New Podcast release: Yuval Noah Harari
The next episode of "Lives Well Lived", the new podcast I am releasing with Kasia de Lazari-Radek, is now live.
In this episode, Kasia and I speak with Yuval Noah Harari. To give you a taste of what he said, here is some of the transcript, lightly edited for clarity. You can listen to the full episode now, live on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your preferred platform.
On the importance of knowing oneself:
"If I think about the pathways in my brain that really are the kind of bedrock of my happiness in life, it's understanding myself, it's knowing the truth about myself. I don't think that anybody can really be happy if they don't know the truth about themselves, and to some extent, if you do know who you are and what you are, almost nothing in the world can make you miserable."
On the significance of emotions and sensations:
"There are some things that you cannot doubt, like pain, the feeling of pain. Again, you can doubt the theory behind it. If you feel pain, you can have all kinds of theories. Why do I feel pain? Oh, it's the electricity in the neurons. But maybe there is no such thing as neurons or electricity. But still, the feeling of pain is there and that's the most certain thing in the world."
On the treatment of animals:
"Animals are the main victims of history, and the treatment of domesticated animals in industrial farms is perhaps the worst crime in history. [...] We are talking about many billions, maybe even trillions of animals over thousands of years suffering in these ways. It's not a statement about a specific historical calamity but about the scale."
On violence and its reduction in modern times:
"Here we can look at the numbers, the number of wars, the number of casualties, the size of budgets. Like for the last couple of decade - it's the first time in human history that the military budget has been smaller than the healthcare budget. It's an enormous human achievement, which too many people in the world just take for granted."
On extremism and moderation:
"Unfortunately, in almost every ideology and religion, secular or not secular, they have this deep mistake that morality means extremism. That if I have some principle, the more extreme I am in interpreting it and following it, this makes me more holy and more sacred. ... I think the opposite, that most of the time morality means moderation, finding the middle path."
On the importance of love:
"Love is essential for emotional well being, but I think it's also essential for intellectual well being. ... I have a kind of suspicion that intellect is the most overrated quality of humans. That intelligence and intellect, and especially now in the age of artificial intelligence, it is becoming more apparent and more dangerous."
On the role of stories in shaping history:
"Maybe the most powerful things in history, that shape history, are not our privileges or material conditions like Marxists think, but rather the stories. Stories are the most powerful agents in history. And unfortunately, fiction is often far more powerful than the truth."