Quotes by Yuval Noah Harari - Page 2

Intelligence is the ability to solve problems, whereas consciousness is the ability to feel things such as pain, joy, love, and anger. Throughout history, intelligence always went hand in hand with consciousness.
Yuval Noah Harari /
Anger
Consciousness
Joy
Pain
Throughout
Whereas
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Censorship no longer works by hiding information from you; censorship works by flooding you with immense amounts of misinformation, of irrelevant information, of funny cat videos, until you're just unable to focus.
Yuval Noah Harari /
Funny
Amount
Cat
Censorship
Flooding
Focus
Hiding
Immense
Information
Irrelevant
Misinformation
Just
Works
Until
Longer
Unable
Videos
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We are living in a global world - but most schools and books still tell us only parochial histories of one particular country or culture. The truth is that there are no longer any independent countries in the world.
Yuval Noah Harari /
Independent
Truth Is
Books
Countries
Global
Histories
Longer
Parochial
Schools
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Humans are extremely good in acquiring new power, but they are not very good in translating this power into greater happiness, which is why we are far more powerful than ever before but we don't seem to be much happier.
Yuval Noah Harari /
Acquiring
Translating
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Fundamentally, mankind was unimportant in the ecological system. Then, in one fell swoop, an evolutionary blink of an eye, the human race is transformed from something unimportant to the most important thing in the world.
Yuval Noah Harari /
Blink
Ecological
Human Race
Mankind
Transformed
Unimportant
Evolutionary
Fundamentally
Most Important Thing
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I'm vegan, though not completely religious about it. While writing 'Sapiens,' I became familiar with how we treat animals in the meat and dairy industries. I was so horrified that I didn't want to be a part of it anymore.
Yuval Noah Harari /
Dairy
Familiar
Meat
Religious
Vegan
Want
Writing
About
Animals
Anymore
Became
Part
How
Horrified
Industries
Sapiens
Though
Treat
While
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I grew up in a small industrial suburb of Haifa in Israel. As far back as I remember, I was interested in big questions. Who are we? What are we doing here? But the chances to discuss philosophy were quite thin on the ground.
Yuval Noah Harari /
Big Questions
Chances
Discuss
Industrial
Suburb
Thin
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The most important question in 21st-century economics may well be, 'What should we do with all the superfluous people, once we have highly intelligent non-conscious algorithms that can do almost everything better than humans?'
Yuval Noah Harari /
Economics
Intelligent
Superfluous
Almost Everything
Highly
Important Question
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My main ambition as a historian is to figure out what's really happening in the world, instead of the fictions that humans have been creating for thousands of years in order to explain or control what's happening in the world.
Yuval Noah Harari /
Ambition
Historian
Explain
Fictions
Thousands Of Years
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If you take 10,000 chimpanzees and cram them together into Wembley Stadium or the Houses of Parliament, you will get chaos. But if you take 10,000 people who have never met before, they can co-operate and create amazing things.
Yuval Noah Harari /
Amazing
Amazing Things
Chaos
Parliament
Together
Cram
Create
Houses
Met
Stadium
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Money is the probably the most successful story ever told. It has no objective value... but then you have these master storytellers: the big bankers, the finance ministers... and they come, and they tell a very convincing story.
Yuval Noah Harari /
Finance
Money
Bankers
Convincing
Ministers
Successful
Most
Come
Very
Then
Big
Ever
Master
Objective
Story
Storytellers
Tell
Value
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When the first humans reached Australia about 45,000 years ago, they quickly drove to extinction 90% of its large animals. This was the first significant impact that Homo sapiens had on the planet's ecosystem. It was not the last.
Yuval Noah Harari /
Australia
Extinction
Homo Sapiens
Humans
Impact
Significant
Years Ago
Animals
Drove
Ecosystem
Homo
Large
Planet
Quickly
Reached
Sapiens
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Until about 30,000 years ago, there were at least five other species of humans on the planet. Homo Sapiens, our ancestors, lived mainly in East Africa, and you had the Neanderthal in Europe, Homo Erectus in part of Asia, and so forth.
Yuval Noah Harari /
Asia
East
Europe
Homo Sapiens
Humans
Species
Years Ago
Africa
Ancestors
Forth
Homo
Mainly
Planet
Sapiens
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In 1989, with the end of the Cold War and the collapse of communism, it seemed that the liberal story had won. The liberal story says that humankind is inevitably marching towards a global society of free markets and democratic politics.
Yuval Noah Harari /
Cold
Cold War
Collapse
Communism
Democratic
Humankind
Won
Free Markets
Global
Towards
Inevitably
Liberal
Marching
Says
Seemed
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People already have bionic arms and legs that work by the power of thought. And we increasingly outsource mental and communicative activities to computers. We are merging with our smartphones. Very soon, they will just be part of the body.
Yuval Noah Harari /
Computers
Arms
Legs
Merging
Activities
Communicative
Increasingly
Just Be
Mental
Outsource
Soon
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Science is telling us that the reason people die is not because some god said so or because the laws of nature mandate it. People always die because of technical problems. And every technical problem has, in principle, a technical solution.
Yuval Noah Harari /
Mandate
Principle
Solution
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You need to constantly remind yourself what is the most important thing that is happening in the world - what is the most important thing that is happening in history. The discipline to have this focus is something I gained from meditation.
Yuval Noah Harari /
Discipline
Meditation
Gained
Most Important Thing
Remind
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The notion of superhumans is using bioengineering and artificial intelligence to upgrade human abilities. If they use the power to change themselves, to change their own minds, their own desires, then we have no idea what they will want to do.
Yuval Noah Harari /
Artificial
Artificial Intelligence
No Idea
Notion
Desires
Upgrade
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Take Google Maps or Waze. On the one hand, they amplify human ability - you are able to reach your destination faster and more easily. But at the same time, you are shifting the authority to the algorithm and losing your ability to find your own way.
Yuval Noah Harari /
Amplify
Authority
Destination
Faster
Google
Maps
Shifting
Time Your Way
Algorithm
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You have to know how to co-operate with other people if you want to stay alive and raise children. And to do that, you need to know something about them. You need to know who loves whom, who hates whom, who is sleeping with whom. Who is honest, who is a cheat.
Yuval Noah Harari /
Hates
Sleeping
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As beavers build dams and bees build hives, human beings have spears. Or take the high intelligence of human beings, the ability to make plans, to transmit information - that was also there before, but that, together with the tools, was not enough to make man special.
Yuval Noah Harari /
Bees
Dams
Plans
Spears
Tools
Transmit
Beaver
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I titled the book 'Homo Deus' because we really are becoming gods in the most literal sense possible. We are acquiring abilities that have always been thought to be divine abilities - in particular, the ability to create life. And we can do with that whatever we want.
Yuval Noah Harari /
Ability
Becoming
Book
Divine
Literal
Particular
Acquiring
Possible
Create
Whatever
Homo
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In order to survive in a very small tribe, you needed to know how to do lots of things for yourself: how to make your tools, how to get food, and how to make your clothes - things most of us today don't need to know. The only thing I need to survive is to know history.
Yuval Noah Harari /
Tools
Survive
To Survive
Tribe
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We control the world basically because we are the only animals that can cooperate flexibly in very large numbers. And if you examine any large-scale human cooperation, you will always find that it is based on some fiction like the nation, like money, like human rights.
Yuval Noah Harari /
Human Rights
Large Numbers
Numbers
Rights
Money Always World
Animals
Based
Find
Nation
Cooperate
Examine
Large
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Just as divine authority was legitimised by religious mythologies and human authority was legitimised by humanist ideologies, so high-tech gurus and Silicon Valley prophets are creating a new universal narrative that legitimises the authority of algorithms and Big Data.
Yuval Noah Harari /
Authority
Data
Divine
Humanist
Narrative
Silicon
Silicon Valley
High-Tech
Ideologies
Prophets
Valley
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For thousands of years, until about 1850, you see humans accumulating more and more power by the invention of new technologies and by new systems of organization in the economy and in politics, but you don't see any real improvement in the well-being of the average person.
Yuval Noah Harari /
Average Person
Improvement
Invention
Well Being
Accumulate
More And More
New Technologies
Systems
Technologies
Thousands Of Years
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All the major problems of the world today are global in essence, and they cannot be solved unless through some kind of global cooperation. It's not just climate change, which is, like, the most obvious example people give. I think more in terms of technological disruption.
Yuval Noah Harari /
Climate
Climate Change
Cooperation
Disruption
Essence
Example
Obvious
Today
Change World Problems
Change Today World
Global
Major
Problems
Terms
Solved
Unless
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We are all living together on a single planet, which is threatened by our own actions. And if you don't have some kind of global cooperation, nationalism is just not on the right level to tackle the problems, whether it's climate change or whether it's technological disruption.
Yuval Noah Harari /
Change
Climate
Climate Change
Cooperation
Disruption
Nationalism
Single
Technological
Threatened
Together
Living
Actions
Own
Global
Level
Planet
Some
Right
Problems
Tackle
Whether
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When you look at the growth of the human economy and its expected growth in the twenty-first century, I expect health will be the most important market of all. Especially as we move from a concept of health which focuses on healing the sick to a concept of upgrading the healthy.
Yuval Noah Harari /
Economy
Growth
Healing
Sick
Concept
Expect
Market
The Most Important
Twenty-First
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Many people in their teens wonder about these big questions - what's the meaning of life, what are we doing here - then somewhere in their 20s, they seem to say, 'I'll just get married. I'll just have kids. I'll get back to that later.' But they never do. For me, it kept boiling.
Yuval Noah Harari /
Big Questions
Boiling
Married
Meaning Of Life
Teens
Wonder
Life Me People
Questions
Somewhere
Get Married
Later
Meaning
Meaning Of
Seem
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You go to a Japanese restaurant and have a wonderful dish, and the thing to do is take a picture with your phone, put it on Facebook, and see how many likes you get. If you don't share your experiences, they don't become part of the data processing system, and they have no meaning.
Yuval Noah Harari /
Data
Likes
Processing
Dish
Facebook
Japanese
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As algorithms push humans out of the job market, wealth and power might become concentrated in the hands of the tiny elite that owns the all-powerful algorithms, creating unprecedented social and political inequality. Alternatively, the algorithms might themselves become the owners.
Yuval Noah Harari /
Creating
Hands
Humans
Inequality
Might
Owners
Political
Social
Tiny
Unprecedented
Wealth
Job
Power Political Wealth
All-Powerful
Concentrated
Elite
Market
Push
Themselves
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The widespread assumption is that somehow, the brain produces the mind; somehow millions of neurons fire signals at one another create or produce consciousness... but we have no idea how or why this happens. I'm afraid that in many cases, people in the tech world fail to understand that.
Yuval Noah Harari /
Assumption
Cases
Consciousness
Neurons
No Idea
Signals
Widespread
Produces
Tech
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About 15,000 years ago, humans colonised America, wiping out in the process about 75% of its large mammals. Numerous other species disappeared from Africa, from Eurasia, and from the myriad islands around their coasts. The archaeological record of country after country tells the same sad story.
Yuval Noah Harari /
Sad
Humans
Islands
Mammals
Sad Story
Species
Years Ago
Africa
Archaeological
Disappeared
Large
Myriad
Numerous
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All animals communicate. What's special about gossip is that it's not about the here and now. You don't gossip about lions. You don't gossip about clouds. You only gossip about other people. And once you do, you can keep track of many more people - this is the basis for forming larger communities.
Yuval Noah Harari /
Clouds
Communicate
Gossip
Lions
Special
Track
Keep People More
Animals
Basis
Communities
Forming
Larger
More People
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For thousands of years, we have gained the power to control the world outside us but not to control the world inside. You could stop a river from flowing, but you could not stop your body from becoming old. You could kill mosquitoes, but you could not kill annoying thoughts buzzing inside your head.
Yuval Noah Harari /
Annoying
Becoming
Your Body
Buzzing
Flowing
Gained
River
Thoughts
Thousands Of Years
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Traditionally, life has been divided into two main parts: a period of learning followed by a period of working. Very soon, this traditional model will become utterly obsolete, and the only way for humans to stay in the game will be to keep learning throughout their lives and to reinvent themselves repeatedly.
Yuval Noah Harari /
Learning
Divided
Humans
Obsolete
Traditional
Two
Life Learning Way
Game
Stay
Period
Working
Followed
Model
Main
Parts
Reinvent
Soon
Themselves
Throughout
Utterly
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I think, in general, medicine in the 21st century will switch from healing the sick to upgrading the healthy... If you find ways to repair the memory damaged by Alzheimer's disease or dementia and so forth, it is very likely that the same methods could be used to upgrade the memory of completely healthy people.
Yuval Noah Harari /
Dementia
Disease
Healing
Medicine
Sick
General
Damaged
Forth
Healthy People
Likely
Memory
Repair
Switch
Upgrade
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As a historian, I'm sceptical about conspiracy theories because the world is far too complicated to be managed by a few billionaires drinking scotch behind some closed doors. But I do think that the voters are correct in sensing that they're really losing power. And in reaction, they give the system an angry kick.
Yuval Noah Harari /
Angry
Closed Doors
Complicated
Conspiracy
Doors
Drinking
Historian
Losing
Scotch
Sensing
Voters
Behind
Billionaires
Closed
Too
Correct
Far
Few
Give
Some
Reaction
Sceptical
System
Theories
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In Judaism or Christianity and so forth, you invent rules that don't exist anywhere except in your imagination. You spend your life trying to gain points and to avoid all kinds of things that detract from your points. And if by the time you die you gather enough points, then you pass on to the next level, in Heaven.
Yuval Noah Harari /
Imagination
Christianity
Heaven
Judaism
Next Level
Life Time Enough
Rules
Life Time Imagination
Anywhere
Avoid
By The Time
Exist
Except
Forth
Gain
Gather
Invent
Pass
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There is a saying that if you get something for free, you should know that you're the product. It was never more true than in the case of Facebook and Gmail and YouTube. You get free social-media services, and you get free funny cat videos. In exchange, you give up the most valuable asset you have, which is your personal data.
Yuval Noah Harari /
Funny
Data
Should
Valuable
Youtube
More
Free
Get
Never
Asset
True
Case
Exchange
Facebook
Give
Personal
Product
Saying
Services
Something
Than
Valuable Asset
Videos
Which
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The truly unique trait of 'Sapiens' is our ability to create and believe fiction. All other animals use their communication system to describe reality. We use our communication system to create new realities. Of course, not all fictions are shared by all humans, but at least one has become universal in our world, and this is money.
Yuval Noah Harari /
Communication
Money
Ability
Fiction
Humans
Unique
Animals
At Least One
Become
Course
Create
Describe
Trait
Fictions
Least
Other
Realities
Sapiens
Shared
System
Truly
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People have long feared that mechanization might cause mass unemployment. This never happened because, as old professions became obsolete, new professions evolved, and there was always something humans could do better than machines. Yet this is not a law of nature, and nothing guarantees it will continue to be like that in the future.
Yuval Noah Harari /
Guarantees
Machines
Mass
Obsolete
Unemployment
Evolved
Feared
Professions
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Every day, I absorb countless data bits through emails, phone calls, and articles; process the data; and transmit back new bits through more emails, phone calls, and articles. I don't really know where I fit into the great scheme of things and how my bits of data connect with the bits produced by billions of other humans and computers.
Yuval Noah Harari /
Computers
Articles
Billions
Bits
Data
Phone Calls
Transmit
Absorb
Calls
Connect
Countless
Emails
Scheme
Produced
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Humans have an amazing capacity to believe in contradictory things. For example, to believe in an omnipotent and benevolent God but somehow excuse Him from all the suffering in the world. Or our ability to believe from the standpoint of law that humans are equal and have free will and from biology that humans are just organic machines.
Yuval Noah Harari /
God
Amazing
Ability
Benevolent
Biology
Capacity
Contradictory
Equal
Example
Free Will
Humans
Law
Machines
Omnipotent
Standpoint
Suffering
God Believe World
Free
For Example
Him
Organic
Somehow
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Our bodies and minds evolved and were adapted for hundreds of thousands of years for tasks like climbing a tree and picking apples, or hunting rabbits, or looking for mushrooms in the forest. They were not adapted to the very gruelling work that is involved in field work - ploughing, harvesting, bringing water, digging weeds - things like that.
Yuval Noah Harari /
Adapted
Apples
Climbing
Digging
Involved
Mushrooms
Rabbits
Tree
Bodies
Bringing
Forest
Harvesting
Hundreds
Hundreds Of Thousands
Minds
Picking
Thousands
Thousands Of Years
Weeds
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You take fantasies, which for thousands of years belonged to the religious realm - overcoming death or our merging with the universe - and you suddenly start talking about them in a more technical perspective as something that can be achieved, not after you die with the help of supernatural beings, but in this very life with the help of technology.
Yuval Noah Harari /
Merging
Overcoming
Achieved
Belonged
Fantasies
Realm
Supernatural
Thousands Of Years
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Yuval Noah Harari Quotes - Page 2

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