Quite a few people view Harari as working on behalf of the World Economic Forum, promoting its agenda. I have watched videos of his WEF presentation and read his books. I have the distinct impression that he is warning AGAINST the intrusion of technology on our humanity and AGAINST a global world directed by a few at the top. For example, here are a couple of quotes from his book "21 Lessons for the 21st Century":
"If we want to prevent the concentration of all wealth and power in the hands of a small elite, the key is to regulate the ownership of data." (page 77).
"If we want to prevent a small elite from monopolizing such godlike powers [biometric sensors combined with AI], and if we want to prevent humankind from splitting into biological castes, the key question is: who owns the data?" (page 79).
Hi, Russ. I'm glad that you're bringing that up. My impression is that there's an official connection but maybe that's not based on more than his WEF presentation. But I agree. From what I've heard from him, which is less than you or Jack above, he definitely sounds like he's warning us against this. And your quotes make that plain. Maybe he is that propaganda double agent who's on the inside but sending secret code saying, "run!"
[I apologize in advance for the length of this comment and for it being so untimely. Please feel free to treat my many questions as hypotheticals.]
When I first read Harari’s books “Sapiens” and “Homo Deus,” I was completely enthralled. At the time, I was on the verge of accepting trans-humanism as inevitable, and Harari really knew how to glorify our empire in unassailably logical if not magical terms. But after watching many of his online conversations and going over his books again, my mind slowly changed. And that was years before I even knew about his association with the WEF and Klaus Schwab. Now, this discussion with Kahneman is just the last straw. It’s going to sound like over-the-top hyperbole, but at this point I’m starting to wonder if Harari is a danger to humanity.
I’m an absolutist about free speech (and academic freedom), but what about speech in devoted service to empire? I’m not quite ready to think of Harari as a Goebbels working for Schwab, but I am increasingly feeling alarmed. In comparison with Russel Brand’s demonstrations of Christ-like acceptance (if not sincere love) of Harari, I suppose I should feel a bit ashamed. But I don’t.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but from what I’ve gathered about your personal philosophy, you tend to blame bad human behavior mainly on bad systems, and I agree with that…to a point: Poor slobs forced by a bad system to do contemptible things (mainly to other poor slobs) are forgivable (at least partially). But I don’t extend that forgiveness to those people who are the architects, leaders, and promoters of the bad system, especially when that system is imperial in scope and scale.
So, what if Harari is consensually serving as an imperial propagandist of the highest rank? What if he actually is nefarious? Can Russell-Brand-like trust in human goodness cause us to be so intellectually inclusive and forgiving as to make us self-destructively pacifistic and irresponsibly complacent?
Hi, Jack. The comment below from Russ may interest you, on the same topic of whether Yuval is maybe warning us. Also my last episode on Sex & Power: Battle of the Daves, mentions you because it's on the David Graeber/ Wengrow book, which I'm loving! Let's continue the conversation on it there: https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/sex-and-power-battle-of-the-daves
Jack, I love your comment. To me, the beauty of Substack is that it shows whole conversations so a comprehensive response is using the medium for what it, maybe alone, allows. Thanks for taking the time to do that.
You've engaged with Harari's material at a deeper level but I feel like I've taken the same journey in the three videos I made about him. My definition of propaganda is truth mixed with lies, and the ultimate lie is that some of us are better, more moral and worthy, than others.
When Harari says that nations are spell cast by legal shaman, I agree because to me, the nation is too big for self-governance and we should first decide the right size for different functions and then determine our group. To him, I now realize, the nation is too small and we should be moving towards One-world governance. Yikes (to put it mildly!)
In my video Alien Nation, I thought that he, unlike Ben Shapiro and Sam Harris, believed that all people were equally moral. I now realize it's the exact opposite and he believes a handful of people have the moral right to control, not just the bodies and behaviors, but the minds of all others.
And so I agree with you that Yuval, at this moment in history, may be the most dangerous thinker on earth. But unlike the poor slobs doing contemptible things to other poor slobs, Yuval is an idea that can only be stopped by being exposed and countered. In the Kahneman video, Yuval utterly shows where this is all leading. I think that's a gift.
What Russell does, I think, is give Yuval the benefit of the doubt that Yuval believes what he's saying. Believers make the best propagandists, but they're also unreliable because they can change their minds. Engaging with Yuval as a thinker, rather than an actor, compels Yuval to defend his ideas and change if he's shown to be wrong.
I agree (if you're saying this) that Russell does NOT challenge Yuval's ideas very deeply. But he sets us up to do that. If someone's attacking me as a person on my videos, there's no point in engaging. But if someone assumes I'm sincere but mistaken, I always engage.
To me, forgiveness is giving forward the benefit of the doubt that someone wants to do the right thing, wants to understand correctly. If Yuval has been bought and is consciously putting forward an ideological cover for imperial control, it's still the best strategy to engage with his ideas as if he's sincere and show why he's mistaken.
For Klaus and crew, I'm sure their superiority is the only ideology they need, with Yuval as a convenient fig leaf. I'm not totally sure the fig leaf is cooperating; I think he's exposing more of the ugly underside than they might like. Your thoughts?
Tereza, your response has calmed me down a bit and helped put things into perspective. I think I’ve been taking Harari too personally.
I was once in a meeting in which the facilitator used a common ice breaker technique to get the group talking: If you could have dinner with anyone in history, he asked, who would you choose? As we went around the room answering the question, the usual suspects were named—Jesus, Da Vinci, Lincoln, MLK, Einstein. When they got around to me, I said Francis Fukuyama, which completely stopped the meeting because no one else had ever heard of him, so I had to explain who he was. But I’d just read “The End of History” and I was outraged with Fukuyama and couldn’t believe that anyone would ever take his conclusions seriously. So I wanted to have a good talk with him over dinner and set him straight. I have felt the same way about Harari. If I were asked the same "dinner" question today, Harari would be on my list, but not anywhere near the top. Yet, I have to admit it's often the people we disagree with most who prompt our best intellectual responses and who would make the most entertaining dinner companions. That's the power of dialog. Looking back, Harari (and Fukuyama) started me on the path of thinking deeply about empire and power, so I'm grateful to them for that.
If I re-read “Sapiens” again, I wonder if it would already seem dated. In fact, I just got a hint of that from David Graeber’s posthumous “The Dawn of Everything,” which I happen to be reading at the same time I’m reading your book. (BTW, the two books pair eerily well together because of how many touchpoints there are in the topics covered, especially the topic of slavery.) In Graeber’s book, he gives a brief but biting (and humorous) critique of Harari. I got the impression that had Graeber lived, he might have devoted more attention in the book to Harari; but, on the other hand, maybe Graeber didn’t think Harari’s views were important enough to deserve more attention. Maybe Graeber had already recognized Harari’s loyalty to the imperial narrative.
Thanks very much for your detailed and thoughtful response. I couldn’t agree more with your point that Substack could be used for deeper and more comprehensive discussions. I’m not sure Dunbar’s number is applicable to Substack, but 140 or so people exchanging five-paragraph comments after every Third Paradigm video might do more to change the world than all 5.6 million of Russel Brand’s passively watching viewers.
You have Graeber's new and last book! I do also and I'm ready to start a new book. Thanks for reminding me about it, we'll have to keep that dialogue going.
I love your thoughts on small numbers having deep conversations. I don't know if you've gotten to the part in my book where I talk about 12 people in the basement of a printing press ending the transatlantic slave trade. There's a lot of power, I believe, in real dialogue with a common purpose. And yes, I don't envy Russell his 5.6M. This is so much more satisfying to me.
Yes. I’ve read that chapter about the 12 in the basement, but it’s always shocking (in a good way) to read another account of how the whole world can be spun in a different and better direction by a handful of people. As Mead would have written had she been alive today, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed Substackers can change the world.”
Speaking of change, reading yours and Graeber’s books simultaneously has been quite the experience. It was a lot like two connect-the-dots images overlayed over each other—two images that are unique but manage to have many shared dots. It will take awhile and some trips back through both books before I grok all the connections. You both think so much alike. The least mystical thing I can say is that you both seem to be cut from the same cloth.
It’ll be interesting to see or read what you think about his comments on Dunbar’s number and the rise of cities that apparently had no palaces (and probably no financial advisors or real estate agents).
You are a Sirius reader, Jack! Are you reading more than one Graeber book simultaneously with mine? Your updated Mead comment made me laugh, and your comment about Graeber that "The least mystical thing I can say is that you both seem to be cut from the same cloth" brought tears to my eyes.
I cherish the notion that, if David and I had a conversation, he would have liked my ideas. The publisher of Sun magazine once said he'd like me to interview him. But when I followed up on my proposal, the editor had assigned it to someone else, which clearly never happened. That was one of many thwarted 'big breaks', which seem like a trail of bread crumbs giving me just enough to keep going.
I also tried emailing David through his university and his agent, and when I had an overnight layover in England, mailed my book to his university address. But now I can just lean into that "mystical" connection where reading him is like having a more interesting conversation with myself.
And on "Connecting the DOTS," one of my blogs on my universecity.us site uses that as an acronym for Deepening Our Thinking on Sovereignty ;-) Glad to be in your Substack change-the-world pod.
It's true, sometimes I'm way too Sirius. For example, I have imaginary conversations with Graeber all the time. Or are they imaginary? I sympathize with your regret over not having had that interview with him. While I doubt I would have ever met him, when I heard he died I felt the loss because it meant I couldn't have that potential meeting with him even though it was such an unlikely possibility. But our connections to others run deep. The Big Machine Network (Internet) is likely a poor substitute for whatever it is that our minds use to communicate over time and space (if only we can shake off our “training” and recollect how to use it). We have much to learn from those mushrooms and their mycelial BioNet. So maybe your meeting with Graeber took place over some hidden BioNet and you didn’t miss your big break after all, and maybe my potential conversation with him happened…and is still happening.
Regarding DOTS—that’s a fun synchronicity—I’ve recently been giving a lot of thought about Sovereignty and it’s close but fiercely independent companion Autonomy—all prompted by reading your book and Graeber’s book together. I don’t have any special insight yet, but in my own gnostic-style mythology, I’m thinking of Sovereignty and Autonomy as Aeon consorts—those interesting male/female syzygies the Valentinians “imagined”. All of your content that I’ve seen seems to revolve thematically around both of these concepts, but maybe I’ve missed or failed to grok specific content aimed at their relationship to each other, so any recommendations would be appreciated. Or, in case you’re taking requests for future content….
Jack! In case you haven't caught them, your name has come up in the last two videos. I just started reading The Dawn of Everything (the context for the recent mention) and love it! It just talked about Fukuyama in proximity to Jared Diamond. I ranted on my old radio show about why his Guns, Germs & Steel was a complete rationalization of power through violence being the pure luck of latitudinal migration. Idiotic, imo.
But given the cosmic opportunity, I think we should leave Fukuyama and Diamond to argue among themselves and have dinner with people who are on the cutting edge of asking the same question: how do we change this? And I'm sure I'm a better cook than either of those guys ;-)
Quite a few people view Harari as working on behalf of the World Economic Forum, promoting its agenda. I have watched videos of his WEF presentation and read his books. I have the distinct impression that he is warning AGAINST the intrusion of technology on our humanity and AGAINST a global world directed by a few at the top. For example, here are a couple of quotes from his book "21 Lessons for the 21st Century":
"If we want to prevent the concentration of all wealth and power in the hands of a small elite, the key is to regulate the ownership of data." (page 77).
"If we want to prevent a small elite from monopolizing such godlike powers [biometric sensors combined with AI], and if we want to prevent humankind from splitting into biological castes, the key question is: who owns the data?" (page 79).
Hi, Russ. I'm glad that you're bringing that up. My impression is that there's an official connection but maybe that's not based on more than his WEF presentation. But I agree. From what I've heard from him, which is less than you or Jack above, he definitely sounds like he's warning us against this. And your quotes make that plain. Maybe he is that propaganda double agent who's on the inside but sending secret code saying, "run!"
[I apologize in advance for the length of this comment and for it being so untimely. Please feel free to treat my many questions as hypotheticals.]
When I first read Harari’s books “Sapiens” and “Homo Deus,” I was completely enthralled. At the time, I was on the verge of accepting trans-humanism as inevitable, and Harari really knew how to glorify our empire in unassailably logical if not magical terms. But after watching many of his online conversations and going over his books again, my mind slowly changed. And that was years before I even knew about his association with the WEF and Klaus Schwab. Now, this discussion with Kahneman is just the last straw. It’s going to sound like over-the-top hyperbole, but at this point I’m starting to wonder if Harari is a danger to humanity.
I’m an absolutist about free speech (and academic freedom), but what about speech in devoted service to empire? I’m not quite ready to think of Harari as a Goebbels working for Schwab, but I am increasingly feeling alarmed. In comparison with Russel Brand’s demonstrations of Christ-like acceptance (if not sincere love) of Harari, I suppose I should feel a bit ashamed. But I don’t.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but from what I’ve gathered about your personal philosophy, you tend to blame bad human behavior mainly on bad systems, and I agree with that…to a point: Poor slobs forced by a bad system to do contemptible things (mainly to other poor slobs) are forgivable (at least partially). But I don’t extend that forgiveness to those people who are the architects, leaders, and promoters of the bad system, especially when that system is imperial in scope and scale.
So, what if Harari is consensually serving as an imperial propagandist of the highest rank? What if he actually is nefarious? Can Russell-Brand-like trust in human goodness cause us to be so intellectually inclusive and forgiving as to make us self-destructively pacifistic and irresponsibly complacent?
Hi, Jack. The comment below from Russ may interest you, on the same topic of whether Yuval is maybe warning us. Also my last episode on Sex & Power: Battle of the Daves, mentions you because it's on the David Graeber/ Wengrow book, which I'm loving! Let's continue the conversation on it there: https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/sex-and-power-battle-of-the-daves
Jack, I love your comment. To me, the beauty of Substack is that it shows whole conversations so a comprehensive response is using the medium for what it, maybe alone, allows. Thanks for taking the time to do that.
You've engaged with Harari's material at a deeper level but I feel like I've taken the same journey in the three videos I made about him. My definition of propaganda is truth mixed with lies, and the ultimate lie is that some of us are better, more moral and worthy, than others.
When Harari says that nations are spell cast by legal shaman, I agree because to me, the nation is too big for self-governance and we should first decide the right size for different functions and then determine our group. To him, I now realize, the nation is too small and we should be moving towards One-world governance. Yikes (to put it mildly!)
In my video Alien Nation, I thought that he, unlike Ben Shapiro and Sam Harris, believed that all people were equally moral. I now realize it's the exact opposite and he believes a handful of people have the moral right to control, not just the bodies and behaviors, but the minds of all others.
And so I agree with you that Yuval, at this moment in history, may be the most dangerous thinker on earth. But unlike the poor slobs doing contemptible things to other poor slobs, Yuval is an idea that can only be stopped by being exposed and countered. In the Kahneman video, Yuval utterly shows where this is all leading. I think that's a gift.
What Russell does, I think, is give Yuval the benefit of the doubt that Yuval believes what he's saying. Believers make the best propagandists, but they're also unreliable because they can change their minds. Engaging with Yuval as a thinker, rather than an actor, compels Yuval to defend his ideas and change if he's shown to be wrong.
I agree (if you're saying this) that Russell does NOT challenge Yuval's ideas very deeply. But he sets us up to do that. If someone's attacking me as a person on my videos, there's no point in engaging. But if someone assumes I'm sincere but mistaken, I always engage.
To me, forgiveness is giving forward the benefit of the doubt that someone wants to do the right thing, wants to understand correctly. If Yuval has been bought and is consciously putting forward an ideological cover for imperial control, it's still the best strategy to engage with his ideas as if he's sincere and show why he's mistaken.
For Klaus and crew, I'm sure their superiority is the only ideology they need, with Yuval as a convenient fig leaf. I'm not totally sure the fig leaf is cooperating; I think he's exposing more of the ugly underside than they might like. Your thoughts?
Tereza, your response has calmed me down a bit and helped put things into perspective. I think I’ve been taking Harari too personally.
I was once in a meeting in which the facilitator used a common ice breaker technique to get the group talking: If you could have dinner with anyone in history, he asked, who would you choose? As we went around the room answering the question, the usual suspects were named—Jesus, Da Vinci, Lincoln, MLK, Einstein. When they got around to me, I said Francis Fukuyama, which completely stopped the meeting because no one else had ever heard of him, so I had to explain who he was. But I’d just read “The End of History” and I was outraged with Fukuyama and couldn’t believe that anyone would ever take his conclusions seriously. So I wanted to have a good talk with him over dinner and set him straight. I have felt the same way about Harari. If I were asked the same "dinner" question today, Harari would be on my list, but not anywhere near the top. Yet, I have to admit it's often the people we disagree with most who prompt our best intellectual responses and who would make the most entertaining dinner companions. That's the power of dialog. Looking back, Harari (and Fukuyama) started me on the path of thinking deeply about empire and power, so I'm grateful to them for that.
If I re-read “Sapiens” again, I wonder if it would already seem dated. In fact, I just got a hint of that from David Graeber’s posthumous “The Dawn of Everything,” which I happen to be reading at the same time I’m reading your book. (BTW, the two books pair eerily well together because of how many touchpoints there are in the topics covered, especially the topic of slavery.) In Graeber’s book, he gives a brief but biting (and humorous) critique of Harari. I got the impression that had Graeber lived, he might have devoted more attention in the book to Harari; but, on the other hand, maybe Graeber didn’t think Harari’s views were important enough to deserve more attention. Maybe Graeber had already recognized Harari’s loyalty to the imperial narrative.
Thanks very much for your detailed and thoughtful response. I couldn’t agree more with your point that Substack could be used for deeper and more comprehensive discussions. I’m not sure Dunbar’s number is applicable to Substack, but 140 or so people exchanging five-paragraph comments after every Third Paradigm video might do more to change the world than all 5.6 million of Russel Brand’s passively watching viewers.
You have Graeber's new and last book! I do also and I'm ready to start a new book. Thanks for reminding me about it, we'll have to keep that dialogue going.
I love your thoughts on small numbers having deep conversations. I don't know if you've gotten to the part in my book where I talk about 12 people in the basement of a printing press ending the transatlantic slave trade. There's a lot of power, I believe, in real dialogue with a common purpose. And yes, I don't envy Russell his 5.6M. This is so much more satisfying to me.
Yes. I’ve read that chapter about the 12 in the basement, but it’s always shocking (in a good way) to read another account of how the whole world can be spun in a different and better direction by a handful of people. As Mead would have written had she been alive today, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed Substackers can change the world.”
Speaking of change, reading yours and Graeber’s books simultaneously has been quite the experience. It was a lot like two connect-the-dots images overlayed over each other—two images that are unique but manage to have many shared dots. It will take awhile and some trips back through both books before I grok all the connections. You both think so much alike. The least mystical thing I can say is that you both seem to be cut from the same cloth.
It’ll be interesting to see or read what you think about his comments on Dunbar’s number and the rise of cities that apparently had no palaces (and probably no financial advisors or real estate agents).
You are a Sirius reader, Jack! Are you reading more than one Graeber book simultaneously with mine? Your updated Mead comment made me laugh, and your comment about Graeber that "The least mystical thing I can say is that you both seem to be cut from the same cloth" brought tears to my eyes.
I cherish the notion that, if David and I had a conversation, he would have liked my ideas. The publisher of Sun magazine once said he'd like me to interview him. But when I followed up on my proposal, the editor had assigned it to someone else, which clearly never happened. That was one of many thwarted 'big breaks', which seem like a trail of bread crumbs giving me just enough to keep going.
I also tried emailing David through his university and his agent, and when I had an overnight layover in England, mailed my book to his university address. But now I can just lean into that "mystical" connection where reading him is like having a more interesting conversation with myself.
And on "Connecting the DOTS," one of my blogs on my universecity.us site uses that as an acronym for Deepening Our Thinking on Sovereignty ;-) Glad to be in your Substack change-the-world pod.
It's true, sometimes I'm way too Sirius. For example, I have imaginary conversations with Graeber all the time. Or are they imaginary? I sympathize with your regret over not having had that interview with him. While I doubt I would have ever met him, when I heard he died I felt the loss because it meant I couldn't have that potential meeting with him even though it was such an unlikely possibility. But our connections to others run deep. The Big Machine Network (Internet) is likely a poor substitute for whatever it is that our minds use to communicate over time and space (if only we can shake off our “training” and recollect how to use it). We have much to learn from those mushrooms and their mycelial BioNet. So maybe your meeting with Graeber took place over some hidden BioNet and you didn’t miss your big break after all, and maybe my potential conversation with him happened…and is still happening.
Regarding DOTS—that’s a fun synchronicity—I’ve recently been giving a lot of thought about Sovereignty and it’s close but fiercely independent companion Autonomy—all prompted by reading your book and Graeber’s book together. I don’t have any special insight yet, but in my own gnostic-style mythology, I’m thinking of Sovereignty and Autonomy as Aeon consorts—those interesting male/female syzygies the Valentinians “imagined”. All of your content that I’ve seen seems to revolve thematically around both of these concepts, but maybe I’ve missed or failed to grok specific content aimed at their relationship to each other, so any recommendations would be appreciated. Or, in case you’re taking requests for future content….
Jack! In case you haven't caught them, your name has come up in the last two videos. I just started reading The Dawn of Everything (the context for the recent mention) and love it! It just talked about Fukuyama in proximity to Jared Diamond. I ranted on my old radio show about why his Guns, Germs & Steel was a complete rationalization of power through violence being the pure luck of latitudinal migration. Idiotic, imo.
But given the cosmic opportunity, I think we should leave Fukuyama and Diamond to argue among themselves and have dinner with people who are on the cutting edge of asking the same question: how do we change this? And I'm sure I'm a better cook than either of those guys ;-)