd, I didn't know that. When did this Nigerian thing happen?

• 3:42Speaker 01

  I did my 23 and me and I'm 23% Ebo.

• 3:47Speaker 02

  Oh, my God.

• 3:47Speaker 01

  Which is so fantastic. And I put it on Twitter and I mean, and this is like every Nigerian on Twitter is like, oh, my God, fantastic. But every single one was positive. Like it was the most, you know, inclusive experience I've ever had in my life. I was very happy and cause, but it was obvious because... Jamaicans are all Igbo, right?

• 4:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:05Speaker 01

  Jamaican is just Nigeria.

• 4:07Trevor Noah?

  Right.

• 4:07Speaker 01

  It's my advanced theory of Jamaican.

• 4:09Trevor Noah?

  So you had no clue that you had any Nigerian in you?

• 4:13Speaker 01

  Well, I guessed.

• 4:15Trevor Noah?

  Okay, but now you know definitively.

• 4:16Speaker 01

  Now I know definitively.

• 4:17Trevor Noah?

  Wait, what is it? So 23% Igbo?

• 4:19Speaker 02

  That's a significant amount.

• 4:19Trevor Noah?

  It's not enough for the tipping point, as we've learned from this book. It's not enough, Malcolm. You're like 7% short.

• 4:25Speaker 02

  You can change the rules. You're a Nigerian. We'd like to switch the rules.

• 4:27Trevor Noah?

  Nigeria's 1%.

• 4:29Speaker 02

  Either one of us.

• 4:30Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, because Nigeria's would be technically 1%, though. Because he more than.

• 4:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, on the Jamaican front, I was at the world championships, track championships, and I see Shelley Anne Fraser-Pryce, one of my heroes. So she's like this big. I go up and say, hello, my name is Malcolm. I don't know if you know this, I'm half Jamaican. She says, there's no such thing as half Jamaican.

• 4:53Trevor Noah?

  There's only Jamaican. Yeah.

• 4:55Speaker 01

  That's the right attitude.

• 4:56Trevor Noah?

  That is the right attitude.

• 4:57Speaker 01

  There's no such thing as 23% Nigerian.

• 4:59Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, I sometimes think that's what, like, if instead of the British, if Africans colonized the world, no one would have been left out. Do you know what I mean? Because like, no, because all other colonization was like, you're not like us.

• 5:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:12Trevor Noah?

  And then like, whereas Africans are very much, anyone black anywhere, they just go like, no, no, you're with us. Let's go. Let's go. It doesn't matter. Even if, have you even seen those videos online of people who can just speak the language or can do the accent well? They're like, all right, you're one of us.

• 5:27Speaker 02

  I'm saying Malcolm should go to Abi State. They'll make him a chief.

• 5:31Trevor Noah?

  Chief Gladwell.

• 5:32Speaker 01

  I'll take it.

• 5:32Trevor Noah?

  Chief Gladwell.

• 5:33Speaker 02

  Ew, Malcolm Gladwell.

• 5:36Trevor Noah?

  Oh, man. Malcolm, I saw you releasing a new book, and you know I'm a huge fan of yours. We've talked over the years. I'm always trying to see what Malcolm Gladwell is thinking of to give me a sense of like, what I'm missing in the world. I think a lot of people think like that. You know, as my friend David says, who you've met, David always used to say, you make people think they're smart because they read your book and then they talk to other people about it. But like, this book is an interesting take on Malcolm Gladwell. Like revenge of the tipping point. At first I was like, wait, is it a continuation? Is it a? But no, it feels like you are going up against you.

• 6:20Speaker 01

  You're thinking it's an exercise in self hatred? Is that what you're saying?

• 6:24Trevor Noah?

  No, no, no, no, because here's the thing. Oftentimes, people will write a book that and very, very seldom will it change the world. Let's start with that, right? The tipping point, I would argue, changed the way people fundamentally think about many things. And then very few people would then go back and go, well, actually, let's change some of the thinking that this book basically laid the foundations for. Why do that?

• 6:44Speaker 01

  Well, no one likes changing his mind more than me. First of all, I just enjoy it. My dad, my dad really enjoyed it. And as a kid, some of my, my greatest memories of my father, who was a marvelous character in his own, was him just shamelessly changing his mind on a subject. Like, without any explanation or apology, he just would agree. He'd talk to somebody and he, if he would always make this calculation. He would talk to someone and if he thought they knew even 1% more on a subject than he did, he'd just like, all right, you're right. You know, and now think this, and he was done. I thought it was fantastic as a child. And I, and secretly, that's what I want. I want to be the guy who wakes up and decides.

• 7:28Speaker 01

  And Kate, my partner, is always making fun of me on this because I will not like someone. And then I'll just wake up and think, they're great. Like, why don't we have them over? She's like, wait, I thought you didn't like them. So, yeah, that's, you know, that was the past. Now I'm all over them. So I, I didn't read The Tipping Point after I wrote it. And then it was his anniversary and I thought, oh, I should read it again. Because we were thinking of doing a new revised edition. So I read it again. I'm like, wait a second, I wrote that? Like, I just felt I was like arguing with the book the whole time. So that's like, I want to do a new one. That was basically what happened.

• 8:04Trevor Noah?

  Are you the opposite of the same?

• 8:05Speaker 02

  I'm the opposite. And that's why I find it so interesting that you were raised by a man who like changes his mind easily. Like, my parents are like deep Christians and they're not changing their mind about anything.

• 8:15Speaker 01

  My parents, deep Christians.

• 8:17Speaker 02

  Okay, that's interesting.

• 8:18Trevor Noah?

  They're not changing. All of us here.

• 8:20Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 8:21Trevor Noah?

  Super deep Christians, here we are. Three of us are gathered in his name, let's go.

• 8:25Speaker 01

  No, but no, not changing mind about that.

• 8:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I'm saying that I'm used to real rigidity and rules. And I want to call it dogma orthodoxy, right? So it's surprising that, I think it takes great humility, but it also must be quite painful to go back and read this book that. As Trevor said, change the way we think about ideas and how they spread and be like, hmm, not right.

• 8:48Speaker 01

  I don't think it's painful. First of all, just to go back on parents for a second. So my father, my father's, can I talk about my dad? Yeah, of course. Talk about your dad. He passed six or seven years ago. And I wrote his obituary and I said, he had strong opinions about the Bible, gardening and mathematics. And on everything else, he was open to suggestion. And I sort of think that's the right model. You've got to have your core set of things that you hold dearly. And I think you should, I always use the phrase that ideas should be held loosely. And they're not values, but ideas. Values you hold tightly, but ideas you hold loosely because stuff changes and you grow up or you're, you know, in the original Tipping Point, there's a chapter on crime, which is

• 9:31Speaker 01

  just, I want to, why New York City crime fell in the 90s. It's an appalling chapter.

• 9:40Speaker 02

  Is this like the broken windows?

• 9:42Speaker 01

  Yes. Jesus, like, what was I thinking? I mean, I didn't know any better, I guess. But it's not difficult. To me, it's very freeing to say I was wrong.

• 9:52Speaker 02

  I'm curious, is it that the world, do you think the world has changed that radically in the 25 years? Or were the ideas wrong then?

• 10:01Speaker 01

  Well, I've, I mean, the world, yes, of course, the world has changed, although probably changed less than we think. I think sometimes we fetishize, you know, certain kinds of technological innovation and think we've reinvented ourselves as human beings. And it's just, to my mind, a little bit more of the same. But mostly it's that I've moved, like, the crime example is a good one, that I wrote that, broken windows was a fetish in New York City in the 90s. The mayor Giuliani at the time was like, running around and saying, you know, the only way to stop murder was to stop people from peeing on the sidewalk. Now, I think he was right to say that we should, people shouldn't be peeing on the sidewalk and we should clean up. That was totally right. But he made two subsequent connections.

• 10:45Speaker 01

  His first thing was that the way to stop people from engaging in that kind of behavior was to arrest them by the thousands. And then secondly, he said, and that's also, by the way, how you stop violent crime. Both of those second claims were, in retrospect, preposterous, right?

• 11:00Speaker 01

  In the moment in the late 90s, when we had just witnessed New York go from being one of the least safe big cities in North America to one of the safest, we were sort of willing to accept, to pay any price for that improvement in safety and accept any explanation. And that was the fever that I was caught up in. It was like, okay, we're arresting hundreds of thousands of young black men in the Bronx and Brooklyn, but better be, better that than being killed. That's what we were all thinking. Yeah. And then, you know, I subsequently learned, this is actually an incredibly interesting history. You know, what happens is a judge stops stop and frisk in New York.

• 11:41Speaker 01

  We go from stopping 700,000 people in one year to stopping 20,000. And everyone says, including the judge who stopped it, crime's going to go back up. And what happens? Crime falls another 50%. And everyone's like, oh, my God. Not only was stop and frisk irrelevant to the crime drop, maybe it was preventing us from using police resources in a way that actually helped. Oh, yeah. Solve. So we learned, this happened in 2012. And my point is, if you lived through that learning moment in 2012, when we took away stop and frisk and crime fell another 50%, if you lived through those next five years and you didn't change your mind, then you are morally bankrupt. Right?

• 12:25Speaker 01

  You have to have changed your mind at that point. So you have to acknowledge, it's not wrong to be wrong in 1996. It's wrong to not change your mind after we learned something crucial in those, in those post stop and frisk years. It's like, you have to get a, you have to respond. The price of playing the game of ideas in the world is you have to stay on your toes and respond to new evidence as it arises. That's the, you want to play this game, that's the rule.

• 12:57Trevor Noah?

  Okay, here's the thing. I think there are two things that you don't do that probably help you. One, you don't make it your identity. So you wrote about broken windows, but then there were some people who shaped their lives around broken windows. And then, secondly, you didn't implement any policies. And I think that's probably one of the scariest things. Like politicians in America are perfect examples. Very few of them are able to say, yeah, that was wrong. We used data that at the time was misread or misunderstood or we used what we had and we we made an incorrect decision. They don't say that. They go like, no, if you look at what we were trying to do and we we still because everyone's afraid to say, I mean, just in life, everyone is afraid to say I was wrong. Like, listening to you right now,

• 13:40Trevor Noah?

  I don't know how many times I've heard human beings say that. Just go like, I look back and go like, damn, what was I thinking?

• 13:46Speaker 01

  Although, so, I mean, I find it's weird. And also, it's so long ago. Like, this is the, this was the late 90s. I'm older than you guys, but it's like, have you looked at your high school yearbook? Or like, it's just, everything about it is cringe-worthy. I mean, it should be fine to look back on your 25 years in the past self and have an issue. I would, I would hope he would have an issue.

• 14:12Speaker 02

  I think it's because so much of the world that we live in currently, it's built, say, as a foreigner coming to America, so many times, the Constitution is a reference and the amendments are a reference. Our world is built on ideas that sometimes emerged thousands of years ago, and we refuse to revisit them in the same way you're revisiting tipping point.

• 14:34Trevor Noah?

  But the funny thing about the amendments for me is the name itself. Like, whenever people get angry, you know, like, you talk about the amendments, you go like, oh, change them. And then like, you don't change the amendment. And I'm like, amendment means change. It literally means change.

• 14:46Speaker 02

  But I don't want any more change.

• 14:47Trevor Noah?

  Yes, but what I'm saying is like, that's, that's what I find ironic in the whole situation is like, I agree with you, Constitution, old document, but it's a living document, you know, for like, it was one of the first documents that was created where they said, hey, the whole purpose of this thing is that you're supposed to change it because, look, we think what we think right now. It's almost like the forefathers looked at each other and they were just like, I don't know about these wigs, I don't know about these shoes, so I don't know about these ideas. So let's let people change them. And like, like I've seen, I mean, I don't know if you like, read reviews about your work, some people almost seem, seem angry at you. They like seem angry that Malcolm Gladwell would change. Because here's my my theory. So I love changing my mind. Okay, maybe that's why I like you so much.

• 15:31Trevor Noah?

  But I think some people base their ideas on other people's ideas. And so then if you change your idea, they get so angry at you. Because they're like, no.

• 15:46Speaker 01

  You're making him do work.

• 15:47Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 15:48Speaker 01

  You have to revise your opinion of them. And that seems like.

• 15:51Trevor Noah?

  Oh.

• 15:52Speaker 01

  That that seems like an imposition. I think that's what. As opposed to kind of.

• 15:59Speaker 01

  You know, it's the same way when a musician. Makes a kind of change in their style. And there's always a set of fans who are appalled by this like. Like they don't like they want the musician to be kind of frozen in amber. Yeah. To be the same person they encountered for the first time at 16. And how dare you use an electric guitar or whatever. The argument is, yeah, it is a it is a funny. I don't I mean, I think you view. The question is, who is your obligation to as a writer? Is it to your audience or is it to yourself? And I think it has to be first and foremost, it has to be to yourself. We're going to continue this conversation right after this short break.

• 16:35Trevor Noah?

  Some of the most interesting things you learn happen while you're doing something completely ordinary. Maybe you're cooking dinner while watching a history video. Maybe you're on a flight catching up on a long form interview. Or maybe you're trying to figure out how to fix something in your house. Because apparently owning a screwdriver means you're an electrician now. But you see, that's one of the things I love about YouTube Premium. I travel a lot, so I download videos before a flight. That way, I'm not leaving my entertainment in the hands of airplane wifi. Yeah, I've made that mistake before. You think you're going to watch something in 4K and suddenly everyone's face is pixels. But one of my favorite features is smart downloads.

• 17:16Trevor Noah?

  You see, YouTube Premium can automatically download recommended videos for you based on what you already watch. So sometimes I'll get on a plane, I look at my phone, I'm like, ah, I didn't download anything. And it's like, no, YouTube already thought about this. They packed entertainment for me in my little lunchbox. And with background play, I can lock my phone, switch apps, and whatever I'm watching just keeps on going. So. If you like YouTube, you will love YouTube Premium. Sign up now for your free trial at youtube.com/premium. Terms apply. Cancel anytime.

• 17:50Speaker 03

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• 18:16Trevor Noah?

  Computers are getting smarter, Silicon Valley's getting weirder, and AI is taking over. At least that's what everyone keeps telling us. Welcome to Machine Gods, a new NPR podcast that will be your field guide to the AI-powered future. We're veteran tech journalists with front row seats to the industry. And twice a week, we'll make sure you get smarter about AI. So you know what's real, what's hype, and what might come next. Listen to Machine Gods from NPR on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 18:53Trevor Noah?

  So now, let's play, I want to play a Malcolm Gladwell game in this moment here. So someone might go, but Malcolm, how can I, how can I trust this? Because now, like, you just wrote a book that says I shouldn't trust what you wrote in the other book, and then how do you, like, how do you, like, do you know what I mean?

• 19:11Speaker 01

  It's not that you shouldn't trust what I said in the other book.

• 19:13Trevor Noah?

  Right.

• 19:14Speaker 01

  It's that I've moved on. It's just not where I am at this moment.

• 19:18Trevor Noah?

  So you're saying, like, it's not that the ideas are wrong, it's that we should be able to change our, we should be able to evolve our ideas based on new information?

• 19:26Speaker 01

  I haven't repudiated them. They're not who I am now, right? You know, in the same way, it wasn't, to go back to my dad, for example, when my dad changed his mind, sometimes it would be, he would go from, you know, A to Z. But sometimes it was just, he just, there was an earlier version of himself that believed this, and then that self was gone, and he was now someone who... Believe this new thing. It was just a kind of, it was, it's just about accepting the evolution. Thinking involves evolution.

• 19:55Trevor Noah?

  You're, you're somebody, you're a journalist, you know, and you, you're used to digging and borrowing and, you know, finding old tapes and, and newspaper articles and like for the average person, like where do they get the new ideas? Where do they even get the opportunity to change their minds, you know?

• 20:10Speaker 01

  This is, this is interesting. I, I have a friend of mine, I was playing the game of, I love playing the magic wand game, where you, you could change, wave a magic wand and change one thing, what would it be in the world? And her answer was to make everyone in the world for one year, trade places with someone else in the world. So just imagine a big random, everyone in the world puts a random hat. And then you take, you put your address, you put your address in a hat and then you pull out a different address and you gotta live there for a year. And her argument would be-

• 20:43Trevor Noah?

  This only works for people with addresses, by the way. I'm just gonna point this out. If you're unhoused- Yeah, if you, some people are just on the street. You just have to put where you were on the street and then someone touches with you.

• 20:52Speaker 01

  Yes, yes. And her argument would be that this would be the single greatest way to solve like, the single greatest short-term solution to mankind's problems. By the way, I think she's a hundred percent right. This is such a genius idea. But my point is, if you wanna participate in the world in a, in a kind of ethical way, is I have, you have to do a version of this in your life. So my, I have a simple thing I do, which is I try and change the people I, I follow a very small number of people on Twitter and I change, constantly change them.

• 21:28Speaker 01

  And so I cycle through, like, I'm always, like, once a week or something, I drop two or three people and add two or three people, just trying, cause you get exposed to new-

• 21:37Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 21:38Speaker 01

  And I try to get the, I also want, so I, I follow the Ukrainian war for, I don't know why, really closely, but entirely through these ex-military guys who are obsessed with logistics. I love these guys. And like, it's stuff I would never in a million years have heard of before. It's not, none of what they say is in the news. It's all so weird and super interesting. My favorite guy is this guy, Trent Chalinko. I love Trent Chalinko. I want to meet him one day. Who's like, by the way, he's been saying that Russians, Russians are gonna lose. For, he's been saying this since the beginning of the war. And he had this great tweet early in the war where he found a photograph of a Russian transport carrier, like a truck, that was in the, stuck in the mud.

• 22:22Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 22:23Speaker 01

  And he zeros in on the tires.

• 22:25Trevor Noah?

  Oh, I remember this.

• 22:26Speaker 01

  Do you remember this?

• 22:26Trevor Noah?

  Yes, I remember this.

• 22:27Speaker 01

  Made in the USSR? And he was like, they've lost. They can't win. Their tires are from before the wall fell.

• 22:35Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 22:35Speaker 01

  And he had, he goes this whole rant about tires. But how you gotta, you gotta be rotating the tires. If the, if the truck's in storage, the tire's gonna break apart, like, it's like, and if there's tires of that, that says that your this doesn't work and you don't have this. And like, and I was like, so that's like, you, you have to keep exposing yourself. That's how you, that's how you learn about what you need to update.

• 22:55Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 22:55Speaker 01

  Right?

• 22:55Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 22:56Speaker 01

  So now, when I read something conventional about the war, I have a slightly different perspective because I have trends in my head.

• 23:02Trevor Noah?

  Mm hmm.

• 23:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:02Speaker 01

  And I'm asking a different set of questions about than I would have otherwise. I'm not, not that I, it's not that I'm a skeptic. It's just that I just, I have a different, you know, I'm looking at it from a different perspective, like.

• 23:14Speaker 02

  What you've described, I think you have this basic level of intellectual curiosity. And Trevor said earlier that the reason you can hold your ideas loosely is because your ideas aren't your identity.

• 23:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:26Speaker 02

  Now, I would say, it feels in this specific moment for a lot of people, that their ideas are actually a huge part of their identity. They make up their identity. So if, they're not gonna come apart from that idea because it's like, who am, there's a vacuum after that. So what do we do when we're engaging with people in our lives who ideas have become their identity? And you're trying to get them to see another point of view or point them towards something else? And they're like, oh, you're just a crazy liberal, or you're just a crazy conservative.

• 23:54Speaker 01

  Yeah. There, I thought about this recently because I was, I go to this little coffee shop in my, near my hometown upstate, and there's always these two old guys who are in the corner, they're there every time I go there. And they're always having an argument about, not an argument, a long discussion about movies. They're movie junkies. And they have encyclopedic knowledge and I eavesdrop on them all the time. And it, I realized that there are, there's something really lovely there, which is that they have clearly a huge part of their identity is about the enjoyment and appreciation of that particular art form. And I would imagine that if one of those guys was a

• 24:38Speaker 01

  Trumper MAGA type and the other was a diehard liberal, it wouldn't matter. Because they had found this area that was more important to their identity and that where they could find common ground and where they could find each other. Find joy in each other's company. And it's those kinds of spaces that I feel have been eroded. I use the movie example for a reason, which was for the longest time in many cultures around the world. The movies occupied this huge position in people, the way people related to the world. They saw, you know, you grew up, people talk to people who grew up in New York in the thirties and forties, they would see a movie every day. And they would, that's what they would talk about on the playground. And that's what they would, you know, and

• 25:20Speaker 01

  you know, sports function in that way. And I, I sometimes think that what we need actually weirdly is more sports, not less sports. Because sports are one of the few things that can occupy a big space and bring people together. And you could have a long conversation with someone else, what's in politics will never come up. You know, my, my, even my parents would be good examples. My, you know, a white father, black mother.

• 25:45Speaker 01

  A lot of people looked at them and said, you know, you guys are so different. They, and they, that's not how they organized their life. They said, they thought they were exactly the same. We're two committed Christians who, you know, their fathers read the same books. I think that's the issues. It's just not good to be spend all your time wallowing in political arguments.

• 26:05Trevor Noah?

  But I also, I also think it's this, I think, um,

• 26:09Trevor Noah?

  you know, I remember a friend of mine describing, he, he worked as a computer programmer. And I remember one day he was, um, he was explaining the concept of the second system effect. The second system effect is what they teach programmers and coders about when, when working on a program and then moving it to the next version. And they go, you always have to consider the things that might happen that you don't know might happen because you've now changed the program over. Cause you always think of what you're updating, you always think of what you're improving. But you seldom think of what that could cause as a knock on effect. To what you didn't want, an unintended consequence. And oftentimes, that's what happens, right? You you'll see it on your phone all the time. They'll they'll go new software. And then very quickly afterwards, they'll be like new software on top of the new software.

• 26:54Trevor Noah?

  Because we just realized that what the new software did was it made the keyboard unusable when you were sending a text to certain people in a group chat.

• 27:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:01Trevor Noah?

  That's a second system effect, right? And that gave me a whole new way to think about life. Because now I I will go, oh, sometimes we make a change. That is oftentimes an improvement, by the way. But we don't think of what the possible second system effect could be. Like streaming and the proliferation of TV shows and like, um, uh, you know, like on demand. You you can watch Breaking Bad when you want to watch Breaking Bad. And have you watched Game of Thrones? I'll watch it when I you you know what I mean? It's given you so much choice. What a lot of people don't realize is it's robbed us of communal um, uh, consumption. But then what have we all seen? The debate, oh, I saw the debate. Oh, I saw the debate. Did you see the debate?

• 27:43Trevor Noah?

  And so unfortunately now, I don't think it's politics so much as it's live. Live is the only thing that still exists in society that forces us to all like to to experience it at the same time. And so it's not sports and it's not politics. It's just these are the the the final vestiges of live television. The debates are live. The election is live.

• 28:06Speaker 02

  Olympics.

• 28:07Trevor Noah?

  The Trump assassination is live. The Olympics are live.

• 28:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 28:10Trevor Noah?

  The Super Bowl is live. But I think what it's done is it's robbed us of shared realities is what I think.

• 28:17Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 28:17Trevor Noah?

  You know, I used to watch the same TV shows as my parents, not because I wanted to, but because I had to. And and inversely, they had to watch the same shows I watched. So sometimes my mom would be watching the cartoons or the sitcoms that I was watching before we got to the news. Or like like a like a murder movie documentary or whatever thing. But we had ATV and it played in linear time. So we just had to do it together. And I I actually think that's one of the things that like we're experiencing in society is like less live.

• 28:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm so I realize now when I'm outside of live, like many people, I'm lost.

• 28:54Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 28:55Speaker 01

  I mean, I watched Perfect Couple.

• 28:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 28:58Speaker 01

  Why did I watch Perfect Couple on Netflix?

• 29:02Speaker 01

  That's like, I'm never getting, I've got like six, six, got five episodes in, I'm like, I cannot believe that I have just devoted.

• 29:14Trevor Noah?

  Now, it's time for F1 Love. A segment where I get to talk all things F1 and why you should be excited for the F1 Las Vegas GP. So if you know anything about me, you know, I love a few things in my life. I love video games, I love tech, I love traveling, I love copious amounts of ice cream, and there are few things I love more than Formula One. I've been watching Formula One my entire life. I started watching it with my dad, I think I've told you this, but yeah, it's just, it is one of the most exciting, crazy, anything can happen sports in the world. And as I've grown, I've grown to appreciate it more because, you know,

• 29:58Trevor Noah?

  F1 athletes apparently are the fittest athletes in the world. They've got some of the strongest necks, which I know is a weird thing to think is cool, but I do. Because apparently their necks can sustain like 3, 4, or 5G, which is pretty insane if you know what a neck can usually handle. But anyway, I'm really excited because Formula One used to only be in Europe and now, one of the most exciting races of the season is in Las Vegas. Formula One has two kinds of races. You've got the races that are on tracks, and so those ones are really fun and fantastic. But then, every now and again, you'll have a race that's on the streets of the city that it's in. And the F1 race in Las Vegas is one of those.

• 30:43Trevor Noah?

  The cars are out on the strip, racing around. I'm talking hundreds and hundreds of miles per hour. The stuff you wish you could do, they do it for real. And Vegas is the best place for it. You get to go out, you get to see the drivers over the weekend, you get to hear the cars. And if you've never heard an F1 car, like, you haven't lived. It literally sounds like the end and the beginning of the world at the same time. If you get a chance, try and go through the pit lanes if you have that opportunity. It's amazing. You get to see the cars up close, you get to see the technology, you get to see like, even the tires, the tires are so impressive.

• 31:16Speaker 01

  But if you don't get the backstage experience, just go to the race. Wear a hat, cheer for a team, see people drive cars the way they're supposed to be driven, and then think to yourself, I could do that at home, but do not do it at home.

• 31:29Trevor Noah?

  That was F1 Love, brought to you by Las Vegas hosting the upcoming F1 race, November 21 to 23. Tickets are available now by visiting F1LasVegasGP.com/tickets. There's got to be one chapter in this book that you enjoyed writing the most.

• 31:47Speaker 01

  Oh, my God, so easy.

• 31:48Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, you have like a guilty joy when it comes to certain topics. This is something I know about you. You have like a, you'll have like a giggle in you. You have like a mischievous feeling in you where you're like, oh, I love that I'm getting into this. So what's like the most Gladwell chapter in this book?

• 32:00Speaker 01

  It's the Harvard, it's the Harvard chapter.

• 32:02Trevor Noah?

  The Harvard chapter, the admissions?

• 32:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:04Trevor Noah?

  Okay, let's talk, let's talk through that.

• 32:06Speaker 01

  It's all about this strange fact that there is no university in the United States that has more Division One varsity sports than Harvard. So everyone thinks that the sports obsessed schools are like in the South. No, no, no, no. The most sports obsessed school is Harvard. Not only that, they're so obsessed with, that they, if you're an athlete, they have the, the front doors for smart kids who compete and it's really hard to get in the front door. They have a back door for athletes and rich people.

• 32:34Trevor Noah?

  Of course, of course.

• 32:36Speaker 01

  And the, the back door is way easier to get in. The simplest way to get into Harvard is to be a good athlete, not to be a good student. So the question is, why would they care so much about sports that they would, like, create a special back door for them and also place them in? And I think the answer is, is, is in the kind of sports they're playing. So what sports are, if they have all these? Rowing.

• 33:00Trevor Noah?

  Rowing, got it.

• 33:01Speaker 01

  Middleweight or light, heavyweight and lightweight rowing. And each team is like, what is it, 25? I've forgotten, some incredible number. Fencing.

• 33:10Trevor Noah?

  Okay. Fencing.

• 33:11Speaker 01

  Uh, sailing.

• 33:12Trevor Noah?

  Oh.

• 33:12Speaker 01

  How do you feel about sailing?

• 33:13Trevor Noah?

  Sailing.

• 33:14Speaker 01

  Uh, tennis.

• 33:15Trevor Noah?

  Tennis.

• 33:16Speaker 01

  Interesting, tennis. Now rugby, now rugby, you guys are Africans, particularly you, you come, you're, you guys are serious rugby playing people. Understand that in the American context.

• 33:26Trevor Noah?

  Oh, no. Yes.

• 33:27Speaker 01

  Rugby is a very different animal, not, they're not playing rugby in, you know.

• 33:32Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, right, right.

• 33:33Speaker 01

  Uh, field hockey, uh, squash, uh, you can see where I'm going.

• 33:40Speaker 01

  So they reserve, you add up all those numbers, men and women, right? Coaches, kids sitting on the bench. You add all those numbers up and you see that they have reserved an entire huge pool of admission slots for white people with enough money to be good at white people's sports. It's the whole thing is like so hilariously obvious. And like they're pretending for years, they've been pretending, oh, no, no, we, we believe the athlete brings something special to the camp. No bullshit. Like you, I do, I do this thing with tennis. In order to play division one tennis in this country, you must have played junior tennis. Okay. In order to play junior tennis, your parents have, I did the math, have to spend

• 34:23Speaker 01

  at a minimum $50,000 a year on your, on your game and probably north of a hundred grand. When you add up all the things. So basically what Harvard is saying is we've got whatever it is, 12 spots on our tennis team, which we are reserving for people who have parents capable of spending a hundred thousand dollars a year on their games. Like, it's like, I mean, if you don't do this, if you have an elite school that just takes the smartest kids, what that means is your school's gonna, culture's gonna turn over with each new wave of smart immigrants that come. So you're gonna be, you're gonna be all Jewish in the 50s and you're gonna be all Korean now. And you're gonna be all Nigerian in like 10 years.

• 35:01Speaker 02

  I don't think that's a bad thing.

• 35:04Speaker 01

  I think it's an amazing thing.

• 35:05Trevor Noah?

  Why would you?

• 35:07Speaker 01

  But you can't, but you can see how if your conception of what your school is, is a place where you have lots of preppy kids in blazers. Yeah. You can't play that game. Yeah. Because you're gonna wake up one day and you're gonna have a lot of Ebo shouting at loud voices, running around your campus, like, and that's unthinkable.

• 35:26Trevor Noah?

  You know, it's, it's funny that you say that because I, I've noticed that in traveling the world, there are some cities in the world that have made it so that. The area, like, like, certain areas are sort of dictated by who can just afford to buy there. Right? So like, there'll be parts of London, for instance, where I, I went like 20 years ago. And then it was like, like a certain group of people. And then all of a sudden was, and then it would like be Russian and then it would be this and then it would be that. And I was just like, oh, wow, this whole area switched up. Because the money is something that can shift to people and to cultures.

• 36:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 36:01Trevor Noah?

  But now rowing and sailing and that doesn't change.

• 36:05Speaker 01

  That does not change.

• 36:06Trevor Noah?

  Do you know what I mean? Let me, let me ask you a question, Malcolm, like, in, in the book, there, there are many moments where you talk about like, um. It's not necessarily the tipping point, but it's like, some of the, some of the larger things that made something happen. Like, for instance, you talk about Will and Grace, you know, and you go, this is like the show that, that changes people's perspectives on gay people in America, et cetera. You know, and then some people go like, ah, but what about Ellen? Ellen was on before that. And in the, in the opioid section, you know, when you're talking about the Sackler family, you're like, this is, you know, the, the story they told and the passive voice when they're defending themselves. And you, and you tell the story where some people might read it and go like, oh, but I actually think the issue is the doctors. Like, how do you choose to hone in?

• 36:48Trevor Noah?

  Or where do you think you've actually found the real lever that, that, that has moved society or shifting in a certain direction versus others?

• 36:56Speaker 01

  So the Will and Grace, let's do the Will and Grace one, that was really interesting. So there's a really brilliant woman whose work I, uh, I read and loved by the name Bonnie Dow. Who does this kind of meta-analysis of television shows and their, and their importance. And she, she looked at the way, um, including in Ellen, the way that television had described and discussed gay relationships. And she said that up until Will and Grace, every time gay people were talked about, even if they were talked about on television in a positive way. A series of rules were in place. The, the emphasis on the show was always about how straight people reacted to.

• 37:39Speaker 01

  The gay person, not on the gay person themselves. The second thing was that the gay person's gayness was always a problem that had to be solved. And the third thing was that the gay person was always in isolation. So she looks at Ellen, she says, Ellen, yes, had a gay character. First openly gay character on network television, but those three rules were still in effect. The whole, when Ellen comes out in that pivotal sitcom show from whenever it was, all the rules are in effect. Her gayness is a problem her friends have to solve. The whole show is about her straight friends dealing with the fact that Ellen is like complicated their lives. And she has no gay community on those shows, it's just her. Will and Grace comes along and breaks all three rules for the first time on television.

• 38:22Speaker 01

  Will's got a community, he's got Jack, right? And that whole like, uh, his gayness is not a problem to be solved. It's never, they're never, it's never even a problem, it's just a fact, right? And the show is not about straight people reacting to Will. It's about Will and Grace together reacting normally to, and that makes that show revolutionary. This is, and I, that argument to me is so, and if you, if all you do is watch Will and Grace without the benefit of that kind of analysis, you miss it.

• 38:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:54Speaker 01

  And there's an incredible book that was written about the way Hollywood treated homosexuality. Pointing out that, look at all the movies in which gay people appear from the 60s through the end of the 90s. And this guy just counts up what happens to the character, the gay character. And like in 60% of the cases, the gay character dies. In 10%, they commit suicide, in 10%, they drive a drug overdose. Like Hollywood just killed them off.

• 39:21Trevor Noah?

  Right.

• 39:22Speaker 01

  Like, that's what they did. And you were allowed to feel sympathy for, because, but they were always, it was always this dreadful burden, right? And Will and Grace, it's not a burden, it's just like, he's just a, he's a-

• 39:34Trevor Noah?

  It just happens to be part of their lives.

• 39:35Speaker 01

  It's just part of their life. And that is so, like, I feel like it is no coincidence. That's right around the time when the country wakes up one day, after flipping out about gay marriage, wakes up one day and just, doesn't even say, I love gay marriage. Just shrugs and says, and says- Are we really gonna fight about this? And it just goes away.

• 39:56Trevor Noah?

  So it's actually, it's actually funny. You know, when I, when I was reading through that chapter and when I was reading through some of the chapters about like over stories that you talk about. You know, the story that is over every other story that we're telling ourselves. I don't know if you've watched it, there's a, there's an animated movie. I think it's um Mitchells versus the machines, I think it's called. And um it's a story of this family that goes up against like machines taking over the world. And one day I was, I was having a conversation with some, a group of friends. And someone said to me like, oh, I hated that movie. And I was like, really? It was a great movie. They're like, yeah, it was great, but I didn't like that at the end we learned that the main protagonist was a gay character. I was like, why not? And they were like, why didn't we know from the beginning? I feel like you just tried to sneak it in. And I was like, are you pro?

• 40:41Trevor Noah?

  And she's like, no, I'm pro, I'm pro gay rights. And that's why I feel like it should have been. And then I said, I think that's been the problem with a lot of programming, actually. Is that because Hollywood as a whole, and obviously I'm using a big umbrella here, but because Hollywood as a whole, people forget is a business. They make these like fake stories and fake moves that are artificially trying to jump on trends that are not trends. Do you know, do you get what I'm saying? So they'll be like, oh, wow, gay people are becoming very popular in society. We need to make a gay show. And you're like, what is a gay show? And they're like, a show where a person uses their gayness to make sure that the community center doesn't get shut down. And it's like, guys, that's not a show.

• 41:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:24Trevor Noah?

  That's not a thing. Gay people are not using their gayness to do, do you get what I'm saying?

• 41:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:29Trevor Noah?

  And I, I actually think that becomes part of the problem is like now we are not witnessing people as human beings. The story is about you are black. And so now because of your blackness, you must make the black, blackity, black. I was like, no, man, just make a story. And to your point, Will and Grace is like, yeah. Will and Jack were just, they were gay, but the story wasn't like, what gay thing gays them today? It was like, no, it's just a story.

• 41:52Speaker 01

  It's not.

• 41:52Trevor Noah?

  And you got to know them as human beings.

• 41:54Speaker 01

  And the show is interesting because it puts a finger on, the issue fundamentally was not that

• 42:02Speaker 01

  by the early 21st century, most Americans thought that there was something pathological about being gay. Or that they had some revulsion at. No, it was quite specific. It was, they did not believe that gay people were capable of the same kind of relationships as straight people. It was that specific, it was about relationships. And that's why marriage was being denied. And that show is just about a, is about a successful relationship involving a. And in the previous sort of, to get to your point, Trevor, the preachiness assumed the problem was specific to something about the gay person.

• 42:43Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 42:43Speaker 01

  And the way they practiced their life. No, no, no, it was this, it was a separate thing about could they participate in something that straight people have been participating in for thousands and thousands of years? And just getting people to say, oh, yeah, they can participate. That's all we needed.

• 42:58Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 42:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:59Speaker 01

  You didn't need to win the bigger battle.

• 43:01Trevor Noah?

  Right. I've, I've seen a few times how, so like, for me, this is, this is purely anecdotal. But in New York, I play, I play football, I play soccer with a bunch of guys from all over the world, literally all over the world, all different walks of life, you know? Like, we have all of Africa on the team. And then we have Europe, and then we have Eastern Europe, and then we have, like, sometimes we'll have like Australia and Asia, and then America, obviously. But it'll be a collection, 22 guys from everywhere coming together. And one of the fascinating things I've noticed is we have built our relationships and our friendships and our perceptions of each other and each other's peoples without ever speaking about them. Does that make sense?

• 43:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:46Trevor Noah?

  When we come to the game, we play the game. I judge the other people by how they play the game, and they judge me by how I play the game. Badly, well on a day, terribly. But that's how we know each other. So you're like, Latif, why, why don't you do this? You always do this. Joe, Joe, why are you doing this? Ah, no, zero technique, you have zero technique, why are you doing this? And it's like, shut up, Joe. And then like, you, what I, what I realized the one day was almost magical. It's like, everyone on that team has a human, has a human example of somebody from another country. So if you say to them, do you, what are you, Ugandans? They go like, oh, man, I know this guy Joe, he's from Uganda. And it's like, oh, what are you getting? And then he's just like, you know them, you know him as a human being. Does that make, does that make sense? And I think sometimes, like, in these stories, we forget.

• 44:31Trevor Noah?

  That we don't, we don't get to know people as human beings because we don't see them doing human being things.

• 44:36Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 44:36Trevor Noah?

  And then we give ourselves like the full, we give like the, I mean, when I say ourselves, I mean, like, let's say the dominant group. You get to exist in your fullness.

• 44:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:45Trevor Noah?

  And then everyone who's on the margins has to exist only in one area. It's like, all right, gay people, you get a day of pride and then the rest of it is, is for straight people. And even then, we're gonna be like, why do you get a day? And you're like, well, every day is a straight pride day.

• 44:59Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 44:59Trevor Noah?

  You know, every day is like chinos and terrible shirts. It's like.

• 45:02Speaker 01

  It's also the soccer thing is great because the key to getting people, to making that magic happen is to have everyone, give everyone a job to do. You're all busy. Yeah. That's why it works. Yeah. Right? That's the kind of, I like, I always feel this, the busyness thing, if you, you're all focused on the game, you're exhausted, you're running up and down. Who is time for all the nonsense?

• 45:25Trevor Noah?

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• 46:09Trevor Noah?

  You see, YouTube Premium can automatically download recommended videos for you based on what you already watch. So sometimes I'll get on a plane, I look at my phone, I'm like, ah, I didn't download anything. And it's like, no, YouTube already thought about this. They packed entertainment for me in my little lunchbox. And with background play, I can lock my phone, switch apps, and whatever I'm watching just keeps on going. So. If you like YouTube, you will love YouTube Premium. Sign up now for your free trial at youtube.com/premium. Terms apply. Cancel anytime.

• 46:43Speaker 04

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• 47:49Speaker 02

  Malcolm, I'm curious. You say you went back, read Tipping Point, and you're like, this is appalling, right? I'm interested about why it wasn't just an amendment. Because most people would do like, there's a revised edition and you write a chapter and you say like, it's a summary. Why is it revisiting and it's a whole book?

• 48:09Speaker 01

  Because I'm crazy.

• 48:09Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 48:11Speaker 01

  Because I don't have enough to do. Because, because having two kids apparently is just really easy and I can do, you know. I got time.

• 48:20Trevor Noah?

  I'm loving watching the difference in a man's perspective on having kids and a woman's. Malcolm's like, yeah, it feels like you have more time. And Christiana's like, there's no time. My life is over. I'm like, I've read another book.

• 48:32Speaker 01

  No, I have, I've worked it out that I have, I have 45 minutes to myself a day.

• 48:36Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 48:37Speaker 01

  Between 10 and 10:45. That's my time.

• 48:40Speaker 02

  Okay. And you write your book?

• 48:41Speaker 01

  That's all I got. That's all I got.

• 48:42Speaker 02

  And you write your book?

• 48:42Speaker 01

  No, no, no, no.

• 48:45Speaker 01

  No, I don't know. I, I also thought it would be fun. I actually had more, I've been enjoying myself tremendously over the last, I've had a kind of, ever since I started podcasting stuff, it's loosened me up about.

• 49:02Speaker 01

  I'm not, I'm a lot less precious about the stuff I do and I'm doing different kinds of stories and I'm, so I just, I, my position now is why not? Yeah. And why not do something, it sounds like it'll be interesting, who knows what'll happen? The turning point was for me was, um, when I started the podcast and I started doing weird show, like shows on cranky, kind of, you know, going after golfers or whatever. And I was like, that was really fun. Like, I didn't realize that, because like, and then I did that audiobook with Paul Simon, with my friend Bruce, um, which, you know, I don't really know that much about music. I know I like Paul Simon. And we just sat down with him and it was just so, we did hours and hours of interviews

• 49:46Speaker 01

  with him and it was, it literally changed my life. I just realized, wow, I thought I was in this for the writing, I'm not. I'm in this because I like talking to people. I like interviewing them, that's what I like.

• 49:59Trevor Noah?

  Right.

• 49:59Speaker 01

  And that, when I realized that, I was like, oh, this clarifies everything. I shouldn't be obsessing about the, what's, you know, my, what, how I'm gonna make a story out of this. I should be obsessing about the, the interview. Yeah. The conversation. And so I did it again this summer with this incredible woman.

• 50:20Speaker 01

  And I met with her like eight times and she's someone who is, deals with trauma. I'm gonna get emotional. She was involved with a guy on death row who, and she fails to keep him alive, to save him and he gets killed by the state.

• 50:34Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 50:35Speaker 01

  And I wanted to know what was going through her head when he died. That's what I wanted to know. And I decided I was gonna take the long path. We took 16 hours, whatever it was, to get there.

• 50:47Trevor Noah?

  Wow.

• 50:47Speaker 01

  And then we kind of got there and I was completely overwhelmed. I couldn't stop crying. I just was, it was so, and then I interviewed, I went back and I interviewed the, it was so unprofessional, I interviewed the lawyer, the guy's lawyer, and I had him tell the same story and I, I couldn't stop crying. I just, I had to end the interview. I was like, sorry, I'm sorry, sir, I can't, I can't. It's just, but it was because I just made that investment and I had just sat and listened, right? That's, I realized, at the grand old age of 61, I realized that's what I want to do. Like, that's, and there's a lot of that in this book, there's a lot of this, just sitting and listening to people, like. And kind of trying to make sense of them.

• 51:31Trevor Noah?

  What I'm hearing you say is something that I feel like we could all work on a little bit more. And that is being a little less serious about how we see ourselves in the world. You know, because I, I, I think of the different paths, the different universes that Malcolm Gladwell could have been in. You could have been someone that got more serious and, and, and more prescriptive. And, you know, you could have written a book about, and now let me tell you, it's 20,000 hours. And here's what else you're gonna do. It's not just the windows, it's the doors and the floors and the sidewalks and the, you know, you could, no, you really. And I think there are people who do that because it becomes, again, going back to, it becomes their identity.

• 52:13Trevor Noah?

  So they're like, I've, I've achieved success in this. I must hold on to it and I need to do more of it. And then the second part of it is we forget to have like fun. We forget the fun side of life. We forget the enjoyment. We forget the. People are very like serious about things. I even noticed I was falling into it. Like if, if you asked me a question, I, I would give you like the serious answer first, but I'm not that person actually. You know, and I, I, I've noticed it starting in America, to be honest. And like South Africa is very far behind, thank God. But like when I'm in South Africa, I realize I'm like, I'm taking this far too seriously. I'm taking all of it too seriously. Do you, do you know what I'm saying?

• 52:51Speaker 01

  Can I tell you about South Africa story? I'm just very funny.

• 52:53Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, for sure.

• 52:53Speaker 01

  Wait, I've, now I forget, the president of South Africa, his name is Ram.

• 52:57Trevor Noah?

  Ramaphosa.

• 52:58Speaker 01

  Ramaphosa.

• 52:58Trevor Noah?

  Cyril Ramaphosa.

• 52:59Speaker 01

  So I'm at this conference in South Africa. Actually, that's when I texted you because I was walking around Cape Town and I was like, white people know their real estate. And then, and Trevor's like, yes, they do. So I go to this conference and Ramaphosa's speaking. Gets up in front of the stage. He's like, and the lights go out, right? Because the power is always going off.

• 53:17Trevor Noah?

  Oh, yes, yeah.

• 53:18Speaker 01

  In Cape Town. And then there's silence. And then you hear Ramaphosa saying, it's all my fault.

• 53:25Speaker 01

  And the whole room just starts laughing. I was like.

• 53:29Speaker 01

  How many leaders of major countries in the world would make a self-deprecating joke at that moment? Because it's been a huge political issue for him.

• 53:37Trevor Noah?

  It's been a huge issue.

• 53:38Speaker 01

  And so what does he do? He makes, and it's like, it was hilarious. It's just hilarious. I was like, this is off topic, but I was chatting with one of those people at this conference. And I'm talking about, I was like, you know, haven't a lot of people been leaving South Africa? Aren't you worried? This guy says, no, it's the best thing. He's like, the only people left in South Africa now are the people who want to be here.

• 53:56Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 53:56Speaker 01

  I thought that was fantastic. It's like totally changed my perception of, I was like, that's right. They're the ones who are tough enough and are interested and committed. And like, and his point was like, let them go. You know, we're here. It's beautiful.

• 54:10Speaker 02

  Malcolm, if you want to revisit another book, I'll put Blink aside because Blink is one of my favorites. Outliers, this 10,000 hours rule. As a parent, I know a lot of people who've been parents for more than 10,000 hours.

• 54:25Speaker 01

  Doesn't get any better.

• 54:26Speaker 02

  They are terrible.

• 54:27Speaker 01

  Terrible.

• 54:27Speaker 02

  And they're these rotten kids. Look at the world we live in. So many broken people who need therapy. I think we need to go back and look at the 10,000 hour rule.

• 54:37Speaker 01

  No, you're absolutely right. I, you know, the, do you do this? I've started to do this now, and it's so terrible. Is I now, with no standing whatsoever, other than three years as a parent, I'm just openly critiquing people's parenting.

• 54:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm very judgment. Judging is fun. It's so fun.

• 54:56Speaker 01

  I have to stop myself. Would you do it? I hate to see you later.

• 55:04Speaker 01

  You gotta stop it. I'm for a go, it makes it worse.

• 55:07Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 55:08Trevor Noah?

  Have you, have you found that your children have changed how you even look at data or storytelling or stories?

• 55:14Speaker 01

  There's zero connection between any intellectual idea I've ever held and my parenting. This is another thing that's so surprising.

• 55:22Trevor Noah?

  No, no, no, I'm not saying your parenting. I mean more. Them being in your life. And then like, for instance, I'm watching your face while you speak about them. Every mention of them, even the idea of them, your face lights up in a different way.

• 55:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 55:34Trevor Noah?

  You laugh, you giggle, you, there's a, there's a different side of you that comes up. So I'm, I'm asking, how have they affected the way you see data or stories or the world?

• 55:43Speaker 02

  Or how you approach? How you approach your work?

• 55:45Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 55:45Speaker 02

  Cause they always ask women this question. So I like that Trevor's asking a man this question.

• 55:50Speaker 01

  Well, I always thought that they're free content. I find them just endlessly hilarious. And it makes it very difficult for me to take other things as seriously.

• 55:59Trevor Noah?

  Oh, there you go.

• 56:00Speaker 01

  So it is part of like, I just, I, they just become the center of your universe. And like, everything else sort of fades away in importance. Any disappointment I have is irrelevant to them. It's just so liberating, like, you know, they just, you know, my three year old this morning just wanted to like draw. She was making a picture for, she has a crush on the girlfriend of the nanny. It's the most hilarious thing I've ever seen. And she was making a picture for them.

• 56:24Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 56:24Speaker 01

  And she, that's like, that's what she, you know, and that, everything else kind of, but it has, um. But I do understand, you do understand how powerless.

• 56:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 56:34Speaker 01

  You are, it's just like, it's hilarious.

• 56:36Speaker 02

  You just, it's the, it's this surrender.

• 56:38Speaker 01

  He just surrender.

• 56:38Speaker 02

  But our kids are so different. My four year old threw the most explosive tantrum in the grove the other day. And the old man sitting next to us switched off his herring aid.

• 56:48Trevor Noah?

  Wow.

• 56:49Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 56:49Speaker 02

  He switched it off and I was like, that's judging my parenting.

• 56:54Speaker 01

  That's epic.

• 56:55Speaker 02

  But he's great, he's great, but he has these moments of like.

• 56:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:58Speaker 02

  He becomes really.

• 56:58Speaker 01

  He's got high spirits and you should have high spirits.

• 57:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 57:01Speaker 01

  Cause that's a good sign.

• 57:02Speaker 02

  But then it was also, I have to surrender. That's all, you know, that gentle parenting bullshit, just ride the wave and it will end.

• 57:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:10Trevor Noah?

  You know what? In, in a few years, maybe in a decade, we'll get to relook at our parenting today. And we'll be like, uh huh, maybe we could have been a little harsher. Maybe we could have.

• 57:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, but.

• 57:19Trevor Noah?

  I have a theory.

• 57:20Speaker 02

  Trevor wants to bring back beating kids.

• 57:22Trevor Noah?

  No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Let me be on the record, let me be on the record. Before we wrap this up, let me be on the record and say, I do not believe that children, I don't believe that parents should ever hit their kids. Ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever. However, I do think other people should be allowed to hit your kids.

• 57:41Trevor Noah?

  Because then we've created, it's a community thing. And it's like, parents can signal to other people that they need their kid disciplined. Then there's no conflict in your child's mind between love and discipline. Let's think, we don't have to solve it now. You go do the research, you think about it as a parent.

• 57:57Speaker 01

  No, you're up.

• 57:57Trevor Noah?

  I'm gonna go formulate the idea and then we'll come back.

• 57:59Speaker 01

  I'm totally down with it.

• 58:00Trevor Noah?

  Let's go back to the village.

• 58:01Speaker 01

  I wish someone else on the table would come over and say.

• 58:04Trevor Noah?

  That's what I'm saying. We could be helping each other.

• 58:06Speaker 01

  Hundred percent. If I see you across the room at some restaurant.

• 58:09Trevor Noah?

  Anytime. Signal me from afar. I will come over and I will do that for you. Malcolm, I know you've got to go now. I want to say thank you, man. Thank you for spending the time with us.

• 58:18Speaker 01

  This is really fun.

• 58:18Trevor Noah?

  Thank you for joining us.

• 58:19Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 58:20Speaker 02

  Thank you, Malcolm. Great.

• 58:22Speaker 01

  That was lovely, guys.

• 58:22Speaker 02

  I want to see pictures now.

• 58:24Speaker 01

  Oh, I'll show you pictures. I'll get my phone.

• 58:30Trevor Noah?

  What Now with Trevor Noah is produced by Spotify Studios in partnership with Day Zero Productions. The show is executive produced by Trevor Noah, Sanaz Yamin, and Jodie Avigan. Our senior producer is Jess Hackle. Claire Slaughter is our producer. Music, mixing, and mastering by Hannes Brown. Thank you so much for listening. Join me next Thursday for another episode of What Now.

• 59:09Speaker 06

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• 59:31Speaker 06

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