Hank: Hello, Hankschannel. So for whatever reason, people keep wanting to talk to me about stuff, and recently I got an email from Bill Gates's...people, and they were like, "do you want to talk to Bill about misinformation and the internet?" And I was like, "Yeah, I do, I definitely do."
But I also didn't want to have a conversation that went over, like, I felt like, the same ground over and over, so -- First, I asked him for a little bit more time than he offered, because 20 minutes didn't seem like enough to me. And second, I did some more thinking and reading to try and have a more-- like, a hol-- more holistic look at how this stuff is made, why it's made, what the motivations are for people who are both creating this content and getting really hooked in by it.
Obviously, I think about this kind of stuff a lot; I wrote two whole books about it, kind of. And also, a lot of what I do on the internet is related to how to educate people, and sometimes how to educate people to, like, interface better with the systems that they use on the internet. But I think under-discussed are the reasons that people share this stuff and create this stuff and believe this stuff. There are reasons, and I think we should try and understand them. I'm very interested in those motivations, and obviously also how to influence them.
Because I think two things are important here, and keep this in mind as we talk about this stuff. First is helping people understand their own motivations, and understand what systems might be used to get them to believe things that, on the face, are actually pretty outlandish. But second, to change peoples' behaviors by changing what the platforms are rewarding.
So that's just a little bit of an intro, before we get into the conversation with Bill, which will begin now.
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Hank: First, maybe this is too obvious of a question, but why did you want to have this conversation right now?
Bill Gates: Well, we have to worry that some of this misinformation will cause people to, you know, take the wrong drugs, or not wear a mask, or we won't have enough people who are enthusiastic about the vaccine--
H: Mm-hm.
B: --to create the broad protection that will bring the pandemic to an end. And honestly, you know,