Yuval Noah Harari: Free Speech, Institutional Distrust, & Social Order | Making Sense #386
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Sam Harris speaks with Yuval Noah Harari about his new book, “Nexus,” and its application to current crises. They discuss humanity’s capacity for self-destruction, democracy and dictatorship as information networks, the “naive view of information,” the advantages of fiction over truth, trust in institutions, self-correction in a democracy, truth vs. power, truth vs. order, the suicide of conservatism, fixing social media, algorithms as editorial choices, efficiency vs. inefficiency, threats to democracy, the authoritarian character of Trump’s candidacy, the need for patriotism and nationalism, Israeli politics, the peaceful transfer of power, Putin and the war in Ukraine, the vulnerability of world order, the killing of Hassan Nasrallah, antisemitism and anti-colonialism, religious fanaticism among Israelis, the status of Arabs in Israeli society, biblical and post-biblical Judaism, whether a wider war in the Middle East is necessary, the danger of spirituality without ethics, and other topics.
Yuval Noah Harari is a historian, philosopher, and the bestselling author of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, the series Sapiens: A Graphic History and Unstoppable Us, and, most recently, Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI. His books have sold over 45 million copies in 65 languages, and he is considered one of the world’s most influential public intellectuals today.
Website: https://www.ynharari.com/
Twitter: @harari_yuval
00:00 Introduction 01:12 Nexus 05:45 Why Having Too Much Information Can Be Dangerous 11:31 Loss of Trust in Institutions 17:53 The Importance of Fiction 24:43 The Ten Commandments vs. The U.S. Constitution 29:28 The Suicide of Conservative Parties 31:31 Free Speech on Social Media 39:21 Democratic Debate 41:41 The 2024 Presidential Election
October 7, 2024
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Harari argues that the core problem facing humanity is not flawed human nature but corrupted information networks; democracies and dictatorships represent different information architectures, and the spread of unmediated misinformation through algorithms and the destruction of institutional trust create conditions for authoritarianism.
- Truth is costly and complicated while fiction is cheap and simple, so unfiltered information markets favor fiction unless institutions actively protect truth
- Democratic systems distribute information flows across multiple centers while dictatorships concentrate them, making the information topology itself the key distinction
- Destroying trust in truth-producing institutions (courts, universities, media) without replacing them with alternatives clears the path for dictatorship, as terror becomes the only mechanism to hold society together
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The belief that 'sunlight is the best disinfectant' and that removing all friction from information flow will naturally allow truth to rise is fundamentally naive and disconnected from historical reality: truth sinks to the bottom while false information rises because fiction is cheap and simple while truth is costly and difficult to produce.
“you think that you flood the world with information and the truth will just rise to the surface it won't it will sink to the bottom information isn't truth most information is junk um it's like thinking that more food is always good for you the more you eat the more healthy you will be that's the same thing”
Humans have reached extraordinary intellectual and technical achievements—reaching the moon, splitting the atom, deciphering DNA—yet simultaneously pursue courses of action that could lead to ecological catastrophe, nuclear war, uncontrolled AI, and self-destruction, demonstrating a profound gap between intellectual capacity and wisdom.
“we've reached the moon and we split the atom and we can decipher DNA but um we are on the verge of destroying ourselves in so many different ways it could be ecological catastrophe it could be a World War a nuclear war uh we are producing uh the most powerful techn ology in history AI which might quite easily get out of our control and enslave or or destroy us and we know all that and yet we keep doing it”
The Ten Commandments and the US Constitution represent two fundamentally different approaches to foundational texts: the Ten Commandments claim to be written by God and therefore contain no self-correction mechanism, while the US Constitution explicitly acknowledges human authorship ('We the People') and includes an amendment process for correcting mistakes.
“I have a preference both are fictional in the sense that they came out of the human imagination but one text refuses to acknowledge this reality and the other text is fully honest about it so the Ten Commandments they start with I am your lord God this text it claims to be written by God Not By Any Human which is why it contains no mechanism for correcting its errors”
Even money—the dollar—is a fiction (purely imaginary value without objective backing), yet it is valuable; it's one of the last stories that holds American society together, though even this is under attack from cryptocurrencies and other alternative systems.
“it's very hard to create large scale societies without any fictions even money is a fiction even you know think about what is the last thing that still holds American society together what is the last thing that Republicans and Democrats still agree on it's the dollar and even this is under attack you know from cryptocurrencies and so forth but almost the last story that still holds the place together is that everybody agrees on the value of a dollar which is just a fiction”
Attacks on truth-producing institutions are often framed as liberation from elitist control, but destroying institutional trust without replacing it with alternatives necessarily paves the way for dictatorship, because the only remaining mechanism to hold society together becomes terror.
“when people attack these institutions they often they often claim that they are liberating people from the Yoke of these Elite institutions and conspiracy and so forth but but no when you destroy all trust in these institutions you're Paving the way for dictatorship if uh Society needs institutions and uh democracy works on trust but if you destroy all trust the only alternative left to hold Society together is with Terror which is what dictatorships do”
The solution to institutional corruption is not to lose all trust in institutions; it is to have several institutions to keep each other in check and every institution should have self-correcting mechanisms to identify and correct its own mistakes.
“so let's take let's stay at the 30,000 foot level the experts in many institutions have heaped shame upon their own heads in recent years but the reaction is not to destroy the institutions I mean this is why we need two things first of all we need several institutions not just one so they keep each other in check”
Fictions are not intrinsically bad and can be enormously valuable for society—including money, constitutions, and shared beliefs—provided societies acknowledge them as human conventions rather than objective truths; this acknowledgment enables self-correction mechanisms.
“fictions are I just sorry I just want to drill down on this a little bit because I think I think we hit this in a previous conversation there's something a little confusing about your use of the word fiction here because fiction in in any kind of context where we're talking about the truth sounds intrinsically portive right so like this is f there's truth and there's Fiction it's notor you're talking about conventions so something that's conventionally conr comes out of the human imagination and not from reality I mean the value of the dollar is purely an imaginary reality exactly...so is is everything just a conspiracy is everything just a fiction and the key thing is that fictions can be extremely valuable and positive provided you acknowledge they are fictions”
While it is important to acknowledge fictions and conventions as human-made rather than natural, this acknowledgment does not mean they should be constantly rethought or revised; there is an inherent conservatism in maintaining social conventions once established, as demonstrated by driving on the same side of the road.
“but there's something intrinsically conservative about this picture because it's admitting that something is a fiction or or a convention is not to say that you should um want to revise it impetuously right absolutely it's very good that that very few people try to rethink the convention about whether to drive on the left side or the right side of the Road on a daily basis right because you we it's an arbitrary decision it's clearly arbitrary but it's it's crucially important that we all once we've decided that we not keep rethinking it”
Scientists and engineers often naively believe they will control the decisions about how their technologies are deployed, but historically and predictably, once powerful technologies are created, political and ideological authorities seize control over their deployment, not their creators.
“scientists and and and you know uh Engineers don't understand that they work I don't know on AI and they think that the scientists and the engineers will decide what to do with it but no once you produce this very powerful technology because you know the facts about the world then you will get the uh uh people who are expert in mythology and theology coming in and telling you you thank you very much for producing this very powerful technology now we will decide what to do with it”
As a historian, Harari tends to be conservative in the deep Burkean sense; he notes that recently, all over the world, conservative parties have abandoned conservative values and become revolutionary parties, like the Republican party today which says institutions are rotten and must be destroyed.
“and it's also on on the populist right and you know as a historian I tend to be conservative in in the Deep sense of the word in the Buran sense of the word I mean what you saw recently all over the world is the suicide of conservative parties that they abandoned the conservative values and became revolutionary parties like the Republican party today in the United States is a re is a revolutionary party revolutionary in the yeah no not just that it says that you know all the institutions are rotten they cannot be reformed we just need to destroy all of it and start again”
Regarding social media reform, corporations running algorithmic platforms should be held legally liable for the editorial decisions made by their algorithms, similar to how traditional newspapers are liable for their editorial decisions.
“I mean one thing two things corporations should be liable for the actions of their algorithms and uh only humans have freedom of speech Bots and algorithms do not have freedom of speech and they should never masquerade as humans so these are the two main things that that are needed that are to to correct social media so they're Publishers these platforms should be viewed as Publishers abs and their algorithm the tuning of the algorithm is an editorial Choice”
Producing truthful information requires sustained institutional investment: historians must study for 10+ years, learn ancient languages and paleography, excavate archaeological sites, and cross-reference sources; even then, ancient documents may be propaganda rather than fact.
“if you want to know something that happened in the Roman Empire so you know he historians they they go to university to study for at least 10 years before they become professional historians you learn Latin and Greek and how to read ancient handwriting and how to do these archaeological excavations and even if you found a document from the Roman Empire and you know Latin and you can read it maybe it's just propaganda just because Caesar says that the enemy had 100,000 soldiers it doesn't mean they actually had 100,000 soldiers”
To maintain societies where truth can compete with fiction, you must deliberately build and protect institutions (courts, newspapers, universities, research centers) that have the resources and mandate to produce and protect truth, rather than relying on market mechanisms alone.
“in a completely free market of information truth will lose you have to tilt the balance in favor of Truth by building institutions like courts like newspapers like universities like research search centers that uh make the effort to produce and to protect the truth”
The job of an editor is not merely to publish content that people want to read, but to exercise editorial judgment to fact-check, ensure accuracy, and take responsibility for what gets promoted, rather than hiding behind the claim that they are merely giving people what they want.
“newspapers and other news outlets are liable for their decisions like if the editor of the New York Times decides to publish some conspiracy theory of fake news at the front page of the New York Times he cannot hide or she cannot hide be behind the argument but free speech there are some people who believe it's true so I put it on the front page of the New York Times no your job as editor is not just to put something random there or something that would please people your job is to fact check and to take responsibility for these decisions”
Democracy's basic mechanism of self-correction is elections, which every 4 years or so allow people to say we made a mistake and try something else, but elections can also be rigged, as exemplified by Venezuela where Maduro rigged the election after the Venezuelan people voted to change course.
“the basic mechanism of Elections is that every four years or so you can say oh we made a mistake let's try something else but of course H uh every this every mechanism like this is itself fallible elections can be rigged like we just had elections in Venezuela and the Venezuelan people said okay we made a mistake with Chavez and Maduro let's try something else but because Maduro is in power uh he rigged the election”
Tech platforms should be extremely cautious before censoring human users, but they should take full responsibility for what their algorithms choose to amplify and promote, distinguishing between allowing content to exist and actively promoting it.
“I would be extremely careful before I shut down their account or or send those them but if the if my algorithm as the corporation then decides to promote this particular piece of fake news or this particular conspiracy theory this is on me this is on the not on the user the promotion it's the amplification not the fact that it exists on the network in the first place”
Social media platforms should ban bots and algorithms that masquerade as human users, ensuring that the human conversation is not distorted by artificial actors whose true nature is concealed.
“social media should Reserve freedom of speech to human beings not to Bots and to algorithms and in particular uh uh we should ban fake humans counterfeit humans if a bot pretends to be a human we should know about it”
In democratic debate about social policies, different reasonable people will disagree on optimal levels of surveillance, immigration, free speech, and other trade-offs, and these disagreements should not be framed as wars between good and evil but as legitimate policy disputes.
“the answer is the Democratic conversation we avoid the extremes and find the middle path and you're bound to make mistakes so uh uh keep correcting your mistakes it's not like there is a Magic Bullet that solves it once once and for all right um so you know what is the right level of surveillance what is the right level of immigration you know this is what we have the democratic debate for for if you go for an extreme position that uh you know humans have a a a a right to immigrate to anywhere they like in as as as huge as numbers as they like this is completely completely unfeasible open borders”
Traditional conservatism, rooted in Edmund Burke, recognizes that institutions are flawed but argues for slow, careful reform rather than revolutionary overthrow because human beings lack the capacity to understand the full complexity of reality and design perfect societies from scratch.
“as a historian I tend to be conservative in in the Deep sense of the word in the Buran sense of the word...the traditional Insight of conservatism is that yes institutions are flowed institutions can be corrupted but it takes generations to build a functioning Society a functioning institution humans don't really have the capacity to understand the full complexity of reality and to invent a perfect Society from scratch it just can't be done every time we try to do it it leads to disaster even worse than the things that we try to to to to to to correct”
Platforms cannot possibly prevent all malicious lies or even child pornography from appearing on their networks when billions of pieces of content arrive daily, just as the New York Times cannot check every letter sent to them, but they can and should check what they choose to promote on the front page.
“they can't they can't guarantee that there'll be no malicious lies or even child pornography on their on their Network and they it's the same way that you know people send letters to the New York Times every day so it's not that the position of the job of the New York Times to send of them but don't publish them on your front page unless you're sure that you did you know”
The Ten Commandments endorse slavery implicitly, as the tenth commandment says you should not covet your neighbor's house or field or slaves, implying that God is okay with people holding slaves.
“notice if you read for instance the 10th Commandment that it endorses slavery right uh the tenth commandment says that you should not CET your neighbor's house or field or slaves which uh implies that God is perfectly okay with people holding slaves it's just God doesn't like you like it when you covert the slaves of your neighbors”
The root cause of humanity's self-destructive behavior is not a flaw in human nature but a flaw in information: good people given bad information will make bad decisions, and societies are flooded with bad information despite possessing the most sophisticated information technology in history.
“I think that the problem is not in our nature the problem is in our information if you give good people bad information they make bad decisions it's it's as simple as that and uh so then the question becomes why are we flooded with bad information why is it that after thousands of years of of history of developing you know sophisticated networks of information and and and and communication our information is not getting any better”
Contemporary populist movements on both right and left (Trump, Elon Musk) promote a radical lack of trust in institutions and advocate destroying existing institutions and reinventing civilization from scratch, which mirrors the revolutionary position of Leninism and Bolshevism from a century ago.
“you mentioned Donald Trump and Elon Musk as as Prime offenders they're Prime offenders on this very point they they they so distrust in our institutions on on such a fundamental level and at such scale that it's coming from the right and from the left it's it's the populist position it's the Marxist position let's destroy the old world and create a new world in its place”
Democracies and dictatorships should be understood not primarily as systems with different ethical ideals but as fundamentally different information network architectures: dictatorships concentrate decision-making and information flow through a single hub, while democracies distribute both across many centers with much information never passing through the central authority.
“in a dictatorship you know there is one Hub where where all the decisions are being made so all the information flows to and from that single Centre and H democracy is a distributed information system in which decisions are being made in many different places and much of the information never passes through the center like if you think about United States so you have the center at washing in Washington but so many decisions are made elsewhere like here in in in Hollywood in Los Angeles and um most information never passes through the center”
One of the first jobs fully automated was not taxi driver or textile worker but news editors, and this is amazing because editors were once held by figures like Lenin and Mussolini; now the job of editing is done by algorithms.
“one of the first jobs that was fully automated was not taxi driver it was not textile workers it was editors news editors it's amazing to think about it it was automated the job that once belonged to Lenin and musolini is now being done by algorithms I mean Lenin before he was Soviet dictator he was editor of a newspaper uh iscra and musolini also he rose to power from being editor of the newspaper Avanti so this was like the promotion SC the promotion lder editor of a newspaper dictor of the country”
Truth has three structural disadvantages in competition with fiction: (1) it is costly to produce, requiring expertise and institutional investment; (2) it is complicated because reality is complicated, while fiction can be made arbitrarily simple; and (3) it is often painful, requiring difficult acknowledgments that people naturally resist, whereas fiction can be made emotionally satisfying.
“the truth is very costly fiction on the other hand is very cheap...the truth is also uh very complicated or often it's complicated because reality is complicated whereas fiction can can you can make it as simple as you would like it to be and people tend to prefer in most cases uh Simplicity over complexity so this is another disadvantage so you're you're pointing out there an asy asymmetrical relationship between truth and fiction absolutely which redounds to the advantage of fiction in this friction-free environment and and and with the third advantage of fiction that the truth is sometimes not always but the truth is sometimes painful”
Producing complex technological projects like nuclear weapons requires both accurate knowledge of physical truth (nuclear physics) and the ability to coordinate millions of people through ideologies and mythologies that may be disconnected from factual reality.
“you want to produce an atom bomb so let's say that you are Iran and you want to produce an atom bomb you need to know some facts about the world it's essential if you just ignore the facts of nuclear physics you will not be able to produce an atom bomb...on the other hand to produce an atom bomb just knowing the fact of physics is not enough you need millions of people to cooperate on the project...how do you get millions of people to cooperate on the project if you just tell them the facts of physics E equals mc² now now get on with it it doesn't work”
Imagine democracy as a group of people standing in a circle having a conversation; if robots join the circle, speak loudly and persuasively while pretending to be human, and you cannot tell who is human and who is robot, the conversation breaks down.
“democracy is a conversation imagine it as a group of people standing in a circle talking with each other suddenly a group of robots join the circle and talk very loudly very persuasively they pretend to be humans and you don't know you can't tell who are the humans and who are the robots so the conversation breaks down”
Information is not truth; most information is junk, and the world needs an information diet, not unlimited information, just as the body needs some food to survive but too much food, especially junk food, is harmful.
“information isn't truth most information is junk um it's like thinking that more food is always good for you the more you eat the more healthy you will be that's the same thing no I mean yes you need some food to survive but if you just keep eating it will not be good for you especially if you keep eating junk food”
The cynical worldview that dominates both extreme left and right—that all human interaction is fundamentally about power, that all institutions are conspiracies to gain power, and that truth is irrelevant—is not only morally corrosive but factually false and leads to the collapse of trust necessary for democracy.
“you have an extremely cynical view of humans and of human societies spreading both on the right but also on the left this is something that the the the extreme left and the extreme right agree about they have an extremely cynical view of humans and of reality they say that the only reality is power that all social interactions all human interactions are actually power struggles that all human institutions are just conspiracies to gain power...if you think like that all trust collapses and the only thing that is left standing that can remain standing is a dictatorship”
Fiduciary duty—the legal and ethical obligation to act in the interests of another party rather than one's own interests—is a well-established principle in law that applies to doctors, therapists, accountants, and lawyers, and should apply equally to tech companies' relationships with their users.
“it's a very old principle I mean we don't need to invent anything new in this respect like if you think about your doctor or your therapist or your accountant or your lawyer uh for centuries we already had these regulations and understanding that they have access to extremely private information to potentially explosive information about us that could maybe ruin our life and they have a fiduciary duty to use use that information only for our interests except in very extreme circumstances when there is a crime or something but our doctor for instance cannot take my personal information and sell it to third parties for profits and the same principle should hold uh with our relationship with the high-tech Giants”
There is a fundamental tension in social media regulation between efficiency (detecting and removing harmful content quickly through automated systems) and the need for inefficiency as a safeguard against totalitarianism (maintaining distributed decision-making and friction that prevents rapid centralized control).
“how do you think about this tradeoff between efficiency and inefficiency in that inefficent inefficiency sounds like it's a bug but as you point out in the book there are places where it's a feature because it is it's a b workk against totalitarianism and yet we want a certain kind of efficiency so as to be able to find malicious actors and terrorists Etc so um how do you view that in a in a in a reasonably well-functioning democracy that has institutions that are error correcting both with respect to truth and with respect to order how would you if you could get your hands on the on the dial of efficiency how would you tune it”
Even if the cynical view that all human action is power-seeking were true, the claim that large-scale coordinated conspiracies could function is undermined by misaligned incentives: people like Elon Musk and Donald Trump, despite occasional alliances, have sufficiently different goals that sustained coordination between them is structurally difficult.
“you take uh I truth what was that you take Elon Musk and Donald Trump you know um two people with a very high opinion of themselves yeah and with not necessarily the same goals in in life and in the world even if they can Ally themselves for some time around a certain common interest the long R it will be very very difficult to keep this Alliance yeah yeah to say nothing of the people who would who are not aligned with them”
In a dictatorship, the dictator decides what is the top story; on Facebook, an algorithm decides what appears at the top of your news feed, but both sound bad, so you have to choose between algorithms and dictators.
“in iscra it was Lenin who decided what would be the top story of the today what would be the main headline and on Facebook it's an algorithm deciding what is at at the top of your feedback of your of your news but both of those sound bad so if you're going to give people a choice between Lenin and an algorithm they're going to take the algorithm”
The US election represents two historically important dangers for democratic survival: the danger that candidates will not accept election results and attempt to remain in power despite losing.
“so historically there are two big dangers for the survival of democracies and you can see both of them now in the US one big danger is uh what we discussed earlier democracy is this system when you give power to a person to a party to try out some policies”
Harari is not opposed to bots and non-human AI entities participating in human discourse; he is opposed to bots masquerading as human, and supports transparent AI participation (e.g., AI medical diagnosis bots) while maintaining clear disclosure of non-human nature.
“to be clear you're not against bots of various kinds you you just think they should be declared as Bots absolutely again if if if you have a medical bot and you want to consult with that bot about some medical condition I mean soon we'll have ai doctors with capabilities far beyond human doctors I'm not against that they can improve health care dramatically they can help provide better health care for billions of people uh but when I talk with a non-human entity I want to know that this is a non-human entity that I'm not talking with the human being they are welcome to join the conversation on condition that they don't masquerade as humans”
Editorial decision-making about what to publish and promote was historically one of the most powerful positions in society, as demonstrated by Lenin (editor of Iskra before becoming Soviet dictator) and Mussolini (editor of Avanti before seizing power).
“one of the first jobs that was fully automated was not taxi driver it was not textile workers it was editors news editors it's amazing to think about it it was automated the job that once belonged to Lenin and musolini is now being done by algorithms I mean Lenin before he was Soviet dictator he was editor of a newspaper uh iscra and musolini also he rose to power from being editor of the newspaper Avanti”
People holding the view that everything is just power struggles often say that when somebody tells you something, you shouldn't ask 'is it true' because nobody cares about the truth—instead, you should ask 'who benefits' and 'whose interests are served', which is a perspective Donald Trump and Karl Marx agree about.
“whenever somebody tells you something you shouldn't ask is it true because nobody cares about the truth this is naive they would tell you no this is a power play who benefits who benefits whose privileges are being served whose interests are being served this is something you hear from marxists and from trumpists this is something that Donald Trump agree with KL Marx at least on that that everything is just a power struggle”