A Study on the Abolition of Man
By Cynthia Chung
In 2018 Yuval Harari delivered a presentation to the World Economic Forum titled “Will the Future Be Human?” In his presentation, Harari seemed to be confirming our very worst fears of a dystopic future right out of a sci-fi movie. That we risked annihilating ourselves if we continued down the path we were already on as we progressed into an age of advanced technology.
These stark predictions by Harari were received almost as if he were a prophet, his visions of the future he was certain would come about, but he was unclear as to any detail concerning such a future, when it would come about, how it would come about and most importantly exactly how do we avoid such a fate? When Harari was questioned after his presentation and in another Q&A session at the same WEF meeting, all Harari could repeat was his own algorithm for a very general doomsday prophecy. To all other questions that pertained to specifics or mechanics of how such a dystopic future would play out, he would answer that he did not know.
This should strike any thinker as problematic. That is, are we supposed to listen to Harari as if he were a scholar or a prophet? If we are to take Harari as a scholar, that has developed insight into the subjects he discusses from the studies he has made, then it is a problem that he cannot discuss such specifics but rather entirely avoids them.
In fact, as we break down Harari’s own algorithms that he uses to form his vision for such a dystopic future, we see them riddled with personal assumptions, judgements and conclusions masked as objective algorithms.
[Note: For those who may not be aware an algorithm is a process or set of rules to be followed in calculations or other problem-solving operations, especially by a computer.]
Before we look at some of these biological algorithms of Harari, which have purported his theory that humans are hackable, we should quickly review how such a mathematical and evolutionary viewpoint came to be accepted in the first place, within academia, in defining human nature and the universe we live in.
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Read more at: https://cynthiachung.substack.com/p/why-hg-wells-world-brain-and-yuval.