The End of the New Peace

   Date: 14‑12‑2022

Source: The Atlantic By Yuval Noah Harari

Vladimir Putin is pushing humanity toward an era of war that might be worse than anything we have seen before. It could threaten the very survival of our species.

Mother and son holding hands, walking past Soviet tanks

A few years ago, I published a book called 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, and dedicated one of the chapters to the future of war. Subtitled “Never underestimate human stupidity,” this chapter argued that the first decades of the 21st century had been the most peaceful era in human history, and that waging war no longer made much economic or geopolitical sense. But these facts did not absolutely guarantee peace, because “human stupidity is one of the most important forces in history” and “even rational leaders frequently end up doing very stupid things.”

‘Never underestimate human stupidity,’ says historian

Date: 08‑03‑2022

Source: CNBC Yuval Harari

(whose fans include Bill Gates and Barack Obama)

Historian Yuval Harari says the study of the past has taught him an important lesson for the future.

“One things that history teaches us is that we should never underestimate human stupidity,” said Harari, a professor at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and author of books that have been recommended by the likes of Microsoft co‑founder Bill Gates and former U.S. President Barack Obama.

“It’s one of the most powerful forces in the world,” he added.

Speaking with CNBC’s Martin Soong, Harari expressed concern about the ability of populist leaders — a group he described as “selling people nostalgic fantasies about the past instead of real visions for the future” — to solve today’s biggest global problems.

Why Vladimir Putin has already lost this war

Date: 28‑02‑2022

Source: The Guardian by Yuval Noah Harari

The Russians may yet conquer Ukraine. But Ukrainians have shown in the past few days that they will not let them hold it

Weapons training near Kharkiv on Sunday: ‘The last few days have proved that Ukrainians definitely don’t want to live under a new Russian empire.’

Less than a week into the war, it seems increasingly likely that Vladimir Putin is heading towards a historic defeat. He may win all the battles but lose the war. Putin’s dream of rebuilding the Russian empire has always rested on the idea that Ukraine isn’t a real nation, that Ukrainians aren’t a real people, and that the inhabitants of Kyiv, Kharkiv and Lviv yearn for Moscow’s rule. The Russian despot has told this lie so many times that he apparently believes it himself.

When planning the invasion of Ukraine, Putin could count on many known facts. He knew that militarily Russia dwarfs Ukraine. He knew that Nato would not send troops to help Ukraine. He knew that European dependence on Russian oil and gas would make countries like Germany hesitate about imposing stiff sanctions. Based on these known facts, his plan was to hit Ukraine hard and fast, decapitate its government, establish a puppet regime in Kyiv, and ride out the impotent rage of western sanctions.

A new chapter in the evolution of Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens

Date: 09‑11‑2020

Source: The Observer Killian Fox

Yuval Noah Harari, drawn by Daniel Casanave for Sapiens: A Graphic History.

When it was first suggested to Yuval Noah Harari that he appear as a character in the illustrated version of Sapiens, his mega‑bestselling “brief history of humankind”, which is about to be published in a graphic version, he did not jump at the idea. “I vetoed it,” he says over the phone from his home outside Tel Aviv. “I try to keep myself mostly outside my books.”

Sapiens covers the broad arc of our species’ story, from the emergence of human cultures in Africa 70,000 years ago to our hyper‑connected present, in 500 pages. It has been one of the most spectacular publishing successes of the past decade, selling more than 10m copies since it was translated into English in 2014, and its enormous popularity has turned a little‑known Israeli history professor into one of the most influential public intellectuals on the planet.

Yuval Noah Harari: ‚Will coronavirus change our attitudes to death?

Date: 26‑04‑2020

Source: The Guardian Yuval Noah Harari

Quite the opposite‘

Will the coronavirus pandemic return us to more traditional and accepting, attitudes towards dying – or reinforce our attempts to prolong life?

The modern world has been shaped by the belief that humans can outsmart and defeat death. That was a revolutionary new attitude. For most of history, humans meekly submitted to death. Up to the late modern age, most religions and ideologies saw death not only as our inevitable fate, but as the main source of meaning in life. The most important events of human existence happened after you exhaled your last breath. Only then did you come to learn the true secrets of life. Only then did you gain eternal salvation, or suffer everlasting damnation. In a world without death – and therefore without heaven, hell or reincarnation – religions such as Christianity, Islam and Hinduism would have made no sense. For most of history the best human minds were busy giving meaning to death, not trying to defeat it.

Who Will Win the Race for AI?

Date: 23-01-2019
Source: Foreign Policy BY YUVAL NOAH HARARI

China and the United States are leading the pack—and the laggards face grave dangers.

The race to develop artificial intelligence (AI) is gathering momentum, and as the United States and China pull ahead, other countries, especially in the developing world, are lagging far behind. If they don’t catch up, their economic and political prospects will be grim.

For those countries at the back of the pack, the economic challenges will be hard enough: In an automated world, there will be far less demand for the unskilled labor they’ve typically provided. But the political dangers will be equally daunting. AI already makes it possible to hack human beings—to collect data about individuals and then use it to decipher, predict, and manipulate their desires. For example, reporting by a number of newspapers revealed that Cambridge Analytica had done just that with American voters’ Facebook data.

All countries, regardless of whether they are tech superpowers or not, will feel the effects of the AI revolution. But there’s an added challenge for those left behind in the race. To hack humans, governments and corporations need access to enormous amounts of information about real-life human behavior, which makes data perhaps the most important resource in the world. But most of the world’s data is mined by the United States, China, and companies based there.

Tech C.E.O.s Are in Love With Their Principal Doomsayer

Date: 10-11-2018
Source: The New York Times By Nellie Bowles

The futurist philosopher Yuval Noah Harari thinks Silicon Valley is an engine of dystopian ruin. So why do the digital elite adore him so?

The futurist philosopher Yuval Noah Harari worries about a lot.

He worries that Silicon Valley is undermining democracy and ushering in a dystopian hellscape in which voting is obsolete.

He worries that by creating powerful influence machines to control billions of minds, the big tech companies are destroying the idea of a sovereign individual with free will.

He worries that because the technological revolution’s work requires so few laborers, Silicon Valley is creating a tiny ruling class and a teeming, furious “useless class.”

But lately, Mr. Harari is anxious about something much more personal. If this is his harrowing warning, then why do Silicon Valley C.E.O.s love him so?

“One possibility is that my message is not threatening to them, and so they embrace it?” a puzzled Mr. Harari said one afternoon in October. “For me, that’s more worrying. Maybe I’m missing something?”

Historian Yuval Noah Harari on the Robot Revolution

Date: 27-09-2018
Source: The Wall Street Journal

The author of ‘Sapiens’ sees a future in which machines make better doctors, AI aids dictatorships and surveillance has a silver lining

Historian Yuval Noah Harari on the Robot Revolution

Science fiction is full of artificial intelligence that gains consciousness and wreaks destruction on humankind. In reality, the threat is less dramatic but just as scary, according to historian Yuval Noah Harari, who predicts upheaval in the workforce, global governments and our emotional lives.

Harari gained a global fan base after the 2011 release of “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind,” a bestseller that questioned conventional wisdom on the evolution of the species. He followed that up in 2017 with “Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow.” In “21 Lessons for the 21st Century,” published in September, the Israeli scholar offers advice on tackling the most pressing issues of tomorrow, from information technology to terrorism.

Harari, age 43, recently spoke to The Future of Everything about potential winners and losers in the automation revolution, how AI could help dictatorships outpace democracies, and the rise of machines more sympathetic than humans.

Most Jobs Will Not Be Worth Saving

Yuval Noah Harari: the myth of freedom

Date: 16-09-2018
Source: The Guardian by Yuval Noah Harari

Governments and corporations will soon know you better than you know yourself.

Belief in the idea of ‘free will’ has become dangerous

Main image: Future proof … to survive, we must accept that humans are hackable animals.

Should scholars serve the truth, even at the cost of social harmony? Should you expose a fiction even if that fiction sustains the social order? In writing my latest book, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, I had to struggle with this dilemma with regard to liberalism.

On the one hand, I believe that the liberal story is flawed, that it does not tell the truth about humanity, and that in order to survive and flourish in the 21st century we need to go beyond it. On the other hand, at present the liberal story is still fundamental to the functioning of the global order. What’s more, liberalism is now attacked by religious and nationalist fanatics who believe in nostalgic fantasies that are far more dangerous and harmful.

So should I speak my mind openly, risking that my words could be taken out of context and used by demagogues and autocrats to further attack the liberal order? Or should I censor myself? It is a mark of illiberal regimes that they make free speech more difficult even outside their borders. Due to the spread of such regimes, it is becoming increasingly dangerous to think critically about the future of our species.

Big data is reshaping humanity, says Yuval Noah Harari

Date: 30-08-2018
Source: The Economist

Uneven and easy to mock, his new book contains provocative and profound ideas

21 Lessons for the 21st Century. By Yuval Noah Harari.Spiegel & Grau; 372 pages; $28. Jonathan Cape; £18.99.

YUVAL NOAH HARARI may be the first global public intellectual to be native to the 21st century. Where other authors are carpetbaggers, hauling their 20th-century thinking into the new millennium, Mr Harari is its local boy done good. He comes with all the accoutrements of the modern pop thinker: a posh education (Oxford, followed by a teaching gig at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem), two bestsellers and the obligatory TED talk. He even meditates for two hours a day.

And he is armed with a big idea: that human beings will change more in the next hundred years than they have in all of their previous existence. The combination of biotechnology and artificial intelligence (AI) may enable some people to be digitally enhanced, transforming what being human means. As this happens, concepts of life, consciousness, society, laws and morality will need to be revised.

The ballast for these views was laid down in Mr Harari’s earlier books. In “Sapiens” he argued that what made humans special was their ability to organise on a large scale around shared beliefs, such as religion, nationalism or capitalism. In “Homo Deus” he looked at how humans may meld with technology, and what this means for inequality. He foresaw a world divided between biologically and digitally enhanced “gods” and the “useless”, who lack the cash for an upgrade.