Yuval Noah Harari on happiness and Aldous Huxley

Yuval Noah Harari on happiness and Aldous Huxley

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Yuval Noah Harari interviewed by Lasse Biørnstad in Oslo, March 15. 2016.

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Transcript

0:00

uh happiness is a very important but

0:01

very difficult question uh because it's

0:04

very hard to measure and to know whether

0:07

one person is happier than another many

0:10

people have a simplistic view that

0:14

happiness is linked to power that as

0:16

humans gain more power they use their

0:19

power to overcome all kinds of problems

0:22

and to realize their dreams and

0:24

therefore they inevitably become

0:27

happier and but this doesn't really work

0:29

like this it is certainly true that

0:32

humans have become more and more

0:34

powerful as history evolved but power is

0:38

not easily translated into happiness and

0:40

there are

0:41

many big Revolutions in history that

0:45

increased human power without probably

0:48

increasing human happiness for instance

0:51

in the Agricultural

0:53

Revolution about 10,000 years ago humans

0:56

gained immense new powers they gained

0:59

control of various species of plants and

1:03

animals like wheat like rice like

1:05

chickens like cows and this gave them

1:08

the power to start building cities and

1:10

kingdoms and Empires and multiply and

1:13

and Conquer uh many new territories

1:15

around the world but there is no

1:18

indication that the individual human

1:20

being became happier as a consequence

1:23

just the opposite uh there are many

1:25

indications that the even though the

1:27

collective became more powerful the

1:30

individual peasant had a worse life than

1:33

the individual hunter gatherer 20 or

1:36

30,000 years previously in the Stone Age

1:39

ER the typical peasant in ancient Egypt

1:42

or ancient China had to work much harder

1:45

than a hunter

1:47

gatherer the human body and human mind

1:50

evolved in adaptation to the life of

1:53

hunter

1:54

gatherers uh for millions of years what

1:57

humans did was go to the forest climb

1:59

trees trees look for mushrooms run after

2:02

rabbits things like that and suddenly

2:04

with agriculture the typical peasant

2:07

what he or she had to do all day was dig

2:10

canals and be bring water in buckets

2:12

from the river and harvest the corn and

2:14

grind the corn these were types of work

2:18

which were much more difficult for the

2:20

human body and much more boring to the

2:23

human mind and in exchange for all the

2:26

hard work people actually got a worse

2:29

diet hunter gatherers lived by eating

2:32

dozens of different kinds of animals and

2:36

plants and mushrooms and berries and

2:38

fish and whatever most peasants in

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agricultural societies subsisted by

2:44

eating very a very small number of crops

2:48

or even just a single crop like if you

2:50

were a Chinese peasant you would eat

2:52

just rice for breakfast and rice for

2:54

lunch and rice for dinner for years and

2:57

years it's very poor nutrition

3:00

so nutrition got worse work became more

3:03

difficult and you had much more social

3:07

inequality and exploitation and

3:09

oppression than before Hunter gather

3:12

societies were relatively egalitarian

3:15

without big differences between

3:17

different people agricultural

3:19

societies uh became hierarchical with

3:23

very small Elites of Kings and Priests

3:26

and noblemen controlling and exploiting

3:29

the mass of the peasants and and and

3:31

simple people so from all these

3:34

perspectives the the increase in human

3:36

power did not lead to an increase in

3:40

individual

3:42

happiness over the last 200 years for

3:45

the first time we see real Improvement

3:48

in the life of the average person like

3:50

the average Chinese peasant over the

3:54

last 200 years we see a decrease in

3:58

epidemics a decrease in famine a

4:01

decrease in violence and a rise in life

4:05

expectancy uh so the last 200 years from

4:08

this perspective we finally see some

4:11

correlation between power and happiness

4:15

but at the same time we also see much

4:18

more negative developments whether it's

4:21

the destruction of the ecological system

4:23

around us whether it's the

4:26

disintegration of families and

4:28

communities for thousands of years

4:31

humans lived millions of years actually

4:34

as social animals uh whose life centered

4:38

around a network of family members and

4:41

community

4:42

members and human happiness to a large

4:45

degree depends on the strength of these

4:48

family and community

4:50

relations but since the Industrial

4:53

Revolution in the industrial and

4:56

post-industrial World families and

4:58

communities are disintegrated ating and

5:01

people today are loner and more

5:03

alienated than in any previous time in

5:06

history and at the same time people are

5:09

also losing their sensory abilities we

5:13

are losing the ability to hear to smell

5:16

to uh to see and to pay attention to the

5:20

world around us as a hunter gaer or even

5:24

the peasant you needed to be very you

5:27

needed to have very sharp senses and to

5:30

be very aware of everything that is

5:33

happening here and now if you didn't

5:36

have sharp senses and if you wasn't if

5:38

you weren't aware of the here and now

5:41

you you couldn't

5:43

survive uh people living in the modern

5:47

world they don't need this and and we

5:50

see a decrease in sensory abilities and

5:53

we see a decrease in the ability to pay

5:55

attention so paradoxically the world is

5:59

becoming

6:00

more

6:01

gray H more

6:03

D

6:04

and from this perspective life the life

6:08

of the average person today in the

6:11

modern world is poorer than the life of

6:15

hunter gatherers 20,000 years ago so

6:18

it's so you see that there are good

6:20

developments of course but it's very

6:23

difficult to say ER categorically that

6:26

yes people today are happier than they

6:29

were 20,000 years ago uh do you have a

6:32

favorite science fiction writer um Aldo

6:34

sley Aldo sley yeah yes but I think that

6:37

Brave New World is the best science

6:39

fiction novel of the 20th century uh

6:44

because he really managed to see beyond

6:48

the confines of his time he was writing

6:51

in the early

6:52

1930s uh where everybody were very

6:55

concerned about

6:56

totalitarianism about communism in

6:58

Russia and fascism in Italy and the rise

7:00

of Hitler in Germany and people you have

7:03

like like the dystopias of George always

7:07

1984 which Envision a totalitarian world

7:10

with secret police and torture and all

7:13

that and Huxley was able to see beyond

7:16

that and to Envision the consumerist

7:19

Society of the 21st century uh in his

7:23

vision there is no secret police there

7:25

is no totalitarian regime there is no

7:28

brutality everything happiness is the

7:31

main value the entire world is geared

7:34

towards uh pleasure and towards

7:37

happiness not towards suppression and

7:40

and

7:41

oppression um he basically envisioned

7:44

the world built on sex drugs and rock

7:46

and roll and it's fascinating I mean

7:51

technologically speaking Brave New World

7:53

is completely outdated he didn't know

7:56

anything about genetics about artificial

7:59

intellig elligence so from a

8:00

technological perspective it's it's very

8:03

primitive science fiction but

8:06

philosophically speaking I

8:09

think nobody has tackled these

8:12

issues of what does it mean and to use

8:17

technology to create Paradise on Earth

8:20

and what does it mean to set human

8:23

happiness as the highest goal what are

8:25

the implications nobody discussed these

8:28

issues better and then Al sley in in the

8:31

recent century