Trevor Noah

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dan Rather, and I'm joined by Mrs. Mouse.

We didn't even talk about this on the fact check, but the strike is over.

The strike is over.

Congratulations to all.

Congratulations. Well, they haven't, it's not done, done. They have a deal that they're now bringing to the members to vote on. I mean, so, presumably it will, that'll...

But it said 1201 on Thursday, members can go back to work.

Oh, it did?

Yeah.

Oh, so, then maybe the members already approved the deal they brought back.

I think so.

But when I read the announcement, it was like, they have a deal, they've agreed upon a deal. they'll now bring back to the members to vote on. Oh, maybe. Oh, boy. But anyway, I think it's over.

We've been trying to have him on for a long, long, long, long, long, long, long...

Long, long time. It's been scheduled, it's been unscheduled, it's been scheduled. That's right. And the day has finally arrived, and it really delivered. Trevor.

Yes, he loves to dance.

He lives to dance, I'd say. Trevor Noah is a comedian, a best-selling author, an Emmy Award-winning host, and then he's a hugely successful touring stand-up. Of course, you've come to love him for seven years on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, and he has a new podcast out right now, a Spotify original called What Now? with Trevor Noah. So please check that out.

It did. We always had ADT.

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I used to DJ.

Oh, okay.

So I'm more comfortable with one ear. I just got used to hearing the room and then hearing what's happening in my ear. I also had a radio show when I was in South Africa way back in the day. And then same thing. So you'd always have one ear up so you can talk to people in the studio and then one ear monitoring what's happening.

Could you just get a set that just doesn't have the other?

Oh, you have that? Yeah, you've got the one, and it just has a one ear.

Oh, okay.

Either they flip up or you have one that's literally a one ear.

Like you, work at AT&T, on the phone, bank or something.

I feel like that would be a lot of stimuli from the outside and from inside your headphones.

But it's the same thing.

No, I don't think so.

You're in one environment.

Well, she's right, in that you'd be hearing all this extraneous noise in the environment on one side of your brain or your ear. And then the other side is very dialed in.

So think of it this way. Let's say you're DJing like a party. The music that they're hearing is the music you're hearing. But then you're also hearing the music that you're going to play and the music that you're currently playing. Oh, oh, oh, oh, that.

And the ADHD is an asset. in that moment. I guess it is. It's got to be, right?

I guess it is, yeah.

I've never, ever considered that I had it. I know I'm dyslexic, but I never considered I had it. And then we had Gabor Maté on. And afterwards, he was like, have you ever been tested for ADHD? It was kind of a thin slice assessment that maybe I had it.

Yeah. I would be careful to receive a diagnosis from anyone. I've learned over the years that many of the things we deal with with our brains overlap. Some of the side effects of ADHD are similar to side effects of OCD or similar to people who are bipolar. So if you're not careful, I've met a lot of people just be like, I have ADHD.

Yeah, we love to diagnose.

Well, it's all driven by the DSM, right? There has to be categories so that you can get reimbursement, for, I mean, truly. So. you're right. All these things could be like a multitude of personality characteristics that we're forced to categorize and break into, and draw artificial boundaries between ADHD and OCD and blah, blah, blah.

Yeah, I get that. Yeah. You get that?

All the time.

Huh. I wonder what it is. I wonder if it's because our bodies do not present our height. It might be like a thing about our torsos and how they're proportioned.

That could be it.

Could be like a head, torso, legs ratio. that doesn't make you look tall.

Right.

I think it's also on screen, it's really hard to gauge people's heights. And that's where most people are seeing both of you.

Yes. And also you're seated behind a desk.

That's what it probably is.

That's a huge piece.

Yeah, that's a huge piece. So we're not really seeing you standing. I guess when the guests would come out, you would stand. I don't know.

No, but I'm with you. It's probably something in that world.

Of all the things to be told when someone meets you, I'm delighted to hear that. I mean, I'm presuming that's positive.

Let's put it this way. Because we are in a world where being tall is considered a good thing. Oh, it's an advantage. For a man. You think it would be offensive if someone said to a woman, wow, you're taller than I thought.

It could go either way. It wouldn't be 100% a compliment. I don't think it would be offensive either.

You don't think that's a female ideal, do you? I mean, we acknowledge that models are tall.

That's why I'm asking.

I don't think it's broadly. I bet. if you polled Americans and said, list your three favorite traits in a female. If you were designing one in the lab. I don't think tall makes the top three.

But for a male. I don't think it's offensive. That's why I was confused by it.

It's not offensive. It's not offensive. So I get the opposite all the time. People, if they meet me in person, oh my God, you're so short. Right.

Yes, exactly.

Oh, well, that's a very glass, half full.

Yeah, I try. Yeah.

That's true. That's what it is.

And I guess, conversely, you and I should be thinking, God, we present so short. We should reduce our compliment to a burn.

And when you think about it, presenting short is what short people generally do. Well, I have no option. It's the wrong way around. No, what I mean is like, you know, you think of Napoleon. There are countless stories of shorter people in the world who have, you know what I mean?

Complexes.

Some gumption.

Yeah.

We call it mixed messages. So my wife's also very small in stature, but mighty in power, as is Monica. I actually love that combination.

It's just like a little surprise.

Yes, yes. It's like, oh, my God.

Do you like explosives as well? You like bombs?

Love pyrotechnics.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's pretty much the same principle.

A lot of dynamite, yeah.

A tiny little package that explodes and decimates everything.

Oh, we sure do. It's like a little woodland creature, you see, and then you pick up and you're petting it. And then these huge fangs come out and then you leap back. And you're like, oh my God, I gotta be careful. You must be an arousal junkie like me.

Say more, say more. What do you mean by that?

I will, I will. And I love that term too. That's like a CIA thing. Say more. I didn't know your background at all.

I was like, everyone knows that already.

Everyone did know that, especially all the ladies.

I present. nice. You do.

You really do.

But then I learned your story today. And although there's so many things we don't have in common, the violence, the step parents, the single mom, this stuff to me is very identical. And so chaos and excitement, it has made my base desire of arousal quite high.

Interesting.

Yes. Like, I feel very calm in chaos. If I go into 7-Eleven and shit's popping off and there's an unhoused dude fighting the guy behind the counter, I love it. I'm in the mix. That excites me and I feel alive.

I like that you said unhoused.

Do you like that?

I'm not sold on that.

I don't like unhoused.

I'm not sold on that. I'm doing it just to keep people off my back. I'm not sold on it. No. I'll tell you why.

I've also never come across an unhoused person who's like, hey, don't call me homeless.

Here's my issue. I think sometimes we are engaging in conversations where, on an academic level, some people are trying to split hairs that aren't necessarily getting anywhere close to the issue. If this was ever used as a slur, I can understand. So I go like, there are some words that have evolved over time, but they were used as slurs. So I'm like, all right, let's try and move away from using that word.

It's the exact same.

I feel like you're gaslighting me in these situations. Yes.

100%. Next year I'll be without home.

You see? And it's just like, no, man.

I'll go further. It's more nefarious than that. First of all, it's patronizing. What it really says is we feel like shit, that this is a condition and we're going to try to dress up what we call you every few months to make you know we're trying.

I disagree, funny enough. Okay. I don't think it's about showing homeless people that you care.

Oh, I don't either. You're fellow liberals.

Yeah, it's about showing other people that, look, no, I care so much about them that I've given them a new title. Yes. Yes.

So then that's the second thing I hear about it.

And then I'll say to a lot of these people, I'll go, hey, have you voted to change the housing in your area? Have you voted for or against it? Every time I see these councils and whatever in California, there's countless votes that come up where they go, hey, can we adjust the housing rules in this area? Can we figure out who can live where? Everyone votes against it.

A hundred percent.

And then all of a sudden, I remember seeing people going to Santa Monica. There was a homeless encampment that was being moved and they were going to protest, but none of the people were from that area. And I found it particularly interesting. And I'm not saying that they're all bad people, but I do think we have to be careful to, as they say, put your money where your mouth is. A lot of people want to engage in progressivism on a theoretical level.

No, I love it.

Stimuli. So you say you win this chaos.

I got to say one more thing, because we need to add one more layer to it. Yes. And there was a great article recently said maybe we're the bad guys at New York Times. I also think it's an opportunity for just righteousness. That's it.

So here's what I struggle with in society. There are times when I will accept that we're moving in a direction, but then there are times when I go like, no, I'm willing to stand on the fact that I think something is ridiculous. Yes. And I'll go from there.

I got bigger fish to fry. I'm more interested in whether you're an arousal junkie.

So I think I relate to the first part of what you're saying. I function very well. And, strangely enough, my body remains very calm in a very stressful situation. So if you're ever getting carjacked, you want me driving the car. If there's ever some chaos breaking out somewhere, you want me.

Hypervigilant.

Exactly. All silence was for me as a child was the moment in a horror movie where something's about to happen. I don't know about you, but the scariest parts of a horror movie for me are the parts where there's just nothing happening.

Yeah.

The anticipation. It's just like a couple walking around in the kitchen. Honey, did you see where I put the mugs? And I'm like, oh, oh, this is not good. Oh, my God.

Waiting to be hit is much more painful than being hit. Yeah. Once you get hit, like everything else, takes over.

I can relate to that part. And I have been working on enjoying the peace and settling into that, learning to regulate my responses.

My therapist would say, do you search out things that activate you, that kind of bring you to life and animate you?

I don't do that, no. I will search for things that I enjoy, of course. Yeah. You know, so I love roller coasters. I love racing fast cars.

This is my life. I'm at the track once a month. That's all I do. Yes. I have two track bikes.

Oh, for real? What bikes?

I have an R1 and then I have-.

Oh, you still have an R1.. That's amazing. Yeah.

And then I have a Norton Bill ZX4. that's like a Moto2 bike.

Damn, look at that.

That's just epic.

It's so light. Oh, that's amazing. Yeah.

And then cars too. It's all I got. Yeah.

My favorite was. I had a Suzuki GSX-R1000.. I have one. Yeah. That was my favorite track bike.

I did not know this about you. So you're full of fucking shit. You're an arousal junkie motherfucker.

No, no, no, no.

And I'm going to tell you why.

I'm going to tell you.

I'm going to explain why we love it. You get on the bike.

Yes.

There's no time for broad hypervigilance. There is only the turn in front of you. You do not have any option but to think about the turn in front of you. And it focuses you. And for me, I have to be in that crazy of an environment to get ultra present and to have no pressure.

Right. Turn to turn to turn. But for me, that's why I'm saying, that's where I think we diverge. So it doesn't bring me peace. You know, it brings me focus and flow and challenge and stimulation, but I'm not only seeking that out.

Have you ever done a barefoot?

Sometimes Dax walks around cities barefoot. Yeah, yeah.

I like to do that.

Why? Why would you do that?

Because again, he has to add stakes.

I don't know.

It happened as a lark one time when we walked around London, Eric and I, for about eight miles. And there was something about transferring to all the different surfaces. that made me very aware of the different surfaces we were on. And I just fucking dug it.

Do you have like hard feet?

No, they're so fragile and sensitive. Shocker. I was able to do it because, yes, I can't walk across rocks or anything.

Oh, okay. So you don't have those? You don't have like crocodile feet? No. No.

I don't have like the thick Laird Hamilton lifetime with those shoes.

I don't know. Yeah. I don't know how you do that.

Well, I have to ask a hard question. Sorry.

Okay. Just your mark motorcycle. Are you going to be in LA a lot?

Yeah. I'm always here working. Why?

I'm inviting you. If you ever want, to go to the track and read.

Oh, maybe I'll join you. I haven't been in a while.

Okay. And I have extra bikes and I think that would be fun. And we'd be two tall men on a motorcycle. Okay. Monica.

No, no, it's okay. I'm going to ask a hard question. It might be coming. I think, sorry if it is, but it's in keeping with this. In relationships, do you live at 10 and two, or are you pretty good at living in six?

What does that mean?

Are you on a high and a low, like a deep low and a deep high all the time within the relationship? Or are you good at being sort of level normal?

So I think that's evolved over time. Before I went to therapy, I think my world oscillated between highs and lows. in every relationship. I found myself attracted to people who themselves had grown up in worlds where they were used to highs and lows, highs and lows. And so we would exist in that space together.

Interesting.

And the reason men walk into a room first is because there may be danger. Why on earth would you send women into a space that you're unfamiliar with so that they encounter whatever may lie there? That's ridiculous. That's disrespectful. She's like, ah, ladies, first.

Lucky her.

But then you wouldn't be able to hit the button for the floor first. Maybe you could work out a deal where I'll let you go in first, but I still get to hit the button.

That has helped me to not go between the tens and twos. I'm spending most of my time existing in like comfortable sevens.

I have made the same connection some years ago and I actually get frustrated. I'm watching a couple's therapy show, which is incredible. I love it so much, but I get really frustrated hearing people speak like, well, he made me feel this and she made me feel that, and they made me feel. And I'm like, is anyone at all responsible for their feelings? And are you going to proceed through life praying that everyone around you changes, or are you going to try to change your response to these things?

It's tough, though. It is a balance. There's no denying that many people can make you feel something. You know, when someone gaslights you, they are making you feel something. And what makes it so nefarious is the fact that you don't even realize that they're making you feel it, because they're not making it apparent that they're making you feel it.

Yeah, my counter argument is the exact same behavior aimed at 10 different people will produce 10 different feelings. The notion that there's an objective feeling created by this behavior, I reject. I think, well, you had a specific reaction to that behavior, but it'd be very different for the next person. and the next person. And, by the way, here's where my empathy exists, is people feel more comfortable that if something objectively made them upset, they don't have to be as vulnerable to say, I'm vulnerable to that.

It's less vulnerable to make it just blank it, as opposed to, I feel something.

So when you say like that person makes me feel this way, it's an attempt, I think, to just say objectively anyone would feel this way when that person slams the door that way. That in fact is not true. I will react differently than you, and Monica will react differently. I agree with that. So the most important thing is to go, how do I react to certain things, and what do I have at my disposal?

But I think it does ignore the fact that we are interdependent creatures. And so nothing is without the other. Let's put it this way maybe. It's almost being able to exist in a world where you say, hey, you made me feel shit. And then I go, but I'll tell you why you made me feel shit.

No, I mean, they saw a car. They didn't see you. Exactly.

Yeah.

You're anonymous. This statement, if I could refine it a tiny bit, it's a therapy tool and I believe in it. Instead of you made me feel this way. It's so simple. When you ran in dog barking, I felt scared.

I'm with you there.

It's the tiniest change.

That's a communication tactic.

Yes. But what it alleviates is now we can progress.

Yeah. Nobody wants to be blamed. No one's defending.

No, no.

Nobody wants to be blamed. I agree with you. Right.

And, by the way, I didn't make you, I did an action and then you had a response that was governed by your history with dogs.

Let me ask you this as a random, tangential question. Were you blamed a lot as a kid for things that you didn't do? Did you feel like you grew up in an unfair household?

I can't say that I was blamed so much, but what I will say, and this is a cancerous trait of my family is who's responsible was paramount. That had to be figured out ASAP. If something went wrong or someone was hurt, the first priority was not tending to who was hurt or fixing what was broken. It was who did this? How did this happen?

Right. Do you have an aversion to being blamed?

Maybe Monica's better at answering that. Yeah, you do. Oh, great. Then I accept that.

But so do I. I mean, I don't think it's strange that you do. I think most people don't like being blamed.

I think the two are separate. An aversion versus don't like. I don't think anybody likes being blamed, but an aversion, I'm talking like when you have like an allergic reaction up your spine when someone goes like, you know.

I'll go along with that.

So I find there are two types of people in this scenario. Someone accuses you of something in any way. So they go like, hey, you made a mess. And there's some people who go, oh, did I? Oh, I didn't realize.

That's me.

Bingo. I'm the latter.

Yeah. Yeah. Are you the former or the latter?

I'm actually more like this. And I've been working on it for a while.

Wait, you're like the latter as well? Yeah, definitely.

That's why I was asking.

It's such a knee jerk.

So that's why I'm asking you this, because I can hear.

You're so cute. Sometimes when you're talking, honestly, you're so cute that sometimes when you're talking, it's fucking distracting. And I bet- You stop listening. Women on dates feel this way. Yeah.

So I think there are moments in that. It's a challenge I've issued to myself as well. I do it. And I think we could do this. in society as a whole.

Yeah. That would require a lot of benefit of the doubt, which seems to be scarce.

I think it's necessary. I think I get this from language. In South Africa, we have 11 official languages. I grew up speaking four, five languages with my friends, with my family. And one thing I've come to enjoy and really appreciate over the years is that language is a beautiful tool that helps you get to the granularity of meaning.

They'd say unhoused or unhoused.

I would go, that's not what they mean. Because I understand, I would translate from the language they originally speak. I'm learning Spanish now, very slowly. But even in Spanish, you have to understand where the negative goes in the sentence versus in English. And so when somebody who's a native Spanish speaker speaks to me in English now, I go like, ah, I see why you phrased the sentence like that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, by the way, this is another thing that I object to in modern culture is that intentions are irrelevant. And they're so relevant because that's what you're doing. You're trying to distill the intention of what someone was saying, despite their shortcomings and their ability to communicate.

Look, I agree with you completely, but I think we're screwed. I think we're completely screwed. No, I'll tell you why. Like, I think we live in a world where I don't think the human brain has kept up with our level of connectivity. The human brain is really good at ascertaining these things.

Well, also, you just pointed out the best thing is that there was an enormous barrier of entry to object, to raise hell. Now there's none. You see something, and then the barrier of entry is getting the thing out of your pocket. Really, what it's done is opened up the door for the laziest people in the world to have a voice, if I can be super pessimistic about it. If you saw who cared about and fought for things in the 60s, you had to get some poster board, you had to get a piece of plywood, you had to make a sign, you had to go, take a bus to somewhere to protest.

On the one hand, I agree with that.

There's pros and cons. I recognize there's pros and cons.

I think the bigger issue is one that we forget, because we are always tricked into placing the blame on ourselves as individuals, and we don't blame the industries that have created these environments.

Or the system we live in.

Simple example is recycling. One of the greatest tricks the plastic industry ever played on us was making it seem like it's all our job to recycle. You recycle your plastic, or you're a bad person. They literally started this scam. Plastic is not recyclable, the way they say it is.

Guess who sees it?

Despite what little space Monica Stranger has.

And those things see it and they go, okay, Monica, did you see what he just said? And what's amazing to me is I even find myself doing this where I go like, even if you don't click it, if you don't tweet it, if you don't retweet, if you don't comment, they know how long you looked at it. And that anger, that moment where you go, I can't believe that. And then you scroll on. But they know.

Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

Yeah, I like that. Have you heard? the one, comparison is the thief of joy?

Yes.

That's a good one too. It is.

If you want to give therapy a chance, start with BetterHelp. It's entirely online and designed to be convenient. To get started, all you have to do is fill out a brief questionnaire and you'll be matched with a licensed therapist. So stop comparing and start focusing with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash dax today to get 10% off your first month.

Oh, interesting.

And because they can go to this device and comment on it, they feel like they're participating. So everyone's, in my humble opinion, way too politicized. They're only really voting once every four years. If they're super involved, they're voting in midterms. So they're voting twice every four years.

Okay. I'll answer that. I'll just go back to that last part of what you said, because I really liked it. You said people feel like they have an outlet and they have a platform. But again, I go to, I think it's less about the outlet and the platform and more about how they are rewarded for how they respond or react on that platform.

The incentives.

The incentives. One of the best examples of this is streakers at games, baseball games, soccer games, etc. People used to run on the pitch naked all the time. Love it. They'd run on the field naked and the cameras would chase them, and then the grounds, people would have to chase them and tackle them and you'd be watching and cheering.

Everyone's just really trying to be relevant.

And to be seen. To be seen. I like that.

To be seen. Known they exist. Yeah. You want to be a part of something. We all just want to be a part of something.

You'll do whatever you can to get there. And if it means yelling at someone on social media, then that's what it means. That's what's working for you. I agree. You can't really blame the people so much, because they're doing what we're all doing.

I'm trying to get all the attention. I know you are.

But I'm honest about it. I know. Okay. So now, going back to the Daily Show side of things, did I notice a difference? Beyond a difference.

Tell me. Say more, as you would say. Touche.

The greatest con, one of the greatest cons ever played on the American public, and it's growing around the world, is the idea that people need to be continuously plugged into the news. You need to have CNN on 24 hours a day. You need to have your Fox News playing in the background. You need to have your alerts on your phone. God forbid, you miss something from the New York Times.

It's the shittiest things that happen around the world today.

That is what it is doing. But I remember growing up in South Africa, the news, and I guess this was similar to like an earlier time in America. We had no cable news, no, nothing. We still don't really have that. But the news came on twice a day, one in the morning, one in the evening, and you would watch it for 30 minutes or an hour.

Check out what's happening over and over.

Are you kidding me? I'm waiting for Steve Urkel. You're out here showing me stories that's happening in Sudan. Come on.

Yeah.

But I would sit there. And you know what happened? I was informed. I knew what was happening in Rwanda. I knew what was taking place in the UK.

And the news feed was half local stuff, which is also, when I was a kid, it was like, you were learning actually about your community.

Once cable news realized it could generate profits, you know, and I think it was Ezra's brilliant documentary on OJ that showed, that was the launch of 24 hour cable news. Once they realized that we were all screwed, and I've realized that it's like, I don't know any less than I did before, but I don't live in it. And, most importantly, I now provide for myself a level of context that I always felt was missing and I still feel is missing in a lot of the dialogue that people have. People report on a mass shooting while it's happening, and then they just give you incorrect information. Hey, there's a shooter.

They're occupying all of our attention.

But that's my problem. Whereas, it's not because of not caring. It's quite the opposite. If you paused, there's a shooting taking place. anyway.

I'll go a step further. There's also potentially the streaker analogy to be implied here, which is, I don't know if we should be even doing it. It's not slowing it down. It doesn't help us to know. They all know glory is on the other side.

Yes. Do you remember? You know what I always think of when I see these mass shooters and everyone puts their faces? First of all, I don't think the news should ever put their face on TV. No.

Or their name. I don't think their name's not relevant.

I agree with you there. Why are we giving these people? You're memorializing them. No face, no name, no, nothing. Once you've caught the...

I don't remember.

They spray the silver thing and then they say, witness me.

Oh. Oh.

I like that. That's what they were saying, right? Oh, I like that. And then they jump off the cars and it's like, ah, witness me.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. See me.

See me.

Hey, mom, look.

See me.

We're all kids still. Oh, God. That's so sad.

Truly.

I know. Mom, look. I'm stepping over this pencil on the ground. Yeah.

Wow.

Wow, great. You sure did. You made it. Look, I climbed on this branch now, mom.

Okay, we see.

I have a question, though, because this just came up on one of our other shows. We have a show with a person who's a very informed journalist, and we recorded the other day and she was obviously very down. And I said, what's up? And she said, I'm just really affected by what's going on in the world. And I said, I understand that.

How is it helping?

Right. What do you think?

Hmm.

I can see both arguments and I think they both depend on what you're trying to achieve. If you are struggling emotionally and you're trying to find a moment of reprieve, then I don't think you should be looking. I think you should be taking a break and you should be taking a moment.

For yourself. Yeah.

But we should never deny the power and the impact of imagery to get people who may not be affected to care about something. Were it not for the images taken during everything that happened in Alabama, would the civil rights movement have been where it got to in America? I doubt it. If people didn't see those kids hit with water hoses and the dogs, I don't know that it would have gotten as far. And so there is unfortunately a necessary side of people seeing things that make them aware of a situation.

Right. Exactly. You don't need further proof that you're appalled by this. My issue with that is your example of the civil rights movement. Of course.

I don't think that that's true. If you look at some of the biggest movements that have taken place over the past decade, many of them just started on social media. I mean, the Arab Spring is a great example.

They were on Twitter going, let's meet in this square and protest. That was an actionable outcome.

Yeah, yeah. I'm with you there.

The people that were fighting in Cleveland over it, they weren't, they had no impact.

on that. I hear you there. That's again where we go to, I always want to be careful to not live in a world where I'm telling people how to feel or how to act. I would rather be in a world where I'm saying we need to regulate how the platforms incentivize how people act or don't act. So, I don't think there's anything wrong with anyone feeling for anyone.

Oh, I love that. But if you're fighting at the person in the grocery store, that has no power in the Sudan.

But this is exactly what I'm saying. Again, we go back to, unfortunately, it's that circular. It's back to what we've believed the efficacy is. I think we're currently living in a world where we have way more information than we've ever had access to. The constant paradox I exist within is understanding that the world has never been in a better place ever.

Yeah. Less starvation, less disease, less death by...

Yes. Infant mortality, poverty, all these things. However, as that curve has gradually gotten better, the curve of how much information we have has exponentially gotten higher. So now you are finding out day on day, your house is being repaired, you're plugging leaks, you're painting over cracks. Things are going well.

He won't be saying that anytime soon.

I told him, and I walked out of that CVS and, oh man, and then a homeless guy came up to me. I mean, an unhoused guy came up to me, and those people, oh, they need to do something about them. But I told Dax. Oh, I told him.

Yeah.

It's easier because you feel like you have more power, I think.

Yeah.

Forgive me for repeating this, but I majored in anthropology. So for me, everything goes back into the anthropological lens, which is, we were designed and evolved over 300,000 years to live with a hundred other people. So in your lifespan, with a hundred other people, you might witness a murder or two. You might hear of some atrocity towards a child. One or two in a day, you can consume more atrocity than you were designed to consume in your lifetime.

Right.

That's the issue. To your point, you keep saying our brains are not evolved to function this way and they're not. So at some level, you just have to take responsibility for the capacity you have as a human being. And you have to maybe address, is this over the capacity for me?

For your own health. Yeah.

I'm not telling you what to do.

I'm with you completely. And I think it's unfair and unfortunate that it happened so quickly, just like food, that we haven't had the chance. It's like we always tell people, hey, eat healthy. What we don't say is most of the food that's out there is going to trick your brain into thinking that it's good for you and you're going to crave it. This is beyond your control sometimes.

And the taste will dissipate really quickly, as designed by the chemist.

And that's why Ozempic is actually, in a weird way, this miracle drug.

It's combating the other science.

Yeah. It's literally crashing all of the nefarious things we've created for so long. Yeah. Going back to what you were saying about your friend, if we can just get to a space as people where we're all taught to check in on ourselves, I think we can find a way to mitigate how quickly our technology has evolved beyond us. Just taking moments.

Probably gets its shit together before it starts up.

When it starts up, it just goes like, wait, wait, wait. What am I trying to do? Oh, yeah, yeah. I'm trying to load that. Okay, okay, I'm ready.

No, you turn it on and start trying to load up a video package. You know, like the most labor intensive thing for the computer, you know, rendering a video file as soon as it's on. Now, I guess you're what? You're two years out of Daily Show?

No, this is one year.

Forgive my ignorance.

No, no, no, please. Are you good at measuring time? The worst. I'm terrible. I don't know when a thing happened.

I know 93 when I graduated high school. I know 2000 when I graduated. I know when I got my first acting job and I know where my kids were born. So everything's just in between those yardsticks. Otherwise, no.

When we start the show, you know that.

I know it'll be six years on Valentine's Day, but I don't know what year that makes. 2018, okay.

Okay, now I got nervous, but yeah.

Colbert, when you were being interviewed by him, he's like, we had dinner spring of 2017.. Or he said a month.

Yeah.

And I was like, oh my God, I can't do that.

I don't know how people.

Yeah, it's beyond me. Okay, so I don't want to drag you through your trauma, but your life story is so interesting. So I guess I would just encourage people to read your book, because it's really, really. I appreciate that. An incredibly moving and dynamic and complicated childhood.

Right.

I guess I saw, this is so embarrassing, but I'm not too embarrassed. I was eight years old. My introduction to apartheid was, it was this plot line in Lethal Weapon.

Yes, we didn't know. I was so happy about that. Yes. I remember watching that. That was one of my favorite Lethal Weapons ever.

And so I was watching that at whatever. that was, eight years old, nine years old. And I'm like, hold on, they still have that? So to know that it ended in 91 and you would have, I guess, been seven years old. Yeah.

Oh, look at that.

Yeah.

That sounds like from another century. It really is.

It's something that you would find in a dystopian novel, where you have a society where everybody is broken up, but on a granular level, because the mistake people make is they think it was just black, white. No, no, no, no, no, no. In South Africa. I write this in the book is apartheid was such a genius, evil system. I often think to myself, I go, man, I wish we could find a way to distill the power and the ingenuity that racists have.

Seriously.

You have a great mind.

It's not for the lazy.

How did you think of this? I would just ignore the people. I don't like. You, whew.

Yeah, systematic.

They designed a system where they studied systems of racism around the world. So they looked at America and its segregation and they're like, okay, Jim Crow, redlining, all of this. And they're like, could be better.

They went to Australia.

They looked at how they dealt with the Aborigine population. They were like, all right, mean, but not effective enough. They went to the Netherlands and they're like, all right, let's study. And that's where the word apartheid comes from, is from the Netherlands. And then they were like, okay, I think we have figured out what to do and how to do this.

What year was this? forties or fifties?

You see, again, you've asked me for years. Fifties, sixties, actually somewhere more there. Oh, okay. I think so. Again, years, terrible years.

Yeah, you're not the same piece of shit.

The food you were given in the prison was even different. So you would get like a piece of white bread, a bigger piece, tea, et cetera, because you're white. It is amazing how deep and detailed they went into this. And they created a system where everyone fit into a box. The strangest one and the weirdest one, by the way, was Chinese.

Toyotas are pretty dependable. Which is why China doesn't have any cars yet.

But it shows you how arbitrary the system is, you know?

And it was illegal for your mom and dad.

My mom's, a black woman, hostile woman, South African.

So beautiful. I saw videos of her when I was watching the 60 Minutes piece.

Thank you very much. And yeah, my father's a white man from Switzerland. And they got together. This was against the law. And then my mom wanted to have a child and she wanted to have it with my dad.

You know what I mean? She's like, come on.

I didn't know how you'd look. Because also, it's not like it was happening so readily that you were like, I know what this turns into. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But if it's illegal and then you're born, is it just like giving it up?

So my gran told me, and I didn't know this growing up, thank goodness, that had they ever discovered me, I would have just been taken away from my family. I would have been put into like an orphanage type thing. Or I would have been adopted by what they call a colored family. So someone of my skin tone.

Good luck. finding. The pool is small. where you're going to land. if that's the option.

So this is a crazy interesting thing. In South Africa, because these systems were created on something that existed for so long. In America, the word colored is from a bygone era and it's a derogatory term. But in South Africa, colored people are a culture. There's nothing wrong with the word in South Africa.

Did they have their own towns?

Yeah. Colored people speak their language in a very particular way. They have their own cuisine. They have their own culture. And it's a very proud and beautiful culture.

And you were being actively hidden by your family, basically. Yeah.

That kind of makes sense if it's just illegal.

And his grandpa called him Master.

Yeah. Which I thought was just a nickname. Yeah. Wow. So I thought it was like a cute little...

Giving you arbitrary status to be cute.

As a joke. So he'd just walk in and be like, Master, how are you today, Master? How was your morning? I'll be like, oh, it was great, Grandpa.

Yeah. Thanks for calling me that. That's cool. Yeah, it's like fun.

Yeah.

Exactly. Like calling a little kid boss or something.

Yes, boss. Hello, Mr. Man.

Yeah.

Explain this to me. Again, I got to kind of fast forward through your trauma, and I hate to not give it the proper lead up in time. But your first stepdad was violent towards you and mom, and then they got divorced after four years. And then, when your mother remarried, he came and shot your mom in the leg and in the head. Yeah.