00:17:08 · Roman Krznaric
[00:17:08] S1: Yeah, we're bad at it, but we can switch on that capacity, that kind of acorn brain thinking, relatively easily. Now, let me give you an example. So in Japan, there's this really cool movement called future design, and it was founded by this kind of crazy economist, and he was very influenced by this Native American principle called the seventh generation principle, which is found amongst many indigenous communities around the world of basically making decisions based on the impact seven generations ahead and sometimes honoring seven generations behind. And he took this idea to Japan and he didn't exactly follow it to seven generations, but he had this idea where he started organizing these community meetings in small towns and cities where he'd invite people, a bit like a citizens' assembly, invite people to discuss and draw up plans for the town or city where they live on an issue like, you know, the impacts of AI on employment or aging populations or climate change impacts. And basically, when they started doing it, they would split people into two groups. The first group were told to imagine themselves as residents from the present day. And the other group were given these kind of like ceremonial orange kimonos to wear and told to imagine themselves as residents from the year 2060. And there's systematic evidence showing that just by wearing that orange kimono robe thing, that the residents, the people who imagined themselves coming from 2060, advocated for far more transformative plans for their towns or cities. Because they knew that their children or grandchildren or people from their religious community or neighbors would be living there in that future. They even would vote for higher taxes like local water taxes to pay for water infrastructure. And this future design method is now used in local government across Japan. It's used by in big companies like Fujitsu for long-term planning by the Japanese Ministry of Finance. And it doesn't take much, it's just the human imagination. In a way, we've got this, we're experts at the temporal pirouette. Our minds have a capacity to dance across time. Like one moment you can be looking at your phone, but then you can be thinking about your children's future or your pension or whatever it happens to be. And we just need to learn to tap into that a bit more and make it normal.
00:19:15 · Roman Krznaric
And, you know, in a way, when it comes down to it, when I write my books, you know, my books are about trying to put ideas into the world that stay with people, that kind of shape your worldview. So the idea of being a good ancestor is just that. It's like wake up in the morning and look yourself in the mirror and say, you know, what am I going to do today to be a good ancestor? In a way, that's all I'm inviting people to do. I'm not, I don't want to tell you exactly how you should do it. Depends what you're doing in your life. You might be working in some in fintech, you might be a climate activist, whatever. But ask yourself that question.
00:19:50 · Cameron McLain
[00:19:50] S0: Well, in part two, I am going to ask you to put this into people's minds and be very didactic. Um, so so get ready for that, Roman. But um maybe just uh to pick up on what you were just saying there about you are someone who comes up with ideas. Our show is called Giant Ideas, and and lots of the people we interview are leaders who have a giant idea and then they try to enact it through a company that they start or organization that they lead. You're you're different in that you are an ideas man, basically, and and you come up with these ideas, you write about them, you talk about them. With this idea, with the idea of a good ancestor, what's your hope for for how you can kind of enact it in the world? Is your job to do things like this and just talk about the idea, write these books which have a lot of people reading them, or how much do you think I've got to to really make this count, I've got to go there to Japan and kind of get these mayors using this, I've got to go to Brazil and get the mayors there using this idea.
00:20:43 · Roman Krznaric
[00:20:43] S1: That's a really brilliant question. Um, you know, I think when you write a book or you try and put an idea into the world, you can't predict how it's going to be adopted or used. You just have to have kind of faith in the power of ideas. Well, that's what I try to do as a writer. So after my book, The Good Ancestor came out, suddenly I discovered that, like in Pakistan, there was a Supreme Court ruling against the expansion of the cement industry because of its terrible environmental impacts. And they quoted my book, The Good Ancestor, in a TED talk I did called How to Be a Good Ancestor. They quoted it in the ruling. Amazing. Um, and I like I had never planned that. I could never have planned that. I couldn't, it would have made no sense to go to Pakistan and try and influence Supreme Court judges in case they might do that. Or another example, like the former vice president um of the of the European Union, who was developing the European Union's Green Deal, a guy called Franz Timmermans, a Dutch politician, he read my book. He started framing the Green Deal, um, this sort of policy uh position in the EU, frame it in terms of this is about being a good ancestor. Again, I I wasn't trying to get him to do that. I mean, so you kind of you never really know, or you know, companies that have, you know, adopted this idea. So I know quite a lot of companies that have, not just because of my ideas, but also just the the good ancestry that's in the air, have done things like um, for example, given a place on their boards to future generations or to nature, and they've made it a legal part of how their company is organized. So future generations have a legal place on the board, and so they have a fiduciary or a duty, you know, to not just make money, but to look after future generations and and the world that they live in. Um and I love that stuff because in a way, yeah, I'm not in the world of of business and investment and technology, but I am in the world of innovation. But I'm interested in kind of social innovation rather than technological innovation, like trying to offer ideas to the world that help people rethink how they organize a school, society, a judicial system, a political system, a company, whatever it is.
00:22:53 · Cameron McLain
[00:22:53] S0: Love that. This all sounds fantastic, but how do we, if we're challenging it, say, you know, this sounds great in theory, but how does this practically gonna change the world? How the political leaders, company leaders, how do they grasp this and actually use it to drive change?
00:23:08 · Roman Krznaric
[00:23:08] S1: Yeah, it's a really important question. Because firstly, I wouldn't think like long-term thinking by itself is a good thing. You know, Hitler wanted in a thousand-year Reich, okay? So, and a former head of Goldman Sachs, a guy called Gus Levy, once said, we're greedy, but long-term greedy, not short-term greedy. Now, that's not the kind of good ancestry I'm interested in. So it has to be connected with ethics. But there are real tensions, you know. For example, like, should a government be putting their money into, you know, keeping Putin, you know, not coming over your borders today, or thinking about long-term investment in a tidal power scheme, you know, that might benefit people in 50 or 100 years more than they would today. And there's often a tension there. And in fact, I I once went and asked um someone who was has the great political position of being the future generations commissioner of Wales. So Wales um has this amazing public position, the Future Generations Commissioner, which is a non-party political position where their job is to look at the impact of public policy in all areas, such as employment, education, healthcare, up to 30 years in the future. So not seven generations, but still pretty far in political terms. And the Future Generations Commissioner Derek Walker was saying, look, if you design policy right, you help people both today and tomorrow. Um, so you, for example, invest in um renewable energy, you know, which brings down energy prices today, but it also reduces carbon emissions over the long term. So I think that's the kind of thing we should be trying to sort of deal with the tensions, but think what we can do today, which is yeah, satisfies our challenges today, but also is going to be good for future generations.