Yuval Noah Harari, Rutger Bregman, Zanny Minton Beddoes and Victor Pinchuk | YES Online Conversation

00:05 Opening remarks from Victor Pinchuk
04:42 Why is Rutger Bregman hopeful about humankind?
07:42 Yuval Harari: “I’m not sure that friendliness is what enables us to cooperate in very large numbers”
09:47 Rutger Bragman’s interpretation of human pre-history
13:14 Yuval Harari’s view on turning point in history of humankind
18:35 Is the question of human nature important and does it dictate how societies and civilizations actually look like?
24:51 The nature of large-scale societies
30:02 If human nature is basically decent, so how do we get slavery, genocide, Nazis, GULAGs, and all that?
34:08 The scale of changes after the first year of pandemic – scientific success and political failure?
42:49 Is pandemic an accelerator of pre-existing disruptive trends? What does it mean for existing economies?
48:09 The current conflict between facts, fiction, fake news and conspiracy theories
54:21 Have people's expectations with regard to government and social change evolved over the past year?
56:35 Will there be a shift in our collective desire to do something about climate change?
1:00:14 Relationship between the US and China
1:07:30 The discussion around the concept of universal basic income
1:13:38 Will the post-pandemic world have less sense of global solidarity or more?
1:20:19 The largest geopolitical risk in the next few years to come

Yalta European Strategy (YES) with the Victor Pinchuk Foundation continues its series of online conversations on global challenges and their implications for Ukraine. During the event, historians and bestselling authors Yuval Noah Harari and Rutger Bregman spoke with Zanny Minton Beddoes, editor-in-chief of The Economist. Victor Pinchuk, founder of YES, Victor Pinchuk Foundation, EastOne group, opened the conversation.

[peterpehlivan]

Love to see Bregman and Harari together! They are two of my favorite modern intellectuals.

[JIJICA]

Two key points to think about from this wonderful conversation:
1. Both Rutger and Yuval agree that human nature is kind rather than selfish. The view that we are innately aggressive and kept in check by society is false, and the science that supported this still mainstream view has been invalidated: the Standford prison experiment, Milgram and others were mostly manufactured to get the desired results.
2. The disagreement is: does human nature make a difference? Does it matter that 95% of our species history has been as peaceful hunter gatherers when we are now in a large scale technological society and we can never go back? I would argue not just that it matters, but that it is crucial. Even though masses behave differently compared to individuals and small groups, the way our societies and policies are designed is informed by our belief about the individuals that are part of them. Rutger provides some examples but there are tons more in his book. For example: how we build prisons, how we improve crumbling corrupt systems with participatory democracy, how we build welfare and incentivize people. The Pygmalion and Gollum effects are very strong in humans: if we teach people to be afraid, and everyone is trying to get them, they will assume bad intentions and carry guns.
We are in fact living in the "assume people are bad" paradigm and it is giving us poor results, but we can change it!

[Nameeejz]

Rutger and Yuval seem to have a budding bromance and I am all here for it

[Longin]

Harari is so much more convincing, more insightful and realistic (except with the Corona pandemic) than Bregman who is obviously still in the dark ages in his understanding of AI and mass surveillance.

[TheRocky]

Thanks for saving my hard earned money and time as well, after listening to Bregman, I am not gonna be reading his books! Kudos to this talk :)

[stepantulchynsky]

Дякую за шанс отримати таке інтелектуальне задоволення. Продовжуйте запрошувати найкращих умів на українські платформи.

[louspost]

What a pleasure to listen to.
Thanks 👍

[mariapiaamorin]

Spectacular conversation. Thank you for sharing!

[walenteL]

1:19:30 It's inequality, and consequent class struggle, that is tearing both nationalism and globalism apart.

[rajeshoza]

The hope is in basic nature of human. Which is nobody wants to get hurt, robbed or deceived & the same mostly all reflects for others, Unless some extraordinary pressure deflect from it.

[davidtaplin]

Deeply challenging - amazing "prophets" of Hope!

[KootFloris]

Harari says there were no large-scale democracies before 1800. Wrong. Africa had some large-scale kind of democracies in history. They were about a million people on a land size of about France. They worked as smaller circles that would send representatives to higher circles, all the way to national levels.

[protagonistscience]

slow start, but it get's more interesting around the 30min mark, with some good points made from both

[englishwithmuzammal]

What makes human being special is to live with unity, integrity, and respectability.

[oleksandrlysiuk]

Probably one of the best discussions I've heard this year. It's a pity that any of Ruther's books were translated into Ukrainian.

[ongogablogian]

Can this be uploaded to a podcast platform?

[positivetruth]

Extrardinary discussion..wish the political class appreciates

[frafor]

Agriculture generates the need to defend an estate; several estates generate the need to defend a region; several regions generate the need to defend from other "region-areas". Territory has become scarce and resources become scarce when a growing large number of individuals compete for territory and food resources. You should understand the difference between AGRESSION and HOSTILITY. Those are 2 very different concepts. A brief reading of Konrad Lorenz will easily help us all understand why the wars, battles, fights, etc.

[viviannewman]

I think key take away is that the story’s or story that we tell ourselves or/and believe is by far the most powerful tool in what our outcome will be and how our societies function. I hear this theme coming through every time That Dr. Harari give a talk. It is a simple but powerful thing. What stories are you telling yourself today? How does your story shape your view about the reality around you? How does your story affect how you treat the earth and those around you? Stories, stories, stories...

[Boaz]

Around 50:00 - Excellent argument, people choose to believe lies