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.
00:24:44 · Cameron McLain, Roman Krznaric
[00:24:44] S0: I just love it. It's a very simple idea, but it's it's very profound. And so, what we're gonna do in part two is get onto how this can change the behavior of all the people listening and watching to this. So stay tuned for part two. But thanks so much for sharing part one of your giant idea. [00:24:57] S1: It has been a great pleasure.