Yuval Noah Harari: belief

Transcript context

…You have been part of conspiracy theories. I find myself recently becoming part of conspiracy theories. Is there advice you can give of how to be a human being in this world that values truth and reason while watching yourself become part of conspiracy theories? At least from my perspective, it seems very difficult to prove to the world that you’re not part of a conspiracy theory. I, as you said, have interviewed Benjamin Netanyahu recently, I don’t know if you’re aware. But doing such things will also … You now pick up a new menu of items, a new set of conspiracy theories you’re now a part of. And I find it very frustrating because it makes it very difficult to respond, because I sense that people have the right intentions, like we said, they have a nervousness, a fear of power and the abuses of power; as do I. So I find myself in a difficult position that I have nothing to show to prove that I’m not part of such a conspiracy theory. I think ultimately you can’t. We can’t. I mean, it’s like proving consciousness. You can’t. That’s just the situation. Whatever you say can and will be used against you by some people. So this fantasy, “If I only say this, if I only show them that, if I only have this data, they will see I’m okay,” it doesn’t work like that. I think to keep your sanity in this situation, first of all, it’s important to understand that most of these people are not evil. They are not doing it on purpose. Many of them really believe that there is some very nefarious, powerful conspiracy which is causing a lot of harm in the world, and they’re doing a good thing by exposing it and making people aware of it and trying to stop it. If you think that you are surrounded by evil, you are falling into the same rabbit hole, you’re falling into the same paranoid state of mind, “Oh, the world is full of these evil people that … ” No. Most of them are good people. And also, I think we can empathize with some of the key ideas there, which I share, that yes, it’s becoming more and more difficult to understand what is happening in the world. There are huge dangers in the world, existential dangers to the human species. But they don’t come from a small cabal of Jews or gay people or feminists or whatever. They come from much more diffused forces, which are not under the control of any single individual. We don’t have to look for the evil people. We need to look for human allies in order to work together against, again, the dangers of AI, the dangers of bioengineering, the dangers of climate change. And when you wake up in the morning, the question is, do you want to spend your day spreading hatred or do you want to spend your day trying to make allies and work together? Let me ask you kind of a big philosophical question about AI and the threat of it. Let’s look at the threat side. So folks like Eliezer Yudkowsky worry that AI might kill all of us. Do you worry about that range of possibilities where artificial intelligence systems in a variety of ways might destroy human civilization?…

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