With Respect to the Truth ...

Review by Bill Doughty

Here's a mind-expanding book that offers cosmic advice for the future – and the advice is most welcome today. 

Can we distinguish between facts and beliefs? Do we understand why some people reject science and secular values of truth, compassion, equality, freedom, courage and responsibility? Are we ready for a world in which humans could be irrelevant but under the control of more authoritarian leaders? Oh, and by the way, "what is the meaning of life" (and why is that the wrong question)?

According to philosopher-scholar Yuval Noah Harari in "21 Lessons for the 21st Century" (Spiegel & Grau, Penguin Random House, 2018), twin revolutions of infotech and biotech are bringing about big data algorithms and bioengineering as the world races to embrace artificial intelligence.

"What we are facing is not the replacement of millions of human workers by millions of individual robots and computers; rather, individual humans are likely to be replaced by integrated networks," Harari writes.

USAF maintainers prepare an MQ-9 Reaper drone at Ali Al Salem Air Base, Kuwait, July 23, 2019. (SSgt. Mozer O. Da Cunha)

This is a challenge already for the U.S. Air Force as it accelerates artificial intelligence technology:

"AI might help create new human jobs in another way. Instead of humans competing with AI, they could focus on servicing and leveraging AI. For example, the replacement of human pilots by drones has eliminated some jobs but created many new opportunities in maintenance, remote control, data analysis, and cybersecurity. The U.S. armed forces need thirty people to operate every unmanned Predator or Reaper drone flying over Syria, while analyzing the resulting harvest of information occupies at least eighty people more. In 2015 the U.S. Air Force lacked sufficient trained humans to fill all these positions, and therefore faced an ironic crisis in manning its unmanned aircraft."

Harari said the future may see "the rise of a new useless class" as we experience higher unemployment and a shortage of skilled workers. "Today, despite the shortage of drone operators and data analysts, the U.S. Air Force is unwilling to fill the gaps with Walmart dropouts."

In a rapid explanation of human history – from the African savannah through the Crusades and effects of the Industrial Revolution to today's Nuclear Age and into tomorrow – Harari provides an ominous warning:

"The challenge posed to humankind in the twenty-first century by infotech and biotech is arguably much bigger than the challenge posed in the previous era by steam engines, railroads, and electricity. And given the immense destructive power of our civilization, we just cannot afford more failed models, world wars, and bloody revolutions. This time around, the failed models might result in nuclear wars, genetically engineered monstrosities, and a complete breakdown of the biosphere. We have to do better than we did in confronting the Industrial Revolution."

Why worry about the growing influence of algorithms? Harari says the shift in authority from human control to networks of algorithms "might open the way to the rise of digital dictatorships."

One important question for our time, he says, is "who owns the data?"

Harari reminds us how George Orwell in "1984" warned of televisions watching us and controlling free will and freedom of choice. Biotechnology, memory storage capability and data assimilation are advancing exponentially and can be controlled centrally. Imagine the new technologies in the hands of authoritarian leaders.

"In fact, we might end up with something that even Orwell could barely imagine: a total surveillance regime that follows not just all our external activities and utterances but can even go under our skin to observe our inner experiences. Consider, for example, what the Kim regime in North Korea might do with the new technology. In the future, each North Korean citizen might be required to wear a biometric bracelet that monitors everything that person does and says, as well as their blood pressure and brain activity. By using our growing understanding of the human brain and drawing on the immense powers of machine learning, the North Korean regime might be able for the first time in history to gauge what each and every citizen is thinking at each and every moment. If a North Korean looks at a picture of Kim Jong-un and the biometric sensors pick up the telltale signs of anger (high blood pressure, increased activity in the amygdala), that person will be in the gulag tomorrow morning."

Harari warns, "Democracy in its present form cannot survive the merger of biotech and infotech," where authoritarian governments could control citizens "even more than in Nazi Germany."

In "Mein Kampf," Hitler wrote about the importance of constant repetition; his propagandist Joseph Goebbels said, "A lie told once remains a lie, but a lie told a thousand times becomes the truth."

Using lies and intimidation, dictators like Hitler and Joseph Stalin in the previous century controlled people's minds through a cult of personality, belief and anger. "The dictator might not be able to provide citizens with healthcare or equality, but he could make them love him and hate his opponents," writes Harari.

Stalin shamelessly embraced false stories and propaganda as he controlled minds, persecuted dissenters and killed millions of people, including in Ukraine, where his imposed famine became a weapon.

More recently, after Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine and occupied Crimea in 2014 he lied about Russian troops being involved. Later, he and Russian nationalists claimed Ukraine is not a sovereign nation and should be part of Mother Russia.

"Ukrainian citizens, outside observers, and professional historians may well be outraged by this explanation and regard it as a kind of 'atom bomb lie' in the Russian arsenal of deception. To claim that Ukraine does not exist as a nation and as an independent country disregards a long list of historical facts – for example, that during the thousand years of supposed Russian unity, Kiev and Moscow were part of the same country for only about three hundred years. It also violates numerous international laws and treaties that Russia has accepted and that guarantee the sovereignty and borders of independent Ukraine. Most important, it ignores what millions of Ukrainians think about themselves. Don't they have a say about who they are?"

Fortunately, the U.S. Navy stands with its friend, the democratic nation of Ukraine.

Cmdr. Tyson Young, right, CO of USS Carney (DDG 64), meets with a Ukrainian Navy music conductor after a Ukrainian Navy performance during exercise Sea Breeze 2019 in Odesa, Ukraine, July 4, 2019. Sea Breeze is a U.S. and Ukraine co-hosted multinational maritime exercise held in the Black Sea and is designed to enhance interoperability of participating nations and strengthen maritime security and peace within the region. (MC1 Kyle Steckler)

Unfortunately, people throughout the world are unaware of verifiable facts. We are ill-equipped to deal with future "deep fake" attacks, attempts to interfere with free elections, and mind control by digital dictators.

Harari shows that human nature makes us susceptible to false information, and the so-called post-truth era may have started millennia ago with belief systems that reject science and objective reality. Fiction, for many people, is more palpable and believable than fact.

What to do? Harari says we should meditate in order to achieve greater consciousness, which he calls the greatest mystery in the universe. He says, "The big question facing humans isn't 'what is the meaning of life?' but rather 'how do we stop suffering."

This book is a good companion to Harari's other works, "Sapiens" and "Homo Deus." As with his previous works, "21 Questions" goes beyond nations, ethnicities, religions and human consciousness to present a cosmic perspective in examining big questions in search for ultimate truth and wisdom.