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Speaker 1: order your first custom shirt today. This is Masters in

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Speaker 1: Business with Barry Ridholts on Bloomberg Radio. This week. On

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Speaker 1: the podcast, I sit down for really a fascinating conversation

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Speaker 1: with Yuval Noah Harari. If that name sounds familiar, he

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Speaker 1: is the author of a book on human history called Sapiens.

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Speaker 1: I can't begin to tell you how many people have

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Speaker 1: raved about this book, and whether it's Bill Gates or

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Speaker 1: Mark Zuckerberg, UH, or Danny Kaneman or go down the list.

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Speaker 1: I've had a number of guests. When we get to

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Speaker 1: the books segment, that's that's the book they recommend. Uh.

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Speaker 1: It's it's really a fascinating history and and a very

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Speaker 1: counterintuitive history of the development of the human species and

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Speaker 1: why we have succeeded so well. It isn't necessarily our intelligence,

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Speaker 1: It isn't necessarily our adaptability. According to Harari, it is

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Speaker 1: our ability to cooperate with each other and to tell stories,

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Speaker 1: myths and stories are at the core of what allows

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Speaker 1: human cooperation to succeed. It's a fascinating conversation. Uh. We

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Speaker 1: talk about his new book Hamodeus, A Brief History of Tomorrow,

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Speaker 1: which I have not yet read, but the people I

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Speaker 1: know who have read loved it, and so it picks up,

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Speaker 1: it picks up with the last book left off. I

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Speaker 1: think you'll find this really a fascinating conversation. We he's

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Speaker 1: in the midst of doing a nationwide tour. They're creating

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Speaker 1: a documentary film or or some sort of a series

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Speaker 1: on this. So we got him in and out in

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Speaker 1: less than than an hour. So this is a relatively

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Speaker 1: fast show. So with no further ado, here is my

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Speaker 1: conversation with Yuval Noah Harari. This is Masters in Business

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Speaker 1: with Barry Ridholtz on Boomberg Radio. My special guest today

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Speaker 1: is author you've all Noah Harari. You should know his name,

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Speaker 1: and if you don't, you will soon. Harari specialized in

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Speaker 1: medieval history and military history, studying at the Hebrew University

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Speaker 1: of Jerusalem. He completed his doctorate of All Places at

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Speaker 1: Jesus College in Oxford, and he is the author of

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Speaker 1: two of the most fascinating books you will come across

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Speaker 1: um in the next few years. His first book, Say Biens,

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Speaker 1: A Brief History of Human Kinds, was one of those

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Speaker 1: books that very quietly caught an audience. It was on

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Speaker 1: the summer reading list for Barack Obama and Bill Gates.

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Speaker 1: That's all it really took for the book to go viral.

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Speaker 1: His new book, Homo Dais, A Brief History of Tomorrow,

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Speaker 1: comes out shortly. You've all, Noah Harari, Welcome to Bloomberg. Hello,

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Speaker 1: it's good to be here. I'm fascinated by your book

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Speaker 1: and a quick story I read. Was reading a book

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Speaker 1: called Last Day Ape Standing and it was really a

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Speaker 1: good name Darwinian history of human kind. And a friend said,

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Speaker 1: how are you enjoying that book? I said, I'm liking it.

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Speaker 1: He goes, I have a book you're gonna love, and

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Speaker 1: he was right. He gave me Sapiens. I love the story,

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Speaker 1: I love the background about this. But let's let's jump

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Speaker 1: right into a little discussion of of Homo sapiens. A

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Speaker 1: hundred thousand years ago, Homo sapiens were just one of

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Speaker 1: a number of different human species, all competing for supremacy. Today,

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Speaker 1: Homo sapiens dominate the planet. What made Homo sapiens so

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Speaker 1: different and so successful? Oh, we are the only mammal

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Speaker 1: that can cooperate in very large numbers and do so

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Speaker 1: very flexibly. We tend to think that our superiority comes

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Speaker 1: out of some individual ability like we have we are

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Speaker 1: smarter than everybody else or whatever. But on the individual level,

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Speaker 1: we are not superior to chimpanzee is Our real advantage

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Speaker 1: is the unique ability to cooperate in very large numbers.

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Speaker 1: If you cram a hundred thousand chimpanzees into Yankee Stadium

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Speaker 1: or into Wall Street, you get chaos. You cram a

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Speaker 1: hundred thousand humans there, and you get very sophisticated networks

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Speaker 1: of cooperation. And all our achievements are based on large

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Speaker 1: scale corporation. Now what made this possible? Why are we

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Speaker 1: the only ones that can cooperate in large numbers? It's

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Speaker 1: because we are the only ones that can tell fictional

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Speaker 1: stories and believe them. At the basis of every large

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Speaker 1: scale human cooperation, you always find a fictional story about gods,

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Speaker 1: about nations, about money, corporations, all kinds of things that

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Speaker 1: exist only in our own imagination. You cannot convince a

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Speaker 1: chimpanzee to give you a banana by promising him that

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Speaker 1: after you die, you go to chimpanzee heaven and there

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Speaker 1: received lots and lots of bananas for your good deeds.

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Speaker 1: Chimpanzee wouldn't believe that humans believes our stories, which is

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Speaker 1: why we cooperate better than them. So the power of myth,

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Speaker 1: the power of storytelling, is what led to human cooperation.

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Speaker 1: Exactly as I said, check any large scale human cooperation.

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Speaker 1: There is always some fiction at the basis. It's easiest

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Speaker 1: to comprehend it in the context of religion, but it's

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Speaker 1: the same with political and economic corporation. And money is

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Speaker 1: probably the most successful fictional story ever told. So why

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Speaker 1: is money fictional? Because money has no objective reality. It's

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Speaker 1: not like a coconut or a banana. Um, It's only

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Speaker 1: value comes from stories that people tell about it. The

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Speaker 1: consensus of this piece of paper has value, and that

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Speaker 1: piece of paper doesn't exactly that the group consensus is

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Speaker 1: a fiction. In other words, yeah, I mean, I'm not

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Speaker 1: I'm not saying that fiction is wrong or we should

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Speaker 1: stop believing in fictional stories. There are the basis of

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Speaker 1: our society, but I am pointing out that it's all

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Speaker 1: based on stories and our belief in the stories. If

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Speaker 1: if it were up to me, I would give the

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Speaker 1: Nobel Prize in Literature to the person of the Federal Reserve,

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Speaker 1: not to the usual suspects who get the get the prize.

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Speaker 1: I still, I still like your concept of a hundred

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Speaker 1: thousand chimpanzees in Wall Street. I don't know if the

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Speaker 1: chaos would be very different than what we are actually,

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Speaker 1: I think it will be much worse, much worse. So

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Speaker 1: here's a quote about money of yours that come straight

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Speaker 1: from the book that I think is absolutely fascinating, and

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Speaker 1: it puts the concept of faith based belief and money

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Speaker 1: into some context. The sum total of money in the

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Speaker 1: entire world is sixty trillion dollars. Add up all the cash,

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Speaker 1: it up all the paper money and coins, and it's

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Speaker 1: only six trillion dollars of all money in the world

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Speaker 1: exists only on computer servers. Therefore, money is a faith

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Speaker 1: based object. And even the six trillion that are in paper,

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Speaker 1: I mean the paper is worth nothing. Really. You can't

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Speaker 1: eat it, you can't drink it, so it is it too,

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Speaker 1: is based on on faith. And even gold was based

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Speaker 1: on faith, on on on belief because you can't do

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Speaker 1: anything with gold. I mean again, you can't eat it,

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Speaker 1: and it's a very soft metal, so you can't even

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Speaker 1: make useful implements out of it. You can't kill somebody

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Speaker 1: with a sold made of gold. Um, So it's really

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Speaker 1: all based on trust. The real material from which money

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Speaker 1: is made is not gold or paper. It's made of trust.

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Speaker 1: It's the most sophisticated mutual trust system ever created. It's

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Speaker 1: the only system really that managed to be completely universal.

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Speaker 1: Not everybody believes in God, and not everybody believes, say,

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Speaker 1: in human rights, but everybody believes in money. I mean,

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Speaker 1: even if you think about I don't know, Sama bin Laden.

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Speaker 1: He hated American politics and culture and religion. He had

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Speaker 1: no objection at all to American dollars. You reference that

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Speaker 1: even something as ancient as the Roman Empire collected taxes

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Speaker 1: at one point, at their peak, they had a hundred

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Speaker 1: million people paying them taxes. Is that number right? A

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Speaker 1: hundred million people paying them Roman Empire some form of taxation, yes,

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Speaker 1: I mean you had a hundred million people in the

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Speaker 1: empire as it's the need. Of course, not everybody pays taxes,

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Speaker 1: you have families or only one person pays, but generally speaking. Yes,

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Speaker 1: they collect the taxes from the entire Mediterranean basin, from

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Speaker 1: tens of millions of people. That's amazing. I'm Barry rid Hilts.

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Speaker 1: You're listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio. My

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Speaker 1: special guest today is you've all Harari. He is the

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Speaker 1: author of the book Sapiens, A Brief History of Human Kind,

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Speaker 1: And let's jump right into this. And and there's so

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Speaker 1: much in this book that is so fascinating and so counterintuitive.

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Speaker 1: And yet when you think it through, you start to

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Speaker 1: say to yourself, maybe maybe he's right. Let's talk about

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Speaker 1: the agricultural revolution began around twelve thousand years ago, and

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Speaker 1: you say, surprisingly, the pursuit of an easier life leads

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Speaker 1: to more hardship. Now, I think of the pre agricultural

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Speaker 1: era as as short, nasty, and brutish. You never know

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Speaker 1: when your next meal is coming from. You're you're constantly

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Speaker 1: at at the mercy of the weather, of of other animals,

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Speaker 1: of other bands. But I assume that agriculture allows you

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Speaker 1: to have a home and roof of your house, And

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Speaker 1: you're saying that just makes things worse. Yeah, for most people,

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Speaker 1: it made things worse. If you're a king or a

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Speaker 1: high priest. Life is very nice in ancient Egypt. But

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Speaker 1: if you're a simple peasant, life is actually much harder.

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Speaker 1: First of all, is a peasant you work harder than

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Speaker 1: your hunter gatherer ancestors. Our bodies and our minds evolved

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Speaker 1: for hundreds of thousands of years in adaptation to living

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Speaker 1: as hunter gatherers, going to the forest to look from

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Speaker 1: mushrooms or hunt hunt rabbits, and suddenly you find yourself

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Speaker 1: all day working very hard on very monotonous and boring

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Speaker 1: jobs like bringing water buckets from the river or harvesting

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Speaker 1: the corne. Even today you have hundreds of millions of

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Speaker 1: people working in much more difficult and boring jobs than

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Speaker 1: our ancestors in the Stone Age. In exchange, you've got

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Speaker 1: a much worse diet. Hunter gatherers eight dozens of different

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Speaker 1: kinds of animals and plants and mushrooms and tever, so

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Speaker 1: they had a very rich and balanced nutrition. Usually peasants

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Speaker 1: subsisted on a very monotonous diet. If you live in

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Speaker 1: ancient Egypt, you basically eat wheat unless you're faero. If

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Speaker 1: you live in China, you eat rice for breakfast, rice

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Speaker 1: for lunch, and if you're lucky, you have enough rice

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Speaker 1: left for dinner. In addition, peasants suffered far more from

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Speaker 1: infectious diseases because almost all infectious diseases humans suffer from

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Speaker 1: actually came from domesticated animals. Hunter gatherers had very few

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Speaker 1: infectious diseases. There were tiny bands roaming around, not enough

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Speaker 1: to to sustain an epidemic. You start seeing epidemics of

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Speaker 1: infectious diseases only with agriculture. And if this is not enough,

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Speaker 1: peasants suffered far more from social exploitation and political inequality

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Speaker 1: than hunter gatherers. Inequality both between classes and between genders.

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Speaker 1: So I'm not saying that life was paradised as unter gatherers.

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Speaker 1: You had many difficulties, but all in all, the life

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Speaker 1: of the average person got worse instead of better as

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Speaker 1: a result of the agricultural revolution. Only around the nineteenth

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Speaker 1: century you begin to seem real improvement in the life

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Speaker 1: of the average person. And even today, as I said,

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Speaker 1: there are hundreds of millions of people around the world

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Speaker 1: whose life is much more difficult and much more grim

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Speaker 1: than the life of hunter gatherers twenty years ago. I'm

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Speaker 1: also fascinated by the book I didn't realize it was

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Speaker 1: first published in Hebrew in two thousand and eleven, and

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Speaker 1: then it didn't come out in English until what What

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Speaker 1: was the process? How did it go from a Hebrew

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Speaker 1: book to something that was published now globally. Well, Um,

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Speaker 1: I rewrote it in English. It's not really translation, it's

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Speaker 1: rewriting it. Um. And I changed many of the example

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Speaker 1: polls from things from Israeli and Jewish history, two things

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Speaker 1: with more international familiarity I used. I got a lot

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Speaker 1: of feedbank from the Israeli audience about all kinds of

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Speaker 1: things in the book. So I had the opportunity to

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Speaker 1: change things and update things, and I had to find

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Speaker 1: a publisher, which wasn't easy. Uh So it took three

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Speaker 1: years to to make the transition. Really and now it's

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Speaker 1: we have something like fifty translations all over the world.

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Speaker 1: That's quite that's quite fascinating. You mentioned agricultural lead lead

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Speaker 1: to communicable disease because you have people working close together.

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Speaker 1: What about the rise of cities and urban population centers.

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Speaker 1: We always think of that as a positive or at

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Speaker 1: least historically that's been portrayed as a positive. Look. We

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Speaker 1: have culture, we have learning, we have knowledge, you're saying

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Speaker 1: not so much. Well, that depends on your viewpoint and

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Speaker 1: on your metric. If your viewpoint it's say, I don't

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Speaker 1: an amazing development. But if you think about it from

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Speaker 1: talk about cognitive dissonance, one of my favorite phrases. I

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Speaker 1: always think of that phrase as a negative of of

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Speaker 1: they can't get out of their own way. But but again,

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Speaker 1: very counterintuitively, you describe it differently. Quote. Cognitive dissonance is

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Speaker 1: often considered a failure of the human psyche. In fact,

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Speaker 1: it is a vital asset. Had people been unable to

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Speaker 1: hold contradictory beliefs and values, it probably would have been

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Speaker 1: impossible to establish and maintain any human culture. Explain that

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Speaker 1: that that's quite an interesting assertion. Well, in contrast to

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Speaker 1: the laws of nature, which have no contradictions. Humans have

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Speaker 1: So unless we had this ability of cognitive dissonance, we

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Speaker 1: could not have had any culture or any human human

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Speaker 1: generated a code book. And to give a few examples,

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Speaker 1: if you think, for example, about the monoteistic world view,

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Speaker 1: so people believe in a single, all knowing and omnipotent God,

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Speaker 1: but somehow they also manage to believe in an independent

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Speaker 1: satan or devil, and to blame the devil for all

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Speaker 1: kinds of bad things that happen in the world and

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Speaker 1: exxonerate the all knowing and all powerful God. Now this

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Speaker 1: is a contradiction, but people do it similarly in in

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Speaker 1: in today's culture. If you go to a hospital, or

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Speaker 1: if you go to the department of biology, then human

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Speaker 1: and are basically these biochemical machines. And there is no

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Speaker 1: such thing as free will in today's biology. But then

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Speaker 1: go to the law department or to the courts, Suddenly

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Speaker 1: free will comes out of nowhere. And our entire legal

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Speaker 1: system is built on the assumptions that yes of course

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Speaker 1: humans have free will. How else can you hold them

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Speaker 1: responsible for crimes and other bad actions? Exactly, And there

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Speaker 1: is a contradiction there, but um, we kind of managed

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Speaker 1: to go away around the contradiction, and we think in

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Speaker 1: different ways when we are in the hospital or when

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Speaker 1: we are in the courtroom. I'm very rid Holts. You're

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Speaker 1: listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio. My special

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Speaker 1: guest today is you've all Noah Harari. He is the

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Speaker 1: author of two highly regarded books. The first is called Sapiens,

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Speaker 1: A Brief History of Humankind. The next is called Homo Daeous,

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Speaker 1: A Brief History of Tomorrow. We were talking earl Elier

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Speaker 1: about how gold isn't especially valuable intrinsically. You can't eat it,

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Speaker 1: you can't wear, you can't use it as a tool.

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Speaker 1: But some of the things you reference in in some

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Speaker 1: of the books are quite fascinating. The first was that

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Speaker 1: the fact that Mediterranean people believe that gold had some

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Speaker 1: value ultimately lead to Indians and Africana's believing that gold

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Speaker 1: had some value. How did that mechanism work well? Um,

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Speaker 1: in order to believe that something is valuable, it's you

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Speaker 1: don't need to believe it yourself. It's enough if somebody

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Speaker 1: else believes in it, because you know that you can

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Speaker 1: trade it for things that you consider valuable. If suddenly,

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Speaker 1: I don't know, aliens from outer space would invade Earth

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Speaker 1: and it turns out that they have there is a

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Speaker 1: huge market for onion pills on their planet, immediately the

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Speaker 1: price of onion PILs on Earth will skyrocket. We can't

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Speaker 1: do we don't need these things, but we can sell

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Speaker 1: it to the aliens and get in exchange. I don't

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Speaker 1: know what urani or or robots or whatever they produce.

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Speaker 1: So suddenly you have reason to value this. And this

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Speaker 1: is what happened with gold in many places when Europeans,

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Speaker 1: for instance, reached America or Polynesia. So some of the

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Speaker 1: local people they just couldn't understand why are these strange

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Speaker 1: white people so obsessed with a nice shining metal, but

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Speaker 1: that you can't really do anything with it. So so

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Speaker 1: once trade connects to different regions, they're supply and demand

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Speaker 1: naturally leads to prices equalizing. Is that pretty much what happened?

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Speaker 1: Pretty much? Yes, So so let's jump a little bit

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Speaker 1: towards your your writing process, because I'm I'm fascinated the

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Speaker 1: book Sapiens is a serious piece of work that looks

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Speaker 1: like there was an immense amount of research and thinking

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Speaker 1: that went into it. How does your your writing process begin,

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Speaker 1: How did you start, how did you conceptualize the book initially?

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Speaker 1: And what led to it? Actually, I it came out

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Speaker 1: of a course that they gave in the Hebrew University

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Speaker 1: as a professor, as a professor to first your students

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Speaker 1: about trying to summarize the whole of history to first

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Speaker 1: your students. And I gave it for several years, and

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Speaker 1: I had the opportunity to test all kinds of ideas

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Speaker 1: on the students and see the reaction. Uh. If they

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Speaker 1: were very bold, then I understood, Okay, something is I

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Speaker 1: should change something here. Instant feedback. Yeah. If they asked

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Speaker 1: a lot of questions, maybe I should talk more about

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Speaker 1: this issue. If something is unclear, I should find an

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Speaker 1: example or some other way of explaining this difficult point.

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Speaker 1: I generally think that at least in history. Um, if

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Speaker 1: first your students cannot understand what you're saying, you're probably

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Speaker 1: either you don't understand yourself what you try to teach them,

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Speaker 1: or you're saying it in the wrong way. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I don't know. In quantum mechanics, it's not the same.

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Speaker 1: I mean, there are good reasons why, even very good ideas,

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Speaker 1: you cannot explain it to first few students. But in history,

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Speaker 1: I think it almost all cases you should find a

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Speaker 1: way to be able to to to explain it to

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Speaker 1: first few students. How long did it take you to

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Speaker 1: write sapiens Um, either the first or the second time?

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Speaker 1: The Hebrew edition, it took me like six years or so,

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Speaker 1: and then you had another two years for the English edition.

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Speaker 1: And I know people who when they write, they'll do

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Speaker 1: all their research for two years and then they'll sit

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Speaker 1: down and write, and other people research and then write

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Speaker 1: and research and then write. And what was your what

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Speaker 1: was your process like? It sounds like you were pretty interactive,

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Speaker 1: pretty dyning. It was very dynamic and interactive. It was

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Speaker 1: not like, Okay, I'll read all these books and then

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Speaker 1: I'll sit for one year and just write it down.

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Speaker 1: It was very interactive and then fluid and changing all

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Speaker 1: the time. And Homo Days seems almost like Sapiens Part two.

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Speaker 1: Here's the history looking act. Now let's look forward and

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Speaker 1: trying and imagine where this leads to. Is that how

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Speaker 1: that was conceived and and when did you start thinking, Hey,

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Speaker 1: I could continue this this process. It actually also came

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Speaker 1: about in an interactive manner because after I published Sapiens,

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Speaker 1: I gave all these interviews and went and gave these

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Speaker 1: talks and seminars, and in many places most of the

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Speaker 1: questions were actually about the future. It was like, Okay,

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Speaker 1: you now wrote a book about the whole past of humankind.

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Speaker 1: What can you say based on that on where we

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Speaker 1: might be heading? Talk too? So my thinking went more

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Speaker 1: and more to the future, and I began to give

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Speaker 1: talks and to write articles more about the future, until

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Speaker 1: at one point I said, hey, actually, heavier enough material

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Speaker 1: for a new book. I'm very ridults. You're listening to

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Speaker 1: Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio. My special guest today

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Speaker 1: is Juval Harari. He is the author, most recently of

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Speaker 1: Homo Days, A Brief History of Tomorrow, and and let's

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Speaker 1: jump right in because this is really a fascinating discussion.

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Speaker 1: I want to start with a quote. Science no surprisingly

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Speaker 1: little about the mind and consciousness. Why is that because

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Speaker 1: the only mind you can observe directly is your own.

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Speaker 1: In science, if you investigate any phenomenon, it's very important

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Speaker 1: to have direct observation of it. If you write about

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Speaker 1: someone culture, people will tell you, okay, go to some

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Speaker 1: more and and investigate it for yourself. If you write

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Speaker 1: about business, it's good if you can observe business people

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Speaker 1: or have direct business experience. But with the mind, you

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Speaker 1: just can't access the mind of anybody except yourself. You

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Speaker 1: can access the brain, but the brain isn't the mind.

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Speaker 1: The brain is all these synopses and neurons and electrochemical reactions,

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Speaker 1: and scientists assume that this is the substrate for the mind,

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Speaker 1: but it's not the mind. The mind is the subjective experiences,

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Speaker 1: the experience of love and hate and joy and pain.

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Speaker 1: And you can see the behavior of other people, but

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Speaker 1: you can't feel the love of the hate that somebody

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Speaker 1: else feels. So if you want to research that, you

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Speaker 1: can only research your own mind. And this is extremely

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Speaker 1: difficult because you it's very difficult to be objective and

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Speaker 1: systematic when you try to observe your own mind. So

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Speaker 1: let me push back on that a little bit, because

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Speaker 1: lots and lots of what we've been learning about the

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Speaker 1: brain recently have been teaching us that much of what

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Speaker 1: we previously thought of as the mind is really a

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Speaker 1: combination of, as you said, biochemical reactions. We've seen in

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Speaker 1: APHASIAX people lose the ability to read, but they can

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Speaker 1: still write, They get they can't speak some folks, but

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Speaker 1: they can saying. And what we used to think of

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Speaker 1: as part of the personality is really part of the

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Speaker 1: biomechanics that exist. So so let me ask a related

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Speaker 1: question and I'll use another one of your quotes. There's

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Speaker 1: zero scientific evidence that, in contrast to pigs, sapiens have souls.

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Speaker 1: So I have to ask a question, what is the soul?

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Speaker 1: And how can we, as you said, objectively measure it? Well, Um,

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Speaker 1: the soul, at least in the Christian version, is some

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Speaker 1: unchanging essence which is your true self, and it remains

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Speaker 1: completely without change from birth to death and hopefully even

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Speaker 1: beyond death. We have absolutely no evidence that such a

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Speaker 1: thing exists. Uh. And it stands really in direct contradiction

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Speaker 1: to the theory of evolution, which is why there we

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Speaker 1: so much objection and hate red even to the theory

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Speaker 1: of evolution. We which no other scientific theory receives so much,

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Speaker 1: so many objections and hatred as the theory of evolution.

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Speaker 1: If you think about it, why I mean, the theory

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Speaker 1: of evolution is actually quite simple in contrast to other

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Speaker 1: theories like quantum mechanics or relativity. But nobody has an

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Speaker 1: objection teaching relativity to kids. Maybe the kids object, but

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Speaker 1: but not nobody else. So what's wrong with the theory

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Speaker 1: of evolution? And I think that what's really bugs people

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Speaker 1: about the theory of evolution is that if you understand it,

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Speaker 1: you understand own no souls because something unchanging cannot come

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Speaker 1: out of an evolutionary process. Let let me push back

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Speaker 1: on that in two different ways, and I'm fascinated by

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Speaker 1: your description. First, if we go back to um Copernicus

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Speaker 1: and moving from the geocentric conception of the solar system

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Speaker 1: to the heliocentric, and even then it will the Sun

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Speaker 1: was the center of the universe, not just our solar system.

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Speaker 1: The Church pushed back fiercely on it for reasons similar

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Speaker 1: to what you're suggesting. If you go to the Old Testament,

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Speaker 1: if God created the heavens and the Earth, then the

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Speaker 1: earth is the center of everything, and moving that to

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Speaker 1: the Sun changes it. But why would evolution if it's

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Speaker 1: merely competition amongst the fittest and passing your genes along

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Speaker 1: and so we end up with a bigger set of

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Speaker 1: antlers or a longer tail, or more plumage or whatever

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Speaker 1: it is. Why would that change our conception of the

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Speaker 1: soul because there are no genes for souls um and

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Speaker 1: it's it's if you really understand what soul means, then

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Speaker 1: the idea that and every lasting, unchanging thing could emerge

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Speaker 1: out of small genetic change is extremely improbable. I mean,

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Speaker 1: the big question is when did souls first emerge in

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Speaker 1: the process of evolution? Homo sapiens have souls? Did Homo

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Speaker 1: erectors have souls? Did the ancient ancestor of all humanids

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Speaker 1: and chimpanzees have sold When exactly was the magical moment

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Speaker 1: when a small genetic change led to the emergence of

427
00:27:16,640 --> 00:27:20,960
Speaker 1: an everlasting entity. So the pushback is, oh, you have

428
00:27:21,040 --> 00:27:23,840
Speaker 1: it wrong. It was six thousand years ago when mankind

429
00:27:23,960 --> 00:27:27,359
Speaker 1: was created. And that's from Whence comes all the younger

430
00:27:27,720 --> 00:27:32,280
Speaker 1: you're describing. Yeah, again, if you subscribe to that, then

431
00:27:33,800 --> 00:27:36,440
Speaker 1: you can hardly argue with it from a scientific perspective.

432
00:27:36,640 --> 00:27:38,560
Speaker 1: And again I'm pulling a quote from your book, and

433
00:27:38,600 --> 00:27:42,720
Speaker 1: I love this data. According to a two thousand and

434
00:27:42,760 --> 00:27:47,919
Speaker 1: twelve Gallops survey, a mere fifteen percent of Americans believe

435
00:27:48,000 --> 00:27:52,520
Speaker 1: that we evolved through natural selection, while forty six percent

436
00:27:52,640 --> 00:27:56,520
Speaker 1: believe that God created humans in their current form sometime

437
00:27:56,640 --> 00:28:00,080
Speaker 1: during the last ten thousand years. And your conclusion and

438
00:28:00,240 --> 00:28:04,720
Speaker 1: is this is why education has essentially zero impact on

439
00:28:04,840 --> 00:28:09,880
Speaker 1: religion or creative creation beliefs. Fair statement. I wouldn't put

440
00:28:09,920 --> 00:28:12,400
Speaker 1: it in such an extreme way and in all cases,

441
00:28:12,640 --> 00:28:16,320
Speaker 1: but it's certainly true that people's beliefs are far more

442
00:28:16,359 --> 00:28:22,000
Speaker 1: influenced by their community identity and by the religious affiliation

443
00:28:22,480 --> 00:28:27,000
Speaker 1: than they are by facts being taught in classrooms, either

444
00:28:27,119 --> 00:28:30,800
Speaker 1: in in in in schools or in colleges. Uh. The

445
00:28:30,880 --> 00:28:34,760
Speaker 1: idea that many scientists hold that we just need to

446
00:28:34,800 --> 00:28:38,000
Speaker 1: tell people facts and this will change their beliefs, it

447
00:28:38,040 --> 00:28:42,520
Speaker 1: doesn't work like that. In Homo sapiens. Usually beliefs come

448
00:28:42,640 --> 00:28:46,680
Speaker 1: before facts, especially when you're talking about children who are

449
00:28:46,760 --> 00:28:51,680
Speaker 1: usually given a religious education in quotes, when they're too

450
00:28:51,760 --> 00:28:55,760
Speaker 1: young to really be able to debate the merits, the

451
00:28:55,800 --> 00:28:57,920
Speaker 1: pros and cons. It's I don't want to use the

452
00:28:57,920 --> 00:29:01,760
Speaker 1: word in doctrination, but you're you're drumming something into a

453
00:29:01,840 --> 00:29:05,560
Speaker 1: kid's head before they really have the capacity to objectively

454
00:29:05,600 --> 00:29:08,240
Speaker 1: evaluate it. That is that a fair statement? Yeah? And

455
00:29:08,240 --> 00:29:11,040
Speaker 1: and even more so, what we need to realize that

456
00:29:11,120 --> 00:29:15,720
Speaker 1: people think in stories, not in facts, not in numbers,

457
00:29:15,720 --> 00:29:18,840
Speaker 1: not in statistics. We are in storytelling animal and watch

458
00:29:18,920 --> 00:29:21,920
Speaker 1: better than the biblical stories. They are the they are

459
00:29:22,000 --> 00:29:24,920
Speaker 1: the art types of all our literature and and all

460
00:29:24,960 --> 00:29:27,400
Speaker 1: our myths and all our story talent. Yes, and and

461
00:29:27,600 --> 00:29:31,160
Speaker 1: you cannot fight a good story just with facts. It

462
00:29:31,320 --> 00:29:34,720
Speaker 1: won't work. It almost never works. I mean, you know,

463
00:29:34,800 --> 00:29:39,680
Speaker 1: with all the hype currently around post truth and fake

464
00:29:39,760 --> 00:29:42,560
Speaker 1: news and all that. I mean, fake news have been

465
00:29:42,560 --> 00:29:46,040
Speaker 1: around for thousands of years. Just think of the Bible, UM,

466
00:29:46,200 --> 00:29:49,040
Speaker 1: and the idea that okay, we can fight fake fake

467
00:29:49,120 --> 00:29:52,959
Speaker 1: news with with with with facts. Um. History tells us

468
00:29:53,000 --> 00:29:56,440
Speaker 1: a very different story. So let's talk about historical knowledge.

469
00:29:56,640 --> 00:30:00,640
Speaker 1: I love this observation. You have knowledge that does not

470
00:30:00,880 --> 00:30:05,960
Speaker 1: change behavior is useless, But knowledge that changes behavior quickly

471
00:30:06,640 --> 00:30:11,040
Speaker 1: loses its resonance. So explain that now that changes behavior

472
00:30:11,160 --> 00:30:15,840
Speaker 1: quickly loses its resonance relevance? How is that that it

473
00:30:15,880 --> 00:30:20,720
Speaker 1: could either be useless or quickly irrelevant? Because once the

474
00:30:20,800 --> 00:30:25,000
Speaker 1: knowledge you have changes the way in which you behave, um,

475
00:30:25,160 --> 00:30:29,160
Speaker 1: the world changes and your knowledge is no longer updated.

476
00:30:29,600 --> 00:30:31,920
Speaker 1: I mean, the best example is what's happening in in

477
00:30:32,240 --> 00:30:36,040
Speaker 1: trade and markets and the stock exchange. Let's say that

478
00:30:36,080 --> 00:30:39,360
Speaker 1: you that you predict that, um, I don't know, in

479
00:30:39,400 --> 00:30:42,640
Speaker 1: one year the price of oil will be a hundred

480
00:30:42,760 --> 00:30:46,000
Speaker 1: dollars more than it is today. What will be the

481
00:30:46,040 --> 00:30:49,280
Speaker 1: immediate result of that knowledge. The result will be that

482
00:30:49,320 --> 00:30:52,720
Speaker 1: the price of oil will jump today to your to

483
00:30:52,800 --> 00:30:55,800
Speaker 1: the level you predict, and then it will change. All

484
00:30:55,840 --> 00:30:58,400
Speaker 1: the data and all the all the calculations, and nobody

485
00:30:58,640 --> 00:31:01,440
Speaker 1: knows what it will be year from now. I mean.

486
00:31:01,480 --> 00:31:04,920
Speaker 1: This is how predictions about the future change the present,

487
00:31:05,320 --> 00:31:09,000
Speaker 1: and then the future becomes different from what you predicted.

488
00:31:09,560 --> 00:31:13,640
Speaker 1: So you talk a lot about the future. You don't

489
00:31:13,720 --> 00:31:18,400
Speaker 1: make such very explicit forecasts, but sometimes you paint a

490
00:31:18,480 --> 00:31:22,080
Speaker 1: somewhat frightening picture. What do you think is going to

491
00:31:22,160 --> 00:31:26,440
Speaker 1: happen in terms of robotics and the transference of human

492
00:31:26,520 --> 00:31:30,800
Speaker 1: consciousness perhaps into machines. Does just mean in the future

493
00:31:30,880 --> 00:31:33,800
Speaker 1: people might be able to live forever. What what does

494
00:31:33,840 --> 00:31:38,480
Speaker 1: that say about the future of of humanity? Well, there

495
00:31:38,560 --> 00:31:44,320
Speaker 1: is the science fiction version, which usually says that computers

496
00:31:44,360 --> 00:31:48,040
Speaker 1: will develop consciousness, and then you have the usual storyline

497
00:31:48,280 --> 00:31:53,200
Speaker 1: of either humans falling in love with computers or computers

498
00:31:53,280 --> 00:31:56,240
Speaker 1: rebelling and trying to exterminate humankind. And this is like

499
00:31:56,880 --> 00:32:00,680
Speaker 1: of science fiction, and this is not science because all

500
00:32:00,760 --> 00:32:06,520
Speaker 1: these storylines confuse intelligence with consciousness. Uh, there are very

501
00:32:06,520 --> 00:32:11,320
Speaker 1: different things intelligence and consciousness. Intelligence is the ability to

502
00:32:11,480 --> 00:32:16,160
Speaker 1: solve problems. Consciousness is the ability to feel things like

503
00:32:16,400 --> 00:32:20,960
Speaker 1: joy and sadness and pain and pleasure. Um. Now, we

504
00:32:21,040 --> 00:32:26,400
Speaker 1: have seen amazing development in artificial intelligence, but so far

505
00:32:26,760 --> 00:32:31,360
Speaker 1: there has been exactly zero development in artificial consciousness. And

506
00:32:31,400 --> 00:32:35,479
Speaker 1: there is absolutely no reason to believe that computers are

507
00:32:35,520 --> 00:32:40,400
Speaker 1: anywheren near developing consciousness. We've been speaking with Juval Harari

508
00:32:40,560 --> 00:32:44,719
Speaker 1: discussing his most recent book, Homo Days. You can find

509
00:32:44,880 --> 00:32:48,520
Speaker 1: either Sapiens or Homodeus in any of the finer bookstores

510
00:32:48,640 --> 00:32:52,400
Speaker 1: or Amazon or on SoundCloud. Be sure and check out

511
00:32:52,400 --> 00:32:55,920
Speaker 1: my daily column on Bloomberg View dot com. Follow me

512
00:32:55,920 --> 00:32:59,440
Speaker 1: on Twitter at rid Halts. We love your comments, feedback

513
00:32:59,480 --> 00:33:03,200
Speaker 1: and suggest questions right to us at m IB podcast

514
00:33:03,320 --> 00:33:06,680
Speaker 1: at Bloomberg dot net. I'm Barry rid Holts. You're listening

515
00:33:06,680 --> 00:33:10,840
Speaker 1: to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio. Hey guys, let

516
00:33:10,880 --> 00:33:13,560
Speaker 1: me ask you a question, do you have trouble finding

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526
00:33:54,200 --> 00:33:56,520
Speaker 1: You've all thank you so much for doing this. I've

527
00:33:56,640 --> 00:34:01,640
Speaker 1: had Sapiens. I mentioned I really enjoyed Last Ape Standing,

528
00:34:02,320 --> 00:34:07,600
Speaker 1: which is what led me to Sapiens. And uh, the

529
00:34:07,640 --> 00:34:09,680
Speaker 1: book I was reading at the time is really very

530
00:34:09,719 --> 00:34:15,680
Speaker 1: much an evolutionary history of of of various primates and

531
00:34:15,680 --> 00:34:18,640
Speaker 1: why were there twenty eight and with a survivor you

532
00:34:18,800 --> 00:34:22,600
Speaker 1: took a very very different approach, not a purely evolutionary approach,

533
00:34:22,920 --> 00:34:25,480
Speaker 1: and I think people who who are familiar with the book,

534
00:34:25,960 --> 00:34:32,480
Speaker 1: and that includes people like Mark Zuckerberg and UM. I

535
00:34:32,640 --> 00:34:35,400
Speaker 1: interviewed Danny Kheman and it was the book he recommended

536
00:34:35,440 --> 00:34:41,279
Speaker 1: to people, UM. Bill gates the number of people UM,

537
00:34:41,360 --> 00:34:44,600
Speaker 1: who are highly regarded. Who recommends the book recommended the

538
00:34:44,640 --> 00:34:47,960
Speaker 1: book must be deeply satisfying because you have a wonderful

539
00:34:48,000 --> 00:34:51,320
Speaker 1: fan base. UM. Yes, it's it's fun when what do

540
00:34:51,360 --> 00:34:54,640
Speaker 1: you write suddenly reaches so many people. So so let's

541
00:34:54,719 --> 00:34:59,120
Speaker 1: jump into our standard questions we ask all of our guests. UM,

542
00:34:59,280 --> 00:35:04,000
Speaker 1: you have a historical background. You studied history and then

543
00:35:04,040 --> 00:35:06,600
Speaker 1: became an academic. Is that what you did before you

544
00:35:06,640 --> 00:35:10,080
Speaker 1: started writing books. Yeah. I was a specialist in medieval

545
00:35:10,120 --> 00:35:16,880
Speaker 1: military history, and so you're familiar familiarity, familiarity you can

546
00:35:17,000 --> 00:35:23,280
Speaker 1: edit that your familiarity with the way the peasant class

547
00:35:23,360 --> 00:35:27,759
Speaker 1: lad lead their lives really comes from true history, not

548
00:35:28,480 --> 00:35:33,279
Speaker 1: just a distorted Uh. Yeah, I think that UM. As

549
00:35:33,280 --> 00:35:37,239
Speaker 1: a medievally historian, I bring a kind of novel perspective

550
00:35:37,520 --> 00:35:42,360
Speaker 1: to discussions about cyborgs and artificial intelligence and genetic engineering.

551
00:35:43,200 --> 00:35:46,720
Speaker 1: That that makes that makes a whole lot of sense. UM.

552
00:35:46,800 --> 00:35:49,759
Speaker 1: Let's talk about some of your early mentors who influenced

553
00:35:49,760 --> 00:35:53,719
Speaker 1: you early in your career. I had a very important

554
00:35:53,760 --> 00:35:57,640
Speaker 1: influence from my supervisor in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem,

555
00:35:57,960 --> 00:36:00,920
Speaker 1: Benjamin Cadara, who was all so a specialist in the

556
00:36:00,960 --> 00:36:04,080
Speaker 1: Crusades and in the Middle Ages. But to encourage me

557
00:36:04,320 --> 00:36:09,880
Speaker 1: to really think big about about history. Um, how do

558
00:36:09,920 --> 00:36:14,759
Speaker 1: you go from I'm kind of fascinated from uh, Jerusalem

559
00:36:14,840 --> 00:36:19,640
Speaker 1: Hebrew University to Jesus College in Oxford. That's a that's

560
00:36:19,680 --> 00:36:23,040
Speaker 1: sort of an interesting juxtaposition between the two. Now you

561
00:36:23,080 --> 00:36:25,440
Speaker 1: know Jesus was in Jerusalem, so I guess he was.

562
00:36:25,560 --> 00:36:29,239
Speaker 1: That makes that makes so you just basically said, all right,

563
00:36:29,239 --> 00:36:33,640
Speaker 1: if I follow Jesus, follow up this path. Um. Who

564
00:36:33,840 --> 00:36:39,839
Speaker 1: influenced your approach to history? What other historians did you find? Um,

565
00:36:39,960 --> 00:36:43,360
Speaker 1: really changed the way you looked at at history. Actually

566
00:36:43,440 --> 00:36:47,279
Speaker 1: not just historians, but people from other disciplines. I mean

567
00:36:47,280 --> 00:36:50,720
Speaker 1: there was Jared Diamond, whose book Guns, Germs and Steel

568
00:36:51,239 --> 00:36:54,120
Speaker 1: gave me again this this this insight that you can

569
00:36:54,160 --> 00:36:59,239
Speaker 1: actually right a very big history of human kind discussing

570
00:36:59,320 --> 00:37:04,160
Speaker 1: the most funder mental questions of human existence from scientific perspective.

571
00:37:04,600 --> 00:37:08,640
Speaker 1: And Jared Diamond was originally a specialist in birds, uh

572
00:37:08,840 --> 00:37:13,560
Speaker 1: really and an ornithologist. And another big influence was France Duvau,

573
00:37:13,880 --> 00:37:18,200
Speaker 1: who specializes in primates, in chimpanzees and and bonobos. And

574
00:37:18,320 --> 00:37:22,040
Speaker 1: I read his book Chimpanzee Politics, Uh, and it changed,

575
00:37:22,040 --> 00:37:26,560
Speaker 1: It completely changed the way I understand not just chimpanzee politics,

576
00:37:26,560 --> 00:37:30,800
Speaker 1: but also human politics. That's interesting. One of my favorite

577
00:37:30,800 --> 00:37:35,480
Speaker 1: Ted videos is somebody who works with um bonobos and

578
00:37:35,520 --> 00:37:39,319
Speaker 1: other chimpanzees. And if you give them a task to do,

579
00:37:39,760 --> 00:37:42,560
Speaker 1: and there two chimps next to each other, or two

580
00:37:42,560 --> 00:37:46,200
Speaker 1: bonobos and caids always the grapes and the that's fan,

581
00:37:47,040 --> 00:37:50,360
Speaker 1: that's him. That's so you give one one of cucumber

582
00:37:50,440 --> 00:37:52,680
Speaker 1: for doing a task, and you give the other a cucumber,

583
00:37:52,760 --> 00:37:55,520
Speaker 1: and they're fine. You give the first one of cucumber,

584
00:37:55,560 --> 00:37:58,160
Speaker 1: and then you give the second one a grape. Cucumbers

585
00:37:58,160 --> 00:38:01,520
Speaker 1: are essentially water and tasteless. Grapes are sweet and delicious.

586
00:38:01,960 --> 00:38:06,480
Speaker 1: The first pinobo gets very upset at the lack of fairness,

587
00:38:06,480 --> 00:38:09,000
Speaker 1: the lack of justice. That I didn't realize that was

588
00:38:09,040 --> 00:38:11,799
Speaker 1: the person you're referring to. That's a fascinating TED talk

589
00:38:11,840 --> 00:38:15,480
Speaker 1: and that's a wonderful video. UM, let's jump into uh

590
00:38:15,600 --> 00:38:19,560
Speaker 1: some books we you referenced um, guns, germs and steel.

591
00:38:19,840 --> 00:38:23,040
Speaker 1: What other books have you read and enjoyed? What books

592
00:38:23,080 --> 00:38:26,480
Speaker 1: have you used for research? And so many? Give us

593
00:38:26,480 --> 00:38:29,800
Speaker 1: a few By the way, the single most common question

594
00:38:29,920 --> 00:38:33,319
Speaker 1: I get from listeners are what what books does your

595
00:38:33,480 --> 00:38:37,960
Speaker 1: guests like? Get from your especially authors, tell me what

596
00:38:38,000 --> 00:38:41,520
Speaker 1: they're reading, because people love a good book recommendation. We'll

597
00:38:41,520 --> 00:38:44,359
Speaker 1: start with two Sapiens and Homo daous and that will

598
00:38:44,440 --> 00:38:46,919
Speaker 1: keep you busy for a couple of hours. Let's let's

599
00:38:46,920 --> 00:38:50,719
Speaker 1: talk about some more. So A very big influence when

600
00:38:50,719 --> 00:38:55,600
Speaker 1: I wrote Tomodos was Donny Khanman's Thinking Fast and Slow. UM.

601
00:38:55,640 --> 00:38:58,960
Speaker 1: Another big influence was Brave New World by Ando Huxley,

602
00:38:59,520 --> 00:39:02,400
Speaker 1: which I think is the best science fiction book of

603
00:39:02,440 --> 00:39:05,920
Speaker 1: the twentieth century, and certainly the most prophetic. I mean,

604
00:39:05,920 --> 00:39:08,480
Speaker 1: he was writing in the nineteen thirties, at the time

605
00:39:08,520 --> 00:39:12,560
Speaker 1: of Stalin and Hitler and Mussolini, and he basically envisioned

606
00:39:12,920 --> 00:39:15,920
Speaker 1: not in ninety four world of Secret Police and then

607
00:39:16,160 --> 00:39:20,160
Speaker 1: Stop and things like that, but he envisioned a consumerist

608
00:39:20,880 --> 00:39:24,799
Speaker 1: society in which happiness is the highest value and you

609
00:39:24,920 --> 00:39:29,839
Speaker 1: try to um to change people with with drugs and

610
00:39:29,880 --> 00:39:34,399
Speaker 1: with bioengineering. And the really interesting thing about Brave New

611
00:39:34,440 --> 00:39:40,720
Speaker 1: World is that, in contrast, too, it's never really clear

612
00:39:41,000 --> 00:39:45,960
Speaker 1: whether it's dystopia or utopia UM. And I think it's

613
00:39:45,960 --> 00:39:50,040
Speaker 1: it's the most profound science fiction book of the twentieth century.

614
00:39:50,239 --> 00:39:54,279
Speaker 1: I think it's also the most profound discussion of the

615
00:39:54,280 --> 00:39:57,400
Speaker 1: themes of happiness and suffering that came out of the

616
00:39:57,440 --> 00:40:00,360
Speaker 1: West in the in the twentieth century. The that's a

617
00:40:00,440 --> 00:40:03,160
Speaker 1: high bar. The most profound science fiction book of the

618
00:40:03,160 --> 00:40:07,239
Speaker 1: twentieth century. Um, certainly in in many people's top ten,

619
00:40:07,320 --> 00:40:12,359
Speaker 1: to say the least. How about how about something um? Uh, nonfiction? Well,

620
00:40:12,400 --> 00:40:15,719
Speaker 1: you mentioned Kaneman. What else have you read that? What

621
00:40:15,760 --> 00:40:17,840
Speaker 1: are you reading right now? That's always a good question.

622
00:40:17,960 --> 00:40:21,440
Speaker 1: Right now, I'm actually listening, not reading as an audio

623
00:40:21,480 --> 00:40:26,200
Speaker 1: book to book called The Gay Gay Revolution about the

624
00:40:26,320 --> 00:40:29,440
Speaker 1: history of gays and lesbians in the US from the

625
00:40:29,520 --> 00:40:33,440
Speaker 1: nineteen forties to the two thousands. I'm now in the

626
00:40:33,480 --> 00:40:39,000
Speaker 1: mid nineteen seventies, do things of becoming optimistic a little?

627
00:40:39,239 --> 00:40:42,040
Speaker 1: And the name of that book again, I'm see if

628
00:40:42,040 --> 00:40:45,879
Speaker 1: I could get the author's name, The Gay Revolution. Let's

629
00:40:45,920 --> 00:40:50,959
Speaker 1: see who wrote the Gay Revolution? Uh, Lillian Faderman. Yes,

630
00:40:51,280 --> 00:40:53,680
Speaker 1: the Story of the Struggle. Oh, and that's a relatively

631
00:40:53,719 --> 00:40:56,880
Speaker 1: new book that just came out, um in September of

632
00:40:57,120 --> 00:41:01,520
Speaker 1: this past year. Quite interesting. So I assume you do

633
00:41:01,560 --> 00:41:03,719
Speaker 1: a lot of reading and a lot of research. What

634
00:41:03,800 --> 00:41:06,719
Speaker 1: do you do for relaxation, What do you do outside

635
00:41:06,719 --> 00:41:09,120
Speaker 1: of the office when you want to just kick back

636
00:41:09,120 --> 00:41:11,840
Speaker 1: a little bit? Well, I usually take my dog for

637
00:41:11,880 --> 00:41:14,080
Speaker 1: a walk in the woods for an hour a day,

638
00:41:14,680 --> 00:41:17,880
Speaker 1: and I meditate. I do the Passana meditation for two

639
00:41:17,960 --> 00:41:21,799
Speaker 1: hours every day repeated. What type of meditation V Passana meditation?

640
00:41:21,960 --> 00:41:25,160
Speaker 1: The pass which I learned from a teacher called Essenoenko.

641
00:41:25,920 --> 00:41:28,560
Speaker 1: And I go every year for a long retreat of

642
00:41:28,719 --> 00:41:32,960
Speaker 1: thirty to sixty days of meditation. Really, um, I just

643
00:41:33,120 --> 00:41:36,000
Speaker 1: I was in November December. Actually heard about the Trump

644
00:41:36,040 --> 00:41:39,760
Speaker 1: election only at the end of December because I entered

645
00:41:39,800 --> 00:41:43,319
Speaker 1: the meditation, which read in early November, and had no

646
00:41:43,560 --> 00:41:47,359
Speaker 1: contact with the outside world until the end of December. Well,

647
00:41:47,400 --> 00:41:51,359
Speaker 1: aren't you lucky? Um? A bit pass A V I

648
00:41:51,440 --> 00:41:55,920
Speaker 1: P A S S A exactly the meditation two hours

649
00:41:55,920 --> 00:41:59,520
Speaker 1: a day. That's a lot of meditation, um, I think. Actually,

650
00:42:00,040 --> 00:42:02,720
Speaker 1: you know, um, For me, it's a it's a way

651
00:42:02,719 --> 00:42:05,520
Speaker 1: to really get in touch with reality as it is.

652
00:42:06,160 --> 00:42:09,479
Speaker 1: I mean to see what is really happening here and now,

653
00:42:10,120 --> 00:42:13,759
Speaker 1: and for almost all the day, I'm being distracted by

654
00:42:14,080 --> 00:42:17,880
Speaker 1: emails and twits and funny cat videos and whatever. So

655
00:42:17,960 --> 00:42:20,920
Speaker 1: at least for two hours every day, I'm really in

656
00:42:20,960 --> 00:42:25,200
Speaker 1: touch with with reality. That that that's quite quite fascinating.

657
00:42:25,360 --> 00:42:28,000
Speaker 1: And you mentioned you take your dog for a walk

658
00:42:28,080 --> 00:42:30,839
Speaker 1: for an hour a day if I have the time. Yes,

659
00:42:31,040 --> 00:42:33,640
Speaker 1: what what type of dog do you have? A large

660
00:42:33,800 --> 00:42:37,239
Speaker 1: mongrel from the street who adopted us a few few

661
00:42:37,320 --> 00:42:40,400
Speaker 1: years ago. Really that that's quite fascinating. And where are

662
00:42:40,440 --> 00:42:42,440
Speaker 1: you living these days? Are you here? Are you still know?

663
00:42:42,560 --> 00:42:45,600
Speaker 1: I'm still in Israel. I live midway between Jerusalem and

664
00:42:45,640 --> 00:42:48,520
Speaker 1: Tel Aviv in a small village, which also is is

665
00:42:48,640 --> 00:42:52,360
Speaker 1: kind of influences my worldview because I'm, you know, half

666
00:42:52,400 --> 00:42:54,719
Speaker 1: thinking about Tel Aviv and all the high tech and

667
00:42:54,760 --> 00:42:57,880
Speaker 1: all the these things, and half thinking about Jerusalem and

668
00:42:57,920 --> 00:43:01,359
Speaker 1: all the religions and loads the past and law tech here.

669
00:43:01,680 --> 00:43:05,799
Speaker 1: And that, by the way, that hybrid between historical and

670
00:43:05,880 --> 00:43:10,640
Speaker 1: religious um thought and high tech and modernity is very

671
00:43:10,719 --> 00:43:14,640
Speaker 1: much reflected in what you write. I'm certainly no book critic,

672
00:43:15,120 --> 00:43:18,759
Speaker 1: but it's clear that those are two major influences on

673
00:43:18,840 --> 00:43:22,600
Speaker 1: your thought process, and that's a somewhat unusual hybrid. Yeah,

674
00:43:22,640 --> 00:43:27,760
Speaker 1: I think I bring a lot of um of thinking

675
00:43:27,760 --> 00:43:32,080
Speaker 1: about religion and philosophy to the discussion of what's happening

676
00:43:32,080 --> 00:43:34,759
Speaker 1: in Silicon Valley. I think the most interesting place in

677
00:43:34,760 --> 00:43:38,080
Speaker 1: the world from a religious perspective is not Jerusalem. It's

678
00:43:38,080 --> 00:43:41,680
Speaker 1: Silicon Valley. Why why is that that that's a fascinating comera,

679
00:43:42,000 --> 00:43:44,200
Speaker 1: Because this is where the new religions of the twenty

680
00:43:44,239 --> 00:43:46,840
Speaker 1: one century will come from, not from the Middle East.

681
00:43:46,960 --> 00:43:50,840
Speaker 1: They will come from Silicon Valley and from from such places.

682
00:43:51,280 --> 00:43:53,480
Speaker 1: When you say, when you say new religion, you mean

683
00:43:53,600 --> 00:43:57,719
Speaker 1: Apple and Google and Facebook, or that that those are

684
00:43:57,760 --> 00:44:01,600
Speaker 1: our new deities, that they were produced. Yes, I think

685
00:44:01,640 --> 00:44:05,680
Speaker 1: that they don't produce just gadgets and tools. They produce

686
00:44:05,920 --> 00:44:10,600
Speaker 1: new ethics, they produce new new philosophies, and eventually they'll

687
00:44:10,640 --> 00:44:14,759
Speaker 1: even produce new techno. Religions are religions that promise that

688
00:44:14,920 --> 00:44:18,319
Speaker 1: make all the old promises, will give you prosperity and

689
00:44:18,480 --> 00:44:22,680
Speaker 1: happiness and peace and eternal life, but here on earth

690
00:44:22,880 --> 00:44:26,360
Speaker 1: with the help of technology, not after you die, with

691
00:44:26,520 --> 00:44:31,279
Speaker 1: the help of supernatural beings. Professor Scott Galloway use it

692
00:44:31,480 --> 00:44:36,279
Speaker 1: n why you and and he describes Netflix as the

693
00:44:36,320 --> 00:44:40,360
Speaker 1: operating system of joy, not that far off from what

694
00:44:40,440 --> 00:44:44,320
Speaker 1: you're referring to the technology moving us into the next

695
00:44:44,360 --> 00:44:50,520
Speaker 1: phase of of religious worship. So within within the book,

696
00:44:51,120 --> 00:44:55,759
Speaker 1: you discuss animals a lot, how we've humanized animals, and

697
00:44:56,520 --> 00:45:00,439
Speaker 1: a number of people have said, hey, this book has

698
00:45:00,560 --> 00:45:04,839
Speaker 1: made me want to become a full on vegan. Tell

699
00:45:04,960 --> 00:45:11,600
Speaker 1: us what we misunderstand about animals and about our relationship

700
00:45:11,680 --> 00:45:15,880
Speaker 1: and roll with them relative to uh to to the

701
00:45:15,920 --> 00:45:23,760
Speaker 1: way we've managed to dominate the entire planet as a species. Um,

702
00:45:23,800 --> 00:45:26,880
Speaker 1: you're a vegan, right, yeah, I'm I'm I'm I I turned.

703
00:45:26,880 --> 00:45:29,560
Speaker 1: I became vegan as a result of writing these people

704
00:45:30,239 --> 00:45:33,920
Speaker 1: because all the research I've made about the agricultural revolution

705
00:45:33,960 --> 00:45:37,400
Speaker 1: and then the industry revolution made me realize the really

706
00:45:37,520 --> 00:45:42,279
Speaker 1: terrible way that we are treating other animals. Um, it

707
00:45:42,440 --> 00:45:45,200
Speaker 1: made me realized, first of all, that there is no

708
00:45:45,400 --> 00:45:50,359
Speaker 1: scientific consensus that other animals, all mammals, all birds, they

709
00:45:50,400 --> 00:45:53,600
Speaker 1: have consciousness, they have feelings, they have emotions, they can

710
00:45:53,640 --> 00:45:57,080
Speaker 1: feel pain, they can feel fear, they can feel depression.

711
00:45:57,280 --> 00:45:59,960
Speaker 1: It's not unique to Homo sapiens. And we are three

712
00:46:00,040 --> 00:46:03,799
Speaker 1: think them in industrial farms as if they were just

713
00:46:04,000 --> 00:46:08,640
Speaker 1: machines for producing meat and milk and eggs, And it's

714
00:46:08,640 --> 00:46:13,520
Speaker 1: not just you know, the slaughter of animals, how they live,

715
00:46:13,719 --> 00:46:16,759
Speaker 1: is really the worst. And it's through even more of

716
00:46:16,840 --> 00:46:20,319
Speaker 1: the dairy industry then of the meat industry. I mean,

717
00:46:20,440 --> 00:46:25,560
Speaker 1: where does milk come from? Um, But cows don't give

718
00:46:25,680 --> 00:46:30,240
Speaker 1: milk to humans. The only reason a cow produces milk

719
00:46:30,680 --> 00:46:33,680
Speaker 1: is because it first gives birth to a calf, and

720
00:46:33,760 --> 00:46:36,520
Speaker 1: it produces the milk for the calf. So in the

721
00:46:36,600 --> 00:46:40,800
Speaker 1: dairy industry, you get the cow pregnant, then she gives

722
00:46:40,800 --> 00:46:43,319
Speaker 1: birth to a calf, You take away the calf, slaughter it,

723
00:46:43,360 --> 00:46:45,840
Speaker 1: and eat it, and then you milk the cow for

724
00:46:46,120 --> 00:46:48,720
Speaker 1: all she's worth, and then you get her pregnant again

725
00:46:48,800 --> 00:46:51,840
Speaker 1: and again and again, until after five years she's completely

726
00:46:51,840 --> 00:46:54,640
Speaker 1: worn down and she's also going to the to the slaughterhouse.

727
00:46:55,160 --> 00:46:59,920
Speaker 1: So the entire dairy industry is actually built on break

728
00:47:00,080 --> 00:47:05,400
Speaker 1: king the most fundamental emotional bond of the mammal kingdom,

729
00:47:05,680 --> 00:47:09,719
Speaker 1: the bond between mother and offspring. This is the foundation

730
00:47:10,120 --> 00:47:13,520
Speaker 1: of the dairy industry. To break the bond between the

731
00:47:13,560 --> 00:47:17,000
Speaker 1: mother cow and the calf. All the milk is coming

732
00:47:17,239 --> 00:47:22,120
Speaker 1: from there. And when I realized that, uh, pretty horrific yet,

733
00:47:22,680 --> 00:47:25,319
Speaker 1: was that I don't know how to stop it, but

734
00:47:25,520 --> 00:47:27,960
Speaker 1: I don't want to be part of it. And that

735
00:47:28,120 --> 00:47:31,840
Speaker 1: turned you pretty much into a into a vegan. Yes,

736
00:47:32,080 --> 00:47:36,040
Speaker 1: that that's quite quite amazing. So our last two questions

737
00:47:36,640 --> 00:47:40,040
Speaker 1: are our favorite questions that we ask all of our guests.

738
00:47:41,120 --> 00:47:43,680
Speaker 1: You work with students. If if someone who is a

739
00:47:43,760 --> 00:47:46,960
Speaker 1: millennial or a recent college grad were to come to

740
00:47:46,960 --> 00:47:51,880
Speaker 1: you and say, I'm thinking about going into authorship or

741
00:47:51,920 --> 00:47:55,120
Speaker 1: studying history or being a professor, and they come to

742
00:47:55,160 --> 00:47:59,240
Speaker 1: you for career advice, what would you say to them.

743
00:47:59,360 --> 00:48:02,320
Speaker 1: I would say to them that nobody has any clue

744
00:48:02,600 --> 00:48:08,560
Speaker 1: how the job market would look like in UM, so

745
00:48:09,160 --> 00:48:13,280
Speaker 1: we really don't know what to teach the young people,

746
00:48:13,640 --> 00:48:17,759
Speaker 1: whether in school or in college, in terms of careers.

747
00:48:18,719 --> 00:48:21,440
Speaker 1: It's quite obvious that what most of what they are

748
00:48:21,520 --> 00:48:25,120
Speaker 1: learning will be completely irrelevant by the time there are

749
00:48:25,200 --> 00:48:29,120
Speaker 1: forty or fifty, so they will have to reinvent themselves

750
00:48:29,160 --> 00:48:33,640
Speaker 1: again and again and again throughout their lives. UM which

751
00:48:33,680 --> 00:48:37,600
Speaker 1: is why I think the most important skill they must

752
00:48:37,640 --> 00:48:41,200
Speaker 1: have is the ability to keep learning and to keep

753
00:48:41,600 --> 00:48:47,560
Speaker 1: reinventing themselves throughout their lives, not to build this stable

754
00:48:48,040 --> 00:48:52,920
Speaker 1: identity that will serve them from now until they die.

755
00:48:53,440 --> 00:48:58,600
Speaker 1: They have to somehow um find it in themselves, the

756
00:48:58,680 --> 00:49:02,160
Speaker 1: ability to keep changing. And this is an extremely tall

757
00:49:02,160 --> 00:49:05,200
Speaker 1: older because you know, when you're fifteen or when you're twenty,

758
00:49:05,520 --> 00:49:08,640
Speaker 1: your whole life is changed. Everything you do is just

759
00:49:08,760 --> 00:49:12,160
Speaker 1: to invent yourself. But when your volt your fifty, usually

760
00:49:12,280 --> 00:49:14,799
Speaker 1: you don't like to change very much, but you will

761
00:49:14,840 --> 00:49:17,760
Speaker 1: have to in the twenty one century if you want

762
00:49:17,880 --> 00:49:21,640
Speaker 1: to stay relevant. And our final question, what is it

763
00:49:21,719 --> 00:49:26,520
Speaker 1: that you know about human history, evolution, consciousness that you

764
00:49:26,600 --> 00:49:29,000
Speaker 1: wish you knew ten or twenty years ago when you

765
00:49:29,560 --> 00:49:38,640
Speaker 1: began your work in this field. UM, I love the long,

766
00:49:38,719 --> 00:49:45,719
Speaker 1: thoughtful pause that we actually know far, far less than

767
00:49:46,239 --> 00:49:50,920
Speaker 1: we think we in terms of the human collective. Um,

768
00:49:50,920 --> 00:49:54,600
Speaker 1: it's not that we've got the general picture and we

769
00:49:54,800 --> 00:49:58,480
Speaker 1: just have a few islands of ignorance. It's just the opposite.

770
00:49:58,840 --> 00:50:02,960
Speaker 1: We have an ocean of ignorance with a few islands

771
00:50:03,000 --> 00:50:07,120
Speaker 1: that we know what's happening there. But the basic stuff,

772
00:50:07,239 --> 00:50:12,000
Speaker 1: the really basic stuff, we still don't understand it. In particular,

773
00:50:12,320 --> 00:50:16,520
Speaker 1: we are very, very far from understanding the human mind

774
00:50:16,920 --> 00:50:20,680
Speaker 1: and the riddle of consciousness. And this is very dangerous

775
00:50:21,320 --> 00:50:24,680
Speaker 1: because in the twenty one century we're going to get

776
00:50:25,360 --> 00:50:30,360
Speaker 1: these really amazing powers of manipulation, not just about the

777
00:50:30,400 --> 00:50:34,560
Speaker 1: outside world, but also about the world inside us. We're

778
00:50:34,600 --> 00:50:38,200
Speaker 1: going to get the power to manipulate, to engineer our

779
00:50:38,239 --> 00:50:42,560
Speaker 1: own bodies and brains and minds. And the danger is

780
00:50:42,760 --> 00:50:45,359
Speaker 1: that because we don't really understand the mind, we will

781
00:50:45,440 --> 00:50:50,560
Speaker 1: you misuse these powers. Uh In the world outside, we've

782
00:50:50,680 --> 00:50:53,600
Speaker 1: used our immense powers in such a way that now

783
00:50:53,640 --> 00:50:57,800
Speaker 1: we're facing an ecological collapse because we will. We knew

784
00:50:57,880 --> 00:51:01,680
Speaker 1: how to control the forests and reavers, we didn't understand

785
00:51:01,719 --> 00:51:04,640
Speaker 1: what this was doing to the ecosystem. The same thing

786
00:51:04,719 --> 00:51:09,000
Speaker 1: may happen to the world inside us. We'll start manipulating

787
00:51:09,080 --> 00:51:13,000
Speaker 1: our bodies and brains with very little understanding of what

788
00:51:13,080 --> 00:51:17,960
Speaker 1: this is doing to our internal ecosystem, and the result

789
00:51:18,360 --> 00:51:23,399
Speaker 1: might be a mental collapse. That's fascinating. Thank you, you've

790
00:51:23,400 --> 00:51:26,280
Speaker 1: all we have been speaking to you. Val Noah Harari,

791
00:51:26,600 --> 00:51:29,920
Speaker 1: author of the New York Times best selling book Sapiens

792
00:51:29,960 --> 00:51:33,280
Speaker 1: and the new book Homodaeus, A Brief History of Tomorrow.

793
00:51:33,800 --> 00:51:36,440
Speaker 1: If you enjoy this conversation, be sure and look up

794
00:51:36,440 --> 00:51:38,399
Speaker 1: an intro down an inch, and you could check out

795
00:51:38,840 --> 00:51:42,000
Speaker 1: any of the other hundred and forties such conversations we've

796
00:51:42,000 --> 00:51:45,920
Speaker 1: had on Apple iTunes. I would be remiss if I

797
00:51:45,920 --> 00:51:50,400
Speaker 1: did not thank my recording engineer, Medina Parwana, my booker

798
00:51:50,520 --> 00:51:53,520
Speaker 1: Taylor Rigs, and my head of research, Michael bat Nick.

799
00:51:54,040 --> 00:51:59,359
Speaker 1: We love your comments, feedback and suggestions right to us

800
00:51:59,600 --> 00:52:05,280
Speaker 1: at m IB podcast at Bloomberg dot net. I'm Barry Retults.

801
00:52:05,440 --> 00:52:09,320
Speaker 1: You've been listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio.

802
00:52:10,520 --> 00:52:13,400
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803
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