>> they just would eat colossal amounts. his weight ballooned and it caused eventually by the mid '60s severe health issues so that he had diabetes. eventually going blind and then he lost his kidneys said he would be on dialysis she and quite frequently for a long period of time where he would

have people come and read "the new yorker," the economist, "the new york times" to him. so it's a tough story from the 1950s on. there was a rumor that he did it for an election debt that there was a bet the weekend before that chaplain would win so much of a% in bourbon county coming to hedge his bet he wanted to help himself out so that's why 200 ballots in a statewide election might make a difference. then there are others who say prichard had not paid his dues and begging you to show that he was still one of the local courthouse gang that washington had not made into much of an elitist, that he still understood the ways of local politics, and that it was something very common richardson. his father had done it a lot of people in bourbon county knew

that's how politics work, and to help pay his dues maybe that's what he did it. he never really explained it. later in 1976 he admitted that he did it and set it was a moral blind spot that he had no explanation for. and never tried to come up with an excuse for it but that it was simply something that he regretted for the rest of his life. i wish people would see that political biographies are fascinating but they're not just fascinating about people who are elected or when office sometimes people who run for nothing or maybe losing office can have an impact in ways that you can't imagine. robert caro should this about robert moses who was unsuccessful in electoral politics but now knew how to work the system in new york to create something behind the scenes.

and also to see that american history is rife with tragic figures whose lives we can celebrate and also just shake our heads at the same time because that's who we are that's the human condition. and like i said when i started, historical research, you never know once you ask that first question where you're going to be taken. and prichard's life to me on come it was like a river i was swept up in and i just, i couldn't believe that i was that lucky to have a chance to write about a figure that was so complex, so dynamic, so flawed and so gifted. >> for more more information on booktv's was a visit to lexington and the many other cities visited by our local content vehicles to to c-span.org/localcontent.

>> princeton university's peter singer argues we are in an age when being successful will be based more on altruism than financial success. that's next on booktv. >> high, after. alights blindly. energy. peter, first of all, thanks for having me do this because i have known peter a long time and it must be kind of glowing to some of your more theoretical desires be implemented. in a broadway. we were talking backstage slouches ask this question from the audience. wideout? what has happened? is a to this generation of young people cares more? what are the elements that have made it possible for this to be a burgeoning movement when it

was an? >> it's a really interesting question and it is generation of millennials, people have come of age since 2000 who are really interested in this. i'm not sure why. one thing could be that they feel reasonably economically secure but they want something more in their life and that. of course, there's a number of people who made quite a lot of money quite young because of the digital revolution, and when they do that they certainly think well what now? now that i've made my 50 million or 100 million, even billions by the time you're 25, what do you do with rest of your life? what of course not everybody is in a situation because they can't be -- >> tough issues. >> i do think the internet has played a different role, that is a lot of people have come up to

me and said i never heard the term effective altruism before i now realize being effective altruism since i was a teenager, perhaps a child. so the internet makes it easier to discover effective altruism. people connector instead of feeling that must be something strange about me because i really think that i should share more of my good fortune of people in poverty, they cannot see that lots of people out there who think that. something that's been a factor as well. there's probably more to it than you know. >> since you mentioned morality that was an important document for a lot of people but it was also there wasn't a lot of give. you basically i believe it's fair to say argued that we should give the things they avoid until we are with those people for the poorest among us.

i'm sensing from you and reading the book that you don't quite feel that way right now. >> i don't quite feel that way. let me qualify. it is a footnote in the article which is look, if need of a decent business suit in order to earn a good living and by giving away your suits he would not be able to earn as much and therefore, not give us much then, of course, you ought to keep the seat. there's a little concession but it's modest, i agree. there's a sense in which i still think that what you ought to be doing is maximizing the amount you can give unless you do get to the point where you would be doing as much damage to yourself as you do good to the person you're helping. but i also think now that that stance is to dementing to attract people to that way of life. so to some extent you could say i've become more pragmatic in

what i'm suggesting that people do. i'm welcoming the fact that people start more or less at any point any fingers at all significant in terms of contributing to the affected charities. and i'm saying start somewhere and you're comfortable with then maybe do a little bit more next year, see where you go. i don't think i'm not on any particular kind of caught off-line now. i'm just saying make this a significant part of your life and see where you go from there. >> one of the interesting things that you brought up in the book was this idea that if you want to really be good for other people, maybe for some people the best thing to do is go to business school and make hundreds of millions of dollars and then give it away. some people have done that and

some people have purposefully without the hundreds of millions but they're purposefully decided i'm going to be a successful as possible because in that way i will be more useful. do you see a danger in that sort of thing? >> i don't think it's for everyone. there certainly could be dangerous for particular people to go into that because obviously you're then going to be working with people who are really interested in making lots of money, but unlike you they are interested so they can keep lots of money and buy themselves the porsches or 10,000 or whatever else it may be that go with it. so you are then perhaps going to start feeling i do need these things, too. i can't really enjoy life with alabama. but i also think there are other people who have a strong enough commitment that perhaps no their own character well enough to say

i'm not going to be seduced into that. i'm going to be firm in my intimate and tell him i think i'm going to be firm and that commitment and i'm going to keep those friends who have those values and that will help keep me up to the mark. so i think it can be a very useful thing to do. i think it's an understanding that sometimes your ability to earn money as a great asset and particular skills that you might have that would lead you to being an aid worker a whatever useful profession there might be be. >> for a lot of people are trying to decide what kind of career to have and what to pursue that means the most to them in their life how much do you think they should sit down and care about these issues when selecting a career? or should they just do what you love and hopefully they will be successful and be able to give? >> i think they should think about these issues. it's true that if you hate the work you're doing you're probably not going to be

successful. if you think you would hate life as an investment banker or whatever then don't do it. you're not going to be good at it anyway. but if you think it does have some interesting challenges and i wouldn't mind mixing with those kinds of people, there's a certain kind of status in that has affected some, the fact you can get that job and hold down another big seller. so i would be recently happy doing that and i could then give away a lot. i think that's fine you should think about that. there are other careers like the person i talk about in the beginning of the book max, who could've had an academic career was a very good philosophy student and was offered a place at oxford for graduate school. i think he did think about whether he would do more good in the one than the other. sometimes your passion might be a career in which you're not really going to make much difference to the world, you might enjoy it but i think

that's a reasonable consideration. what am i going to be doing for this world if i follow this passion. >> let's talk a bit about kidneys because you write about kidneys. you write about organ donation and one of the things you say this you can live with one kidney and the risk of dying or having harsh consequences in getting a kidney up i think is oneone of 4000, i'm sure it's very small. wouldn't it be better if those people who are giving their kidneys away did one of two things, one, this is a country where when you die in a car accident it is assumed you don't want to donate your organs. whereas many other countries is the opposite. so first if we reversed that it would be a remarkable thing. the second sort of scientific thinking is not crazy to think

about growing functioning kidneys no. this doesn't take away from the. it's just how do you determine when to do something like give a kidney? and the other thing i will ask is, is it okay to sell your organs? not necessarily for profit but to make money. >> i do think it would be better to have opting in rather than --.com opting out rather than opting in. reverse the present situation. we would get more kidneys but the evidence is that with all the problem of shortage of kidneys. if you look at the european nations that have done that they still problems with katie and of kidneys despite that the ironically things like making motorcyclist wear crash helmets actually reduce the availability of organs even if you have that kind of system. that's the first thing. you have three questions. the third one was about selling kidneys. what was the second one?

>> it was just about to you pursue sort of a research solution speak with sure. yes, absolutely. i don't think we can grow a functioning kidney yet by the people of techniques for doing that, absolutely. that would solve the problem. it's not like i wanted to be a shortage of kidneys. i'm not into promoting moral virtue. i'm into promoting moral virtues because of the consequences that flow from it. thirdly, should you sell your kidney? it's illegal to do so and the united states. you can get prosecuted so my answer to that is no. but should that be the law i think there's a good argument is saying at least we should experiment with some instances. i've signed, there's a letter going around, i think you can find it online suggesting that the u.s. government have pilot project in providing some

incentives, which is currently illegal or at best a gray. rather than pay cash which have certain problems i guess we could have payments into people's iras that they can collect later. we could have pay for the health insurance for the rest of their lives. we could have sort of things that would be long-term lasting benefits for people who were prepared to give up a kidney to someone. i think that would be worth doing in order to see essential how it works. >> you reminded me of a weird thing. i lived in rome. some who came to visit with a brain surgeon and the people -- is and why are they not wearing helmets ask this would be the greatest place in the world to be a brain surgeon.

you try to do the metrics of giving in a way to maximize the good. that's always what you been up. other people would argue bill gates. bill and melinda are like that. there's a growing number of people like that. you talk about a theoretical thousand dollars donation. would you give that to africans or americans? a lot of people would say there are poor in this country, why do we do with that? obviously, very obvious but thousand dollars would go very much further in another place than it would you can't even that is absolutely true that our people in desperate straits. it's also i think true that people are clannish and tribal to some degree and they want to help the ones they know who are new than. i think this sort of extended family of maybe a country.

that seems to me to be a theoretical problem. >> you're right, i think people probably do feel like that and some of those closer circles i think extreme it difficult and i would really want to try to say to people look you should be impartial between your kids and kids of strangers i think. you couldn't expect anyone to do that. if i say to me shouldn't automatically give priority to your fellow americans over people globally. i don't think, is that some biological default nature this is geographical boundary a around your entry care more about people within that boundary and to give people outside it. >> you obviously have never met a tea party member. >> that's a new phase of evolution that has happened very quickly. very interesting yes. so i think it is possible to get people to redress that balance

to some extent. when you see the things you can do so just to spell out the recent event, the poverty line for familyfor a family of four here is about $23,000. to give him $1000 you have to make very much difference. you've given them roughly what they would get every two weeks anyway. the world bank is maybe about $1.78 five or something. they are people, a billion people in the world that on something like $600 significantly less than $1000 a year. you have given them a whole years of salary. the charity i'm delighted green light is sharing some of its returns with give directly actually does exactly that. it gives $1000 so there's no dependence coming from it to families, some the poorest families in africa. it follows up with a do with

the. they do things like buying a tin roof replaced the late the fact they have on the house. so now when it rains they can keep try and keep their possessions dry. their food is less likely to spoil. and also they say and also they say the expense of retouching that each year which cost them 20, $30 but it's a savings. is a good long-term investment but because they are on five, six, $700 a year they could never save the hundreds of dollars they would need, alcohol thousand but maybe three or $400. it makes a huge difference to the lives for many years to come. that's why think we ought to be able to overcome this by our fellow country people. >> let me say if you're going to ask peter a question, i think the given index cards begin to write your question and in a few minutes and look at them and i will ask him some of the questions. do you think some of the

shifting to a more worldly view is the internet, the ability to communicate or steal other people live in a way they never have before? >> i think it's a number of the things that connect us more closely. the internet certainly is another stage of it. it was offered happening in other ways clearly in the news we were bringing us closer to the rest of the world. at the internet does more of it. i mentioned max a moment ago. one of the things he and facebook is trying to promote is making the internet accessible to whatever it is half the world that doesn't have access to at the moment. and i think that would be something that would really increase this but if people could really be more in contact with people throughout out extreme poverty or have a great

connection with him, participate in an other ways. i think this would help even more and we would advance further. >> can ask maybe come i think a lot of people are confused about how to get them what to give, to whom to get bigger so may different options as you can click on so many different things and people talked about overhead and they can be very daunting i think for people who are not used to contributing resources. >> right. >> who do you have some advice speak with i do. it's another reason why effective altruism has taken off, since the founding of give well in 2010 with better information about which charities are truly effective than we had before. before we only had this information about how much goes to administration and fundraising and how much goes to programs. a lot of people still choose which organizations to give to on that basis.

it's really not a useful guide to because imagine an organization that is trying to do well people will give to organizations that spend little on administration so let's fire half of our staff at our decision will be down below 10%, the threshold people get too. now they only have half half the staff to how to define which programs to get to? it's going to be much more scanty information that they have the ability to analyze. out of the follow-up with the programs they funded are working or not? again they may not have the staff to do it. it may be you get much better value for your dollar giving to the organization that is twice the administrative expenses and didn't have it staff in that way way. and give well which was founded by couple of young hedge fund guys who wanted to give to charity but couldn't really get good information about which a charity to give give it really does analysis of the result of

the programs and its rigorous in what it does. so that's one source. the life you can which is an organization that is spun off my previous book went to global poverty also makes recommendations. partly drawing on give well partly being a little bit broader. if you're interested in one more thing i want to say i'm delighted green light giving away part of the proceeds. i'm also donating the royalties on burning to the book to effective charities. but don't ask me which ones because you or the public are going to decide, at least decide within a list. if you go to the website for the book, the most good you can do.com and click on a movement you get another link. a giving game is going to be you get presented with a list of 16 charities with some information about them. you will be able to vote for the charities that you want my

royalties to go to and they will be divided up proportionally to your votes. i think it's an educational exercise to get people to think about how they choose their charities. the hope is that by doing this than in future they will also think about those questions in the same way. >> some of these things seem may be more simple than that are. you mention in the book norman who is a researcher who is mostly credit for bringing the green revolution, and he is me people including me have written, saved more lives in a person. i once said this on npr. i got hate mail as did scott simons, for months and months and months because not only did norman save hundreds of nights of us can introduce a lot of fertilizer into the world. that had some significant negative consequences. now, i would argue at that

moment if you had to do it again he would do it again. but a lot of people hate him. i guess my point is not about him but about it's difficult always to know i'll give you another, so clean water is a good thing and is lacking at a lot of places and use give people decent water, that's an obvious a good unless a neighbor sinks at depot and present you don't have a water table and give arsenic and you have nothing. those things are difficult to regulate i think in the real world. >> yes, they are difficult and they are difficult to predict. we have to be careful about those sorts of interventions i think. to see whether they are working. we have to assess of them trials and gather the evidence and the data in order to see what is good. i agree with you about norman borlaug but, of course, there are people who think that he should have just develop organic methods of farming, compost the window and i got into things to

use chemical fertilizers advocates is a lot of the reason for the hate mail that you've got there. these are difficult decisions to make but i believe applying reason and evidence is going to enable us to make better decisions. that's what the effective altruism movement is really all about. >> i agree with you. i wrote this down, it's in the book this phrase -- the idea that people should want to get off that and do something. do you think that is that the problem in this country and there's been a lot of excessive accumulation of wealth to come by willful i don't mean necessarily fancy cars. just like having things having things have things is almost a national pastime. do you see that changing? >> i certainly hope it will. it's bizarre really have the storage industry has taken off.

people live, americans typically live in larger houses, more space per person because family sizes have often dropped but houses have grown larger than they ever did before. yet they still need to rent storage space. there is something wrong here. you can really enjoy that many positions. this idea to try to john makin treadmill is really a valid concept -- had john mack -- you get the consumer goods and you enjoy briefly but pretty center back at the level of enjoyment that you are so you have to buy more stuff. in contrast people i think, this is my experience with effective altruism but for many years before that with the animal movement, people who are working for a purpose that harmonizes with the values that they see as meaningful and significant have a kind of fulfillment. they don't need to get

satisfaction out of accumulating more and more stuff. because they have the fulfillment that comes out of knowing that they've done something worthwhile with their lives if they look back, if they are towards the end of their life, and look back with a sense of satisfaction and pride and self-esteem that they have actually used their life well. i wonder how many other people who are stuck into that treadmill actually can do that? >> i want to say there must be like the people in the audience who do fill out a card. which is amazing and kind of evidence of the interest. i can't possibly -- we will ask some. there are some really good ones. can you talk about the idea of anonymity both the giver and receiver in the effect of the movement was contrast that with the practice of -- i do know,

it's been a while since a been to australia. they have a big pension which people need to have their names on everything. is repulsive but i would rather name buildings than not have the building. >> i suppose but i mean -- [laughter] because example is just happen now, is david gibbons get to the lincoln center i thought you to be called a free fisher hall. we know what is going to be called now and the interesting thing about that is the lincoln center have to pay. so he gave them $100 million which is only toward the renovation. it will cost half a billion. but the lincoln center than have to pay $15 million to the family of avery fisher to compensate them for the loss of his name which implies that david's name on the building is at least $50 million because otherwise he could have just they could use the whole 100 that if they didn't have to put his name on.

i do find that the bazaar i have to say. the other thing is "the new york times" had this article about the debate come is 190 enough to buy naming rights is the renovation is going to cost half a billion bucks it didn't have a debate about why does david think the renovation of the concert hall is the best use that he can make of his money? >> i will not name names but i get over it conversation how much money is required to issue that your trial will be accepted to harvard. it's a lot apparently. [laughter] you can't just throw a few hundred thousand dollars of some and expect to get your kid can spank you certainly can't. i don't know much about harvard but at princeton although he yet i think you give 50 million to 100 million gift and if your child is close to the borderline then they will put them on the skills and your child will get in.

if your child is not academically -- there's no amount of money i believe that will get them in spirit good to know. [laughter] >> save your dollars. [inaudible] or distribute money to a bunch of charities? >> i think it's put it this winter i think it's not a good idea to give to a large number of charities. for one thing, there's and administrative costs to charities and processing gift and inventing new stuff and so on. plus why are you giving to a large number? it suggests you haven't done your homework and winnowing that down to a relatively small number. you might say i cannot decide between a range of different causes. i think global poverty is a major issue, i think reducing animal suffered is a major issue, trying to do something

about climate change is a major issue. why would you give to several different charities in one field. it would august was if you could separate them but i think if we did more research and look at what did well for examples us about them, if in the global poverty field which give well specializes in, that you probably could winnow. >> is another one of interest. these are many, many good questions. better questions that i asked by the way, but whatever. on the service think of these ideas you like a very western and externalized approach. came to life case of proposed by effective altruism be reconciled with more eastern internalize the values such as finding one's true nature? and i'm going to say this follow ones bless? i'm guessing the person meant

should we, how do we divide the public-private desire thing? >> i think of against a succinct demolition to the treadmill, i think maybe blues is to pop strong a word but we find happiness and fulfillment -- bliss. through making the world a better place. it's true there are other traditions where you look more internally. i don't accept all the bullies that is based on. it's interesting some of the other traditions do also have at least some activist elements within the pixel in the book i talk about a taiwanese organization founded by a buddhist nun which is very activist. and has an astonishing right of membership among the population of taiwan i think something like

25%, i don't member access to the figure, 25% support this organization in its charitable works and founding, running hospitals, medical schools helping the poor it recycling plastics. and it's also expanded to other countries as well. if you think of buddhism as one of the examples of this kind of tradition, it's not true that all buddhists think that you should be focused on internal salvation without trying to make the world a better. >> in an essay on morality, if you scratch that altruistic, a hypocrite will be. what is your response to this? >> i think it's false and i think it does i don't think it's representative of him either. he does write about altruism and he seems to believe there is altruism although the street

things it focuses mostly on either can altruism or reciprocal altruism which is the ones easy to explain in evolutionary terms. he has focused on studying primates and particularly great apes. although i think these are fascinating and remarkable beings and we shouldn't be locking them up in zoos entry is in the way we do fortunately we are starting a lease in the training do not use them in labs the way we were. that are different from us in their capacities to reason. they have some capacity to reason but they don't have the capacity of abstract reasoning that we do. i think that is something that comes in over the top of the evolved altruism that we feel for 10 and those with whom we close friends and reciprocal relationships. it enables us to see their other people strangers, were also significant who have live rather

like ours, and who from the point of view of the universe, to use the top of a different book i have written or co-authored, and i'm not saying the universe really has a point of view but if you take that check point of view matters as much as we do there is the ability to reason to see that that makes it possible for us to be altruistic in a way that perhaps he can really observe in chimpanzees and other great apes. >> i'm impressed to hear something i want to ask my so. what you think about the dated the americans with lower incomes donate a higher percentage of the money they have been people with higher incomes? >> let's first get the facts straight. if you chart the percentage of income donated against him a pass on this axis commend your income on this axis, it's a u. shaped curve. so in other words people only

make $30,000 a year to donate i presage the people earning 60,000 or 80,000. once it has ended up with higher labels, that may be a couple hundred thousand, then you find the percentage of people donate rising. so it does then pass those people at the lower level. but it is nevertheless an interesting phenomena that people of quite low level are prepared to give a higher percentage than people at medium levels. and i think that might be because they have greater acquaintance with need. more people around them are in real need so they know more what it's like and they just empah it and to the people are asked for more successful tend to think well, you know the poor must be lazy. they could work their way out of it and they could be like me and i've worked hard and i've got what i have. so they're less sympathetic to people who conduct but often of course can't work their way out

of it. >> i guess i should ask it is a big image and it is to be an effective altruistic but yet prioritize humans -- shouldn't we be promoting a non-specious idea of effective altruism? >> i do think we should, and i hope i was not being specious to has voted. i did emphasize global poverty as an obvious cause because i think that's a cause in which i would expect you in the audience to be sympathetic with without further argument. if i wanted to promote reducing animal suffering equally then i would have to make that argument. the argument i made essential in animal liberation. at the suffering of animals matters equally to similar amounts of suffering by humans, irrespective of species. that's a separate argument which i think essentially the evening

is too short to try to do both. but do have a look at the book but it has a chapter about animal suffering and considers whether helping animal suffers might be more cost-effective in terms of the quantity of suffering reduced as helping humans. it also has a suggestion that one strategy might be a win for both him and that's trying to persuade more people to reduce their consumption of animal products or even go all the way and become vegans. that is clearly a win for animals because there are fewer of them suffering in factory farms were most of animal products are produced but it's also a win for him and because animal agriculture, livestock is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions and when we need to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions because that will help all of us.

but again especially including the poor. >> here's what i guess is based on the fact that the our new metrics and more sophistication about what to give and to whom. do you think the options for giving will improve through more studies such that would be better to wait and give lighter? >> there is an argument for giving later. if you look at the history of give well's recommendations, relatively short history going back less than a decade, but i think they have improved. i think and learn more about how to do the evaluations, therefore change some of the organizations recommend. the question is have to now go to a point where they are more or less adequate to books on what that continue to improve? is possible. would be possible to hold on but unless you are a very good investor, then the rate of return you get on the money you put aside and said i would give

this later when we have better information, might be lower than the rate of return that you get investing if you want to use that term in reducing poverty now. because that has important spinoffs. people, if you get some people out of poverty in society then they become economically positive in that society. some of them may become more entrepreneurial, create other jobs, others will produce export, be better educated, be able to do better things. it's important to start doing that now and then let those things work and have an effect on reducing poverty rather than leaving your money in the bank to save up for a better information which may or may not come at a later date. >> is one that is based on personal values. if i care about x. more than y

should i give more to ask? >> i was in the case you should try to redirect your caring. [laughter] you should try to care for the greater good or for more people. and if you are aware that in fact, you some particular kind of bias then i think generally you should try and correct to that bias. so for that we know we have biases are identifiable individuals. there's good research showing that. some organizations play on that by connecting you with a child and having a particular child more or less as the subject of your donations. usually if you read the fine print they are nothing all of you might want to go as a child or the child's family is to the plate on that. is an identifiable child who may

write you a letter now and again so you write more. if you give the most effective organizations are going to be helping identifiable people. all people with help identifiable to someone. maybe not to you get you to realize i have this bias towards towards helping people whose photograph icing or whose name i know a few details. but i really need to decide is this jerk as effective as that of the which will not pair me up with a child who writes me letters what if the answer is no that i think you should give it more effective charity. >> is one that think it's an important issue and involves government. in spite of whatever contributions charity makes government spending is immensely bigger. how does the effective altruism help move the government towards a more open view of giving them may be a more rational and supportive view?

>> i hope that effective altruism transforms the philanthropy sectors so that there is more emphasis on accountability and getting evidence for what works and what doesn't work. then he was eight and other government aid in african countries would pick that up -- usaid, and also more focus on transparency and monitoring an independent evaluation. and that therefore it will help transform the government sector as well as the private sector. it's hard to see for very long the government could simply ignore things that are being very widely accepted within the non-government sector. >> is one that there is to attitude so i will not ask you. jubilate altruism is something we are born with as humans or is it a learning a trade? >> i think there is i think it

departed in the answer. i think we are at social mammals born with the potential for altruism towards those we are close to, particularly family and particularly to develop reciprocal relationships, to detect people who are cheats and not respond to them and to respond more positively to people who do us favors. so we are born with that. were also born as is it with the potential to reason and i think once the reasoning capability kicks in we then have the potential under favorable circumstances, not necessarily on any circumstances but favorable circumstances to be altruistic to strangers as well. >> let me ask a couple more questions. one is would animal liberation be more effective if its

proponents demanded boulder changes now or are all in commercial steps worthwhile? what's the best approach to? >> i think we should do both are i think as i said a moment ago we should educate people avoiding animal products as far as they possibly can and indeed becoming vegan if that's a choice they are able to make. in that sense of yes we want to end the exploitation of animals in the food industry, and that's the biggest one of them by far. if we can do that i think we will get to the others as well. that's not going to happen overnight obviously. we've been working on it for a long time. it is gratifying to see, greater sort of surge of more people becoming vegan recently, greater understanding of what that means

means. but it's still a very small percentage of the population. in the meantime i welcome reforms that reduce the suffering of animals. california on january 1 implemented what was known as proposition two and that the citizens of california voted very strongly in favor of in 2008, which ensures that factory farmed animals can all be kept in an enclosure that are large enough to enable them to stretch their limbs, that means to stretch her wings over other animals to move around the they have to be able to move and and turn around without hitting the site of their enclosure or without brushing against another animal in the enclosure. so increases the amount of space those factory farmed animals have. and i think it reduces their something. i'm not saying it gives them an adequate alive at all but it does reduce their something. incidentally it may also

slightly increase the cost of producing those products. that provides more incentives for people to consider alternatives to those animal foods. i think both of those things in the reduction in something of those animals which can way for everybody to become a vegan and the fact that it actually provides a bit more of an incentive for people to purchase non-animal products are both good things. so i support those incremental reforms of steps along the way to the eventual evolution of animal exploitation spirit since i first met you there have been a lot of reforms. there's a lot of movement to go but there's been much more movement than i would have thought of. >> that's right. what california did only last january, the entire european union, 28 nations as of now i

think, 450 million people, anyway substantial larger than the population of the united states, that implement those reforms several years ago and that was a significant victory as well. i think things are progressing. i pushed they progressed a lot faster but i am pleased that we are heading in the right direction. >> i'm going to ask this question because i since the person asked it is anxious. how do we choose between charity and paying down personal debts like student loans? [laughter] and ask that not just because it's funny but i think people are struggling with how to resolve these many demands on themselves and on their bank account. >> what i would say about that is don't worry too much about the amount you are giving now because you do need to pay down your loans and you probably don't have very much to give, but get in the habit of giving something.

even though you're not giving very much, think about the charity you going to give too. develop the habit of the habit of using evidence and reasoning to find the best charity. then start giving feel what you're comfortable with, what you can spare, and pay down your loan and eventually you get free of that loan hopefully arguably earning more and able to get more and then you'll be in a position to say now i can do what i would've done earlier that i would make a giving a more significant part of what i have. >> i would just like to thank you for this evening, and i think we should all thank you for appearing here. because you are doing something that is done rarely and are actually succeeding and that is even more rare. so thank you. >> thank you very much. [applause]

>> i'm sorry but the many questions i didn't ask. it was nothing personal. >> thanks again to peter at the michael for being here. that was wonderful. again peter will be signed at the table over there on the side of the stage. you can form a line starting around outside of the auditory. you don't want to stand in line with the limited copies of signed with at the table. thank you all so much for coming out, and have a great evening. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> booktv is on twitter and facebook come and we want to hear from you. tweet us twitter.com/booktv or post a comment on our facebook page, facebook.com/booktv. >> you are watching booktv on c-span2. this weekend we are in lexington, kentucky, with of our local cable partner time warner cable.

next come university of kentucky professor karl raitz shows us the maysville road, a historic high wages as part of the underground railroad. >> the maysville road is important because it was one of the bigger routes into kentucky come into the appellation western the end of the press was regarded as the most coveted land west of the appalachians. there was a lot of people interested in moving your a lot of people from virginia had land grants. this became a rout late from the north passage by which they can. henry clay was a sponsor of the american plan, in part of the american plan was internal improvement. you improve the economy by improving roads. he proposed that the maysville road from lexington to maysville be supported by federal government money to turn into a

hard surface turnpike. hard surface paint stone cover. and an engineered road rather than simply and the track across the countryside. and his argument was that it would serve a larger area and it would serve commercial traffic. andrew jackson in his literal interpretation of the constitution did not see the argument that way. he said that the constitution said that any project that was essentially local in nature could not be supported by federal money. and so andrew jackson saw the road, the 67 miles of it from lexington to the ohio river, as a local project, even though the turnpike finds that later are going to nashville tennessee, and floors alabama on to suggest a truly original road if not a national road because it

ultimately would connect with new orleans. so we have two sides to the debate. the side that sees the larger picture and the maysville road as one section of a much larger highway that's going to connect the pittsburgh area with new orleans on the one side come and a literal interpretation of what they thought the constitution was going for on the other side. we are in the center of the village of mazelike come and mazelike is about 14 miles south of the ohio river south of mesa. it's a logical stopping point where we're far enough south of the ohio river so that stagecoaches may want to water their horses were change horses on a stagecoach line. this is going to be a very important partner to some of the richest man in the state is in mason county where we are right now. as we leave mays lick and head south will be on a section of the road that probably dates from the 1920s and '30s.

and right beside the road is going to be another small section of the old original trail. it's called an alley now and it runs right in front of a couple of houses well below the level of the present road. there used to be many businesses along the road. it would have been 15-18 taverns along the road. >> the tavern was built about 1806 as a rest stop a tavern, an overnight stay for people moving along the maysville road. there were between 15 and 18 such taverns along the road between maysville and lexington. this particular building, the main building is on the left. the larger building which would've been the family home, you'll notice that the lower building to the right has two

different doors to a. those would've been individual doors to individual rooms. you also notice there is a stairwell leading up to an attic area where the would've been another room. so this build is a great treasure in a sympathetic gives us a really good idea of how these taverns were erected how they were placed along the road for easy access and then now they were spaced out in such a way that it made sense for stagecoach accompanies who needed new horses every 10 miles or so. >> what is it to you right? >> so this would've been a mill site and the old mill part of the old mill is still there. tobacco warehouse right hip in this became a major tobacco wholesaling center, auction center by about 1905, 1910.

there would've been a major distillery standing right here that's the old warehouse right there. that's all that's left. then we have kind of a tobacco road. and we have another tobacco warehouse, three vacant lots where there were tobacco warehouses all along. is another one that still stands. is now a nursery, and you can see his company number one. and there were a number of those on the other side of town that's since been torn down. but each of the small towns here in central kentucky, by about 1905, 1910 were starting to become major auction centers for early tobacco. and buy a dog 1925 lexington had become the largest early auction market in the world. certainly in the united states.

>> one of the least appreciated aspects of american history and american geography is the infrastructure that has been built to make all of this possible. none of this would be possible without roads. roads are the absolute backbone on which a national economy is built. nothing moves without roads. until you get the railroad, take ait steamboats on the river everything is moving by roads. if you are not connected to the road, during pioneer times, you are not connected. everybody when it was upgraded to a turnpike and 1830s, everybody wanted to access to the road because it meant you were connected. you are part of the economy. not only the regional economy but also the national economy. i merchants and lexington cannot event selling chinese tea without the road. i think the folks that read the

book will have a much greater appreciation for the role of the road in people's lives. people who established homes people established businesses. people who were able to conduct business as of the road. again, the idea is that don't take the infrastructure, the road for granted. it's what's making your business possible. >> for more information on a booktv's recent visit to lexington and the many other cities visited by our local content vehicles, out of c-span.org/localcontent. >> booktv recently visited capitol hill to ask members of congress what they are reading this summer. >> i'm reading a lot of bills and legislation, takes away my time for reading for pleasure. i've been able to start a couple books. decision point, about george bush and eisenhower biography i

picked over at the library of congress. i haven't been able to make it to be the one of those yet. i have finished a great book called fearless come and what of the things i really like about book is it's about a young man from my hometown of hot springs, arkansas, he was a navy seal team six that he was a sniper. he retrained with his nondominant i. this is a story not only about a war hero but as somebody who overcame some personal tragedies and some addictions in his life, and a real success story and motivational story. unfortunately, he was killed on st. patrick's day in 2010 in afghanistan. he was on his last mission and left a widow and two small children behind. so it's a great book i highly recommend. i've been told it will be made into a movie and i can't wait to see that. >> booktv wants to know what

you're reading this summer. tweet us your answer @booktv or post it on her facebook page, facebook.com/booktv. .. >> host: gordon crovitz, what do you write about in your "wall street journal" column? >> guest: i support the "wall street journal"'s position in favor of free people and free markets in the areas of technology and in particular around the internet and innovation. >> host: how did you get that assignment? >> guest: i've been at "the wall st