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What Now? With Trevor Noah

Human-Kind or Human Evil with Rutger Bregman  | What Now? with Trevor Noah Podcast

This week historian and author Rutger Bregman joins us to debate ethics and the possibility of a better world. Are human beings innately good? Innately selfish? Which is better to move the human race forward?

RBRutger BregmanguestTNTrevor Noahhost

Mar 6, 2025·1h 20m·Watch on YouTube ↗

📖 CHAPTERS

Chapter summaries

1. 1

   Getting uninvited from Davos and Tucker Carlson

   Trevor Noah asks whether Rutger Bregman gets invited back after confronting billionaires at Davos and TED. Bregman explains how his Davos remarks on tax avoidance and philanthropy led to a Tucker Carlson appearance that went badly, because he called Carlson part of the elite too.

   • •Bregman never got another Davos invitation after criticizing billionaire tax avoidance
   • •He told Tucker Carlson he was also part of the elite, a millionaire funded by billionaires
   • •Noah asks where Bregman draws the line on income when criticizing the rich
2. 2

   Global wealth, privilege, and feeling poor in rich countries

   Bregman notes that a median Dutch income puts someone in the global top 3.5%. The group discusses how rich people in expensive places like the US can feel poor, and Noah asks whether labels like 1% or privilege are meant to prompt giving or guilt. Bregman argues the betrayal of educated elites is hypocrisy and wasted talent, not a lack of empathy.

   • •A median Dutch income is in the richest 3.5% globally
   • •Families earning $800,000 can still feel unable to afford private school in the US
   • •Noah asks whether labeling people privileged aims at giving or guilt
   • •Bregman says 45% of Harvard graduates go into consulting and finance, often in jobs they consider socially useless
3. 3

   Poverty and perception across the Netherlands, UK, and South Africa

   Noah compares how people in the Netherlands, the UK, and South Africa feel about their lives despite very different conditions. A fellow guest describes austerity-era decline in Britain and the widening gap between haves and have-nots, which she says is sharper in America. Noah asks what this says about how people experience the world.

   • •Noah asks whether what happens to people matters more than how they feel about it
   • •A guest describes boarded-up shops and long NHS waits in the UK
   • •She says the wealth gap is widening everywhere but is more acute in America
4. 4

   Lessons from the abolitionists on how radical ideas win

   Bregman says studying history shows things can be different, and describes his year studying British abolitionism. He highlights the need for coalitions, such as Quakers working with Evangelicals, and how the right thing often happens for the wrong reasons, as when Clarkson argued about the suffering of sailors. Noah adds examples of boycotts and incentives in the civil rights and anti-apartheid movements.

   • •Radical ideas can become inevitable over decades
   • •Successful movements are coalitions of people who disagree on fundamentals
   • •Clarkson gained political attention by stressing the deaths of white sailors
   • •Noah says boycotts and incentives often move people more than morality
5. 5

   Veneer theory, survival of the friendliest, and animal nature

   Bregman explains that veneer theory, the idea that humans are fundamentally selfish, can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. A tangent follows on whether animals such as dolphins and chimps are cruel. Bregman contrasts chimpanzees and bonobos and presents his theory that humans conquered the globe through survival of the friendliest, with humans becoming more puppy-like over time.

   • •Assuming the worst in people shapes societies that bring out the worst
   • •Humans are capable of both atrocity and altruism
   • •Bonobos and chimpanzees show opposite primate behavior
   • •Self-domestication means the friendliest had the best chance of passing on genes
   • •Bregman calls his theory Homo puppy
6. 6

   Trust, fear, and parenthood: debating whether people are kind

   Noah argues that everyday trust, like driving and flying, shows human goodness, while a guest defends a Hobbesian and fearful view shaped by being a parent. Bregman says cynicism serves those in power and that journalists pushed back hardest on his book while hitchhikers affirmed it. The group discusses how privilege and body shape experience of kindness.

   • •Noah argues daily trust in drivers and pilots reveals latent morality
   • •A guest says parenthood and atomized communities deepen fear of others
   • •Bregman says cynicism justifies hierarchy and power differences
   • •Journalists pushed back most, while a professional hitchhiker confirmed his view
   • •Bregman asks whether his book is an expression of privilege
7. 7

   Perception, lived experience, and Noah's upbringing

   Noah and a guest debate how personal experience, race, gender, and fear of crime shape worldview. Noah describes growing up with domestic abuse and apartheid while arguing perception affects how people live, and says there are more runners than shooters. The guest says she is open to changing her mind.

   • •A guest says idealism comes easier to those given the benefit of the doubt
   • •Noah describes his difficult childhood without wearing it as a cape
   • •Noah says laws based on the worst instance would stop planes and cars
   • •Noah says to the victim of a crime it is the whole truth of their world
   • •There are more runners than shooters in a crisis
8. 8

   The real Lord of the Flies and how disasters bring out the best

   Asked for one example of human kindness, Bregman tells the story of six Tongan boys shipwrecked in 1965 who survived 15 months by cooperating. He notes that fiction like Lord of the Flies shapes how people see humanity. He then cites decades of research showing disasters such as Katrina bring out altruism, though the press emphasizes looting.

   • •Six boys from a Tongan boarding school survived 15 months on an uninhabited island
   • •Bregman credits Tongan culture as well as human nature
   • •Fiction shapes our assumptions more than reality
   • •Research shows disasters produce an explosion of altruism, not barbarism
9. 9

   Is the world getting better or worse?

   Bregman says everything was worse in the past if you zoom out, citing the drop in extreme poverty since 1980. He shares Max Roser's three true statements: the world is bad, it is much better, and it could be much better still. He then considers how future historians may judge us.

   • •Extreme poverty fell from 50% of the world in 1980 to under 10%
   • •Our World in Data is Bregman's favorite website
   • •Three statements are true at once: bad, better, and could be much better
   • •Every civilization thought itself the most civilized
   • •Bregman suggests future historians may see factory farming as a moral catastrophe
10. 10

    Veganism, factory farming, and the ethics of eating animals

    Bregman explains he became vegan after reading Harari and weighing the scale of animal slaughter. Noah objects to basing the case on intelligence and describes respectful slaughter traditions in South African culture. Bregman cites Bentham's point that the question is suffering, and says he is against factory farming rather than eating meat.

    • •Bregman cites Harari calling the treatment of animals perhaps the biggest crime in history
    • •80 billion animals are slaughtered each year versus 117 billion humans ever born
    • •Noah dislikes intelligence-based arguments because they have justified harm to people
    • •Bentham's point: the question is whether animals can suffer
    • •95-98% of meat comes from factory farms
11. 11

    Capitalism, billionaires, and Bill Gates on malaria

    Noah asks whether Bregman hates capitalism, and he describes himself as an old-fashioned European social democrat who sees a middle path between extremes. Noah and a guest debate whether billionaires should exist or whether the focus should be the floor. Bregman then credits Bill Gates for funding malaria vaccine research that governments neglected.

    • •Bregman says the socialism versus capitalism dichotomy is false
    • •Noah argues the focus should be lifting the bottom
    • •A guest says billionaires reflect a failure of any system
    • •Malaria killed about 40 million people from 1980 to 2020 with little research funding
    • •Gates financed the neglected research starting in 2000
12. 12

    Moral ambition and the School for Moral Ambition

    Asked what ordinary people can do, Bregman criticizes personal-footprint rules and urges joining small groups of committed people. He describes the School for Moral Ambition, aimed at redirecting talented graduates from consulting and finance to pressing problems. He notes that 10 of the 12 founders of the British abolition society were entrepreneurs.

    • •Lifestyle rules lead to a goal of zero footprint, which is a flawed ideal
    • •Margaret Mead: small groups of committed citizens change the world
    • •Ivy League graduates often drift into consulting and law
    • •Moral ambition combines an activist's idealism with an entrepreneur's ambition
    • •Bregman wants to redefine success as making a difference
13. 13

    Status, taxes, and giving money away in advance

    Noah asks about caring what future historians think, and Bregman says motivations can be mixed, including vanity. He says public commitments build resilience and that he is giving away his book money in advance. The conversation covers taxes, government failure, and playful ideas like naming highways after top taxpayers or a Forbes-style list of doers of good.

    • •Public commitments help keep people morally resilient
    • •Bregman is giving away his new book's proceeds in advance
    • •Billionaires now have lower effective tax rates than working-class Americans in the US
    • •Bregman also says government often fails to deliver, especially in blue states
    • •Status is the fundamental currency of society, so doing good should become fashionable
14. 14

    From awareness to action: Bregman's next chapter

    Noah asks what might change in Bregman's life over the next year. Bregman says he spent 10 years in the awareness business and grew fed up with himself, feeling moral envy toward people doing real work. He has quit writing to build an organization aimed at pandemics, democracy, and tobacco. They close with thanks.

    • •Bregman spent 10 years in the awareness business
    • •He felt moral envy toward those with skin in the game
    • •He quoted Theodore Roosevelt on being in the arena
    • •He hopes to have tangibly improved lives within a year
    • •Noah praises his sober view over clip-based caricatures

Publisher timestamps

1. 0:00Intro
2. 1:03:00 The moral implications of factory farmingRead this chapter
3. 3:00Speaking truth to power at Davos and Ted
4. 5:00Understanding wealth and privilege globally
5. 8:00How different countries experience poverty and progress
6. 15:50Exploring human nature and societal perspectives
7. 39:54How disasters bring out human kindnessRead this chapter
8. 41:00The real Lord of the Flies story and human kindnessRead this chapter
9. 44:00How natural disasters reveal human cooperationRead this chapter
10. 59:00Debate on billionaires and taxationRead this chapter from 59:01
11. 1:17:00Redefining success and status in society
12. 1:19:00Moving from awareness to actual change

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