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What Now? With Trevor NoahIf I Ruled the World: Tressie McMillan Cottom Throws Down | What Now? with Trevor Noah Podcast
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Chapter summaries
Will Trevor Run for Office? Cold Open
The conversation opens with Christiana and Tressie predicting that Trevor will run for office in South Africa. Trevor repeatedly denies it, and the exchange turns on the example of Zelensky, a former comedian.
- •Christiana predicts Trevor will become president of South Africa
- •Tressie says she asked him the same question when they first met
- •Trevor denies any plan to run
- •Zelensky is raised as a comedian-turned-leader, then dismissed as maybe not a good example
The Rules of 'If I Ruled the World'
Trevor explains the game and why he likes it: it reminds people that possibility is bigger than we assume. Each person pitches an idea, the others ask questions, and everyone votes, with the audience's amnesia and the vote as ground rules. Christiana and Trevor joke about past ideas, including Josh's pettiness exemption and Trevor's idea that aptitude shouldn't be judged by affability.
- •Trevor says the game exists to loosen our sense of what is possible
- •Everyone develops amnesia, so nobody recalls how things used to be
- •Participants state their case, take questions, then vote
- •Trevor says it's not a competition, while Tressie admits her competitive nature
- •Past ideas include a pettiness exemption from punishment and not rating people by how nice they are
Christiana's Monthly Word Limit for Online Text
Christiana proposes a monthly cap on the number of words a person can post publicly online, with fines weighted to income. Tressie and Trevor probe the details, such as how it resets and what the penalties would be. Christiana explains that she wants to curb the outsized influence of a few online voices on politics.
- •Equal word allowance for everyone, resetting each month, applying only to online text
- •Fines are weighted to income, with Donatella Versace's smoking story as the example
- •Christiana argues big political events of the last decade were shaped by online behavior
- •Tressie asks about perverse incentives and fears podcast bros would just speak more
Paid Influence, Bots, and Why the Word Cap Fails
Trevor argues the cap wouldn't work because people could buy other people's words, pointing to Russian meme farms and paid music campaigns. Tressie adds that Twitter's bots were a response to the Arab Spring and that political influencer campaigns predate the music version. Christiana adds a prison penalty for buying text, and then everyone votes no.
- •Trevor describes Russian-origin memes pushing both sides of issues during Black Lives Matter
- •Trevor says paid-per-view music campaigns create a false sense of what is trending
- •Tressie says political influencer models predate music and that Trump scaled them
- •Christiana adds prison for buying or selling text
- •Tressie and Trevor both vote no, though Tressie agrees with taking the attention economy out of discourse
Trevor's Pitch: Abolish Quarterly Earnings Reports
Trevor proposes banning quarterly earnings reports, possibly letting companies report only every few years. He argues that quarterly reporting pushes CEOs toward short-term gains and the 'shitification' of everything. Christiana asks why not ban IPOs, and raises concerns about fraud and transparency.
- •Trevor links quarterly earnings to short-term incentives for CEOs
- •He hasn't found a company that improved after going public
- •He wouldn't ban IPOs because of benefits he heard from Wall Street people and unpredictable second-order effects
- •Corrupt executives would be caught later and permanently barred from business
- •Christiana raises Enron and the need for public accountability for people with money in the market
Casino Economy, 401(k)s, and the Vote on Earnings
Tressie says quarterly reporting has changed how everyone understands the world, creating a casino economy, especially as people were forced into the market via 401(k)s and 529s. She says that a safety net would be needed. The vote results in a yes from Tressie and no votes from Christiana and Trevor's own idea gets just one yes; Trevor adds history of the SEC's 1970 Form 10-Q requirement.
- •Tressie describes a casino economy of constant risk and dopamine-chasing
- •She says houses, retirement and college savings shouldn't be market assets, and that a social safety net would be needed
- •Trevor says quarterly reports became standard in 1970 after a crash, yet crashes continued
- •Tressie votes yes since yearly earnings existed before; Christiana votes no out of anxiety and her own temptation
- •The amnesia rule means people wouldn't know any other system existed
Tressie's Pitch: A National Job Corps for Customer Service
Tressie proposes that everyone be conscripted into customer service work for a period, paid, to understand how daily life works for most people. She says people who can buy their way out of lines and service interactions have a narrow view of the country, which feeds polarization. She describes the scope and what is excluded.
- •Everyone from richest to poorest serves, paid, so no permanent underclass is created
- •Estimated length is probably up to a year
- •Includes waiters, TSA agents, hotel front desks, call centers and the DMV
- •Excludes skilled work like hairdressing and high-status service like private banking
- •Goal is a cross-section of Americans sharing space, closing the empathy gap
Hairdressers, Retail Memories, and 'Hurt People Hurt People'
Christiana asks whether hairstylists count, sharing her friend Vernon's view that his work is draining physical service labor, while Tressie says skill-based work is excluded. Christiana shares her own retail experience at Alders and worries people could come out of the program and mistreat others. Tressie responds that people who behave badly would anyway, and that losing shared public spaces makes it easy to dehumanize each other.
- •Hairdressing is excluded because it requires skilled training and has intimacy
- •Christiana recalls being treated cruelly while working retail in Croydon
- •Christiana worries hurt people will go on to hurt people
- •Tressie says the loss of shared public spaces makes it easier to say 'my fate is not linked to yours'
- •Trevor asks how this fixes it if people still keep PreCheck; Tressie says they would experience the other side of the exchange
Draft Details and Trevor's Re-Up Suggestion
Tressie explains the program would work like a military draft with no exemptions, somewhere between ages 18 and 21. Trevor asks if people could re-up later in life, arguing young people treat service jobs as a hobby and shrug off abuse, while adults experience it differently. Christiana pitches a Teach For America-style version, and the group discusses childcare and healthcare as part of Tressie's feminist economy.
- •Drafted around ages 18 to 21 with no exemptions
- •Trevor suggests periodic re-upping so that CEOs and retirees serve too
- •Trevor says young people often shrug off abuse in service jobs, unlike adults
- •Christiana notes Gen Z often haven't done side jobs
- •Tressie assumes childcare and healthcare exist in her feminist economy
The Vote: Tressie Wins and Closing Reflections
Trevor argues that people tend to see problems as something to escape rather than fix, and that re-upping would remind people they can't get out of it. Tressie credits him with improving her idea, and both he and Christiana vote yes. They discuss the benefits, including mixing of classes, generations, and genders, and wrap up with credits.
- •Trevor says people treat problems as things to escape rather than fix, using Americans who threaten to leave after elections as an example
- •Tressie says Trevor improved her idea
- •Both Christiana and Trevor vote yes, giving Tressie a win on her first attempt
- •Trevor says universities have lost their role as places where different classes mix
- •Tressie notes wealthy parents might fear their child meeting a poor peer at work
