Kind: captions
Language: en
if you're a Chinese emperor like 2000
years ago one of your biggest problems
in life is that if you give too much
power to your ministers and Generals
they might rebel against you the will to
power and want to kill you and your
family and establish their Dynasty
and I found a solution which is based on
bioengineering now you can ask
bioengineering two thousand years ago in
China yes it's called castration whoa
frustration is bioengineering you take a
man you cut something off you get a
different kind of man that is perfectly
fit for the purposes of the emperor I
didn't know they did that yeah Unix I
mean new eunuchs existed I didn't know
they were Generals you had unique
generals and unique ministers because
they pose much less of a threat they
can't establish their own Dynasty wow
and you had in there were periods in
Chinese history when most of the
Imperial Administration was Unix do you
like dark view of humanity like you know
you want a government job yes just give
us your testicles and we'll give you a
government job and this was not just
China you see the same thing happening
in in the Byzantine empire in the
caliphate in the Islamic caliphate
because this was kind of bioengineering
of a thousand to two thousand years ago
that again you need this this special
kind of human
which has Intelligence and discipline
but doesn't pose the threat of
establishing their own Dynasty that's
the solution
so of course this was very limited but
you had other you know you have the I
know the Christians
they also have a problem with with
humans as they are because humans are
not very good in obeying all the kind of
uh uh uh dictates of Christianity
so they try to change Humanity but they
fail
they don't have the ability to really
intervene deep inside the human genome
the human brain like Christianity
doesn't like sex very much it doesn't
have it has a negative view of sex
but what to do I mean you can't change
the human sexual Earth they tried a lot
of times but even monks and nuns did not
always keep their vows of Chastity you
have popes where children
so Christianity had a very big trouble
like overcoming this sexual urge of
humans
and um you know you fast forward to the
future what would some fundamentalist
religious regime Christian or Muslim or
whatever do
with genetic engineering they can what I
often say is that the people who develop
the technology they usually think about
the good usages we will use this to cure
disease we will use this to to improve
people's lives but you also need to take
a moment think about the politician you
most hate in the world or think about
the religious movement of the
ideological movement that uh which was
the worst in history from your
perspective and take a few minutes to
think what would they do yeah with the
technology that I'm developing right now
it doesn't mean we stop all
technological development
but it means that we have to be very
careful especially about thing about
something like genetic engineering which
is to some extent irreversible we have
never seen like something like that in
history that the Chinese emperor they
could create eunuchs but it was just one
generation they could not create an
entire kind of new specie of human Unix
it doesn't work
but now it could be done
so that's one very big danger and the
other big danger it comes from AI
because AI also is something completely
new in human history
it's the first time that we invent
something that can take power away from
us going back to the will to power every
previous invention in history gave more
power to humans because even if the tool
was extremely powerful an atom bomb
the decision how to use it always
remained in human hands it was not the
atom bomb that decided to uh to bomb
Hiroshima it was Truman and the the the
American Army it was human beings so
even a nuclear bomb actually empowers
Humanity AI is the first invention that
breaks this because it can make
decisions by its own that's the whole
idea
so it potentially can take power away
from us we already see it beginning to
happen uh you know increasingly you
apply to to the bank to get a loan
and the bank says no and why not because
the algorithm said no
and you apply for a university or you
apply for a job and increasing late in
AI making a decision about your life
and we will see it in more and more
areas now again it's not all bad it can
improve many decision-making processes
it can really improve medicine but we
should be aware of the danger when this
technology is in the wrong hands
all when we don't understand it's its
true potential
because another new thing about Ai and I
think we talked about this last time I
was here so I won't go into too much
details it's it could eliminate human
privacy completely
throughout history again Emperors and
kings and popes always dreamed about
following people all the time and and
and watching them supervising them they
they couldn't do it it didn't have the
technology what do you think so I've
heard you say that imagine that North
Korea gets a hold or a government-like
gets a hold of a device that can read
effectively your mood so when you see a
poster of the supreme leader and you
have anger up cool you're arrested and
you're locked away
what what is the real world response to
that like how do we like do you have a
the response is is political I mean I
mean don't get there but you know that
other countries are going to do it so
there's going to be the tragedy of the
comments this is where I like I get into
the hey I'm optimistic I'm living my
life I'm trying to create beautiful
things but at the same time in the back
of my mind I'm like humans are never
going to stop like we're never going to
stop the tragedy of the commons is real
and so whatever solution we put in place
has got to deal with the tragedy of the
commons yes I mean again this is where
I'm not optimistic because the only way
to really regulate a technology like AI
is through International
cooperation yeah if you think about you
know autonomous weapon systems which are
extremely dangerous if
only America bans them but the Chinese
or the Russians keep developing them
then very soon America will say hey we
don't want to be to be left behind we
have to do it also we don't want to do
it but we have to do it so the only one
you can regulate it is through some kind
of international agreement Corporation
and there's International tensions in
the world just increase then I'm not
optimistic at all about the potential to
regulate this technology Within
certain within a country you can
regulate it to some extent you can
protect people's privacy for instance
you can have laws that say that if
somebody collects my private information
they can only use it to help me they
cannot use it to manipulate me or to
sell it to a third party now this is
obvious because we have these kinds of
laws about so many other things like who
is my personal doctor it's known for for
years for Generations that you have this
exactly these kinds of laws
my personal doctor has a lot of very
private information about me
and he or she use it in order to help me
they are not allowed to use it to
manipulate me or to sell it to some
political party or to some Corporation
so why is Facebook allowed to do it so
this should be very very simple that's
one defense of our our privacy
another thing that we can regulate
is that we should never allow all the
information to be concentrated in one
place whether this one place is a
government agency or whether this one
place is a corporation this is the high
road to a dictatorship somebody that has
all the information of all the people
they basically control everybody
you know I mean even if you think about
it on a global scale
that you think in 20 years you have some
country that somebody in in China or
somewhere have the entire personal
records of every politician every judge
every journalist every military officer
in that country from the time they're a
little like every illness they had every
sexual encounter every bribe they took
they know that this is no longer an
independent country this had become a
kind of data colony
to control that the colony you don't
need to send soldiers in to to police
people you just take the data out
and if you have enough information you
can control this country by remote
control for for afar
so uh I think we need to have
regulations
against these kinds of things and and it
can be done and similarly when we think
about the new developments like the
metaverse we have to think very very
carefully about uh uh what's happening
there
uh again I'm I'm historian so I always
look at things from a very long-term
perspective but hey we know this this
has been a fantasy of humans for
thousands of years it really goes back
to ancient philosophical and religious
debates about what is a human being
you know you go back to early
Christianity so you have two camps
you have one Camp which says humans are
embodied beings the body is in the
center
which was the old Jewish view you are
not your mind you are not a spiritual
entity a soul you are a body
in the Book of Genesis God creates Adam
and Eve from clay and they don't exist
before that they exist only as bodies
they in the New Testament Jesus rises
from the dead in the flesh
and uh when he preaches to people about
the kingdom of God he means a a physical
kingdom here on Earth with physical
bodies with biological bodies so this
was one view as humans are our bodies
Our biological entities and then there
was the other view which increa which
was influenced by Greek philosophy and
so forth and which increasingly became
dominant which says no humans are not
bodies humans are an immaterial soul
or Spirit trapped within a physical body
the body is bad is evil is corrupt is
dirty is ugly
the soul is completely pure and
spiritual we're back to narratives which
of those narratives do you believe
I I'll get to that in in a moment I'll
just complete my thought that what we
see now in the metaverse is exactly this
argument being replayed
that is can we uh as as humans just
shift to the immaterial realm of the
metaverse and leave our biological
bodies behind
or is it impossible or even dangerous to
try and separate
our kind of mental existence
from our bodily in in physical existence
or maybe give you a little bit of Hope
for some of the people working in the
metaverse so I am very grounded in
biology
so the things that I'm interested in
with that very much coexist now will it
be interesting for a entirely virtual
species to uh inhabit maybe that could
be cool but that doesn't help us so even
people thinking about uploading their
Consciousness I've thought through that
one a lot uh it would be a copy of me
but it wouldn't be me so all of the
sadness of death and all that that I
would be hoping to avoid by doing that
doesn't help maybe it kind of gives the
same sense of having a kid but it
wouldn't by any means save me from
having to deal with death so but the
metaverse is still really interesting to
me now I'm a person when I say I'm
grounded in biology I'm talking about
understanding the microbiome and how
wildly that influences my thoughts and
am I just a shell for microbes maybe and
so like I'm I take a very very grounded
approach to that
now having said that so hopefully that
gives you a little bit of optimism not
everybody's trying to divorce from the
body it's I think most of the day
all the important you know increasingly
your social life your job is
increasingly in the metaverse the
biology of the situation will make that
a disaster so I I would highly as
somebody developing in the metaverse I
will highly caution people against that
because you have to feed your microbes
you have to love and bond and there's
there's so many things that we pick up
on anyway I totally see how it it
derails but if people are talking about
like hey you can't ignore the body this
is a very real thing you have to pay
attention to this fun place to visit you
can't live there
um hopefully we can avoid some of the
nonsense that comes along with like
social media where nobody even talked
about let's talk about how this becomes
deranging because social media has been
incredible in my life I don't have an
addictive personality so that probably
helps so it's very easy for me to go I
spend a little bit of time on it what
time I do spend is incred incredibly
empowering because I have trained the
algorithm to give me useful things not
things that compare me to other people
and make me feel terrible uh so it's
like you know you have to be very
thoughtful about stuff like that so my
hope is that we get a little bit wiser
of course not everybody will
but it really does come back to this
idea of narrative like I tell myself a
narrative about what the virtual space
is it's going to keep me I think from
hitting the major roadblocks I'm sure
there will be things I can't anticipate
yet but the the thing that I want to
make sure that we touch on is I am not
religious but I worry that the thing
that you're talking about where we have
to be thoughtful about Gene editing and
we have to come together as a big
cooperative
I don't know how that happens without
a without something filling the Godlike
hole in all of our brains where we want
some Grand meaning
some thing that we can orbit around
there is no God's hole in our brain
interesting I mean the people think you
don't worry about God is dead at all I
mean we managed without him for many
periods in history and we've been doing
quite well in in recent Generations uh
without him I think that some people
connect God and morality how do we come
together then as a huge species like as
one planet to fight the big things
what's the big narrative we all revolve
around I think the big narrative is the
biological narrative that we are all
Homo sapiens that we are all have the
same basic experiences that we all want
to fall in love that we all have uh very
deep ties with our family members that
we all we don't want to be sick it's we
don't like pain that we don't want to
die that we're afraid to die I mean
these are things that are common to all
humans you don't need God for them and
also very important you don't need God
for Morality some people say that and it
was common in history to have this
argument that even if God doesn't exist
we have to believe in him because
without God people will just kill and
murder and rape and and we now have
empirical evidence that this is
absolutely not true I don't think it
breaks down like that I think people are
missing something more subtle with that
I'm just playing with these ideas please
don't I hope it doesn't come across like
I think I know but
I feel like the thing is more subtle so
I haven't believed in God since I was
like 15.
so I totally get as I've never felt
compared compelled to steal murder rape
none of the like none of that enter my
mind
but when I look at sort of the broad
sweep of humanity I realize that people
will fall in line with whatever the sort
of dominant philosophy of their tribe is
so by way of example I'm I feel almost
ridiculous bringing this up to you
because you're a historian and I'm very
much not but the thing that stopped the
Conquistadors from coming up and taking
over what we now think of as America the
thing that originally stopped the
Americans from coming across uh the
camachus tribe I believe is a name and
so how do they become the tribe when all
the other Native American tribes were
falling by the wayside and getting
relegated to reservations why didn't
they because of sheer brutality and
reading the book Empire of the summer
moon was utterly fascinating when he was
like they were the only tribe that
fought on Horseback instead of riding
the horse to the fight and getting off
and so they were able to
just bring this level of viciousness
that we've seen throughout history in
all different kinds of tribes and
peoples but hearing it described you
realize oh it was actually really
effective so thinking of yourself as a
warrior
um treating the other people as the
other that you need to stop them kill
them torture maim whatever you kill all
adults you take either the women in the
adult males you take women and children
but if they're infants and you kill them
too because it's too much vassal it's
like it's actually effective but it's
super gnarly and so what is the thing
that given how many times we've seen
that whether it's the I've never stopped
it I mean yeah did the same thing and
they believed in God so God doesn't stop
these kind of Terrible Things From
Heaven a thousand percent agree so
that's why I said God shaped hole I'm
trying to figure out what that because
it isn't God I want to be very clear in
my stance I mean we need morality that's
that's certainly true so how do we make
that like a thing that everyone's like
yeah because as you were describing uh
getting everybody to recognize the
biology of it so I have said a thousand
times on my Tombstone I want them to put
you're having a biological experience
that like you and I could not agree more
about like I want that to work I just
don't think it will and so how or maybe
this how do we make you're having a
biological experience so cool and so
infectious that it propagates and and
people come together hmm
um
you know first of all with regard to the
example you gave so yes
throughout history viciousness was an
effective way to build Empires but now
is nuclear weapons it's only a way to
destroy all of us
so the same way that AI is a game
changer in the same way that genetic
engineering is a game changer nuclear
weapons were also a game changer that
you can no longer conquer the world by
force the only thing you will achieve is
the annihilation of everything just to
be clear really fast on that all I'm
saying is that they became the tribe not
by being genetically Superior by having
a belief system that made them
Unstoppable yes so and and this now
becomes more and more dangerous to have
this kind of of belief system
um we need I mean again if if you have a
lot of people in the world different
groups with this kind of belief system
you end up with World War III and with
the type of weapons we now have not just
nuclear weapons but also increasingly Ai
and Robotics and so forth this is the
end of humanity unless the thing the
belief system that's powerful is one of
beauty I just don't know how to make
Beauty contagious in the way that the
will to power is contagious
well I don't either but
one thing that makes me hopeful is that
you don't see a kind of constant level
of violence throughout history you do
see periods of peace and periods of War
we just we we have just experienced as I
said earlier uh some of the most
peaceful decades in human history
so this this makes me hopeful
and
um we need to find ways to connect
people I don't think God is a good way
because different people have different
gods and you know coming from Israel
both sides believe in God but he tells
them different things and it tells the
Jews that Jerusalem is yours and he
tells the Muslims Jerusalem is yours and
then they fight over it and the tragedy
is that it's a completely unnecessary
conflict you know if it was some kind of
objective necessity like you have two
people alone on an island there is the
last apple or the last piece of bread
whoever gets it survives the other dies
then I say okay you know this is a
situation when conflict is maybe is
inevitable but this is not the case in
my country
there is enough food there is enough
Territory between the Mediterranean and
the Jordan River to feed and to house
everybody
humans usually don't really fight about
objective biological things the same way
that wolves or chimpanzees fight they
don't really fight about territory they
find about fantasies in their minds
that both sides have a fantasy about
Jerusalem which is just incompatible
with the the story with the mythology of
the other side and this is what they
fight about about the fantasy in their
in their mind I mean going back to the
to the metaverse in a way when you go to
Jerusalem I've I teach them at the
Hebrew University so it's a place like
with biological glasses of an ape you
see it's just like every other place you
have trees you have Stones you have
buildings it's the same like Los Angeles
like any other place
but then you put on a different set of
glasses you put on religious glasses and
you see angels and you see Divinity and
you see Sacred Stones and sacred trees
and everything is sacred
you know a sacred place is a place plus
a story about the place and this is at
the bottom of most conflicts in the
world also you look at again the Russian
invasion of Ukraine is it about
territory Russia is the biggest country
in the world the minimal territory this
is the thing they need more territory no
it's about the fantasies in in the head
I think that the more we come back to
the level of organ of the body of
biology the more common ground that we
have
throughout history you you you got the
opposite narrative what's up everybody
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first month you go to narrative again
from religions like Christianity that
the body is the source of all the bad
things in life
and the mind this is a kind of the uh
our most spiritual more beautiful better
part and most of the time it's the
opposite
that on the level of the body
we can relate to every other human being
in the world because biologically we are
the same
what creates this huge distance between
us is the fantasies that the mind
imagines and produces
so I I think that again if I have hope
for the for Humanity in the 21st century
is actually getting a little away from
our from thinking too much from from the
mind
and grounding ourselves a little more in
our body some of the things that are
happening technologically become a
little bit dangerous because you can
hack a human and if you could explain
what you mean by hacking a human and
then how do we end up hacking ourselves
in a positive way
well I think this is maybe the most
important thing to know about living
right now in the 21st century that we
are now hackable animals we have the
technology to decipher how humans or or
what do you think what you want to
predict human choices to manipulate
human Desires in ways which were never
possible before
basically to hack a human being you need
two things
you need a lot of data especially
biometric data not just about where you
go and what you buy but what is
happening inside your body and inside
your brain and secondly you need a lot
of computing power to make sense of all
that data now previously in history this
was never possible nobody had enough
data and enough computing power to hack
human beings even if the KGB of the
Gestapo followed you around 24 hours a
day eavesdropping on every conversation
you had watching everybody you meet
still they did not have the biological
knowledge
to really understand what's happening
inside you and they certainly didn't
have the computing power necessary to
make sense even of the data they were
able to collect
so the KGB could not really understand
you could not really predict all your
choices or manipulate all your desires
and so forth
and but now it's changing what the KGB
couldn't do corporations and governments
today are beginning to be able to do and
this is because of the merger of the
revolution in biotech we are getting
better in understanding what's happening
inside Us in the body in the brain and
at the same time the revolution in
infotech which gives us the computing
power necessary when you put the two
together when infotech merges with
biotech what you get is the ability to
create algorithms that understand me
better than I understand myself and then
these algorithms cannot just predict my
choices but also manipulate my desires
and basically sell me anything whether
it's a product or a politician and that
so that's what you're calling hacking
that you're hitting me with the right
emotional message at exactly the right
time based on my biometric data yeah
this is one of the things you can do
then you can predict you can manipulate
you can eventually also re-engineer or
replace if you really hack a system you
really understand how it functions then
usually you can also re-engineer it or
you can completely replace it and again
one of the dangers that we are facing
today in the 21st century is that
computers and AI would be able to
replace humans in more and more tasks
and maybe push millions of humans out of
the job market as a result all right so
I I fully understand the dangers and we
will talk about some of what we were
talking about off camera which is we've
got this whole story called neon future
where we're exploring that notion of
what happens to what you've called the
useless class when they're pushed out of
the job market what does that do
economically but go going just staying
with the the notion of the hackability
for a second so it's funny as you were
describing it and I know you bring the
sense of like uh there's some like real
significant problems we need to take a
very serious look at and I get almost
giddy with excitement because I have
potentially delusional levels of
optimism I'm very open to that no I
agree I mean the thing about this
ability to hack humans is that it has
also potentially tremendous positive
consequences and this is why it's so
tempting if it was only bad then it was
it would have been like an easy deal to
say okay we don't want that and let's
stop researching or going in that
direction but it is extremely tempting
because it can provide us for example
with the best health care in history
something which goes far beyond anything
we've seen so far this can mean that
maybe in 30 years the poorest person on
the planet can get a Better Health Care
from her or his smartphone than the
richest person today gets from the best
hospitals and the best doctors the kind
of things you can just know about what's
happening in your body
um is nothing like we've seen so far
yeah now that that's really
extraordinary and if you had to take the
positive look and say okay we have this
ability let's just say it's already
there we've got all this biometric data
it's kicking off
um how would you
encourage people to leverage that to
empower themselves and I'll use an
example that I found profoundly
interesting from your book so you said
that growing up that it was unclear to
you that you were gay but that now
Stanford has developed an algorithm that
essentially can look at three or four
photos of somebody's face and predict
with 91 accuracy whether or not they're
gay which seems impossible but if that's
true the level of data that we could
give ourselves about our like deepest
most hardwired desires there would be a
level of clarity there that seems useful
how would you encourage people to use
that well it's a very good example I
mean the Stanford algorithm actually
there is a lot of problems with that
research and let's put it aside but
first key message from from that is how
little people actually know about
themselves
and um one of the most important things
in my life and also in I think in my
scientific career was the realization of
how little I know about myself and
humans in general there was so many
important ideas and important facts we
don't realize about ourselves I was 21
when I finally realized that I was gay
which is you know when you think of it
it's it's absolutely amazing I mean it
should have been obvious at age you know
16 15 and an algorithm would have
realized it very quickly and you can
build algorithms like that today or in a
few years you just need to to follow
your eye movements like you you go on on
the beach or you look at the computer
screen and you see an attractive guy and
attractive girl and just follow the
focus of the eyes where do the eyes go
and whom do they focus on should be very
easy and such an algorithm could have
told when I was 15 that I was gay
and the implications are really
mind-boggling when an algorithm knows
such an important thing about you before
you know it about yourself now it can go
in all kinds of directions it really
depends on where you live and what you
do with it in some countries you can be
in trouble now with the police and the
government uh you might be sent to some
re-education facility
in some countries like with you know
surveillance capitalism so maybe I don't
know about myself that I'm game but
Coca-Cola knows I'm gay because they
have these algorithms and they want to
know that because they need to know
which commercials to show me let's say
Coca-Cola knows that I'm gay and I even
know it about myself that they know it
and Pepsi doesn't
Coca-Cola will show me a commercial with
a shirtless guy drinking Coca-Cola but
Pepsi will make the mistake of showing a
girl in the bikini and next day without
my realizing why when I go to the
supermarket when I go to the uh to the
restaurant I will order Coca-Cola not
Pepsi I don't know why but they know so
they might not even share this kind of
information with me now if the algorithm
does share the information with me again
it's it a lot depends on context one
scenario is that you're 15 years old you
go to a birthday party of somebody from
your class and somebody just heard that
there is this cool new algorithm which
tells you sexual orientation
and everybody agrees it will be a lot of
fun to just have this game that
everybody takes turn with the algorithm
and and everybody else looking and
seeing the results would you like to
discover about yourself in such a
scenario
this this can be quite quite a shocking
experience okay but even if it's done in
like complete privacy you know it's it's
a it's a very deep philosophical
question what does it mean to discover
something like that about yourself from
an algorithm
what what does it mean about human life
about human identity we have very little
experience with these kinds of things
you know from very ancient times
all the philosophers and Saints and
sages tell people to get to know
yourself better it's one of the maybe
the most important thing in life is to
get to know yourself better
but for all of history this was a
process of self-exploration which you
did through things like meditation and
maybe Sports and maybe art and
contemplation and all these things what
does it mean when the process of
self-exploration is being outsourced to
a big data algorithm and the
philosophical implications are quite
mind-boggling
it's interesting so let's talk about
that so the implications you're
Outsourcing the self-discovery process
to me that sounds so profoundly useful
because all day the people that write
into me they're asking basically one
essential question how do I find the
thing that I love because I tell people
you need to develop a passion in your
life I don't think you find it I think
you develop it but they need to start
from an area of real interest it needs
to be actually something that at a hard
wiring level they're just they get that
response so their next question is like
how right how do I get into that how do
I discover the thing that triggers me
like that and if I discover it then how
do I develop it into a passion if you
had an algorithm something that we're
able to
use the more manipulative techniques
that you were talking about that
Coca-Cola is doing or whatever but give
it to you in a way that can move you in
a desired Direction so I'll give you a
specific example that you give in the
book so talking about how let's say
there was an algorithm that knew you'd
just broken up with somebody knew that
you were in the grips Of Heartache
because they're they're reading your
Biometrics in fact give it to us that
that example that you you put so the
Biometrics they're reading you the it's
the song it knows what songs to pick
yeah I mean so something is as simple as
choosing music so you you will just get
dumped by your boyfriend or girlfriend
and the the algorithm that controls uh
the music that you listen to chooses the
songs that are the best fit for your
current mental state and of course this
brings up the the question of what is
the Matrix what do you actually want
from the music do you want the music to
uplift you or do you want the music to
kind of connect you to the deepest level
of sadness and depression
and ultimately we can say that the
algorithm can follow different kinds of
instructions if you know what kind of
emotional state you want to be in you
can just tell the algorithm what what
you want and it will do it if you are
not sure you can tell the algorithm
follow the recommendation of the best
psychologists today so let's say you
have the five stages of grief
so okay walk me with music through these
five stages of grief and the algorithm
can do that better than any human DJ and
what we really need to understand in in
this regard is that what music and most
of art plays on in the end is the human
biochemical system at least according to
the dominant view of out in the modern
Western World we had different views in
different cultures but in the modern
Western World the idea of art is that
out is above all about inspiring human
emotions it doesn't necessarily have to
be Joy great art can Inspire also
sadness can can Inspire anger can
Inspire fear it can be a whole palate of
emotional states but out is about
inspiring human emotions so the
instrument
artists play on and whether it's
musicians or poets or Movie Makers they
are actually playing on the homo sapiens
biochemical system
and we might reach a point quite soon
when an algorithm knows this instrument
better than any human artist a movie or
a poem or a song
that will not move you that will not
inspire you might inspire me and
something that will inspire me in one
situation might not inspire me in
another situation and as time goes on
and the algorithm gathers more and more
data about me it will become more and
more accurate in reading my biochemical
system and knowing how to play on it as
if it was a piano like okay you want joy
I press this button and out comes the
perfect song the only song in the world
that can actually make me joyful right
now
that's so interesting to me alright so
right now real world you can snap your
fingers and you can have one algorithm
that's tied to one uh biochemical
process in your life for real what would
you want to Monitor and get that
feedback on no that's easy I mean a
health care if there is like something
seriously wrong in my body that I don't
know about like I don't know cancer or
something I would like the algorithm to
find that out I don't want to wait until
I mean the usual process
is that it has to go through your own
mind you can't Outsource it I mean today
when you need to diagnose cancer there
are exceptions but in most cases there
is a crucial moment when you feel
something is wrong in my body and you go
to this doctor and that doctor and and
you do this test and that test until
they finally realize okay we just
discovered you have cancer in your liver
or whatever
um but because it relies on your own
feelings in this case feelings of pain
very often uh it it's quite late in the
process
by the time you start feeling pain
usually the cancer has spread and maybe
it's not too late but it's going to be
expensive and painful and problematic to
treat it
but if we can you know Outsource this
don't go through the Mind through the
through my my feelings I want an
algorithm that with biometric sensors is
monitoring my health 24 hours a day
without my being aware of it
it can potentially discover this liver
cancer but it is just a tiny just a few
cells are beginning to to to to to split
and to spread and it's so easy and cheap
and painless to take care of it now
instead of two years later when it's
already spread and it's it's a big
problem so this is something that I
think almost everybody would sign on to
and this is the big Temptation because
it comes with the whole other the long
tail of dangers I mean this algorithm
that the the the Healthcare System knows
almost everything about you
so one of the biggest battles in the
21st century is likely to be between
privacy and health
and I guess that health is going to win
most people will be willing to give up a
very significant amount of privacy in
exchange for far better Healthcare now
we do need to try and and enjoy both
worlds to create a system that give us a
very good health care but without
compromising our privacy keeping the yes
you can use the data to tell me that
there is a problem and and we should do
this or that to solve it but I don't
want this data to be used for other
purposes without my knowing it whether
we can reach such a balance and like you
know have your cake and eat it too
that's a big political question
I have a hypothesis I know you don't
believe that history repeats but that
humans do have a biology we have a
nature humans are like something
and I think there's two things man and
this is like a random entrepreneur
stabbing in the dark here but I've
engaged with people enough that I'm
pretty confident that I'm on the right
track I think there's two things that
lead to this kind of thing where we're
fighting over something that in the end
really isn't that important one some
people need to be chased by a lion so
without an extrinsic real danger that
forces you to be like yo we may not see
eye to eye but you can help me keep my
family safe and in return I will help
you keep your family safe without that
that impulse to protect or whatever goes
awry or just that they can't handle
boredom something we talked about
briefly before it started rolling and
then there the other thing is
Nietzsche's Will To Power and yeah I did
not understand
the culture War until I started reading
about Nietzsche and the idea that we
have we want to it can manifest
beautifully we want to get better we
want to improve we want that control
over our life to to manifest what we
could be
but then there's also the toll booth
person that isn't going to let you
through if you don't have exact change
because they can and that they get to
feel that sense of okay I matter I I
have some control over the world and
that desire to have power coupled with
there's nothing real to fight against
puts humans in a very weird situation
where they will pick up on minor things
and we just run in opposite directions
so that we have the expression of
the will to power now I am new to
Nietzsche so I do not claim to fully
understand him but it seems like he saw
it as a pretty broad spectrum it could
be a beautiful thing it could be an ugly
Petty thing
so I don't want to paint it with like
these dark overtones and wolves howling
in the background but like that it can
manifest in a pretty ugly way I I
completely agree that much of what we
see now is not an ideological battle
it's uh certain politicians
uh who as you say that what is driving
them is power not ideology and they are
using
um divisive
issues
you know the way to gain power is to
take a certain issue and politicize it
and they they are searching for issues
that can get people enraged that can and
then harnessed harness this energy to
get to power so a lot of the issues that
you know people are fighting over if
they were de-politicized
they could have been solved much more
easily
but you take these issues and you turn
them into these big ideological battles
and then nobody wants to to back down
and become this tribal Affair and this
is the the way that these leaders are
right to power and and again we see it
so many times in history it's really
terrible I think that the job of leaders
should be actually to heal the community
to bring it together
and this is why also I think that you
know many people today say that uh that
we see the research the Resurgence of
nationalism all over the world but
actually much of the world you see a
crisis of nationalism and the Resurgence
of tribalism of tearing Nations into
their components and destroying actually
the national Community like I said
before nationalism when it is understood
correctly it's a Force for good in the
world the basic kind of message of
nationalism is uh the the ability to
care about people you don't know which
is amazing you know from a biological
perspective we are kind of programmed to
care about a very small number of people
that we know personally our family our
friends and to prefer them over
everybody else
and the big task of nationalism is to
come and say and say to us no there is a
much larger community of people that you
need to care about so for instance you
take money away from your family
and you give it to build a healthcare
system this is these are taxes so that
strange people that you never met in
your life on the other side of the
country you'll never meet them but
because you're a good Patriot and you
care about them you pay your taxes
honestly so that they get some basic
health care or education or a sewage
system
and
um similarly like you now I don't know
you're a mayor or you're a a prime
minister or something and you need to
appoint somebody for a job
and you have two options you have your
cousin
which is not qualified at all but he's
your cousin man and you have like a very
qualified person who is a stranger
millions of years of evolution are
screaming in your ear are you an idiot
give it to your cousin
but patriotism tells you no you should
give the job to the qualified person
because they would do a better job for
the community
and that's that's the the the the the
the the good side
of of nationalism
and what we see now in many parts of the
world is politicians who describe
themselves as nationalists but they are
actually not trying to create
uh uh Harmony in the National Community
they don't strengthen the national
Community they tear it apart
they deliberately look for any crack for
any wound in kind of the national body
here there's a problem this is something
that people don't agree on and instead
of trying to heal it they kind of poke
their finger into it and try to enlarge
it as much as possible to inflame it
because if this is their ticket to power
and in this way they destroy the
national community
and uh turn the nation into boring
tribes and then they Place themselves at
the head of One Tribe
and tell people you have to follow me
otherwise the other tribe will Destroyer
and you're completely right this is
simply uh the will to power it works we
see unfortunately in many parts of the
world we see that it is working not just
in the U.S I mean though elections this
this week in Brazil the elections are
next week in my country in Israel it's
exactly the same
instead of leaders who are trying to
heal the national Community you see
leaders that try to destroy it and get
power by kind of leading Just One Tribe
yeah this is why like I'm a super
optimistic guy as I was saying before we
started rolling like when it comes to AI
the metaverse all that stuff you're
gonna have to slap me back to reality
because I'm so optimistic but on this I
am pessimistic only because when I look
at the human animal and the way that
we're wired and what biology tells us to
do
I don't see it feels like a positive
feedback loop that has been magnified a
thousand-fold by social media and so now
information is coming at us so fast it's
mimified so it becomes very easy to
digest yeah I have a level of confusion
because so much is coming at me
if I feel insecure nothing from a
biology perspective nothing is more
intoxicating than the certainty of
righteous indignation so the reason that
somebody can acquire Power by poking at
something is they're telling me exactly
how to feel about something very
concrete and so it's like you should
hate those people because they have guns
you should hate those people because
they believe in abortion you should hate
those people because on and on and so it
now in all of my confusion I have
absolute certainty
and through a weird Quirk of evolution
that calms my mind and distracts me from
all the like internal emotional turmoil
that I was having and it's like
the only way that I see that running its
course so that we it's like labor once a
woman goes into labor there is no
stopping it she's either going to die or
she's going to give birth to the child
those are your two options there's
nothing in between yeah because you're
you're in that positive feedback loop I
feel like and Lord knows I want you to
tell me that we're not but I feel like
we're in a positive feedback loop right
now of people racing away from each
other
and the only way that they will come
back to the middle is through enough
suffering and every war proves that
after a while you just don't want to
fight anymore and you've seen too many
people die and it's like oh my God this
is so horrible now I'm willing to
compromise now I'm willing to come back
to the table
and if you see a way out of this because
I am a big believer in Nelson Mandela
when I read long walk to Freedom that
changed me at some deep fundamental
level where he was like hey they
imprisoned me for 27 years and what's my
answer when I come back out to find what
I've heard you refer to as a middle way
so way number one is to remain oppressed
clearly he wasn't prepared to do that
way number two is to become the
oppressor and he was like you give up
your Humanity when you become the
oppressor so he's like you might be in
power but you give something up that's
not worth giving up the Third Way the
way in the middle is to heal people to
bring them back together and so I'm like
if he can do that like none of us have
an excuse
but I don't think that we can I think he
was such a freakishly rare human I just
don't know who we turn to
less optimistic about the metaverse and
all that and we'll discuss this in a
minute but but I'm more optimistic we
can trade optimism yeah I'm the opposite
I'm more optimistic about I mean not
like terribly optimistic but a little
more optimistic about our chances you
know kind of politically and and so
forth first of all I look at the long
term process of History uh we started
tens of thousands of years ago hundreds
of thousands of years ago is isolated
bands I mean a hundred thousand years
ago you have humans living in small
hunter-gatherer bands of a few dozen
individuals
and over history you see that the
direction is very very clear humans find
ways to trust More and More Strangers to
come together into larger and larger
groups even though kind of evolution
evolutionarily it makes no sense
I mean we are programmed to trust just a
very very small number of individuals
that we know personally and yet we have
our Nations we have countries of
hundreds of millions of people if we
have a trade Network which covers
basically the entire globe
so humans find ways how to uh uh to to
to overcome these Tendencies and to
develop Trust
and when you look specifically even at
the issue of violence and War the last
few decades have been the most peaceful
era in human history
now I know there have been conflicts and
and wars in the last few decades I come
from Israel you don't need to tell me I
lived in the Middle East all my life but
when you look at the statistics
it's the most peaceful era in human
history it's an era when humans had more
chance to die from eating too much
than from human violence
in most of the world it became
unacceptable for one country to just
invade and Conquer its neighbors because
it's it's stronger
um you see it in the state budgets maybe
in better than any other place for most
of History the number one item on the
budget of every King and South and
Emperor is the Army the Army the Navy
the fortresses the military
in recent decades the average
expenditure of governments all over the
world together the average on the
military is about six percent wow that's
amazing because this is what enabled the
resources to shift to again education
welfare uh Healthcare most countries
spend much more on Education Health Care
and Welfare than they spend other than
on their military you can reboot your
life your health even your career
anything you want all you need is
discipline I can teach you the tactics
that I learned while growing a billion
dollar business that will allow you to
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better health stronger relationships a
more successful career any of that is
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programs in Impact Theory University
join the thousands of students who have
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and that tells us that it's possible now
we shouldn't be complacent and think
that oh this is now that's it we have
peace we can just relax no peace didn't
come from some changing the laws of
nature or because of divine intervention
it came because people countries built
good institutions not just on a national
level but on the international level it
is 1945 countries have built a
rule-based uh International System which
had many problems but still managed to
provide more peace than in any previous
ERA this is now in question
the Russian invasion of Ukraine and
other developments are so frightening
because they endanger the biggest
achievement of of humanity
this era of relative peace
you know if if Putin is allowed to get
away with what he's trying to do in
Ukraine then you will see defense
budgets all over the world Skyrocket
already now lots of countries Germany
Japan countries in Europe doubling
tripling the defense budgets it's
basically like you know you had the
biggest the biggest Taboo in the
International System
was you cannot invade another country
and Conquer it just because you're
stronger and he is now breaking this
taboo and everybody around the world is
watching to see what will happen it's
like in a school when you have a bully
who picks on us on a smaller kid and
starts beating him
and all the kids are watching what will
happen
if the bully gets away with it if nobody
intervenes if they then it's clear to
everybody that's it the laws of the
school the knowledge of the school have
changed now everybody knows this can
happen
if on the other hand
people intervene the bully is stopped
you give support to to the to the to the
victim
then the norm actually gets strengthened
people realize hey you can't do that and
this is not what is happening
dictators and regimes all over the world
are watching to see what will happen in
Ukraine
um so far Putin is not getting away with
it there's been massive support from you
for Ukraine from the West the ukrainians
themselves are fighting more bravely and
efficiently than anybody could have
imagined
and this also goes back to to kind of
where my optimism about what's happening
inside Nations come from you look at
Ukraine
um Ukraine is a very new country just
you know 30 years since it's gained its
independence from the Soviet Union it
it's made of different ethnic groups you
have people speaking Russian people
speaking Ukrainian you have Jews and so
forth and it was
uh under the most intense kind of
disinformation campaign
coming from Russia
trying to divide the ukrainians against
themselves trying to do exactly that to
tear apart the fabric of the Ukrainian
Society of Ukrainian nation and turn you
know Ukrainian speakers and Russian
speakers against each other
and they completely failed the Russians
one of the reasons what's happening in
the war Putin gambled that the moment
his tanks would enter Ukraine Ukraine
would just collapse the lensky would run
away the Ukrainian Army would surrender
and lots of ukrainians would you know
throw flowers on the Russian tanks
and it didn't happen the ukrainians
actually came together
um the landscape didn't flee the
Ukrainian Army didn't surrender and
people threw Molotov cocktails on the
Russian tanks and you know the landscape
itself he is Jewish
coming from a russian-speaking family
now if if Ukraine had fallen victim to
this kind of tribalism
then the ukrainians would think that
well he's Russian speaking he's Jewish
he's not really Ukrainian we can't trust
him
but he became this national hero
and I think that I hope that more
countries around the world would learn
from from this example
that our nationalism doesn't mean that
you hate minorities or you hate your
neighbors no it means that people come
together
it's an interesting take on nationalism
that I I've thought a lot about because
I grew up in the 80s when it was
it was self-evident that you loved
America I mean that was certainly the
prevailing thing to be against America
was like punk rock like it was so anti
it was like way outside the pail and now
that's become so commonplace that it
isn't even punk rock anymore it's like
it's it is I don't know that it's the
dominant voice but it's a big enough
voice that it isn't uh uncommon to bump
into the amazing thing you see it from
both sides it's not like you said oh God
these kind of extreme radical lefties
you also see it on the right that people
are against the federal government
against the FBI against the postal
office like anything that smells of the
state
and they have all these conspiracy
theories about the Deep State and you
know you know what the what the Deep
State really is
the Deep state is the sewage system
you know somebody built this system
under our houses and streets and towns
and it's a good system you know if you
go to the toilet you flush down what
you've done and it's gone somewhere and
it's take being taken care of if there
was no switch system we would you know
we would die of Cholera
because somebody needs to take care to
separate say the drinking water from the
sewage system
that you don't get germs in your
drinking water and who is this somebody
this is the job of the government this
is the job of the state
and and that's the Deep straight and
when you see that people are kind of
turning even against that
and again it's coming from from both
sides
this is
this is so unfortunate that Humanity has
managed on many levels to reach this you
know amazing achievements
whether it's the most peaceful era in
history whether it's building sewage
systems so that we don't get color
epidemics
and then people take it for granted
and then people just neglect it
that you know it's like living in a
house that everybody inhabits but nobody
wants to repair
and eventually it falls down and like
you said then people then people realize
what they missed like when you have a
war
and you see people dying and suffering
around you
then you look back and you say actually
we had it so good before
how do we get back there and hopefully
we
we realize in time what we can lose
and we don't get into the war in the
first place
it feels to me the historian that we are
kind of at the edge of the precipice
like we have climbed up we've been so
far below in the jungle in kind of this
conflict for survival with violence and
disease and poverty and we've climbed up
to the top or to a very high place but
we are still at the edge of the
precipice we can fall down all the way
down very very quickly within just a few
years
and
and and people don't really realize it
yeah so you just made me think of
oppenheimer's quote I am become death
destroyer of worlds we're living in a uh
a really
we're living in an amazing time I
wouldn't want to live at any other time
but it is a moment of
that requires deep reflection on the
stories that we tell ourselves so I know
that as you look at the long Arc of
History you think a lot about Okay the
reason that humans become the most
dominant Predator this world has ever
seen is not because we're the strongest
fastest sharpest teeth claws whatever
it's because we could organize flexibly
in groups via the stories that we
effectively Bond over and come together
over and when we were talking about
fascism communism and liberalism
when I first heard you talk about that
you said these These are the dominant
stories that over history people have
been fighting over so you have the story
of the state is the only thing that
matters and that that what life is going
to be is an eternal struggle between
Warring States one will violently
conquer all the rest and then there will
finally be peace so it's like hey as
Germans we're that we're the one yeah
like it's us like all we have to do now
is take over like it was meant to be
then communism say Maria it's the story
that the only the state matters but the
way that we get there is by Distributing
everything equally and then liberalism
the story and you said World War II
ended the idea of fascism uh the Cold
War ended the idea of Communism
liberalism actually worked yes it's
still tearing itself apart and so then
the question becomes why okay so now if
we're on this precipice and it's this
incredibly important moment where we
we've got the potential for Gene editing
which you've said could destroy all of
humanity we've got the potential for AI
or ai's here man anybody that doesn't
recognize like how like now
that we're using it in our own business
on both the the traditional content side
so what we're doing now will be
tremendously influenced by our ability
to find our audience using Ai and then
on the other side so we're building in
the metaverse so who's designing those
shirts it's largely humans but now
they're being augmented with AI you can
literally type something and it will
give you a design it's just insane
that's today so it becomes a question of
what story are you telling yourselves
now I think the thing because you and I
agree on a lot but if I had to guess on
the thing that maybe makes me slightly
more pessimistic than you is I believe
ultimately the collective is a
reflection only of the individual
and I do think that even if you want
Collective change it has to Spring forth
from the individual now we get into the
deep complexities of what that looks
like so when you have somebody like a
Nelson Mandela who can actually as an
individual sway the collective okay
that's very special and so there's
clearly a relationship it's not an
individual in isolation we're not
whatever 7.4 billion individuals in
isolation it's very much the way that I
say it is we are both the shout and the
echo so you are what you do and you are
the reflection that comes back from
other people about how they feel about
what you do and you can never
disentangle those so I don't think the
human mind is designed to disentangle
those two things they are effectively
one and the same but the thing that gets
in there the way that we're able to take
all of these variables and make sense
out of it is through a narrative which
then deeply simplifies this incredibly
complex world and so my the thing that I
cling to is so Hope on this precipice is
that people take the responsibility to
tell themselves a narrative that brings
people back together yeah that's the
only path I see forward and so my thing
is
as somebody with a platform
I think a lot about is it good no but
there is a narrative there is actually
this is the main story that I tell in in
my new book and Unstoppable loss
um which is aimed at kids but to give
them the understanding that
their identity is closely connected to
all the other people in the world and
actually even Beyond people to to other
animals because if you want to
understand who you are
so you know you get these kind of
national stories which are important but
they are so limited because Nations have
been around for just something like 5
000 years you know the oldest nations in
the world like Egypt they go back 5 000
years most Nations go back just a couple
of hundred years
and each of us is made of bits and
pieces that came from all over the world
for from the whole of History
you know it starts with the food that we
eat that if I like to eat chocolate
and chocolate was discovered by the
olmecs in Central America something like
4 000 years ago so this is a bit of
Olmec in me that I like chocolate and I
like my chocolate sweet
and sugar was domesticated in New Guinea
something like 8 000 years ago so I have
a bit of New Guinea in me that I like I
like sugar
and um going much much deeper like our
most basic emotions you know as a kid I
sometimes would wake up in the middle of
the night afraid that there is a monster
under the bed and I would call my mom
Mom there is a monster
and where is this coming from this is
not Jewish culture this is not Israeli
invention this is coming from millions
of years of evolution
it's actually historical memory
tens of thousands of years ago when we
lived in the wild there were actually
monsters that came in the night to eat
children lions and cheetahs and so forth
and if you continue to sleep the lion
eats you
if you wake up and call your mom you
could be saved and again calling your
mom where is this coming from moms are
not a Jewish invention or an American
invention again all mammals and all
birds have a very close connection
between mother and Offspring I mean this
is the very definition of of being a
mammal no mammals means that you know
you have I don't know you have turtles
so the mother turtle she would just
climb at night from the ocean dig a hole
lay eggs cover it go back to the ocean
that's it right my job is just the luck
the best of luck to you now as as a
mammal
El mammals eat their mother
like you're born crazy way to say it but
yeah it's true she not only carried you
in her womb after you're born she
actually feeds her feeds you from her
body
and if something happens in the
connection between mother and child you
don't survive
and this is so basic in who we are and
you know as a Jewish kid you should know
that it's the same as Muslim kids and
it's the same with Russian and Ukrainian
kids and it's the same with American and
Mexican kids
so there's this is something very very
deep in us that connects all of us
and I think this is a basis
for a narrative for the 21st century
because we now face also Collective
challenges
that threaten the existence the humanity
of all of us and that it's not just
nuclear war and climate change it's also
what you mentioned I see new
technologies like genetic engineering
and to some extent also AI as
existential dangers to all of us
and that we should unite to face is
genetic engineering the one that freaks
you out the most
um it depends because it it develops
much more slowly than AI
so in terms of like what it can do then
genetic engineering is probably the most
frightening germline only or do you not
want people even messing with their own
at this stage we just don't understand
our body and our brain and our mind well
enough to start messing with it you know
basically if you give corporations in
armies and governments the technology to
start changing the human body
so they will start changing uh uh
um kind of developing upgrading the
human qualities that they need yeah they
want discipline they want intelligence
like armies want disciplined and
intelligent soldiers so they will try to
mess with our genes with our body to
make us more disciplined and more
intelligent now other things like
Compassion or like spirituality they
don't want that you know Putin needs
disciplined and intelligent soldiers to
to fight his War it doesn't want
compassionate soldiers or spiritual
soldiers
so even without trying to to to to
eliminate these qualities just by
focusing on what they want we might get
kind of highly intelligent and highly
disciplined humans who lack compassion
and lack any spiritual depth
and the terrible thing about that
is that it will not be a temporary
a change it could go on for Generations
if you look back in history so figures
like Hitler like Stalin they also try to
re-engineer humans
but they are it at a time limit like
with education
and with a mass political control they
could for a few years
change the characteristics of entire
populations like brainwash them with
Nazi ideology or communist ideology
but eventually when they fell
you get back to to to to Ground Zero you
get back to this body to this brain they
didn't manage to change it
so over time we can start again
but once you give these kind of regimes
the ability to actually change the human
body like permanently maybe even
germline then their uh Legacy
can last indefinitely they can create a
new human species you've talked really
powerfully about story about how stories
like money which I don't think most
people think of as a story
um as being you know these tremendous
things that control all of our lives
that point us all in the same direction
that give us sort of a common code by
which to live how can people take
control of the story that they tell
themselves about themselves which I find
to be one of the most important stories
that you engage in
identity is really just a story which we
constantly construct and and embellish I
mean you can say that the entire human
mind is a machine that constantly
produces stories and especially one very
important story which is my story
uh and different people have different
specialized in different genres some
people build their stories a tragedy
some people build their stories a comedy
or as a drama but
um in the end I the self is a story and
not a real thing and on the one hand
with all the new technologies you get
better and in better abilities to
construct yourself but already today a
lot of the work which previously was
done in the brain and in the mind of
constructing my identity my story has
been outsourced to things like Facebook
that you build your Facebook account and
this is actually Outsourcing it from the
brain and you are busy maybe for hours
every day just building a story and
becoming extremely attached to it and
and publicizing it to everybody and you
tend to make this fundamental mistake
you think this is really me
and um so why is that a mistake
I'm actually really curious first of all
if you take something like the profile
that people create about themselves in
in Facebook or in Instagram it should be
obvious it doesn't really reflect your
actual
existence your actual reality both inner
reality and outer reality like the
percentage of time you smile in your
Instagram account is much bigger than
the percentage of time you smiling in
real life
and you know you go on some vacation
um and you post the the images from the
vacation so usually you're smiling in
your in your swimming suit on the beach
with your girlfriend and boyfriend
holding this cocktail and everything
looks perfect and everybody's so envious
but actually you just had a nasty fight
with your boyfriend five minutes ago and
then this is the image that everybody
else is seeing and thinking oh they must
have some such wonderful time and
afterwards like a year later or two
years later you look back and this is
what you see and you forget what was the
actual experience like
what what is the role of Truth in the
story that we tell ourselves about
ourselves
very little do you think there should be
more there should there should
definitely be more and what I think the
outcome if we were like I'm really gonna
make sure that the story I tell myself
is objectively true
it's going to be very very painful and
difficult I think it is worth the effort
but it's just very difficult we
constantly
we constantly edit
the this story
just like the news on TV are edited and
just like you know it's a bit like
making a movie that you watch the movie
in the cinema and everything is so
seamless like yeah this is the story it
flows and then when you actually see how
a movie is produced this is insane like
you have this tiny bit of a scene you
repeat it 50 times and sometimes you
know you shoot this scene this scene
scene two comes after scene one but
actually it was filmed long before that
so sometimes you you film the breakup of
of the lovers before you film The the
first meeting for all kinds of schedule
reasons and locations so
the the end result is completely
seamless and perfect but it is actually
made up from all these tiny in tiny
disconnected bits that have been you
know this is from here and this is from
there and we somehow glue it together
and it looks good
and it's the same with the story of our
life it's all kinds of Beats and pieces
and only when you tell it to yourself or
to somebody else it kind of makes sense
the cost of trying to stick with the
reality as it is
very very high it's very difficult it
Demands a lot of effort and it is often
very painful because you have to
acknowledge many things about yourself
that you don't want to acknowledge them
people have this
fantasy of of I don't know going to some
Retreat and just taking out a week or
two of from life
to really observe inside to really
explore who am I what is my authentic
self and they have this fantastic notion
that I will be able to finally connect
to my inner child and I will discover my
true vocation in life and I will
discover all these wonderful things
about me and when you actually do it
the first thing you usually encounter is
all the things you don't want to know
about yourself there is a reason that
that that you don't want to know them I
think it's worth the effort but it's a
very very hard task
all right on that there's so many
studies that talk about the more
delusional somebody is self-delusional
the more likely they are to be happy
you've said one of the big questions as
a historian you're trying to answer is
as we've moved forward as a you know a
species of society have we actually
gotten happier so there is some
importance it sounds like that you place
on happiness so why then would you want
people to do that hard work of facing
the realities recognizing the things
about themselves that they don't
necessarily want to recognize is that
because you think it leads to more
happiness I think that ultimately it is
worth the price I mean delusions come at
a very high price also
um and not just to yourself but to
people around you to the world as a
whole I mean ultimately this leads to
things like Wars and like genocide and
like in Emperor and you know I come from
Israel I come from the Middle East so I
am surrounded by millions of people who
are killing each other because of all
kinds of fictional stories and delusions
that they believe in
so sometimes it's an important defensive
mechanism it's very difficult to live
just with the raw truth all the time but
the price of delusion and the price of
not being able to tell the difference
between fiction and reality it adds up
and eventually it adds up to things like
genocide and War
that sounds like a pretty extraordinary
price to pay yeah I would agree with you
there
um in 21 lessons is
what do we do when we're faced with
being put out of work that we are one of
the useless class and we have to do this
reinvention at a career level you're
living longer your career life is 50 60
70 80 years whatever that looks like in
a time where every seven to ten years
like it's just it's a completely new
world what do you think the human
capacity for that level of reinvention
is
well that's a very important question it
has little to do with immortality
because even without immortality we are
heading in that direction even if people
if the lifespan remains as it is 80
years
um every 10 years you have another big
shock I mean people
one of the things many people don't
realize about the AI Revolution and the
automation Revolution they imagine it as
some kind of one-time event we have the
big AI revolution in 2025 you have all
these truck drivers and taxi drivers and
doctors and whatever losing their jobs
you have a few difficult years of
adjustment and then eventually you have
the new Brave New World of AI with a new
equilibrium
and this is an extremely unlikely
scenario because we are nowhere near the
maximum potential of AI
the speed in which it develops is only
likely to accelerate so what we are
really going to face is a Cascade of
ever bigger Revolutions in the job
market and in many other areas of life
relationships politics and so forth
so you have a big disruption in 2025 you
have an even bigger disruption in 2035
and even bigger one in 2045 and so forth
and if you look say the job market
so okay you were a truck driver and they
no longer need you but there is new
demand for yoga teachers so you somehow
reinvent yourself at age 40. I'm no
longer a truck driver now I'm a yoga
teacher it's very difficult you somehow
do it 10 years later no need of yoga
teachers thank you very much we now have
this amazing applications connected with
biometric sensors to your body they know
exactly what you're doing with every
tiny muscle as you do this posture or
that posture no human yoga teacher can
compete with that you're out of job you
have to reinvent yourself again as a
designer of virtual world games and you
do it somehow but 10 years later you
have to do it again because this tool
has now been automated and even if you
get support from the government and
there is all these uh education for for
adult system
the really big question is again it's
psychological
do do we as human beings have the mental
stability and the emotional intelligence
necessary to reinvent ourselves
repeatedly
and you know when you're 20 what you're
doing is basically to reinvent yourself
or to invent yourself for the first time
and it is very difficult
when you're 30 it's even more difficult
but you sometimes but you somehow do it
but when you get to be 40 50 60 it
becomes more and more difficult you have
more to let go of I've invested so much
in building this career this personality
these skills to give it all up and start
again from from a new it's so difficult
so I don't know whether we can do it
yeah that is the question that I think
will ultimately be forced to answer
and that brings me to education so what
do you think that
if
we're talking to somebody who's 18 right
now they're trying to decide do I go to
college yes or no should they go to
college and if they go to college what
should they be studying
um
it's a very difficult question
the first thing they should realize is
that nobody really knows nobody really
knows how the job market would look like
in 2040
so they should be suspicious of all
these kinds of advices by people who
pretend that they know what a job market
would need in 20 years the best
investment I would say is in emotional
intelligence and in mental balance and
these kinds of skills of how to keep
changing throughout your life how to
keep learning throughout your life now
how do you learn that that's very very
difficult we don't have a college degree
in mental flexibility
but these are the most important tools
so whatever you choose you can go to law
school you can go to ballet school but
you should keep in mind that much of
what I'm learning might be Irrelevant in
in 20 or 30 years so whatever else I'm
doing I should also invest in developing
my emotional intelligence my mental
balance my ability to keep changing and
learning and Reinventing throughout my
life so maybe to give an image or a
metaphor
if in the past education was like
building a stone house with very deep
foundations now I would say that
education is more like a constructing a
tent that you can fold up and move to
another location very quickly and easily
that's a great analogy
so given that it's so hard to predict
the future you've talked a lot about the
power of Science Fiction science fiction
writers walk us through that why what is
the role that a science fiction writer
can play or Storyteller filmmaker
whatever the case may be
our lives in the 21st century more than
anything else are going to be new
technologies especially in Ai and
biotechnology
and most people their understanding of
these Technologies and their potential
for good or for bad it really comes from
science fiction
the political system so far has done an
awful job in understanding and preparing
us for these kinds of of development
There is almost no talk in the uh
political Arena about Ai and
biotechnology
the scientific Community is of course
very deeply engaged with it but most
people don't read articles in science or
nature and even if they tried it would
be very difficult for them to understand
what the professionals are gone and all
the statistics and and so forth
so most people actually get their
education about what's coming from
science fiction
and this means at least I think so that
science fiction is now the most
important autistic genre
and it should also be the most
responsible
and one of the problems with science
fiction is that so far it is done as
so-so jobs
some novels and TV series and films are
really amazing in the way they explore
what's what could what could happen uh
ranging like some of my favorites are my
all-time favorite is Brave New World by
Aldo suxley which was written back in
the early 1930s and I think is the most
prophetic and profound
so given what's happening in the world
right now with things being automated
going to AI what are
three things let's say that people can
do to make sure that they're poised to
thrive in this time of massive change
first of all I mean that's what
everybody's saying but it's true that
you have to embrace change
that the idea that you can learn
something in your youth a profession a
way of life and it will just be there
for the rest of the of your life which
was the situation for most of History
this is this is no longer the case
we have to keep learning and keep
changing throughout our lives otherwise
we will be left behind
so that's one one key principle related
to that is that maybe the most important
quality
to survive and flourish in the 21st
century is to have mental flexibility
not just to keep learning and changing
again and again also to keep letting go
um part of what makes it difficult to
learn new things that we hold on
like you know I spent so many years
learning something and now the world has
changed and
um I just don't want to let go and
letting go maybe I'll give an example of
how deep it goes like it's not just what
you learn in college or what you learned
in kindergarten it's even what you
learned as a baby as a toddler like
learning how to see or learning how to
walk and what does that mean that I have
to relearn how to see and walk well
um as virtual reality
improves and you know with all the talk
of the metaverse and so forth that we'll
discuss later on increasingly it's
likely that will be many more activities
shifting from the physical biological
world that we know
into a new reality a virtual reality
which has different physical and
biological laws even the laws of physics
there are different
so whether you want to interact socially
there or maybe you have a job
in virtual reality in the metaverse or
maybe you design you have a new job
designing fashion designing shirts for
virtual reality because people want to
look good there you need to forget
how physics and light and gravity works
here because it works in a different way
in in in that reality
so just what does it mean like I'm Now
46 let's say I have a new job designing
fashion for the metaverse
how can I at age 46 kind of forget
what it what it means to scene and learn
from scratch how to see things are you
optimistic that adults can do that
humans have an amazing ability to to
adapt and to change
you know it's often said that AI is
nowhere near it's uh
um full capabilities but human beings
too nowhere near their full capabilities
we really have no idea what we can still
do what our mind can can still do if you
think about jobs again so you know the
biggest
change in the job market of the 21st of
the 20th century looking at the previous
Century it didn't come from any
technological invention
it actually came from unlocking the
potential of half the human species
women which were bowed from so many jobs
because people thought they were
incapable of doing that and they didn't
have the Education and Training and so
forth and the feminist Revolution and
the changes in gender relations just
completely changed the job market and
you didn't need to genetically engineer
uh women's DNA or to kind of connect
them to some new device no the potential
to be presidents to be judges to be
journalists to be scientists was always
there but it wasn't tapped it and and
it's it's to a large extent I hope we'll
see something similar in the 21st
century that yes we have all these new
challenges but uh we also have this uh
amazing untapped potential within us but
this links to the to the third thing
which is we can't do it alone
like places you can't do it alone or
individuals can't do it alone
individuals can't do it alone like
placing all the responsibility on
individuals the world is changing now
it's your job to adapt to to to change
yourself to learn it doesn't work like
that
um it's too much for an individual to do
just by themselves
uh we'll probably have uh will require
organizations governments to step in to
make sure that people are not left
behind you know just retraining people
you lose your old job
to a computer or a robot or a
self-driving vehicle there are new jobs
I don't think there'll be a problem of
just an absolute lack of jobs all jobs
disappear but new jobs emerge the really
difficult thing will be the transition
and the transition first of all you need
some kind of financial assistance like
you lost your old job you need to
retrain for a couple of months for a new
profession maybe who is going to support
you during this this time so just as in
the 20th century governments built this
huge infrastructure
for educating the Young
schools and colleges and so forth will
now need to build another infrastructure
to educate and to retrain people in the
40s and 50s
that is one last thing is that they'll
also need psychological help again
because it's going to be extremely
stressful to kind of Invent Yourself
when you're 16 this is what you do when
you're 16. but when you're you're 46 you
want to take it easy I don't want to
start all over again so it's
psychologically very very stressful and
I think that we we will have to to see
more government support for mental
health just to cope with the immense
stress of the 21st century do you know
the learn the code meme
then learn to code oh learn to code
um so people are getting booted off of
social media for saying it it's one of
those things that took me so by surprise
so anybody I think that spends enough
time contemplating okay AI what's the
future I'm sure we'll get into Data
harvesting and stuff like that you
really do that begin to understand that
the future belongs to the technically
Savvy and if you are a 46 year old truck
driver sort of the classic example
because that's you know going the way
the dodo and it's you know not something
that requires a high degree of Education
or necessarily even a ultra high IQ not
saying that drivers don't have a high
IQs I'm just saying it doesn't
necessarily Max your IQ to do that job
and so when people say okay if the
future belongs to the technically Savvy
we know drivers are gonna you know be
without that job then they should learn
to code to get a new job and my instinct
was yes that's absolutely true and I
came to that debate super late and so by
the time I got there people were already
getting banned off social media for
saying it and I was like wait what so
going back I couldn't understand why
telling the individual that you're going
to be a participant in this I'm not
opposed to I think it's a great idea for
governments to create a safety net I
think it's a bad idea for governments to
drag you across the finish line and I
think that ends in tyranny every time so
where do you see because it will be hard
and there will be people left behind I
don't see any way around that and nature
so curious to see if you agree with this
nature does not care nature will leave
you behind in a heartbeat Mother Nature
is more than happy to obliterate people
watch an entire generation get eaten by
a change doesn't care so how do we
without incapacitating the people that
have to relearn and do this very
difficult thing how do we encourage them
to move forward
without
either abandoning them on one side or
dragging them forward on the other
but you know first of all I have to say
that I'm not sure that coding is such a
safe job because coding 2 could be
automated maybe you know you you could
you could also will also need a lot of
therapists who will need Community
organizers we'll even need philosophers
because a lot of these new questions
they actually suddenly the big tech
companies need people who understand
deep philosophical questions because
they become technical questions you need
a lot of people in the in the taking
care of of other people you know it's
um in a way it's easier to automate the
job of a coder than the job of a nurse
like coding is in the end it's just data
it's just information it's just
information coming in and out so I can
see more easily how you automate the job
of a computer scientist at least some of
these jobs then the job of a nurse who
needs to replace a bandage
or to give an injection to a screaming
child and and things like that partly
because it demands a much wider range of
abilities it's not just
of course a nurse needs
to understand information and to analyze
information and so forth but also needs
motor skills also needs social skills
and the combination of these skills this
is much harder to automate
so I wouldn't place all my bets on on
something like coding governments are
essential again partly because in many
countries you know I think about I don't
know uh you mentioned truck drivers also
textile workers you imagine you think
about many countries in Latin America
that they don't have a high-tech sector
or they have a textile industry lots and
lots of people working in textile
producing shirts
and suddenly all of this is automated
it's cheaper to produce shirts in
California than in Mexico or in
Guatemala and in addition to that there
is an entirely new line of of of textile
industry which is virtual shirts like I
spend hours in virtual reality I want to
look good the latest fashion in virtual
reality and somebody needs to design it
now
how do you take again a 40 year old
unemployed textile worker from Guatemala
and turn her or him into a designer or
virtual shirts
um so without government support and in
this case I mean these countries could
well even they can't afford it they will
have to get support from the Richer
countries otherwise we are facing a
global uh uh catastrophe
so I'm not saying that governments kind
of will force people to do something
it's you know like with with basic
education for young people
I mean you can still fail you can still
drop out but at least you are given the
chance
uh and and then whether you use this
chance that you're given wisely or not
is is up to you
but I think most of the successful
systems in history
they they are complex they don't place
all the responsibility just on
individuals
because then a lot of people are left
behind not because uh of even their
fault it's just they weren't given the
the proper opportunity
on the other hand trusting only
government when you get this kind of
communist nightmares that we definitely
don't don't want to thrive this this
this mistake again
yeah that to me is the problem and when
I look at the culture War right now
which quoting you again uh you said this
is a paraphrase but I'm gonna get really
close so by all means if I say anything
wrong jump in but you said uh Putin had
waited five or ten years to uh invade
the Ukraine the West probably would have
imploded on his own and he could have
gone away with it and I was like so
impatient wow that is that is it feels
terrifyingly accurate so the way that
the West is tearing itself apart right
now I find deeply distressing so the
reason that that ties into this for me
is that there there is a necessary
tension
between an all I don't know if you'll
agree with this but by all means jump in
if you don't there's a necessary tension
between the left and the right and I
think the left and the right are
Evolution solution to you if you're a
social creature you want to try to help
everybody but as you try to help
everybody there's the freeloader problem
and so you get people that will take
advantage of the system so you need
people on the other side that demand
personal responsibility but if you only
have personal responsibility that will
also lead to tyranny so you have tyranny
on both sides and so what you need is
the tension in the middle but you can't
have the tension if each side thinks
that the tension is the problem if
they're both trying to be right and
they're trying to silence the other side
that feels like the core problem of the
West is that we no longer realize oh
it's good that not everybody's on my
side whatever side you're on because if
everybody were on my side we wouldn't
have the tension we'll have tyranny yeah
is that how you see it or is there
something more nuanced no I I think
the good thing about democracy is that
you have multiple voices and you don't
see the other people as you as your
enemies you can think that they are
mistaken you can even think that they
are stupid but they are not evil
your enemies once people in a democracy
start seeing their political Rivals as
as their enemies and as people who are
trying to destroy the way of life
democracy just cannot survive in this
situation
uh you can have a civil war you can have
a dictatorship
but you cannot have a democracy because
you know if if Americans think that
other the other side the other Americans
are there enemies out to to destroy them
then they will do anything to win the
elections because this is now like a war
and they have no incentive to accept the
result if they lose
um and that's that's the biggest danger
I think that the not just the United
States but many countries in the west
are facing
that increasingly people are seeing the
the neighbors the people in in the other
state in in the other town as as their
enemies
it's not so clear why this is happening
because actually the ideological
differences today are much smaller okay
than they were 50 years ago or 100 years
ago or you finished that can I set
something up I'd never heard anybody
talk about this before I know where
you're going okay so you you said this
is this is all you I thought this was so
brilliant gave me a way to understand
what's happening he said in the 20th
century there were three big ways of
viewing the world you had fascism you
had
um communism yeah and you had liberalism
yes explain the three because the punch
line is where you're going now which is
why didn't people go with liberalism but
uh please explain the three and then we
can get into why liberalism is breaking
down because I actually don't understand
why
well uh that that that's a lot to
explain in in brief but basically
fascism is says that the state is the
only the state and the nation are the
only thing that matters
um there is nationalism in itself is a
Force for good nationalism when it's
understood correctly it means simply
that you love the other people in your
nation and you're willing to make some
sacrifices for them for instance to pay
taxes so they that they get good health
care when it's good nationalism is about
love not about hating foreigners or
minorities fascism is when somebody says
that the nation is the only thing that
matter
individuals uh groups they don't matter
at all everything should serve the needs
of of the nation of the state
uh the truth is whatever helps the
nation
um good is what other is good for the
nation even even Beauty like films and
art and so forth on it's all political
a good film is a good that advances the
interest of the Nations that's it and
anybody who opposes this is a traitor
and should be eliminated
this is kind of the basic world view of
fascism you know the symbol of fascism
is that the word fascism it means it
comes from from Latin for fastki that is
it's it's a kind of bundle of of weeds
or bundle of of small kind of Twigs
which is very strange I mean why is the
symbol of one of the most evil and
ferocious movements in history a bundle
of Twigs what's the sense there and the
idea is that each twig by itself is
nothing
it's it's easy to break it it's nothing
but you know you take a lot of Twigs
together you can't break them
so that's the method of fascism that you
are nothing in yourself as an individual
but the group as a whole it's it's it's
the only thing that matters
and then communism is actually a
variation on on that it also uh uh has
no regard
for for the individual
it's uh thinks more in terms of class
it's not so much the nation which is in
the center it's the class to which you
belong which is at the center and uh uh
uh the hero of Communism is not a nation
it's the working class but again to make
a very long story short it's the same
idea this is why also you see that Nazi
Germany in the Soviet Union they
constantly copy each other
because the it's at the basic level
there is the same idea that individual
human beings count for nothing and it's
only the interests of the collective
which are important and liberalism says
that no
that we put yes we need
also Collective action Collective
cooperation again to build their
Healthcare System to build an education
system people need to cooperate but
still at the center we have the
individual
and you know there is a very simple test
to test yourself whether you're liberal
so you know the word liberal is just as
fascism comes from this fasca this
bundle of reads and communism from
communal everything together so
liberalism is from from Liberty freedom
and unso just for simple question
do you think people should have the
Liberty to choose their own government
do you think people should have the
Liberty to choose their own religion do
you think people should have the Liberty
to choose their own profession
and do you think people should have the
Liberty to choose their own spouse if
you answer yes to all of our questions
congratulations you're liberal
and again it sounds like but who will
object but for most of History most
people objected
like
you know you had the American Revolution
against the king of England
and the whole idea of monarchy is that
people don't get that don't have the
Liberty to choose their own government
there is a king appointed by God or
whatever and this is the government and
similarly in the Soviet Union or in Nazi
Germany people don't get to choose the
government to replace the government
similarly if you think about profession
so in a communist Society you don't get
to choose your profession
the Communist Party tells you that you
now go to the farm to raise cabbages and
he now goes to the factory to produce
cars and we tell you how many cabbages
to produce or what kind of cars to
produce and if you go I don't know to
the Middle Ages so again you don't have
any Liberty to choose your profession if
you're born to a peasant family you'll
be a peasant if your father was a
cobbler you'll be a cobbler that's it
you have no choice there and of course
when it comes to choosing your spouse
same thing it doesn't matter who you
love
it matters what your elders tell you
what your church tells you what the
nation needs
um and today
in the big ideological war of the 20th
century liberalism kind of came on top
and when I said earlier that actually
the the ideological differences that I
see today in the United States or in the
west as a whole in the world as a whole
are much smaller than 50 years ago or a
hundred years ago because almost all
people are liberal even the
conservatives who hate to think liberal
artists is terrible I hate these
liberals they are liberal in in the in
the long term historical sense so of
course we we know this hot hot button
issues like abortion like gun control
and and these things and and there you
have arguments but Underneath It All
there is much deeper and more widespread
ideological agreement than anything we
have seen 50 years ago or 100 years ago
even you know these kind of of hot
button subjects like abortion like gay
marriage they're actually the
aftershocks of the Big Bang of the 1960s
of the sexual Revolution the really big
argument about these issues well in the
1960s the Gap there was was much much
bigger and in the end almost everybody
accepted the liberal position you know
in in in 1950s
universities could expel students from
University if they had sex before
marriage wow this was sex before
marriage this is that and who wants to
go to go back there I mean you know uh a
divorce was kind of was unthinkable
uh uh marriage between a white person
and a black person was legally
prohibited so crazy and this was you
know 56 years ago
so I'm not saying that there are no uh
uh ideological differences remaining
although there are no kind of of of of
debates but if people could step back
and look at the long-term uh uh view
they will be amazed how close actually
Republicans and Democrats in the US are
you know Republicans today are far more
liberal on as say LGBT rights than
Democrats were in the 1960s
so um and another I think people should
ask themselves okay we have these
remaining disagreements
is it a good enough reason to destroy
the American Republic over that to
destroy basically Western Civilization
over that
so you know you think about the the
American Civil War
and people today some people say okay we
are approaching another civil war
imagine
high school students in 100 years having
to write and and a test about American
history and they get two questions what
was the first Civil War about that's
easy slavery what was the second Civil
War about
is there anything as as clear as Sierra
it was about that
it was about gun control it was about
whether transgender people can go to the
to the to the same toilet or not what
what was it about
and I think that the tragedy of what's
Happening Now in the US and in much of
the West
is that
um
again the ideological differences are of
are small on the ground but they are
very big in people's imagination people
have fantasies about what the other side
is planning to do which are completely
divorced from reality
you know in the 20th century
you didn't need to fantasize what these
Communists want to do they told you
that you listen to to somebody like
Lenin or Stalin they tell you we want to
completely abolish private property
it's not a fantasy in the minds of some
liberals this is what the Communists
want to do
the same thing with the fascists you
just need to listen to Hitler he
literally detailed everything he wanted
to do I'm gonna do this and this and the
Jews are a problem and we're gonna do
this I was like what I could not believe
he published all of that yeah it wasn't
really Rose to Powers insane it was in
the open and now much of the kind of uh
Gap is mostly in the imagination of
people
and
the the traged is
that in history
you can get terrible terrible Wars I'm
not saying everything that I said now is
not like it's not going to be a civil
war it's not going to be civil Strife in
the no the tragedy of history is that
very often you get terrible things
happening
for
without any good reason at all
that afterwards when you look back
you ask what was this all about like you
think about the world of religion in
Europe in the 19 in in the 16th and 17th
century
which by the way was part of the reason
that people fled Europe to come to the
United States
and Protestants and Catholics killing
each other by the millions like a third
of the population of Germany died in the
30 years war between Protestants and
Catholics
Nation and you look back today
even as as a Protestant or a Catholic
and you ask yourself what was this about
and it's completely incomprehensible
to the people back then it looked like
the most important things in the world
like whether you believe in this
theological view of that theological
view whether you do the mass in in in in
with this ritual or with like a very big
issue whether it was whether you give
the the ordinary Christians during bass
uh only the holy brand or also the wine
yeah I got to have a big wall over that
yes they did have a very very big war
over that
and also people sometimes have big Wars
over fantasies in their minds and we
have now just an example you know is the
Russian invasion of Ukraine
um so Putin had all these fantasies in
his mind for instance that NATO is
threatening Russia you know very simple
question name the country which was
about to invade Russia in 2022 but the
Germans were about to invade Russia have
you been to Germany lately do you think
these people what they want to do in
life is going invade Russia do you think
the French want to invade Russia
Napoleon will come out of his grave and
lead the grand Alma again to Moscow this
is complete fantasy
but fantasies often shape history
and cause people to do you know terrible
things if you want to learn more about
this topic check out this interview well
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