Yuval Noah Harari: belief

Transcript context

…This is the thing about conspiracy theories is there’s usually a way to explain everything. It’s like religion. You can always find explanation for everything. And in the end, it’s intellectual integrity. If you insist, whenever people confront you with evidence, with finding some very, very complicated explanation for that too, you can explain everything. We know that. It’s a question of intellectual integrity. And I’ll also say another thing. The conspiracy theories, they do get one thing right, certainly in today’s world. I think they represent an authentic and justified fear of a lot of people that they are losing control of their lives, they don’t understand what is happening. And this I think is not just a legitimate fear, this is an important fear. They are right. We are losing control of our lives, we are facing really big dangers, but not from a small cabal of fellow humans. The problem with many of these conspiracy theories that, yes, we have a problem with new AI technology, but if you now direct the fire against certain people, so instead of all humans cooperating against our real common threats, whether it’s the rise of AI, whether it’s global warming, you are only causing us to fight each other. And I think that the key question that people who spread these ideas; I mean, many of them, they honestly believe. It’s not malicious. They honestly believe in these theories; is do you want to spend your life spreading hate towards people, or do you want to work on more constructive projects? I think one of the big differences between those who believe in conspiracy theories and people who warn about the dangers of AI, the dangers of climate change, we don’t see certain humans as evil and hateful. The problem isn’t humans, the problem is something outside humanity. Yes, humans are contributing to the problem, but ultimately the enemy is external to humanity. Whereas conspiracy theorists usually claim that a certain part of humanity is the source of all evil, which leads them to eventually think in terms of exterminating this part of humanity, which leads sometimes to historical disasters like Nazism. So it can lead to hate, but it can also lead to cynicism, apathy that basically says, “It’s not in my power to make the world better,” so you don’t actually take action.…

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