2024
Harari said he planned a sixty-day meditation retreat in India after finishing his book tour.
“I plan in December, after the book tour is over, to go sixty days for a meditation retreat in India.”
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Yuval Noah Harari
9 facts from 1 episode, in date order. These are what speakers said on the shows, each linked to the moment it was said. They aren't independently verified.
2024
Harari's book Nexus is subtitled A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI.
“having read your book, brilliant book, Nexus. A brief history of information networks from the Stone Age to A I.”
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Yuval Noah Harari says he was originally a specialist in medieval military history, writing about the Crusades and the Hundred Years War.
“I was originally a specialist in medieval military history. I wrote about the uh, crusades and the hundred years war”
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Harari says Stone Age hunter-gatherer bands were mostly democratic because they could simply talk things through.
“in the Stone Age, hunter gatherers living in small bands, they were mostly democratic.”
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Harari argues large-scale democracy became possible only in the late modern era, with the newspaper, telegraph, radio and television.
“large scale democracy becomes possible only in the late modern era, when a couple of information technologies appear first the newspaper, then telegraph and radio and and television”
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Harari says money and financial devices are fundamentally about creating trust between strangers.
“All these financial devices, money itself is really just trust.”
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Harari says the early internet metaphor was the web, but the new metaphor is the cocoon, which encloses people in separate information bubbles.
“The new metaphor is the cocoon. It's a web that turns on you and encloses you from all sides”
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Harari argues digital evolution is billions of times faster than organic evolution, so AI could advance from an amoeba stage to a dinosaur stage in decades.
“But digital evolution is billions of times faster than organic evolution.”
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Harari says AI and algorithms create a 'silicon curtain' dividing people, comparing it to the Iron Curtain of the Cold War.
“just as we had kind of, you know, the the iron curtain in the cold war, now we have the silicon curtain.”
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