# Yuval Noah Harari, 'Why fascism is so tempting, and how your data could power it' (TED2018)

- Speaker: Yuval Noah Harari
- Event: TED2018, Vancouver (delivered remotely as a digital avatar from Tel Aviv)
- Date: April 2018
- Length: Talk 14 min 13 s, then a 4-minute conversation with Chris Anderson
- Video URL: https://www.ted.com/talks/yuval_noah_harari_why_fascism_is_so_tempting_and_how_your_data_could_power_it
- Slides: None.
- Transcript source: Whisper (faster-whisper, model medium) on the archive.org mirror of the TED video. TED's own transcript page could not be fetched from this machine (HTTP 409). Timestamps match the TED video.
- Corrections: Corrections applied: the speaker's name where the host says it, and one mis-heard 'a fascist'.
- Format: `[mm:ss]` is the time the line starts in the source recording. Machine transcript: expect small word errors; quotes used in the analysis were checked against the published text where one exists.

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[00:01] Hello everyone, it's a bit funny because I did write that humans will become digital,
[00:20] but I didn't think it will happen so fast and that it will happen to me.
[00:25] But here I am as a digital avatar, and here you are.
[00:29] So let's start.
[00:30] And let's start with the question, how many fascists are there in the audience today?
[00:39] Well, it's a bit difficult to say, because we've forgotten what fascism is.
[00:46] People now use the term fascist as a kind of general purpose abuse, or they confuse
[00:53] fascism with nationalism.
[00:57] So let's take a few minutes to clarify what fascism actually is, and how is it different
[01:04] from nationalism.
[01:05] Some of the forms of nationalism have been among the most benevolent
[01:10] of human creations.
[01:12] Nations are communities of millions of strangers
[01:17] who don't really know each other.
[01:19] For example, I don't know the eight million people
[01:22] who share my Israeli citizenship.
[01:26] But thanks to nationalism,
[01:28] we can all care about one another and cooperate effectively.
[01:32] This is very good.
[01:34] Some people, like John Lennon,
[01:36] imagine that without nationalism,
[01:39] the world will be a peaceful paradise.
[01:43] But far more likely, without nationalism,
[01:46] we would have been living in tribal chaos.
[01:50] If you look today at the most prosperous and peaceful countries in the world,
[01:55] countries like Sweden and Switzerland and Japan,
[02:00] you will see that they have a very strong sense of nationalism.
[02:05] In contrast, countries that lack a strong sense of nationalism,
[02:09] like Congo and Somalia and Afghanistan,
[02:13] tend to be violent and poor.
[02:16] So what is fascism,
[02:18] and how is it different from nationalism?
[02:21] Well, nationalism tells me that my nation is unique
[02:27] and that I have special obligations towards my nation.
[02:31] Fascism, in contrast,
[02:34] tells me that my nation is supreme
[02:37] and that I have exclusive obligations towards it.
[02:42] I don't need to care about anybody or anything other than my nation.
[02:48] Usually, of course, people have many identities
[02:52] and loyalties to different groups.
[02:54] For example, I can be a good patriot, loyal to my country,
[02:59] and at the same time, be loyal to my family,
[03:03] my neighborhood, my profession,
[03:05] humankind as a whole, truth and beauty.
[03:09] Of course, when I have different identities and loyalties,
[03:13] it sometimes creates conflicts and complications.
[03:17] But well, whoever told you that life was easy?
[03:21] Life is complicated.
[03:23] Deal with it.
[03:26] Fascism is what happens when people try to ignore the complications
[03:32] and to make life too easy for themselves.
[03:36] Fascism denies all identities except the national identity
[03:41] and insists that I have obligations only towards my nation.
[03:47] If my nation demands that I sacrifice my family,
[03:51] then I will sacrifice my family.
[03:53] If the nation demands that I kill millions of people,
[03:58] then I will kill millions of people.
[04:01] And if my nation demands that I betray truth and beauty,
[04:07] then I should betray truth and beauty.
[04:11] For example, how does a fascist evaluate art?
[04:16] How does a fascist decide
[04:18] whether a movie is a good movie or a bad movie?
[04:22] Well, it's very, very, very simple.
[04:27] So it's really just one yardstick.
[04:29] If the movie serves the interests of the nation, it's a good movie.
[04:34] If the movie doesn't serve the interests of the nation, it's a bad movie.
[04:38] That's it.
[04:40] Similarly, how does a fascist decide what to teach kids in school?
[04:45] Again, it's very simple.
[04:47] There is just one yardstick.
[04:49] You teach the kids whatever serves the interests of the nation.
[04:55] The truth doesn't matter at all.
[05:00] Now the horrors of the Second World War and of the Holocaust
[05:04] remind us of the terrible consequences of this way of thinking.
[05:10] But usually when we talk about the ills of fascism,
[05:14] we do so in an ineffective way
[05:17] because we tend to depict fascism as a hideous monster
[05:22] without really explaining what was so seductive about it.
[05:27] It's a bit like these Hollywood movies
[05:29] that depict the bad guys,
[05:31] Voldemort or Lord Sauron or Darth Vader,
[05:35] as ugly and mean and cruel.
[05:38] They're cruel even to their own supporters.
[05:41] When I see these movies, I never understand.
[05:45] Why would anybody be tempted to follow a disgusting creep like Voldemort?
[05:52] The problem with evil is that in real life, evil doesn't necessarily look ugly.
[05:59] It can look very beautiful.
[06:02] This is something that Christianity knew very well, which is why in Christian art, as
[06:07] against Hollywood, Satan is usually depicted as a gorgeous hunk.
[06:13] This is why it's so difficult
[06:14] to resist the temptations of Satan
[06:17] and why it is also difficult
[06:19] to resist the temptations of fascism.
[06:23] Fascism makes people see themselves
[06:25] as belonging to the most beautiful
[06:28] and most important thing in the world, the nation.
[06:32] And then people think,
[06:33] well, they taught us that fascism is ugly.
[06:37] But when I look in the mirror,
[06:38] I see something very beautiful,
[06:40] so I can't be a fascist, right?
[06:43] wrong. That's the problem with fascism. When you look in the fascist mirror, you see yourself
[06:49] as far more beautiful than you really are. In the 1930s, when Germans looked in the
[06:56] fascist mirror, they saw Germany as the most beautiful thing in the world. If today Russians
[07:03] look in the fascist mirror, they will see Russia as the most beautiful thing in the
[07:08] And if Israelis look in the fascist mirror,
[07:11] they will see Israel as the most beautiful thing in the world.
[07:16] This does not mean that we are now facing a rerun of the 1930s.
[07:23] Fascism and dictatorships might come back,
[07:26] but they will come back in a new form,
[07:30] a form which is much more relevant to the new technological realities of the 21st century.
[07:37] In ancient times, land was the most important asset in the world.
[07:44] Politics, therefore, was the struggle to control land.
[07:48] And dictatorship meant that all the land was owned by a single ruler or by a small oligarchy.
[07:57] Then in the modern age, machines became more important than land.
[08:02] Politics became the struggle to control the machines.
[08:06] And dictatorship meant that too many of the machines
[08:11] became concentrated in the hands of the government
[08:15] or of a small elite.
[08:17] Now data is replacing both land and machines
[08:21] as the most important asset.
[08:24] Politics becomes the struggle to control
[08:27] the flows of data.
[08:29] And dictatorship now means that too much data
[08:34] is being concentrated in the hands of the government
[08:38] or of a small elite.
[08:40] The greatest danger that now faces liberal democracy
[08:45] is that the revolution in information technology
[08:49] will make dictatorships more efficient than democracies.
[08:54] In the 20th century, democracy and capitalism
[08:58] defeated fascism and communism
[09:01] because democracy was better at processing data
[09:05] and making decisions.
[09:07] Given 20th century technology,
[09:09] it was simply inefficient to try and concentrate
[09:14] too much data and too much power in one place.
[09:19] But it is not a law of nature
[09:23] that centralized data processing
[09:26] is always less efficient than distributed data processing.
[09:32] With the rise of artificial intelligence
[09:34] and machine learning, it might become feasible
[09:38] to process enormous amounts of information
[09:41] very efficiently in one place,
[09:44] to take all the decisions in one place,
[09:47] and then centralized data processing
[09:50] will be more efficient than distributed data processing.
[09:55] And then the main handicap of authoritarian regimes
[09:58] in the 20th century,
[10:00] their attempt to concentrate all the information in one place,
[10:05] it will become their greatest advantage.
[10:10] Another technological danger
[10:12] that threatens the future of democracy
[10:15] is the merger of information technology
[10:19] with biotechnology,
[10:20] which might result in the creation of algorithms
[10:24] that know me better than I know myself.
[10:29] And once you have such algorithms,
[10:31] an external system like the government
[10:34] cannot just predict my decisions.
[10:38] It can also manipulate my feelings, my emotions.
[10:42] A dictator may not be able to provide me
[10:46] with good healthcare,
[10:47] but he will be able to make me love him
[10:51] and to make me hate the opposition.
[10:55] Democracy will find it difficult to survive such a development,
[11:00] because in the end, democracy is not based on human rationality.
[11:06] It's based on human feelings.
[11:10] During elections and referendums,
[11:12] you're not being asked, what do you think?
[11:16] You're actually being asked, how do you feel?
[11:20] And if somebody can manipulate your emotions effectively,
[11:24] democracy will become an emotional puppet show.
[11:30] So what can we do to prevent the return of fascism
[11:34] and the rise of new dictatorships?
[11:38] The number one question that we face
[11:41] is who controls the data?
[11:44] If you are an engineer,
[11:46] then find ways to prevent too much data
[11:50] from being concentrated in too few hands.
[11:53] and find ways to make sure the distributed data processing
[11:59] is at least as efficient as centralized data processing.
[12:04] This will be the best safeguard for democracy.
[12:07] As for the rest of us who are not engineers,
[12:11] the number one question facing us
[12:14] is how not to allow ourselves to be manipulated
[12:19] by those who control the data.
[12:23] The enemies of liberal democracy, they have a method.
[12:27] They hack our feelings.
[12:30] Not our emails, not our bank accounts.
[12:32] They hack our feelings of fear and hate and vanity
[12:38] and then use these feelings to polarize
[12:41] and destroy democracy from within.
[12:44] This is actually a method that Silicon Valley pioneered
[12:49] in order to sell us products.
[12:52] But now, the enemies of democracy are using this very method
[12:57] to sell us fear and hate and vanity.
[13:01] They cannot create these feelings out of nothing,
[13:06] so they get to know our own preexisting weaknesses
[13:10] and then use them against us.
[13:13] And it is therefore the responsibility of all of us
[13:17] to get to know our weaknesses
[13:19] and make sure that they do not become a weapon
[13:23] in the hands of the enemies of democracy.
[13:27] Getting to know our own weaknesses
[13:29] will also help us to avoid the trap of the fascist mirror.
[13:36] As we explained earlier, fascism exploits our vanity.
[13:40] It makes us see ourselves as far more beautiful
[13:45] than we really are.
[13:46] This is the seduction.
[13:48] But if you really know yourself,
[13:50] you will not fall for this kind of flattery.
[13:54] If somebody puts a mirror in front of your eyes
[13:58] that hides all your ugly bits
[14:01] and makes you see yourself as far more beautiful
[14:06] and far more important than you really are,
[14:09] just break that mirror.
[14:13] Thank you.
[14:22] Ivo, thank you.
[14:24] Goodness me.
[14:25] And it's so nice to see you again.
[14:27] You know, so if I understand you right,
[14:29] you're alerting us to two big dangers here.
[14:32] One is the possible resurgence of a seductive form of fascism,
[14:36] but close to that,
[14:38] dictatorships that may not exactly be fascistic
[14:41] but control all the data.
[14:43] I wonder if there's a third concern that some people here have already expressed,
[14:47] which is when not governments but big corporations control all our data.
[14:52] What do you call that, and how worried should we be about that?
[14:56] Well, in the end,
[14:57] there isn't such a big difference between the corporations and the governments,
[15:02] because, as I said, the question is, who controls the data?
[15:05] This is the real government.
[15:07] If you call it a corporation or a government,
[15:09] if it's a corporation and it really controls the data,
[15:12] this is our real government.
[15:14] So the difference is more apparent than real.
[15:18] But I somehow, at least with corporations,
[15:21] you can imagine market mechanisms where they can be taken down.
[15:24] I mean, if consumers just decide that a company is no longer operating
[15:28] in their interest,
[15:29] it does open the door to another market.
[15:31] It seems easier to imagine that than, say,
[15:33] citizens rising up and taking down a government
[15:36] that is in control of everything.
[15:37] Well, we are not there yet.
[15:39] But again, if a corporation really knows you better than you know yourself,
[15:44] then, as I said, it can manipulate your own deepest emotions and desires,
[15:49] and you won't even realize you will think this is your authentic self.
[15:54] So in theory, yes, in theory, you can rise against the corporation,
[15:58] just as in theory, you can rise against the dictatorship.
[16:02] But in practice, it is extremely difficult.
[16:07] CA So in Homo Deus,
[16:08] you argued that this would be the century
[16:11] when humans kind of became gods,
[16:15] either through development of artificial intelligence
[16:17] or through genetic engineering,
[16:20] has this prospect of political system shift, collapse,
[16:26] impacted your view on that possibility?
[16:29] Well, I think it makes it even more likely,
[16:32] and more likely that it will happen faster,
[16:35] because in times of crisis,
[16:38] people are willing to take risks
[16:40] that they wouldn't otherwise take,
[16:42] and people are willing to try all kinds of high-risk,
[16:46] high-gain technologies.
[16:49] So these kinds of crises might serve the same function
[16:53] as the two world wars in the 20th century.
[16:57] The two world wars greatly accelerated
[17:00] the development of new and dangerous technologies,
[17:03] and the same thing might happen in the 21st century.
[17:07] I mean, you need to be a little crazy to run too fast,
[17:11] let's say, with genetic engineering.
[17:13] But now you have more and more crazy people
[17:16] in charge of different countries in the world,
[17:19] so the chances are getting higher, not lower.
[17:23] So putting it all together, Yuval, you've got this unique vision.
[17:26] Like, roll the clock forward 30 years.
[17:28] What's your guess?
[17:29] Does humanity somehow just scrape through,
[17:31] look back and say,
[17:33] wow, that was a close thing, we did it, or not?
[17:36] Well, so far we've managed to overcome all the previous crises,
[17:40] and especially if you look at liberal democracy
[17:43] and you think things are bad now,
[17:46] just remember how much worse things looked in 1938 or in 1968.
[17:52] So this is really nothing.
[17:53] This is just a small crisis.
[17:55] But you can never know,
[17:57] because as a historian,
[18:00] I know that you should never underestimate human stupidity.
[18:04] It is one of the most powerful forces that shape history.
[18:10] Yuval, it's been an absolute delight to have you with us.
[18:13] Thank you for making the virtual trip.
[18:15] Have a great evening there in Tel Aviv.
[18:17] Yuval Harari.
[18:18] Thank you.
[18:19] Thank you very much.