What explains the rise of humans?

70,000 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 our own business
in a corner of Africa,

to 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 bets
on the chimpanzee,

not on myself.

And this is not something
wrong with me personally.

I guess if they took almost anyone 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 individual level,

it's on the collective level.

Humans control the planet
because they are the only animal

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 bee hive can function.

And if there is a new opportunity,
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
of one of the other.

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

and I want to cooperate with you,

I need to 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 1,000 chimpanzees

cannot cooperate at all.

And if you now try to cram
100,000 chimpanzees

into Oxhill (?) Street or
into Wembley (?) stadium,

or into Tiananmen Square
or in 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 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 going 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 crew members
of the plane

who brought me over here, yesterday,
to London.

I don't know the people who
invented and manufactured

this microphone or these cameras
that are recording what I'm saying.

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

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 about anything else that might
interest chimpanzees.

Now cooperation is not always nice,

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

and we have been doing
some very horrible things--

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 prions and concentration camps.

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

we control the world because
we cooperate flexibly

in large numbers.

The next question that immediately
arises in the mind

of an inquisitive listener is: how,
exactly, did 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 name values.

All other animals use
their communication system

only to describe reality.

A chimpanzee may say,
"Look, there is a lion,

let's run away."

Or, "Look, there is 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!

If you don't do what I tell you to do,

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

But 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 that after you die,

you'll go to chimpanzee heaven

and you will receive lots
and lots of bananas

for your good deeds.

So now give me this banana.

No chimpanzee will ever believe that story.

Only humans believe such stories,

which is why we control the world,

whereas the chimpanzees are locked
in zoos and research laboratories.

Now we might 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

invented and spread around
over the last few centuries.

They may seem like very positive stories,

very good stories,

but they are still fictional stories
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 and touch it,

you can ever smell it.

But a nation and 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 true of the economic field.

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 McDonalds.

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.

And what do corporations do all day?

Mostly, they try to make money.

Yet, want is money?

Money is not an objective reality,
it has no objective value.

Take this green piece of paper,

look at it,

is has no value.

You cannot eat it, you cannot drink it,
you cannot wear it.

But then came along these
master storytellers,

the big 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 believe 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 that with chimpanzees.

Chimpanzees trade, of course,

"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 believe 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 on objection
to American dollars.

He was quite fond of them, actually.

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 contracted 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 ficiotnal entities

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

entities that exist only
in our own imagination.

Thank you.

(Applause)

Bruno Giussani: 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 breakthrough
that we are experiencing right now

not only will potentially make
our lives better,

but they will create a new class
and new class struggles

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 proletariate.

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

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