Yeah, it

does.

But let's start with birthday cakes, because I think they're even more revolutionary, actually.

And then we'll get there.

No, this is actually a great example of something that I'm writing about right now and that I wrote about in my last book, which is the atomization of society in capitalism through transactions.

And you've described it perfectly, so I don't really need to describe it again.

But I think it's worth saying that if you are a nerd like me who likes data and not just Freud and Marx, although I also love Freud and Marx, you can go find this evidence of what Leia is saying in empirical data.

This is only the first day of the

Talk about why that might be the case.

Yeah, this one is interesting and complicated.

And I think it's both like lovely and kind of a dark science at the same time.

But in my chapter on actions and experiences, I look at a lot of data that suggests that people in general tend to move their beliefs towards their actions rather than the other way around, which is not necessarily our intuitive model of how people think.

Many of us think like, oh, I'm going to think for a while.

And then when I come to a decision or a belief, then I'll act in accordance with that decision or belief, which sounds great.

And maybe that is actually how you picked, I don't know, the software for your company or something.

Give us a little bit on that and we'll end there.

And I'd be very grateful if you can just give a top line summary of the main thesis of why not talk about politics, but do something else.

Great.

So the first two chapters of this book, I kind of look empirically at whether people's minds are changed with words alone, basically.

I spend a chapter on the, I think it's often an American term, but not only, the marketplace of ideas.

Do we walk around in a marketplace of ideas throughout the day, reading the news, looking at arguments on, I don't know, heaven forbid, Twitter, chatting to our friends at the dinner table, and then through just experiencing the ideas in the abstract, we choose the best ideas.

And this is...

It's worth saying a sort of somewhat capitalist, certainly marketplace oriented idea where like we're good consumers.

Okay,

The question that I always come to is, why are we discussing ideas in economic market-driven terms in the first place?

Well, let me tell you what I think as a Marxian sociologist to display my prejudices up front.

I mean, look, we live in an incredibly market-driven society, right? Most things are part of a market in some way.

We even talk about a dating market.

We talk about all kinds of other things.

And actually, nothing is necessarily wrong with markets in themselves, but within capitalism, they become the central location for most human activity.

And of course, there are deep inequalities in the way the markets are set up, which is part of why a marketplace of ideas is a terrible metaphor.

But I just find that harder right

Talk us through that.

Yeah.

So this is the other thing.

I think, you know, one of the things in my research that I really care about is I'm a very interdisciplinary thinker because I think some of the biggest issues that we deal with are just too big.

And we and we have to use multiple disciplines, you know, and honestly, with great deference and respect to so many academics that I use the work of and talk to and care about.

Like, I think we're we're messing up some of the big questions because we're stuck in disciplines.

All of which is to say, a routine finding across many different fields of both psychology, sociology, neuroscience, and they always just find new jargon for this in each field, but it's basically the same finding, is that people's views tend to follow from their actions and not the other way around, which is very much not how the Western model of the mind works.

Yeah.

So taking those two elements, how do you see them playing out in cities today?

Well, essentially, we have a lot of data that shows that people are increasingly spending more and more hours of their time alone.

And there's also a good amount of evidence around the world that there are fewer and fewer third spaces.

So these are spaces that you can go for cheap or very little money, and you interact with people in a non-hierarchical and relatively non-exclusive way.

The playground, the park, even certain, you know, aspects of religious life or a pub.

And these spaces are shrinking all around the world.

And one of the things I write about is this thing called social atrophy.

How should cities balance that?

So what motivated you to write this book? I mean, was, uh, does it, did it have anything to do with the, the timing with the current political context we're living in, or was for some other r- was it for some other reason?

Yeah, I mean, look, I'm a person who in 2016, uh, I was working for a place called The School of Life, which is a very popular YouTube channel basically, with a lot of other attached parts of it.

And that was a great thing to be doing in many ways.

But, um, obviously in 2016, Trump won the election in the United States, and also Brexit happened here in the United Kingdom, or it was voted in here in the United Kingdom.

And I was living in the United Kingdom as an American, so there was kind of a moment in my life where I thought, "This is not enough.

I need to be doing something in response to this moment." And I know that the crises that caused things to happen in 2016 are much deeper and they extend much further back in history, and that's just when I, like a privileged white lady, noticed them.

But, um, that's a lot of the impetus.

Mm-hmm

Cognitive psychology said we did a lot of this within purely contemplative spaces in our imaginations while worrying and thinking and ruminating, while in simulated internal worlds that we used to imagine potential futures and outcomes of our as yet committed acts, the results of our as yet decided decisions.

When cognitive dissonance theory was first sort of published, um, behaviorists were the arguably leading group of psychology researchers in America, and, um, they were very interested in this, this idea of the human being, and indeed of the kind of animal in general, as a creature that seeks, like, material benefits and responds to rewards and also of course is disincentivized by punishments.

And to be clear, every living organism does do this to some significant degree.

If I, you know, if I pay you a certain amount of money, you will do many things.

Um, if I am continuously rude to you, you will probably avoid me.

Um, there are lots of instances where behaviorism can somewhat accurately anyway summarize, uh, how human beings or even other animals respond to incentives and disincentives.

But it turns out that that is only one model for how human beings behave, and that there are other systems, let's say, in our psychology that can override that.

Give me some ideas here.

(laughs)

...

he wrote, he wrote some good books.

But he has this lovely term, uh, called the veil of ignorance, and he asks his readers to go through a thought experiment where he says, "Look, the way that we can decide what a just society would look like is to imagine that all of us are transported behind a veil of ignorance, and when we get to the other side of this veil, so to speak, uh, we don't know who we are anymore." So, I don't know, for example, that I am an upper middle class, uh, Jewish American lady who accidentally immigrated to the United Kingdom and, you know, whatever, and you don't know that you are who you are, and all the people don't know what sex, gender, race, class they have.

And now, as these, like, disembodied people, uh, we are going to think about what kind of society we would like to live in, and we can't reference...

We don't know who we'll g- end up as when we go back behind the veil, right? When we, when we leave and when we return to our bodies, so to speak, or we're born into this world, we don't know where we're gonna land.

And he thinks that the most just society is one where we, we design from a place of ignorance about where we'll end up in society and we're still okay with the design of the society.

Yeah, I, I've told you, I've told you the thing, so what is this thing? 'Cause I-