Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
At the edge of collapse—and creation—two unlikely co-conspirators invite you into a radically honest conversation about the future. This isn’t just another tech or self-help podcast. It’s a story-driven exploration of who we are, what we value, and how we might reimagine the world when the systems around us stop serving us. We blend personal storytelling, cultural critique, and deep inquiry into what it means to be human in an age of AI, uncertainty, and transformation. We’re asking better questions—together.
Because the world is changing fast, but maybe that’s precisely what we need.
Hosted by Beth Rudden and Katie Smith, two builders of systems and challengers of the status quo. Beth is CEO of Bast.AI and a globally recognized expert in trustworthy AI, with decades of experience leading data and ethics at IBM. Katie is the founder of Humma.AI, a strategist who drove innovation and revenue growth at major global brands before turning to human rights and technology for social good. Together, they make complex issues, such as AI and its impacts on everyday people, clear, personal, and impossible to ignore.
Beth Rudden is the CEO and Founder of Bast AI, a pioneering company building explainable, personalized AI for good. With over two decades of experience as a global executive and Distinguished Engineer at IBM, Beth blends anthropology, data science, and AI governance to create tools that amplify human dignity and intelligence—not replace it.
Her work spans healthcare, education, and workforce transformation, using ontological natural language understanding (NLU) to make AI transparent, accountable, and accessible. Through Bast AI, Beth is reimagining how organizations deploy AI that’s not only accurate but aligned with ethical values, cultural context, and cognitive well-being.
Beth is also the author of AI for the Rest of Us and a passionate advocate for AI literacy, epistemic diversity, and the right to understand the systems shaping our lives. She speaks globally on the future of AI, power, and social contracts—and believes we’re all stewards of the next intelligence.
Katie Smith is the CEO and Founder of Humma.AI, a privacy-first platform building community-powered, culturally competent AI. With over two decades of experience leading digital strategy and social innovation, Katie blends systems thinking, Responsible AI, and storytelling to create tools that serve dignity, not domination. Their work spans mental health, civic tech, and digital rights, using participatory AI to make systems safer, fairer, and more accountable. Through Humma.AI, Katie is reimagining how people and businesses engage AI that’s accurate, inclusive, and governed by consent and care. Katie is also the author of Zoe Bios: The Epigenetics of Terrorism, a provocative exploration of identity, trauma, and transformation. They speak globally on the future of technology, power, and justice—and believe human empathy is the intelligence that will define our time.
Subscribe to our Substack for bonus content: https://substack.com/@andwefeelfine
Beth Rudden (00:39)
you did the topic for today. I just I like pulled out like a blog that I was like, my goodness, I forgot I wrote this. I was like, so like, show your work people. Like if you're going to be an effective altruist, show me the altruism.
Katie Smith (00:57)
Well, so it's very interesting where this came from. It really came from or was massively inspired by a parable, right? The drowning little girl. So ⁓ let's jump into it. What do you think of parable?
Beth Rudden (01:12)
I know not what you speak of.
Katie Smith (01:14)
Okay, so I forget if it was Peter Singer or one of the like godfathers of effective altruism came up with the parable. And the parable is there's a little girl and she's drowning and you're on your way to work and you're in your nice suit and your nice shoes. And the question is the parable, do you stop and save the little girl that's drowning in the pond? And of course the answer is yes. Everybody would hope to think that they would be the person who would of course save the little girl that's drowning in
And so they take the parable further or they take the concept further and they go, then why don't you care about all the kids who are dying of malaria all around the world? And then it hit everybody so hard. We need to care about everyone who is dying all around the world. And the effective altruism is I really want to put my effort and my money towards something that's going to save
this word is used, save the most amount of people.
to save lives.
Beth Rudden (02:22)
Okay, so here's my I got you. ⁓ So have you watched The Good Place? Okay, so this is like the trolley car problem, you know, do you kill one person, you know, or six people, you know, you know, it's sort of the same thing. ⁓ And the, the thing that I dislike about, I think, it feels like a very watered down version of humanism. ⁓ And it's actually
Katie Smith (02:29)
Yes.
Beth Rudden (02:53)
utilitarianism and the utilitarian consequentialism, which is like the consequences for just being utilitarian. Those are like Maoist. Those are like the basis of communism and where there are I mean, I'm like, do these people know which which they I mean, I got there in like two steps. I'm like, if you're if you're taking Einstein seriously past puberty, I think I need
you need to have an intervention.
Katie Smith (03:27)
Well, as you know, Ed Rand, Atlas Shrugged in particular, was handed to me at 17 years old and they're like, here is your Bible for life. This is what happens when you grow up in a agnostic libertarian household.
Beth Rudden (03:27)
Okay.
Okay.
So there's this other place that ⁓ as a classical trained archaeologist, I was like, know, Hume and Kant and Plutarch and Epicurus and ⁓ Spinoza and, you know, the classics and Aristotle and Socrates and, ⁓ you know, my favorite Aristophanes and Melissa Strada. like you're emphasizing the full dignity of a human life and you're looking to
create a dignified life and a life lived of experience where you are ⁓ creating the most rich experience for your human life. And the idea that I understand from humanism is what is morally right and what is morally wrong is if your action can be done by every other human being and causes no harm, then it is a moral action.
If your action by saving the John and girl ⁓ can be replicated by all other humans and all other situations by causing no harm, then it is a moral action. And so, you know, the question, the trolley car question that Chinni poses is actually a better one to really assess where you land on that, because the utilitarian point of view would be like, we'll just change the tracks because, you know, killing the six people, well, they set it up wrong.
their fault, utilitarian consequentialism. And I'm like, no, fuck that shit. You should be able to you should be able to know where you stand on things. And then these thought patterns or these thought problems that we're talking about, there's a whole different set of thought problems that lead you to understanding that that moral equation. Can you?
steal from all of your shareholders and make a shit ton of money. Yes. Can everybody else do that? No, it doesn't work. You break the bonds of what creates a community or a society and you cannot do the most good by stealing or doing something that is wrong because if everybody else did that, nothing would work.
Katie Smith (06:02)
So the concept, the motto, as I'm understanding it about effective altruism is earn to give. Earn as much money as you possibly can so that you can give it away, right? And there's some famous folks who are doing this. giving tons and tons of money away and in a large part to health issues and developing countries, right?
Beth Rudden (06:24)
Okay. All
right. Let's take that. We don't know. I don't personally know whether Bill and Melinda Gates or Bill Gates and Melinda Gates, what their compliment of their moral philosophy is. So, you know, the idea of effective altruism to earn as much money and get into a position where you can give the most excellent. But what is the compliment of what you actually believe? And if you don't know that,
I don't know that we can judge that.
Katie Smith (06:57)
it just made me think, wait a second, this has gone too far. So in this theme of beginnings and endings, I'm like, I think we need to end actually this antiquated idea of effective altruism. Because you have said something and I believe it too. And it comes up in the spaces that I've been in the past 10 years, which is the people closest to the problem are closest to the solution.
Beth Rudden (07:22)
Right, that doesn't change proximity doesn't change your personal moral obligation. Full stop. And I think that's
Katie Smith (07:22)
And so.
was just gonna say so like, was gonna add to it, so I was gonna take it a step further. So, altruism looks very much individualistic, to your point. This is like people who have read and rand on rand, sorry, I always pronounce it incorrectly.
Beth Rudden (07:50)
Rind.
Katie Smith (08:00)
It's like people have not graduated from this. It is so individualistic. You're going to be a very lonely person if you think this way. So there's a lack of collective care. that's what, again, this is to your point, as a teenager, I saw this right away after I read Atlas Shrugs. I'm like, there's a complete lacking of collective consciousness and care here, right? Empathy and compassion. And so anyways, yeah.
Beth Rudden (08:18)
Sure.
Okay, so, and I don't actually see it as individualistic. I see it as utilitarian. it's ⁓ the, you know, from the utilitarian, it, because, and what I'm saying is that because I don't know, I'm going to assume positive intent and think that there is a comparative or a comparable, a contrastive kind of like spiritual philosophy that
people have inherently that they almost have to suppress to be a utilitarian consequentialist. And that is like a distance between, you know, the emotions that we call feelings that happen in our body and what is actually happening around us and our connection to understanding the consequence of that. And I think that if you
truly were a utilitarian consequentialist, you would understand that the total cost of ownership or the full life cycle cost of creating a large language model, that first, what we understand from Timnett Gabrou and other ethicists who wrote about the large amounts of compute that were required,
We know that like the first training cycles that were done hundreds, thousands of times took 15 swimming pools full of fresh water. So there is a massive cost to this arms race that they created. the people who are, I said this in the article, the people who are at risk of losing the most are the ones who are perpetuating the most fear that we're going to lose
Katie Smith (10:09)
Yeah.
Beth Rudden (10:25)
this arms race. And I'm like, or here is a whole different frame. What if we don't need massive amounts of data and massive amounts of compute to build AI models that are useful? And the AI models that we build, not using massive amounts of data and massive amounts of compute can be accessed by the widest variance of human
beans and neocortexes and they come up with ways to make AI useful for them individually. Like what if that's our future? Why do we need an arms race to build big ass stupid freaking models? who, right? well again, to protect the three, four, five, 10, 15, let's say 50, 100, 1000 people.
Katie Smith (11:09)
to protect us. This is really being close to protect us.
Beth Rudden (11:22)
that are going to lose the most. So, utilitarian consequentialism or effective altruism. Sorry, I'm totally crashing this. philosopher will come, bump me on the head. ⁓
Katie Smith (11:38)
You know that I love philosophy. Like I've been doing this my whole life. If I could have done any degree, it would have been philosophy. So please come bonk us on the head. I would love to have a conversation.
Beth Rudden (11:49)
I actually know a wonderful philosopher who ⁓ we should totally invite her on here. She is she is awesome. ⁓ And she could probably do this much better. But I would say that if those thousand people truly believed in effective altruism, they would stop the space race for the larger and larger models. And they would realize that not ironically, they have the most to lose.
So they are trying to protect themselves, not earn the most so that they can give the most away. They want to earn the most to stay in power.
Katie Smith (12:28)
Yeah. Well, I think they're breaking their own rules in so many ways because the idea is that it's supposed to be mathematical. who, who, if you put one dollar towards a cause, how many can you save? That sort or, and, or what quality of life can you improve? Not in, so there's a big, you know, advocacy for animals too, which I think is brilliant. Actually. I love that part about effective altruism. I think it's actually like, it's like that.
mathematical application sort of works, I think, in animal advocacy. I think it's interesting. But as soon as you start to apply it to humans, like we make decisions for animals, good, or different. We should not be making decisions for humans. And so would the folks who are dying of malaria, if they had a voice, if they all could talk together, would they want more nets?
Beth Rudden (13:18)
Mm-hmm.
Katie Smith (13:23)
Or would they want, yes, nets, but better policy or economic development? Like we're saving lives, but what quality of life are we saving? So I just think that's really interesting. ⁓ I think it's fundamentally flawed. the reason why I think it's flawed is yes, we would all save the little girl. But as soon as you start to apply it to somebody else, like we're going to now just create nets to,
prevent for, you know, or whatever the solve may be for preventable diseases around the world. I just think that's so interesting. Like if we just looked at all of humanity and we were truly looking at who is being harmed, who has already been the most harmed, who is in a position to be harmed. I just think we look at it just fundamentally differently.
And so one, I think the methodology is fundamentally flawed. think it comes from an individualistic point of view and then applying it to a group of people versus saying, I would like to be in a collective space that would, and because I have money, let's say, in this collective space, I serve this role of money, but I don't serve this role of decision-maker.
Beth Rudden (14:47)
well, and I mean, it's flawed in two ways. First of all, again, I wanna state, I do not know what these individuals actually believe. one of the bigger, and secondly, the bigger problem with effective altruism is there's no rituals, there's no practices, there's no identity embedded symbols. There's no way to say, I identify as, you know.
Katie Smith (15:11)
ability.
Beth Rudden (15:15)
I used to be able to do it much better anyway, but like I can't yeah like yes I mean and even then like you had a you had a society that you belong to and So there is like that that's that's one of the bigger problems with utilitarianism as well It's like there's no way to know what what people are are doing and believing and you know again just back to the
Hey, if you want to be an effective altruist, stop taking 15 swimming pools full of fresh water to answer your your grinder thread. You know, like I mean.
I'm not sure if that's being done, I'm guessing, but I mean, come on. Like, that what you really believe is the most effective use of your dollar and the Earth's resources? I agree and I can kind of like, just, you know, it's like to the animals, again, it's just, it's not taking accountability for the thing, or I don't see that the people who are standing up and saying, hey, I'm an effective altruist,
⁓ You know, this is what I'm doing. Look at all the amount of people I'm helping when they're like standing on like the rotted core of earth that they use in order to create all of their money without having to pay the cost for that at all. Like it just it's it feels absurd.
Katie Smith (16:46)
The justification is really interesting. So I'm not on X formerly Twitter, but I saw this graph that got shared around. think Sam Altman commented on it. And it's like, if all these people caring about water and AI, why don't you care about people who eat meat? Because the biggest consumption of water in the world is beef. So for the production of right? It's what's for dinner. Exactly.
Beth Rudden (17:11)
It's what's for dinner.
Katie Smith (17:16)
is, right, and this is their mathematical equation, that we should care more about animal rights than we do about AI. We care about AI for different reasons.
Beth Rudden (17:26)
It's completely evading the issue. I don't care about artificial intelligence as being a sentient being and their rights because that is not something that is applicable today. Whereas an animal is as is the water that the animal drinks. I mean, I don't know. I'm a little lost. And this is where I think it's just that almost like sleight of hand where
Hey, here is an incredible company. Look at them. They are doing so great in the stock market. And I'm like, they're on Amnesty International's website for crimes against humanity. I don't want my money to be invested there. And so it's like there's this just disproportionate misunderstanding about the metrics that people are seeing as successful. And that's not the world.
That's not the world that according to most, you know, humanistics and religions that says if everybody did what they did, it would not work as a world. They would be the only ones left in the world because everyone can do the same things that they can do. So therefore, what they're doing is not morally compatible with society.
Katie Smith (18:52)
Yeah. No, I agree with that. mean, society has for all of its ills and sins, incredibly collaborative, incredibly collaborative. Humans are innately collaborative species. It's how we got to where we are. We're not perfect, but we're better at it than any other group, arguably, right? And so it's basically just saying, I am better than the entire human race.
Cause I'm gonna make a decision for everyone. ⁓
Beth Rudden (19:22)
What?
Yeah, it's
like, I'm gonna break the world so I can save it later.
Katie Smith (19:28)
Yeah, I'm gonna make the most money and create the most power for myself so I can decide where I'm gonna put that money because clearly I'm better at it because I believe in math. That's basically what they're saying.
Beth Rudden (19:40)
Yeah, but the math. So I think you hit upon something. And I think that there's ⁓ a there's there's a really big myth about competition. ⁓ And the idea is that we as a human species and like Fermi's argument about like, you know, we're we're just battle driven and we're driven to compete and be superior. All this stuff. And I'm like, I don't
Katie Smith (20:07)
the stealth engine.
Beth Rudden (20:10)
think that's right. And, ⁓ no, I mean, even in nature, just, can't, it can't work. So the super chicken model. So do you know Margaret Heffernan's Ted Talk? Have you heard about this? So it was a super flock made up of only the most productive, highest egg laying hens. And what happened is they literally pecked each other to death.
Katie Smith (20:12)
Some of that's right, most of that's wrong.
Beth Rudden (20:39)
It was awful because they had bred the highest productive super chickens and that doesn't function. That doesn't work. And there's ⁓ an epigenetic kind of ⁓ opposite story. And it starts with like the some of the social experiments and the scientific experiments that they've done on.
on rats to make them really, really, really scared of the food by hurting them whenever they went towards the food. And then they found out that the rat's children, no exposure to any positive or negative, the rat's children also hated that food that their parents once loved. And so there is...
an idea that like when humans are born in a particular tribe that we all have a set of ⁓ epigenetic traits that are there for a reason. And some of us are alpha, some of us are beta, some of us are collaborative, some of us are competitive. And it takes a mixture or a diversity of people for us to flourish as a society. And it's
It's something that I'm like, why do we have to have like one dude? Like, why can't we have like, I don't know, a circle of people, like making decisions? Like, why does it have to be so brittle? And like a dude, you know, like, why can't it be like, I don't know, 10 people or 10 non-binary or like whatever, like, but why one? Like, this seems stupid.
Katie Smith (22:26)
Yeah.
Beth Rudden (22:29)
And I know our forefathers founding people in America, that was the idea is that we were supposed to have a bicameral system and like we are two houses and we were supposed to have two brains bicameral, like literally like we're supposed to have that with representation and senators. And then we were supposed to have a judicial branch with like hopefully more Supreme Court justices than exist today.
Katie Smith (22:48)
Right.
Beth Rudden (22:58)
for fuck's sake. And then we are supposed to have like the freedom of press, which was like at the, if the executive branch and the congressional branch and the judicial branch all fucked it all up, we would have the freedom of speech so that we could talk about it. Talk about it. So we could have like an open dialogue about what is going on so that people could say, hey, I actually think we shouldn't be using 15 swimming pools full of fresh water.
to train a model so that you can respond to your Grindr thread. Does Grindr have threads? Or is threads a thing? Threads is like a Facebook thing, right?
Katie Smith (23:32)
I love that you said that. I love that you
Threads is Meta's version of ⁓ Twitter.
Beth Rudden (23:46)
Okay, yeah, okay, I might be screaming that up. Whatever you do, I should go to Grindr to find that out. I don't know.
Katie Smith (23:55)
You know, humanism is really interesting. You know, I think we're both humanists, you know, as I understand it. Yeah. And which is, you know, a philosophy that's, it's been a tough one. You know, I'll speak for myself for like, for someone who cares deeply about humanity and animals and plants and the earth and the planet. And I truly try to show up as a good person and fail often, but I truly try to...
every single day. ⁓ You know, this this effective altruism is being said to fit underneath humanism, because it actually is the opposite of religion in some way. But I'm like, it may be the opposite of religion. But it feels like a cult. It feels like a cult of billionaires who have created their own giving circles. So yeah, there is a circle of them that are deciding
Beth Rudden (24:40)
Mm.
Katie Smith (24:53)
with all of their dollars that they've earned basically on the back of whatever product they were selling, of people on the planet or whatever, but they went into their bank account. So they're now deciding where that money is going to go. At the expense of people who are working on the ground and know these communities really well, those people are not even necessarily in...
in the purview because if you can't mathematically prove something, they're not interested.
Beth Rudden (25:26)
I could mathematically prove anything.
Katie Smith (25:27)
anything. Almost.
Right? Like that's the whole point of like there's good accountants and bad accountants.
Beth Rudden (25:36)
Okay, so what I understand and what I understand makes humanism different is that everybody, regardless of race, religion, creed, know, all of that, regardless of, of whomever, regardless of whether you believe that you're an effective altruism, altruist or not, you have inherent worth, and every human being on earth has inherent worth.
And the idea of ethics and compassion and reasoning is used in humanism to resolve conflict in a way that allows people to understand context. again, based on that same principle of every human being has inherent worth, just because you have a billion dollars does not make you more worthy or worthwhile or
smart or mathematical than somebody else. And it's a
Katie Smith (26:38)
doesn't mean you get to make a decision for all of us. Period. Full stop.
Beth Rudden (26:41)
Well,
you know, the world that we live in, though, the capitalism and the capitalist economy, like we were talking about this before, it's just it's unchecked because when you start treating luck, when you start treating people better than than somebody else and it truly is, it works this way so much easier.
because the world is treating them in a way that they have lots of money and they're saying, hey, we want to give it away. So lots of people are like, hey, you're my best friend. You're so great. You're so awesome. I want to be just like you. I want to have all the cars. I want to do all the things. I mean, that is like candy to an ego. And if you feed the ego,
all the time, you're going to start believing that you are better than somebody else.
Katie Smith (27:39)
of like, you know, the hedonistic sort of side of capitalism, just, it's never ending. It's like you're feeding a beast, like the Joneses, but the, the, the part of effective altruism, another piece that I think is interesting and, and, and I like actually is you keep the amount you need to live and then you give the West the rest away. So if I like were to make hundreds of millions of dollars in my lifetime.
I don't need hundreds of millions of dollars. So I am fine just creating a nice quality of life for myself and then giving the rest away. So it's good in theory. What I don't like, it breaks where I break with it is like, you are now making a decision though, still. Like you are making an individualist decision, not necessarily in collaboration with the people you think you are helping. Like the swimming pool thing.
They didn't ask us if they were going to take all that water. You know what I mean? Like we didn't have a conversation about that. There was not an open conversation.
Beth Rudden (28:39)
Yeah
Yeah, you're right. The dialogue across and that's, it's tough. will, I'll tell a story. One of my very first roommates in college was somebody who grew up in, and I went to Florida State in Tallahassee, Florida. And I was raised Roman Catholic and I had learned Hebrew and I had learned Latin and I had learned Greek and you we were
reading the Bible or we were reading Shakespeare who wrote a lot, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. I mean, there's so many different things that I was immersed in at that time in my life. And none of it was current reality, I would add. But my roommate came from this really religious upbringing and she had never drank anything, she had never smoked anything, she had never kissed a boy, she was...
home within a month and she ⁓ had sex, got pregnant, went to a party, like, you know, one of those like really, really fast. But one of the things that I remember talking to her about is like, and I would pray with her because I love praying. I mean, I love like, you know, the rituals, I love the words, I love the liturgy. ⁓ The thing that I really recognized
that there was a difference in the way that I was brought up in the church was that she would take these words really, really seriously. And there's words in red. And those words in red in the St. James Bible is what Jesus said. And I kind of remember joking with her and being a little bit ⁓ blasé about it. But I was like, yeah, Jesus said those words in English. That's why you're reading them in English.
And like she didn't she didn't get it. She's like, well, of course he did that's the language that he speaks to everyone and and I was like, And so it's like when belief and your need for belonging Supercedes your physical and psychological safety. I think that that's when you you should ask yourself. Am I part of a cult?
Am I part of a religion? Am I part of something that makes me feel good? So I would turn it on the people who are out there is like, ask the question, do you feel good knowing that you've taken all of the earth's resources to be able to not only get more money for yourself, but create a space race that makes very few people wealthy?
and takes a lot from all of the underdeveloped countries that you are literally paying nothing to be able to sponsor. It's like, where is your responsibility? And so there is like, I don't know, I'm conflicted because I have a deep love of not just community, but of
Katie Smith (31:49)
Yeah.
Beth Rudden (32:02)
of different religious traditions because they grew up so slowly over time. And they're slow to modernize on purpose. And I think that this effect of altruism, it reminds me of just being very disconnected. It feels like it's disconnected. But again, I'm not identifying as that. So I would ask the people who are there. But I really, I like what you were saying about like,
Katie Smith (32:34)
Male person just showed up. ⁓
Beth Rudden (32:37)
I like what you were saying about dialogue.
wanted to bring it back to what you were talking about and having this open dialogue and being able to get to a place where one of the things that I really love about humanism is that I can go, I can be a humanist and a Catholic and a Buddhist, but I can't be a Catholic and a Buddhist and a humanist.
So it's like, there's like sort of these restrictions where it's like in my mind, I never fit into organized religion, but that didn't mean I didn't love it. you know, right? Did you love it? Like, did you?
Katie Smith (33:14)
Yeah, I understand.
No, because I don't think, I didn't have a family that went all the time. So I went to all the different churches, the denominations, temples, mosques. Like I've been in many spaces, Buddhist temples. Like I've been in many, many, many spaces and I am grateful to be in those spaces. And I see how much joy and comfort that this gives to so many people. So even though I had a bit of an issue with it when I was younger and I was like, why would people like, this is nonsense, I have come.
with empathy, like my natural instinct is thinking I go, is nonsense. And then I, am mature enough that I've taught myself to also have heart where I go, well, this matters to people. And I like the Roman Catholic Church traditions. I think it's actually really interesting. And as somebody who's learned transcendental meditation, I chose, I still choose to do deep meditation in Roman Catholic churches, mostly because they smell so good.
Beth Rudden (34:01)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Katie Smith (34:18)
but I love the old architecture and there's something about the vibe. So I do gravitate towards, in fact, I'll say something here that I think might be controversial, but it's fun. I totally think we should co-op Catholic churches. These are great public spaces. These are gorgeous churches all around the world. Can we go up and take over?
Beth Rudden (34:19)
Yeah.
So fun fact,
you're, ⁓ there's actually, I used to teach about this because there's this one church in Rome and you walk down and it's an operating Catholic church and you walk down and it's an excavated site of a Roman villa. And then you walk down and then it's an excavated site of a Mithraim or like a Christian cult.
And so the Catholic Church was built upon the Roman forum and built upon where they kept the information, the data, the documents, the land records. And so, yes, I think that we should co-opt the Catholic churches because it is literally, or it's most likely to be on a site that was always sacred.
Katie Smith (35:32)
⁓
Beth Rudden (35:32)
and always
contained the information of the people in that way. And the Romans made no bones about it where they were like, practice whatever religion you want, but pay us taxes. know what mean? It was like, was, right? Yes, exactly. It was only later that it was like sort of convert them. But I mean, humanism is inclusive. Like you can be a humanist and.
Katie Smith (35:49)
That's what they really cared about.
Beth Rudden (36:01)
I mean, and everybody has inherent worth regardless of how many billions or lack of billions you have. It's rational and it's hopeful because yeah, me too. And it's like that hope is ⁓ something I think we all desperately need. And the...
Katie Smith (36:10)
You have like the hopefulness of it.
⁓
Not just in this moment where everyone's feeling something, but all the time.
Beth Rudden (36:25)
yes, absolutely. So fear and gratitude can't coexist. Try to be really, really afraid and really grateful at the same time.
Katie Smith (36:36)
⁓ Maybe that's why I'm
fearless so often. I'm very grateful. I'm so grateful on so many levels. ⁓ Yeah, you know, the thing about, okay, so Thomas Jefferson was a very interesting humanist because, and he was flawed, so no one's perfect. We're just talking about people who are interesting. But like, he really was an advocate for the separation of church and state. I'm still a big advocate for the separation of church and state, even though we have God, we trust on everything.
I liked how he spoke about it is like when he was looking at, you know, biblical text, he was looking at it through a history lens. Now, not everybody does that, but I do. When I am in these spaces and I'm hearing and I'm witnessing tradition or whatever, I just think this is historical. This is like tradition. This is interesting. This is ancient even, you know, like it's so old. Some of this stuff. Anyways, I think he did a really good job of trying to say
Religion can be for everyone and should be for everyone. And that's what these United States are all about, is that you can bring your religion to your family, to your community. And that is what we mean in God we trust. But it's not this one thing and it's not necessarily true. It's just like how we live, right? So, and this is where the pursuit of happiness came from. And I love that. And also the pursuit of happiness, again, if we're looking at the little girl who's dying in the pond.
Yes, we're gonna save her. All of us agree we're gonna save her. The pursuit of happiness for all the people who are dying of malaria, again, I beg the question, what is it that they need and want? Not just the immediate nets, what is it that they actually need and want? I don't know what the answer is.
Beth Rudden (38:22)
What I.
Okay, so first of all, ⁓ once you study history, you get this really quickly. And I know many people know it, but it's hard to remember it all the time. So Thomas Jefferson would probably only save that girl in the pond if she was white from a well-to-do family.
Katie Smith (38:49)
I mean, he was imperfect and like, yeah.
Beth Rudden (38:52)
No,
no, he was ⁓ a product of the time of the context of the social bias that he grew up in. ⁓ Absolutely. And, you know, all men are created equal. OK. And, you know, he might save her in secret and rationalize it. You know, so there's there's all these like, again, these are thought.
Katie Smith (38:58)
slave owner. He was one of the slave owners.
I know. Yeah.
or put her in the concubine, he
did that too. Terrible man in many other ways.
Beth Rudden (39:22)
Well, mean, but again, we don't know. We only can make assumptions based on the time. you know, there are there's been a little bit of like PR campaigns like for things like the Bible and the founding fathers and like a lot of people have had opinions that really believe that their opinions should stick in history or in stone or whatever. And I think that.
When we look at Thomas Jefferson, too, he was a child of the Enlightenment. He believed in science and religion. was like science was the new shiny tool where you could go out in your backyard and you could be like, I can figure out why ants build houses and underground tubes. You can figure that out with science because you can run controlled experiments to be able to understand something and test a hypothesis. That was such a new concept. How can we even
begin to understand what that meant for somebody like him. I think it's, I think what would be, I think what would be interesting is to understand more context behind some of these people so that we could maybe decide whether we want to be a beneficiary of their affective altruism. Like I think we should have a choice. Maybe that's the right thing.
Katie Smith (40:43)
⁓ yes.
I love this. I love this path you're going down because it's
Beth Rudden (40:49)
I consent
or I don't consent.
Katie Smith (40:52)
Exactly, we're all about consent here. No, it's a perfect analogy because Thomas Jefferson, one of our founding fathers who created the separation of church and state and, you know, and in so many other things, was a supremely flawed human being in our standards of today. So when we're looking at these current leaders, and we don't have the privilege of seeing what their decisions mean to us 20 years from now,
Beth Rudden (40:55)
I
Correct. Yes.
Katie Smith (41:22)
But we can't evaluate the value systems that they have today. it actually is required that we do that. And what I love about this podcast as we explore what's ending and beginning is that like, would love to invite all of us to consider that these men who have created more and more billionaires and their
Beth Rudden (41:27)
That's right.
Katie Smith (41:51)
require investigation into their value system. And we need to make decisions every single day. Where we have true power is where we spend our time and where we spend our money. And so how we actually engage with AI today and how we want AI to serve us in the future must be talked about.
in ways that are not in some of these circles. And that's why I love this podcast. And I'm sure I got all sorts of things wrong today about effective altruism. And I welcome everyone to comment and tell us everything we got wrong. I want this to be an ongoing conversation because I think
Beth Rudden (42:33)
I'm okay keeping
my ignorance. I'm just...
So ⁓ have you heard of Pablo Neruda? Did we do this before?
So he has a poem or a book that says, you know, is for the same for for everyone are all sevens equal. And I always love to do this in my keynotes and ask that question. And the second part of that is like, is the prisoners light that he sees the same light that shines on you. And he was a huge diplomat and activist for,
the rights of human beings. And there's a true kind of connection to the allegory of the cave, which is the prisoner who is like chained to the rock in the cave and only understands their reality based on the shadows on the wall in front of them. And that's like that Plato's allegory of the cave. And the thing that I always think about like is for the same for for everyone, ⁓ math lies.
Katie Smith (43:29)
Yep.
Beth Rudden (43:40)
all the time. know, the four rocks and stones that I pick up by the river are very different than the four bullets that, you know, a soldier might have in their gun. And so it's like it really creates that contextual kind of connection. And so I, I do want desperately to live in this United States where everyone has the right to believe in the freedom to believe
Katie Smith (43:55)
Yeah.
Beth Rudden (44:09)
whatever they want to believe. But when their actions cannot be taken by everyone else, that's where it impedes on that freedom of belief. And unlike you, I never thought about belief. I always walked into a church and knew it was like fantasy time, like it was like willing suspension of disbelief. It was like the same thing as me reading science fiction.
but from something where you can kind of act it out. And I'm like, this is super cool that everybody's like doing these like, know, kneel, sit, pray, say words. Like, I'm like, it's the, it's like an invoke in an invocation. And I want, I want everyone to have that freedom, Katie.
Katie Smith (45:01)
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And I think we should just show up to church as humanists and just ⁓ be in community together. And some of the best churches are Catholic churches, not all the churches, but I would have to say I'm gonna advocate for Catholic churches. They're quite nice. They smell good. I'm biased.
Beth Rudden (45:13)
you
Well, you've been in
mosques and synagogues and, know, I mean, redwood forests. Like, I mean, they're...
Katie Smith (45:29)
Yeah. Okay, so real reason I'm thinking about the Catholic Church is it's one of the most well-funded churches. It's invested in this incredible.
Beth Rudden (45:35)
It is the largest,
the largest nonprofit giving organization on earth.
Katie Smith (45:42)
It is the largest nonprofit giving organization on earth. They're giving to us. I do feel like it's taken a lot from society in terms of the nonprofit status and a lot of religions have, but they're dominant and they have lots of public spaces. And I think we should take these spaces back to some degree. I'm not saying like we're gonna go into the church and disrupt them. I'm just saying maybe if we show up at mass.
we could evolve the church a little bit because we humanists need a place to okay humanists need two things. One, we need a better I agree with Greg abstain on this. We need much better PR. So when I think about humanism, I do think about non religious people I associate with as a non religious person. Yeah. And
Beth Rudden (46:21)
Yeah.
Interesting. The
biggest humanists in history were actually so religious that they got kicked out of their religion and banished because they believed in humanism over their religion. Like Spinoza, like that entire life is like, sorry, but you're right. Yeah.
Katie Smith (46:41)
Yeah. Yeah.
from Spinoza. It's like we've we've been if you don't believe you must be a terrible human, you couldn't possibly be a good person, right? No, I've been dealing with this my whole life. But so I've gone above and beyond to try to be a good person, like every day. And so as humanists, if you take that very seriously, if you're not just benign, live, you know, living through the world, you actually care about this. ⁓ we need better PR.
Beth Rudden (47:00)
in.
Yep. Yep.
Katie Smith (47:20)
you know, and we need spaces.
Beth Rudden (47:23)
It's, I agree with spaces, maybe. I think that it's ⁓ in community, whereas like the Greek idea of genius loci, like, know, genius exists in a location because there's a group of human beings who are doing something together in that location. So genius didn't exist in a human, what, again, that one stupid dude.
Katie Smith (47:48)
Yep. Yeah, it doesn't work.
Beth Rudden (47:52)
Yeah, no, it's in all of us and it travels around. So I'm okay with spaces, but it's as you would say, it's like something to reclaim and honor and cherish and value and want to make better. This idea of like,
Katie Smith (47:56)
Yeah.
Beth Rudden (48:19)
Spinoza and having to go against the church reminds me a lot of when the Roman Catholics actually went to Scotland and Ireland and the Druids. And there's a thread there with God is nature and nature is God and there's nothing but the natural world to teach us.
you know, the the ethics and ethics are about like the celebration or the ethos or the atmosphere in which we are setting up the social rules so that other people know how to follow them to be clear. Like my children who like walk across and they'll like take a leaf from my plant. And I'm like, no, what are you doing? That leaf needs to be there so it can get sunlight so that the plant can grow. That's not yours to take.
Right? Yeah, but I think in other places, churches have been such a huge oppression to Indigenous people and there should be a little bit of a reclamation because they know that they sit on the information, that is by default, human beings always prize where the data is, but
I think that they misunderstand what data is truly meaningful. It's in the human beings coming together, not the space as much. I don't know. Do you think it might be, give me space. Like, is it something in the stone? is there like a...
Katie Smith (49:59)
How interesting. Well, okay, you know, as someone who believes in epigenetics and DNA memory, like my Roman Catholic upbringing is very, very deep. It's very strange, actually, how in my family, it's just gone. I think it started with my grandpa, and his family was Roman Catholic, and even on my dad's side. So I think it's like in me. So there's probably something that's very familiar to me about going into a Roman Catholic church. ⁓ It just feels
very comfortable, even though I'm completely non-religious. I really enjoy the space. So that's me personally. like when I'm joking about co-op-ing the Roman Catholic Church, obviously I have my own point of view on that. So there's probably something deeper there for me. That said, one of the most well-funded churches with some of the best architecture and is open all the time. in terms of humanists, I think we have a pope now.
who actually might be welcoming to some humanists showing up and actually just using the space to create community, not through the word of the Lord and the Trinity and the Holy Spirit, like not that, but actually using the space to come together.
Beth Rudden (51:16)
And yeah,
well, and there is a lot in the Catholic Church too about ⁓ there's a Jesuit examinum, which is like ⁓ a literal prayer that you do four times a day to give thanksgiving, giving thanks, thanksgiving, which I love that.
that kind of the words, you know, just are so meaningful and so rich. And anybody who talks about the Jesuit examinum, they have to give the origin of where they found the Jesuit examinum and, you know, how it was taught to them as a ritual in order to be able to give Thanksgiving. ⁓ And I think that there is this, what I want.
And this is ⁓ biased because I've started to do this work and it was really work that I was like, I'll just do that when I retire, like I'm too busy. But if we learn to understand how we are part of the whole and we are connected to this ecosystem and we are connected to one another and we are connected to community and you cannot.
do that unless you understand who you are, that self-examined life. You have to start with your own self and what you believe and what is your conviction that you have a courage for, right? Like, what are these things? And I love that you have the conviction that you think that we should just co-opt this thing that truly means universal, which is Catholic.
Yeah, let's take the word back. Like, let's take the... Yeah, like, let's...
Katie Smith (53:02)
And the books mean something, they mean something, they mean something different to everybody. Let's just put it that way. And there's more than one book. There's many, many books. This is why
Beth Rudden (53:07)
Absolutely.
Can we make it
libraries, like libraries instead of Catholic churches? I'm all in.
Katie Smith (53:16)
I think in the United
States we've done an extraordinarily good job with libraries and Alexandria and Egypt is actually extraordinary, one of my favorite libraries in whole world. I don't think that's true in all places. I think the Catholic Church has ⁓ in all the places. So I will say this and we can cut this out later if we want, but I do think we need a new parable.
Beth Rudden (53:24)
Yeah?
Yeah, I know. Little birdie. Yeah. Uh-huh.
Katie Smith (53:43)
I think the fact that this drowning girl story has erupted this critical thinking that helped make mathematician men change their whole lives. It just reiterates for me how powerful a parable is. And so I don't know when or how, but we need a new one. And I have ideas.
Beth Rudden (53:58)
Mm-hmm.
There.
Yeah, I do too, actually. ⁓ There's ⁓ one of my favorite authors, Robin Wall Kimmer, Dr. Robin Wall Kimmer. She wrote a book called Braiding Sweetgrass, and it is all about sky woman and the corn people. ⁓ my goodness. I'm going to go and read that and then see if I can get that for us next time. But like I have some ideas too. And I think
You're right. I think we need different stories and we need, you know, the idea that we can. We don't need one or two. We can have eight billion, you know, as long as it's something that we are teaching, that we are part of something bigger, that we are part of it.
Katie Smith (54:43)
you.
Yeah, and to your point
that it's sort of like the parable gets us to the same place. Then it matters. It's been peer reviewed. Because science does work. It's imperfect, but it works and it gets us progress. And I think we need progress on the parable that is shaping the minds of today and tomorrow.
Beth Rudden (55:05)
Yeah, it has to.
You can do it.
And can we talk about peer review being a effective A sacred scholarship.
Katie Smith (55:27)
yeah. We'll talk about that too.