A new story for the new world

 The liberal democratic story, with free will and the individual in focus may not work any more.

As Yuval Harari points our will is guided by our desires and we cannot choose our desires.

In the future AI will now us more than we know ourselves. We already get information and advertises on the net that are there because of our interests or  what we googled on before or what we had bought. 

AI can be a far more dangerous technology in the future were we can be hacked by companies or dictators.

A new big story may be produced slowly and from many sources. 

It may hopefully not be superstitious but grounded in science. 

It may be aware of that we are dependent on mother earth, nature and other people. 

Or a more dark story will be that technology will save us, for instance by travelling to other planets or by never living forever with the help of computers. 

Anyway we cannot look back.

Harari meditates every day and goes every year for long vipassana retreats. 

 He is for sure influenced by Buddhism in his view that everything changes  and that nothing has an essence. 

In conversation with the physicist Max Tegmark he is asked about possible new stories. The only thing he knows is that it it will be worldwide. 

Tegmark, who is born in Sweden gives the well fare system in Sweden as an example as an idea that has been spread worldwide. 

And now we have Greta Thunberg... 

Anyway, any story will pass away. 

It can be a sad ending, as Tegmark says, many of us feel lost in our society now. Is the story of individual richness and success in decline? It doesn't seem to be good for the mental health and certainly not for the environment.  The capitalist system cannot stop climate change (and not stop overeating). 






Maybe there will not be one big story, but many. 

But the story about mass extinction and climate change must be spoken again and again.

Here's the conversation between Harari and Tegmark










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