All language subtitles for Yuval Noah Harari on Impact Theory

- Well I think this is maybe
the most important thing

to know about living right
now in the 21st century,

that we are now hackable animals.

That we have the technology
to decipher what you think,

what you want, to predict human choices,

to manipulate human desires

in ways which were never possible before.

(audience applauds)

- Hey everybody, welcome to Impact Theory.

Our goal with this show and company

is to introduce you to
the people and ideas

that will help you actually
execute on your dreams.

All right today's guest

is one of the most profound
thinkers of our time.

A two-time winner of the Polonsky Prize

for Creativity and Originality,

his books have sold over 12 million copies

and been translated into
more than 45 languages.

Sapiens, his seminal book
on the history of mankind,

spent six months on the
Sunday Times bestseller list

and also made him a number one

New York Times bestselling author.

His work has been recommended
by countless luminaries,

including Bill Gates, Richard Branson,

Mark Zuckerberg, and Barack Obama.

He's won a litany of awards,

including the Society for
Military History's Moncado Award

for outstanding articles
on military history,

and the 2017 Handelsblatt's
German Economic Book Award

for the most thoughtful

and influential economic book of the year.

Additionally, he's one
of the most sought-after

and influential speakers in the world.

He's given multiple TED talks

on hot-button issues
relating to the human race,

and in 2018 he was invited to give

the mainstage keynote speech
on the future of humanity

at the World Economic Forum
Annual Meeting in Davos.

He has a PhD from Oxford,

is a tenured history professor

at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem,

and in addition to his many books,

he's also written for such
prestigious global outlets

as the Financial Times,
the New York Times,

The Wall Street Journal, and The Guardian.

So please help me in
welcoming the man who does

a yearly 60-day silent
Vipassana meditation retreat,

the bestselling author of 21
Lessons for the 21st Century,

Yuval Noah Harari.

(audience applauds)

Welcome, man.

Good to have you on the show.

- Thank you, it's good to be here.

- Dude, very excited.

So I've been obsessively
reading your books

since Sapiens came out, and
just really, really blown away.

And behind the scenes,

there's a guy here named Chase somewhere,

who you will have to meet today,

who has just been an absolute champion

for your books internally
because of the way

that you really frame the historical

and where we're going in a way

that becomes very accessible
for today and who we are,

and that I think is the
cool nexus of 21 Lessons,

is that you're really attacking

how does this all make sense?

How has the past informed where we are,

and how does where we are today inform

where we're actually gonna go?

And as a company that's
making fiction content

and dealing in sci-fi
and things like that,

these ideas are really,
really important to us

for creating guides on
how to be, essentially.

And the idea that I wanted to
start with is your notion of

some of the things that are
happening technologically

become a little bit dangerous
because you can hack a human,

and if you could explain what
you mean by hacking a human,

and then how do we end
up hacking ourselves

in a positive way?

- Well I think this is maybe
the most important thing

to know about living right
now in the 21st century,

that we are now hackable animals.

We have the technology
to decipher how humans,

what you think, what you want,

to predict human choices,
to manipulate human desires,

in ways which were never possible before.

Basically to hack a human
being you need two things:

You need a lot of data,
especially biometric data.

Not just about where
you go and what you buy,

but what is happening inside your body

and inside your brain.

And secondly, you need
a lot of computing power

to make sense of all that data.

Now, previously in history,
this was never possible.

Nobody had enough data

and enough computing power
to hack human beings.

Even if the KGB or the Gestapo

followed you around 24 hours a day,

eavesdropping on every
conversation you had,

watching everybody you meet,

still they did not have
the biological knowledge

to really understand what's
happening inside you,

and they certainly didn't have
the computing power necessary

to make sense even of the data
they were able to collect.

So the KGB could not
really understand you,

could not really predict all your choices

or manipulate all your
desires and so forth.

But now it's changing.

What the KGB couldn't do,
corporations and governments today

are beginning to be able to do,

and this is because of the merger

of the revolution in biotech.

We are getting better in understanding

what's happening inside us,
in the body, in the brain.

And at the same time, the
revolution in infotech

which gives us the
computing power necessary.

When you put the two together,

when infotech merges with biotech,

what you get is the ability
to create algorithms

that understand me better
than I understand myself.

And then these algorithms
cannot just predict my choices,

but also manipulate my desires,

and basically sell me anything,

whether it's a product or a politician.

- So that's what you're calling hacking,

that you're hitting me with
the right emotional message

at exactly the right time
based on my biometric data?

- Mm-hmm, yeah, this is one
of the things you can do.

Then you can predict, you can manipulate,

you can eventually also
re-engineer or replace.

If you really hack a system,

you really understand how it functions,

then usually you can also re-engineer it,

or you can completely replace it.

And again, one of the dangers

that we are facing today
in the 21st century

is that computers and AI would
be able to replace humans

in more and more tasks, and
maybe push millions of humans

out of the job market as a result.

- All right, so I fully
understand the dangers,

and we will talk about some of

what we were talking about off-camera,

which is we've got this whole
story called Neon Future

where we're exploring that notion of

what happens to what you've
called the useless class

when they're pushed out of the job market,

and what does that do economically?

But just staying with the notion

of the hackability for a second.

So it's funny, as you were describing it,

and I know you bring this sense of like,

there's some like real
significant problems

we need to take a very serious look at,

and I get almost giddy with excitement

because I have potentially
delusional levels of optimism,

I'm very open to that.

- No, I agree, I mean,

the thing about this
ability to hack humans

is that it has also

potentially tremendous
positive consequences,

and this is why it's so tempting.

If it was only bad,

then it would have been
like an easy deal to say,

okay, we don't want that,

and let's stop researching
or going in that direction.

But it is extremely tempting
because it can provide us,

for example, with the best
healthcare in history,

something which goes far beyond
anything we've seen so far.

This can mean that maybe in 30 years,

the poorest person on the planet

can get better healthcare
from her or his smartphone

than the richest person today gets

from the best hospitals
and the best doctors.

The kind of things you can just know

about what's happening in your body

is nothing like we've seen so far.

- That's really extraordinary,

and if you had to take the positive look

and say, okay, we have this ability,

let's just say it's already there,

we've got all this biometric
data, it's kicking off.

How would you encourage people

to leverage that to empower themselves?

And I'll use an example

that I found profoundly
interesting from your book.

So you said that growing up,

that it was unclear to
you that you were gay,

but that now Stanford has
developed an algorithm

that essentially can look
at three or four photos

of somebody's face and
predict with 91% accuracy

whether or not they're gay,

which seems impossible,
but if that's true,

the level of data that
we could give ourselves

about our like deepest,
most hardwired desires,

there would be a level of
clarity there that seems useful.

How would you encourage
people to use that?

- Well that's a very good example.

I mean, the Stanford algorithm,

actually there is a lot of
problems with that research,

and let's put it aside.

But first key message from that is

how little people actually
know about themselves.

And one of the most
important things in my life,

and also in, I think,
in my scientific career,

was the realization of how
little I know about myself

and humans in general.

There are so many important
ideas and important facts

we don't realize about ourself.

I was 21 when I finally
realized that I was gay,

which is, when you think about
it, it's absolutely amazing.

I mean, it should have
been obvious at age 16, 15,

and an algorithm would have
realized it very quickly,

and you can build
algorithms like that today

or in a few years.

You just need to follow
your eye movements.

Like you go on the beach or
you look at the computer screen

and you see an attractive
guy and an attractive girl,

and just follow the focus of the eyes.

Where do the eyes go, and
whom do they focus on?

It should be very easy.

And such an algorithm could have told

when I was 15 that I was gay,

and the implications
are really mind-boggling

when an algorithm knows such
an important thing about you

before you know it about yourself.

Now it can go in all kinds of directions,

it really depends on where you
live and what you do with it.

In some countries you
can be in trouble now

with the police and the government.

You might be sent to some
re-education facility.

In some countries, like with
surveillance capitalism,

so maybe I don't know
about myself that I'm gay,

but Coca-Cola knows that I'm gay

because they have these algorithms,

and they want to know that
because they need to know

which commercials to show me.

Let's say Coca-Cola knows that I'm gay,

and I even know it about myself

that they know it, and Pepsi doesn't.

Coca-Cola will show me a commercial

with a shirtless guy drinking Coca-Cola,

but Pepsi will make the mistake

of showing a girl in a bikini.

And next day, without my realizing why,

when I go to the supermarket,

when I go to the restaurant,

I will order Coca-Cola, not Pepsi.

I don't know why, but they know,

so they might not even share

this kind of information with me.

Now if the algorithm does
share the information with me,

again, a lot depends on context.

One scenario is that you're 15 years old,

you go to a birthday party
of somebody from your class,

and somebody just heard

that there is this cool new algorithm

which tells your sexual orientation.

And everybody agrees
it will be a lot of fun

to just have this game

that everybody takes a
turn with the algorithm,

and everybody else looking
and seeing the result.

Would you like to discover about yourself

in such a scenario?

This can be quite a shocking experience.

But even if it's done in
like complete privacy,

it's a very deep philosophical question.

What does it mean to
discover something like that

about yourself from an algorithm?

What does it mean about human
life, about human identity?

We have very little experience
with these kinds of things.

From very ancient times, all
the philosophers and saints

and sages tell people to
get to know yourself better.

It's one of the, maybe the
most important thing in life

is to get to know yourself better.

But for all of history,

this was a process of self-exploration

which you did through
things like meditation,

and maybe sports, and maybe
art, and contemplation,

and all these things.

What does it mean when the
process of self-exploration

is being outsourced to
a big data algorithm?

And the philosophical implications
are quite mind-boggling.

- It's interesting, so
let's talk about that.

So the implication is you're outsourcing

the self-discovery process.

To me, that sound so profoundly useful

because all day the people
that write in to me,

they're asking basically
one essential question.

How do I find the thing that I love?

Because I tell people,

you need to develop a
passion in your life,

I don't think you find it,
I think you develop it,

but they need to start from
an area of real interest.

It needs to be actually something

that at a hardwiring level they're just,

they get that response.

So then their next question
is like, how, right?

How do I get into that,
how do I discover the thing

that triggers me like
that, and if I discover it,

then how do I develop it into a passion?

If you had an algorithm,

something that were able to

use the more manipulative techniques

that you were talking about

that Coca-Cola's doing or whatever,

but give it to you in a way

that can move you in a desired direction?

So I'll give you a specific example

that you give in the book.

So talking about how, let's
say there was an algorithm

that knew you'd just
broken up with somebody,

knew that you were in
the grips of heartache,

because they're reading your biometrics.

- Yeah, they're watching your heart.

- In fact, give it to us,
that example that you put.

So the biometrics, they're reading you,

it's the song, it knows
what songs to pick.

- Yeah, I mean, something
as simple as choosing music.

So you were just dumped by
your boyfriend or girlfriend,

and the algorithm that controls
the music that you listen to

chooses the songs that are the best fit

for your current mental state.

And of course this brings up

the question of what is the metric?

What do you actually want from the music?

Do you want the music to uplift you,

or do you more want the
music to kind of connect you

to the deepest level of
sadness and depression?

And ultimately we can say
that the algorithm can follow

different kinds of instructions.

If you know what kind of
emotional state you want to be in,

you can just tell the
algorithm what you want,

and it will do it.

If you're not sure, you
can tell the algorithm,

follow the recommendation

of the best psychologist today.

So let's say you have
the five stages of grief,

so, okay, walk me with music

through these five stages of grief.

And the algorithm can do that
better than any human DJ.

And what we really need to
understand in this regard

is that what music and most
of art plays on in the end

is the human biochemical system,

at least according to
the dominant view of art

in the modern Western world.

We had different views
in different cultures,

but in the modern Western world,

the idea of art is that art is, above all,

about inspiring human emotions.

It doesn't necessarily have to be joy.

Great art can inspire also sadness,

can inspire anger, can inspire fear,

it can be a whole palette
of emotional states,

but art is about inspiring human emotions.

So the instrument artists play on,

and whether it's musicians
or poets or movie makers,

they're actually playing

on the Homo sapiens biochemical system.

And we might reach a point quite soon

when an algorithm knows this instrument

better than any human artist.

A movie or a poem or a song

that will not move you,

that will not inspire
you, might inspire me.

And something that will
inspire me in one situation

might not inspire me in another situation.

And as time goes on,

and the algorithm gathers
more and more data about me,

it will become more and more accurate

in reading my biochemical system

and knowing how to play on
it as if it was a piano.

Like okay, you want joy?

I press this button and
out comes the perfect song,

the only song in the world

that can actually make
me joyful right now.

- That's so interesting to me.

All right, so right now, real world,

you can snap your fingers

and you can have one algorithm

that's tied to one biochemical process.

In your life for real,

what would you want to monitor
and get that feedback on?

- Now that's easy, I mean, healthcare.

If there is like something
seriously wrong in my body

that I don't know about,

like, I don't know, cancer or something,

I would like the algorithm
to find that out.

I don't want to wait until,

I mean, the usual process is that

it has to go through your own mind.

You can't outsource it.

I mean, today, when you
need to diagnose cancer,

there are exceptions, but in most cases,

there is a crucial moment when you feel,

something is wrong in my body.

And you go to this doctor and that doctor

and you do this test and that test,

until they finally realize,

okay, we just discovered you have cancer

in your liver or whatever.

But because it relies
on your own feelings,

in this case feelings of pain,

very often it's quite late in the process.

By the time you start feeling pain,

usually the cancer has spread,

and maybe it's not too late,
but it's going to be expensive

and painful and problematic to treat it.

But if we can outsource this,

don't go through the
mind, through my feelings,

I want an algorithm that
with biometric sensors

is monitoring my health 24 hours a day

without my being aware of it.

It can potentially
discover this liver cancer

when it is just a tiny, just a few cells

are beginning to split and to spread.

And it's so easy and cheap and painless

to take care of it now
instead of two years later

when it's already spread
and it's a big problem.

So this is something

that I think almost
everybody would sign onto,

and this is the big temptation,

because it comes with the whole other,

the long tail of dangers.

I mean, this algorithm
that the healthcare system

knows almost everything about you.

So one of the biggest
battles in the 21st century

is likely to be between
privacy and health,

and I guess that health is going to win.

Most people will be willing to give up

a very significant amount of privacy

in exchange for far better healthcare.

Now we do need to try
and enjoy both worlds,

to create a system that gives
us very good healthcare,

but without compromising our privacy,

keeping the, yes, you can
use the data to tell me

that there is a problem

and then we should do
this or that to solve it,

but I don't want this data
to be used for other purposes

without my knowing it.

Whether we can reach such a balance

and like have your cake and eat it too,

that's a big political question.

- Yeah, that is very crazy

and very exciting for somebody like me

who definitely errs on the
side of wanting the healthcare.

You've talked really
powerfully about story,

about how stories like money,

which I don't think most
people think of as a story,

as being these tremendous things

that control all of our lives,

that point us all in the same direction,

that give us sort of a
common code by which to live.

How can people take control of the story

that they tell themselves
about themselves,

which I find to be one of
the most important stories

that you engage in?

- Yes, so our identity
is really just a story

which we constantly
construct and embellish.

I mean, you can say that the
entire human mind is a machine

that constantly produces stories,

and especially one very important
story, which is my story.

And different people have different,

specialize in different genres.

Some people build their
story as a tragedy,

some people build their story
as a comedy or as a drama,

but in the end,

the self is a story, and not a real thing.

And on the one hand, with
all the new technologies,

you get better and better
abilities to construct yourself.

But already today, a lot of the work

which previously was done in the brain

and in the mind of constructing
my identity, my story,

has been outsourced to
things like Facebook,

that you build your Facebook account,

and this is actually
outsourcing it from the brain,

and you are busy maybe for hours every day

just building a story and
becoming extremely attached to it,

and publicizing it to everybody.

And you tend to make
this fundamental mistake,

you think this is really me.

And so--
- Why is that a mistake?

I'm actually really curious.

- First of all, if you take
something like the profile

that people create about themselves

in Facebook or in Instagram,
it should be obvious

it doesn't really reflect
your actual existence,

your actual reality, both inner
reality and outer reality.

Like the percentage of time you smile

in your Instagram account is much bigger

than the percentage of time
you smile in real life.

And you go on some vacation

and you post the images from the vacation,

so usually you're smiling and
you're in your swimming suit

on the beach with your girlfriend

and boyfriend holding this cocktail,

and everything looks perfect,
and everybody's so envious.

But actually, you just had a nasty fight

with your boyfriend five minutes ago,

and then this is the image
that everybody else is seeing

and thinking, oh, they must
have such wonderful time.

And afterwards, like a year
later or two years later,

you look back and this is what you see,

and you forget what was
the actual experience like.

- What is the role of truth

in the story that we tell
ourselves about ourselves?

- Very little.

- Do you think there should be more?

- There should definitely be more.

- And what would be the
outcome if we were like,

I'm really gonna make sure

that the story I tell
myself is objectively true.

- It's going to be very,
very painful and difficult.

I think it is worth the effort,

but it's just very difficult.

We constantly edit

the story,

just like the news on TV are edited,

and just like, it's a
bit like making a movie.

Like you watch the movie in the cinema,

and everything is so seamless.

Like yeah, this is the story, it flows.

And then when you actually see

how a movie is produced, this is insane.

Like you have this tiny bit of a scene,

you repeat it 50 times, and
sometimes you shoot this scene,

this scene two comes after scene one,

but actually it was
filmed long before that.

So sometimes you film
the breakup of the lovers

before you film the first meeting

for all kinds of schedule
reasons and location.

So the end result

is completely seamless and perfect,

but it is actually made up

from all these tiny, disconnected bits

that have been, this is from
here and this is from there

and we somehow glue it
together, and it looks good.

And it's the same with
the story of our life.

It's all kinds of bits and pieces,

and only when you tell it to yourself

or to somebody else it
kind of makes sense.

The cost of trying to stick
with the reality as it is

is very, very high.

It's very difficult, it
demands a lot of effort,

and it is often very painful

because you have to acknowledge
many things about yourself

that you don't want to acknowledge them.

People have this fantasy

of, I don't know, going to some retreat

and just taking out a
week or two from life

to really observe
inside, to really explore

who am I, what is my authentic self?

And they have this fantastic notion

that I will be able to finally
connect to my inner child,

and I will discover my
true vocation in life,

and I will discover all these
wonderful things about me.

And when you actually do it,

the first thing you usually encounter

is all the things you don't
want to know about yourself.

There is a reason that you
don't want to know them.

I think it's worth the effort,

but it's a very, very hard task.

- All right, on that,
there's so many studies

that talk about the more
delusional somebody is,

self-delusional, the more
likely they are to be happy.

You've said one of the big questions

as a historian you're trying to answer is,

as we've moved forward
as a species, a society,

have we actually gotten happier?

So there is some
importance, it sounds like,

that you place on happiness.

So why then would you want people to do

that hard work of facing the realities,

recognizing the things about themselves

that they don't necessarily
wanna recognize?

Is that because you think
it leads to more happiness?

- I think that ultimately
it is worth the price.

I mean, delusions come at
a very high price also.

And not just to yourself,
but to people around you,

to the world as a whole.

I mean, ultimately this
leads to things like wars

and like genocide, and like an emperor.

And I come from Israel, I
come from the Middle East,

so I am surrounded by millions of people

who are killing each other

because of all kinds of fictional stories

and delusions that they believe in.

So sometimes it's an
important defensive mechanism.

It's very difficult to live

just with the raw truth all the time,

but the price of delusion

and the price of not being
able to tell the difference

between fiction and reality, it adds up,

and eventually it adds up to
things like genocide and war.

- That sounds like a pretty
extraordinary price to pay.

Yeah, I will agree with you there.

In 21 Lessons is,

what do we do when we're faced
with being put out of work,

that we are one of the useless class

and we have to do this
reinvention at a career level?

You're living longer,

your career life is 50, 60, 70, 80 years,

whatever that looks like,

in a time where every seven to 10 years,

like it's just, it's a
completely new world.

What do you think the human capacity

for that level of reinvention is?

- That's a very important question.

It has little to do with immortality,

because even without immortality,

we are heading in that direction.

Even if people, if the lifespan
remains as it is, 80 years,

every 10 years you have another big shock.

One of the things many
people don't realize

about the AI revolution and
the automation revolution,

they imagine it as some
kind of one-time event.

We have the big AI revolution in 2025,

you have all these truck
drivers and taxi drivers

and doctors and whatever
losing their jobs,

you have a few difficult
years of adjustment,

and then eventually you have
the new brave new world of AI

with a new equilibrium.

And this is an extremely
unlikely scenario,

because we are nowhere near
the maximum potential of AI.

The speed in which it develops
is only likely to accelerate.

So what we are really going to face

is a cascade of ever-bigger
revolutions in the job market

and in many other areas of life:

relationships, politics, and so forth.

So you have a big disruption in 2025,

you have an even bigger
disruption in 2035,

an even bigger one in 2045, and so forth.

And if you look, say, at the job market,

so okay, you were a truck driver,

and they no longer need you,

but there is new demand for yoga teachers,

so you somehow reinvent
yourself at age 40.

I'm no longer a truck driver,
now I'm a yoga teacher.

It's very difficult, you somehow do it.

10 years later, no need of yoga teachers,

thank you very much,

we now have these amazing applications

connected with biometric
sensors to your body,

they know exactly what you're
doing with every tiny muscle

as you do this posture or that posture.

No human yoga teacher
can compete with that,

you're out of job.

You have to reinvent yourself again

as a designer of virtual-world games.

And you do it, somehow.

But 10 years later,
you have to do it again

because this too has now been automated.

And even if you get
support from the government

and there is all these

education for adult system,

the really big question is,
again, it's psychological.

Do we as human beings
have the mental stability

and the emotional intelligence necessary

to reinvent ourselves repeatedly?

And when you're 20,

what you're doing is
basically to reinvent yourself

or to invent yourself for the first time,

and it is very difficult.

When you're 30, it's even more difficult,

but you somehow do it.

But when you get to be 40, 50, 60,

it becomes more and more difficult.

You have more to let go of.

I've invested so much
in building this career,

this personality, these
skills, to give it all up

and start again from
anew, it's so difficult.

So I don't know whether we can do it.

- Yeah, that is the question

that I think we'll ultimately
be forced to answer,

and that brings me to education.

So what do you think that,

if we're talking to
somebody who's 18 right now,

they're trying to decide do
I go to college, yes or no?

Should they go to college,
and if they go to college,

what should they be studying?

- It's a very difficult question.

The first thing they should realize

is that nobody really
knows, nobody really knows

how the job market
would look like in 2040.

So they should be suspicious
of all these kinds of advices

by people who pretend that they know

what the job market
would need in 20 years.

The best investment, I would say,

is in emotional intelligence
and in mental balance,

and these kinds of skills

of how to keep changing
throughout your life,

how to keep learning throughout your life.

Now, how do you learn that?

That's very, very difficult.

We don't have a college
degree in mental flexibility,

but these are the most important tools.

So whatever you choose,
you can go to law school,

you can go to ballet school,

but you should keep in mind
that much of what I'm learning

might be irrelevant in 20 or 30 years,

so whatever else I'm
doing, I should also invest

in developing my emotional
intelligence, my mental balance,

my ability to keep changing and learning

and reinventing throughout my life.

So maybe to give an image or a metaphor,

if in the past, education was
like building a stone house

with very deep foundations,

now I would say that
education is more like

constructing a tent that you can fold up

and move to another location
very quickly and easily.

- That's a great analogy.

So given that it's so hard
to predict the future,

you've talked a lot about
the power of science fiction

and science fiction writers.

Walk us through that.

What is the role that a science
fiction writer can play,

or storyteller, filmmaker,
whatever the case may be?

- Our lives in the 21st century,
more than anything else,

are going to be new technologies,

especially in AI and biotechnology.

And most people, their
understanding of these technologies

and their potential for good or for bad,

it really comes from science fiction.

The political system so
far has done an awful job

in understanding and preparing us

for these kinds of development.

There is almost no talk
in the political arena

about AI and biotechnology.

The scientific community is, of course,

very deeply engaged with it,

but most people don't read
articles in Science or Nature,

and even if they tried, it
would be very difficult for them

to understand the professional jargon

and all the statistics and so forth.

So most people actually
get their education

about what's coming from science fiction.

And this means, at least I
think so, that science fiction

is now the most important artistic genre,

and it should also be
the most responsible.

And one of the problems
with science fiction

is that so far it has done a so-so job.

Some novels and TV series
and films are really amazing

in the way they explore what could happen.

Ranging, like some of my favorites are,

my all-time favorite is Brave
New World by Aldous Huxley,

which was written back in the early 1930s,

and I think is the most
prophetic and profound.

- I totally understand.

All right, so before I
ask my last question,

tell these guys where
they can find you online.

- I have a website, ynharari.com,

and they can find me on Facebook
and Instagram and Twitter

and all the usual places. (laughs)

- Awesome.

My last question is what is the impact

that you wanna have on the world?

- I want to bring more clarity
to the public conversation

on what's happening in the world.

I think that too much
of the public discussion

is focused either on the wrong issues

or is extremely confused and unclear.

And people are flooded by
enormous amounts of information,

which they don't know
how to make sense of.

And what I see my mission

as bringing clarity to
the public discussion,

especially in terms of
focusing people's attention

on the most important questions.

I try to give some answers too,

but I don't care a lot if
people don't agree with me

about the answers, about the solutions.

The important thing, I think,

is to agree about the questions.

And I would end by saying

that there are three big
challenges to humankind

in the 21st century.

They are nuclear war, climate change,

and technological disruption.

And these should be the first three items

on the political agenda of every country.

This is not the case right now.

I would like it to be the case.

- Awesome.

Yuval, thank you so much
for joining us today,

that was incredible.
- Thank you.

(audience applauds)
It was fascinating.

- All right guys, when I say
that you're going to learn

just an absolute metric
ton of stuff from this man.

Dive into his first three books,

they are absolutely extraordinary.

You will learn so much
about where we've come from,

where we're going and where we are today

that it will give you the
ability to look at yourself

in a totally new way,
to understand yourself,

not even just at the
operating system level,

but like at the kernel level.

It was so fascinating to see him

walk us through that entire lineage.

It's unlike anything
that I've read before,

and reading the books as a trilogy

and understanding how
they all work together

is breathtaking, so I highly,
highly, highly encourage that.

And the fact that he's out
there in a populist way

getting people to ask these questions

I think is so critical, and he threw out,

go back to the beginning of this episode,

he threw out some amazing business ideas

without, I think, even
meaning to, but I thought,

"Wow, somebody could
actually run with these

"and they would be extraordinary."

And that's just the way his mind works,

he really is one of the most
profound thinkers of our time.

Dive in, he's accessible,

and that is one of the
most beautiful things,

and remember he's a historian,

so the way that he's
putting this all in context

is truly extraordinary.

And once you understand things

at why they are the way they are,

then it just brings a whole new ability

to see through the lies, fake news,

the stories we tell ourselves,

all of the just natural human attachments,

to really come to an understanding

of the way the world actually is,

and once you understand that,

then you can begin to move in a way

that makes sense and allows
you to reach your own goals.

All right, if you haven't
already, be sure to subscribe,

and until next time, my
friends, be legendary.

Take care.

(audience applauds)

Yuval, thank you.

Everybody, thank you so much for watching

and being a part of this community.

If you haven't already,
be sure to subscribe.

You're gonna get weekly videos
on building a growth mindset,

cultivating grit, and
unlocking your full potential.

(glass breaking)