I've been thinking some more on this. In what ways is it useful or worthwhile to invest time and energy into contesting Harari's views, and in what ways not? He is of course right in some of what he says but, as is often the case, does more damage by what he omits to say. I'll come to some specifics on that in a minute. Firstly though, I'm not inclined to believe very much that he is simply a wise and insightful altruist seeking to present us the best possibilities of survival. Something esle, consciously or unconsciously, seems to be going on.
Seeking to analyse and respond, in detail, to his several substantial books, and scores of hours of online interviews, would anyway be mostly a rehash of many arguments already well rehearsed on both sides. Since however Harari is being presented to the world to some extent as the great and knowing voice, and has been read by millions, I wonder whether what is appropriate (and it's pretty much what you have begun) is simply an 'unmasking' of the dubious premises on which many of his arguments rest, and the 'sins of ommission' which they contain. It could be important to do so because if part of the quest before us is to get a sense of what kind of 'new world' we aspire to and what kind we aspire to avoid, he mostly – even with his apparently 'pragmatic responses to urgent challenges' - represents the latter, and he delivers it in way which for some will be convincing.
A few of the ommissions: As you have pointed out yourself, he opts for the 'AI sidekick' and completely ignores the possibility of working to curtail the government and corporate over-reach which in his view is making that side-kick necessary. Having proposed the benefits of such a personalised AI guardian, he remains silent on the very significant risk that control over that guardian may not end up in the hands of the one who is puportedly being 'protected'. In a Ted interview, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7DohVZS5Yo&t=1045s) he asserts that stable societies need shared narratives (agree with him on that), and that 3 major narratives of the twentieth century – fascism, communism and neo-liberalism – have, in sequence, lost their power. (Agree with him, mostly, on that too). But he also claims that those three were the only ones, and now we are in trouble because we have no narratives at all. In that, he choses to make invisible the narrative that he himself promotes. That is, science (or a particular and at least partly corrupted form of science) as saviour. Meanwhile his suggestion (in your opening quote) that the idea of free will could not have come from anywhere but the need to justify the concept of a vengeful God, is frankly laughable.
There is a certain category of ideology rising at the present time which is identified by its avoidance of applying the same criteria to itself that it applies to everybody else. Both Harari and Dawkins for example, insist that freewill is impossible, but apparently choose to invest enormous effort in building up arguments that is it so, and apparently also care whether or not we choose to believe them. Humanity is not capable of meaningful free thought, yet their thinking is to be considered essential to the future of humanity. Another case is post modernism which is (to at least some extent justifiably) against 'theories', but exempts from that position its own 'anti-theory theory'. Because of the massive backing these things get from ideologues with unlimited amounts of money and ulterior motives, exposing the anomalies matters.
Lastly (for now!), what might be the most important (from a practical point of view) part of my response: I believe that certain thinkers of the past have argued that technology is an autonomous force and follows its own imperatives, independent of humanity. Harari seems – as you also noted - to subscribe to this. We have no choice, he seems to suggest, in how technology will develop and be deployed. All we can do is choose the manner of our surrender to its inevitable directions. Myself, I'm inclined to think that a humanity which can split the atom, build super-computers and manifest centuries of cultural achievements bordering on the godly, could probably find a way to consciously influence the direction of technological development and deployment. Certainly I agree that it will not happen under current models of economics and investment. I agree even, that making the necessary changes to those models is nearly impossible because of the way they are inter-twined with every other human institution and activity.
'Nearly impossible' however, is not the same as 'impossible'. These are difficult and complex themes, which I must develop gradually (at my own Substack, 'World in Transition'). But a barest hint of the direction I will be travelling in can be found in my post 'The Failed Mantra of the French Revolution' (https://michaelwarden.substack.com/p/the-failed-mantra-of-the-french-revolution), as well as another piece, coming shortly, which will be entitled 'The Economist is Wearing no Clothes'.
Dec 25, 2022·edited Dec 25, 2022Liked by V. N. Alexander
There's little doubt people have offloaded their responsibilities to authority figures. It's something I've been concerned about for years.
Harari is a villain straight out of a comic book. His characterization of humans as 'useless eaters'. - humans are superfluous if you will - is reminiscent of Temujin (aka Genghis Khan) who killed thousands because he didn't see the point of having so many people. "Surplus to requirements" as he called it.
Deeply interesting work referenced here! Harari and his ilk are indeed rather puny thinkers (and likely even more pathetic feelers, let alone knowers), though they wield disproportionate influence.
I found your take on this very finely balanced, a refreshing experience after encountering mostly extremes prior: those who perceive the pseudo-elite of WEF/secret services/big money and their network of banks/big business/media etc. as masterful and possibly unbeatable string-pullers, or those who discount the influence of the Hararis, Schwabs, Rockefellers and Gateses and see in them nothing more than replaceable nodes of an obsolete system of power.
For instance, a fellow dissident said we "could hardly wish for a more obvious buffoon [than Klaus Schwab] whose central ideas and opinion are wholly ignored". Alas, if only it were that simple.
Even though I find his thinking to have some curious flaws and blind spots (notably his absolute faith in formal linguistic systems), he expresses interesting answers to age old questions about determinism and the nature of reality, and I find the broad trajectory of his argumentation to be compelling. In particular, he seems to be using the master's own tools to deconstruct the master's house, much like Gödel but with greater audacity.
Anyway, the point being that Harari's evangelism of absolute determinism is stuck in the 19th Century and thus profoundly flawed.
.....I do not necessarily agree that it's UNdesirable to strive for regulation, OPTIMIZATION of natural factors largely FACILITATING material existence (NOW, more than EVER with a CYCLICAL, perhaps-IMMINENT, devastating heliospheric occurrence thought to be just 7-25 years away) - DIFFERENCE being, those provided by machinations ABUNDANT funds who would SEEK to do so amongst the technofascists have NO respect NOR empathy, connection EXCEPT to THEIR circle; its HIGHLY-distorted LINEAGE-based perceptions - and that is absolutely NOT a NATURAL state of affairs; indeed, it's their MILLENNIA of perpetuating HORRIFIC, deliberately-disempowering FEAR based on cynical ORGANIZED Abrahamic religious tropes, BELIEFS about humanity's OTHERWISE-lesser role which eschewed ANY notion of the greater truth, resonant informational effects REGULARLY communicated to / within ALL of us, 'life' - BY 'science', UNDERSTANDING, insight; its vast VALUE.....
Gay, vegan, and my guess is that he is terrified of vaginas. I'm sure he can't help much of that, but he should stop trying to exorcize his angst by dumping on others.
Well said, and much needed. We should know the place of Harari in the historical pantheon of inhuman ideologists from the way that he has declared most of human to be 'useless'.
I have been planning at some time to write some kind of 'answer to Harari' myself. There is a question however as to whether such warped and indefensibile visions warrant the substantial work that would be required to disentangle the tightly-woven web of fallacies. Perhaps better to expose its ridiculousness with cogent but humourous comments such as your observation on about 'hackers all the way down'.
I'm fully with you that complexity theory (as well as the long history of humanity in surviving and overcoming dark ideological episodes) says they must fail. My own focus has been that we must strive to mitigate in whatever degree they can to mitigate the horrific damage they are going to do first (already in progress). But your point that we must prepare ourselves for that moment of maximum chaos is a step further, and a great insight.
I've been thinking some more on this. In what ways is it useful or worthwhile to invest time and energy into contesting Harari's views, and in what ways not? He is of course right in some of what he says but, as is often the case, does more damage by what he omits to say. I'll come to some specifics on that in a minute. Firstly though, I'm not inclined to believe very much that he is simply a wise and insightful altruist seeking to present us the best possibilities of survival. Something esle, consciously or unconsciously, seems to be going on.
Seeking to analyse and respond, in detail, to his several substantial books, and scores of hours of online interviews, would anyway be mostly a rehash of many arguments already well rehearsed on both sides. Since however Harari is being presented to the world to some extent as the great and knowing voice, and has been read by millions, I wonder whether what is appropriate (and it's pretty much what you have begun) is simply an 'unmasking' of the dubious premises on which many of his arguments rest, and the 'sins of ommission' which they contain. It could be important to do so because if part of the quest before us is to get a sense of what kind of 'new world' we aspire to and what kind we aspire to avoid, he mostly – even with his apparently 'pragmatic responses to urgent challenges' - represents the latter, and he delivers it in way which for some will be convincing.
A few of the ommissions: As you have pointed out yourself, he opts for the 'AI sidekick' and completely ignores the possibility of working to curtail the government and corporate over-reach which in his view is making that side-kick necessary. Having proposed the benefits of such a personalised AI guardian, he remains silent on the very significant risk that control over that guardian may not end up in the hands of the one who is puportedly being 'protected'. In a Ted interview, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7DohVZS5Yo&t=1045s) he asserts that stable societies need shared narratives (agree with him on that), and that 3 major narratives of the twentieth century – fascism, communism and neo-liberalism – have, in sequence, lost their power. (Agree with him, mostly, on that too). But he also claims that those three were the only ones, and now we are in trouble because we have no narratives at all. In that, he choses to make invisible the narrative that he himself promotes. That is, science (or a particular and at least partly corrupted form of science) as saviour. Meanwhile his suggestion (in your opening quote) that the idea of free will could not have come from anywhere but the need to justify the concept of a vengeful God, is frankly laughable.
There is a certain category of ideology rising at the present time which is identified by its avoidance of applying the same criteria to itself that it applies to everybody else. Both Harari and Dawkins for example, insist that freewill is impossible, but apparently choose to invest enormous effort in building up arguments that is it so, and apparently also care whether or not we choose to believe them. Humanity is not capable of meaningful free thought, yet their thinking is to be considered essential to the future of humanity. Another case is post modernism which is (to at least some extent justifiably) against 'theories', but exempts from that position its own 'anti-theory theory'. Because of the massive backing these things get from ideologues with unlimited amounts of money and ulterior motives, exposing the anomalies matters.
Lastly (for now!), what might be the most important (from a practical point of view) part of my response: I believe that certain thinkers of the past have argued that technology is an autonomous force and follows its own imperatives, independent of humanity. Harari seems – as you also noted - to subscribe to this. We have no choice, he seems to suggest, in how technology will develop and be deployed. All we can do is choose the manner of our surrender to its inevitable directions. Myself, I'm inclined to think that a humanity which can split the atom, build super-computers and manifest centuries of cultural achievements bordering on the godly, could probably find a way to consciously influence the direction of technological development and deployment. Certainly I agree that it will not happen under current models of economics and investment. I agree even, that making the necessary changes to those models is nearly impossible because of the way they are inter-twined with every other human institution and activity.
'Nearly impossible' however, is not the same as 'impossible'. These are difficult and complex themes, which I must develop gradually (at my own Substack, 'World in Transition'). But a barest hint of the direction I will be travelling in can be found in my post 'The Failed Mantra of the French Revolution' (https://michaelwarden.substack.com/p/the-failed-mantra-of-the-french-revolution), as well as another piece, coming shortly, which will be entitled 'The Economist is Wearing no Clothes'.
There's little doubt people have offloaded their responsibilities to authority figures. It's something I've been concerned about for years.
Harari is a villain straight out of a comic book. His characterization of humans as 'useless eaters'. - humans are superfluous if you will - is reminiscent of Temujin (aka Genghis Khan) who killed thousands because he didn't see the point of having so many people. "Surplus to requirements" as he called it.
Deeply interesting work referenced here! Harari and his ilk are indeed rather puny thinkers (and likely even more pathetic feelers, let alone knowers), though they wield disproportionate influence.
I found your take on this very finely balanced, a refreshing experience after encountering mostly extremes prior: those who perceive the pseudo-elite of WEF/secret services/big money and their network of banks/big business/media etc. as masterful and possibly unbeatable string-pullers, or those who discount the influence of the Hararis, Schwabs, Rockefellers and Gateses and see in them nothing more than replaceable nodes of an obsolete system of power.
For instance, a fellow dissident said we "could hardly wish for a more obvious buffoon [than Klaus Schwab] whose central ideas and opinion are wholly ignored". Alas, if only it were that simple.
Wonderfully put. This gives me hope for a brighter tomorrow. Thank you.
Really not for everybody: but Christopher Langan's perspective offers an interesting modern philosophical take on the issue of determinism and free will. For example, https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Quantum-Metamechanics-Christopher-Langan/dp/0971916217
Even though I find his thinking to have some curious flaws and blind spots (notably his absolute faith in formal linguistic systems), he expresses interesting answers to age old questions about determinism and the nature of reality, and I find the broad trajectory of his argumentation to be compelling. In particular, he seems to be using the master's own tools to deconstruct the master's house, much like Gödel but with greater audacity.
Anyway, the point being that Harari's evangelism of absolute determinism is stuck in the 19th Century and thus profoundly flawed.
.....I do not necessarily agree that it's UNdesirable to strive for regulation, OPTIMIZATION of natural factors largely FACILITATING material existence (NOW, more than EVER with a CYCLICAL, perhaps-IMMINENT, devastating heliospheric occurrence thought to be just 7-25 years away) - DIFFERENCE being, those provided by machinations ABUNDANT funds who would SEEK to do so amongst the technofascists have NO respect NOR empathy, connection EXCEPT to THEIR circle; its HIGHLY-distorted LINEAGE-based perceptions - and that is absolutely NOT a NATURAL state of affairs; indeed, it's their MILLENNIA of perpetuating HORRIFIC, deliberately-disempowering FEAR based on cynical ORGANIZED Abrahamic religious tropes, BELIEFS about humanity's OTHERWISE-lesser role which eschewed ANY notion of the greater truth, resonant informational effects REGULARLY communicated to / within ALL of us, 'life' - BY 'science', UNDERSTANDING, insight; its vast VALUE.....
Gay, vegan, and my guess is that he is terrified of vaginas. I'm sure he can't help much of that, but he should stop trying to exorcize his angst by dumping on others.
Well said, and much needed. We should know the place of Harari in the historical pantheon of inhuman ideologists from the way that he has declared most of human to be 'useless'.
I have been planning at some time to write some kind of 'answer to Harari' myself. There is a question however as to whether such warped and indefensibile visions warrant the substantial work that would be required to disentangle the tightly-woven web of fallacies. Perhaps better to expose its ridiculousness with cogent but humourous comments such as your observation on about 'hackers all the way down'.
I'm fully with you that complexity theory (as well as the long history of humanity in surviving and overcoming dark ideological episodes) says they must fail. My own focus has been that we must strive to mitigate in whatever degree they can to mitigate the horrific damage they are going to do first (already in progress). But your point that we must prepare ourselves for that moment of maximum chaos is a step further, and a great insight.
Thank you, this is great work!
I signed up for your IPAK-EDU course on Transhumanism so I can educate my friends, family and community.