Skip to content

By playing, you agree to uListen's Terms and Privacy Policy and YouTube's Terms of Service.

What Now? With Trevor NoahWhat Now? With Trevor Noah

If I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down | What Now? with Trevor Noah Podcast

For this round of If I Ruled the World, Christiana and I are joined by one of our favourite friends-of-the-show Tressie McMillan Cottom.

ChristianahostTrevor NoahhostTressie McMillan Cottomguest
Jun 5, 202550mWatch on YouTube

Summaries, chapters, transcripts, and FAQs on this page are made by uListen, not YouTube.

Great conversations run long. Their best ideas don't have to.

uListen is free on iPhone, iPad, Android, Chrome, and Claude.

See how

At a glance

WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT

Trevor, Christiana, and Tressie Play If I Ruled the World

  1. Trevor Noah explains the game: everyone gets amnesia about how things were, bureaucracy is ignored, and each person pitches a world-changing idea that the other two vote on.
  2. Christiana's proposal to cap monthly online word counts, with income-weighted fines, is voted down by both Trevor and Tressie, who argue it wouldn't solve the problem because wealthy actors could buy other people's words.
  3. Trevor's idea to ban or delay earnings reporting for years blames quarterly reports for short-term thinking, but draws a split vote, with Tressie voting yes and Christiana and Trevor himself noting concerns over 401(k) anxiety and fraud risk.
  4. Tressie McMillan Cottom wins unanimously with a paid, mandatory, draft-style job corps for front-line customer service work, meant to close the empathy gap between people who can buy their way out of lines and those who serve them.
  5. Trevor's suggestion that people periodically re-up their service stints, which Tressie says improved her idea, helps win over Christiana by reinforcing that nobody is above service.

IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING

5 ideas

Capping online speech wouldn't stop manipulation

Trevor argued that wealthy actors like Elon could simply pay others to post using their unused word counts, and Tressie noted that bot networks and paid influencer models already exist.

Paid virality manufactures fake trends

Trevor described pay-per-view music campaigns that make trends seem organic, and Tressie said the model was borrowed from political influencer campaigns that Trump later scaled.

Quarterly earnings may drive short-termism

Trevor claimed quarterly reporting pushes CEOs to chase constant profit growth over long-term health, which he links to the 'shitification' of products and services.

The 401(k) may be the deeper problem

Tressie argued that forcing ordinary people into the market via retirement accounts and home-as-asset made everyone care about quarterly data, so any reform would need a stronger social safety net.

Buying out of service lines breeds a narrow view of the country

Tressie argued that PreCheck, Clear, and fast-lane apps let people experience America as smooth, while those providing customer service know that for most people nothing works anymore.

WORDS WORTH SAVING

5 quotes

I think we can draw a direct line between quarterly earnings and the destruction of most things society has held near and dear.

— Trevor Noah

People don't think of it as a problem that needs to be solved. They think of it as a problem that they need to escape.

— Trevor Noah

We extrapolate our everyday experiences and go, "Oh, that's how the world works."

— Tressie McMillan Cottom

When people can consistently buy themselves out of the public square to just get the stuff they need, I can live on Amazon. I never have to interact with the public. I think it makes it really easy to dehumanize each other.

— Tressie McMillan Cottom

I want them to understand that for the vast majority of people in this country, nothing works anymore, and this is why.

— Tressie McMillan Cottom

Read the available transcript
If I Ruled the World game rulesCapping online word countsBots, paid influencers, and the attention economyAbolishing quarterly earnings reports401(k)s and the asset economyMandatory customer service job corpsClass mixing and empathy across status

Ask ChatGPT about this episode

Get its key ideas, plus a summary of each chapter linked to that point in the video, right in your chat.

  1. Add uListen AI to ChatGPT.

    Install uListen AI in ChatGPT (opens in a new tab)Needs a ChatGPT account.

  2. Paste this prompt into a new chat.

    Use uListen AI to give me this episode's key ideas and a chapter-by-chapter summary, with timestamps: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFngOX10N_w

SPEAKERS

  • Christiana

    host

    Co-host on the "What Now? With Trevor Noah" podcast who participates in and helps run the episode’s recurring games/segments.

  • Trevor Noah

    host

    Comedian and presenter; host of the "What Now? With Trevor Noah" podcast.

  • Tressie McMillan Cottom

    guest

    Sociologist and author known for cultural and economic commentary; featured guest on this episode.

High quality AI-generated summary created from speaker-labeled transcript.

Get more out of YouTube videos.

Read along on your phone, search it beside the video, or ask your favorite AI app what was said.

iOSAndroidClaudeChatGPTChrome