Colbert interviewed Yuval Noah Harari on Monday night. My first reaction was, “Who”? By the end of the interview I was saying, “Amen!”
Harari is a philosopher, an historian, author of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, a book I need to read now. He is an intellect we would do well to listen to. He spent a fair amount of time talking about AI, but ended on the topic of humankind’s propensity for war and fighting. He said people fight less over food and territory than they do over the imaginary stories in their minds—over “who is God’s favorite child,” or who God gave Jerusalem to, for example.
Harari maintains that if we have conflicts over objects only, then armed conflict is the only solution. But if we’re fighting over who has the best story, then there’s a chance, in some instances, that we can avoid the warring by simply changing the story, finding one that both sides can be happy with. Sounds simplistic, but worth a try, maybe the only option that has a chance of working.
Fighting over who God likes best is never going to end well. Never.
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