tv Fareed Zakaria GPS CNN October 26, 2014 7:00am-8:01am PDT
7:00 am
fareed zakaria gps starts right now. >> this is gps, the global public square. welcome to all of you in the united states and around the world. i'm fareed zakaria coming to you live from new york. >> i don't know. next question. >> we'll start today's show with the attack in canada's capital. it brings up key questions. are lone wolf attacks the new normal? does canada have a jihad problem? >> plus, ebola, isis, terror. is barack obama responsible for the sense people have that the world has gotten crazily unsafe? what does it mean for the midterm elections and for the rest of his presidency. we have great historians and
7:01 am
analysts to weigh in. also, edward snowden said he would love to come back to america for trial. i'll tell you why i think that can and should happen. and on the eve of halloween, can you resist a plate of cookies, a bowl of candy, a bag of marshmallows? what your self-control says about you and your prospects for your whole life, from the psychologist who led the famous marshmallow test. >> but first, here's my take. when news flashed that a man had shot and killed a canadian soldier in front of the war memorial in canada, what most people were wondering but not saying out loud was, is it another radical muslim? and it was. as was the man who ran over two canadian soldiers in quebec,
7:02 am
martin rue low. and a man who attacked four police officers in queens, new york, this week. it's why i have said before we have to be honest. there is a problem in the world of islam today. some people have found in it an ideology of opposition and violence against the modern and western world. the three jihadis who burst onto the news this week represent that ugly phenomenon. but let's dig deeper into these three people to understand what moved them to become terrorists. none of them was born and brought up a religious muslim. a profile of michael bibeau in the "new york times" showed someone who went from a life of partying as a 16-year-old to repeated arrests for drugs and stealing a credit card. he was sent to prison for two years for possessing a weapon in a robbery. one of the people in a salvation army shelter described his
7:03 am
battles with addiction. he was doing heroin to take the edge off crack. amidst this turmoil, the times said, he converted to islam, got radicalized, sought to go to syria to fight in the jihad, and finally tried to fight his own version of it in ottawa and died after willing a soldier. the man who ran over soldiers earlier this week converted to islam more recently, only a year ago. the nypd said the man who attacked its officers with a hatchet converted to islam two years ago. these are not people steeped in islam, people for whom the religion shaped their world view over decades. people who were motivated by their emotiegmergz in the relig. they were unstable young men prone to radicalism and violence. they were searching for an ideology that would fit their disturbed world view, and they found it. it's always worth remembering
7:04 am
that these people represent a tiny minority. think of it this way. terror groups like isis and al qaeda have been calling on muslims to engage in terrorism in western cities for over ten years now. of 1.6 billion muslims worldwide, the number who have responded to these calls is a small, small, small percentage. if all muslims were radicals, we would have more than three to worry about this week. and yet, there is a problem within islam. it's not enough for muslims to point out that these people do not represent the religion. they don't. but muslims need to take more active measures to protest these heinous acts. they also need to make sure that muslim countries and societies do not in any way condone extremism, anti-modern attitudes, and intolerance towards other faiths. muslims are right to complain there is anti-muslim bigotry out there, but they would have a more persuasive case if they
7:05 am
took on some of the bigotry within the world of islam as well. let's get started. >> so let's dig deeper, both on the ottawa attack and on the problem many have been discussing in its wake, how to defend against so-called lone wolves. is there any way to do it. my guest, michael hayden, who has 1 both the cir and the nsa, and a former journalist, now a member of canada's parliament, who was on parliament hill on wednesday when those shots ran out. christa, you were in lockdown for almost ten hours. did it ever get really scary? >> yeah, fareed, it was really frightening, particularly at the beginning. like a lot of people who were inside center block, i heard the shots, and i ran to take cover
7:06 am
in a room. for the first few minutes, maybe even the first hour or so, we didn't know if it was just one gunman, if there were others there, and we were worried. i would like, though, to single out how well the house of commons security officers responded and also to point out, although we the mps and staffers and visitors to canada who were in lockdown were scared, corporal nathan cirillo died. he's going to be buried on tuesday, and our whole country is really sad for him and his family. >> you wrote a piece about all of this called "canada, keep calm and carry on." and it is striking. you have lived in the united states for a long time. the difference between perhaps what is sometimes an overreaction to these kinds of events in the united states, is that in canada, there seems to have been a very measured and calm attitude in the face of it. >> yeah, i was really, really
7:07 am
proud of the reaction of all of canadian society. i thought the security forces were very calm. they took their time, they kept us in lockdown while they cleared out parliament. i thought the canadian media behaved really admirably, not hyping the situation, and i was proud to be in parliament on thursday morning at 10:00 in the morning when we were back at our desks. it was a very nonpartisan moment and we were all there to say we're going to keep on going. at friday night at 8:00 p.m., the speaker sent out a message to all of the mps saying we're opening up the grounds of parliament again to the public because that's how we do things here. that was the right thing to do. >> and finally, would it be fair to wonder about whether canada has a kind of jihad problem? most people don't realize, but canada actually has more immigrants, more foreign-born citizens than the united states does. and so in that mix is there a
7:08 am
problem there somewhere? >> well, fareed, i really appreciated your opening remarks and i think one of the things that is under attack is canadian pluralism and canada as a diverse society. it's really important for all of us to stand up and say we're not going to let that be damaged. there was a worrying incident on friday where a mosque in cold lake, alberta, was defaced and someone wrote go home on the mosque, and that was terrible. that's exactly what we can't let happen. but what was really heartening was the community's response. people spontaneously came out, washed off the mosque, and people brought signs saying, canada is your home, and that's really our message to canada's muslims, to muslim canadians. you're part of this community. we're so glad you're here and we're going to respond to this together. >> michael hayden, what do we do about these lone wolfs, the guys who seem to get radicalized
7:09 am
because they are radical or for whatever reason? how does one handle this? >> fareed, it's a very, very difficult problem. and it's not one that we can make go away. some of these attacks are going to occur even if the security services in a country do everything they're capable of doing. i mean, at what point does freedom of speech and freedom of thought cross over into imminent violence? and thereby lets the community intervene? that's a very difficult line. and as pointed out already, this may be more about resilience than it is about prevention. what happened in canada last week was a tragedy. but the resilience of the system, the action of the sergeant-at-arms, prevented it from being a catastrophe. >> as you point out, in many of these cases, maybe there was some information. in fact, from what we know in one of these cases, the guy who shot the soldier, he was on a kind of a list, but is there
7:10 am
much you can do when somebody is on a list but has not actually committed a crime or a terror act yet? >> fareed, within a year of 9/11, i was meeting with our english-speaking allies at a conference, and one of the members there pointed out that our new dilemma was how do we deal with the not yet guilty? and that's precisely a definition of the problem we now have. and the answer is, we can only deal with that up to a point. beyond that point, in order to preserve our liberties, we've got to live with some degree of threat. >> does all this, you believe, put a different light on the whole issue of nsa data mining and things like that? presumably, you would argue this is why you need pretty broad powers to look and listen? >> there are different regimes in the united states and canada. canada is a bit tougher with regard to what they allow in terms of government
7:11 am
surveillance. it's got a more generous asylum policy. one of the laws that prime minister harper wants to change is how much information canadian services can share with american services. fareed, all free peoples have to balance their security and safety with their liberty and privacy. i think the canadians are going to recalibrate a little bit. we've calibrated based upon what we believe the threat is here in the united states, but this isn't the forces of light and the forces of darkness. this is what democracies have to do all the time. >> and the key issue both of you seem to feel is resilience. the ability to bounce back from these perhaps inevitable problems, right? >> yeah, absolutely. i was just going to single that out and say i think the key here is resilience. i think we have to understand this is not something that can be made to go away with a magic wand. and we have to really be clear that it's really important to secure our democracy, but it's also incredibly important not to
7:12 am
let these attackers achieve their goal, which is to wreck and warp our democracy from the inside. we have to remain who we are. and you know, on thursday morning, canada was still the same country it was on wednesday morning. that's really, really important not to let that change. >> michael hayden, a final quick thought from you. did anything about this worry you about for the united states? or are we -- are we in good shape? >> well, we're in no better shape than canada. we have this danger that you have pointed out in your opening, fareed, about the self-radicalized individuals. there's no communications between any of these people in canada back to any islamist groups in the middle east that we're aware of. so this is going to be a very difficult challenge for us over a long period of time, and frankly, fareed, the things we're now doing in iraq and syria, which i strongly support and would even support expanding them, makes it more likely that folks like this are going to be
7:13 am
7:14 am
i lost my sight in afghanistan, but it doesn't hold me back. i go through periods where it's hard to sleep at night, and stay awake during the day. non-24 is a circadian rhythm disorder that affects up to 70% of people who are totally blind. talk to your doctor about your symptoms and learn more by calling 844-844-2424. or visit my24info.com.
7:17 am
so the big question, of course, is, is president obama to blame? for isis' advance, for the recent fumbled on ebola in dallas, for democrats who might lose in the midterm elections this week? there are many pundits and personalities who might like to blame the white house for this and moyer. i have a great panel to do this. the president and ceo of the aspen institute and the vote of "the innovators" how hackers and
7:18 am
geeks created the digital revolution. gloria borger has reported on and written about presidents since gerald ford was in the white house. she was about 2 years old at the time. shaun has written about presidents from jefferson to lincoln to reagan and some non-presidents like bob dylan. amate is a historian and writer with four "new york times" best sellers including a presidential biography entitled "simply enough coolidge." welcome, all. amity, are the charges that people make about obama correct? >> well, i'm going to surprise everyone and defend president obama. presidents always have a heart time at the end of a second term. and he's no exception. they get tired. the world gets tired. that happens. and also, the onslaught, the combo of isis and the ukraine is a bit disconcerted for everyone.
7:19 am
>> i'm surprised you're not more critical of him. >> i have a lot of sympathy for presidents having written about them and seeing them go down. in one way, he reminds me of woodrow wilson. he kindf pouts a bit and retreats into himself because the world isn't going the way he thought it would. and wilson did that and coolidge did, too. >> a very intellectual president. >> paul krugman would give this rousing defend of obama, saying if you look at domestic policy, most inflewenseal since lyndon johnson. >> we were skeptical at first, much more respectful now of what the president has been able to achieve. it's not spectacular, but a lot of people have very, very high expectations, shall we say. >> including obama. >> indeed. it's hard to be disillusions if you weren't illusioned to begin with.
7:20 am
judging on a more rational scale, i think the president has done a good job. >> i think the problem here for the american people, and i don't know how this plays out in history, is when you look at president obama, you look at the numbers we're looking at now, it's a question of leadership. it's a question of whether he has communicated well to the american public about his successes, which you could argue in the future health care reform will be judged as a success or whether he's communicating with them about the problems like ebola, like isis, like ukraine. and how you talk to the american people has a lot to do with how they view you. >> and he has not, in your view, communicated well. >> i do not believe he is. less than half the public believes he's a strong commander in chief, less than half believe he's a strong leader. this will affect the upcoming elections. the question is if it has any impact on how we view him historically, and it may not. >> how will we view him historically? >> i agree with shaun that the
7:21 am
rolling stone piece written by paul is good and things he's been writing is good, but unlike shaun, i have not been on the same page as paul krugman all the way through, and i realize something that's a little disconcerted, which is he was right and i was wrong. i thought maybe it would be great to have a grand bargain with social security, to cut a deal, all these things, and the stewardship of economy has been good. if anything, the stimulus should have been bigger. we have come out of recovery far, far better, and come out of the recession far, far better than europe did or any other place in the world, and i think health care is absolutely transformative. i've got, as you know, a daughter who is turning 26. all of her friends now can move job to job to job like they love to do, without worrying about how are they going to transport their health care or pre-existing conditions. this makes not only for healthier people. it makes for a much better
7:22 am
economy because you have much more fluidity in the work force. >> i have a feeling i'm going to get a disagreement out of you now. >> one question, was he a kind and lovable leader? another is are his policies optimal and should we re-elect people who follow those policies and here i'll disagree probably with everyone here and say the policies are not optimal. start with the recovery. we had a recovery but it wasn't of high quality, relative to the record for our past recoveries. the reason for that, the primary reason, was the regulatory state that we have established. so dodd-frank, for example, institutionizes too big to fail in a way that's a bit creepy. you fall into this rescue class or you don't. and certainly, is especially hard on smaller businesses who can't comply and afford the compliance. credit, the same situation. officially, banks are supposed to lend, but they don't always with a nominal interest rate. >> what about health care? >> the bill has yet to come.
7:23 am
of course, prices are less high than they would be. it's the beginning of a price-control regime. what is the consequence of price control, the timeframe? first you get the low prices and then you get the scarcity, the lack of availability, right? it will be nominally free, but it will be unavailable. >> quick thought. >> i just think in the end when we look back on president obama, we're going to say that he really started the discussion about the role of government in this country or continued it, i should say, started with ronald reagan. now with barack obama saying, yes, government can be more useful. it can cuck seed, and the question of the competency of government, how to make it more efficient, smarter, work for you, will continue. >> he's lost -- he seems to be losing the public. we talk about how history will view us. gloria told us the numbers. >> those are terrible, but that's not necessarily the most important thing in judging a
7:24 am
president. >> in control of the senate, it may be. >> control of the senate is outside his hands. this is a six-year out election. any party almost always does poorly except in 1998. that's going to happen. a lot of these seats were seats that came in in 2008 that the democrats got because they got them, because it was a big election. >> so we're going to take a break and come back and talk about exactly this. we are nine days away from the midterm elections. will the democrats lose the senate inif that happens, will president obama once again be to blame? ♪
7:25 am
who's going to do it? who's going to make it happen? discover a new energy source. turn ocean waves into power. design cars that capture their emissions. build bridges that fix themselves. get more clean water to everyone. who's going to take the leap? who's going to write the code? who's going to do it? engineers. that's who. that's what i want to do. be an engineer. ♪ [ male announcer ] join the scientists and engineers of exxonmobil in inspiring america's future engineers. energy lives here. i found a better deal on prescriptions. we found lower co-pays... ...and a free wellness visit. new plan...same doctor. i'm happy. it's medicare open enrollment. have you compared plans yet? it's easy at medicare.gov. or you can call 1-800-medicare. medicare open enrollment. you'll never know unless you go. i did it. you can too. ♪
7:28 am
and we are back with walter isaacson, amity, gloria, and shaun. walter, when you look at these elections, do they seem like traditional sixth year elections, that is the party in the white house is always going to lose some ground? or politically, is something going on here, because it does feel like the republicans have a lot of momentum and the democrats are very defensive. >> yeah, there's a discombobulation in the country and it's gotten people distracted from what i think people really care about, which is having a recovery, how do we
7:29 am
make sure everybody gets to participate in the recovery, how do we make sure it's a sustained and real recovery, that it's inclusive so we don't hollow out good working class jobs. and now you're trying to figure out, should i call it isis or isil? should we arm syrian rebels, stop flights from west africa even though there aren't direct flights from west africa. these things are making people slightly unnerved. usually when the economy is getting better, and most importantly of all, when gasoline prices are going down, that's the best indicator of who is going to movies and who is going to vote for the incumbent, but that's not having the effect it should. >> that's fascinating. as walter says, if you looked at the objective data, you would say -- >> people aren't feeling it. >> that's right. >> they're just not feeling any kind of recovery. they're anxious about the world. they see what's going on. they believe it's chaotic. they don't believe the president is leading. they're not sure what they want him to do, by the way, but --
7:30 am
and they're conflicted, but they want to see a strong leader. and so all of this -- >> but hold on. that's a very important point. do they really want him to invade syria? >> no. they don't, and this is where they're conflicted. they want him to be a strong leader, but they don't want boots on the ground anywhere. so the president in a way reflects the public ambivalence, i would argue. but they believe the world is chaotic. there are no sort of serious sets of issues in this campaign. we thought obamacare was going to be a huge issue. well, republicans argue against it, but do they want to undo it? not so much. so i call it -- it's like the seinfeld election. it's not really about anything, but it does matter what the democrats have to do is get their base out there to believe it matters to them or republicans could win control of the senate. >> but this issue of turnout brings up something i wanted to ask you, shaun, which is, so you look at immigration, and you
7:31 am
look at what people assumed, which was a lot of people, well-meaning commentators say the republican party will compromise because they recognize they need to get hispanic votes. but what this election has shown is the republican party has made a different bet, that actually, you can get out the angry white voter in much larger numbers than the mythical or, you know, highly unlikely hispanic voter. and they're doubling down on that bet, and it's working. >> makes sense in this election. this election is basically being fought in the border states and the deep south. this is a confederate election that's going on and that's why they're banging down on that. it's going to get them back the senate most likely. >> and the republicans have a real decision to make. do they want to remain a congressional party? because they can win in congress without hispanic voters, or do they want to become a presidential party and win back the white house? in which case, they will need hispanic voters. what they're doing in this election does not help them in 2016. >> amity, the core reason for
7:32 am
the dissatisfaction, it seems to me, is something we have touched on in this program, which is unemployment is down and so is the median wage. of course, most people have jobs, but what they have seen is for five, ten, now 15 years, the median wage is stuck. >> right, and one undercover thing that is putting pressure on the median wage is all the regulation. it's very hard to run a company now. and it's very hard to reward workers directly with pay when you have a lot of mandates upon you where you must spend elsewhere. that's key. and it's not just the current median wage. you don't know every day if i have the median wage, but the prospect of the median wage staying low that bugs voters. they don't see a big future ahead, and they do see two bills to pay. one is health care and one is, of course, the debt, even if the deficit might narrow, it's still there, and the picture will
7:33 am
become deeply difficult and chaotic. >> walter, you spend a lot of time in silicon valley with a lot of these tech guys. they're seen as the most dynamic force in america today. what do you thing they think of this election? >> i think they think there's a big diconnect between the entrepreneurial economy and the risk-averse, unable to make any deals. unable to get anything done culture you have on capitol hill and washington in general. i also think, you know, most people in silicon valley will tell you, why don't we focus on the major thing? if you want there to be a recovery that's very inclusive, then let's just have a simple thing that everybody can agree on. most people could agree on, which is that every kid in america gets a decent shot. let's increase the ability to have good education and k through 12 education. let's make sure people can go to college. all these things that created the digital revolution in the '50s and '60s, you could rally a consensus around every person in
7:34 am
america deserves to be part of the technological revolution and the recovery so let's give every kid in america a decent shot and do some programs for that. >> historically, how will people look at this moment? is this a return of conservati m conservatism? >> depends on what happens in two years. >> congressional elections -- >> we'll see what happens. two years from now is much more important than anything that happens today, i think. >> i think there's going to be a reset of each party. if you look at the democratic party, it has to figure out a way to rally the base of the democratic party, which has been so obama dependent without president obama at the top, and the republican party has to figure out how to become more inclusive in order to win a presidential election. i don't think either party has really figured out how to do what they need to do at this point. >> if the republicans win in 2016, everything that's come before in the obama administration is going to go away, or they're going to work very hard to try to make it go
7:35 am
away. i think a lot of the obama legacy is going to depend on what happens in the next election. >> the two parties have their marching orders from gloria. thank you all very much. when we come back, a controversial new documentary about edward snowden re-enforced my opinion. he did the united states a service, but he needs to come back to the united states for trial and perhaps punishment. why? i'll explain how to reconcile those two views. moved some new cars. hauled a bunch of steel. kept the supermarket shelves stocked. made sure everyone got their latest gadgets. what's up for the next shift? ah, nothing much. just keeping the lights on. (laugh) nice. doing the big things that move an economy. see you tomorrow, mac. see you tomorrow, sam. just another day at norfolk southern.
7:37 am
tyand for many, it's as struggle to keep your a1c down. so imagine - what if there was a new class of medicine that works differently to lower blood sugar? imagine, loving your numbers. introducing once-daily invokana®. it's the first of a new kind of prescription medicine that's used along with diet and exercise to lower blood sugar in adults with type 2 diabetes. invokana® is a once-daily pill that works around the clock to help lower a1c. here's how: the kidneys allow sugar to be absorbed back into the body.
7:38 am
invokana® reduces the amount of sugar allowed back in, and sends some sugar out through the process of urination. and while it's not for weight loss, it may help you lose some weight. invokana® can cause important side effects, including dehydration, which may cause some people to have loss of body water and salt. this may also cause you to feel dizzy, faint, lightheaded, or weak especially when you stand up. other side effects may include kidney problems, genital yeast infections, urinary tract infections, changes in urination, high potassium in the blood, or increases in cholesterol. do not take invokana® if you have severe kidney problems or are on dialysis or if allergic to invokana® or its ingredients. symptoms of allergic reaction may include rash, swelling, difficulty breathing or swallowing. if you experience any of these symptoms, stop taking invokana® and call your doctor right away or go to the nearest hospital. tell your doctor about any medical conditions,
7:39 am
medications you are taking, and if you have kidney or liver problems. using invokana® with a sulfonylurea or insulin may increase risk of low blood sugar. it's time. lower your blood sugar with invokana®. imagine loving your numbers. ask your doctor about invokana®. now for my what in the world segment. there's been lots of buzz in recent weeks about citizen four, the newly released documentary about edward snowden. >> in the end, if you publish this source material, i would likely be immediately implicated. >> i saw this recently and it's engrossing mainly because we get to see up close the man behind the controversy. >> my name is edward snowden, i
7:40 am
go by the name ed. >> he comes off well. i say this is someone who believes that edward snowden broke the law and should be held accountable. but i also believe he performed a public service by revealing a vast system of domestic surveillance that lacks proper democratic oversight and judicious checks. my two beliefs are not irreconcilable. in fact, the way to reconcile them is a trial. recently, via satellite at the new yorker festival, snowden said he would love to stand trial in the united states. >> ci would love to do so. >> he should. it would transform what he has done from theft into civil disabodeiance, which by definition means willing to accept the consequences of your actions. at the new yorker event, he explained that given the stipulations the government is putting on his return, he doesn't think he could get a fair trial. but the legal scholars i consulted, none of them die hard
7:41 am
conservatives or national security hawks, believe that snowden could get a fair trial. ucla law school's norman abrams told me how such a trial would likely go down. the government would try to prive that snowden broke the law by leaking classified documents. snowden would want to mount a defense that justified his motives and the benefits he believes have resulted from his action. the issue, he said, is generally, motive and reasons for doing the deed are not an element of the crime and trials are limited to proof of the crime and responses to that proof. snowden has argued that previous whistleblowers did not get a fair trial, but the university of texas scholar robert chesney said this is an argument from anecdote and each trial and each judge is different. he, too, believes it is possible for snowden to get a fair trial, though there would be attention between snowden's desire to put the nsa on trial and the court's
7:42 am
efforts to keep the scope of the case more limited. the most striking aspect of the revelations is how few consequenceses they have had. that's because they mostly showed the u.s. government doing secretly what it has said it was doing publicly, fighting the taliban, spying in countries like pakistan, and searching for al qaeda cells around the globe. the disclosures also reveal routine foreign intelligence operations, some of these are entirely justified, such as hacking into chinese computer systems, something that beijing does on a much larger scale to the united states. others are perhaps unwise, such as tapping the phones of the leaders of brazil and germany, but none are morally scandalous. as the former french foreign minister said, let's be honest, we eavesdrop, too. everyone is listening to everyone else, but we don't have the same means as the united states, which makes us jealous. in any event, the price has already been paid. the obama administration should
7:43 am
make clear that edward snowden would get a regular open civilian trial. snowden should come home and make his case. he will surely argue that the laws he broke were unconstitutional, that he has changed american government for the better, that his actions are protected under the first amendment and other kinds of claims. it would be the trial of the century, shining a spotlight on something that has been hidden in the shadows too much and for too long. and that is what edward snowden says he has wanted from the start. for more, go to cnn.com/fareed, and read my washington post column this week. next on gps, when confronted with a scrumptious looking sweet treat, can you control yourself? or do you dig in immediately? your answer might determine much about the rest of your life. i'll explain when we come back.
7:44 am
and sometimes i struggle to sleep at night,nd. and stay awake during the day. this is called non-24, a circadian rhythm disorder that affects up to 70 percent of people who are totally blind. talk to your doctor about your symptoms and learn more by calling 844-824-2424. or visit your24info.com. don't let non-24 get in the way of your pursuit of happiness.
7:46 am
7:47 am
7:48 am
a tray. they were told they could eat that one marshmallow immediately or if they waited, they would get a bigger reward. two marshmallows. so what did the kids do? what would you do? and what does the ability to wait mean for future success? a lot, apparently. my next guest is walter, who was the brains behind this marshmallow experiment and has a new book out called the marshmallow test. he's widely known as the world's leading expert on self-control. so you tracked these children down 50 years later. and what did you find? >> we found a great deal. we found, to our surprise, when they were about 13, 14, 15 years old, that the ones who had waited longer on the marshmallow test, were doing better in
7:49 am
school, were doing better socially. and were doing better on s.a.t. scores, by quite a bit. and we became very interested in why we are seeing these differences. what is that really all about? and we began to pursue them, really, over the years, and approximately after 10 to 12 years, did a follow-up. now, when you kept tracking them, did that difference you saw ten years later, the kids who managed to have delayed gratification, were doing better. was it true 20 years later, was it true 30 years later, 40 years later? >> what happens is that the ones who remained consistently high in self-control over the years as opposed to the ones who remained consistently low in self-control over the years, formed two quite different life trajectories that are distinctly different. >> and basically, you feel that
7:50 am
your results over this long period confirm the basic hypothesis that the ability to have self-control is a predictor of success in life? >> i think the answer to that is yes. and there is an additional answer that i would like to give, which is that what is equally interesting to me, but perhaps far more important in its public policy implications and implications for how we teach our children, educate our children, run our schools and so on, is that the fundamental key skills that enable self-control, that allow a kid to do well on the marshmallow test, involves what is now called executive control, or executive function, which essentially means the individual can keep a delayed goal in mind. i'm waiting for the two marshmallows. resist interfering responses, not going to think how yummy and chewy they are.
7:51 am
it's awfully frustrating to wait 15 or 20 minutes when you're a 4-year-old for a couple cookies or marshmallows. but what the kids who did this well managed to do is transform the situation by distracting themselves, by playing with their toes as if they were piano keys, by exploring their nasal cavities and their ears and toying with what they found, by singing these songs, by doing wonderfully inventive things that essentially allowed them to transform the situation into one that was manageable. >> so this was not hardwired or genetic. this is something that can be taught? >> it's absolutely something that can be taught and it can be enhanced. there are clearance differences in kids and how easy it is for them, and there are clear genetic differences, but the genes, the good news is, are not your destiny when it comes to these kinds of self-control skills. >> can i still develop better self-control?
7:52 am
>> yes, even at your age, one can do that. >> you talk in the book about something very interesting. contextualized self-control, and i think we see this all when we look at people who seem very, very determined and goal oriented in one area and disciplined in one area but not so much in another. >> i think we all have our hot spots. and finding what those spots -- what those hot spots are, is really the first step, if one wants to enhance self-control, because you have to know, where are the places where i'm not -- where i'm vulnerable. whether it's tobacco, whether it's trug drdrugs, whether it's whatever, the identification of where the vulnerabilities are is hugely important. >> now, the one thing i discover from talking to you earlier is you don't like marshmallows. >> well, it's true. for me, marshmallows are not one of the many hot spots i have. >> so for you, this is easy. you would wait a long time
7:53 am
before eating the marshmallows. >> i would have no trouble waiting for marshmallows. >> pleasure to have you on. >> thank you very much. up next, what does your accent say about you? >> hello. >> my name is ahmed. >> my name is christina. >> more than you think. i will explain with my perfect accent. are the largest targets in the world, for every hacker, crook and nuisance in the world. but systems policed by hp's cyber security team are constantly monitored for threats. outside and in. that's why hp reports and helps neutralize more intrusions than anyone... in the world. if hp security solutions can help keep the world's largest organizations safe, they can keep yours safe, too. make it matter.
7:54 am
big day? ah, the usual. moved some new cars. hauled a bunch of steel. kept the supermarket shelves stocked. made sure everyone got their latest gadgets. what's up for the next shift? ah, nothing much. just keeping the lights on. (laugh) nice. doing the big things that move an economy. see you tomorrow, mac. see you tomorrow, sam. just another day at norfolk southern.
7:55 am
7:56 am
7:57 am
during all of the recent ebola coverage, you may have missed some relatively good news about global health. last month, the united nations released its annual report on child mortality. since 1990, mortality rates of children under 5 have been cut in half. it brings me to my question. about half of all deaths of children under 5 occur in five countries. which country is not on that list? is it a, china. b, india, c, the democratic republic of congo, or d, iran. stay tuned and we'll tell you the correct answer. this week's book of the week is peter teal's zero to one. notes on start-ups or how to
7:58 am
build the future. as i told you a couple weeks ago, most books on entrepreneurship are useless, but here is an excellent one. this is a series of somewhat philosophical reflections on a variety of topics at the core of starting and growing a business. he believes everyone should try to become a monopoly because that's where the real money is, for example. he's fiercely intelligent, widely read, and extremely practical in his advice on building a good business. it's a quick, smart read. and now, for the last look. there are an estimated 7,000 languages in the world, and countless more accents and dialects. an accent can reveal a lot about a person. a spectrum of sounds with differing vowels, consonants and drawls. it can show their geographic origin, and social claz, but accents are malleable. they grow with you.
7:59 am
i'm sure mine has changed since i first came to this country. a new book published in the u.k. on accents caught my eye. it's called "you say potato" focusing mainly on the britting isles where they say an accent shifted every 25 miles. it can reflect identity. on the book's website, people from around the world can upload how they say potato to a map. >> this is how i say potato and i come from auckland, new zealand. >> this is how i say potato and i come from dover. >> the brings up the question, does anyone actually say potato, or was it just a good rhyme for the song made famous in shall we dance? so far, we didn't find any po-tot-ohs, but there is a historical reason for this pronunciation. interesting stuff. we have linked to the book and
8:00 am
the potato map on our website. upload your own potato today. >> the correct answer to the gps challenge question is d, iran. according to the report, the top five countries that account for about half of the under-5 deaths are india, niyear yeah, pakistan, the democratic republic of congo, and china. nearly half of those result from poor nutrition. thanks to all of you for being part of my program this week. i'll see you next week. good morning. it's sunday, october 26th, and it's time for reliable sources. an ebola case comes to new york. why the media can't seem to decide if the infected doctor is a saint or a sinner. and a deadly shooting in canada, and a hatchet attack against policemen here in new york. the newsroom whispers about both that many don't want to admit >>.
154 Views
IN COLLECTIONS
CNN (San Francisco)Uploaded by TV Archive on
![](http://athena.archive.org/0.gif?kind=track_js&track_js_case=control&cache_bust=1800037346)