WEBVTT

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Chris Anderson: Hello. So welcome
to this TED dialogue.

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It's the first of a series that's
really going to be done

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in response to the current
political upheaval.

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I don't know about you.

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I've become quite concerned about
the growing divisiveness in this country

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and in the world.

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No one's listening to each other. Right?

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They aren't.

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And it feels like we need

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a different kind of conversation,

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one that's based on, I don't know,

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reason, listening, on understanding,

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on a broader context.

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That's at least what we're going to try

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in these TED Dialogues starting today,

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and we couldn't have anyone with us

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who I'd be more excited to kick this off.

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This is a mind right here that thinks

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pretty much like no one else on the planet

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I would say, because I'm serious.

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I'm serious.

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He synthesizes history

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with underlying ideas in a way

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that kind of takes your breath away.

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So some of you will know this book,

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"Sapiens."

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Has anyone here read "Sapiens?"

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(Applause)

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I mean, I could not put it down.

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The way that he tells
the story of mankind

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through big ideas that really make you
think differently, though,

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it's kind of amazing.

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And here's the follow-up, which I think
is being published in the U.S. next week.

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Yuval Noah Harari: Yeah, next week.
CA: "Homo Deus."

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Now this is the history
of the next hundred years.

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I've had a chance to read it.

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It's extremely dramatic,

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and I daresay for some people

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quite alarming.

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It's a must-read,

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and honestly, we couldn't have
someone better to help

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make sense of what on Earth
is happening in the world right now.

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So a warm welcome, please,
to Yuval Noah Harari.

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(Applause)

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It's great to be joined by our friends
on Facebook and around the web.

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Hello, Facebook.

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And all of you, as I start
asking questions of Yuval,

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come up with your own questions,

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and not necessarily about
the political scandal du jour

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but about the broader understanding
of where are we heading?

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You ready? Okay, we're going to go.

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So here we are, Yuval, New York City,

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2017, there's a new president in power,

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and shockwaves rippling around the world.

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What on Earth is happening?

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YNH: I think the basic thing that happens

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is that we have lost our story.

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Humans think in stories,

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and we try to make sense of the world

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by telling stories,

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and for the last few decades,

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we had a very simple
and very attractive story

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about what's happening in the world,

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and the story said that, oh,
what's happening is

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that the economy is being globalized,

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politics is being liberalized,

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and the combination of the two
will create paradise on Earth,

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and we just need to keep on
globalizing the economy

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and liberalizing the political system,

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and everything will be wonderful.

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And 2016 is the moment

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when a very large segment,

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even of the Western world,

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stopped believing in this story.

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For good or bad reasons doesn't matter.

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People stopped believing in the story,

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and when you don't have a story,

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you don't understand what's happening.

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CA: Part of you believes that that story
was actually a very effective story.

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It worked.

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YNH: To some extent, yes.

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According to some measurements,

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we are now in the best time ever

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for humankind.

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Today, for the first time in history,

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more people die from eating too much

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than from eating too little,

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which is an amazing achievement.

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(Laughter)

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Also for the first time in history,

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more people die from old age

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than from infectious diseases,

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and violence is also down.

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For the first time in history,

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more people commit suicide

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than are killed by crime and terrorism

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and war put together.

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Statistically, you are
your own worst enemy.

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At least, of all the people in the world,

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you are most likely
to be killed by yourself,

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which is very good news

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compared to the level of violence

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that we saw in previous eras.

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CA: But this process
of connecting the world

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ended up with a large group of people
kind of feeling left out,

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and they've reacted, and so we have
this bombshell that's sort of ripping

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through the whole system.

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I mean, what do you make
of what's happened?

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It feels like the old way
that people thought of politics,

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the left-right divide,
has been blown up and replaced.

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How should we think of this?

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YNH: Yeah, the old 20th century

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political model of left versus right

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is now largely irrelevant,

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and the real divide today

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is in global and national,

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global or local.

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And you see it again all over the world

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that this is now the main struggle.

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We probably need completely
new political models

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and completely new ways of thinking

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about politics.

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In essence what you can say

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is that we now have global ecology,

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we have a global economy,

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but we have national politics,

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and this doesn't work together.

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This makes the political
system ineffective

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because it has no control
over the forces that shape our life.

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And you have basically two solutions

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to this imbalance.

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Either deglobalize the economy

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and turn it back into a national economy,

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or globalize the political system.

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CA: So some, I guess
many liberals out there

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view Trump and his government

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as kind of irredeemably bad,

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just awful in every way.

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Do you see any underlying

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narrative or political philosophy in there

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that is at least worth understanding.

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How would you articulate that philosophy?

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Is it just the philosophy of nationalism?

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YNH: I think the underlying
feeling or idea

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is that the political system,
something is broken there.

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It doesn't empower

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the ordinary person anymore.

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It doesn't care so much
about the ordinary person anymore,

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and I think this diagnosis
of the political disease is correct.

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With regard to the answers,
I am far less certain.

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I think what we are seeing
is the immediate human reaction:

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if something doesn't work, let's go back.

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And you see it all over the world,

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that people, almost nobody
in the political system today

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has any future-oriented vision

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of where humankind is going.

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Almost everywhere, you see
retrograde vision.

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Let's make America great again,

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like it was great, I don't know,
in the '50s, in the '80s, sometime,

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let's go back there.

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And you go to Russia.

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So a hundred years after Lenin,

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Putin's vision for the future

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is basically, ah, let's go back
to the Tsarist empire.

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And in Israel, where I come from,

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the hottest political vision

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of the present

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is "let's build the temple again."

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So let's go back 2,000 years backward.

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So people are thinking
sometime in the past we've lost it,

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and sometimes in the past, it's like
you've lost your way in the city,

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and you say okay, let's go back
to the point where I felt secure

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and start again.

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I don't think this can work,

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but a lot of people,
this is their gut instinct.

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CA: But why couldn't it work?

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America first is a very
appealing slogan in many ways.

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Patriotism is in many ways
a very noble thing.

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It's played a role in promoting

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cooperation among large numbers of people.

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Why couldn't you have a world

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organized in country

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all of which put themselves first?

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YNH: For many centuries,

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even thousands of years,

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patriotism worked quite well.

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Of course it led to wars an so forth,

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but we shouldn't focus
too much on the bad.

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There are also many,
many positive things about patriotism,

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and the ability to have
a large number of people

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care about each other,

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sympathize with one another,

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and come together for collective action.

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If you go back to the first nations,

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so thousands of years ago,

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the people who lived along
the Yellow River in China,

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it was many, many different tribes

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and they all depended on the river

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for survival and for prosperity,

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but all of them also suffered

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from periodical floods

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and periodical droughts,

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and no tribe could do anything about it

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because each of them controlled
just a tiny section of the river.

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And then in a long
and complicated process,

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the tribes coalesced together

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to form the Chinese nation,

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which controlled the entire Yellow River

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and had the ability

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to bring hundreds of thousands
of people together

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to build dams and canals

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and regulate the river

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and prevent the worst floods and droughts

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and raise the level
of prosperity for everybody.

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And this worked in many places
around the world.

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But in the 21st century,

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technology is changing all that
in a fundamental way.

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We are now living, all people
in the world are living

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alongside the same cyber river,

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and no single nation

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can regulate this river by itself.

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We are all living together
in a single planet

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which is threatened by our own actions,

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and if you don't have some kind
of global cooperation,

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nationalism is just not on the right level

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to tackle the problems

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of whether it's climate change

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or whether it's technological disruption.

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CA: So it was a beautiful idea

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in a world where most of the action,

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most of the issues,

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took place on national scale,

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but your argument is that the issues
that matter most today

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no longer take place on a national scale
but on a global scale.

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YNH: Exactly. All of the major problems
of the world today

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are global in essence,

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and they cannot be solved

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unless through some kind
of global cooperation.

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It's not just climate change,

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which is, like, the most obvious
example people give.

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I think more in terms
of technological disruption.

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If you think about, for example,
artificial intelligence,

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over the next 20, 30 years

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pushing hundreds of millions of people
out of the job market,

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this is a problem on a global level.

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It will disrupt the economy
of all the countries,

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and similarly if you think
about, say, bioengineering

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and people being afraid
of conducting genetic engineering

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research in humans,

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it won't help if just a single country,

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let's say the U.S.,

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outlaws all genetic experiments in humans

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but China or North Korea
continues to do it.

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So the U.S. cannot solve it by itself,

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and very quickly, the pressure on the U.S.

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to do the same will be immense

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because we are talking about
high-risk, high-gain technologies.

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If somebody else is doing it,

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I can't allow myself to remain behind.

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The only way to have regulations,

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effective regulations,

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on things like genetic engineering,

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is to have global regulations.

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If you just have national regulations,

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nobody would like to stay behind.

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CA: So this is really interesting.

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It seems that this might be one key

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to provoking at least
a constructive conversation

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between the different sides here,

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because I think everyone can agree
that the start point

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of a lot of the anger that's
propelled us to where we are

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is because of the legitimate
concerns about job loss.

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Work is gone, a traditional way of life

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has gone, and it's no wonder
that people are furious about that.

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And in general, they have blamed
globalism, global elites

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for doing this to them
without asking their permission,

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and that seems like
a legitimate complaint.

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But what I hear you saying

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is that, so a key question is,
what is the real cause of job loss,

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both now and going forward?

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To the extent that it's about globalism,

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then the right response, yes,

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is to shut down borders

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and keep people out

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and change trade agreements and so forth.

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But you're saying, I think,

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that actually the bigger cause of job loss

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is not going to be that at all.

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It's going to originate
in technological questions,

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and we have no chance of solving that
unless we operate as a connected world.

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YNH: Yeah, I think that,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I don't know about the present,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but looking to the future,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
it's not the Mexicans or Chinese

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
who will take the jobs from
the people in Pennsylvania,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
it's the robots and algorithms,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
so unless you plan to build a big wall

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
on the border of California --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
(Laughter) --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the wall on the border with Mexico
is going to be very ineffective.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And I was struck when I watched
the debates before the elections,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I was struck that certainly Trump
did not even attempt

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to frighten people by saying
the robots will take your jobs.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Now even if it's not true,
it doesn't matter.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It could have been an extremely
effective way of frightening people

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and galvanizing people.
"The robots will take your jobs."

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And nobody used that line.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And it made me afraid,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
because it meant

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that no matter what happens

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
in universities and laboratories,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and there there is already
an intense debate about it,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but in the mainstream political system

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and among the general public,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
people are just unaware

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that there could be an immense
technological disruption,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
not in 200 years,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but in 10, 20, 30 years,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and we have to do something about it now,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
partly because most of what we teach

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
children today in school

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
or in college

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
is going to be completely irrelevant

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to the job market of 2040, 2050.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So it's not something we'll need
to think about in 2040.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We need to think today

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
what to teach the young people.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
CA: Yeah, no, absolutely.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
You've often written about
moments in history

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
where humankind has

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
entered a new era kind of unintentionally.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Decisions have been made,
technologies have been developed,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and suddenly the world has changed,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
possibly in a way that's
worse for everyone.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So one of the example
you give in "Sapiens"

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
is just the whole agricultural revolution,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
which for an actual person
tilling the fields,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
they just picked up a 12-hour
backbreaking workday

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
instead of six hours in the jungle

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and a much more interesting lifestyle.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So are we at another possible
phase change here

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
where we kind of sleepwalk into
a future that none of us actually wants?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
YNH: Yes, very much so.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
During the agricultural revolution,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
what happened is that immense
technological and economic revolution

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
empowered the human collective,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but when you look at actual
individual lives,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the life of a tiny elite

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
became much better,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and the life of the majority of people

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
became considerably worse.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And this can happen again
in the 21st century.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
No doubt the new technologies
will empower the human collective,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but we may end up again

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
with a tiny elite

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
ripping all the benefits,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
taking all the fruits,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and the masses of the population

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
finding themselves worse

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
than they were before,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
certainly much worse than this tiny elite.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
CA: And those elites might not
even be human elites.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
They might be cyborgs or --

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
YNH: Yeah, they could be
enhanced superhumans.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
They could be cyborgs.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
They could be completely
nonorganic elites.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
They could even be
non-conscious algorithms.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
What we see now in the world

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
is authority shifting away

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
from humans to algorithms.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
More and more decisions

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
about personal lives,
about economic matters,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
about political matters,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
is actually being taken by algorithms.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
If you ask the bank for a loan,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
chances are your fate is decided
by an algorithm, not by a human being,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and the general impression is that

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
maybe homo sapiens just lost it.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The world is so complicated,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
there is so much data,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
things are changing so fast,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that this thing that evolved
on the African savannah

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
tens of thousands of years ago

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to cope with a particular environment,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
a particular volume
of information and data,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
it just can't handle the realities
of the 21st century,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and the only thing that may
be able to handle it

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
is big data algorithms.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So no wonder that more and more
authority is shifting from us

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to the algorithms.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
CA: So we're in New York City

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
for the first of a series of TED Dialogues

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
with Yuval Harari,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and there's a Facebook live
audience out there.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We're excited to have you with us.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We're going to start coming
to some of your questions

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and questions of people in the room

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
in just a few minutes,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
so have those coming.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Yuval, if you're going
to make the argument

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that we need to get past nationalism
because of the coming

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
technological danger, in a way,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
presented by so much of what's happening

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
so we've got to have
a global conversation about this.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Trouble is, it's really hard to get people
really believing that, I don't know,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
AI really is an imminent
threat, and so forth.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The things that people,
some people at least,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
care about much more immediately perhaps

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
is perhaps climate change,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
perhaps other issues like refugees,
nuclear weapons, and so forth.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Would you argue that

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
where we are right now

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that somehow those issues

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
need to be dialed up?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
You've talked about climate change,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but Trump has said
he doesn't believe in that.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So in a way your most powerful argument,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
you can't actually use to make this case.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
YNH: Yeah, I think with climate change,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
at first sight, it's quite surprising

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that there is a very close correlation

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
between nationalism and climate change.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I mean, almost always the people
who deny climate change are nationalists.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And at first sight, you think why?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
What's the connection?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Why don't you have socialists
denying climate change?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But then, when you think about it,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
it's obvious.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Because nationalism has
no solution to climate change,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
if you want to be a nationalist
in the 21st century,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
you have to deny the problem.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
If you accept the reality of the problem,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
then you must accept that yes,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
there is still room in the world

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
for patriotism,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
there is still room in the world

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
for having special loyalties

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and obligations towards your own people,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
towards your own country.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I don't think anybody is really
thinking of abolishing that.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But in order to confront climate change,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
we need additional loyalties
and commitments

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to a level beyond the nation.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And that should not be impossible,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
because people can have

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
several layers of loyalty.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
You can be loyal to your family

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and to your community

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and to your nation,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
so why can't you be also loyal

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to humankind as a whole?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Of course, there are occasions
where it becomes difficult,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
what to put first,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but life is difficult. Handle it.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
(Laughter)

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
CA: Okay, so I would love to get
some questions from the audience here.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We've got a microphone here.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Speak into it, and Facebook,
get them coming too.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Question: So one of the things

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that has clearly made a huge difference

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
in this country and other countries

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
is the income distribution inequality,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the dramatic change in income distribution

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
in the U.S. from what it was 50 years ago

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and around the world.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Is there anything that we can do
to affect that,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
because that gets at a lot
of the underlying causes?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
YNH: So far I haven't heard
a very good idea

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
about what to do about it,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
again partly because most ideas
remain on the national level,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and the problem is global.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I mean, one idea that we hear
quite a lot about now

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
is universal basic income,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but this is a problem.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I mean, I think it's a good part,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but it's a problematic idea because
it's not clear what universal is

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and it's not clear what basic is.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Most people when they speak
about universal basic income,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
they actually mean national basic income,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but the problem is global.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Let's say that you have an AI

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and the 3D printers

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
taking away millions of jobs in Bangladesh

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
of all the people who make my shirts

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and my shoes?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So what's going to happen?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The U.S. government will levy taxes

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
in Google and Apple in California

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and use that to pay basic income
to unemployed Bangladeshis?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
If you believe that,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
you can just as well
believe that Santa Claus

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
will come and solve the problem.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So unless we have really universal

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and not national basic income,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the deep problems

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
are not going to go away,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and also it's not clear what basic is,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
because what are basic human needs?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
A thousand years ago,
just food and shelter is enough,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but today people will say education

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
is a basic human need.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It should be part of the package.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But how much?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Six years? Twelve years? PhD?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Similarly with health care,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
let's say that in 20, 30, 40 years,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
you'll have expensive treatments

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that can extend human life

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to 120, I don't know.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Will this be part

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
of the basket of basic income or not?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It's a very difficult problem,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
because in a world

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
where people lose their ability
to be employed,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the only thing they are going to get
is this basic income.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So what's part of it

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
is a very, very difficult
ethical question.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
CA: And there's a bunch of questions
on how the world affords it as well,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
who pays.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
There's a question here
from Facebook from Lisa Larson.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
How does nationalism in the U.S. now

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
compare to that between
World War I and World War II

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
in the last century?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
YNH: Well the good news,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
with regard to the dangers of nationalism,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
we are in a much better position

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
than a century ago.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
A century ago, 1917,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Europeans were killing each other
by the millions.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
In 2016, with Brexit,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
as far as I can remember,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
a single person lost their life,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
an MP who was murdered
by some extremist,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
just a single person.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I mean, if Brexit was about
British independence,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
this is the most peaceful
war of independence in human history.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And let's say that Scotland
will now choose to leave the U.K.,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
after Brexit.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So in the 18th century,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
if Scotland wanted,
and the Scots wanted several times,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to break out of the control of London,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the reaction of the government
in London was to send an army up north

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to burn down Edinburgh

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and massacre the highland tribes.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
My guess is that if in 2018,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the Scots vote for independence,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the London government
will not send an army up north

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to burn down Edinburgh.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Very few people are now willing
to kill or be killed

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
for Scottish or for British independence.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So for all the talk
of the rise of nationalism

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and going back to the 1930s,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to the 19th century,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
in the West at least,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the power of national sentiments today

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
is far, far smaller

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
than it was a century ago.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
CA: Although some people now,
you hear publicly worrying

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
about whether that might be shifting,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that there could actually be
outbreaks of violence in the U.S.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
depending on how things turn out.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Should we be worried about that, or
do you really think things have shifted?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
YNH: No, we should be worried.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We should be aware of two things.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
First of all, don't be hysterical.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We are not back
in the First World War yet.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But on the other hand,
don't be complacent.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We reached from 1917 to 2017

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
not by some divine miracle

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but simply by human decisions,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and if we now start making
the wrong decisions,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
we could be back

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
in an analogous situation

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to 1917 in a few years.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
One of the things I know as a historian

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
is that you should never
underestimate human stupidity.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
(Laughter)

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It's one of the most powerful
forces in history

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
is human stupidity and human violence.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Humans do such crazy things

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
for no obvious reasons,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but again, at the same time,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
another very powerful force
in human history is human wisdom.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We have both.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
CA: We have with us here
moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
who I think has a question.

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Jonathan Haidt: Thanks, Yuval.

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So you seem to be a fan
of global governance,

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but when you look at the map of the world

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from Transparency International,

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which rates the level of corruption
of political institutions,

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it's a vast sea of red

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with little bits of yellow here and there
for those with good institutions.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So if we were to have
some kind of global governance,

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what makes you think that it would end up
being more like Denmark

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rather than more like Russia or Honduras,

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and aren't there alternatives

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such as we did with CFCs?

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I mean, there are ways to solve
global problems with national governments.

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What would world government
actually look like,

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and why do you think it would work?

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YNH: Well, I don't know
how it would look like.

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Nobody still has a model for that.

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The main reason we need it

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
is because many of these issues

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
are lose-lose situations.

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When you have a win-win situation

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
like trade, both sides can benefit
from a trade agreement,

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then this is something you can work out.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Without some kind of global government,

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national governments each
has an interest in doing it.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But when you have a lose-lose situation,
like with climate change,

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it's much more difficult

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
without some overarching
authority, real authority.

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Now, how to get there

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and how would it look like,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I don't know.

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And certainly there is no obvious reason

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to think that it would look like Denmark,

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or that it would be a democracy.

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Most likely it wouldn't.

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We don't have workable

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
democratic models

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
for a global government.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So maybe it would look more
like ancient China

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
than like modern Denmark,

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but still, given the dangers

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that we are facing,

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I think the imperative

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of having some kind of real ability

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to force through difficult decisions

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
on the global level

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
is more important

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
than almost anything else.

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