Technocrats & Misanthropes

The Dystopian Designs of Yuval Noah Harari

As the world struggles to recover from the devastating effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, more trouble looms large on the horizon. Rumors of major famines are now in the air, at a time when a number of western leaders are implementing devastating agricultural policies that will only serve to exacerbate matters. While it’s easy to get carried down a rabbit hole of conspiracy theories flooding the internet, many of these ideas have their origin in an organization called the World Economic Forum (WEF), a think tank of unelected technocrats based in Switzerland who firmly believe they have humanity’s best interests at heart.

But a closer look at some of the ring leaders from this organization is sure to send a chill down your spine.

By now, pretty much everyone has heard of Klaus Schwab, founder of the WEF and author of Covid 19: The Great Reset and The Fourth Industrial Revolution. Widely characterized as the nearest thing to a real life “Dr. No,” Schwab is a Neo-Marxist who has brought to the fore several other dubious characters who collectively shape dystopian policies. One of them is Yuval Noah Harari, an Israeli-born Jew, currently serving as a professor of Medieval History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and best-selling author of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind and Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow.

Born in 1976 into a secular Jewish family, Harari entered the Hebrew University-Jerusalem at age 17, where he studied history. In 2002, he moved to Oxford to complete his Ph.D. (also in history). Harari is gay, having married his “husband” in Toronto, Canada, and through his sensationalist writings going back to 2008, he has been elevated to international notoriety, having given influential TED talks and spoken at various institutions, including the WEF.

Blatant Disregard for Modern Science

While I wouldn’t recommend Harari’s popular works, several academics and experts in the fields in which he speculates, have cast severe doubt on his claims. The first thing to point out is, Harari is a historian, not a scientist, and thus cannot credibly offer legitimate and balanced insight into the scientific topics he expounds in his books.

Dr. Casey Luskin, Associate Director of the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science And Culture, holds a PhD in geology from the University of Johannesburg and has studied evolutionary theory extensively at both the graduate and post-graduate level. Luskin wrote a very fair and balanced review of Harari’s book, Sapiens, in which he uncovers many flaws and factual errors in Harari’s claims about biological evolution, and especially the origin and nature of humanity. Luskin charitably characterizes Sapiens as “scientifically weak”:

It fails to explain too many crucial aspects of the human experience, contradicts too much data, and is too dark and hopeless as regards human rights and equality. On top of that, if it is true, then neither you nor I could ever know. Nor, for that matter, could … Yuval Noah Harari.

Planet over People

Harari believes biological evolution is about to give way to intelligent evolution, where AI and bioengineering will supplant humans, making most of our lives redundant. In a chilling interview conducted in a TED podcast, Harari said:

Science is replacing evolution by natural selection with evolution by intelligent design, not the intelligent design of some god in the clouds, [but] our intelligent design, and the design of our clouds. These are the new driving forces of evolution.

Harari says the fourth industrial revolution will have no need for the vast majority of the world’s population:

If you go back to the middle of the 20^th century – and it doesn’t matter if you are in the United States with Roosevelt, or if you’re in Germany with Hitler, or even in the USSR with Stalin – and you think about building the future, then your building materials are those millions of people who are working hard in factories, in the farms, the soldiers. You need them. You don’t have any kind of future without them. Now fast forward to the early 21^st century when we just don’t need the vast majority of the population because the future is about developing more and more sophisticated technology like artificial intelligence and bioengineering.

As the former climate change activist turned whistle-blower Michael Schellenberger explains in his book, Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All, we are dealing here with total misanthropes who value the planet far above human beings, and who fervently wish for mass depopulation to occur.

Rebellion against Reality

All this flies in the face of God’s plan for humanity, where he tells Adam and Eve to go forth and multiply and fill the earth, providing ample resources for us to sustain a global civilization with billions of humans. Perhaps most importantly, Harari chooses to ignore the great ethical revolution wrought by the ancient Hebrews, who changed the course of western civilization – the very qualities that allowed his own life to flourish.

Their prophets gave the world a moral imperative that is as essential today as it was two millennia ago, such as the Golden Rule that we should do to others as we would others do to us; the Great Commandment to love our neighbors as ourselves; the Ten Commandments that forbid murder and theft; and imperatives to love the stranger, the widow, and the orphan - those without a voice in this world. Seen in this light, Harari’s dystopian vision for the future of humanity should fill us with dread.

Harari is perfectly acquainted with all the biblical narratives, as evidenced by the many quotes he uses in his books, but unsurprisingly, given his life choices, he rejects them as pure mythology. Harari appears to be in open rebellion against objective reality, as evidence by his blatant disregard for Biblical archaeology; his blind spot for believing the evolutionary narrative, hook, line, and sinker; and his bizarre claims about transhumanism, where human beings as we know them today will disappear in under a century, to be replaced by hybrid superbeings blending digital technology with blood, sweat, and tears.

Harari needs our prayers, not our allegiance.