Although this event has passed, you can still purchase tickets now through Friday, March 11, at 7:30 p.m. (PT). The event will be viewable until 11:59 p.m. on Friday, March 11.
From the creator of The Good Place and the co-creator of Parks and Recreation, comes How to Be Perfect—a hilarious, thought-provoking guide to living an ethical life, drawing on 2,500 years of deep thinking from around the world. Q&A with George Meyer.
Most tickets include a copy of How to Be Perfect (except Student/25 & Under, complimentary, and a limited number of no-book Reduced Price and Side Wing tickets). Books will be shipped by our partner bookstore to the ticket holder’s door shortly after the event.
Most people think of themselves as “good,” but it’s not always easy to determine what’s “good” or “bad”—especially in a world filled with complicated choices and pitfalls and booby traps and bad advice. Fortunately, many smart philosophers have been pondering this conundrum for millennia and they have guidance for us. With bright wit and deep insight, How to Be Perfect explains concepts like deontology, utilitarianism, existentialism, ubuntu, and more so we can sound cool at parties and become better people.
Schur starts off with easy ethical questions like “Should I punch my friend in the face for no reason?” (No.) and works his way up to the most complex moral issues we all face. Such as: Can I still enjoy great art if it was created by terrible people? How much money should I give to charity? Why bother being good at all when there are no consequences for being bad? And much more. By the time the book is done, we’ll know exactly how to act in every conceivable situation, so as to produce a verifiably maximal amount of moral good. We will be perfect, and all our friends will be jealous. OK, not quite. Instead, we’ll gain fresh, funny, inspiring wisdom on the toughest issues we face every day.
Michael Schur is a television writer and producer who has worked on shows like The Office, Master of None, The Comeback, and Hacks, and created or co-created Parks and Recreation, Brooklyn 99, The Good Place, and Rutherford Falls. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife Jennifer and their two kids, William and Ivy.
George Meyer, our Q&A moderator for the evening, grew up in Tucson, Arizona, where he was an altar boy and a paperboy. He studied biochemistry and was president of the Harvard Lampoon. Meyer wrote for Late Night with David Letterman, Saturday Night Live, and the first sixteen seasons of The Simpsons. He also created Army Man, a short-lived humor zine. A Seattleite since 2008, Meyer enjoys books, travel, yoga, and the Mariners. He lives near the Space Needle with novelist Maria Semple and their daughter Poppy. His latest writing can be found at https://www.frogsandturtles.com.
