biographies of rock and roll pioneer. little richard and golden state warriors superstar steven curry justice is a sundance must see documentary re exploring the sexual abuse allegations against u. s. supreme court justice bret cavanaugh, suggesting many lines of inquiry were never pursued. oh, sure of this planet. and it wouldn't be sundance without some utterly unsettling offerings like writer, director eddie elk has ours, trippy. sy fi flick, divinity starring stephen dorff under a load of make up. as a scientist who has cooked up the elixir of eternal life. it's in grainy black and white, and yes, there are aliens. so much creativity packed into such a small space. some of these films will go on to become commercially successful or win awards. some won't, but all of them are intriguing and well worth watching. rob reynolds al jazeera

park city, utah ah, watching al jazeera, these are the top stories. now at least 7 israelis have been killed in an attack and occupied east jerusalem happened outside of synagogue, and illegal settlement of navy yak of the past in in gunman was shot dead at the scene is when the prime minister benjamin netanyahu has visited the scene of the attack, he's promised immediate action response to the shooting, but urge the public not to take the law into their own hands. place in the u. s. city of memphis have released video sharing the beating of an unarmed blackman warning. you may find the image is disturbing, or a camera footage on that c. c t v video shows the moment this offices tase it and beat tyrant nichols during his arrest after a traffic stop. the 5 officers faced several charges including murder and

kidnapping. demonstrations have been held in men, fists in response to nickels death protested. are calling for justice and an end to police violence. lawyers for terry nichols family want that memphis police chief to disband a specialized police unit that focuses on street crime. it is on day has more now there are police departments in new york city, philadelphia, atlanta, a washington d. c. including here in memphis, all of them i put their police forces on high alert, anticipating protests that could happen later this evening. here throughout the united states, depending on what this reaction is. to this now released video crews embattled president has called on congress to bring ford elections to this year. the nipple, though, i'd say, has been facing violent protests calling for her resignation. she took office in december after her predecessor, i don't know, castillo was arrested. 2 people are dead and at least 2 others are missing out. a torrential rain caused extreme flooding in new zealand,

largest city and state of emergency in oakland will remain in place for 7 days. after fridays down for the city received a 75 percent of its usual summer rainfall in just 15 hours. those are the headlines, are the news, continues herron elders here that's after upfront hope francis is said to visit the democratic republic of congo and south sudan in a trip that is meant to heal the wounds that is still bleeding. will the pontiff to visit started chapter apiece and reconciliation ending the internal conflicts of these 2 nations. in africa on al jazeera, the idea that human beings are primarily motivated by self interest, inherently competitive, or even just born. evil has permeated western culture for century theories and studies from philosophers and historians from machiavelli to the see to the thomas up and influenced major social, economic and foreign policy decision making. not so argues that historian,

author record pregnant. he believes people are well, actually fundamentally pretty decent. his latest book, human kind, a hopeful history, proposes a new world. he predicated on what he referred to as survival of the friendly. what then how do you explain some of the darkest chapters in human history? i last month, the pregnant and up front of the record pregnant. thank you so much for joining us on upfront. thanks for having me . the news media is often filled with daunting and even pessimistic headlines about the future, whether it comes to climate change or pandemic, endless wars, or human right to try these. but in your book, you write that we're actually quote, living in the richest faith is healthy. if ara ever can you explain your thinking behind? yes, this is pretty astounding, isn't it? but if you look at the, or if you look at the simple statistics that we have,

it's pretty clear as well. so most people don't know that extreme poverty has declined by more than 50 percent since the 1980s. most people don't know that child mortality is declined by more than 50 percent since the 1980s. if you see the rise in vaccinations, for example, against terrible diseases such as measles, that used to be just 20 percent of the war population. now it's more than 80 percent. so in many respects we are making progress as a species. it could have been an headline, you know, for the last 25 years that around 200000 people were pulled out of poverty every single day. but because it haven't happens every single day, people don't really feel it right. the news is often more about what happens to day, you know, and that's usually the bad stuff. but you also make an argument, your book about the fundamental nature of human beings and the human kind. at the core, as you say, are pretty decent. the example you give could make, could be making the case that as a society,

things are getting better because it's in our interest to get better. but that, that is that then another speak to a fundamental human nature. what do you say to that? yet the reason why i wanted to, to write this book is that in the last couple of decades we've seen a major shift in science. so many scientists from very diverse disciplines. and for paula g psychology, archaeology, a social is a, you name it. they've been moving towards a more hopeful view of human nature, you know, a more hopeful picture of who we are deep down as a species. and, and the thing with the specialist is that they're so specialized that they often don't realize what's going on in the field next to theirs, right? and that's the reason why i wanted to write this book is to give people the big picture of what's, what's been happening, what's been going on is that scientists are now emphasizing that we are not fundamentally selfish. no, we've evolved to cooperate. we are actually a product of what they call survival of the friendliest, which really means what you think it means. it means that for the biggest part of

our history, when we in american to gatherers, you know, which was around for you in a 1000 years. and it was actually the friendliest among us who had the most kids, and the biggest chance of passing on their genes to the next generation. friendliness helped us to survive. it was our secret superpower. now i think that's a pretty major shift in how we look at human nature. and that's why i want to wrap this, but i think i'm struggling with it. you know, and i found you, but quite provocative. i found your, your, your reach into various disciplines in history is to be quite compelling. i am just haunted by these extraordinary historical examples of people just doing awful things from the colonization of the americas and 1400 to the holocaust. and we're, we're to other wind and genocide, more recently next 94. and of course, some archaeologist, as you all know, a believe that war has existed since the, the miss olympic era over 10000 years ago. ah, how do you help me make sense of this? are you saying that all of these people's as a dollar civilization of committed some of the worst atrocities were simply

motivated by things like kinship to the group, as opposed to any kind of internal malice or more malevolence or violence inside of them? you know, i'm struggling to reconcile that. yeah, yeah. what any book about human decency will obviously have to acknowledge that we humans are also the cruelest species on the planet. i mean, we do things that no other animal would even think of doing. we commit genocide, so you know, all kinds of atrocities warfare seems to be a quite in a specific form of human behavior. and they just don't see with any other animal. i've never heard of a penguin in our group of banging that says let's, let's exterminate another group of payments, right? so these are singularly human crimes. you have to deal with that. what i want to show in the book though, is that it is too simple to say that this is just in our nature, you know, that we've just always been doing this. because for example, if you look at the archaeology and the anthropology of war, you start to realize that war is actually quite recent invention for the biggest

part of our history. and when we were nomadic into gatherers, people did not engage in warfare. and there's no archaeological evidence whatsoever for that. so that makes you think what went wrong. now if i will give the quickest possible summary of, of the thesis in the book, it would be something like most people deep down or pretty decent. but power corrupts no power is very dangerous drug. and once hierarchy starts to arise in really see that when people settle down when they start living in villages and cities, when they invent agriculture, you see that all kinds of terrible things happen. whether it's the invention of the pe tricky, the invention of private property, the, the era of warfare against. so i'm just giving you the big picture here. i, but that is it, but i guess what i'm struggling with. there are 2 things here. one in you and you give excellent, you know, in both in the book and elsewhere sort of analysis of why people might participate in awful activities during, during a holocaust or awful activities during the rwandan genocide. and in many ways you

link that to their desire to follow orders or the desire to not lead their friends down and the desire to be connected to a broader incident. does that not let people off the hook for their own choices? i think that's a good point. look, i'm not in the business of proclaiming that people are fundamentally good. i think that people are fundamentally cooperative and fundamentally friendly. and sometimes that's exactly the problem. if i could just tell you once short story, i'm in the midst of the 2nd world war. the allied psychologists were wondering why the germans were fighting so hard, still in 19441945. and they had all these theories. the most popular theory at the time was that the nazis must have been brainwashed. you know that the soldiers were just, you know, ideological maniacs. and that was the reason why they were still fighting and 45 when it was clear that we're going to lose the war. but then they started interviewing prisoners of war and they discovered that actually the main reason why these men kept fighting was, well in german commer at shot comradeship. they were basically fighting for their

friends and the german army convent knew this, you know, they, they very deliberately kept these bands of brothers, if you will, these, these groups of friends together because they knew that was the most important reason why these men were still fighting now i'm not saying this to condone anything. i'm trying to explain things in this book. yeah. and that's, that's different from saying a look. these people were just finding because they were monsters or maniacs, or they were fundamentally selfish or evil. i think that's a much too shallow explanation. i guess i'm wondering, is this commitment to comradeship? if it's in the service of something evil, you read that as a sign of human decency because they are lying with their friends. whereas some of us might read that as perfect evidence of how awful people are, because then they're more inclined to do evil things, visibly evil things in order to maintain a social relationship, which in many ways the very selfish desire, rather than to help someone outside of their own immediate sphere control that,

that this reads maybe i just read too much or too much hobbs and on of rousseau. but, but when that's what, that's where i people as i read your book, i found it so compelling in. yeah, i just kept it keep getting stuck there. yeah, i see your point. look, i think you're just absolutely right. what, what i guess you got to realize though, is that what i'm finding against in this book is what scientists skull veneer theory. and the near theory is this notion that people are fundamentally selfish, that our civilization is just a thin layer, you know, just a thin veneer and the, as soon as something bad happens, say a crisis, an earthquake war, or whatever that people basically are, are all in it for themselves, you know, they start looting, they start plundering. and this is a story that's very often, you know, being taught. it was also, you know, in media you remember maybe after katrina, 2005, the stories full of stories about or the press was full stories about looting and

plundering in the end that turn out, you know, to be factually incorrect. so i'm are pessimistic or cynical view of human nature has your really negative consequences. what we assume in other people is often what we get out of them. so i'm not in the business of, you know, for claiming that the, that people are angels or anything like that. obviously not, we're capable of terrible atrocities. but our, our theory of human nature really, really matters. it can be yourself in a prophecy. and i think it really pays to assume the best and others around us in 2019 you went virally dabbles. when you caught out all the millionaires and billionaires who were in the crowd, you said that they can talk about quote, stupid philanthropies, games. but people really need to be talking about tax avoidance, because the rich simply are not paying their fair share. it's been 3 years since you made those statements and frankly nothing. nothing's really changed at all. it economic inequality continues to grow. the rich are still exploiting tax loopholes without any accountability. corporations are still dodging taxes left,

right. what does the lack of progress on this issue say about the relationship between wealth and responsibility? i guess i'm a little bit more hopeful. i wouldn't say i'm optimistic, but i am hopeful because i do see change. if we just zoom out a little bit and look at what has happened in the last, say 10 to 15 years, we've seen the rise of so many big movements, whether it's me to or black lives matter or fridays or future. you know, the climate movement and actually also in the fight against tax evasion, we have actually seen progress. the problem 15 years ago was that no one was talking about it. you know, this was all in the shadows, but now it's been politicized. and now people are starting to get angry about it and actually, you know, switzerland already had to abolish it's. it's a secrecy, laws bank secrecy laws. so that some progress, actually the fact that people are starting to get angry about this is in itself a sign of progress. this is one very paradoxical phenomenon that we often see in

the public debate. you know, is that the very moment that people start to get angry is already when we're making progress. and that's because they're angry and, and that's, that's exactly what we should be. just taking a step back for a moment, your assessment of human nature's that we're, that there's this decency here, but that the power has a corrupting force and tack capitalism. kind of normalized the either that some was going to be powerful someone's going to have and someone's not going to have. is it possible within the context of capitalism to ever get to a place of actual justice of equality, of not having a kind of oligarchy. rule over the world. ah, can we ever get there as long as we have this kind of class defending state in place? can we, can we get to the ultimate vision inside of a capitalist world? so i've never really liked these dogmatic debates about capitalism versus socialism . it's pretty clear to me that you can have terrible capitalist society, such as do us, why life expectancy is act to be going down right now. i mean

u. s. g d, p per capita is like 50 percent higher than in spain, but people live 5 years longer in spain. so clearly something's going bad either. there's a, there's a huge amount of diversity obviously. so the way i envision it is that civilized, just society as it provides all these public services, you know, high quality health care are high quality, public education, a basic guaranteed income for everyone. we're more than rich enough right now to completely eradicate poverty. and i think that's actually an investment that pays for itself, but then yes, sure there's still place for companies and markets. i don't think we should abolish markets altogether. if you visit finland, for example, or costa rica. i mean, these are technically capitalist societies. but you know, so radically different from, for example, the united states. so i sometimes fear we get lost in all these theoretical debates . and we, we forget to focus on, you know, just the concrete sauce that, that,

that lies ahead of us, which is just, you know, building movements, drafting legislation and winning. i think that got to do with standing on the right side of history involve maybe redesigning our political and economic systems in ways that don't assume that we're often they don't assume that we're monsters that don't assume that we, that we will look out for ourselves. even in moments of crisis, i mean, is there a way to design a difference? what could a different world look like in the context of what you're describing? so i think that the idea of updating your view of human nature towards a more hopeful view of humanity is quite revolutionary. there is a reason why throughout history, those who have advocated this more positive view have often been prosecuted. so if we look at the anarchist tradition, for example, may be, you know, peter kropotkin, the russian anarchist in the 19th century, he believed them. people were fundamentally good. and well, he had to basically run around the globe, you know,

hiding from the russian secret service. because those at the top understand that a positive view, a hopeful view of human nature is downright seditious. if people contrast each other than they now don't need kings and queens anymore, they don't need armies and secret services. and ceos and managers in you name it, then maybe we can move to a much more egalitarian and generally democratic society, that sounds like it as a capitalist society. to me, i mean that not, not that, that, that, that is linger here to load with everything you're describing. sounds like can only happen if we just met the hierarchies you're talking about only happen of leaders, mental capital. sure, sure. well, i'm all in favor of going beyond capitalism, post capitalism, blah, blah. as i said, i normally non super interested in all these, you know highbrow ideological debates. i'm more interested in. okay, what are we going to do concretely to morrow? ok, so that's why in the book i included a lot of case studies of organizations of while even criminal justice, whole criminal justice systems that try to implement this. so for example,

if you go to norway, they have a completely different kind of prison system. you visit the prison stair and while it doesn't look like a prison at all, you know, the prisoners are treated humanely. get the freedom to socialize with the guards to make their own music. there is one prison that even has its own music label called criminal records. in her and, and if you don't look at the results of these kind of institutions where you can look at one thing that criminologists called the recidivism rate, you know, which is the chance it's someone will come in another crime once he or she gets out of prison, well that recidivism rate is nowhere as low as in norway. so even though these places don't look like prisons at all, they're the most effective prisons in the world. now if you compare that to the u. s. u. s. prisons are more. well, kropotkin, the anarchists i just mentioned, called them universities for crime. so we take that taxpayer money and we built these terrible places that actually turn, you know, people into their, their criminal genic, they produce, they produce more, a lot more cra,

let me talk the, a little bit more about this question of power, because in some ways you talk about power almost like if it's a bogeyman that is outside of human agency that is outside of who we are as a people. if that is in fact the case. what is what generates as power, what we understand what power is and how we can dismantle it. power is absolutely essential to the human experience. so even anarchist organizations that they can't think away power, it's always there even if it's not institutionalized, or formalized, or whatever. so it always needs to be kept in control. and if you study nomadic, you hunter, gatherer societies, they had a very straightforward way to do this. they used the power of shame. so shame is really essential and human societies, humans are the only animal in the animal kingdom with the ability to blush. i mean, isn't that astounding? right? we involuntarily give away her feelings to other members of her species in order to

establish trust so, so that was really important in those kind of societies. once you would start to behave in a 2 narcissistic ways, you know, people would shame you. so humbleness would really be a prerequisite as a leader in a, in a horizontal society, like that not what we see a more hierarchical societies like the one we we live in today, is that actually sit shame, shame, less nurse can sometimes be positively advantageous, right? which is very much the opposite of how things used to be. we now sometimes have a politicians are leaders who are able to do things. you know, that other people, you know, just wouldn't be able to do, right? because they would just immediately start blushing. but if, if you just think of, say, your, the president in your specific country and think of like, one was the last time i saw the saw him or her blushing, right? probably hard to remember. you know, that's not really what you do in politics these days. so there seems to be something in the human psychology itself. and this has been and studied even in

brain scanners, is that under the influence of power, you become less empathetic. it's as if you become disconnected. as i sat there are neurological studies that show that people seem to mirror each other last. so mirroring is really a central part of the human experience. you know, we copy each other all the time. you start yawning, ice, that yawning as well, right? i'm people who are in more powerful positions they, they do this way. last and so it seems as if they're less in sync with the rest of humanity in and down and suddenly pauses in place. that almost concede of the disposability of people or big believe that brutality violence harm it's. it's just how it is just, it's just the way human ears. for example, we'll see a global outcry over an image of a young child. you know, they're lifeless body washed up on a european beach, just one of countless migrants who are struggling to get to safety. but border

policies in most countries don't change. they remain incredibly restrictive. uh, yeah, it was a in who mains, you know, a gimmick. ha ha, in the it's clear policies. if people are fundamentally geared towards, is you say, cooperation, it taken care of each other? yes, yes. well, i'm not saying that humans are angels on the one hand over the years. this is, we are being an angel. we're talking about mad at us. yes. systemic inequality, structural harm that we see every single day. you don't be an angel to not want child labor or people washed up on the shore or so, you know, these kinds of things. yeah. yeah. yeah, but you're right, that are empathy is limited and there's one psychologist called paul bloom, who's written a quite terrific book with a title against empathy, where he argues that the problem with empathy is that it's more like a spotlight. it's a search light, right? it helps you to focus on a specific group or specific person, right? one child that you know washes up on our shores. and then every once shocked. but it's very hard to look at the statistical number and feel the same outrage right?

there's. this is quote from the philosopher bertrand russell, that i always loved. he, he once rode, the mark of the civilized mind is to look at a row of numbers and be able to weep. i guess the challenge, if i, if i tell you 5000000 kids every year, die from easily preventable diseases, while you don't feel much, probably. but these are 5000000 children, you know, with, with parents who really, really love them. so what we got to try and do hair is overcome our cognitive limits, overcome our emotional limits and realized that we can them. and we should also help people who, you know, we don't instinctively feel these kind of things about. and that is possible. mean we, again, we have made progress in, in quite a few respects, but not nearly there. yeah. fair enough. one of the things you talk about in the

book that i really appreciate, you talk about this throughout your career, is idea of not just knowing what we're going to fight against, but also having sort of an affirmative vision, you know, knowing what we're, what we're fighting for what are, what our goal is, talk about what that means to you. so when i wrote my 1st book, which is scott, utopia, freelance, i was frustrated that young people at the time didn't really have a big positive vision, and they mainly knew what they were against. this was just after financial after the financial crash of 2008, and we were all against the establishment the, and against the stairs. he and against homophobia against racism. and obviously i also was against all those things, but i felt what's actually our load star, what something were striving for, what could be a utopia for the future? i mean, the under slavery and democracy in the welfare stayed all these great achievements they were once utopian until they happen. so in history quite a few times, we've seen the impossible become inevitable and down. that's what i've been looking

for. but you know, the thing is there's, there's quite a few reasons to be helpful because i think that young people to day had do have a much more positive hope of youth future, her vision of where we could go if we radically change our as i and you help us with that vision. you have some concrete ideas yourself, of what we could do to change the world. talk about universal basic income, a 15 hour work weeks, open, borders, all of this stuff. what would your utopia for realist as you put it look like? so maybe it's interesting to zoom in on that 1st idea universal basic income. when i 1st wrote about it, i think that was in 2013. it was a pretty much forgotten idea. most people haven't heard of it. there were some people here in the netherlands who are asking me like a basic income. is that sort of the base salary of the bankers on top of which day receival their bonuses? i said no, this is actually really exciting idea, and we can completely eradicate poverty. and what we see now is that there are

dozens of experiments happening all over the globe. there was actually a recent piece in the new york times about the, the huge wave of experiments in the us. and, and i think that's really exciting. people are starting to realize that poverty is not a lack of character. it's just the lack of cash. and how do you solve a lack of cash while you get people money? that's what you do because poor people themselves are the experts on their own lives. there's nothing wrong with them. they just don't have the, the means. they don't have the venture capital to invest in their own lives. and what the evidence shows us quite clearly again and again is that when you invest in people, when you give them the means to make their own choices, a lot of positive things happen. you know, kids do better in school health improves people fight new jobs. they start new companies, they actually are able to pay more in taxes. so again, this often pays for itself. and it's one of those ideas that really moves beyond the standard, you know, divide between the left and right and where the 40 percent a rat over while, if you're talking about while the paying more in taxes in the poor getting more

cash to more radical redistribution of wealth from the ruling class to every day workers or mean? yes. your internet, your interest away from capitalism. bit by bit sir. i, i can't wait for your next book, which will, which will be that when you have the full conversion. anyway, it is an incredible conversation is incredible. thank you so much for joining us and our friend. it's been an absolute pleasure. thanks so much room whitley, everyone that is our show up front will be back. leki. ah ah. and with

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