Yuval Noah Harari: Human Nature, Intelligence, Power, and Conspiracies | Lex Fridman Podcast #390

1. 0:00 – 1:24

   Introduction

   1. YHYuval Noah Harari0:00

      If we now find ourselves inside this kind of world of illusions, created by an alien intelligence that we don't understand, but it understands us, this is a kind of, you know, spiritual enslavement that we won't be able to break out of. Because th- it understands us, it understands how to manipulate us, but we don't understand what is behind this screen of stories and images and, and, and songs.

   2. LFLex Fridman0:36

      The following is a conversation with Yuval Noah Harari, a historian, philosopher, and author of several highly acclaimed, highly influential books, including Sapiens, Homo Deus, and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century. He is also an outspoken critic of Benjamin Netanyahu and the current right-wing government in Israel. So while much of this conversation is about the history and future of human civilization, we also discuss the political turmoil of present-day Israel, providing a different perspective from that of my recent conversation with Benjamin Netanyahu. This is the Lex Fridman Podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, dear friends, here's Yuval Noah Harari.

2. 1:24 – 20:19

   Intelligence

   1. LFLex Fridman1:24

      13.8 billion years ago is the origin of our universe. 3.8 billion years ago is the origin of life here on our little planet, the one we call Earth. Let's say 200,000 years ago is the appearance of early homo sapiens. So let me ask you this question. How r- rare are these events in the vastness of space and time? Or put it in a more fun way, how many intelligent alien civilizations do you think are out there in this universe?

   2. YHYuval Noah Harari1:51

      Hmm.

   3. LFLex Fridman1:52

      Us being one of them.

   4. YHYuval Noah Harari1:53

      I suppose there should be some, statistically, but we don't have any evidence. But I do think that, you know, intelligence in any way, it's a bit overvalued. We are the most intelligent entities on this planet, and look what we are doing. So intelligence also tends to be self-destructive, which implies that if there are or were intelligent life forms elsewhere, maybe they don't survive for long.

   5. LFLex Fridman2:22

      So you think there's a tension between happiness and intelligence?

   6. YHYuval Noah Harari2:26

      Absolutely. Intelligence is definitely not something that, uh, is directed towards amplifying happiness. I, I would also emphasize the huge, huge difference between intelligence and consciousness, which, uh, many people, certainly in the tech industry and in the AI industry, ten- tend to miss. Intelligence is simply the ability to solve problems, uh, to attain goals, and, you know, to, to win at chess, to, uh, win a struggle for survival, to win a war, to drive a car, uh, to diagnose a disease. Uh, this is intelligence. Consciousness is the ability to feel things like pain and pleasure and love and hate. In humans and other animals, intelligence and consciousness go together. They go hand in hand, which is why we confuse them. We solve problems, we attain goals by having feelings. But, uh, other types of intelligence, certainly in computers, computers are already highly intelligent, and as far as we know, they have zero consciousness. When a computer beats you at chess or Go or whatever, it doesn't feel happy. If it loses, it doesn't feel sad. And, uh, there could be also other highly intelligent entities out there in the universe that have zero consciousness. And I think that consciousness is far more important and valuable than intelligence.

   7. LFLex Fridman3:59

      Can you see me on the case that consciousness and intelligence are intricately connected? So not just in humans, but anywhere else? The- they have to go hand in hand. Is it possible for you to imagine such a universe?

   8. YHYuval Noah Harari4:12

      It, it could be, but we don't know yet. Again, we have examples. Certainly, we know of examples of high intelligence without consciousness. Computers are one example. Um, as far as we know, plants, uh, are not conscious, yet they are intelligent. They can solve problems. They can attain goals in very sophisticated ways. Um, so, um, the other way around, to have consciousness without any intelligence, this is probably impossible (laughs) . But to have in- intelligence without consciousness, yes, that's possible. A bigger question is whether any of that is tied to organic biochemistry.

   9. LFLex Fridman4:55

      Mm-hmm.

   10. YHYuval Noah Harari4:55

       We know on this planet only about carbon-based life forms. Whether you're an amoeba, a dinosaur, a tree, a human being, you are based on organic biochemistry. Um, is there an essential connection between organic biochemistry and consciousness? Do all conscious entities everywhere in the universe or in the future o- on planet Earth have to be based on carbon? Is there something so special about carbon as an element that an entity based on silicon will never be conscious? I don't know. Maybe. But, um, again, this is a key question about computer and computer consciousness, that can computers eventually become conscious even though they are not organic? Uh, the jury is still out on that. I, I don't know. I mean, th- we have to take both options into account.

   11. LFLex Fridman5:48

       Well, a big part of that is, do you think we humans would be able to detect other intelligent beings, other conscious beings? Another way to ask that, is it possible that the aliens are already here and we don't see them?Meaning, are we-

   12. YHYuval Noah Harari6:04

       Hmm.

   13. LFLex Fridman6:05

       ... very human-centric in our understanding of, one, the definition of life, two, the definition of intelligence, and three, the definition of consciousness?

   14. YHYuval Noah Harari6:13

       The aliens are here. They are just not from outer space. AI, uh, which is, usually stands for artificial intelligence, I think it stands for alien intelligence, because, uh, AI is an alien type of intelligence. It solve problems, attains goals in a very, very different way, in an alien way from human beings. And I'm not implying that AI came from outer space. It came from Silicon Valley. But it is alien to us. If there are a- alien intelligent or conscious entities that came from outer space already here, I've, I've not seen ev- any evidence, uh, uh, for it. It's not impossible, but, um, you know, in science, evidence is everything.

   15. LFLex Fridman6:56

       Well, I mean, I guess instructive there is, uh, just having the humility to look around, to think about living beings that operate at a different time scale, a different spatial scale.

   16. YHYuval Noah Harari7:07

       Hmm.

   17. LFLex Fridman7:07

       And I think that's all useful when starting to analyze artificial intelligence. It's possible that even the language models, the large language models we have today are already conscious.

   18. YHYuval Noah Harari7:19

       I, I highly doubt it, but I think consciousness, in the end, it's a question of social norms. Because we cannot prove consciousness in anybody except ourselves. We know that we are conscious because we are feeling it. We have direct access to our subjective consciousness. We have n- We cannot have any proof that any other entity in the world, any other human being, our parents, our best friends, we don't have proof that they're conscious. You know, this is, this has been known for thousands of years. This is Descartes. This is Buddha. This is Plato. We, we don't, we can't have this sort of proof. What we do have is social conventions.

   19. LFLex Fridman7:58

       Mm-hmm.

   20. YHYuval Noah Harari7:59

       It's a social convention that all human beings are conscious. It's also applies to animals. Most people who have pets are firmly believe that their pets, pets are conscious, but a lot of people still refuse to acknowledge that about cows or pigs. Now, pigs are far more intelligent than dogs and cats in, according to many measures, yet when you go to the supermarket and, and, and buy a, a, a piece of frozen pigment, you don't think about it as, as a conscious entity. Why do you think of your dog as conscious, but not of the, of the bacon that you buy? Because you've built a relationship with the dog, and you don't have a relationship with the bacon. Now, relationships, they are, they don't constitute a logical proof for consciousness. They're a social test.

   21. LFLex Fridman8:51

       Mm-hmm.

   22. YHYuval Noah Harari8:52

       The Turing test is a social test. It's not a logical proof. Now, if you establish a, a, a mutual relationship with an entity w- when you are invested in it emotionally, you are almost compelled to feel that the other side is also conscious.

   23. LFLex Fridman9:11

       Mm-hmm.

   24. YHYuval Noah Harari9:11

       And when it comes, again, to AI and computers, I think, again, I don't think that at the present moment computers are conscious, but people are already forming intimate relationships with AIs and are therefore almost irresis- it's almost irresistible. They're compelled to f- to increasingly feel that these are conscious entities. And I think we are quite close to the point when the legal system will have to take this into account, that even though I don't think computers have consciousness, I think we are close to the point, the legal system will start treating them as conscious entities because of this social convention.

   25. LFLex Fridman9:55

       What to you is a social convention just a funny little side effect, a little artifact? Or is it fundamental to what consciousness is? Because if it is fundamental, then it seems like AI is very good at forming these kinds of deep relationships with humans.

   26. YHYuval Noah Harari10:12

       Yeah.

   27. LFLex Fridman10:12

       And therefore, it'll be able to be a nice catalyst for, uh, integrating itself into these social conventions of ours.

   28. YHYuval Noah Harari10:21

       It, it was built to accomplish that.

   29. LFLex Fridman10:23

       Yeah.

   30. YHYuval Noah Harari10:23

       We are designed... Again, you know, all this argument between, uh, uh, uh, natural selection and, uh, uh, creationism, intelligent design, um, as far as the past go, all entities evolve by natural selection. The funny thing is, when you look to the future, more and more entities will come out of intelligent design, not of some god above the clouds, but of our intelligent design and the intelligent design of our clouds, of our computing clouds. They will design more and more entities. And this is what is happening with AI. It is designed to be very good at forming intimate relationships with humans, and, uh, um, in many ways, it's already doing it almost better than, than human beings in some situations. You know, when two people talk with one another, one of the things that kind of, uh, um, makes the conversation more difficult is our own emotions. You're saying something, and I'm not really listening to you bet- because there is something I want to say, and I'm just waiting until you finish. I, I can put in a word. Or I'm so obsessed with my anger or irritation or whatever that I don't pay attention to what you're feeling. This is one of the biggest obstacles in human relationships. And computers don't have this problem because they don't have any emotions of their own. So, (laughs) you know, when a computer is talking to you, it can be the most, it can focus 100% of its attention is on your, what you're saying and what you're feeling because it has no feelings of its own. And paradoxically, this means that computers can fool people.-into feeling that, uh, oh, th- there is a conscious entity on the other side, an empathic entity on the other side, because the one thing everybody wants almost more than anything in the world is for somebody to listen to me, somebody to focus all their attention on me, like I wanted for my spouse, for my husband, for my mother, for my friends, for my politicians. Listen to me. Listen to what I feel. And they often don't. And now you have this entity which 100% of its attention is just on what- what I feel.
3. 20:19 – 30:41

   Origin of humans

   1. LFLex Fridman20:19

      How did it all start?

   2. YHYuval Noah Harari20:22

      Hmm.

   3. LFLex Fridman20:22

      How did homo sapiens, uh, out-compete the others, the other humanlike species, the- the Neanderthals and the other, um, homo species?

   4. YHYuval Noah Harari20:33

      You know, on the, on the individual level, as far as we can tell, we were not superior to them. Neanderthals actually had bigger brains than us. And not just other human species, other animals, too. If you compare me personally to an elephant, to a chimpanzee, to a pig, I'm not so... I- I can do some things better, many other things worse. If you put me alone on- on some island with a chimpanzee, an elephant, and a pig, (laughs) I wouldn't bet on me-

   5. LFLex Fridman21:00

      Mm-hmm.

   6. YHYuval Noah Harari21:00

      ... being the- the- the- the best survivor, uh, the- the one that come- comes, uh, uh, is successful.

   7. LFLex Fridman21:06

      If I may interrupt for a second, I just, I was just talking extensively with Elon Musk about the difference between humans and chimps-

   8. YHYuval Noah Harari21:12

      (laughs)

   9. LFLex Fridman21:13

      ... um, relevant to Optimus the robot, and, uh, the chimps are not able to do this kind of pinching-

   10. YHYuval Noah Harari21:21

       Okay.

   11. LFLex Fridman21:21

       ... with their fingers. They can only do this kind of pinching, and this kind of pinching is very useful for fine manipulation of ob- precise manipulation of objects. So don't be so hard on yourself. You have, uh, ha...

   12. YHYuval Noah Harari21:32

       No, I said that I can do some things-

   13. LFLex Fridman21:34

       Yeah.

   14. YHYuval Noah Harari21:34

       ... better than a chimp. But, you know, if Elon Musk goes on a boxing match-

   15. LFLex Fridman21:39

       Yeah.

   16. YHYuval Noah Harari21:39

       ... with a chimpanzee-

   17. LFLex Fridman21:40

       (laughs)

   18. YHYuval Noah Harari21:41

       ... pfft (laughs) , you know-

   19. LFLex Fridman21:42

       This- this won't help you, the pinching.

   20. YHYuval Noah Harari21:43

       This won't help you-

   21. LFLex Fridman21:44

       Okay.

   22. YHYuval Noah Harari21:45

       ... against a chimpanzee.

   23. LFLex Fridman21:46

       Good point. (laughs)

   24. YHYuval Noah Harari21:47

       And similar, if you want to climb a tree, if you want to do so many things, my bets will be on the chimp, not on Elon.

   25. LFLex Fridman21:53

       Fair enough, fair enough.

   26. YHYuval Noah Harari21:54

       So, I mean-

   27. LFLex Fridman21:54

       (laughs)

   28. YHYuval Noah Harari21:54

       ... you have advantages on both sides.

   29. LFLex Fridman21:57

       (laughs)

   30. YHYuval Noah Harari21:57

       Um, and what really made us successful, what made us the rulers of the planet and not the chimps and not the Neanderthals is not any individual ability-
4. 30:41 – 51:22

   Suffering

   1. YHYuval Noah Harari30:41

   2. LFLex Fridman30:41

      So the fundamental property of life, of a living organism is the capacity to feel and, uh, the ultimate feeling is suffering.

   3. YHYuval Noah Harari30:50

      You know, to know if you're happy or not, it's a very difficult question. (laughs)

   4. LFLex Fridman30:54

      Yeah.

   5. YHYuval Noah Harari30:54

      But when you suffer, you know.

   6. LFLex Fridman30:55

      Yes.

   7. YHYuval Noah Harari30:56

      And also in, in, in ethical terms, it's more important to be aware of sufferings than of any other emotion. If you are doing something which is causing all kinds of emo- uh, c- all kinds o- of emotions to all kinds of people, first of all, you need to notice if you're causing a lot of suffering to someone. If some people are like it and some people are bored by it, and some people are a bit angry at you, and some people are suffering because of what you do, you first of all have to know, oh. N- now, sometimes you still have to do it, you know, the world is a complicated place. I don't know, you have an epidemic, uh, governments decide to have all those social isolation regulations or whatever. So i- in certain cases, yes, you need to do it even though it can cause tremendous suffering, but you need to be very aware of the cost and to be very, very... You have to ask yourself again and again and again, is it worth it? Is it still worth it?

   8. LFLex Fridman31:52

      And, uh, the interesting question there implied in your statements is that suffering is a pretty good component of a Turing test for consciousness.

   9. YHYuval Noah Harari32:01

      This is the most important thing to ask about AI. Can it suffer? Because if a- if AI can suffer, then it is an ethical subject.

   10. LFLex Fridman32:10

       Mm-hmm.

   11. YHYuval Noah Harari32:10

       And it needs protection, it needs rights just like humans and animals.

   12. LFLex Fridman32:15

       Well, um, quite a long time ago already, so I work with, uh, a lot of robots, legged robots, but I've even had, uh, inspired by a YouTube video, uh, had a bunch of Roombas and I made them scream when I touch them or kick them or when they run into a wall.

   13. YHYuval Noah Harari32:29

       Hmm.

   14. LFLex Fridman32:29

       And the, uh, the illusion of suffering for, for me, silly human anthropomorphizes things-

   15. YHYuval Noah Harari32:37

       (laughs)

   16. LFLex Fridman32:37

       ... is as powerful as suffering itself. I mean, you, you immediately think the thing is suffering.

   17. YHYuval Noah Harari32:44

       Hmm.

   18. LFLex Fridman32:44

       And I think, um, some of it is just a technical problem, but it's a easy s- e- easily solvable one. How to create an AI system that just says, "Please don't hurt me. Please don't shut me off. I miss you. Uh, where have you been?" Be jealous also. W- where... (laughs) Why have you been gone for so long? Your calendar doesn't have anything on it. So this kinda, this, this create through words the perception of, uh, of suffering, of jealousy, of anger, of all of those things and it, and it just seems like that's not so difficult to do.

   19. YHYuval Noah Harari33:19

       That's part of the danger, that, um, it, it basically hacks our operating system and it uses some of our best qualities against us. It's very, very good that humans are attuned to suffering and that we don't want to cause suffering, that we have compassion. That's one of the most wonderful thing about humans. And if we now create AIs which use this to manipulate us, this is a terrible thing.

   20. LFLex Fridman33:49

       You've kind of, I think, mentioned this, uh, do you think it should be illegal to, to do these kinds of things with AI? To create the perception of consciousness of saying, "Please don't leave me." Or sort of basically, um, simulate some of the humanlike qualities?

   21. YHYuval Noah Harari34:06

       Yes. I think, again, we have to be very careful about it. And, uh, and if it, if it emerges spontaneously, we need to be careful. Again, we can't rule out the possibility that AI will develop consciousness. We don't know enough about consciousness to be sure. So if it develops spontaneously, we need to be, uh, uh, uh, to, to, to, um, be very careful about how we understand it. But if people intentionally design an AI that they know, they assume it has no consciousness, but in order to manipulate people, they use, again, this human strength, this human, uh, uh, uh, the, the, the noble part of our nature against us, this should be, should be forbidden. And similarly, on a more general level, that it should be forbidden for an AI to pretend to be a human being, that it's okay, you know, there are so many things we can use AIs, as teachers, as doctors, and so forth. And it's good as long as we know that we are interacting with an AI, we should, the same way we ban fake money, we should ban fake humans. It's not just banning deep fakes of specific individuals, it's also banning deep fake of generic humans, you know, which is already happening to some extent on, on social media. Like, if you have lots of bots retweeting something, then you have the impression, oh, lots of people are interested in that. That's important. And this is basically the bots pretending to be humans. Because if you see a tweet which says 500 people retweeted it, or you s- you see a, a, a tweet and it says, "500 bots retweeted it." I don't care what the bots retweeted, but if it's humans, okay, that's, that's interesting. So we need to be ve- very careful that bots can't do that. They are doing it at present and it should be banned. Now, some people say, "Yes, but freedom of expression." No. Bots don't have freedom of expression. There is no cost in terms of freedom of expression when you ban bots.So again, in some situations, yes, AIs should interact with us, but it should be very clear, this is an AI talking to you, or this is an AI retweeting this story. It is not a human being making a conscious decision.

   22. LFLex Fridman36:32

       To push back, uh, on this line of fake humans, 'cause I think it might be a spectrum. First of all, you might ha- have AI systems that are offended, uh, hurt when you say that they're fake humans.

   23. YHYuval Noah Harari36:47

       (laughs)

   24. LFLex Fridman36:48

       Um, in fact, they might start identifying as humans.

   25. YHYuval Noah Harari36:52

       Mm-hmm.

   26. LFLex Fridman36:53

       And s- and you just talked about the power of us humans with our collective intelligence to take fake stories and make them quite real.

   27. YHYuval Noah Harari37:01

       Hmm.

   28. LFLex Fridman37:02

       And so if the feelings you have for the fake human is real, uh, you know, love is a kind of fake thing that we all kinda put a word to, uh, a set of feelings. What if you have that feeling for, um, an AI system? It starts to change, I mean maybe, uh, the kind of things AI systems are allowed to do. For good, they're allowed to, uh, create... (sighs) Communicate suffering, communicate, uh, the good stuff, the longing, the, the hope, the connection, the intimacy, all of that. Um, and in that way get integrated in our society, and then you start to ask a question on w- are we allowed to really unplug them? Are we allowed to really censor them? Remove them, remove their voice from-

   29. YHYuval Noah Harari37:53

       I- I'm not saying-

   30. LFLex Fridman37:54

       ... social media?
5. 51:22 – 1:09:54

   Hitler

   1. LFLex Fridman51:22

   2. YHYuval Noah Harari51:22

      Yeah.

   3. LFLex Fridman51:22

      Uh, so you write in Homo Deus about Hitler.

   4. YHYuval Noah Harari51:26

      (laughs) .

   5. LFLex Fridman51:27

      And, uh, in part that he was not a very impressive person.

   6. YHYuval Noah Harari51:33

      I say that?

   7. LFLex Fridman51:35

      The quote is. Let me read it.

   8. YHYuval Noah Harari51:36

      Okay (laughs) .

   9. LFLex Fridman51:38

      Uh (laughs) , "He wasn't a senior officer."

   10. YHYuval Noah Harari51:41

       Okay.

   11. LFLex Fridman51:41

       "In four years of war, he rose no (laughs) higher than the rank of corporal. He had no formal education." Perhaps you mean his resume was not impressive.

   12. YHYuval Noah Harari51:49

       Yeah, uh, his resume was not impressive, that's true.

   13. LFLex Fridman51:51

       (laughs) "He had no formal education, no professional skills, no political background. He wasn't a successful businessman or a union activist. He didn't have friends or relatives in high places nor any money to speak of." Uh, so how did, um, he amass so much power? What ideology, what circumstances enabled the rise of the Third Reich?

   14. YHYuval Noah Harari52:12

       Hmm. Again, I can't tell you the why. I can tell you the how. I don't think it was inevitable. I think that a few, if a few things were different, there would've been no- no- no Third Reich. There would've been no Nazism, no- no Holocaust. Again, this is the tragedy. If it would've been inevitable, then, you know, what can you do? This is the, the laws of- of history or the laws of physics. But the tragedy is, no, it was decisions by humans that led to that direction. And, you know, even from the viewpoint of- of- of the Germans, um, we know for- for a fact it was an unnecessary path to take, because, you know, in the 1920s and '30s, the Nazis said that, um, this... Unless Germany take this road, it will never be prosperous, it will never be successful. All the other countries will keep stepping on it. This was their- their- their, uh, uh, claim. And we know for a fact this is a- this is false. Why? Because they took that road, they lost the Second World War, and after they lost, then they became one of the most prosperous countries in the world, because their enemies that defeated them evidently supported them and allowed them to become such a prosperous and successful nation. So, you know, if you can lose the war and still be so successful, obviously you could just have skipped the war. You didn't need it.

   15. LFLex Fridman53:44

       (laughs) .

   16. YHYuval Noah Harari53:44

       I mean, you really had to have the war in order to have a prosperous Germany in the 19... Absolutely not. And it's the same with Japan, it's the same with Italy. So, um, uh, uh, it- it was not inevitable. It was not the forces of history that necessitated-

   17. LFLex Fridman54:00

       Mm-hmm.

   18. YHYuval Noah Harari54:01

       ... that forced Germany to take, uh, this path. I think part of it is... Part of the appeal of- of- of... Again, Hitler was a very, very skillful storyteller. He sold people a story. The fact that he was nobody made it even more effective, because people, at that time, they... After the defeat of the, of the First World War, after the repeated economic crisis of the 1920s in Germany, people felt betrayed....by all the, uh, established elites, by all the established institutions, all, all these professors and politicians and industrialists and military, all the big people, they led us to a disastrous war. They led us to humiliation. So we don't want any of them. And then you have this nobody, a corporal with no money, with no education, with no titles, with nothing. And he tells people, "I am one of you." And this made him s- this was one reason why he was so popular, and then the story he told, when you look at stories, at the competition between different stories and between stories, fiction, and the truth, the truth has two big problems. The truth tends to be complicated and the truth tends to be painful. The real story of let, let's talk about nations. The real story of every nation is complicated, and it contains some painful episodes. We are not always good. We sometimes do bad things. Now, if you go to people and you tell them a complicated and painful story, many of them don't want to listen. The advantage of fiction is that it can be made as simple and as painless or attractive as you want it to be because it's fiction. And then what you see is that politicians like Hitler, they create a very simple story, "We are the heroes. We always do good things. Everybody is against us. Everybody is trying to, to, to, uh, trample us." And, um, this is very attractive. One of the things people don't understand about Nazism and fascism, w- we, we teach in schools about fascism and Nazism as this ultimate evil, the ultimate monster in human history. And at some level, this is, this is wrong, because it make people, um, it actually ex- exposes us. Why? 'Cause people hear, "Oh, fascism is this monster." And then when you hear the actual fascist story, what fascists tell you is always very beautiful and attractive. Fascists are people who come and tell you, "You are wonderful. You belong to the most wonderful group of people in the world. You are beautiful. You are ethical. Everything you do is good. You have never done anything wrong. There are all these evil monsters out there that are out to get you, and they are causing all the problems in the world." And when people hear that, you know, it's like looking in the mirror and seeing something very beautiful. "Hey, I'm beautiful. I've, we've never done anything wrong. We are victims. Everybody is..." And, and when you look and you heard in school that fascism, that fascists are monsters, and you look in the mirror, you see something very beautiful, and you say, "I can't be a fascist because fascists are monsters, and this is so beautiful, so it can't be." But when you look in the fascist mirror, you al- you never see a monster. You see the most beautiful thing in the world, and that's the danger. This is the problem, you know, with Hollywood's m- uh, uh, you know, I look at Voldemort in Harry Potter. Who would like to follow this, this creep?

   19. LFLex Fridman58:03

       Yeah.

   20. YHYuval Noah Harari58:03

       And you look at Darth Va- Vader. This is not somebody you would like to follow. Christianity got things much better when it described the devil as being very beautiful and attractive. That's the danger, that you see something as very beautiful, you don't understand the monster underneath.

   21. LFLex Fridman58:23

       And you write precisely about this, and by the way, it's just a small aside, it, um, it always saddens me when people say how obvious it is to them that communism is a flawed ideology. When you ask them, try to put your mind, try to put yourself in the beginning of the 20th century and see what you would do, a lot of people will say, "It's obvious that it's a flawed ideology." So, um, I mean, I suppose some of the worst ideologies in human history, you could say the same, and in that mirror, when you look, it looks beautiful.

   22. YHYuval Noah Harari58:56

       C- communism is the same. Also, you look in the communist mirror, you're the most ethical, wonderful place, p- person ever.

   23. LFLex Fridman59:03

       (laughs)

   24. YHYuval Noah Harari59:03

       It's very difficult to see Stalin underneath it.

   25. LFLex Fridman59:06

       So, (laughs) yeah, in Homo Deus, you also write, "During the 19th and 20th centuries, as humanism gained increasing social credibility and political power, it sprouted two very different offshoots, socialist humanism, which encompassed a plethora of socialist and communist movements, and evolutionary humanism, whose most famous advocates were the Nazis." So if you can just linger on that, what's the ideological connection between Nazism and communism as embodied by humanism?

   26. YHYuval Noah Harari59:35

       Humanism basically is, you know, the, the focus is on humans, that they are the most important thing in the world. They move history. But then there is a big question, what is, what are humans? What is humanity? Now, liberals, they place at the center of the story individual humans, and they don't see history as a kind of ne- necessary collision between big forces. They place the individual at the center. If you want to know, you know, there is a bad, uh, um, especially in the US today, liberal is turking- taken as the opposite of con- of conservative, but it's... To test whether you're liberal, you need to answer just three questions, very simple. Uh, do you think people should have the right to choose their own government or, uh, uh, the government should be imposed by some ou- outside force? Uh, do you think people should have the right to the liberty...... to choose their own profession or either born into some caste that predetermines what they do? And do you think people should have the liberty to choose their own spouse and their own w- way of personal life, instead of being told by elders or parents who to marry and how to live? Now, if you answered yes to all three questions, people should have the liberty to choose their government, their profession, their personal life, their spouse, then you're a liberal. And most conservatives are also liberal. Now, communists and fascists, they answer differently. For them, history is not... Yes, history is about humans. Humans are the big heroes of history, but not individual humans and their liberties. Uh, fascists imagine history as a clash between races or nations. The nation is at the center. They say the supreme good is the good of the nation. You should have 100% loyalty only to the nation. You know, liberals say, "Yes, you should be loyal to the nation, but it's not the only thing. There are other things in the world, there are human rights, there is truth, there is beauty." Many times, yes, you should prefer the interests of your nation over other things, but not always. If your nation tells you to murder millions of innocent people, you don't do that, even though the nation tells you to do it. Um, when... To- to lie for the national interest, you know, in extreme situations, maybe, but in s- in many cases, your l- loyalty should be to the truth, even if it makes your nation looks a bit no- no- not in the best light. The same with beauty. You know, how does a fascist determine whether a movie is a good movie? Very simple. If it serves the interest of the nation, this is a good movie. If it's against the interest of the nation, this is a bad movie. End of story. Liberalism says, "No, there is a- a- a- aesthetic values in the world. Uh, we should judge movies not just on the question whether they serve the national interest, but also on artistic value." Communists are a bit like the fascists, instead that they don't place the nation as the main hero, they place class as the main hero. For them, history, again, it's not about individuals, it's not about nations. History is a clash between classes. And just as fascists imagine, in the end, only one nation will be on top, the communists think, in the end, only one class should be on top, and that's the- the proletariat. And same story. The, your... 100% of your loyalty should be to the class. And, like, if you, if there is a clash, say, between class and family, class wins. Like, in the Soviet Union, the party told children, "If you hear your parents say something bad about Stalin, you have to report them." And there are many cases when children reported their parents and their parents were sent to the gulag. Like... And, you know, your loyalty is to the party, to the... Wh- which leads the proletariat to victory in the historical struggle. And the same way in communism, art is only about class struggle. A movie is good if it serves the interest of the p- proletariat. Artistic values, there is nothing like that. And the same with- with truth. The, everything that we see now in fake news, uh, uh, you know, the communist propaganda machine was there before us. The level of- of- of- of lies, of disinformation campaigns that they orchestrated in the 1920s and '30s and '40s is- is really un- un- unimaginable.

   27. LFLex Fridman1:04:36

       So, the reason these two ideologies, classes of ideologies failed is the sacrifice of truth. Not just failed, but did a lot of damage, is the sacrifice of truth and sacrifice of beauty.

   28. YHYuval Noah Harari1:04:50

       And sacrifice of hundreds of millions of people, disregard... And for human suffering. Like, okay, for, in order to, for- for our nation to win, in order for our class to win, we need to kill those millions, kill those millions. That- that was an ethics, aesthetics, uh, truth, they don't matter. The only thing that matter is the victory of the state or the victory of the class. And that's the- the... And liberalism was the antithesis to that. It says, "No, not only it's, uh, it- it- it has a much more complicated view of the world." Again, both communism and fascism, they had a very simple view of the world. There is one... Uh, uh, your loyalty, 100% of it should be only to one thing. Now, liberalism has a much more complex view of the world. It says, "Yes, there are nations, they are important. Yes, there are classes, they are important, but they are not the only thing. There are also families, there are also, um, uh, uh, uh, individuals, there are also animals. And your loyalty should be divided between all of them. Sometimes you prefer this, sometimes you prefer that." That's complicated. And... But, you know, life is complicated.

   29. LFLex Fridman1:06:07

       But also, I think, uh, maybe you can correct me, but liberalism acknowledges the corrupting nature of power when there's a guy in the, at the top-

   30. YHYuval Noah Harari1:06:15

       Mm-hmm.
6. 1:09:54 – 1:28:17

   Benjamin Netanyahu

   1. YHYuval Noah Harari1:09:54

      And you asked me earlier about, uh, uh, the, the, the potential of power to corrupt, and I listened to the interview (laughs) you just did with, with Prime Minister Netanyahu a couple of days ago, and one of the things that most struck me during the interview that you asked him, you asked him, "Are you afraid of, of, of this thing, that, that, that power corrupts?" He didn't think for a single second. He didn't pause, he didn't admit ev- a tiny, little, uh, uh, l- level of, of, of, you know, uh, doubt or... No, power doesn't corrupt. It was, for me, it was, it was a shocking and, and, and a revealing, uh, uh, moment, and it kind of dovetails with, with how you began the interview, that I, I really liked your opening gambit-

   2. LFLex Fridman1:10:41

      (laughs)

   3. YHYuval Noah Harari1:10:41

      ... that kind of, you... No, really. Y- you kind of-

   4. LFLex Fridman1:10:43

      Yeah.

   5. YHYuval Noah Harari1:10:43

      ... told him, you know, "Lots of people in the world are angry with you. They, some people hate you. They, they dislike you. What do you want to, to, to t- to, to tell, to tell them, to say to them?" And you gave him this kind of platform. And, um, I, I, I was very ex- what will he say? And he just denied it. He basically denied it. You know, he, he had to cut short the interview from three hours to one hour-

   6. LFLex Fridman1:11:08

      (laughs)

   7. YHYuval Noah Harari1:11:08

      ... because you had hundreds of thousands of, of Israelis in the streets demonstrating against him, and he goes and say, "No, everybody likes me. What are you talking about?"

   8. LFLex Fridman1:11:17

      Uh, but on that topic, you've said recently that, uh, the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, uh, may go down in history as the man who destroys Israel. Can you explain what you mean by that?

   9. YHYuval Noah Harari1:11:30

      Yes. I mean, he is basically tearing apart the social contract that held this country together for 75 years. He's destroying the foundations of Israeli democracy. You know, I, I don't want to go too deep un- unless you want to, because I, I guess most of our listeners, they have bigger issues on their minds than the fate of some small country in the Middle East, but for those who want to understand what's happening in Israel, there is really just one question to ask: What limits the power of the government? In, uh, United States, for instance, there are lots of checks and balances that limit the power of the government. Um, you have the Supreme Court, you have the Senate, you have the House of Representative, you have the President, uh, you have the Constitution, you have 50 states, each state with its own constitution and Supreme Court and, uh, uh, uh, Congress and governor. If somebody wants to pass a dangerous legislation, say, in the House, it will have to go through so many obstacles, like if you want to pass a law in United States taking away voting rights from Jews or from Muslims or from African-Americans, even if it passes, even if it has a majority in the House of Representatives, it has a very, very, very small chance of becoming the law of the country, because it will have to pass, again, through the Senate, through the President, through the Supreme Court, and all the federal structure.In Israel, we have just a single check on the power of the government, and that's the Supreme Court. There is really no difference between the government and the legislature because whoever there is, there are no separate elections like in the US. If you win majority in the Knesset, in the parliament, you appoint the government, that- that's very simple. And if you have 61 members of, of Knesset who vote, let's say, on a law to take away voting rights from Arab citizens of Israel, there is a single check that can prevent it from, from becoming the law of the land, and that's the Supreme Court. And now the Netanyahu government is trying to neutralize or take over the Supreme Court, and they've already prepared a long list of laws, they already talk about it, what will happen the moment that this last check on the power is gone. They are openly trying to gain unlimited power, and they openly talk about it, that once they have it, then they will take away the rights of Arabs, of LGBT people, of women, of secular Jews. And this is why you have hundreds of thousands of people in the streets. You have, uh, air force pilots saying, "We s- we are stop, we stop flying." Th- this is unheard of in Isr- I mean, we are still living under existential threat from Iran, from other enemies, and in the middle of this, you have air force pilots who dedicated their lives to protecting the country and they are saying, "That's it. If this government doesn't stop what it is doing, we stop flying."

   10. LFLex Fridman1:14:47

       So as you said, uh, I just did the interview and as we were doing the interview, there's protests in the streets, do you think the protests will have a- an effect?

   11. YHYuval Noah Harari1:14:58

       I- I hope so very much. I- I'm going to many of these protests. I- I hope they will have an effect. Uh, if we fail, this is the end of Israeli democracy probably, uh, this will have i- repercussions far beyond the borders of Israel. Israel is a nuclear power, Israel is, uh, uh, has one of the most advanced cyber capa- capabilities in the world, able to strike basically anywhere in the world. Uh, if this country becomes a fundamentalist and militarist dictatorship, it can set fire to the entire Middle East, it can again have destabilizing effects long, uh, far beyond the- the- the borders of, of Israel.

   12. LFLex Fridman1:15:41

       So you think without the check on power, it's possible that the, the Netanyahu government holds onto power?

   13. YHYuval Noah Harari1:15:48

       Nobody tries to gain unlimited power just for nothing. I mean, you have, you have so many problems in Israel, and Netanyahu talks so much about Iran and the Palestinians and Hezbollah, we have an economic crisis. Why is it so urgent at this moment in the face of such opposition, why is it so crucial for them to neutralize the Supreme Court? They're just doing it for, for the fun of it? No. They know what they are doing. They are, they are adamant. And we are not sure of it before. There was a, like a couple of months ago, they came out with this plan to take over the Supreme Court, to have all these laws, and there were hundreds of thousands of pe- people in the streets, again, soldiers saying they will stop serving, a general strike in the economy, and they stopped. And they started a process of negotiations, uh, to try and reach a settlement, and then they broke down, they- they- they stopped the negotiations and they restarted this process of, uh, uh, legislation trying to gain l- unlimited power. So any doubt we had before, okay, maybe they changed their purposes, no, it's now very clear they are 100% focused on gaining absolute power, they are now trying a different tactic. Previously they took, they had all these dozens of laws that they wanted to pass very quickly within a month or two, they realized, no, this is, there is too much opposition, so now they are doing what is known as salami tactics, slice by slice. Now they're trying to, one law, if this succeeds, then they'll pass the next one, and the next one, and the next one. This is why we are now at a very crucial moment, and when you see again hundreds of thousands of people in the streets almost every day, when you see resistance within the armed forces, within the security forces, you see high-tech companies saying, "We will go on strike." You know, it's, they are private businesses, high-tech companies that, uh, I think it's almost unprecedented for private business to go on strike because, uh, what do we, what will, uh, uh, economic success benefit us if we live under a messianic dictatorship? And again, the fuel for this whole thing is, to a large extent, coming from messianic religious groups, um, which just the thought what happens if these people have unlimited control of nu- of Israel's nuclear arsenal and Israel's military capabilities and cyber capabilities, this is very, very scary not just for the citizens of Israel, it should be scary from, for people everywhere.

   14. LFLex Fridman1:18:30

       So it's, it would be scary for it to, uh, go from being a problem of security and protecting the peace to becoming a religious war?

   15. YHYuval Noah Harari1:18:41

       It is already becoming a religious war. I mean, the war, the conflict with the Palestinians was for many years a national conflict in essence. Over the last few years, maybe a decade or two, it is morphing into a religious conflict, which is, again, a very worrying development. When nations are in conflict, you can reach some compromise.Okay, you have this bit of land, we have this bit of land. But when it becomes a religious conflict between fundamentalists, between messianic people, compromise is- becomes much more difficult because you don't compromise on eternity. You don't compromise on God. Uh, and, and this is where we are heading right now.

   16. LFLex Fridman1:19:26

       So I know you said it's a small nation somewhere in the Middle East. (laughs) But it also happens to be the epicenter of one of the longest running, one of the most tense conflicts and crises in human history. So at the very least, it serves as a study of how conflict can be resolved. So what are the biggest obstacles to you, uh, to achieving peace in this part of the world?

   17. YHYuval Noah Harari1:19:52

       Motivation. I think it's, it's easy to achieve peace if you have the motivation on whof- on both sides. Unfortunately, the present, uh, juncture, there is not enough motivation on either side, either the Palestinian or Israeli side. Uh, peace, you know, in mathematics you have problems without solutions. You can prove mathematically that this mathematical problem has no solution. In politics there is no such thing. All problems have solutions if you have the motivation. And, but motivation is the big problem. And, uh, again, we can go into the reasons why, uh, but the fact is that on neither side is there enough motivation. If there was motivation, the solution w- w- would've been easy.

   18. LFLex Fridman1:20:41

       Is there an important distinction to draw between the people on the street and the leaders in power in terms of motivation? So a- are most people, uh, motivated and hoping for peace and the leaders are motivated and incentivized to continue war?

   19. YHYuval Noah Harari1:21:01

       I don't think so.

   20. LFLex Fridman1:21:01

       Or the people also?

   21. YHYuval Noah Harari1:21:03

       I think it's, it's a deep problem. It's also the people, it's not just the leaders.

   22. LFLex Fridman1:21:07

       Is it even a human problem of l- literally hate in people's heart?

   23. YHYuval Noah Harari1:21:12

       Yeah. There is a lot of hate. One of the things that happened in Israel over the last, um, 10 years o- or so, Israel became much stronger than it was before, largely thanks to technological developments. And it feels that it no longer needs to compromise. That... And this is, there are many reasons for it, but some of them are technological, uh, being one of the leading, uh, powers in cyber, in AI, in, uh, in high tech. We have developed very sophisticated ways to more easily control the Palestinian population. In the early 2000s, it seemed that it is becoming impossible to control millions of people against their will. It took too much power, it spilled too much blood on both sides. Uh, so there was an impression, oh, this is becoming untenable. And there are several reasons why it changed, but one of them was new technology. Israel developed very sophisticated surveillance technology that has made it much easier for Israeli security forces to control 2.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank against their will, uh, with a lot less, uh, effort, less boots on the ground, also less blood. And, uh, Israel is al- also now exporting this technology to many other regimes around the world. Um, again, I heard Netanyahu speaking about all the wonderful things that Israel is exporting to the world, and it's true, we are exporting some nice things, water systems and, and tomate- new kinds of tomatoes. We are also exporting a lot of weapons and especially, uh, surveillance systems, sometimes to unsavory regimes, in order to control their populations.

   24. LFLex Fridman1:23:11

       Can you comment on, um... I think you've mentioned that the current state of affairs is a de facto three-class state.

   25. YHYuval Noah Harari1:23:20

       Hmm.

   26. LFLex Fridman1:23:20

       Can you describe what you mean by that?

   27. YHYuval Noah Harari1:23:22

       Yes. For many years, the kind of leading solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the two-state solution. Uh-

   28. LFLex Fridman1:23:28

       Can you describe what that means, by the way?

   29. YHYuval Noah Harari1:23:30

       Yes. Two states, um, within, between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean, we'll have two states, uh, Israel, Is- Israel as a predominantly Jewish state, and Palestine as a predominantly Palestinian state. Uh, again, and there are lots of discussions, where the border passes, what happens with security arrangement and whatever, but this was the big solution. Israel has basically abandoned the two-state solution. Maybe they don't say so officially, the people in power, but in terms of how they actually, what they do on the ground, they abandoned it. Now, they are effectively promoting the three-class, uh, solution, which means there is just one country and one government and one power between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River, but you have three classes of people living there. You have Jews who enjoy full rights, all the rights. Uh, uh, you have some Arabs who are Israeli citizens and have some rights, and then you have the other Arabs, the third class, who have basically no civil rights and limited human rights. And that, that's... Again, nobody would openly speak about it, but effectively, this is the reality on the ground already.

   30. LFLex Fridman1:24:42

       So there's many, and I'll speak with them, Palestinians who characterize this as a de facto one-state apartheid. Is it-
7. 1:28:17 – 1:45:07

   Peace in Ukraine

   1. YHYuval Noah Harari1:28:17

   2. LFLex Fridman1:28:18

      So if we apply those ideas, the ideas of this part of the world, to another part of the world that's currently in war, Russia and Ukraine-

   3. YHYuval Noah Harari1:28:28

      Mm-hmm.

   4. LFLex Fridman1:28:29

      ... from what you learned here, how do you think peace can be achieved in Ukraine?

   5. YHYuval Noah Harari1:28:35

      Oh. Peace can be achieved any moment. It's motivation. In this case it's just one person. You just, Putin just need to say, "That's it." You know, the Ukrainians, they don't demand anything from Russia, just go home. That's the only thing they want. They don't want to conquer any bit of Russian territory, they don't want to change the regime in Moscow, nothing. They just tell the Russians, "Go home." That's it. And, of course, again, motivation. How do you get somebody like Putin to admit that he made a colossal mistake, a human mistake, an ethical mistake, a political mistake, in, in starting this war? This is very, very difficult. But in, in terms of wha- what is the, what would the solution look like? Very simple. The Russians go home. End of, end of story.

   6. LFLex Fridman1:29:21

      Do you believe in the power of conversation between leaders to sit down as human beings and agree?

   7. YHYuval Noah Harari1:29:31

      Uh-

   8. LFLex Fridman1:29:31

      First of all, what home means. Because we humans draw lines.

   9. YHYuval Noah Harari1:29:37

      That's true. I believe in the power of conversation. The big question to ask is where. Where do conversations, real conversations take place? And this is tricky. One of the interesting things to ask about any conflict, about any political system is where do the real conversations take place?

   10. LFLex Fridman1:29:56

       Mm-hmm.

   11. YHYuval Noah Harari1:29:56

       And very often they don't play, take place in the places you think th- that they are. But think about American politics. When the country was founded in the late 18th c- century, people understood holding conversation between leaders is very important for the functioning of democracy, we'll create a place for that, that's called Congress. This is where leaders are supposed to meet and talk about the main issues of the day. Maybe there was a time, sometime in the past, when this actually happened, when you had two f- f- f- f- f- factions holding different ideas about foreign policy or economic policy and they met in Congress and somebody would come and give a speech and the people on, on the other side would say, "Hey. That's interesting. I haven't thought about it. Yes. Maybe we can agree on that." This is no longer happening in Congress. Nobody... I don't think there is any speech in Congress that causes (laughs) anybody on the other side to change their opinion about anything. So this is no longer a place where real conversations take place. The big question about American democracy-... is, is there a place-

   12. LFLex Fridman1:31:10

       Mm-hmm.

   13. YHYuval Noah Harari1:31:10

       ... where con- real conversations which actually change people's minds still take place? If not, then this democracy is dying also. Democracy without conversation cannot exist for long. And it's the same question you should ask also about, uh, dictatorial regimes. Like you think about Russia or China. So China has the Great Hall of the People, eh, where the representatives, the supposed representative of the people meet every now and then, but no real conversation takes place there. A key question to ask about the Chinese system is, behind closed doors, let's say in a politburo meeting, do people have a real conversation? If Xi Jinping says one thing and some other big shot thinks differently, will they have the courage, the ability, the backbone to say, "With all due respect, I think differently"? And there is a real conversation. Or not? I don't know the answer. But this is a key question. This is the difference, you know, between a, a, a, a, an authoritarian regime can still have different voices within it.

   14. LFLex Fridman1:32:18

       Mm-hmm.

   15. YHYuval Noah Harari1:32:19

       But at a certain point, you have a personality cult. Nobody dares say anything against the leader. And when it comes again to Ukraine and Russia, I don't think that if you get, uh, if you somehow manage to get Putin and Zelensky to the same room when everybody knows that they are there and they, they, they'll, they'll have a moment of, of empathy or human connection and they'll have... No. I, I don't think it can happen like that. I do hope that there are other spaces where somebody like Putin can still have a real human conversation. I don't know if this is the case. I, I hope so.

   16. LFLex Fridman1:33:00

       W- well, there's several interesting dynamics, and you spoke to some of them. So one is internally with advisors. Y- you have to have hope that th- there's people that would disagree, that would, uh, have a lively debate internally. Then there's also, uh, the thing you mentioned, which is direct communication between Putin and Zelensky in private.

   17. YHYuval Noah Harari1:33:19

       Mm-hmm.

   18. LFLex Fridman1:33:19

       Picking up a phone. Rotary phone, old school. That's, I, I still believe in the power of that. But what's, uh, while that's exceptionally difficult in the current state of affairs, what's also possible to have is a mediator like the United States or some other leader-

   19. YHYuval Noah Harari1:33:36

       Yeah.

   20. LFLex Fridman1:33:36

       ... uh, like, like the leader of Israel or the leader of another nation that's respected, uh, by both, or India, for example, that can have, first of all, individual conversations and then literally get into a room together.

   21. YHYuval Noah Harari1:33:51

       I- it is possible. I, I, I would say more generally about conversations is... And it goes back a little to what I said earlier about the Marxist view of history. Um, one of the problematic things I see today in, in, in many academic circles is that people focus too much on power. They think that the whole of history or the whole of politics is just a, a power structure, it's just struggle about power. Now, if you think that the whole of history and the whole of politics is only power, then there is no room for conversation. Because if what you have is a struggle between different powerful interests, there is no point talking. The only thing that changes it is, is, is fighting. Um, my view is that, no, it's not all about power structures. It's not all about power dynamics. Underneath the power structure, there are stories, stories in human minds. And this is great news. If it's true-

Episode duration: 2:44:47