Overtime: Jonathan Haidt, Fareed Zakaria, Dr. Mark T. Esper (HBO)

-(AUDIENCE APPLAUSES, APPLAUSES) -Okay, here we are with our social psychologist, NYU Stern School of Business and author of The Anxious Generation, Jonathan Haidt. CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS host and author of the new book The Age of Revolutions, Fareed Zakaria. And the former Secretary of Defense whose memoirs are a sacred oath, Dr. Mark Esper. Such a esteemed panel and here are the questions people have submitted. For Fareed, "Why do you say that oil-rich countries have a hard time modernizing?" Well, it's like thinking about trust fund kids, -they don't work hard... -(AUDIENCE LAUGHING) ...basically, if you have it, you know, if you don't need to go through the hard work of modernizing your economy, educating to its population, put the right infrastructure in place, if all you have to do is dig a hole, get oil, sell it to, you know, the United States and Europe, it's the easy way out and it's one of the reasons you've seen in almost all the oil-rich countries, Nigeria, Venezuela, you know, -Iran, there is a dysfunction... -BILL MAHER: Kuwait. ...there is corruption and if you look at the countries that have really done well in the world, South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, they had no resources, so they had no alternative but, you know , educate its population. , build good infrastructure, implement

mark

et-friendly rules and guess what? -You know, you get a boom. -(PUBLIC APPLAUSES) Is it a function of the government?

Or the fact, I mean, that the United States is a country rich in energy... -BILL: Yes. -Norway, right? Other countries... -BILL: Kill it with energy. -Yeah. -Kill it in energy and-- FAREED ZAKARIA: So, there are few, exactly right. There are few countries where we first got our political and economic system and oil arrived much later... -BILL: Correct. -...and that turns out -to help a lot. -BILL: Sure. Because there seems to be no way to have the oil without it simply being siphoned off by that corrupt cabal at the top, right? -Exactly. -So what's up? -BILL: All of these countries could do very well. -DR.

MARK ESPER: Absolutely. -And by the way, in all-- -The Saudis are actually trying. The Saudis are trying and the small Gulf States are very small. -BILL: Trying what? -Modernize-- -Modernize, invest -in your human capital... -BILL: Correct. ...to, you know, not pay a stipend to every royal on the payroll. -But just to give you... You know... (DOUBT) BILL: Yeah, that's not going to happen. In the Gulf, labor productivity, that is, the productivity of each person who works, is among the lowest in the world. -MARK: And it is not National Labor either, -it is imported labor... -No, of course.

So far it doesn't work. -BILL: Okay, John, "How does phone use and time on social media lead to spiritual degradation?" "Spiritual degradation?" Yeah! -Well, because if we-- -(AUDIENCE LAUGHING) -No, it sounds terrible. -(AUDIENCE LAUGHING) -Yes, what? -(MARK LAUGHING) So if you look at what ancient wisdom tells us, if you look at what the religious traditions and the Stoics, if you look at all these traditions, they tell us things like, "Be slower to judge and quicker to judge." ". forgive." They tell us things like: "Slow down, calm down, regain control of your conscience." And what is life on social networks? -It's exactly the opposite. -Good.

Judge right now, quickly, without context , a lot of times, they never forgive and it's: "How about you connect your... your eyes and your ears to a gigantic fire hose and just fill it with garbage all the time -(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING) -That's it?" ...I've said it many times on the show, but I have to say it again: the phone takes everyone's worst innate feelings and makes them worse. Grim, needy, mean, fake, passive-aggressive -(JONATHAN HAIDT CLEARS HIS THROAT. ): Mm-hm. -If you have any of those-- -(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING) MARK: That's what anonymity gives you, right? JONATHAN: Yeah, that makes it worse, yeah.

I've often wondered if you said. : "Everyone who has an account, you can't use avatars or fake names, but you must use your real name and your real location." -BILL: And without filters, even if we allow people to use fake names for privacy reasons. , at least companies, at least platforms should have some kind of authentication so they know it's a real person, it's not, you know... Okay. ...a Russian agent trying to manipulate us, so even that would make it a lot better. But I think, you know, Bill, you must have the same experience, you know, I'm out there in the world with my views and I've worked...

You know, I travel all over the world, the people are very polite, the People are very... -In person, yes. -...very generous. In person. But on Twitter, you know, on social media it's a completely different thing because suddenly you realize this evil, that's the point I think John is making. You can earn this evil when you have this platform where you can do it quietly, under a pseudonym, it is very interesting to think about the contrast, at least I have noticed it among the people who approach you in person... -JONATHAN: Mm- mmm. -...and what you get -from his Twitter account. -Yes, okay. "What does the panel think about RFK Jr.'s choice for running mate Nicole Shanahan?". -Okay, if you missed this... -MARK: Who? (LAUGHTER) -I-- I didn't... -(AUDIENCE LAUGHING) I didn't know the name either so I-- She looked vaguely familiar because I read the gossip about it some time ago, she's the ex. -wife of Sergey Brin, one of the co-owners of Google.

Tenth richest man in the world. The rumor was that they broke up because she had an affair with Elon Musk. That's just a rumor. I have no idea, they both deny it. I'm just posting it because you're going to see it there. Anyway, RFK chose her as her VP, which is out of the ordinary, it has to be said. Obviously people... The first thing people are going to say is that they now have access to billions of dollars. MARK: Yeah. -...in a way, it's kind of honest, like, let's cut out the middleman... -(JONATHAN LAUGHING) -(AUDIENCE LAUGHING) -...it's, you know... -He's the vice president .

Well, you know, instead of... It's like making Sheldon Adelson your vice president. -(AUDIENCE LAUGHING) -This is just... -Let's go straight to the, you know... -Yeah. -(AUDIENCE APPLAUSES) -So... Let's... Let's remember that it only helps in this country, there is no other advanced democracy in the world with campaign finance laws that would allow a billionaire to spend and you could spend a billion dollars choosing yourself. -BILL: Berlusconi didn't do that? -No, no, you know, there are very strict campaign laws throughout Europe. -No. Absolutely not. -Silvio Berlusconi, in Italy not... -FAREED: he didn't do it. -...buy that presidency - in the same way we do? -No, no, no, he's-- -Actually he was-- -BILL: It was just a coincidence -He was the richest man in Italy and he also owned all the media? -BRAND: The media.

Good. He owned the media that helped us open up, but there are campaign laws. We are the only country where you can spend essentially unlimited amounts on yourself. The interesting thing about RFK is that right now it is getting 12 percentage points. When Trump is beating Biden, by about five nationally. -BILL: Sure. So where do those 12 points come from? That's the thing and that's why everyone tries to push it one way or the other. So the question is: will he be like Ralph Nader? -Good. -Where Nader-- There are some people who think otherwise, since RFK's platform seems to be conspiracy theories, -maybe he is basing it on Trump's vote. (LAUGHTER) -That's...

Yeah. I don't think we know for sure. Well, "What will be the consequences of the ISIS attack on Moscow?" Yes, if you missed that story, ISIS attacked Moscow. Hey, they hate someone more than us. -(LAUGHTER) -(AUDIENCE APPLAUSES, APPLAUSES) There is always good news in all the news, right? Look, I think it says a few things, first of all, ISIS has international reach beyond, you know, its bases in Afghanistan or Pakistan... -BILL: Right. -...wherever-- Number one and number two, they are able to elude most intelligence services except our own, apparently we knew that. And look, it was a tragic attack, one hundred, what, thirty-seven Russians killed, but this is my point: -BILL: What was the objective?

However, this does not take anything away from the tragedy. Russia has been killing Ukrainians for more than two years. Bombings with rockets, missiles, drones, maternity wards, hospitals and everything else. But ISIS did not do it to defend Ukraine. -No, they-- Look, they have-- -FAREED: No. I... Russia has a long history of very brutal subjugation -of "Islamic militants--" -Think about Chechnya, almost-- In Chechnya and Dagestan and this is revenge for Syria. Let's not forget the Russians allied with Assad, the Syrian government, when they faced a kind of Islamic militant insurgency and they were quite brutal. Putin has been one of these guys' number one, two or three enemies for a long time.

The really interesting part about this... It's not a... a false flag operation, -really... -No, no, I mean, I seem to think Mark's point is very important, which is that the US intelligence warned the Russians not only of a possible ISIS attack but that it could be in a theater of operations. They had very good intelligence, I mean, I think it's a comp... You know, we keep talking about how terrible the United States government is. In this, in Ukraine, American intelligence has done quite well. MARK: This is what Putin is going to do with this and he...

You see this is happening, he is going to blame the Ukrainians and the opinion is that he will use it to do another mass mobilization of 200, 300,000 Russians to throw them into the meat grinder. which we call Ukraine. So, keep an eye on that. "What does the panel think of Sam Bankman-Fried's sentencing to 25 years in prison? Is it fair?" -I don't know. -Far-- Obviously much less than what the prosecutors wanted but 25 years is a long time. I don't-- I don't know if he gets off for good behavior... -I-- I just wish-- -I'd love to hear what John thinks about it.

Yeah, no, I think he's really encouraging because one of the problems with the global financial crisis and the collapse here is that almost no one went to jail. And I think that really contributed to the disillusionment, to the feeling that the elites can get away with anything and no one is punished. And here you have a guy who is an obvious scammer and at least the system worked in this case. But all this is a fraud. How can you commit fraud with...? I mean, I'm not saying he shouldn't be in jail, but this is all fake money, it's not based on anything. -(AUDIENCE APPLAUSES) -I was hoping he would disappear because of this and it's...

The only thing... the people it's good for are criminals. Yes, I agree and I don't understand it, but as you say, Bitcoin is at -70,000 right now. -BILL: And it's horrible -for the environment. -FAREED: Yes, yes, yes. The amount of electricity they need to do this "Mining"... It's a bit like Trump, you know, you can point this out all you want and he just goes on... (LAUGHTER) -BILL: I agree. -(AUDIENCE LAUGHING) Very good, thank you guys, thank you audience. -See you next week. -(PUBLIC CHEERING, APPLAUDING)