All language subtitles for Interview with Yuval Noah Harari VPRO Documentary

And now we can start.

So, welcome Mr. Harari or or may I say

Yuval? Yuval is fine, perfectly.

Yuval, I'm honored and excited to have

the opportunity this evening to uh

to pick your brain, but also hopefully

to get to know you a little better. Um

get to know the man behind the books and

uh the lectures. And and I understand

I'm just in time Mhm. cuz before we

started this interview told me that

coming Sunday you're leaving for your

your annual off-the-grid retreat

meditation.

I'm going for 2 months meditation. Yeah.

But it's also 2 months of not talking at

all? Uh complete silent. I'm not talking

to people and no phones and no

computers, no books, no writing, no

nothing. Yeah. Uh you know, to detoxify

the mind. Yes.

Oh, yeah.

So, no talking. So, don't hold back now.

You can still You can still talk. You

get every opportunity in the next what?

90 minutes. Um and without I mean I I

didn't want to dive too deep right away

into the details of meditation because I

hope we'll Yeah, we'll get to that

later.

We'll get to that later probably, but I

I did wonder what you miss the most when

you're away for those 60 days. Is it Is

it your husband? Yes. Oh, no. No, no. I

wanted I wanted to give you three

options.

Oh, okay. Okay. But it's really sweet

that you said yes right away.

No, I wanted to say is it your husband,

your cell phone, or your dog? I don't

have a cell phone.

Uh it's it's definitely my husband. I

mean, my dog is currently he is 14 and

he has cancer and he seems to be in his

last days. So, it's it's really kind of

I hope it'll it'll it'll wait until I

come back from the meditation retreat.

He's doing well now. He's he's taking

these cannabis drops. I mean, he's not

taking it. We we are giving it to him.

Wait, you're giving weed to your dog?

Not weed. It's you know, it's the the

extract the the medicinal

the oil, yeah. Yeah, yeah, Yeah, And

he's not smoking, you

They're not rolling him joints, no.

No, and uh we we just kind of spray it

on on on on his food and he he and it it

really improves his his condition.

Really? Uh I it seems so. And there is

no placebo effect with dogs. So

that would be funny though, placebo

effect in dogs that you're telling him

this really works and then he thinks,

"Yeah, you're right.

Yeah." Yeah. Yeah, so 60 days of no

talking

um and we are now we are we're setting

off on a journey through your head

basically and and and through your life

and to do so we've asked you to pick a

handful of uh movies, TV series that are

meaningful to you in one way or another

um

and I happen to know that watching TV

series is one of the main hobbies of you

and your husband, right?

Yes.

But are you typical binge watchers? No,

I mean he tends to be more of a binge-y

type. I tend to be like, "Oh, we need to

digest this episode before we move to

the to the next one." So there is often

a conversation around it. So we often

end up watching two episodes in a row.

Okay, so not the whole season in one

night. I mean we just yesterday night we

watched the first episode of Succession

of the new Ooh, the new the third

season. It's amazing. I mean it's so

good. It's like Shakespeare for the 21st

century. I haven't gotten a chance yet.

I had to watch all the the the the

movies that you are going to discuss

this evening. Yeah.

Um how about we take a look at the first

clip you selected. It's an educational

children's cartoon series from late

'70s.

I think even early '70s. I watched it in

the like late '70s, early '80s when I

was 4 5 years old and it kind of

completely blew my mind.

Yeah, we were born in the same year, 19

'76.

'76. I also watched it as a kid. Mhm. Um

it's um I mean when I watch it now, I'm

surprised again and again that some of

the things I write today in my books and

I think that oh, this is something I

just thought about like today or or this

year. And then I watch it, and I know it

was already there when I was like 5

years old, it was on TV. You basically

plagiarized it. Yes.

Maybe unconsciously Unconsciously.

Unconsciously from your childhood.

Because it's a series about the history

of humanity.

It's originally French, entitled Il

était une fois l'homme, which means once

upon a time men. Um

why why why do you want to kick off with

it without

giving away the full story?

It it it inspired my my love of history.

Mhm.

And as I said, it really blew my mind

that you know, I mean

to

as a kid trying to understand the world,

why is the world the way it is?

And then you watch it, and it tells you

that the world wasn't always like this.

It was completely different.

And how things keep changing over time.

And it I think it shaped to to large

extent my view of the world. And

it has I think I I I don't know, you

know, it's difficult to put a number on

it, but I I credit it to some extent

with my becoming a historian. Wow. So

basically this is the origin of Yuval

Harari. As a historian, yes. As a

historian, yes.

Wow. Once upon a time men.

First of all, pretty harsh scene for a

vegan.

I wasn't vegan then. No, you're No, not

as a kid. Yeah, right. And well, then

then the cat's out of the bag. This is

where you got your information

from. Millions of readers all over the

world wonder where does he get his

information from. At least some of it. I

mean watching it now, I mean again, it's

I mean it's so sexist.

There are there are no women. There

there is just this one woman who does

nothing throughout the whole thing

except cooking. They hand out the food.

They hand out the food, and that's it.

Even in the Even in the '70s, history

was written by men.

Yes, still. Still. Um but but but still,

I mean, it's it's such a rich

show Yeah, cuz what makes it so good for

you?

You know, it It starts with evolution,

which, you know, growing up in in Israel

in the 1980s was not obvious. We still

don't really teach evolution in in in

school. So, you know, watching this kind

of a powerful image or a powerful

narrative that sticks in the mind.

And also, you know, the basic

understanding that humans are animals.

That still most people reject. Most

people around the world today.

Yeah. And so, you were not taught that

as a young boy. No, I mean, we were

taught the Bible.

Okay.

I mean, I come from a secular family,

and I went to a secular school, but

still in a secular school in Israel, you

learn like tons and tons of Bible. You

don't learn evolution. But you don't

learn anything about dinosaurs or

fossils or

You know, dinosaurs, kids love

dinosaurs. You probably hear about

dinosaurs. But, you know, the the whole

process of evolution and where we human

beings came from and ancient human

species, maybe it was mentioned here and

there, but you get far more Bible

than that. But what did you think then

when you watched this? You're like,

"Wait a minute. No one's telling me

about this."

I'm not sure. I mean, you know, I mean,

the world is so complicated when you're

five. I mean, it's still complicated

even today. But you Just to make sense

of it. And you get so many different

points of views and stories that don't

really add up. So, it took me

many many years to integrate the

different narratives that I heard from

different places. Yeah. And uh also to

discard some of these narratives. Like

to understand that the the the Bible is

just it's not the the history of

humanity, it's just a story that some

humans invented 3,000 years ago and

became extremely powerful and and and

successful, but it's it's just a story.

And your parents did not at least did

not forbid you to watch

No, absolutely not. No, again, I came

from a secular family. They were very

much in favor of of of this. But um

again, you go to school

and the and until today, you learn

mainly Israeli history and Jewish

history. You you learn again, you learn

an awful lot of Bible, but even in

history class, it's mostly you know,

you don't have anything about China. You

don't learn anything about, I don't

know, the agricultural revolution.

You learn something about the Roman

Empire, but mostly what did the Romans

do to us?

And then you learn about the French

Revolution, it's mainly about what

happened to the Jews in the French

Revolution. So But every country has

their tunnel vision, right?

Yes, absolutely. I in lower school

school, I learned about, you know, how

great the East India companies were,

right? Yeah. So, but this to you was a

source of proper information.

And especially

maybe didn't realize it back then, but

you realize it later. Yes, it's kind of

an an alternative

understanding

of the world that with time became more

and more convincing and powerful and and

rich.

Yeah. And it's accurate as I understand

you. Correct? It's as accurate as an

animation series for for little kids can

be. Of course, it's not I mean, if you

go now to the latest findings, no, it's

not 100% accurate, but as an initial

view

of of evolution and history, it's it's

surprisingly good. Sufficient. Yeah, and

it raises some of and

many cases in many cases when you deal

with with kind of these big narratives

the real question is what are the

questions?

That okay, that the answers that are

being given, they are corrected over

time. You have new archaeological

findings and new historical theories and

so forth. That you know, people in the

70s didn't know that Neanderthals and

Homo sapiens had sex and even had

children together. They thought they

were two different

They thought they were two different

species and then the Neanderthals

disappeared. And this is what you see in

in in in in the episode. Now we know

from genetic evidence that yes,

something like 50,000 years ago some

Neanderthals had sex with some sapiens

and most of us have some Neanderthal

DNA. It's like 2%

2%, 3%, % something like that. Yeah. Now

because I wanted to to quote something

from this particular episode because the

voice over says chances are slim

Cro-Magnon men descended from

Neanderthal men. Mhm. Since the two

lived side by side for 5,000 years,

cousin or conqueror, Cro-Magnon men did

win out in the end. Mhm. So well

obviously now we don't we don't call it

Cro-Magnon men. Yeah, I mean

anymore. the the

the the terminology changes, some of the

details change, but what I said is is

again the questions are the important

ones.

Yeah. But does does this clip give us

any clues on why we came to conquer the

planet?

First of all, again, it asks the

question, why did our species of humans

conquer the planet?

Yeah. Which is a very important

question. First of all, to realize that

there were different species

and secondly, to

this basic question of why we dominate

the planet

Yeah. we get different answers to it.

But do we get an answer in this scene,

you think?

Yes. And it's it's basically still the

answer that I give in Sapiens, that it's

cooperation. You have the scene when

there is the mammoth

group, the the group of mammoth and the

tribe and the bands join together in

order to cooperate to hunt the mammoth

and this is also the the the answer that

I gave in Sapiens that the real secret

of success of our species, our source of

power is not that we are individually

smarter or more creative, nothing like

that. It's that we are the only mammals

that are capable of cooperation in large

numbers. You know, chimpanzees and and

elephants and and wolves and dogs, they

can cooperate in small numbers. They

they are in packs. Yeah. So, the

chimpanzees can cooperate say 50

chimpanzees, a hundred chimpanzees

because cooperation among them depends

on intimately knowing each other.

Chimpanzees also hunt, but to go hunting

with you, I need to know you personally.

What kind of chimpanzee are you? Are you

nice? Can I trust you? Now, the

the thing about Homo sapiens, we have

this amazing ability to cooperate with

complete strangers.

And this is why we can cooperate

basically in unlimited numbers. If you

look at the world today, so at least in

the economic sphere, we have a network

of cooperation of almost 8 billion

people. Like this shirt that I'm

wearing, it was produced by somebody in

Vietnam or Guatemala that I've never

met. But this network of cooperation

brings me my shirt. And this goes back

to

tens of thousands of years ago

when Sapiens first acquired this ability

to cooperate in large numbers and this

is our this is why we managed to

push aside or exterminate the

Neanderthals.

That we actually Neanderthals had bigger

brains than us and individually they

were physically probably more powerful

and also intellectually there are

reasons to think that they were not

inferior to us. But they did not

cooperate as well. As far as we know,

they couldn't they cooperate on on the

level of bands of say again 20 15

Neanderthals. Sapiens could cooperate in

hundreds and thousands and it doesn't

just mean that you know this image of a

big battle that a thousand Sapiens

versus 15 Neanderthals. It's much more

than that. It's networks of exchanging

information, exchanging ideas. If you

discover a new herb that can cure an

illness, then you tell it to all the

other bands in in the area. And if

somebody discovers a new method to to

produce a knife or to hunt a mammoth or

anything else.

of mouth to mouth advertising. Exactly.

And and this is the the the deep source

of of our power, the ability to

cooperate in very large numbers.

It's funny how you mentioned the word

battle

cuz I

I wanted to suggest we go

to the next clip. Yeah. As a historian,

you initially specialized in medieval

military history.

More specifically logistics. Logistics,

yeah. Logistics. I was I like my I like

my my master's thesis was like the most

boring thing in the world. It was about

medieval logistical systems of how do

you feed an army on the march? How many

calories does a does a medieval knight

consume and how much fodder each horse

eats? And what do you get the fodder?

And like if you go on a campaign and you

need to bring fodder for the horses, so

you you have a cart and you put the

fodder in it, but then you need horses

to pull the cart. For something boring,

you make it sound pretty exciting. It

You know, I worked on it for like two

years. Um

in this regard, you want us to show

a military battle Yes. from the HBO

series Game of Thrones.

I'm not even going to try to explain

who's fighting whom.

If you didn't see the show you Right. I

mean, I watched all the episodes cuz I'm

a fan, but even I I mean get frustrated

sometimes by keeping you know, track of

who's who and who's belling who and

who's trying to kill whom, etc.

All you need to know or all the viewer

needs to know is that there's the one

guy, the handsome Jon Snow. He's talking

to some other guy. He's the leader of

the moral

Of the wildlings.

The wildlings. The Scots basically who

live on the north beyond the anarchistic

posse and then some other, you know,

power-driven king barges in and and

tries to take over.

Game of Thrones.

Why did you take us to the continent of

Westeros and particularly to this scene?

Well, I mean

as I said originally I specialized in

medieval military history

and even more specifically in in

logistics. And you know, I watch this

and I live I I like Game of Thrones very

much, but I I I I I sit and cringe, you

know, because I this is so

unscientific. What you see here is

they're in the middle of nowhere,

somewhere in the frozen north and

suddenly out of nowhere appears this

huge army of Stannis Baratheon

and surprises them.

And this is just absolutely impossible.

I mean, I'm watching it and I'm

thinking, how did they supply the

horses? Where did they get the fodder?

It's The food, yeah.

The food for the horses, for the men.

Usually in a medieval army, the the the

the most common way is to just rob the

the villages.

You you pass through a country and you

just take the the the the bread, the

chickens, the eggs, the fodder to feed

your army, but there are no villages.

They are in the frozen north. So, the

other in in this situation what medieval

armies do is you bring a supply train

with you. But a supply train is very

slow

and it's you know, it's it's pulled by

oxen and and and by by by horses and and

things like that. It's very difficult to

move the huge army through this kind of

of territory. They've never been there.

So, they they shouldn't they don't know

the land. And if they try to move a huge

army with its supply train, there is no

way that the native wildlings would have

missed it.

I mean, how can they be surprised? It's

sitting on the couch watching your

favorite series and then cringing

because it's not accurate. Is that

correct? Uh in in a way because it's

something that is very close to home,

medieval logistics. I get it, but it's

like watching the Muppet Show and then

getting angry because frogs can't

actually talk.

No, but but but it's it's kind of you

know

to it it conveys

a a deeply wrong view of I mean

What people often don't understand about

history is the logistics. It's how

complicated it is to do simple things

like move an army.

And this is for instance what feeds into

conspiracy theories.

You know, the biggest problem with

conspiracy theories is that they

underestimate the complexity of the

world. Like they imagine that you can

control the world by you know, you get a

bunch of billionaires sitting in in

around a table like this.

Just a few Rothchilds and

Yeah, and and they release epidemics and

they start wars and the logistics

doesn't work.

No. Because yes, you can start a war,

there is no way you can predict the

outcome.

Uh you know, you a real conspiracy is

something like the American invasion of

Iraq.

That went completely off the tracks.

Because there were no weapons of mass

destruction.

No, not not just that. I mean, you have

the biggest superpower in the world

invading this third world third rate

country

and it goes completely

in an unexpected direction. The country

which probably benefited most from the

American invasion is Iran. Yes. And then

how it really happens in history because

on the ground things get messy.

And the plans you make in your head, oh,

we land in the port and we I'll I'll

I'll move my huge army over the frozen

ice and surprise them, it just doesn't

work in in practice because oh, but what

we the horses don't have enough to eat.

Yeah. And therefore you do accept the

fact that there's actually ice zombies

and dragons. I don't like the ice

zombies and dragons, but I you know, but

that's okay. So this is kind of the this

is the the the the their stick. The let

there be ice zombies. But um But at

least have a proper

you know, view on a proper display of

how armies move. Yes, because this is

something a for me which is more basic

to understand the complexity of

historical processes

and it has a bearing on how people

understand events today. Yeah. But you

know, the zombies, people see it on

television and hopefully they know that

there are no zombies.

But when they see the movement of armies

they tend to think, well, this is this

is much more accurate than zombies and

they they

they kind of use this to understand how

military events actually happen in the

world whether in the Middle Ages or or

today. Yeah. And this distorts our

understanding of history. It is

portrayed or it is described as a

medieval, it's set in medieval times or

it has this medieval Yes, feel.

Absolutely.

That's That's what I was looking for.

But what what makes it medieval? The

castles and the swords and you know, the

technology is basically medieval, the

outlook, all the kind of chivalrous

culture, and you have kings and you

know,

certainly in Europe when you think in

terms of of an ill-defined time or

legend time or primordial time, it's

always the Middle Ages. If you even you

think about the Smurfs, the Smurfs are

basically in the Middle Ages.

That they live in the village and there

is the nobleman in the castle and If I

was writing an article, this would be

the headline. The Smurfs are actually in

No, but I think this is this is well

known. You know, because

you don't see Greek a Greek city with

all kinds of elections and the forum and

then no.

Usually legend time is the Middle Ages.

That is so funny. Never realized that.

Because most of our legends except for

you know, for for the Bible and stuff,

they come from the Middle Ages. So

storytelling for us too as well.

Yeah, all the children's fairy tales,

they're about princesses and princes,

not about consuls and praetors. Yeah.

Yeah.

Let's move on to another fairy tale.

Money. The biggest of them all.

Um The Big Short, the true story about

how the financial crisis of 2007-2008

was triggered by the United States

housing bubble.

Um one unique aspect of this film is

that some actors will break the

so-called fourth wall uh to directly

address the audience and explain

complicated financial products um such

as um what's it called? CDOs, CDUs,

something like that. Synthetic CDOs. Hm.

Uh disconcerting to say the least.

Um this guy, the investment adviser,

says society values me very much. How

come people put so much faith and money

into

in into an obvious pipe dream?

Well, that's the basis of of the whole

of history, of the whole of society. I

mean, we talked earlier about how we

rule the world and not the Neanderthals

because we can cooperate in very large

numbers, including with complete

strangers, like the people who made this

shirt.

Now, the next question is what makes it

possible? What How come we can do it and

the chimpanzees can't? And the answer is

stories.

Uh fictional stories. At the basis of

every large-scale cooperation, there is

a fictional story. Now, it's very clear

in the case of religions that, you know,

a billion people can cooperate and build

cathedrals and synagogues or or go on on

crusades and jihads because they all

believe the same fictional story that if

you die in this holy war, after you die,

you go to heaven and Yeah, you have all

the virgins that you want.

Yeah, and you know, for millions of

years you'll enjoy all the best things.

No chimpanzee will ever believe that.

You can't convince a group of

chimpanzees to go fight another group of

chimpanzees by telling them, "Yeah, you

know, if you die, you get to chimpanzee

heaven and there you have lots and lots

of bananas and coconuts and whatever you

want." No chimpanzee will believe that.

In the same way, I cannot convince a

chimpanzee to give me all his bananas

and say

For a piece of paper.

in a week you'll get

the double the bananas.

Not in a week. No. Right now, I'll give

you this green piece of paper if you

give me your banana. Yeah.

No chimpanzee will agree. No. But humans

agree to it. This is why we can have

trade networks. This is why I can wear a

shirt that somebody on the other side of

the world has produced. Because we all

believe I mean, the greatest story ever

told is not the Bible. It's not about

gods. It's not No, the greatest story

ever told is money. You know, the the

biggest Nobel Prize in literature that

should be awarded is not to the people

who write books, it's to the people who

create money.

Uh it's the only story everybody

believes.

Do we know who

invented

Well, money? First of all, we need to

understand what what money is. And and

and this it's a wonderful way that they

presented it. Money

people think that money is is

materialistic. You know, it's kind of

matter. It's It's But money is actually

one of the most

spiritual or mental things in the world.

It doesn't exist anywhere except in our

imagination, in our mind. It's

completely non-materialistic

and it's actually made of trust. You you

know, the equation basically is money

equals trust. The thing you make money

out of is trust. So, initially

there wasn't a lot of trust between

people, between strangers. So, the first

type of money that we know about for

sure was created in ancient Mesopotamia

around 5,000 years ago and it was just

barley. Grain. Oh, barley. Yeah.

Grain. Grain. Um food. Food. And this

was the first money because people

didn't trust each other enough or the

system. So, the money was something you

can actually eat. Yeah, makes sense.

If Yeah, I mean if if everything I don't

know, like the the the global financial

meltdown, okay, I have my barley. I'll

eat it.

Um but then the next stage was gold.

And the amazing thing about gold, gold

has absolutely no value whatsoever

except in the mind.

eat it. You can't eat it.

Uh you can't make useful things from it.

You know, iron, you can make an axe. You

can make a plow. You can make a knife.

Gold is a very soft metal. It's not good

for any of these things. The only thing

you make of it is status symbols, like

crowns and jewelry and and and and and

statues of your gods. And money. So,

it's putting your trust not in the gold

but actually in other people because the

value of the coin comes from the fact

that other people also value it.

And then it moved to paper.

That Oh, well, why do we need this this

cumbersome gold? We can just shift to

paper.

yeah.

Yeah, it's it's much easier and it's the

same principle. The the the value of the

pay It has no value in itself. It's just

if everybody believes the story that the

the the bankers come and tell us, "You

know, this green piece of paper, it's

worth a banana."

If you believe it and I believe it and

the people in the supermarket believe

it, it works. I can go to the

supermarket, give this worthless piece

of paper and get a banana.

And then it moved to the next stage,

which is digital. Most money today in

the world is not even paper. If you take

all the papers and coins, it's less than

10%.

It's only

basically data in computers being moved

around. Like, how did this shirt get to

me? I moved some bits in a computer from

this file to that file.

You ordered it online and Yeah, and then

the people got paid and digitally. And

you know, during the the current crisis,

governments have have have created

trillions, not millions, trillions of

euros and yens and and dollars. And how

do they do it? It's not like in the

1920s that you have printing presses

working all day. No, you

The president just goes to this guy and

tells him, "Okay, go into the file in

the computer

and wherever it's written, I don't know,

five trillion, delete the five and write

six." And that's it. And that's also

what we see happening in The Big Short,

right? There is a myth and then we start

piling up other myths on top of it.

They're creating money out of nothing

just by this kind of system of trust,

which most of the time works until it

doesn't.

Yeah. And we were watching the clip and

then you also said to me, like, this was

actually the first time I understood

Yeah. what they

What's a synthetic CDO? It brought down

the global economy. There was another a

in The Big Short that struck me and

because we discussed earlier

this evening how you were you were

brought up in a more secular family,

right? But the school you went to was

you had there was Bible study.

It was also a secular school.

a secular school but the Bible was very

much

was everywhere. Yeah, cuz there's a

scene in The Big Short that

where the rabbi complains to we saw

Steve Carell also in this scene. His

character is Mark Baum and then the

rabbi complains to Mark Baum's mother

that Mark Baum as a young boy is trying

to find inconsistencies in the word of

God.

I I mean, does it sound familiar to you?

Is that something you did as a boy?

Um

Yes, I mean I it's I mean from quite an

early age I understood that

the Bible was not exactly the the truth,

the whole truth, and nothing but the

truth. I remember it was like

six or seven and I was asked, maybe it

was in class, maybe it was by some

family gathering, I mean, who who who

was the first the first person, the

first people?

And the person expected I would say Adam

and Eve because this is what we learned

in in in school and in in Bible. And I

said Peking Man because I just read that

about, you know, this was back in the in

in the '80s and I just read this, I

don't know, this book that said that

discussed Peking Man.

Peking Man, right? And then an

archaeological finding from China that

was like 1.7 million or 1.5 million

years old and I knew that it's much

older than Adam and Eve, of course.

So what was the response of your

teacher?

Um they actually quite amused.

Yeah, they they I mean, the amount of

Bible we got is nothing in comparison to

what you get in a religious school. In

an Orthodox

In an Orthodox school. Yeah.

I get it. Yeah. But still, I mean, you

grew up in Israel, history-laden

country. Too much history. Too much

history.

It's a country suffering from from far

too much history. And and And you were a

teenager during the first Intifada,

right? That's like 1987.

December '87.

Went on for 5 6 years, and and and your

father worked as a He worked as a in in

an arms In the in the weapons industry,

like I don't know, like I don't know,

like a quarter of Israelis are working

in the weapons industry or something.

but but how did these things influence

you back then?

I was very much interested in military

history. Again, this was my my my my

expertise in university at first was

medieval military history and the

crusades and things like that.

Yeah. Um so, uh Did you think it

influenced your choice of studies, for

example?

The the the focus on on military issues,

yes, but very much so.

Uh and it's kind of grounds you

You know, I I guess if I grew up in the

Netherlands, I would have a very

different view of the world. If you grew

up in the Middle East, uh you you you

tend to kind of

have um a darker view

of of humanity and of human history

because the the the violence and the

cruelty and also the stupidity is is all

around you. It's on your doorstep.

Yeah. You know, people killing each

other

over No, no, not over food, which makes

sense in some way,

but over fictional stories that that

other people invented.

Border.

You know, I I I I I teach in Jerusalem,

one of the most famous cities in the

world, and you go around Jerusalem, and

it's you know, it's just a regular

place. You have stones and you have

trees and you have dogs and cats and

cars. It's It's just an ordinary place.

But then in their minds,

people create a second layer of reality

and superimpose it on top of the stones

and trees and and and cars, and they

walk around and they see angels and

demons and paradise and hell and all

these things.

And they they live in in this second

reality. I mean, one of the clips that

we thought of showing and we didn't show

in the end is is The Matrix. Mhm. Uh but

this kind of futuristic idea that people

will live inside a virtual reality

sometime in the future when AI and

computers will become overdeveloped. But

people have been living in virtual

realities for thousands of years.

Everything around us is basically

virtual reality in a way. Yes, again,

there is the physical reality, of

course, of the stones and the trees and

the animals. But on top of that, we

impose

uh our fictions, our our virtual

realities, our inventions, whether it's

money or whether it's nations or whether

it's all these religious mythologies.

And most of the time what we see and

what kind of moves us

is the is the virtual reality. It's not

real. If the coral reefs

or or or the Amazon rainforest, which is

this amazing creation of of nature,

which took millions of years to create

and which really sustains our life, if

this gets destroyed,

people basically do nothing.

But if some, I don't know, the Western

Wall or Al-Aqsa Mosque or some other of

these, you know, buildings that we built

uh just, you know, a thousand or two

thousand years ago

and which are not really necessary for

our existence, if somebody would touch

one stone there,

you will all all hell will break loose.

And what does that prove?

That fictions are far more powerful

than reality

in

shaping

uh human history and politics and

economics. In the competition between

fiction and truth,

fiction, at least politically, usually

wins because the truth is just too

painful and too complicated.

And we don't only come up with fictional

stories about the world around us.

Um we also create them within ourselves.

Yes.

And to illustrate this, you wanted to

show uh another animated uh clip uh this

time from a Disney-Pixar movie, Inside

Out. Um A really wonderful, one of the

best movies I I've ever Yeah, it's such

Oh, very but like at the very top of of

my list. It's about um a girl named

Riley and we're starting at the

beginning of the story right after

Riley's birth. Is there Do we need any

more context, anything we need to know?

It's I would say it's kind of taking

everything Disney has done previously

and just tears it to bits and throws it

away and here is a completely different

way to understand humanity.

Let's have a look.

One of your favorites. Yes. Yeah, but in

in 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, you

you write about Inside Out. Most viewers

might well have missed both its

neurological meaning and its sinister

implications. What are the sinister

implications? It basically says, you

know, most Disney movies, they tell you

look inside of yourself and you'll find

authentic true core and who you really

are and things like that. Follow your

heart.

Follow your heart and and all these

advices and here,

you look inside and you realize that

Riley is basically just a big robot

controlled by not a single spark like a

soul or a spirit, but by a very

complicated neurobiological mechanism,

which doesn't have a single self or a

single core. You have all these

different and sometimes con- conflicting

uh forces which are personified here as

joy and sadness and disgust and a fear.

But basically and and you know that the

movie that it just starts. It things

gets complicated. There is a problem and

and they go to basically explore Riley's

brain. What's happening in there?

And they never discover a core self.

They just discover more and more

complicated biological mechanisms.

And the implications, you know, they're

they're are shattering. That uh first of

all that you have no idea what's

happening inside.

And secondly, that as you explore, you

realize that there isn't just a single

self.

There is a a whole bunch of conflicting

forces and mechanisms.

Which is very much in line with what

modern science tells us.

But something that most humans uh refuse

to accept and certainly most Disney

movies don't give you that impression.

So that that's what's amazed you that

all of a sudden Disney

turned around a corner and

Like something

gave us a different view.

Yes. And you know, I mean Disney's is

not so important. The the the importance

is that this is suddenly a new view that

is being given to kids.

About who they are and what makes them

function. Yeah, there is no little Riley

inside Riley and that's what you would

have expected.

Exactly. But but when you first see it,

like the very first seconds, you think

that okay, joy is Riley's soul.

Yeah. But then you realize no, joy isn't

Riley's soul. Joy is just one element.

One of the captains in the mothership.

Exactly.

And

And so Riley also Mhm. here's s-

Riley does not

um have one little Riley inside of her

telling what she wants or what she needs

or

It also says something about free will,

I guess. Um you you never get any sense

of free will.

No.

I mean the Riley is just being

controlled by the conflict between these

forces inside her.

keep changing.

And they keep changing. And a very

crucial message of the movie is that

none of them is the real Riley. Again,

the whole problem, I don't want to ruin

the movie for those who didn't see it,

but the whole problem is that Joy thinks

that she is the real Riley and Sadness

uh she she she's an intruder or

something.

Mhm. And the kind of uh uh uh

big epiphany of the movie is to realize

no, Joy isn't Riley. It's all these

forces together that shape and control

Riley. The idea of giving up a soul or a

self or

free will. I mean, that's you you

already mentioned for for many people

that's that's very hard. I mean, what's

left for us as humans if we have to give

up the idea of the self, of the free

will? To explore the the reality. I

mean,

you know, my main problem with with with

the idea of free will and the self, it

makes us extremely incurious about

ourself. If my decisions just reflect my

free will, whatever that is,

Mhm. then there is nothing to explore.

Why did I choose to agree to do this

show? Why did I choose this shirt? Why

did I choose this movie? Oh, it's my

free will, end of story.

But once you give up the the this

assumption,

you start really investigating what are

the

many causes or or processes The roads

towards

shape exactly that shape our desires.

Where are they called? Like the next

thought that comes up in in my mind.

Where did it come from? Why this

thought? Now, I think we arrived at the

chapter of meditation here as well,

right? Because that's the way how you do

it. Mhm. But if we stick to the

metaphor,

the inside out metaphor, and we So, we

we take a look inside your head in in a

Disney way. Mhm.

There's then Joy who loves watching

series

with her husband. And then there's Anger

who's angry at what? Animal cruelty. And

then there's Disgust, disgusted at the

historical historical inaccuracies in

Game of Thrones. Mhm. Um what do these

characters do when you meditate?

They do their thing. I mean, meditation

is not about trying to control them or

stop them. It's about just, you know,

observing what's happening.

But who's observing them then at that

That that's the classical question. Um

nobody's really observing them. It's

just a process of observation. There

isn't a self standing aside. There is

just a whatever is

is is a process, not an entity. Now,

there is no point in kind of trying to

get too much philosophical

whatever. It's it's all about the

experience. When when I went for the

first time to meditation retreat, the

instruction was extremely simple at

first. Just Just feel the breath coming

into your nostrils and going out of your

nostrils. That's it. Just do that.

Whenever your mind wanders away, just

bring it back.

And I couldn't do it for more than 10

sec- 10 seconds. And, you know, 10

seconds, the mind goes somewhere. It

takes me 5 minutes to realize I lost

touch with the breath and then bring it

back. And that's something you can

train. And this gets better over time,

but that's not the point. The point is

you realize something very, very

important about yourself that you have

no control or very little control over

the mind and that you don't really

understand what's happening there.

That's the really shocking thing. But

you credit meditation for handling fame

and adoration.

Uh how how does sitting still for 2

hours a day and and breathing contribute

to not becoming a self-righteous

douchebag with a guru complex?

Which you're not, obviously.

Um I hope not.

I hope not. I don't know. Because, you

know, and

it's

the the better you get to know your

mind,

it's much of it is about getting to know

your own weaknesses and getting to know

the stories that keep repeating in your

mind. You know, like a nation has a

national mythology and a religion has a

religious mythology, each person has

personal personal mythology. Who am I?

Where did I come from? What are my

strengths and weaknesses and whatever?

And usually it's just a mythology.

And So, people putting you on a pedestal

is one of those mythologies. Is that

what you're saying? It's it could become

very easy I mean, we like our myth to be

flattering. And what's more flattering

than, you know, all these people telling

you that you're so smart and that you're

like this and you're like that? It you

know, it immediately goes to the head.

And if if you don't have a kind if if

you don't really make the effort to

observe what's happening inside, very

easily you create a temple of yourself

in your mind and you put a statue of

yourself like this

beautiful god in in in in the mind and

you get so much attached to it and then

the moment somebody criticizes you in

some I don't know, TV show or in some

newspaper or in in in a blog, you you

get so upset. How can they criticize I'm

such an important person and I do so

many good How How do they dare criticize

me? And this is because you became

attached to this mythology

that that that you created in mind. Yes,

you created it with materials from

outside. We always do that. But does it

still affect you, criticism, or not at

all? Yes, it does. Yeah, a lot, right?

Obviously, I'm human. Yeah, I mean,

meditation is not a magic No, I mean,

that's that's the point about

meditation. People think that meditation

is about getting rid rid of stuff. The

stuff I don't like about myself, whether

it's my anger or whether it's my

irritation or selfishness or whatever,

I'll get rid of it.

And yes,

things change, but the really key the

the the really important thing is not to

get rid of stuff, is to get to know

yourself better. And especially to get

to know the stuff you don't like about

yourself, because it's easy to get you

know, we all know the stuff we like

about ourselves. Uh let's move on to the

obvious next question, namely

if humans are computers, cuz you just

called Riley a a computer, can computers

become humans? Mhm. And yeah, and what

does that even mean?

Uh the answer might be in the next

movie, Her. Um the story is set in the

near future where the main character is

lonely and he falls in love with his

operating system called Samantha. Kind

of like a sexy Siri or a sexy Alexa in

Her.

Yeah, she said

this is an AI and she it says that she's

embarrassed. Mhm.

Um is she really? And what would that

imply?

Uh there's so much to unpack in in this

scene. It's it's just amazing. Um

No,

maybe let's start somewhere else. I mean

Sure.

As a historian, I'm interested in the

past, but also in the future.

Even the distant future, because it's

it's part of our identity. What makes

who we are is not just the past, it's

also the future.

And I have this very strong sense that,

you know, we have

deep down, we are much

We are not just, you know, belong to a

nation or religion. All these things are

very shallow. Religions, nations, all of

them are just, you know, like 5,000

years old.

And much

more deep is our biological

uh

identity, which we saw with with Riley.

All these emotions

and and the body, they go back not 5,000

years. They go back tens of millions of

years. Like the the love between a

mother and a child, this is something

that's been around for hundreds of

millions of years. The breath, which we

talked about earlier, is hundreds of

millions of years. I still share that

with with reptiles.

I I I you breathe, I breathe. We we are

the same thing.

And then I looked at the future, and

maybe in a couple of decades, Earth will

be populated or even dominated by

entities that are not organic.

That they don't breathe. They don't have

emotions. Like the the potential of AI

is much much bigger than any historical

revolution. It's really a biological

revolution. Since the, you know, for 4

billion years, all of life was organic.

And this is at least an an idea of

inorganic life forms. That's the biggest

thing that happened on Earth in 4

billion years.

And it might happen in our lifetime.

Now, the biggest question when it comes

to AI, what AI is artificial

intelligence. Yes. And the big question

is, will it have consciousness,

emotions, feelings?

the difference between intelligence and

consciousness is Intelligence is the

ability to solve problems.

Whether it's playing chess or diagnosing

a disease or a math problem.

Consciousness is the ability

That's That's intelligence.

Consciousness is the ability to feel

things like love and hate and pain and

pleasure. Yeah. Now, in humans and other

animals, they go together. We solve

problems by having feelings.

Computers so far, they have more and

more intelligence, but zero

consciousness. When a computer beats you

and me in chess, the computer doesn't

feel happy. No. It only calculated all

the moves.

Yeah. So, it's a completely different

kind of intelligence. Now, nobody knows.

There is a

Maybe the biggest question about the the

the future

is whether

we will have super intelligent beings

without any consciousness dominating the

planet, or whether we will have Or maybe

artificial consciousness.

Yes. Like we saw in in in here. Cuz

that's why I asked the question about

about her, about Samantha being

embarrassed, cuz that's such a thing of

the conscience. Yes. Now, we don't know.

We There is It's possible. I mean, there

is no scientific reason why

consciousness must be limited to organic

biochemistry and carbon-based life forms

and can't exist in silicon-based life

forms. Cuz we're also little computers

ourselves. It's just in a bio way.

way, yeah. But so far, we don't see any

artificial consciousness. I mean, most

science fiction movies about AI are not

about AI. They're about AC, artificial

consciousness. The moment every movie

focuses on is the moment the computer or

the robot gains consciousness, and then

either the the the man falls in love

with the computer, or the computer falls

in love with the human, or they try to

kill each other, or something like that.

Yeah. That's always the big question.

and then kill all the Yes, but

so far, it's science fiction. There is

no indication that computers are

developing consciousness.

At present, a far more frightening

scenario is that we will have super

intelligence without consciousness, the

same way that airplanes fly faster than

birds without developing feathers. So,

computers will become more intelligent

than us, far more intelligent, without

having any feelings, any emotions,

and they will dominate.

Is there a difference between a

Darwinian evolution and the AI

evolution? Yes, first of all, Darwinian

evolution until today was organic. Yeah.

And this is not organic. But And also,

Darwinian evolution is evolution by

natural selection. Here, we have

intelligent design.

Yeah. So, not the intelligent design of

the creationists in the Bible, a really

intelligent design. We are designing the

AI, and then the AI will design maybe

the next generation of AI. So, it's a

completely different kind of process.

But

if

if AI is taking over,

um

No, let me let me rephrase this

question. I'm a human. I am a conscious

human being. We still don't know if AI

will have a conscience.

Yes. Um besides that, but like Riley,

I'm driven by joy, anger, fear, and

that's what motivates me. So, what

motivates then an AI if it's not

controlled by humans? It develops its

own, maybe non-conscious motivation.

It's It You know, AI is machine

learning. You don't program it. You

build the basic thing, and then it

learns.

Self-learning. It's It's learned, and it

develops, and you don't understand. You

know, it's it's it's it's very

practical. Today, when you apply to the

bank for a loan, and the bank basically

lets an algorithm decide your fate, and

he and and the algorithm says, "No,

don't give this lady a loan." And you

ask the bank, "Why not? What's wrong

with me?

Is it my face? Is it my race?"

Yeah, is it my my the gender, the race,

whatever? The bank says, "We don't know.

The algorithm said no, and we don't

understand Even the people who designed

the algorithm don't understand the

decision that it is making. And what's

even more kind of frightening is, as we

saw in in this clip it

it it's on the verge of having the

ability to hack human beings.

I mean if Riley is this kind of

spiritual self with free will, computers

can't hack us, can't understand us. But

we if we are basically a very complex

biological process

then with enough data

and enough computing power, we are very

close to the point when computers can

hack human beings, can understand my

emotions, my likes, my dislikes better

than me. Not perfect. You can never

hack something 100% You don't need 100%.

You just need to know people better than

they know themselves. And this is quite

easy because most people don't know

themselves very well. So just imagine

what happens when we pass

as the algorithm knows what I want

better than I than I know it.

You're a puppet. It can manipulate you.

It can press your emotional buttons. And

this is what is happening now with our

smartphones and all these, you know,

algorithms on social media and things

like that.

have a smartphone?

Uh that's one of No, that's one of the

reasons. That basically it's it's to

keep my my time. And you know, over the

last 20 years the most the smartest

people in the world and the best

technology in the world has been working

on the problem of how to hack human

beings and control them through the

screens and smooth through the

smartphones. I'm no match to them.

If I give them access, they they win.

Yeah. So I try to limit their access.

In that way. In that way.

Yeah.

Her is also about the basic human need

of being understood. Mhm. Finding

someone else who totally gets you.

Um yeah, to feel loved. And I think

that's also the common thread in the

Australian Netflix series Please Like

Me.

Created, written, performed by uh Josh

Thomas. I absolutely love this series.

I I I I watched it like four or five

times.

Cried my eyes out at the end. Um why did

it appeal to you?

Um

well, first of all, I think it's one of

he's one of the funniest people on the

planet today. The main character, the

main character

Thomas he has a very unique sense of

humor. It gets

It takes time to grow on you. I mean, I

the first time I watched the first

episode and closed the TV and said, "I'm

not watching that." And after a couple

of weeks or months, I tried again and

gave it a chance and it's it's kind of

it it takes time.

And

um it's it's just such I never saw

something like this on television.

It was just, you know, so real in a way.

And what makes it so real for you?

Um

the the way that the people behave and

and

again and this kind of deep

existential sense of humor. It's not

like funny haha funny. It's I think very

kind of

uh mixture going again back to Riley

when joy and sadness mix together and

you get a kind of this is really how how

life is. It's not like in the comedies.

It's a gray area. Yeah, and it's not

black and white. It's not haha or la-

laughing. It's everything combined.

Yeah, and we really see that in this in

this scene. We meet Josh at the zoo with

his mom Rose and her friend Hannah

and so there's Josh and then there's a

cute Arnold in Please Like Me.

So romantic. Mhm.

Why did you choose this particular

scene?

Uh

I like it very much that it's in a zoo.

It's kind of it's part of nature.

Um Wait, a zoo is not nature. No, I mean

I mean that what's happening between

them

is it's natural. It's part of nature

like the meerkats and like this dolphin

or whatever

them getting kissing, you mean? Yeah,

they're getting together, the romance

and we talked about you know our deep

biological identity and you have you

have all these rituals and you have

national rituals and religious rituals

and these rituals are very shallow. They

go back, you know, like 2,000 years,

5,000 years like I think about my Bar

Mitzvah. So, Bar Mitzvah people had for

like 3,000 years top.

Now, romance and your first kiss and

like having this click with somebody,

this is a biological drama, a biological

ritual

which goes back tens of millions of

years

and it's such a deep thing and it's like

your entire body is like some new button

is is being pressed and

um

it's and and and it it connects

everything we talked about in about the

previous clips.

Like you know, I came out as as gay when

I almost was 21.

Now, Samantha, the AI from Her, she

could tell me that I was gay when I was

I don't know, 13 or 14. It should have

you know been written on my forehead but

people don't know themselves well. So, I

didn't know.

I I I I still it's still one of the kind

of foundational insights I have about

human beings, remembering myself at at

15

that it should have been absolutely

obvious. Cuz you think coming out at age

21 is is quite late and I because I read

that you regretted coming out. It's not

so much about whether it's late or it's

I'm trying to say how

how did I miss it? I think I'm a I mean

intelligent person and you know, it was

So, it was not that you stayed in the

closet for other people but you stayed

in the closet for yourself. You were

hiding from yourself.

Yes, and this ability of the mind not to

know something so deep, so important,

and again should have been so obvious.

This It's It's It's really mind-boggling

that we can do these things. And it also

connects to these stories that they the

fictional stories. I mean, why does it

happen? So, one of the most basic

explanations is because, you know,

again, growing up in Israel in the 1980s

People would ask you when are you going

to get a girlfriend? Uh

Of course. You almost never hear about

gay people. If you hear anything, it's

always terrible things.

Like it's against nature or it's against

God. Oh, and that's why you found the

zoo and the nature thing important.

Exactly. And then it take a very long

time to realize, "No, it's not true.

It's just a story that some people

invented 2,000 years ago."

Yeah, cuz basically what everything

humans do is nature.

Exactly. I mean, you can't break the

whole thing about homosexuality being

unnatural. It's a misunderstanding of

what nature means. You can never do

something unnatural. But it's just also

the stupid argument that people who hate

homosexuals in the first place use. It's

not a real They don't really think that

it's unnatural.

No. I mean, you have all these rabbis in

in in Israel that would go around and

say, "No, this is It's not just the

Bible. It's nature."

And um

I believed it to to some extent for many

years. And to understand that what

nature actually is, you cannot break the

laws of nature. The laws of nature are

not like the laws of a country that the

government has a rule that you can't

drive more than 90 km/h. And I drive

anyway. You drive 120, a police officer

stops you and gives you a ticket. This

is not how nature works. That there is a

rule against moving faster than the

speed of light, you do it anyway, it's

unnatural, so a galactic police officer

comes along and gives you a ticket. No.

And it doesn't work like that with sex

and romance.

If homosexuality was against nature, it

just couldn't exist. You know, things

against nature are for example driving

faster than the speed of light. You

don't need human rules against them,

they just can't happen.

It's impossible.

Yeah. So

to go back cuz I loved the way you

explained the feeling of getting your

first kiss as like a button being

pressed and then you feel it all all

over. When when

do you do you want to tell me about your

first kiss?

it wasn't such a good No, it wasn't a

bad experience, but it wasn't such a

good experience, either.

it a bad kiss or what was it? Um

it was kind of an anticlimax. You hear

about it so much and again, it's part of

the kind of the damage of being in the

closet for so long that you kind of you

you don't allow things to take their

more natural course.

And then, you know, all these characters

in the head that we saw in in in in

Riley, they get completely messed up.

And they are kind of tied in knots

within knots. It takes you years to

untangle these knots. So, what should

have been you know, a kind of playful

and wonderful and natural

uh

ritual

or biological drama Mhm. gets this

complicated social, cultural, religious

toxic mix.

There was too much pressure. You you

yourself put too much pressure on it.

Yeah, too much conflicting expectations

and too much pressure and

misunderstandings and

you know, that there was

after I came out, so there was a time

that I felt that finally I've solved it.

Like there was this one piece of the

puzzle in I don't understand life and

here I have this missing piece of the

puzzle

Yeah, cuz when did you realize how did

you realize you were gay? At 21? Was it

It was a process of a few a few months

and and and a movie also played a I

remember actually this one movie, maybe

I should have shown this.

It was 1997 and there was this film

festival in Jerusalem and there was this

movie called

a Canadian movie, French Lilies.

And it was kind of some had some had

very explicit gay scenes and I remember

walking out of the cinema and saying,

"I'm gay."

That's that's the kind of I mean it it

wasn't again

this is mythology. We embellish things

when when we tell them to make them

simpler. It was a process of of of

several months.

But it's also a beautiful example of

what art can do to you, right?

Yeah, but it was a moment of of

crystallization.

But then it kind of you know, it was a

false enlightenment. Like I had a

feeling for some time that that's it. I

I had this whole life this feeling that

I don't understand life and the social

system what's going on and because I

missed this critical piece and now I

have it.

of life.

Yes.

you cracked the puzzle of your of

yourself.

Yes and you know, everybody everybody

already did it because they're straight

and and they had it easy and now I I

finally cracked it. That's it. And it

took like one or two years to realize

now it it it was an important thing. It

was a very good it but it's it it it's

it didn't solve everything.

still pieces missing.

There were still a lot of pieces

missing. Life is still messy. It's Yeah.

And you mentioned the algorithm that

that an algorithm could have have told

you sooner that it that you were gay.

Yeah, by You know, just watching what

happens to my eyes when I walk on the

beach in Haifa and there is a sexy guy

and a sexy girl walking hand in hand in

swim swimsuits. Where do my eyes go? I I

should have been very simple for an AI

to figure it out. But is that for you

frightening future? Is it a positive

thing? Cuz I mean It depends what we do

with it. But it also depends where you

live, right?

If you live in Iran Yeah, then you're

Yes, that's a very problematic

thing that you know that they know about

you even before you do.

And that's the thing about hacking

humans. Throughout history

dictatorial governments always wanted to

hack human beings to be able to know

what you think, what you feel. You know,

Stalin gives a speech, everybody smiles

and claps their hands, but Stalin wants

to know what you really think.

they didn't have the technology back

have the technology. Now the technology

is there.

And it's not just it's it's all the

time. You know, again, in the Soviet

Union

the KGB couldn't follow you 24 hours a

day. They didn't have enough agents. And

even if they they had an agent on you,

the agent would write paper reports that

somebody, a human being, needs to read.

It's impossible to analyze all that. Now

with AI and smartphones and sensors and

cameras and microphones and all that,

you can literally follow everybody 24

hours a day. You don't need human

agents. We carry the agent in our pocket

or whatever. And you don't need human

analysts to go over the data. You have

AI. So it's for the first time in

history it's possible to follow

everybody all the time and follow even

what's happening under the skin and to

hack humans.

Now it's And to find out their

preferences, their secret loves, their

Everything what you like to get to know

you better than you know yourself. But

ironically, science did help you find

love, right? Cuz I read that you you met

your husband through a dating site.

That's also an algorithm.

I I mean, I'm not against technology. I

think that every technology can be used

for good or for bad. A knife can be used

to kill a person or to save a person's

life if you're a surgeon on an operating

table or to chop salad. Same goes for

for a

bat that you play baseball with, yeah.

Exactly. So, again, I met my husband

online. I mean

who who who decided that he actually was

the one? Was that you or was that the

algorithm? Or was the algorithm in your

head?

was me. I think that dating apps, they

have a misunderstanding. Most dating

apps, a misunderstanding of of of

humans.

Too many dating apps

understood humans as consumers of mates.

Like, you have the perfect mate out

there and the dating app just needs to

give you

You're a consumer and this is a product

you consume. So, they bring you the

product and you try, "Ah, this one is is

is is too dull and this one is like this

and give me another product."

And this is an entire misconception.

Because humans are not consumers of

mates. They are producers of

relationships. The difficult part starts

after you meet the person. It's not

about meeting Mr. Right. It's about

doing the hard work of actually creating

a relationship, which is something an

app cannot do for you. The hard work you

have to do yourself is what you're

saying. Yeah. It's also funny how you're

avoiding the term soulmate in this case

cuz there's no such thing in your world,

right? Yeah, so, you know, I mean, we

need an app

to help us create better relationships.

Because, you know, we need to change

ourselves. There is no Mr. Right. There

is no perfect person, but somebody who

is good enough. And then to start the

real difficult work of building the

relationship.

There is no Mr. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

And again, it's it's it's it's something

very basic about

how technology treats us, whether it

kind of constricts us or whether it

gives us opportunities. I I watched

another interview with you where you

told that you I know you don't have

children and I heard you say in an

interview that you're You and your

husband are not planning to to have any

no, no. Me, since ever since I was a

young girl, I always felt a calling deep

from within that I really, really,

really wanted to become a dog owner.

I never wanted kids, either. I don't

It's I It's never crossed my mind. If I

didn't know that people have kids, I

would never have thought about it myself

that somebody would would do such a

thing. Yeah. And on the other hand, now

and then, not very often, I'm like,

maybe am I missing out on the only

possible meaning I feel that I don't

understand life in the world well enough

to take responsibility

for bringing somebody into this mess and

for being kind of, you know, the

salesperson of life. Maybe, I mean, if

it was easier to adopt, it's almost

impossible for gay a gay couple to adopt

kids in in Israel.

Ah, okay. If it was possible to adopt,

then this is an option. But, just the

possibility

that I'm totally responsible for

bringing somebody into this mess, which

I don't understand. If I understood it,

then okay.

And then also being perhaps totally

responsible for their death,

uh this is too much for me.

It's This is also a good example of the

puzzle, the piece is missing in the

puzzle and you not knowing

yeah, what mess you're bringing them

into. Yeah. Speaking of the mess we are

bringing children into, we started off

this evening What was it? 700,000 years

ago with a clip from Once Upon a Time

Man, and um you you wanted to show

another

Yes. clip from the same series, the

children cartoon series. We're fast

forwarding to the past century

and how it all ends.

It's always nice to end an interview on

a positive note.

Thank you for that.

Um Do you have anything to add or are

you going to leave us with it? No, I

think that this is a warning.

It's not a prophecy.

History is not deterministic. We don't

know how the world will look like in

2050. It depends on our actions. We

still have agency. We have power. We

have more power than really than ever

before. We sometimes just like the

wisdom to use it in in the right way.

Yeah, the power of our imagination.

There's hope. But we need to you know,

we need to get our act together. But

it's totally within our power to create

a really good world. Thank you so much

for this interview. Thank you. I really

enjoyed it. Thank you. I really enjoyed

it. Thank you. I really enjoyed it.

Thank you. I really enjoyed it. Thank

you. I really enjoyed it. Thank you. I

really enjoyed it. Thank you. I really

enjoyed it. Thank you. I really enjoyed

it. Thank you. I really enjoyed it.

Thank you. I really enjoyed it. Thank

you. I really enjoyed it. Thank you. I

really enjoyed it. Thank you. I really

enjoyed it. Thank you.

Yeah, the power of our imagination.

There's hope.

But we need to you know, we need to get

our act together. We need to get our act

together. But it's totally within our

power to create a really good world.

Thank you so much for this interview.

Thank you. I really enjoyed it. Thank

you. I really enjoyed it. Thank you. I

really enjoyed it. Thank you. I really

enjoyed it. Thank you. I really enjoyed

it. Thank you. I really enjoyed it.

Thank you. I really enjoyed it. Thank

you. I really enjoyed it. Thank you. I

really enjoyed it. Thank you. I really

enjoyed it. Thank you. I really enjoyed

it. Thank you. I really enjoyed it.

Thank you. I really enjoyed it. Thank

you. I really enjoyed it. Thank you. I

really enjoyed it. Thank you. I really

enjoyed it. Thank you. I really enjoyed

it. Thank you. I really enjoyed it.

Thank you. I really enjoyed it. Thank

you. I really enjoyed it. Thank you.