#readwise # 201 - A Conversation With Yuval Noah Harari ![rw-book-cover](https://assets.samharris.org/images/rss/making-sense-logo.png) ## Metadata - Author: [[Making Sense with Sam Harris - Subscriber Content]] - Full Title: 201 - A Conversation With Yuval Noah Harari - URL: https://www.airr.io/episode/622c6614bdf47e0010b3ef6b - Transcript: ![[201 - A Conversation with Yuval Noah Harari.txt]] ## Blurb In this episode of the podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Yuval Noah Harari about the Covid-19 pandemic and its future implications. They discuss the failures of global leadership, the widespread distrust of institutions, the benefits of nationalism and its current unraveling in the U.S., politics as a way of reconciling competing desires, the consequences of misinformation, the enduring respect for science, the future of surveillance, the changing role of religion, and other topics. Yuval Noah Harari has a PhD in History from the University of Oxford and lectures at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, specializing in world history. His books have been translated into 50+ languages, with 25+ million copies sold worldwide. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind looked deep into our past, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow considered far-future scenarios, and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century focuses on the biggest questions of the present moment. Website: https://www.ynharari.com/ Twitter: @harari_yuval Instagram: @yuval_noah_harari ## Highlights Cut from transcript but unverified. Not copied back into Readwise. - YH: Maybe the biggest problem has to do with the situation of the international system. We are seeing a complete lack of global leadership, a complete lack. There is no global plan of action, either to fight the epidemic itself, or to deal with the economic crisis. In previous cases like this in the last few decades, the United States has taken up the role of global leader. Whether it's in the Ebola epidemic of 2014-15, or whether it's in the global financial crisis of 2008. Now the U.S. is in kind of an anti-leadership position, trying to undermine the few organizations like the World Health Organization that are trying to organize some kind of global response. And this is not something new, this is a continuation of U.S. policy of the last few years. Basically I think in 2016 election, the United States came to the world and said, look, we resign from the job of global leader. We just don't want it anymore. From now onwards we care only about ourselves. America has no longer any friends in the world, it has only interests. And the whole thing of America first, now America is first in the number of dead people and sick people. And very few would follow American leadership, not only because of the record of the last few years, but also because the world has also lost faith in American competence. I mean, you look at the way that the United States is dealing with the epidemic at home, and you say 'maybe it's a good thing they are no longer leading the world.' And here is nobody to fill the vacuum left by the US. We do see some level of global cooperation, especially in the scientific field with the sharing of information and common effort to understand the epidemic, to understand the best ways to treat it, to isolate people, to develop a vaccine. So there is some hope there, but generally speaking the level of international cooperation is far far lower than would have been expected, or could have been hoped for. ([Time 0:06:14](https://www.airr.io/quote/6353cab68de0ff6735c31dc6)) - YH: This is a legacy of the changes not only in the US but all over the world in the last few years. We've seen the rise of extreme nationalism and isolationism and a whole discourse of telling people that there is an inherent contradiction between nationalism and globalism, between loyalty to your nation and global solidarity, and leaders, not only Trump but also Bolsonaro and in the right wing parties in Europe, telling people that of course you have to choose national loyalty and reject globalism. And now we are paying the price for it. The thing is that really there is no contradiction between nationalism and globalism, because nationalism is not about hating foreigners, it's about loving your compatriot. And there are many situations like a pandemic in which in order to really take care of your compatriots, you have to cooperate with foreigners. So there is no contradiction here. ([Time 0:07:10](https://www.airr.io/quote/6353cab68de0ff6735c31dd1)) - YH: Basically this is again a kind of of the payday for developments that began long before coronavirus internal divisions within countries. Whether it's in India, where you have all these conspiracy theories that Hindu extremists are blaming the epidemic on Muslims, saying that this is a Muslim conspiracy that you have coronavirus terrorists deliberately spreading the virus among Hindus. Or what you see in in the US and in several other countries, where there is just not enough trust in public authorities to have a common, consistent policy. You know in normal times acountry can function, or a government can function when only half the population believes it. You have a situation where you have a leader, half of the population says I would believe anything this person says. If he says that the sun rises in the West and sets in the east, I'll believe it, and you have the other half saying I won't believe a single word. This person is saying if he says that 2 + 2 = 4, I start doubting it. And as bad as it is, it can function for a while in kind of normal times, but in a pandemic you need the cooperation of 100% of the population. You can't deal with it with just 50%, so this makes it much, much more difficult to deal with this emergency. ([Time 0:10:03](https://www.airr.io/quote/6353cab68de0ff6735c31ddc)) - YH: I think that when people say the world, globalization or globalism, they mean so many different things. Some people think mainly about the economic implications and supply chains and having all these multinational corporations becoming far more powerful than nation states. And having 0 obligations to citizens in any country because they can just avoid paying taxes with all kinds of tricks and so forth. This is a kind of globalization that I personally, I'm not very fond of, and I think it's perfectly sensible for countries to try and have better control of their essential supplies. And certainly it's very important that big corporations would pay their taxes in the centres of their activities. And you know, I mean, you wouldn't be able to function without food systems and without police and without schools, so you definitely need to. Not everything is in the cloud, there are many things in the ground and you should pay for them. ([Time 0:13:08](https://www.airr.io/quote/6353cf7d8de0ff6735c3b57f)) - YH: For me when I think about globalism and globalization that the main thing is really about the sharing of information. The sharing of knowledge there having common values and common interests, and this can be separated from the economic issues. ([Time 0:14:09](https://www.airr.io/quote/6353cf7d8de0ff6735c3b5a5)) - YH: If you look at what's happening in a place like the United States, I really don't think this is a clash between nationalism and globalism. Really what's happening in the US and in Britain and in many, many other countries actually is the unraveling of nationalism itself. There is a lot of talk about the rise of nationalism in recent years, but as a historian I see really in a very different light. Usually the best sign that you are seeing an upsurge of nationalism is a lot of conflicts between nations like a century ago. The First World War, was an indication that nationalism is really on the rise when you look at the world of the last few years, you actually see few conflicts, certainly violent conflicts between countries. The main conflicts are actually within countries. What's unraveling is the kind of internal national community. I think it's fair to say that today Americans hate and fear each other far more than they hate and fear the Russians or the Chinese. The biggest fear is their neighbors or model their metaphorical neighbors. And this is not a sign of an upsurge of nationalism. If you look at that Brexit in the debate in Britain there, then the chances of the Brit of the Brits starting to come to blows within themselves I think are far higher than in war between Britain and France, so I wouldn't really talk about, uh, in absolute of nationalism. ([Time 0:15:01](https://www.airr.io/quote/6353cf7d8de0ff6735c3b5a1)) - YH: Nationalism has been one of humanity's best ideas or best inventions ever. Again, not if you think about it as hatred of foreigners, that's that's the extreme sort of nationalism, but it doesn't have to go in that direction. In essence, nationalism is really loving your compatriots and enabling millions of people who don't really know each other to cooperate and to take care of each other. We are social animals, but for hundreds of thousands of years, society meant a very small circle of people you actually know personally, intimately. You know their names, their personality, you meet them all the time. And this is kind of in our genes to care about a group of say 50 people or 150 people. Nations are a very, very recent emergence or invention in human evolution. Only the last few 1000 years, maybe 5000 years, maybe a bit more. And the remarkable thing about nations is that you cooperate and you care about millions of complete strangers. People that you have never met in your life, you will never meet them in your life, you don't know them, but still you are willing, for example to pay taxes, so that a stranger in a different part of the country would have health care, or would have good? education, and that's the the really good side of nationalism. I think we should cherish that and protect that again without falling into the trap that to be a good nationalist you should also hate the foreigners who are not part of our nation. No, in as I said, in many cases, to really take care of your compatriots, especially in the 21st century, you need to cooperate with the foreigners. Yeah, I think that's a great distinction and I share this concern about the breakdown of social cohesion, and especially in the United States, where I'm most in touch with it. ([Time 0:16:12](https://www.airr.io/quote/6353cf7d8de0ff6735c3b585)) - YH: The good news is that in this emergency we have seen a lot of trust in science and in scientific authorities, even from unexpected quarters. I mean, given the record of the recent years, we saw many attacks on science and unscientific institutions, it's really amazing for me to see that in this emergency, in most places most people they ultimately trust the scientific authority more than anything else. And you know the clearest case is for me or what's happening with religion in this crisis that you know in Israel, they close down the synagogues, they don't allow people to go to gather to pray in Iran. They shut down the mosques. The Pope is steering, the faithful to stay away from the churches, and all because the scientist said so. If you look at the Black Death and it was a completely different story back then. For a medievalist it's usually easy to be a bit optimistic about the present because our baseline is so low so you know, I look at the Black Death the 14th century, I look at the COVID-19 crisis and I say wait well we have made some progress in the last 500 years, not only in scientists. Being able to really understand the epidemic, but also in the trust that people have in this institution. When the Black Death spread the King of France asked the medical faculty of the University of Paris, the most prestigious university, to get your best minds on this and tell me what's happening. And they got the best minds of the Faculty of Medicine and the University of Paris, and they published as the report, and according to them, the problem was basically astrological, that as far as I remember, Saturn, Mars and Jupiter were in a particularly bad conjuncture, which has caused the corruption of the air on Earth, and this is what's causing the mortality of about between a third and half of the population. Now, there were people who disagreed in the University of Paris, and the minority report was that actually it was the fault of earthquake that released toxic gases from the bold of the earth and this is what is killing the people. And of course, you had the conspiracy theory of the day, which was that the Jews have poisoned the wealth, so you had a wave of pogroms against the Jewish communities all over Europe. I think we have made some progress since then. ([Time 0:32:14](https://www.airr.io/quote/6353cf7d8de0ff6735c3b59d)) - YH: Another very common to desire to people all over the world from all walks of life is to be right, that is very important for people to be correct in their fundamental beliefs in life. It's very, very difficult to admit that you're wrong. People would do terrible things to others and to themselves, just not to admit that I've made a mistake. Especially when it comes to the deep stories that give meaning to life, our mind is a factory creating stories that give meaning to life, and for many people, the worst thing that can happen to you ever is to find out that the story that you created or that somebody else created and and you have adopted, and for years this has been the bedrock of how you understand your life and this is what gives meaning to life. To admit that this story is fictional, it's it's full of errors it's full of mistakes many people would prefer to die than to do that and would prefer to drink bleach than to do that. And that's also very, very deep in the human psyche, in human in human nature, in human history. And there are so many examples of the terrible things that people would do just to prevent admitting that they made a mistake. So in this sense I'm it's not so surprising what's happening. And again, the situation compared to the Middle Ages. Even here we've made substantial progress in our ability, and willingness to put these stories to the test. ([Time 0:35:23](https://www.airr.io/quote/6353cf7d8de0ff6735c3b5b8)) - YH: This crisis gives us a lot of choices to make difficult choices, but also opportunities to change the way the society is built. And it all depends on the decisions on the political decisions that we take. We will take in the next 12 months as you say, and which is why my basic understanding of the COVID-19 crisis. It's not a healthcare crisis it's above all a political crisis. We can deal with the virus again, we have the scientific knowledge and the technological tools overcome the epidemic itself. The real problems are in the realms of economics and politics, and here nothing is inevitable. It's all a matter of political choices, so I hope that people and the media would focus. It's less on the you know the latest statistics about the number of sick people or the number of ventilators in the hospitals and focus more on the political decisions. For example, governments are distributing enormous amounts of money, and it's a very big question. Who gets what? Is this money being used to save failing corporations because of their mistakes which were made long before this epidemic? Is it being used to finance enterprises, whose managers and owners are friends with this minister or that minister, is it used to save small private businesses, restaurants, travel agents? That's a political choice that we need to supervise very very closely and we have to do it now. I mean people are so overwhelmed by this crisis, but in this situation, of course people who have tunnel vision have an immense advantage if the only thing you care about in life is getting more power or getting more money, this is a perfect opportunity for you. Whereas many other people are confused and uncertain because they are honestly looking for a way to come out of the crisis, improve the situation of the population, solve the economic difficulties if the only thing you focus on is getting another billion dollars, this is a very easy time to do it. ([Time 0:38:56](https://www.airr.io/quote/6353cf7d8de0ff6735c3b56d)) - YH: If we start with death and its connection to religion, then you know for most of history, certainly in my favorite period of The Middle Ages, death was omnipresent and the basic attitude to death was kind of learned helplessness or resignation that God decides when and why we die. And we humans have very little ability to outsmart death or to postpone death. That's in a world where you know at least 1/3 of children never made it to adulthood because of childhood diseases or malnutrition, and in which when an epidemic like the Black Death came along, nobody had any real idea what was happening, what was killing people, and what could be done about it, so death was extremely important to people. It was really the main source of meaning in life was death. The most important event in your life which gave meaning to everything you experience happened after you died, only after you died you were either saved or damned only after you died, where you really understood what this was all about. So basically, in a world without death, there is no heaven, there is no hell, there is no reincarnation, so religions like Christianity, Islam and Hinduism and so forth just make absolutely no sense. And what happened over the last few few centuries is really amazing in the way that our attitude to death has changed and this is to a large extent the result of the scientific revolution. When science came along and especially the Medical Sciences and started to really understand why people die. What is causing epidemics what is causing infectious diseases and so forth and human life expectancy jumped by, you know, from under 40 to over 80 in the developed world today, two things happened. First of all, death became a far less important part of the meaning of life, at least for many people and for many ideology no longer comes from what happens to us after we die. If you look at most modern ideologies, they have completely lost interest in what happens to us after we die. I mean, if you ask yourself what happens to a communist after he or she dies. Or what happens to a feminist after he or she dies? I mean, nobody even talks about it. It's no longer so important and our basic attitude now is that death is increasingly just a technical problem. If people die, it's because not of divine will, and not because of some the forces of nature. It's because of human failure. If humans die in some accident then we search who to blame or who to sue. Because obviously somebody made a mistake and you see it now with this pandemic. I mean, it's our attitude more in most of the world, is very different from the Black Death. We don't raise our hands to God and implore him to do something. And tell ourselves that this might be a punishment from God from our misdeeds. No, we assume that humans have the power to overcome this to contain epidemics. And if we still have an epidemic, it's because somebody made a mistake. Somebody screwed up big time if you compare. I don't know the situation in New Zealand to the situation in EU, you don't tell yourself, well, this is probably an indication that God loves the New Zealanders and wants to punish the Americans, no, we say that there was a difference in the policies of the different governments. And if the situation in the US is really bad, then somebody made a mistake and the only question is who. So in our basic attitudes, which we now seen in in this epidemic, we've shifted from resignation to a mixture of anger and hope. If somebody dies, we are angry, because we assume it's some kind of human mistake. And also we have hope that as in the case of this epidemic, everybody is hoping for the vaccine and everybody is asking when the vaccine will be ready, not if the vaccine will be ready. ([Time 0:55:37](https://www.airr.io/quote/6353cf7d8de0ff6735c3b575))