This is 99% invisible. I'm Roman Mars.

A few months ago I got an intriguing email from the Clinton Foundation. It said that former President Bill Clinton

had read the book I co-authored with Kurt Colstead, the 99% Invisible City, and he really enjoyed it and

wanted to interview me for his podcast.

I was gobsmacked by all this and I don't think it really sunk in what was happening

until I was face to face with President Clinton on a Zoom where we talked for two hours about cities, design, and my favorite

park in North Little Rock, Arkansas that my grandma used to bring me to as a kid.

It's called the Old Mill.

That little tidbit didn't make it into the final episode,

but we had a great conversation and it was really fun.

And so this week, while I happened to be in New York for the Clinton Global Initiative

hosting conversations about cities and

inclusive design. I thought I played this episode that Clinton and I recorded

together for his show, Why am I telling you this? So here I am being interviewed by President Bill Clinton.

One of the most important non-political political books I've read in the last decade or more is the social conquest of

Earth by the great biologist E.O. Wilson, who passed away last year at the age of

92. In it, Wilson argues that the most successful species that have ever

inhabited our planet are ants, termites, bees, and people, because they, out of all those species that have ever existed,

have been able to repeatedly avoid opportunities to destroy themselves or be destroyed by others.

And the one thing they all have in common is that they all have very high levels of

cooperation. But of all species, Wilson says humans are the

greatest cooperators because their consciousness enables them to evolve and

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