Episode 56, ‘Utopia for Realists’ with Rutger Bregman (Part II)

The Panpsycast Philosophy Podcast

Jack Symes | Andrew Horton, Oliver Marley, and Rose de Castellane

Euthanasia, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Existentialism, Marxism, Kant, Ethics, Davidpapineau, Dennett, Marx, Evilgodchallenge, Cosmological, Mind, Consciousness, Courses, Nagasawa, Education, Johnstuartmill, Jeremybentham, Aristotle, Ocr, Camus, Josephfletcher, Conscience, Society & Culture, Kantianethics, Philosophy

4.8 • 604 Ratings

🗓️ 17 March 2019

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Rutger Bregman is a historian and author, best known for his bestselling book, Utopia for Realists: and how we can get there. Arguing for new utopian ideas such as a fifteen-hour work week and universal basic income, Utopia for Realists has been translated into over 30 different languages, making headlines and sparking movements across the world.

Despite the fact we’ve never had it better, says Bregman, here in the Land of Plenty, we lack the desire and vision to improve society. The crisis of our times, of our generation “is not that we have it good, or even that we might be worse of later, but that we can’t come up with anything better… Notching up purchasing power another percentage point, or shaving off our carbon emissions; perhaps a new gadget – that’s about the extent of our vision.”

At best, Bregman provides us with a desirable and achievable vision of human progress; a world with no borders, 15-hour work weeks and a universal basic income for everybody. At worst, Bregman wakes us up from our dogmatic slumber, encouraging us to ask important questions about 21st-century life. In his own words:

“Why have we been working harder and harder since the 1980s despite being richer than ever? Why are millions of people still living in poverty when we are more than rich enough to put an end to it once and for all? And why is more than 60% of your income dependent on the country where you just so happen to have been born?”

Part I. Utopia for Realists.

Part II. Further Analysis and Discussion.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Pan, Pan, Pan, Pan, Pan, Pan, Pan, Pan, Pan, Pan, Pan, Pan, Pan, Pan, Pan, Pan,
0:07.0	Scicast!
0:08.0	Part two, further analysis and discussion.
0:26.1	Now, Rooker, one of the things you mention in Chapter 9 when you're discussing the kind
0:30.9	of random easters and the random control random test, is it?
0:36.5	Randomized control trials, yeah. Randomized control trials, yeah.
0:38.1	Randomized control trials, sorry.
0:40.9	One of the things you mention in chapter nine when you're discussing those is you discuss the idea of, you know, people have the same, which is to improve school attendance, right?
0:53.5	We all, you know, charities always want to do this.
0:56.3	And it turns out the randomistas tell us that the best way to do this is simply spend $10 per child on deworming them, right?
1:07.0	So children no longer feel stomach aches from worms, etc.
1:11.2	And they spend an extra, just short of three years in school.
1:15.7	Given kids free school uniforms doesn't do this.
1:19.0	And giving kids free school meals does it nearly as effective, but it's about 10 times more expensive.
1:27.1	And there's a great quote, and you say this, you say, no armchair philosopher could have
1:32.1	predicted that.
1:34.5	And now, as, you know, we're kind of a philosophy podcast and both, you know, do lots of philosophy.
1:40.3	I was wondering, do you ever think that there is a role here within these sorts of debates that philosophy should have, or do you think we should just give mostly everything over to the random Easters?
1:51.7	Well, I think any good philosopher would love the randomistas, right?
1:55.2	He goes back to Burton Drussel's point about the will to doubt.
2:00.1	I mean, we have so many intuitions and beliefs believes and we're so often in love with our own ideas
2:05.6	and we'll think, yeah, this is reasonable, that sounds right.
	...

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