1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:01,590 Fraser McGruer: Hello and welcome to the Cognitive 2 00:00:01,590 --> 00:00:04,140 Engineering Podcast, brought to you by Aleph Insights and 3 00:00:04,140 --> 00:00:07,800 produced by me, Fraser McGruer. On this podcast, we take a look 4 00:00:07,800 --> 00:00:10,560 at a wide range of topics, and today, we'll be asking the 5 00:00:10,560 --> 00:00:14,460 question, Is Donald Trump the worst president ever? 6 00:00:22,140 --> 00:00:24,440 It's been a while since I've seen you. It's very nice to see 7 00:00:24,440 --> 00:00:28,760 you again. Here we go, right? Nick, Donald Trump, worst 8 00:00:28,760 --> 00:00:30,200 president ever, yeah. 9 00:00:30,200 --> 00:00:32,420 Nick Hare: Well, as you know, we don't, we're not a political 10 00:00:32,420 --> 00:00:36,620 podcast. We don't have an opinion about whether Donald 11 00:00:36,620 --> 00:00:40,420 Trump is any good. But according to the famously unbiased source, 12 00:00:40,420 --> 00:00:44,920 the guardian in 2024 mind you. So discussing his first term, 13 00:00:45,580 --> 00:00:50,860 Donald Trump finished 45th and bottom of a list ranking US 14 00:00:50,860 --> 00:00:54,400 presidents by greatness. And I think his list was compiled by a 15 00:00:54,400 --> 00:00:57,940 bunch of, again, famously unbiased academics and people 16 00:00:57,940 --> 00:01:00,660 like that. Yeah, probably from Harvard, yeah, that kind of 17 00:01:00,660 --> 00:01:05,940 thing. So according to them, here's but let me tell you what 18 00:01:05,940 --> 00:01:10,680 the Rolling Stone magazine said in 2006 George W Bush, the worst 19 00:01:10,680 --> 00:01:13,920 president in history. Many historians are now wondering 20 00:01:13,920 --> 00:01:16,800 whether Bush, in fact, will be remembered as the very worst 21 00:01:16,800 --> 00:01:22,820 president in all of American history. So, and I recall, I 22 00:01:22,820 --> 00:01:26,960 still remember the 80s, when I recall my parents and their 23 00:01:27,140 --> 00:01:29,840 right on friends talking about Ronald Reagan and how utterly 24 00:01:29,840 --> 00:01:33,980 dreadful he was compared to the great presidents of the past and 25 00:01:34,400 --> 00:01:39,080 so well, the question is, how do we make sure we're not just sort 26 00:01:39,080 --> 00:01:42,700 of being biassed by recent events. And, you know, how can 27 00:01:42,700 --> 00:01:46,240 we tell if, if our judgement that something it seems uniquely 28 00:01:46,240 --> 00:01:52,120 bad, is actually correct, but, but just before we tackle that 29 00:01:52,120 --> 00:01:56,680 sort of general question, just looking at presidential ratings, 30 00:01:56,680 --> 00:01:59,560 which actually is something relatively objective, in the 31 00:01:59,560 --> 00:02:02,280 sense that they're just measures of you know what is? What's the 32 00:02:02,280 --> 00:02:06,060 average approval rating of every president during the course of 33 00:02:06,060 --> 00:02:11,220 their term? Donald Trump is, in fact, lowest, well, at least of 34 00:02:11,220 --> 00:02:15,900 all presidents since the 1950s and Kate, would you like to 35 00:02:15,900 --> 00:02:19,920 guess who's top? It's quite an easy one. I think Obama. No no, 36 00:02:19,920 --> 00:02:24,200 it's going to be Obama's mid, mid range, Roosevelt, Abraham 37 00:02:24,200 --> 00:02:27,080 Lincoln, no, is since the fifth, oh, sorry, since the 50s. Oh, 38 00:02:27,080 --> 00:02:32,300 Abraham Lincoln, then not those 50s. Since the 50s. I think this 39 00:02:32,300 --> 00:02:35,000 is quite easy, if you think about probably it's somewhere 40 00:02:35,180 --> 00:02:40,180 never got a chance, really. Yeah, Kennedy's at the top by a 41 00:02:40,180 --> 00:02:43,420 long, long shout, and then it's Dwight Eisenhower, remarkably, 42 00:02:43,480 --> 00:02:49,240 George H W Bush, I suspect, yeah, and so, but so according 43 00:02:49,240 --> 00:02:53,260 to that right, according just looking at the ratings, average 44 00:02:53,260 --> 00:02:56,380 ratings for their term, and sorry, was that Trump did come 45 00:02:56,380 --> 00:02:59,320 lower. Sorry, did you say that's average approval ratings during 46 00:02:59,380 --> 00:03:01,560 Yeah, so in other words, you said, average out their approval 47 00:03:01,560 --> 00:03:05,100 throughout their term, and and just looking at that number, 48 00:03:05,520 --> 00:03:10,620 Trump's at the bottom, and Kennedy is very much at the top, 49 00:03:10,920 --> 00:03:16,740 bit of an outliner outlier. So, so there we are. So it is. Can 50 00:03:16,740 --> 00:03:19,380 we therefore conclude that Donald Trump is indeed going to 51 00:03:19,380 --> 00:03:21,200 go down in history as the worst president ever. 52 00:03:21,380 --> 00:03:23,360 Fraser McGruer: Okay, so I mean, one of the things I think of, 53 00:03:23,360 --> 00:03:28,340 first of all, is how useful are ratings in terms of an actual 54 00:03:28,340 --> 00:03:31,460 judgement, because opinions change about people over time. 55 00:03:31,460 --> 00:03:34,160 That's the first sort of thing that I think of. But anyway, 56 00:03:34,340 --> 00:03:37,280 it's not me answering this, it's you guys. So where do we start 57 00:03:37,280 --> 00:03:38,960 with this? Chris, what are your thoughts? What have 58 00:03:38,960 --> 00:03:41,560 Chris Wragg: you got on this? Well, I think there's a specific 59 00:03:41,620 --> 00:03:45,340 issue with with Donald Trump, and the perception of Donald 60 00:03:45,340 --> 00:03:48,760 Trump, which is one of the reasons why Donald Trump is 61 00:03:48,760 --> 00:03:53,440 viewed as a bad president. And that's really like if you look 62 00:03:53,440 --> 00:03:58,000 at his phraseology, it's kind of at the level of a a playground 63 00:03:58,000 --> 00:04:01,140 child. His eloquence is very low, and I think that's what a 64 00:04:01,140 --> 00:04:04,380 lot of people would say they talk about the weave, and is 65 00:04:04,380 --> 00:04:10,560 really him being pretty inarticulate and and not trying 66 00:04:10,560 --> 00:04:15,120 to hide that fact. And I think so for a lot of people, I think 67 00:04:15,120 --> 00:04:18,900 there's this sort of connection, maybe a dubious connection, 68 00:04:18,900 --> 00:04:22,700 between eloquence and intelligence and ability to 69 00:04:22,700 --> 00:04:27,260 lead, and I think Donald Trump is uniquely bad at that, 70 00:04:27,260 --> 00:04:32,060 whereas, if you look at his antithesis, somebody like Obama, 71 00:04:32,060 --> 00:04:38,000 exactly, Obama was highly eloquent and viewed by lots of 72 00:04:38,000 --> 00:04:41,860 the intelligentsia as Being an excellent president. So I think 73 00:04:41,860 --> 00:04:44,920 this, there's this conflation going on between ability to 74 00:04:44,920 --> 00:04:49,000 articulate oneself and ability to preside. 75 00:04:49,000 --> 00:04:50,740 Fraser McGruer: Yeah, I think there's an interesting thing 76 00:04:50,740 --> 00:04:53,080 there about, you know, can intelligent, clever people be 77 00:04:53,080 --> 00:04:54,760 wrong? Unthinkable. 78 00:04:54,820 --> 00:04:57,880 Nick Hare: Yeah. And well, and also it does. How much does that 79 00:04:58,000 --> 00:05:00,600 actually matter when you're being a president? Because the 80 00:05:00,600 --> 00:05:03,720 thing is, I think what people miss, well, particularly kind 81 00:05:03,780 --> 00:05:07,440 of, you know, anti, anti Trump, people miss, is that, yeah, he 82 00:05:07,440 --> 00:05:10,440 isn't very eloquent, but he's very good at kind of reading the 83 00:05:10,440 --> 00:05:13,740 room. I mean, there's something quite impressive about him, and 84 00:05:13,740 --> 00:05:18,120 the way that he, he kind of manages a crowd. And, you know, 85 00:05:18,120 --> 00:05:20,600 I'm not saying any of that is conscious. I mean, I suspect 86 00:05:20,600 --> 00:05:23,720 it's just a sort of accident or something that he has learned to 87 00:05:23,720 --> 00:05:26,780 do, but he's good at something when it comes to well, and if 88 00:05:26,780 --> 00:05:30,560 you look at his what it isn't is, is spinning an excellent off 89 00:05:30,560 --> 00:05:33,620 the cuff phrase. I mean, you can't really imagine him 90 00:05:33,620 --> 00:05:34,940 delivering a speech 91 00:05:34,940 --> 00:05:38,900 Chris Wragg: and about his sort of his debate performance in the 92 00:05:39,020 --> 00:05:43,660 original set of primaries and then against Hillary Clinton, 93 00:05:43,660 --> 00:05:46,540 when he was, you know, elected for his first term. There, there 94 00:05:46,540 --> 00:05:53,440 are some very sort of famous asides that he, that he makes, 95 00:05:53,440 --> 00:05:57,820 that are considered to be kind of quick, quick with but they 96 00:05:57,820 --> 00:06:02,700 are. They are not. They're not high Brower sides, you know, 97 00:06:02,700 --> 00:06:03,060 they're, 98 00:06:03,120 --> 00:06:05,580 Nick Hare: they're and, I mean, that's all of a piece with him, 99 00:06:05,580 --> 00:06:09,000 and his appeal in general, yeah, is what you'd expect. Yeah, 100 00:06:09,120 --> 00:06:12,780 yeah. And I think, you know, there's something Republican 101 00:06:12,840 --> 00:06:15,600 presidents are supposed to be hokey, you know, they're 102 00:06:15,600 --> 00:06:18,420 supposed to be kind of common, the common man, I know, yeah, 103 00:06:18,420 --> 00:06:21,980 that's sort of so you get your you know, Bush was the same, 104 00:06:22,040 --> 00:06:25,520 Reagan was the same. You know, they're not meant to come out 105 00:06:25,520 --> 00:06:28,280 with intellectual things that sound like you're a history 106 00:06:28,280 --> 00:06:31,820 professor from Harvard. That's the job of Democrat presidents, 107 00:06:31,820 --> 00:06:35,300 isn't it? So that's right, but, but anyway, I mean, look, I 108 00:06:35,300 --> 00:06:39,800 think, I think the problem we really want to talk about is, 109 00:06:40,160 --> 00:06:44,740 how do we know how much of that is our immediate investment in 110 00:06:44,800 --> 00:06:50,500 the kind of low recent local political situation? So how much 111 00:06:50,560 --> 00:06:54,760 of the reaction that people have to Trump and their judgement 112 00:06:54,760 --> 00:06:57,880 that he's the worst president ever, how much of that is is 113 00:06:57,880 --> 00:07:01,680 based on some on a kind of objective judgement of the kind 114 00:07:01,680 --> 00:07:05,100 that you might be able to have about a 19th century president, 115 00:07:06,060 --> 00:07:08,400 and how much of it is merely recency, you know, that's, 116 00:07:08,400 --> 00:07:11,340 that's, that's really the question I think we want to look 117 00:07:11,340 --> 00:07:15,960 at because, you know, this is, this crops up all the time, 118 00:07:16,080 --> 00:07:20,180 right? You this common pattern of, I come along and say that 119 00:07:20,180 --> 00:07:23,840 here is something that's kind of uniquely bad and terrible and 120 00:07:23,840 --> 00:07:27,680 needs to be dealt with. And then, you know, the flip side of 121 00:07:27,680 --> 00:07:30,800 that argument is, well, people have said that in the past. It's 122 00:07:30,800 --> 00:07:33,440 what they said about George W Bush, what they said about 123 00:07:33,740 --> 00:07:36,620 Reagan, you know, or I come along and say, Look, you know, 124 00:07:36,920 --> 00:07:39,740 global warming is going to destroy the world. And you go, 125 00:07:39,740 --> 00:07:42,820 Well, that's what they said about acid rain and global 126 00:07:42,820 --> 00:07:46,480 cooling and the population. Why should we listen Yeah, why 127 00:07:46,480 --> 00:07:50,020 should we listen to you? And so we have this, this common 128 00:07:50,020 --> 00:07:53,920 pattern that you get of this is uniquely bad and terrible, and 129 00:07:53,920 --> 00:07:57,760 we've got to do something about it versus but uniquely bad and 130 00:07:57,760 --> 00:08:00,480 terrible things, according to people like you, happen all the 131 00:08:00,480 --> 00:08:03,960 time. So one side is saying, you know, you're being alarmist, and 132 00:08:03,960 --> 00:08:07,320 the other side is saying you're being complacent. And how do we 133 00:08:07,320 --> 00:08:11,880 make sure? Because you know people are wrong. Intelligent 134 00:08:11,880 --> 00:08:15,000 people are wrong. You know, you think of like the Yeah, Paul 135 00:08:15,000 --> 00:08:18,420 Ehrlich's Population Bomb, 1968 well now you know. And now, of 136 00:08:18,420 --> 00:08:20,840 course, everyone's being alarmist about population 137 00:08:20,840 --> 00:08:25,220 collapse. So how do we, how do we know whether we should be 138 00:08:25,280 --> 00:08:27,860 scared of something, or whether we should say, Yes, this is 139 00:08:27,860 --> 00:08:30,800 actually uniquely terrible, versus how much are we going to 140 00:08:30,800 --> 00:08:33,260 go, Well, you know what? In the morning, it'll look different. 141 00:08:33,800 --> 00:08:39,380 So let's say that we, that a lot of people in the US think that 142 00:08:39,800 --> 00:08:43,060 Donald Trump is this kind of, you know, once in a lifetime, 143 00:08:43,060 --> 00:08:47,860 threat to democracy, to democratic institutions, and you 144 00:08:47,860 --> 00:08:51,220 know, he's going to impose martial law on the US. He's 145 00:08:51,220 --> 00:08:54,460 going to try and run for a third term. It's going to become his 146 00:08:54,460 --> 00:08:57,700 personal dictatorship. It does seem to be trying. So that's 147 00:08:57,700 --> 00:09:02,700 what a lot of people perceive, you know, and well, but 148 00:09:02,760 --> 00:09:05,340 obviously, you know. And so the question is, Well, should we do 149 00:09:05,340 --> 00:09:08,700 something about that? How much should should we believe that 150 00:09:08,700 --> 00:09:11,700 that's true? And therefore, how much should we, you know, 151 00:09:11,820 --> 00:09:15,960 resist? How much effort should we put into resisting that which 152 00:09:15,960 --> 00:09:18,180 is not dissimilar from, you know, this question of, well, 153 00:09:18,180 --> 00:09:20,720 what do we how much effort should we put into preventing 154 00:09:20,960 --> 00:09:24,740 climate change, because, you know, yeah, well, this is all 155 00:09:24,740 --> 00:09:26,840 doom and gloom, but at the same time, that's what they said 156 00:09:26,840 --> 00:09:29,240 about, you know, the ozone layer, and that seems to have 157 00:09:29,240 --> 00:09:33,080 fixed itself, admittedly, thanks to human intervention. But, you 158 00:09:33,080 --> 00:09:36,680 know, you get the idea it's like, okay, well, how do I know 159 00:09:36,680 --> 00:09:41,020 how alarmed to be when it's of kind of battle between the 160 00:09:41,020 --> 00:09:45,640 alarmists and the complacentists in general. Is there a general 161 00:09:45,640 --> 00:09:48,580 pattern of better thought that we should use to try and solve 162 00:09:48,580 --> 00:09:49,180 that problem? 163 00:09:49,480 --> 00:09:51,220 Chris Wragg: Yeah, and I think there's a, I think there's a 164 00:09:51,220 --> 00:09:58,240 second sort of factor about judgement to do with judging 165 00:09:58,240 --> 00:10:02,520 things in your own time, and that. It's not only that you you 166 00:10:02,520 --> 00:10:06,960 get these, these emotional you know, when you're judging things 167 00:10:06,960 --> 00:10:10,020 in your own time, you are affected by them, and so you 168 00:10:10,020 --> 00:10:12,240 have an emotional response to them. So it's easier to be 169 00:10:12,360 --> 00:10:15,660 objective about something that's 100 years ago than it is 170 00:10:15,660 --> 00:10:19,200 something today, right? But I think also that the second 171 00:10:19,200 --> 00:10:25,280 factor that means time is a factor when, when, sort of 172 00:10:25,280 --> 00:10:28,820 considering whether something's good or bad, is that, over the 173 00:10:28,820 --> 00:10:34,640 course of that time, what is good or bad changes according 174 00:10:34,640 --> 00:10:37,940 to, you know, cultural standards. So, you know, you 175 00:10:37,940 --> 00:10:42,220 take somebody like Washington, who you know, is still perceived 176 00:10:42,220 --> 00:10:46,420 to be a great president, obviously, but you bring in 177 00:10:46,420 --> 00:10:50,500 factors like slave ownership, or, you know, other sort of 178 00:10:50,920 --> 00:10:55,900 positions that he took that are now totally unpalatable because 179 00:10:55,900 --> 00:11:01,080 of the shift of what is considered to be, you know, 180 00:11:01,320 --> 00:11:04,680 okay, by today's standards, what's what's good by today's 181 00:11:04,680 --> 00:11:09,420 standards as a president, is partially subjective. There are 182 00:11:09,420 --> 00:11:11,040 certain things where you can say, yes, okay, 183 00:11:11,040 --> 00:11:13,080 Nick Hare: I feel like not owning slaves is probably a 184 00:11:13,140 --> 00:11:15,780 right, probably something that some of the voters are going to 185 00:11:15,780 --> 00:11:17,100 look for. Yeah, right, exactly, 186 00:11:17,100 --> 00:11:18,600 Fraser McGruer: which also beggars the question how the 187 00:11:18,600 --> 00:11:24,920 Confederacy won the war right? The end of civil war, let's say 188 00:11:24,980 --> 00:11:27,740 yeah. And let's say there were, had they won? Yeah, right. Let's 189 00:11:27,740 --> 00:11:31,340 say that. So you ended up with two Americas. Let's say in the 190 00:11:31,340 --> 00:11:34,400 South. I'm guessing that Abraham Lincoln would probably be 191 00:11:34,400 --> 00:11:36,920 thought of being a bad president, probably. I think he 192 00:11:36,920 --> 00:11:39,980 is, in some ways, some but that's what ties into this 193 00:11:39,980 --> 00:11:42,640 thing. I'm sort of labouring the point there, really. But you 194 00:11:42,640 --> 00:11:45,580 know, the context changes. 195 00:11:45,580 --> 00:11:49,480 Chris Wragg: Yeah, yeah. So, so I guess what I'm saying is, not, 196 00:11:49,480 --> 00:11:55,360 not only do we have to aim off for the emotional aspect of the 197 00:11:55,360 --> 00:11:59,380 near term versus the longer term in the past, there's also a 198 00:11:59,380 --> 00:12:04,140 change in values that occurs, which then, you know, you assess 199 00:12:04,140 --> 00:12:04,980 things differently. 200 00:12:05,520 --> 00:12:07,740 Fraser McGruer: So that's helps us with this sort of ratings, 201 00:12:07,740 --> 00:12:11,820 real time ratings, as it were, that sort of helps answer that 202 00:12:11,820 --> 00:12:12,060 sort 203 00:12:12,060 --> 00:12:15,120 Nick Hare: of question. But it also, I mean, it suggests that 204 00:12:16,260 --> 00:12:19,680 it's not dissimilar to that question of like, would you, you 205 00:12:19,680 --> 00:12:26,420 know, would you take a pill that changed your your preferences 206 00:12:26,720 --> 00:12:30,140 and made you, you know, want to desert your family, and you run 207 00:12:30,140 --> 00:12:33,440 off with a supermodel and you know. And then you actually, you 208 00:12:33,440 --> 00:12:37,100 might just, you know, you might enjoy that if you took that 209 00:12:37,100 --> 00:12:40,360 pill, you wouldn't, then care that you've done that, but you 210 00:12:40,360 --> 00:12:45,100 now do care about that. And so like, let's say someone observes 211 00:12:45,100 --> 00:12:49,240 that. Well, if we, if we leave Trump running, and he runs for 212 00:12:49,240 --> 00:12:54,700 another two terms, you know, we will all start to accept that 213 00:12:54,700 --> 00:12:57,940 America looks like Trump's America, and kids will grow up 214 00:12:57,940 --> 00:13:00,720 and think it's normal, and people will stop caring about 215 00:13:00,720 --> 00:13:03,000 they'll go, yeah, I remember when we had those annoying 216 00:13:03,000 --> 00:13:05,520 democratic institutions that were slowing everything down 217 00:13:05,520 --> 00:13:08,040 and, like, really getting in the way and gumming up our ability 218 00:13:08,040 --> 00:13:11,280 to govern properly, you know. So you might observe that, well, 219 00:13:11,280 --> 00:13:15,480 we, you know, we, we actually won't care in the future as much 220 00:13:15,480 --> 00:13:19,020 as we think we care now. So perhaps that's that, you know, 221 00:13:19,020 --> 00:13:22,700 that's an argument in favour of the complacency people is that, 222 00:13:22,820 --> 00:13:25,520 well, you know, even though, actually, yes, us now care about 223 00:13:25,520 --> 00:13:28,520 this, us in the future will just accept it well. And I suppose 224 00:13:28,520 --> 00:13:31,100 you can make a similar argument. I think some economists have 225 00:13:31,100 --> 00:13:33,800 made the same argument about about global warming. It's like, 226 00:13:33,800 --> 00:13:37,040 well, we actually will just adapt to it. And, yeah, it'll be 227 00:13:37,040 --> 00:13:40,360 a bit chaotic to begin with, but in 100 years time, you know, 228 00:13:40,360 --> 00:13:42,580 it'll just be hotter, and we'll have, will have got 229 00:13:42,579 --> 00:13:45,279 Peter Coghill: used to it, yeah, we're quite growing our grapes 230 00:13:45,279 --> 00:13:47,919 in in Surrey, yeah. 231 00:13:48,040 --> 00:13:50,260 Chris Wragg: But, I mean, there's a, there's a parallel, 232 00:13:50,260 --> 00:13:55,000 I'm not a sort of Stark here, but, you know, famously terrible 233 00:13:55,000 --> 00:13:59,980 Roman leader Julius Caesar, obviously changed the foundation 234 00:13:59,980 --> 00:14:04,860 of of the Republic, you know, and subsequent to that, while 235 00:14:04,860 --> 00:14:08,580 people complained about the sort of erosion of democratic 236 00:14:10,020 --> 00:14:15,360 institutions, arguably, you know, Rome's power grew after 237 00:14:15,360 --> 00:14:19,920 that. But nobody looks back. And really, you know, when you think 238 00:14:19,920 --> 00:14:26,960 of Caesar, 90% of people don't think about what he did to Roman 239 00:14:26,960 --> 00:14:29,840 institutions. Do they close out the territory 240 00:14:29,840 --> 00:14:34,400 Peter Coghill: confident and the and this sort of the the getting 241 00:14:34,400 --> 00:14:37,880 used to the normalisation of the new bad. Kind of assumes that 242 00:14:37,880 --> 00:14:43,180 there is a continuum of bad, bad scale you can slide Exactly. 243 00:14:43,480 --> 00:14:47,860 There might be things like global warming and other and 244 00:14:47,980 --> 00:14:51,400 catastrophic, you know, not necessarily, but sort of 245 00:14:51,580 --> 00:14:54,880 systemic changes in government and things can actually be a 246 00:14:54,880 --> 00:14:58,060 sort of threshold beyond which change happens very much more 247 00:14:58,060 --> 00:15:02,340 rapidly. So it might be. That when you're plumbing the depths 248 00:15:02,580 --> 00:15:05,520 of the bottom, you sort of fall off a cliff, rather than just 249 00:15:05,520 --> 00:15:07,920 keep finding new depths of it, yeah, so it 250 00:15:07,920 --> 00:15:10,320 Nick Hare: might be that the barrel is five times deeper than 251 00:15:10,320 --> 00:15:10,680 you thought. 252 00:15:10,680 --> 00:15:12,840 Peter Coghill: Yeah. You suddenly fall off a shelf down 253 00:15:12,840 --> 00:15:13,200 into a 254 00:15:14,700 --> 00:15:18,600 Unknown: cloth, a cliff, yeah, under a barrel, yeah? 255 00:15:19,260 --> 00:15:23,180 Peter Coghill: So, you know, so it might be that Trump's seeming 256 00:15:23,180 --> 00:15:28,520 efforts to dissolve the institutions of democracy, if 257 00:15:28,520 --> 00:15:31,760 he, if he succeeds, means that they can't, you can't, then 258 00:15:31,760 --> 00:15:36,080 climb back out of that anymore. And global warming gets to a 259 00:15:36,080 --> 00:15:42,280 point where the the the Gulf Stream shuts off, and we're 260 00:15:42,280 --> 00:15:46,060 stuck in a localised Ice Age in the north in North Europe, 261 00:15:46,420 --> 00:15:48,760 Northern Europe. So there's like, it's yeah, it's not. 262 00:15:48,820 --> 00:15:51,760 Things aren't continuous, yeah, in complex systems, 263 00:15:51,820 --> 00:15:54,280 Fraser McGruer: we are. So where are we with this? At the moment, 264 00:15:54,340 --> 00:15:54,940 we've, 265 00:15:56,320 --> 00:15:58,480 Nick Hare: well, we haven't mentioned the secretary problem, 266 00:15:58,480 --> 00:16:02,880 which is not dissimilar to this kind of thing, where you're 267 00:16:02,880 --> 00:16:05,940 trying to form some judgement or adopt some strategy of sort of 268 00:16:06,240 --> 00:16:09,420 trying to work out you don't know how good or bad things can 269 00:16:09,420 --> 00:16:13,080 get, and you're trying to work out how you know good or bad. 270 00:16:13,080 --> 00:16:15,300 The current situation is, say, Yeah, and you haven't you know 271 00:16:15,300 --> 00:16:18,780 that you've only got a limited sample. Well the so the 272 00:16:18,780 --> 00:16:21,740 secretary problem, the idea is you've got to choose a secretary 273 00:16:21,740 --> 00:16:23,960 for a number of candidates. You, let's say, you know, there's 274 00:16:23,960 --> 00:16:26,780 going to be 100 candidates. You're going to see them all, 275 00:16:26,780 --> 00:16:28,880 one off the other, and you can tell how good they are when they 276 00:16:28,880 --> 00:16:34,340 walk in and and your job is to work out, or at least, maximise 277 00:16:34,340 --> 00:16:37,700 your chances of choosing the best one. And it turns out, the 278 00:16:37,700 --> 00:16:41,680 strat, the optimal strategy with this is to sample. Just treat 279 00:16:41,680 --> 00:16:47,020 the first 30 as a sample against which you then, you then sort of 280 00:16:47,020 --> 00:16:50,080 use that as a baseline, and you then pick the next person who 281 00:16:50,080 --> 00:16:53,200 walks in, who's better than the best person from that sample. 282 00:16:53,800 --> 00:16:56,800 And if that doesn't happen, well, you fluffed it. But the 283 00:16:56,800 --> 00:17:00,220 thing is that that strategy turns out to be mathematically 284 00:17:00,220 --> 00:17:03,780 optimal, so I think the analogy here is, well, actually, you 285 00:17:03,780 --> 00:17:08,760 know, we should, you we should use the past, to some extent, as 286 00:17:08,760 --> 00:17:13,320 a sample, and then make our judgments based on that sample. 287 00:17:13,500 --> 00:17:16,500 Fraser McGruer: How, how do you measure, though, and how do you 288 00:17:16,500 --> 00:17:19,440 know that what you're measuring is the right stuff? 289 00:17:19,500 --> 00:17:21,260 Nick Hare: Yeah, yeah. Well, that's the problem. You can't 290 00:17:21,320 --> 00:17:24,200 really apply it to the real world, where there's no sort of 291 00:17:24,200 --> 00:17:26,780 finite, it's not like there's some finite number of samples, 292 00:17:27,020 --> 00:17:30,200 but you should think in terms of, well, we've got a kind of, 293 00:17:30,200 --> 00:17:33,680 there's a certain amount of information we're getting, you 294 00:17:33,680 --> 00:17:35,900 know, and then there's, and then there's a, you know, a certain 295 00:17:35,900 --> 00:17:39,500 amount of action that we perhaps want to apply. So, you know, 296 00:17:39,500 --> 00:17:43,660 there's every, everything that happens, gives you. Gives is 297 00:17:43,660 --> 00:17:47,020 valuable for for information purposes. Let's put it that way. 298 00:17:47,200 --> 00:17:51,220 So on one hand, you might think, well, we don't know if Trump is 299 00:17:51,220 --> 00:17:54,460 uniquely bad or whether it can get worse. Let's let it run for 300 00:17:54,460 --> 00:17:57,400 a bit. Let's give him another five terms, and we'll see what 301 00:17:57,400 --> 00:17:59,800 happens. And then we'll have some really good information 302 00:17:59,800 --> 00:18:02,400 about how bad things can get, and then we'll know what to do 303 00:18:02,400 --> 00:18:05,760 next time. But obviously, at the same time, you might think, 304 00:18:05,760 --> 00:18:08,760 well, well, we don't really want to pay the potential cost of 305 00:18:08,760 --> 00:18:11,940 doing that like it's not worth we think this actually might be 306 00:18:11,940 --> 00:18:15,060 particularly terrible, and so we are going to try and put a stop 307 00:18:15,060 --> 00:18:17,820 to it now. So I'm just, I'm just saying that, you know, it is, 308 00:18:17,820 --> 00:18:20,460 there is a bit of both going on, and the amount of effort you 309 00:18:20,460 --> 00:18:22,980 might think, well, the amount of effort we put into stopping it. 310 00:18:22,980 --> 00:18:25,520 Put in stopping him, you know, actually maybe ought to be 311 00:18:25,700 --> 00:18:28,880 proportional to how bad he really is. And we don't know 312 00:18:29,000 --> 00:18:31,640 actually how bad he really is, because, you know, there could 313 00:18:31,640 --> 00:18:36,080 be someone a lot worse down the line. And then we'll really want 314 00:18:36,080 --> 00:18:39,620 to say, No, this one really is bad, you know, the the actual 315 00:18:39,620 --> 00:18:43,900 Hitler turns up, you know, and, and then you think, Well, no, we 316 00:18:43,900 --> 00:18:48,220 now, we, you know, now it really is this guy makes, you know, 317 00:18:48,400 --> 00:18:52,360 compared to this guy, it makes Trump look like Bush compared to 318 00:18:52,360 --> 00:18:55,540 Trump. Yeah, I mean, what I mean? It makes 319 00:18:55,540 --> 00:18:57,160 Fraser McGruer: me think, sort of everyone's sitting there, 320 00:18:57,160 --> 00:19:00,840 sort of wondering about Hitler, and going, No, this is this? Is 321 00:19:00,840 --> 00:19:04,200 it actually, this is as bad as it gets. Maybe they were wrong. 322 00:19:04,440 --> 00:19:06,840 Maybe there could be someone worse than Hitler. I don't know, 323 00:19:06,959 --> 00:19:10,559 Chris Wragg: but I guess the advantage of having had someone 324 00:19:10,559 --> 00:19:16,379 like Hitler, yeah, is that other countries have, like, your 325 00:19:16,379 --> 00:19:18,839 sample, and you've got a baseline of what really, really 326 00:19:18,839 --> 00:19:19,559 bad looks like. 327 00:19:19,560 --> 00:19:21,320 Fraser McGruer: That does look so bad, yeah, 328 00:19:21,560 --> 00:19:23,360 Nick Hare: yeah, something to avoid. Yeah, it's good. So he 329 00:19:23,360 --> 00:19:26,060 did us a favour, really. I mean, he was the sort of the sort of 330 00:19:26,060 --> 00:19:31,040 bad secretary, yeah. And now we well, but in a sense that's 331 00:19:31,040 --> 00:19:34,460 true, right? I mean, in a sense it is true that is useful to 332 00:19:34,460 --> 00:19:37,460 have this historical comparison. I mean, at the time we stopped 333 00:19:37,460 --> 00:19:42,032 Hitler right at Munich, if we'd have actually deterred him from 334 00:19:42,032 --> 00:19:46,472 doing it, there could well have been a worse Hitler, because we 335 00:19:46,472 --> 00:19:49,112 wouldn't have had Hitler. We would have had all the same 336 00:19:49,112 --> 00:19:52,112 technology as we've got, you know, today, but we wouldn't 337 00:19:52,112 --> 00:19:55,772 have had a Hitler to kind of switch on our, you know, Hitler 338 00:19:55,772 --> 00:19:57,092 detection algorithm. 339 00:19:57,092 --> 00:19:59,372 Peter Coghill: Because, I think, you know, certainly anecdotally 340 00:19:59,372 --> 00:20:05,040 sending out. At the time, there was disbelief in in France, 341 00:20:05,040 --> 00:20:10,020 Germany, sorry, France, UK and America, about the activities, 342 00:20:10,020 --> 00:20:13,200 the sort of the genocidal activities of Stalin and Hitler 343 00:20:13,500 --> 00:20:18,120 that like, surely, nobody would actually ever do that, but only 344 00:20:18,120 --> 00:20:21,140 when presented with hard evidence. So they go, my God, 345 00:20:21,140 --> 00:20:22,400 these people are sorry. 346 00:20:22,400 --> 00:20:24,560 Fraser McGruer: So we're saying Stalin was bad as well, right? 347 00:20:24,620 --> 00:20:27,320 Stalin was, I thought they were on opposite sides, therefore he 348 00:20:27,320 --> 00:20:28,040 wasn't great. 349 00:20:28,040 --> 00:20:31,220 Nick Hare: I got to rethink this whole stuff. Yeah. So, so I 350 00:20:31,220 --> 00:20:36,080 think, and I think that is true in general, in terms of actually 351 00:20:36,080 --> 00:20:41,140 being able to get people to do things, a prediction isn't often 352 00:20:41,140 --> 00:20:45,220 enough. So, I mean, you know that, as I said, like, I don't 353 00:20:45,220 --> 00:20:48,880 think it's reasonable to have expected us to declare war on 354 00:20:48,880 --> 00:20:52,300 Hitler after he invaded Czechoslovakia, for example, 355 00:20:52,780 --> 00:20:56,140 like we wouldn't have had the support for it. It would have 356 00:20:56,140 --> 00:20:59,500 looked like, you know, the UK was being the aggressive one. 357 00:20:59,920 --> 00:21:02,400 You know, people were able to make excuses, and then it's 358 00:21:02,400 --> 00:21:04,740 like, even after Poland, well, there's still kind of a sense 359 00:21:04,740 --> 00:21:07,260 of, it's not really our business, you know, but you but 360 00:21:07,260 --> 00:21:10,980 you can't. There's some point at which you can't act before it's 361 00:21:10,980 --> 00:21:14,520 got worse, because people won't believe that it's not too bad, 362 00:21:14,580 --> 00:21:18,120 just until it does exactly. Yeah, I wonder as well. It just 363 00:21:18,120 --> 00:21:19,320 feels like a very perennial 364 00:21:19,320 --> 00:21:23,540 Chris Wragg: problem, yeah, but there's so the question of 365 00:21:23,600 --> 00:21:27,800 whether or not something can get worse, whether or not leaders 366 00:21:27,800 --> 00:21:33,500 can get worse, and what the theoretical minimum quality 367 00:21:33,500 --> 00:21:38,540 worst is, the absolute worst president is, and where, where 368 00:21:38,540 --> 00:21:43,480 the current President sits on that, that scale is one thing. 369 00:21:43,480 --> 00:21:46,720 So you know, you can say, right? Well, let's assume the best 370 00:21:46,720 --> 00:21:49,300 president is here and the worst president is here, 371 00:21:49,300 --> 00:21:53,140 theoretically. And you know Trump's about in the middle, 372 00:21:53,260 --> 00:21:57,820 right of the of the full scale of presidential terribleness, 373 00:21:57,820 --> 00:22:03,600 badiosity. Your badiosity? Exactly. That's interesting. But 374 00:22:03,600 --> 00:22:09,540 you might decide there's some level at which you don't want to 375 00:22:09,540 --> 00:22:13,140 go below anyway, regardless of how much further there is to go. 376 00:22:13,500 --> 00:22:16,320 You know, it might be like you set, you know, a height, like 377 00:22:16,320 --> 00:22:19,500 they used to have height limits for the police, for example, you 378 00:22:19,500 --> 00:22:22,700 know, you've got to be over five foot 10 to be in the police. We 379 00:22:22,700 --> 00:22:25,940 know there's people a lot shorter than that, but, you 380 00:22:25,940 --> 00:22:29,120 know, that's where we're drawing our line for this, this quality. 381 00:22:29,120 --> 00:22:31,940 You've got a rubber rugby tackle, a six foot four, right? 382 00:22:31,940 --> 00:22:39,320 Robber, exactly. Yeah, you can't be three foot four. No, no. So, 383 00:22:39,560 --> 00:22:43,900 so, yeah. So I So, I think that the point is is not, how much 384 00:22:43,900 --> 00:22:48,100 worse could it get, but what is an acceptable standard to 385 00:22:48,460 --> 00:22:49,420 perform this role? 386 00:22:50,440 --> 00:22:54,580 Nick Hare: Yeah, and, and, I mean, I get, I suppose part of 387 00:22:54,580 --> 00:22:58,540 the problem is that we form our view about what the distribution 388 00:22:58,540 --> 00:23:01,860 of standards should be based on historical experience, right? So 389 00:23:02,160 --> 00:23:05,400 we, we don't, we don't really come free with a kind of sense 390 00:23:05,400 --> 00:23:07,620 of, Well, that's the absolute line in the sand. I mean, as you 391 00:23:07,620 --> 00:23:12,540 said, you know the debate about slavery, which these days we 392 00:23:12,540 --> 00:23:17,340 would consider to be very much you know, the line of where what 393 00:23:17,340 --> 00:23:21,440 was acceptable in 1850 is absolutely miles away from the 394 00:23:21,440 --> 00:23:24,560 discourse about what's acceptable now, right? But at 395 00:23:24,560 --> 00:23:27,200 the time, you know, as far as they were concerned, actually, 396 00:23:27,200 --> 00:23:29,780 there were kind of all these positions in between which kind 397 00:23:29,780 --> 00:23:34,280 of involved actually owning slaves being okay, yeah. And so 398 00:23:34,400 --> 00:23:38,000 how do we know? I mean, the idea, then, that you might get 399 00:23:38,000 --> 00:23:41,800 to a situation where it was owning slaves was as 400 00:23:41,800 --> 00:23:45,760 preposterous as we think it is, would have seemed ridiculous 401 00:23:45,760 --> 00:23:48,820 then. So, you know, we we might think, well, we've got our 402 00:23:48,820 --> 00:23:52,840 sliding scale of badness, and you know, Trump is skating at 403 00:23:52,840 --> 00:23:55,720 just where that line is. But who knows, another 100 years, we 404 00:23:55,720 --> 00:23:58,420 might look back and go, God, I wish we could get Trump back. 405 00:23:58,420 --> 00:24:00,340 That guy was amazing, yeah, you know. 406 00:24:00,580 --> 00:24:03,240 Peter Coghill: Or things might, things might generally improve, 407 00:24:03,240 --> 00:24:06,360 such that we think drum is a lot worse than we currently think he 408 00:24:06,360 --> 00:24:07,260 is. Yeah, a 409 00:24:07,439 --> 00:24:09,539 Fraser McGruer: couple of things, yeah. We actually need 410 00:24:09,539 --> 00:24:13,019 to sort of draw us to a conclusion reasonably soon. But 411 00:24:13,199 --> 00:24:15,479 this sort of feels, I don't know if you're familiar with the 412 00:24:15,479 --> 00:24:18,059 concept. This is something called the Aleph and and it sort 413 00:24:18,059 --> 00:24:20,779 of this feels surprisingly familiar to other sort of things 414 00:24:20,779 --> 00:24:23,179 that we've talked about, like, how do we know when change is 415 00:24:23,179 --> 00:24:26,059 happening, for example, but I just wanted to sort of make that 416 00:24:26,059 --> 00:24:28,819 observation, we do found, yeah, is quite profound. Thank you. 417 00:24:29,179 --> 00:24:32,539 Now we do need to sort of move towards a conclusion. What do we 418 00:24:32,539 --> 00:24:33,979 got? What do you want to finish off? 419 00:24:33,980 --> 00:24:38,300 Nick Hare: I've got a well, I've got a number. Okay, so is Trump? 420 00:24:39,200 --> 00:24:43,480 Is Trump? Like, well, just we've only got average approval 421 00:24:43,480 --> 00:24:46,360 ratings for his first term. And as I said, of all the 422 00:24:46,360 --> 00:24:51,340 presidential terms since the 50s, that he is the lowest 41.1 423 00:24:52,420 --> 00:24:55,660 Fraser McGruer: right, just to check. So when we say average, 424 00:24:55,720 --> 00:24:58,840 is it taking average over that term, but across all sorts of 425 00:24:58,840 --> 00:25:01,560 different kind of points? Calling sources and, 426 00:25:01,560 --> 00:25:05,460 Nick Hare: okay, sorry, no, it's Gallup. So Assistant survey that 427 00:25:05,460 --> 00:25:08,640 they would, I, I would guess that, you know, every month or 428 00:25:08,640 --> 00:25:11,640 something, throughout the throughout the you know that the 429 00:25:11,880 --> 00:25:14,400 term they are then just taking the average, because, of course, 430 00:25:14,400 --> 00:25:17,940 it always starts out high and falls Yeah. So, you know, there 431 00:25:17,940 --> 00:25:20,300 are other measures you could look at, like approval after a 432 00:25:20,300 --> 00:25:22,640 certain amount of time or whatever. But this is quite 433 00:25:22,880 --> 00:25:28,340 it'll do, is what I'm saying. And if you is kind of, they're 434 00:25:28,340 --> 00:25:31,100 roughly, they're not, but not far off a kind of normal 435 00:25:31,100 --> 00:25:35,240 distribution. And if you take, if you assume it's a normal 436 00:25:35,240 --> 00:25:39,200 distribution, and that each time we draw a presidential approval 437 00:25:39,200 --> 00:25:44,260 rating from this distribution, Trump is sort of roughly at the 438 00:25:44,260 --> 00:25:50,320 10% point right? So 41.1 as an approval rating is, is, sort of 439 00:25:50,320 --> 00:25:54,400 cuts, is above about 10% of presidents. You could, you could 440 00:25:54,400 --> 00:26:02,160 have, if so, if that's true, it means that he's one in a 40 year 441 00:26:02,160 --> 00:26:08,760 level of badness. Okay, yeah. So basically, you know, in other 442 00:26:08,760 --> 00:26:13,440 words, every 10 presidents, you get one as bad or worse than 443 00:26:13,440 --> 00:26:17,820 Trump, purely, and by bad or worse I mean purely in terms of 444 00:26:17,820 --> 00:26:21,380 average approval, right? And in fact, lo and behold, if you look 445 00:26:21,380 --> 00:26:26,180 at the his approval at the beginning of this term, 2025 it 446 00:26:26,420 --> 00:26:29,000 was actually higher than his approval at the beginning of 447 00:26:29,000 --> 00:26:29,420 2016 448 00:26:29,840 --> 00:26:32,540 Chris Wragg: Ryan, believe that. And I think this is a sort of 449 00:26:32,540 --> 00:26:38,480 key factor in in that that form of measurement of average 450 00:26:38,600 --> 00:26:47,200 approval rating over the term, if you take somebody like Joe 451 00:26:47,200 --> 00:26:52,060 Biden, actually the second lowest, right, okay, so, but I 452 00:26:52,180 --> 00:26:56,620 would imagine that at the point at which it was apparent that 453 00:26:56,620 --> 00:27:00,100 he, you know, he had sort of advanced dementia, or whatever, 454 00:27:00,700 --> 00:27:06,060 that his, his, you know that that sort of six or 12 month 455 00:27:06,060 --> 00:27:09,360 period towards the end of his presidency, I can only imagine 456 00:27:09,360 --> 00:27:14,340 his approval ratings were, were very low at that point and and 457 00:27:14,340 --> 00:27:18,300 that he was deemed, you know, if you're a terrible president for 458 00:27:19,200 --> 00:27:22,520 let's say you start A nuclear war, or you're or like Nixon, 459 00:27:22,520 --> 00:27:24,920 yeah, you know, you eat one lousy foot. They call you a 460 00:27:24,920 --> 00:27:29,120 cannibal, right? Exactly at that point. You may have been 461 00:27:29,720 --> 00:27:33,020 perfectly mediocre throughout the rest of your presidency, but 462 00:27:33,020 --> 00:27:37,400 if you do one really terrible thing, right, in the last you 463 00:27:37,400 --> 00:27:43,720 know, the dog days of your your incumbency, you could be the 464 00:27:43,720 --> 00:27:45,160 worst, the worst president, yeah. 465 00:27:45,160 --> 00:27:47,740 Nick Hare: I mean, I think if you if, if you imagine having a 466 00:27:47,740 --> 00:27:50,920 president who actually has dementia for one quarter of his 467 00:27:50,920 --> 00:27:53,620 term, I think you might say, well, you know, that's not 468 00:27:53,620 --> 00:27:57,340 great, yeah. That's not what we kind of ideally would have, 469 00:27:57,400 --> 00:28:00,600 yeah. So, you know, I think it seems for that period, they were 470 00:28:00,600 --> 00:28:03,060 the worst president, well, ever been? Yeah, yeah. 471 00:28:03,420 --> 00:28:06,060 Fraser McGruer: Possibly, I got a question finish off, but just 472 00:28:06,060 --> 00:28:08,340 before we do, it makes me wonder, like, if you were living 473 00:28:08,400 --> 00:28:12,900 in an autocracy that you know I you would still be having these 474 00:28:12,900 --> 00:28:15,120 same debates. Let's say if you were allowed to right, which you 475 00:28:15,120 --> 00:28:17,340 wouldn't. But let's say you're in the People's Republic of 476 00:28:17,340 --> 00:28:19,620 China. Wouldn't publish them. Yeah, you wouldn't publish them. 477 00:28:19,620 --> 00:28:22,280 You wouldn't talk to them about it. You huddle quietly in a cup 478 00:28:22,280 --> 00:28:25,040 and talk about it, but you'd still be talking about leaders 479 00:28:25,040 --> 00:28:28,160 that are better or worse than others. Yeah, I don't know. 480 00:28:28,220 --> 00:28:30,860 Chris Wragg: It's because, and of course, approval rating in 481 00:28:30,860 --> 00:28:35,540 that context is less important. It's not like approval doesn't 482 00:28:35,540 --> 00:28:39,740 count in autocracies, because, you know, revolutions topple 483 00:28:39,740 --> 00:28:45,400 them, yeah, you get killed exactly, but, but it is less 484 00:28:45,400 --> 00:28:55,780 immediate. And, you know, actually approval is, is, is 485 00:28:55,780 --> 00:29:01,600 quite a fickle thing, right? And so that's why, perhaps the 486 00:29:01,840 --> 00:29:05,940 retrospective judgement about presidents is different, because 487 00:29:05,940 --> 00:29:09,600 you actually can then look at things like what their record 488 00:29:09,600 --> 00:29:13,200 was, what did they achieve? You know, large infrastructure 489 00:29:13,380 --> 00:29:16,860 projects that might be massively unpopular at the time suddenly 490 00:29:16,860 --> 00:29:19,560 turned out to have been a really good idea. I mean, 491 00:29:19,560 --> 00:29:21,920 Fraser McGruer: it makes me think that I wonder if it will 492 00:29:21,920 --> 00:29:24,620 always be the case that people be looking at stuff and 493 00:29:24,620 --> 00:29:26,540 wondering, Is that good or bad? 494 00:29:28,280 --> 00:29:31,220 Unknown: Well, there's something to that's, you know, to chew on. 495 00:29:31,220 --> 00:29:31,520 I'll let 496 00:29:31,520 --> 00:29:33,560 Fraser McGruer: you, you know, let that one sit with you. I've 497 00:29:33,560 --> 00:29:36,260 got a question. I want to keep it on you, as presidents, 498 00:29:36,260 --> 00:29:39,740 actually, and I was wondering if there are some precedents which 499 00:29:39,740 --> 00:29:42,880 are kind of more or less universally viewed as being bad, 500 00:29:42,940 --> 00:29:46,000 not good. But are there any of those presidents that you've got 501 00:29:46,000 --> 00:29:48,520 kind of a sneaking regard for? You think, actually, there was 502 00:29:48,520 --> 00:29:51,340 bits and pieces they did. I rather like about them. So 503 00:29:51,400 --> 00:29:52,060 Peter, go for 504 00:29:52,060 --> 00:29:56,020 Peter Coghill: it, yeah. So Richard Nixon wasn't very well 505 00:29:56,080 --> 00:29:59,140 liked. Did some bad things. Wasn't pretty popular, but was, 506 00:29:59,140 --> 00:30:02,280 yeah, it was that. Middle of the table, turns out, in middle of 507 00:30:02,280 --> 00:30:06,300 the table. But yeah, he Yeah. Famously, was impeached for 508 00:30:06,540 --> 00:30:09,840 trying to rig the election, which is a bit of a no, a bit of 509 00:30:09,840 --> 00:30:12,480 a no go area in the United States. Well, he resigned in the 510 00:30:12,480 --> 00:30:15,780 end there, he did, yeah, yeah, but did some pretty decent 511 00:30:15,780 --> 00:30:17,940 things. So he ended the Vietnam war, 512 00:30:18,540 --> 00:30:22,100 Unknown: peace with honour. Yeah, Vietnam. He, he 513 00:30:22,100 --> 00:30:24,140 Peter Coghill: opened relations with China. Debatable. 514 00:30:24,980 --> 00:30:27,500 Fraser McGruer: China thing is very Yeah, go, yeah, quite 515 00:30:27,500 --> 00:30:30,920 Peter Coghill: a big deal. So paved the way for globalisation 516 00:30:31,220 --> 00:30:34,520 in the last part of the 20th century, which has uplifted the 517 00:30:34,520 --> 00:30:38,660 standards of life for many, many around the world, environmental 518 00:30:38,660 --> 00:30:43,600 protection, civil rights, Native American self determination and 519 00:30:43,600 --> 00:30:49,120 lowering the voting age plus space exploration, the 520 00:30:49,240 --> 00:30:53,260 continuing the Apollo missions throughout his tenure. Yeah. 521 00:30:53,440 --> 00:30:54,880 Okay, so some big things 522 00:30:55,720 --> 00:30:56,620 Unknown: good old Nixon. 523 00:30:56,620 --> 00:31:00,780 Chris Wragg: I also, what I also really like about Nixon is that 524 00:31:01,800 --> 00:31:06,780 he had a chip on his shoulder, and that he railed against the 525 00:31:06,780 --> 00:31:15,360 sort of liberal intellectualism, and he hated that sort of clique 526 00:31:15,360 --> 00:31:20,100 of ivy league, sort of Kennedy type, right? Exactly. So 527 00:31:20,160 --> 00:31:24,260 personality wise, I'm much more on his side as a bit of an 528 00:31:24,260 --> 00:31:29,720 outsider, not a not a terribly naturally popular man. I 529 00:31:29,720 --> 00:31:30,980 thought, yeah, 530 00:31:31,220 --> 00:31:33,440 Fraser McGruer: yeah, no, absolutely. I think that's some 531 00:31:33,440 --> 00:31:34,160 good points there. 532 00:31:34,220 --> 00:31:37,340 Nick Hare: Chris Nick, well, I I'd like to put in a word for 533 00:31:37,340 --> 00:31:40,720 LBJ, you still mind go, yeah. Keep going, yeah. Well, he 534 00:31:40,840 --> 00:31:43,060 mainly because he was obsessed with his balls. I'm not 535 00:31:43,060 --> 00:31:46,780 interested in the he was always going on. It was apparently used 536 00:31:46,780 --> 00:31:49,420 to ring up his tailor and moan about the fact that his 537 00:31:49,420 --> 00:31:51,880 testicles weren't sitting comfortably, and like, where, 538 00:31:52,300 --> 00:31:54,400 where his knob should be, and stuff. But he used to get, 539 00:31:54,400 --> 00:31:58,000 apparently used to get his genitals out, to to sort of 540 00:31:58,000 --> 00:32:01,200 deliberately intimidate people and things. I mean, I just feel 541 00:32:01,200 --> 00:32:03,300 like that's not I feel like, if 542 00:32:03,300 --> 00:32:06,960 Chris Wragg: Donald's not used enough, I feel like, 543 00:32:07,560 --> 00:32:11,640 Nick Hare: if Donald Trump did that in a way, nobody would be, 544 00:32:11,640 --> 00:32:16,440 nobody would be. I actually think it would raise an eyebrow, 545 00:32:16,560 --> 00:32:19,800 even if Donald, like Donald Trump, has done incredibly 546 00:32:19,800 --> 00:32:23,720 outrageous things, I still think he got his, he got his genitals 547 00:32:23,720 --> 00:32:25,100 out. It would make the news. 548 00:32:25,520 --> 00:32:28,040 Fraser McGruer: I think you're probably right. Yes, I wonder if 549 00:32:28,040 --> 00:32:29,060 it made the news at the time 550 00:32:29,060 --> 00:32:33,200 Unknown: with LBJ, though I doubt it was no biography, yeah, 551 00:32:33,200 --> 00:32:34,160 yeah, yeah. 552 00:32:34,280 --> 00:32:36,200 Fraser McGruer: We've done everyone. We have done Chris. 553 00:32:36,260 --> 00:32:37,040 Oh, sorry. Chris, 554 00:32:37,040 --> 00:32:39,860 Chris Wragg: yeah, well, Nixon would have been my shout. But I 555 00:32:39,860 --> 00:32:46,240 also have a, have a strong, sort of soft spot for George W Bush. 556 00:32:46,240 --> 00:32:54,700 I think he was just an extreme, like in terms of presidents that 557 00:32:54,700 --> 00:32:59,620 actually do what they think needs to be, needs to be done. 558 00:32:59,620 --> 00:33:04,440 You know, act on the basis of integrity. I felt he did. 559 00:33:04,440 --> 00:33:07,860 Whether he got things right or not is another matter, but I 560 00:33:07,860 --> 00:33:10,740 felt like he's one of the few presidents you can look back on 561 00:33:10,740 --> 00:33:16,140 that didn't feel like a bit of a shyster. And he also did a lot 562 00:33:16,560 --> 00:33:23,180 in terms of tackling HIV and AIDS in, you know, across Sub 563 00:33:23,180 --> 00:33:28,340 Saharan Africa. So, I think, and he came up with the that 564 00:33:28,340 --> 00:33:31,220 immortal line, didn't he about the problem with the French, as 565 00:33:31,220 --> 00:33:34,580 they have no word for entrepreneur, which I think is, 566 00:33:34,580 --> 00:33:36,800 is just such a brilliant quote. 567 00:33:36,800 --> 00:33:37,160 So, 568 00:33:38,190 --> 00:33:41,091 Fraser McGruer: so George W Bush, yeah, no. Good shout. Good 569 00:33:41,157 --> 00:33:44,916 shout, yeah, I shan't bother because LBJ was mine for the 570 00:33:44,982 --> 00:33:49,137 same reasons. Yeah. All right, lovely. Let's stop there. You've 571 00:33:49,203 --> 00:33:53,358 been listening to the cognitive engineering podcast, brought to 572 00:33:53,424 --> 00:33:57,183 you by Aleph insights and produced by me, Fraser McGruer. 573 00:33:57,249 --> 00:34:01,206 If you haven't already, please like and subscribe. We try to 574 00:34:01,272 --> 00:34:05,295 release an episode every week or two. If there are any topics 575 00:34:05,361 --> 00:34:09,383 you'd like us to cover, please do get in touch via email. You 576 00:34:09,449 --> 00:34:13,340 can find out more about Aleph Insights at Alephinsights.com 577 00:34:13,406 --> 00:34:17,100 thanks as always for listening until next time. Goodbye.