Why humans run the world | Yuval Noah Harari | TED

Summary

In this thought-provoking talk, Yuval Noah Harari explores how humans evolved from insignificant animals to rulers of the planet through their unique ability to cooperate flexibly in large numbers. He highlights the power of shared beliefs in fictional stories, such as religion, human rights, and money, which enable mass cooperation. Harari also warns of future challenges, like technological advancements creating new social classes and potential inequalities. Ultimately, he questions humanity's purpose in a world where machines might surpass human capabilities.

Takeaways

• 🐒 Seventy-thousand years ago, humans were insignificant animals with minimal impact on the world.
• 🌍 Today, humans control the planet due to their unique ability to cooperate flexibly in large numbers.
• 🙊 Unlike social insects and mammals, humans can adapt their cooperation to new opportunities and threats.
• 💡 Human cooperation is based on shared beliefs in fictional stories, enabling large-scale collaboration.
• 📚 Fictional entities like gods, nations, money, and corporations underpin human societies and economies.
• 👥 Collective belief in stories like human rights and legal systems facilitates complex societal structures.
• 🦍 On an individual level, humans are not significantly different from chimpanzees, but they excel collectively.
• 💬 Human language allows the creation and dissemination of fictional realities, unlike other animals.
• 🛠️ Major human achievements, from building pyramids to moon landings, rely on mass cooperation.
• 🔮 Future challenges may include managing a new class of 'useless' people due to technological advancements.

Q & A

What is the main reason humans have come to control the planet?

Humans control the planet because they are the only animals that can cooperate both flexibly and in very large numbers.

Why would a chimpanzee likely survive better than a human if they were placed together on a deserted island?

On an individual level, humans are embarrassingly similar to chimpanzees, and in a survival scenario on a deserted island, a chimpanzee would likely survive better due to their natural abilities and instincts.

What sets human cooperation apart from that of other animals?

Human cooperation is unique because it is both flexible and scalable, allowing humans to work together in large numbers and adapt to new situations quickly.

Why can't chimpanzees cooperate in large numbers like humans?

Chimpanzees cannot cooperate in large numbers because their cooperation is based on intimate, personal knowledge of each other, which limits their ability to form large, cohesive groups.

How do humans use language differently from other animals?

Humans use language not only to describe reality but also to create fictional realities. This ability to invent and believe in shared stories allows humans to cooperate on a massive scale.

Can you give an example of how humans use fictional stories to create cooperation?

An example is religion, where millions of people can come together to build a cathedral or fight in a crusade because they believe in the same stories about God and heaven.

What are human rights according to the speaker?

Human rights are fictional stories that humans have invented and spread. They are not an objective reality but rather a shared belief system that allows for large-scale cooperation.

What is the significance of money in human cooperation?

Money is the most successful story ever invented because it is a universally accepted fiction. It allows people who do not know each other to trade and cooperate on a large scale.

Why does the speaker argue that the survival of rivers, trees, lions, and elephants depends on fictional entities?

The survival of these natural elements depends on the decisions of fictional entities like nations, corporations, and international organizations, which exist only in human imagination but have real-world power.

What does the speaker predict about the future class struggles due to technological advancements?

The speaker predicts that technological advancements, particularly in computing, may create a new class of 'useless people' as computers outperform humans in most tasks, leading to significant economic and social challenges.

How does the speaker view the concept of nations and states?

The speaker views nations and states as fictional stories invented by humans. Unlike objective realities like mountains, nations and states exist because people collectively believe in them.

What is the speaker's perspective on economic inequality and future societal changes?

The speaker believes that economic inequality is just beginning and that future societal changes may include the creation of biological castes with the rich becoming enhanced and the poor becoming increasingly marginalized.

Outlines

00:00

🧠 From Insignificance to Dominance

Seventy-thousand years ago, humans were unimportant animals with minimal impact on the world. Today, humans dominate the planet. The difference lies not in individual abilities but in collective cooperation. Unlike social insects and mammals, humans can cooperate flexibly in large numbers, allowing for complex societies and achievements like building pyramids and space exploration. This collective ability has enabled humans to surpass other species.

05:02

🌍 Global Cooperation through Imagination

Humans can cooperate with strangers on a massive scale because of shared beliefs in fictional stories. These stories, whether religious, legal, or economic, enable coordinated action. Unlike chimpanzees, humans can communicate and collaborate across vast distances and cultures. However, cooperation isn't always positive, as seen in systems like prisons and concentration camps. The unique human ability to create and believe in shared fictions underpins our global cooperation.

10:02

💰 The Power of Fiction in Human Society

Human rights, nations, and corporations are all fictional constructs that facilitate large-scale cooperation. Unlike objective realities such as mountains, these entities exist only in our collective imagination. Money, the most successful fiction, allows for extensive trade and economic systems. This dual reality of objective and fictional entities has made human societies powerful, shaping our world and impacting even natural entities like rivers and trees.

15:03

🤖 Future Class Divisions and Technological Impact

The rise of technology may create new classes and social struggles. The industrial revolution created the urban proletariat, and now, advanced computers might render many humans redundant, forming a new 'useless' class. This could lead to significant economic inequality and biological divisions, where the wealthy become enhanced while the poor are left behind. The future challenges include finding meaningful roles for humans in a technologically advanced world.

Keywords

💡Cooperation

Cooperation refers to the ability of humans to work together towards common goals. Unlike other animals, humans can cooperate both flexibly and in large numbers, which has enabled us to achieve remarkable feats such as building pyramids and flying to the moon. This concept is central to the video's theme, highlighting how our ability to cooperate distinguishes us from other species.

💡Imagination

Imagination is the human capacity to create and believe in fictional stories and concepts. This ability allows humans to cooperate on a large scale by sharing common beliefs and narratives. The video emphasizes that imagination is what enables humans to construct complex social systems, legal frameworks, and economic institutions.

💡Fictional realities

Fictional realities are constructed beliefs or stories that humans collectively accept as true. Examples include nations, religions, and corporations. These fictional realities are powerful because they facilitate large-scale human cooperation, as discussed in the video. They do not exist objectively but have profound impacts on the real world.

💡Human rights

Human rights are a set of principles believed to be inherent to all humans, such as equality and freedom. The video explains that human rights are a fictional story that societies have created and embraced, much like religious or national beliefs. They are not found in nature but are powerful because they shape laws and behaviors.

💡Money

Money is described as a fictional entity with no intrinsic value but universally accepted as a medium of exchange. The video illustrates that money's value comes from the collective belief in its worth, enabling vast economic systems and transactions. It is highlighted as the most successful story humans have invented.

💡Legal fictions

Legal fictions are constructs created by legal systems to facilitate governance and social order. Corporations, for example, are legal fictions—they exist because laws define and recognize them. The video uses this concept to demonstrate how human cooperation is often built on shared beliefs in invented entities.

💡Collective level

The collective level refers to the large-scale social structures and cooperative efforts that humans engage in. Unlike individual-level capabilities, it is the collective level of cooperation that allows humans to dominate the planet. The video contrasts this with the rigid cooperation of insects and the small-group cooperation of social mammals.

💡Objective reality

Objective reality consists of things that exist independently of human beliefs, such as rivers, trees, and animals. The video distinguishes this from fictional realities, which are human-made constructs. Understanding the difference between these realities helps explain how humans use imagination to create powerful social systems.

💡Mass-scale cooperation

Mass-scale cooperation is the ability of large groups of humans to work together efficiently towards common goals. The video highlights this as a unique human trait that enables the construction of complex societies and achievements. It contrasts human mass-scale cooperation with the limited or rigid cooperation seen in other species.

💡Technological advancements

Technological advancements refer to the significant breakthroughs in technology that shape human societies. The video mentions that current technological changes could lead to new classes and class struggles, similar to those seen during the industrial revolution. These advancements have the potential to both improve lives and create new societal challenges.

Highlights

Seventy-thousand years ago, our ancestors were insignificant animals. Their impact on the world was not much greater than that of jellyfish or fireflies or woodpeckers.

Today, we control this planet. The question is: How did we come from there to here? How did we turn ourselves from insignificant apes into the rulers of planet Earth?

The real difference between humans and all other animals is not on the individual level; it's on the collective level. Humans control the planet because they are the only animals that can cooperate both flexibly and in very large numbers.

Other animals, like social insects, can cooperate in large numbers but their cooperation is very rigid. Social mammals can cooperate flexibly but only in small numbers.

The only animal that can combine the two abilities together and cooperate both flexibly and in very large numbers is Homo sapiens.

If you pit 1,000 humans against 1,000 chimpanzees, the humans will win easily, because a thousand chimpanzees cannot cooperate at all.

Humans can gather in tens of thousands and create extremely sophisticated and effective networks of cooperation. This has led to achievements like building the pyramids and flying to the moon.

Humans can work together to create a global exchange of ideas, even though they don't know each other personally. This is something chimpanzees cannot do.

The ability to cooperate flexibly in large numbers is based on our imagination. Humans can create and believe in fictional stories that enable cooperation.

Humans use their language not only to describe reality but also to create new fictional realities. This allows for cooperation based on shared beliefs and values.

Examples of human cooperation based on fiction include religious beliefs, legal systems, political systems, and economic systems.

Money is the most successful story ever invented by humans because it is the only story everybody believes.

Humans live in a dual reality: an objective reality of physical entities and a fictional reality of invented concepts like nations, gods, money, and corporations.

The survival of objective realities like rivers, trees, lions, and elephants now depends on the decisions of fictional entities like the United States, Google, and the World Bank.

In the future, breakthroughs in technology may create new classes and class struggles, similar to what happened during the industrial revolution.

There is a possibility that computers will outperform humans in most tasks, making humans redundant and creating a new class of 'useless' people.

Transcripts

Seventy-thousand years ago, our ancestors were insignificant animals.

The most important thing to know about prehistoric humans

is that they were unimportant.

Their impact on the world was not much greater than that of jellyfish

or fireflies or woodpeckers.

Today, in contrast, we control this planet.

And the question is:

How did we come from there to here?

How did we turn ourselves from insignificant apes,

minding their own business in a corner of Africa,

into the rulers of planet Earth?

Usually, we look for the difference between us and all the other animals

on the individual level.

We want to believe -- I want to believe --

that there is something special about me,

about my body, about my brain,

that makes me so superior to a dog or a pig, or a chimpanzee.

But the truth is that, on the individual level,

I'm embarrassingly similar to a chimpanzee.

And if you take me and a chimpanzee and put us together on some lonely island,

and we had to struggle for survival to see who survives better,

I would definitely place my bet on the chimpanzee, not on myself.

And this is not something wrong with me personally.

I guess if they took almost any one of you, and placed you alone

with a chimpanzee on some island,

the chimpanzee would do much better.

The real difference between humans and all other animals

is not on the individual level;

it's on the collective level.

Humans control the planet because they are the only animals

that can cooperate both flexibly and in very large numbers.

Now, there are other animals --

like the social insects, the bees, the ants --

that can cooperate in large numbers, but they don't do so flexibly.

Their cooperation is very rigid.

There is basically just one way in which a beehive can function.

And if there's a new opportunity or a new danger,

the bees cannot reinvent the social system overnight.

They cannot, for example, execute the queen

and establish a republic of bees,

or a communist dictatorship of worker bees.

Other animals, like the social mammals --

the wolves, the elephants, the dolphins, the chimpanzees --

they can cooperate much more flexibly,

but they do so only in small numbers,

because cooperation among chimpanzees

is based on intimate knowledge, one of the other.

I'm a chimpanzee and you're a chimpanzee,

and I want to cooperate with you.

I need to know you personally.

What kind of chimpanzee are you?

Are you a nice chimpanzee?

Are you an evil chimpanzee?

Are you trustworthy?

If I don't know you, how can I cooperate with you?

The only animal that can combine the two abilities together

and cooperate both flexibly and still do so in very large numbers

is us, Homo sapiens.

One versus one, or even 10 versus 10,

chimpanzees might be better than us.

But, if you pit 1,000 humans against 1,000 chimpanzees,

the humans will win easily, for the simple reason

that a thousand chimpanzees cannot cooperate at all.

And if you now try to cram 100,000 chimpanzees

into Oxford Street, or into Wembley Stadium,

or Tienanmen Square or the Vatican,

you will get chaos, complete chaos.

Just imagine Wembley Stadium with 100,000 chimpanzees.

Complete madness.

In contrast, humans normally gather there in tens of thousands,

and what we get is not chaos, usually.

What we get is extremely sophisticated and effective networks of cooperation.

All the huge achievements of humankind throughout history,

whether it's building the pyramids or flying to the moon,

have been based not on individual abilities,

but on this ability to cooperate flexibly in large numbers.

Think even about this very talk that I'm giving now:

I'm standing here in front of an audience of about 300 or 400 people,

most of you are complete strangers to me.

Similarly, I don't really know all the people who have organized

and worked on this event.

I don't know the pilot and the crew members of the plane

that brought me over here, yesterday, to London.

I don't know the people who invented and manufactured

this microphone and these cameras, which are recording what I'm saying.

I don't know the people who wrote all the books and articles

that I read in preparation for this talk.

And I certainly don't know all the people

who might be watching this talk over the Internet,

somewhere in Buenos Aires or in New Delhi.

Nevertheless, even though we don't know each other,

we can work together to create this global exchange of ideas.

This is something chimpanzees cannot do.

They communicate, of course,

but you will never catch a chimpanzee traveling to some distant chimpanzee band

to give them a talk about bananas or about elephants,

or anything else that might interest chimpanzees.

Now cooperation is, of course, not always nice;

all the horrible things humans have been doing throughout history --

and we have been doing some very horrible things --

all those things are also based on large-scale cooperation.

Prisons are a system of cooperation;

slaughterhouses are a system of cooperation;

concentration camps are a system of cooperation.

Chimpanzees don't have slaughterhouses and prisons and concentration camps.

Now suppose I've managed to convince you perhaps that yes,

we control the world because we can cooperate flexibly in large numbers.

The next question that immediately arises

in the mind of an inquisitive listener is:

How, exactly, do we do it?

What enables us alone, of all the animals, to cooperate in such a way?

The answer is our imagination.

We can cooperate flexibly with countless numbers of strangers,

because we alone, of all the animals on the planet,

can create and believe fictions, fictional stories.

And as long as everybody believes in the same fiction,

everybody obeys and follows the same rules,

the same norms, the same values.

All other animals use their communication system

only to describe reality.

A chimpanzee may say, "Look! There's a lion, let's run away!"

Or, "Look! There's a banana tree over there! Let's go and get bananas!"

Humans, in contrast, use their language not merely to describe reality,

but also to create new realities, fictional realities.

A human can say, "Look, there is a god above the clouds!

And if you don't do what I tell you to do,

when you die, God will punish you and send you to hell."

And if you all believe this story that I've invented,

then you will follow the same norms and laws and values,

and you can cooperate.

This is something only humans can do.

You can never convince a chimpanzee to give you a banana

by promising him, "... after you die, you'll go to chimpanzee heaven ..."

(Laughter)

"... and you'll receive lots and lots of bananas for your good deeds.

So now give me this banana."

No chimpanzee will ever believe such a story.

Only humans believe such stories,

which is why we control the world,

whereas the chimpanzees are locked up in zoos and research laboratories.

Now you may find it acceptable that yes,

in the religious field, humans cooperate by believing in the same fictions.

Millions of people come together to build a cathedral or a mosque

or fight in a crusade or a jihad, because they all believe in the same stories

about God and heaven and hell.

But what I want to emphasize is that exactly the same mechanism

underlies all other forms of mass-scale human cooperation,

not only in the religious field.

Take, for example, the legal field.

Most legal systems today in the world are based on a belief in human rights.

But what are human rights?

Human rights, just like God and heaven, are just a story that we've invented.

They are not an objective reality;

they are not some biological effect about homo sapiens.

Take a human being, cut him open, look inside,

you will find the heart, the kidneys, neurons, hormones, DNA,

but you won't find any rights.

The only place you find rights are in the stories

that we have invented and spread around over the last few centuries.

They may be very positive stories, very good stories,

but they're still just fictional stories that we've invented.

The same is true of the political field.

The most important factors in modern politics are states and nations.

But what are states and nations?

They are not an objective reality.

A mountain is an objective reality.

You can see it, you can touch it, you can even smell it.

But a nation or a state,

like Israel or Iran or France or Germany,

this is just a story that we've invented

and became extremely attached to.

The same is true of the economic field.

The most important actors today in the global economy

are companies and corporations.

Many of you today, perhaps, work for a corporation,

like Google or Toyota or McDonald's.

What exactly are these things?

They are what lawyers call legal fictions.

They are stories invented and maintained

by the powerful wizards we call lawyers.

(Laughter)

And what do corporations do all day?

Mostly, they try to make money.

Yet, what is money?

Again, money is not an objective reality; it has no objective value.

Take this green piece of paper, the dollar bill.

Look at it -- it has no value.

You cannot eat it, you cannot drink it,

you cannot wear it.

But then came along these master storytellers --

the big bankers,

the finance ministers,

the prime ministers --

and they tell us a very convincing story:

"Look, you see this green piece of paper?

It is actually worth 10 bananas."

And if I believe it, and you believe it,

and everybody believes it,

it actually works.

I can take this worthless piece of paper,

go to the supermarket,

give it to a complete stranger whom I've never met before,

and get, in exchange, real bananas which I can actually eat.

This is something amazing.

You could never do it with chimpanzees.

Chimpanzees trade, of course:

"Yes, you give me a coconut, I'll give you a banana."

That can work.

But, you give me a worthless piece of paper

and you except me to give you a banana?

No way!

What do you think I am, a human?

(Laughter)

Money, in fact, is the most successful story

ever invented and told by humans,

because it is the only story everybody believes.

Not everybody believes in God,

not everybody believes in human rights,

not everybody believes in nationalism,

but everybody believes in money, and in the dollar bill.

Take, even, Osama Bin Laden.

He hated American politics and American religion

and American culture,

but he had no objection to American dollars.

He was quite fond of them, actually.

(Laughter)

To conclude, then:

We humans control the world because we live in a dual reality.

All other animals live in an objective reality.

Their reality consists of objective entities,

like rivers and trees and lions and elephants.

We humans, we also live in an objective reality.

In our world, too, there are rivers and trees and lions and elephants.

But over the centuries,

we have constructed on top of this objective reality

a second layer of fictional reality,

a reality made of fictional entities,

like nations, like gods, like money, like corporations.

And what is amazing is that as history unfolded,

this fictional reality became more and more powerful

so that today, the most powerful forces in the world

are these fictional entities.

Today, the very survival of rivers and trees and lions and elephants

depends on the decisions and wishes of fictional entities,

like the United States, like Google, like the World Bank --

entities that exist only in our own imagination.

Thank you.

(Applause)

Bruno Giussani: Yuval, you have a new book out.

After Sapiens, you wrote another one,

and it's out in Hebrew, but not yet translated into ...

Yuval Noah Harari: I'm working on the translation as we speak.

BG: In the book, if I understand it correctly,

you argue that the amazing breakthroughs that we are experiencing right now

not only will potentially make our lives better,

but they will create -- and I quote you --

"... new classes and new class struggles, just as the industrial revolution did."

Can you elaborate for us?

YNH: Yes. In the industrial revolution,

we saw the creation of a new class of the urban proletariat.

And much of the political and social history of the last 200 years involved

what to do with this class, and the new problems and opportunities.

Now, we see the creation of a new massive class of useless people.

(Laughter)

As computers become better and better in more and more fields,

there is a distinct possibility that computers will out-perform us

in most tasks and will make humans redundant.

And then the big political and economic question

of the 21st century will be,

"What do we need humans for?",

or at least, "What do we need so many humans for?"

BG: Do you have an answer in the book?

YNH: At present, the best guess we have is to keep them happy

with drugs and computer games ...

(Laughter)

but this doesn't sound like a very appealing future.

BG: Ok, so you're basically saying in the book and now,

that for all the discussion about the growing evidence

of significant economic inequality, we are just kind of at the beginning

of the process?

YNH: Again, it's not a prophecy;

it's seeing all kinds of possibilities before us.

One possibility is this creation of a new massive class of useless people.

Another possibility is the division of humankind

into different biological castes,

with the rich being upgraded into virtual gods,

and the poor being degraded to this level of useless people.

BG: I feel there is another TED talk coming up in a year or two.

Thank you, Yuval, for making the trip.

YNH: Thanks!

(Applause)