Yuval Noah Harari - Are Humans Superior to Other Life forms?

The philosophical concept of 'free will' is confused and counterproductive; what matters instead is investigating the extent to which one's decisions are the result of propaganda, cultural influences, and biological processes, and recognizing that freedom must be struggled for through awareness of these influences.

“there's this this this whole confusion about the the notion of free will. For me, the problem with the notion of of free will that it actually reduces, not just agency, it reduces curiosity about uh, how we decide things, how we do things. If you believe that your decisions are just the outcome of free will, there is nothing to investigate.”

Religious origin stories (like Adam and Eve, the Garden of Eden, Noah's flood) and the biblical narrative that God created humans as superior to all other animals and commanded humans to rule and exploit ecosystems directly contributed to the contemporary ecological catastrophe.

“the message kids get is from from these kind of biblical stories is that it's all about us. And and this links directly to the ecological catastrophe that we are facing because, I mean, what led to it is this impression that the entire ecosystem is just there for us. It's just there for us to exploit and and and and and whatever.”

Money is a fictional story existing only in human imagination, not a physical object like food, and understanding that money is a collective fiction is crucial for changing economic systems that drive ecological destruction.

“the biggest stories the best storytellers today in the world are not the people who win the Nobel Prize in literature. It's the people who win the Nobel Prize in economics...The one story like everybody believes is the story of money. Which money is just it's it's just a fiction in our imagination. It's not something that's you know, it's not like a banana or a coconut you can eat drink or whatever. It's just a story we tell ourselves. We are the only animal aware of its existence. You know, chimpanzees know that there are bananas in the world. They don't know that there is money. Because money exists only in the imagination of of Homo sapiens.”

Stories are almost never neutral; they always serve particular interests, and surveillance capitalism (as described by Shoshana Zuboff) is not a random development but an insidious fiction designed to concentrate power.

“No, absolutely. I mean, stories are almost never neutral. And again, one thing to emphasize is agency. It's not a prophecy, it's not deterministic, we can still stop it by taking the right political actions.”

Victor Orbán and similar populist leaders claim the danger to European civilization comes from mixed families involving people from Africa or Asia, but such rhetoric is scientifically absurd because every European, including Orbán, would find upon DNA testing that they have both African and Asian ancestors as well as Neanderthal ancestors.

“you have people like I don't know, Victor Orban giving a speech what what was it like 3 weeks ago, 4 weeks ago about how the danger to European civilization of mixed families, of people coming from God forbid Africa or Asia and having a family together with people from Europe. And you know, you go back in our history and forget about about sapiens from Africa and you have families with Neanderthal and a sapiens and it's all of us. If you if Victor Orban goes and and and does a DNA test, it's like 100% sure he will discover that he has ancestors not just from Africa or from Asia, he has Neanderthal ancestors.”

Marginalized sexual minorities face a unique problem: unlike ethnic or religious minorities who are typically raised in families and communities of their own kind, gay people are rarely raised in gay families or neighborhoods, making isolation the defining experience—and the internet solved this problem by enabling connection across geography.

“There are two types of minorities in the world. There are minorities that, even though they are a minority in the general population, they are concentrated in one place. So, if you're a Jew, I don't know, in Britain, uh you're likely to be raised in a Jewish family. You know a lot of of other Jews. But if you're gay, you're unlikely to be raised in a gay family, in a gay neighborhood. So, how do you connect to other people? And the internet was a wonderful thing because it solved to a large extent this this this problem.”

War is not part of human evolutionary heritage and has no evidence in human DNA or nature; rather, war is a human invention that emerged only 13,000 years ago, and the first evidence of war between groups appears in that timeframe, not in earlier stone age history.

“you go back to the Stone Age, and the thing is, we don't have any evidence for war, for war between groups. We have evidence for small-scale violence, like one person hitting another person. But for war between groups, the first evidence we have is from 13,000 years ago, which is nothing in evolutionary terms. So, all these arguments that war is part of human evolution, or it's in our DNA, we've no evidence for that.”

Wars, genocide, and racism are not inevitable laws of nature or deterministic outcomes, but rather the result of human decisions, mythology, and beliefs—and since humans created them, humans can create different decisions and better worlds.

“the key message, which is the key message of the entire book, is the message of of agency. That yes, there are horrors uh happening in the world, but they are not inevitable. They are not deterministic. People shape the world. If there are things like wars, like genocide, it's not because these are the laws of nature, it's because these are the decisions people make.”

The most important idea in all of Harari's books is the enormous power of fictional stories that humans believe, which is more powerful than economic relations, genetics, or evolution in shaping history, and the crucial feature of stories is that they can be changed very quickly, unlike DNA or physical laws.

“the most important idea in Sapiens, really in all my books, is the enormous power of stories, of the stories human believe. That it's not about economic power relations. It's not about uh genetics and evolution. Yes, the these things are also uh uh influential, but ultimately, the stories that people invent and believe are maybe the most powerful force in history. And the thing about stories is that you can change them. And you can change them very, very quickly. Changing our DNA, that's very difficult. Right. Changing the laws of physics, that's that's that's impossible. But changing the stories we believe, people do it all the time, extremely quickly.”

The real danger to privacy and autonomy is not brain-implant chips (which are science fiction), but smartphones, which provide access to far more data than brain chips could ever capture because smartphones track location, browsing habits, time spent on stories, and enable knowledge of someone's political views and sexual orientation better than the person knows themselves.

“The real danger is not the chips in the brains, it's your smartphones. I mean, part of the reason that people are attracted to the kind of conspiracy theory about chips in the brain is because it in a strange way it makes them feel safe. Cuz I haven't been implanted yet with chips in my brains, so I'm safe. And you don't understand, it's not the chips that endanger your privacy, it's your smartphone.”

Not everything is a story; there is truth and there are facts, and Harari tries to base his writing on scientific facts, but a key question to ask about any story is whether its heroes are real or fictional—can they suffer?

“what about the story that you're you're telling? That you This is a a a line in all of your work, that that the power of the stories that humans tell themselves about themselves. But, are the new stories that are being told by thinkers like you? Are they any better than the old ones? I hope so. I mean, a key thing is not everything is a story, not everything is There is truth. There are facts. I try to base my writing on scientific facts.”

The story of Homo sapiens meeting Neanderthals serves as a bridge demonstrating that humans are animals like other animals, not separated from them by an unbridgeable chasm, and this recognition of human animality is profound and explosive in its implications for contemporary identity politics.

“it makes it very concrete that we are just animals. And it's such um simple idea, but also such an explosive idea to understand, you know, we are used to thinking about ourselves as being very distant from the other animals. Like we are on the one side of a huge chasm and all these other animals, all the elephants and chimpanzees and whatever on the other side. Uh but Neanderthals are the bridge in between.”

The Anthropocene moment—when humans are destabilizing the entire ecological system and pushing species to extinction—is precisely the time to emphasize rather than downplay human power and agency, because downplaying human power implies that ecological destruction is not our fault and we cannot change it.

“I think especially at this point in history, when we are destabilizing the entire ecological system, and we are pushing so many other species to extinction, we should take responsibility. It's This is not a time to downplay our power and our agency because this implies that hey, whatever is happening in the world, it's not our fault and we can't do anything about it. No, much of what is happening in the world in ecological terms, is definitely our fault. It's the fault of the particular stories that we tell ourselves. Uh and and and we we can still change it.”

Algorithms represent an alien form of intelligence fundamentally different from human intelligence, demonstrated by the fact that when people request explanations from algorithms (as in GDPR compliance), they encounter a type of rationality that humans cannot understand because algorithms make decisions by aggregating thousands of data points, not the few data points humans can hold in mind.

“the algorithms, they're not necessarily bad...the key thing about them they are alien. It's really a type of alien intelligence.”

Surveillance systems that go only one way (corporations and government know more about individuals, but individuals know less about them) lead inevitably to totalitarianism, but if surveillance is bidirectional—individuals simultaneously monitor government corruption and corporate tax compliance—then balance is preserved and freedom and accountability are maintained within democracy.

“whenever you increase surveillance of individuals, you must simultaneously increase surveillance of the government and the big corporations. If surveillance goes only one way, they know more about me, but I don't know more about them, this is the high road to totalitarianism. But, it doesn't have to be like that. We can simultaneously use the same technology to monitor the actions, you know, you can you can monitor government corruption much more easily using the same technology. You can monitor I want to know whether the big corporations are paying their taxes or not. And use the technology to find out more about that. And if you have this kind of balance, it's not just top-down, it's not just they know more about us, but simultaneously we know more about them, then you have a more balanced system and this preserves a certain measure of of freedom and accountability and the democratic system.”

Following the pandemic, global violence has escalated, with Russia breaking the post-1945 international taboo against destroying countries by force, tensions rising around Taiwan, and world war becoming possible for the first time in many years—though not inevitable or deterministic.

“the pandemic is not even over, and we see this wave of violence sweeping over the world. Uh uh the Russian invasion of Ukraine basically kind of breaking the biggest taboo of the international system since 1945.”

Scientific origin stories about human evolution and Homo sapiens should be taught to children before or instead of mythological origin stories like Genesis and Noah's flood, because once a mythological origin story is absorbed and emotionally attached to, it is extremely difficult to unlearn.

“if you learn an origin story, like you sometimes we we say, 'Oh, they're just kids. Let them learn these mythologies and when they grow up, then they can learn science.' And it's wrong because then you it's so difficult to unlearn a story that you're already absorbed, that you're already attached to. So the idea of Unstoppable Us is really to be a kind of scientific origin story uh for for for the people of the 21st century.”

We are living inside the dreams of dead people: people hundreds or thousands of years ago invented stories and mythologies that people today still believe in strongly, and these inherited beliefs shape the current world.

“we are basically living inside the dreams of dead people. You know, people hundreds of years ago, sometimes thousands of years ago invented all kinds of stories, mythologies, dreams. And people today still believe very strongly in these stories, and this is what shapes the world.”

Illustrations in the book required concrete visual decisions (such as depicting the skin color and appearance of Homo sapiens–Neanderthal hybrid children) that forced research into external appearance and confronted contemporary political and social implications, whereas text alone permitted abstraction and avoidance.

“When you come to actually describe this kind of kid who has sapiens mother and a Neanderthal father, but what is it like? One question is how do they look like? How how do they look like? And let's what what's their skin color? Which you know is a very explosive question in in in in in today's environment. When you just write text if you're not sure or you're afraid of dealing with this question, you just avoid it...But in illustration, you have no option.”

War is asymmetrical: making peace requires agreement from many people, but making war requires only that one side decide to fight, making war a contagious invention that spreads even among peaceful populations.

“Apparently, war is just a human invention. Some human cultures invented this thing of war. And the problem with war is that uh it's it's one-sided. You know, to make peace, you need a lot of people to agree. To make war, one person is enough. One side is enough. If uh uh uh if they decide to have war, you can't just say, 'But we don't agreed.' Nobody's asking you.”

History stands on the shoulders of biology; humans are animals, and history is built on biology—but humans are special animals capable of doing things other animals cannot, so history is not just biology but biology is the foundation.

“I see history as standing on the shoulders of biology. The most important thing to understand about history, first of all, is that humans are animals, that history is built on biology. It's not just biology, because we are very special animals. We can do things that other animals can't can't, but the foundation is biology.”

Children born as digital natives with all personal data collected digitally are not automatically resistant to algorithmic control because the resistance depends on understanding how algorithms work and making conscious decisions, not on generational familiarity with digital technology.

“I wonder whether they can have any resistance to that algorithmization of the world. Absolutely, because, you know, the algorithms, they're not necessarily bad. There are many, many good things they can also do for us.”

Humans are not necessarily smarter than other animals nor nicer than other animals, but more gullible—humans believe elaborate nonsense that no chimpanzee or dog would ever consider, and this capacity for fiction-belief is the source of human power because fiction is the basis for large-scale cooperation.

“I don't think that humans are necessarily smarter than other animals. They're certainly not nicer than other animals. And again, when you place that emphasis on on on on fictional stories, it's actually we are more gullible than other animals. We believe we know a lot more more more true facts than other animals, but we also believe far more nonsense than any animal on Earth. There are many things that we believe that no chimpanzee and no dog will ever consider believing cuz they're just too nonsensical, but we believe them. And that's the source of our power because fiction is the basis for for for for cooperation.”

Harari does not see himself as a prophet; prophecy assumes the future is predetermined, which would make prediction pointless. Instead, he tries to map different future possibilities and encourage people to choose wisely, because the future is not deterministic.

“definitely don't see myself as a prophet first and foremost because I think it's impossible to predict the future. I don't try to predict the future, I try to influence the future. You know, if you think the future is predetermined, what's the point of prophesizing it?”

Data should never be concentrated in a single location because centralized data is a path to totalitarianism; preventing totalitarianism requires regulatory enforcement that data remains distributed across multiple entities.

“never allow all the data to be concentrated in only one place. Again, this is the high road to totalitarianism. So, it doesn't have to be like that. You can through regulation uh make sure that the data is never concentrated just in one place.”

Understanding money as points in a computer game—where players are motivated by gaining or losing points—makes clear what money is and why people care about it, and this understanding is easier to convey to children because money is still unfamiliar to them rather than naturalized as adults experience it.

“ultimately, you can think about it you know, it's like points in a computer game. That uh how do you control people in a computer computer game? You give them points. You do this, you get points. You do this, you you lose points. And um money is just the points we invented for the game of life. You do this, you get points.”

History is not the study of the past but the study of change—how things change—and therefore the present and future are also part of history, making history relevant to contemporary life.

“ultimately I'm not a politician. I'm not an expert on the current international relations or military strategy...But ultimately uh history is about these things. I don't think that history is the study of the past. I think history is the study of change, of how things change. The present and the future are also part of history.”

COVID could be the last pandemic in history if politicians make the right decisions about building global warning systems and healthcare systems, but they are not doing so, making another, even worse pandemic likely in 5 to 20 years.

“Humanity is powerful enough. COVID could be the last pandemic in history. If politicians make the right decisions about building a global warning system and a global health care system. They are not doing it. So it's very likely we'll have another and even worse pandemic in 5 years or 10 years or 20 years.”

The extinction of Neanderthals is a big secret that people don't like to talk about, but it must be discussed with children as part of understanding human history.

“But you will also tell the story in this book of the extinction of the Neanderthals and it it strikes me that there are there are ideas that might be difficult or even traumatic for children to understand. You you say that's a big secret that people don't like to talk about the extinction of the Neanderthal and that's what you're going to talk about in this book.”