Will the Next Big Revolution Create a Worthless Class of Humans?

May 10, 2017

WRITER

Dr. Yuval Noah Harari, author of the critically-acclaimed New York Times bestseller Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, joined Glenn on radio for an enlightening discussion about his latest book Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, an equally compelling and provocative book about humanity’s future, and our quest to upgrade humans into gods with technology.

"This promises to be a fascinating conversation," Glenn said prior to introducing Dr. Harari.

He also read an excerpt from Homo Deus that should make the average human squirm:

The main products of the 21st century will not be textiles, vehicles, and weapons, but bodies, brains, and minds. While the Industrial Revolution created the working class, the next big revolution will create the worthless class. The way humans have treated animals is a good indicator of how upgraded humans will treat us.

"I disagree with this guy on some major fundamental issues, but this book is so important because it tells you what is coming. Are you going to be able to avoid this? Absolutely not. Technology is on the march --- and it's a good thing --- but what does it actually mean to you?" Glenn said.

He also gave a warning.

"There are lots of things in it that are agonizing, especially to people of faith. He's not a guy who believes in God, and that's fine, but get through that. Pass by some of the stuff that you disagree with because the point of this book is what is coming. We don't have to agree on the facts of what to do about it, but this is what is coming --- and you really need to understand that.

In this first segment, Glenn and Dr. Harari touched on the following topics:

• The real threat to jobs is algorithms and computers and robots

• A certain class of people will become worthless by an economic and military viewpoint

• Technology is subject to humans and their ethical, philosophical and political views

• The models created in the 20th century to understand and manage society and politics can't work anymore

PART 2: What Kids Learn in School Today Will be Irrelevant in 20 to 30 Years

Listen to this segment from The Glenn Beck Program:

GLENN: The main products of the 21st century will not be textiles, vehicles, and weapons, but bodies, brains, and minds.

In the book, Homo Deus, while the Industrial Revolution created the working class, the next big revolution will create the worthless class.

The way humans have treated animals is a good indicator of how upgraded humans will treat us. Democracy and the free market will collapse once Google and Facebook know us better than we know ourselves, and authority will shift from individual humans to network algorithms.

Humans won't fight machines or AI. They will merge with them. We are headed toward a marriage, rather than a war.

This promises to be a fascinating conversation. Yuval Harari. Author of Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow.

Welcome to the program, sir. How are you?

YUVAL: Hello. It's a pleasure to be here.

GLENN: You're over at -- you teach history at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. You have a PhD in the subject from Oxford. And your book has now been translated into 40 different languages. You're on a whirlwind here.

YUVAL: Yes. I mean, it's quite surprising, even for me. I mean, ten years ago, I was a specialist in medieval history, writing about the crusade and things like that. And now I'm mostly talking about cyborgs and artificial intelligence and genetic engineering and things like that.

GLENN: So, Yuval, I'm fascinated by your book and your perspective and point of view. And we disagree on an awful lot of things. But I don't disagree what you say is coming. And I don't believe that the average American -- or the average citizen in Europe or Russia or wherever, understands what's coming in the next ten to 20 years.

They have -- they have no clue how -- how entire -- how life itself is going to be transformed.

YUVAL: Yeah. I think part of the danger -- we can discuss and disagree about the potential solutions, but first, we need to agree about the problem. It's real. It's there. And I am very concerned there's very little public discussion of these issues.

GLENN: Yeah.

YUVAL: For example, if you looked at the presidential election in the US, there was a lot of talk about job loss to Mexico, to China, and so forth. But almost no talk at all about job loss due to automation.

GLENN: Yes.

YUVAL: And the replacement of more and more people by algorithms and computers and robots in the job market.

GLENN: So, Yuval, I have been saying this now for a while, and I don't think people have their arms around it. You know, when a president or a candidate or anybody anywhere around the world, a prime minister says, "We're going to get your jobs back," they're not coming back. They are being taken by progress. And the great minds of the world right now are not looking on how we can get a lower unemployment number. They're looking at a world that the unemployment number should be at 100 percent. Not 4 percent.

YUVAL: Maybe not 100, but, yes. I mean, in the next ten, 20, 30 years, we'll see, for example, self-driving cars and vehicles replacing taxi drivers and bus drivers and truck drivers and so forth. And robots replacing textile workers. But it's not just manual labor. Similarly, many doctors are likely to be replaced by artificial intelligence, that can diagnosis disease, better than any human being because it can simply go over immense amounts of biological data about you and your entire medical history in a way that no human being has any chance of doing. So you're talking not just about manual labor, but even doctors and teachers and lawyers, some of their jobs are also at risk.

GLENN: Tell me what you mean by, "While the Industrial Revolution created the working class, the next big revolution will create the worthless class."

YUVAL: Well, the danger is, as more and more jobs are being automated, people will be pushed out of the job market. And they'll not just be unemployed, they will be unemployable. Of course, some new jobs are likely to -- to be created, but it's not clear whether, say, a 50-year-old unemployed taxi driver or truck driver will be able to reinvent himself or herself as let's say a software engineer. In the past, when automation took away jobs in agriculture and then in industry, new jobs were always created to fill the gap. But people could make the transition. I mean, if you lost your job as -- on a farm and you moved to, say, Detroit or Dearborn and started working in a car factory, this was possible.

Similarly, if you lost your job in the factory and then you moved to working in -- as a cashier in Walmart, this was also possible because you moved from one low-skill job to another low-skill job. But now, if the low-skill jobs are disappearing and you have new jobs, let's say in Silicon Valley designing virtual worlds, you're not going to be able to make the transition because you don't have the necessary training.

And then we might see hundreds of millions of people being pushed out of the job market, and the creation of a completely new class of economically worthless people. I mean worthless of course not from the viewpoint of their mother or husband or children. Worthless from the viewpoint of the economic system and of the military system.

If you look at --

GLENN: Go ahead.

YUVAL: If you look at the military, you see that there, it's already happening. In the 20th century, the best armies in the world relied on recruiting millions of the millions of ordinary soldiers. But today, the best armies in the world rely on relatively small numbers of highly professional soldiers that need a lot of training. And they increasingly rely on sophisticated and autonomous technology, like drones and cyber warfare. So militarily, most humans today are already useless. If there is a war, there is nothing to do with most humans.

The same thing may happen also in the civilian economy.

GLENN: So this is where -- you know, my father died a few years ago. And he was in his -- he was in his 90s. And he -- he was born in 1926. And he said to me right before he died, he said -- he said, "Son, look at philosophy. Where has philosophy really grown? Are we different as people? People, ourselves, are we different than we were, you know, 2,000 years ago?" We still are kind of fighting exactly the same things. You know, it starts over with every generation, where you have to, you know, find yourself. And, yes, we're not cavemen. But we're still the same people on the verge of going bad. And he said, "Then look at technology, when I was born, we didn't even consider that we could go to the moon. Technology is -- is moving way past us, and we have to have deeper philosophical questions being asked and answered by ourselves and as a -- as a world, because it's -- it's -- the questions are becoming too big.

And what happens is, when man usually gets behind technology and you have people up at the top that think that they are God and you have a bunch of worthless people, things like genocide happen. How do we guard against worthless people?

YUVAL: Well, first of all, we need to realize that technology is not destiny. And technology is never deterministic. Some of the people who are very enthusiastic about technology, they tend to depict the future as kind of, this is the only thing that can happen. But it's never true. Every technology can be used in many ways. You cannot just stop all research in artificial intelligence or in genetics. But you can certainly influence what we will do with it.

To take a similar example, in the 20th century, we had a lot of new technology, like trains, electricity and radio and television and cars. You could use this technology to create a communist dictatorship or a Nazi regime of a liberal democracy. The trains and the radio didn't tell you what to do with them. This was really up to -- to humans and to their ethical and philosophical and political views.

And it's the same with artificial intelligence and genetics and so forth. We still have choices to make about it. And --

GLENN: I --

YUVAL: And I agree with you, that philosophy now is probably more important than ever before.

GLENN: Than ever, yeah.

YUVAL: Because we are becoming more powerful than ever before, and we need to answer some very deep philosophical questions in order to know what to do with that power.

GLENN: I use this term lightly, but I'm a friend of Ray Kurzweil. I've talked to him several times. And I have said to him -- and didn't mean this as, you know -- he took it in the spirit in which it was intended: Ray, the way you answer questions about, well, don't worry, it will only be used for the good and, you know, there is no death, and we're all going to be fine, and everybody is going to want to have this technology, and the worthless people, if you will, they'll want to get the upgrade. And there's nobody that's not going to want to buy into this system -- I said, "What makes you different than some of the really good Nazi do-gooders that were really in there saying, 'I really -- we're going to change the world with this,' but it went awry? You know, you're blind. You're blind to this."

And it's gravely concerning to me that there doesn't seem a lot of -- there doesn't seem to be a lot of, "Should we do these things? What are the ramifications of doing these things?" It's man just saying, "Oh, my gosh, we can do these things. Let's do it." I want to get your thoughts on that when we come back.

[break]

GLENN: So, Yuval, let me just restate that question that I asked you before we went into the break and state it this way: Where is the balance between a catastrophist and a -- and a utopian? Where is the correct place to fall on this. I'm -- I so love the technology that is coming, but I also have a pretty healthy fear of what it can mean.

YUVAL: I think it comes together. I mean, we want reality to be simple, that we have like bad technology and good technology. It just doesn't work like that. Every technology, as I said, can be used both for good and for bad. Take radio, because we're now on the radio. So you could use radio as Goebbels and Hitler and the communists did in the 1920s and '30s, to brainwash millions of people.

GLENN: Right.

YUVAL: And you could use radio to enlighten them and to help create a healthy democracy, in which people are well informed about what's happening and in which people can view and air their opinions.

So radio itself, it is a great invention, or it's a terrible invention. It's neither. It depends what we do with it. And I think this should be the attitude towards the new inventions of our century.

GLENN: Okay. So, Yuval, we have about 90 seconds here. Then we have to take another quick break. Then we have more time on the other side.

YUVAL: Oh, okay.

GLENN: The -- the problem is, is we're in -- and I think people think this is a political left, right tension that we're feeling right now. It's a political war. I think everything is at its breaking point. It doesn't work anymore. Life doesn't work at this speed with the old structure. And so the whole thing -- it's like the Industrial Revolution. It's just about to flip. And that's the underlying tension that we're feeling. But those people who are in power right now, they're going to do everything they can to grab this technology and drag us back into dusty old concepts of control that are -- are nightmarish. Do you agree or disagree?

YUVAL: I think the old model just won't work. This is the one thing we can be certain about. None of the models we created in the 20th century to understand society and politics and to manage society and politics, they can't work anymore. We need something new. Yes, people will still try to grab control, but it will be a completely different kind of control. It could be far more scary.

Especially if, indeed, more and more control will shift away from humans to algorithms.

GLENN: Okay.

YUVAL: And more and more decisions will be taken, not by any dictator, but by a computer.

GLENN: Okay. So let's go there. Take a quick three-minute break, and then we'll come back there to -- what was it he said? No, it could be much, much more scary. Okay. I hadn't thought of that possibility yet. Homo Deus is the name of this book. A Brief History of Tomorrow. This is the book that every elite is reading.

The Deep State's NEW plan to backstab Trump

Brandon Bell / Staff | Getty Images

We cannot make the same mistake we made in 2016 — celebrating victory while the deep state plots its next move.

In 2016, Donald Trump shocked the world by defeating Hillary Clinton. Conservatives cheered, believing we’d taken back the reins of our country. But we missed the bigger battle. We failed to recognize the extent of the damage caused by eight years of Barack Obama and decades of progressive entrenchment. The real war isn’t won at the ballot box. It’s being waged against an insidious force embedded deep within our institutions: the administrative state, or the “deep state.”

This isn’t a new problem. America’s founders foresaw it, though they didn’t have a term for “deep state” back in the 1700s. James Madison, in Federalist 48, warned us that combining legislative, executive, and judicial powers in the same hands is “the very definition of tyranny.” Yet today, that’s exactly where we stand. Unelected bureaucrats in agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Energy, and the Department of Justice hold more power than the officials we vote for. They control the levers of government with impunity, dictating policies and stifling change.

This is the fight for the soul of our nation. The founders’ vision of a constitutional republic is under siege.

We’ve felt the consequences of this growing tyranny firsthand. During COVID-19, so-called experts ran our lives, crushing civil liberties under the guise of public safety. Our intelligence agencies and justice system turned into weapons of political warfare, targeting a sitting president and his supporters. Meanwhile, actual criminals were given a pass, turning American cities into lawless war zones.

Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1816 that “the functionaries of every government have propensities to command at will the liberty and property of their constituents.” Today, we see Jefferson’s prophecy fulfilled. The deep state exercises unchecked power over our freedoms, and information itself is controlled by the fourth branch of government: the legacy media.

Even when we win elections, the deep state doesn’t concede defeat. It switches to survival mode. Trump’s first term proved this. Despite a historic mandate to dismantle the bureaucracy, the deep state fought back with everything it had: leaks, investigations, court rulings, and obstruction at every turn. And now, with the possibility of Trump returning to office, the deep state is preparing to do it again.

Progressives are laying out their attack plan — and they’re not even hiding it.

U.S. Rep. Wiley Nickel (D-N.C.) recently boasted about forming a “shadow cabinet” to govern alongside the deep state, regardless of who’s in the White House. Nickel called it “democracy’s insurance policy.” Let’s be clear: This isn’t insurance. It’s sabotage.

They’ll employ a “top down, bottom up, inside out” strategy to overwhelm and collapse any effort to reform the system. From the top, federal judges and shadow officials will block Trump’s every move. Governors in blue states like California and New York are gearing up to resist federal authority. During Trump’s first term, California filed over 100 lawsuits against his administration. Expect more of the same starting January 20.

From the bottom, progressive groups like the American Civil Liberties Union will flood the streets with protesters, much as they did to oppose Trump’s first-term immigration reforms. They’ve refined their tactics since 2016 and are prepared to unleash a wave of civil unrest. These aren’t spontaneous movements; they’re coordinated assaults designed to destabilize the administration.

Finally, from the inside, the deep state will continue its mission of self-preservation. Agencies will drag their feet, leak sensitive information, and undermine policies from within. Their goal is to make everything a chaotic mess, so the heart of their power — the bureaucratic core — remains untouched and grows stronger.

We cannot make the same mistake we made in 2016 — celebrating victory while the deep state plots its next move. Progressives never see themselves as losing. When they’re out of power, they simply shift tactics, pumping more blood into their bureaucratic heart. We may win elections, but the war against the deep state will only intensify. As George Washington warned in his Farewell Address, “Government is not reason, it is not eloquence — it is force; and force, like fire, is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.”

This is the fight for the soul of our nation. The founders’ vision of a constitutional republic is under siege. The deep state has shown us its plan: to govern from the shadows, circumventing the will of the people. But now that the shadows have been exposed, we have a choice. Will we accept this silent tyranny, or will we demand accountability and reclaim our nation’s heart?

The battle is just beginning. We can’t afford to lose.

Editor's Note: This article was originally published on TheBlaze.com.

Drone mystery exposes GLARING government incompetence

Gary Hershorn / Contributor | Getty Images

The drone issue is getting way out of hand.

Earlier this month, Glenn first reported on the mysterious drones stalking the night sky over New Jersey, but the situation is increasingly concerning as the sightings have escalated. Not only have drones been seen across the Northeast Coast, including over New York City, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, but recently, they have been spotted over the night skies of San Diego and other parts of Southern California.

It doesn't take an expert to identify the potential dangers and risks that dozens of undetectable, unidentified six-foot or larger drones pose to national security. Yet, our government's response has been one of unimaginable incompetence, leaving us to speculate on the origin and intention of these drones and wonder in astonishment at the government's ineptitude. Here are three examples of the government's lackluster response to the mystery drones:

Iranian Mothership and Missing Nuclear Warheads

- / Stringer | Getty Images

After several weeks of hubbub, New Jersey Representative, Jeff Van Drew gave an interview on Fox News where he claimed that the drones originated from an Iranian "mothership" off the East Coast of the United States. This theory has since been disproven by satellite images, which show that all Iranian drone carriers are far from U.S. shores. Another theory suggests that drones may be equipped with sensors capable of detecting nuclear material and that they are looking for a nuclear warhead that recently went missing! With these apocalyptic theories gaining traction in the absence of any real answer from our government, one can't help but question the motive behind the silence.

Pentagon's Limp Wristed Response

Alex Wong / Staff | Getty Images

In a recent press conference, national security spokesman John Kirby responded to reporters demanding answers about the government's lack of transparency, which has caused increasing public anxiety. He insisted that the drones did not pose a threat and were not assets of a foreign power, such as from Iran or China--even though he is still uncertain about their identity and origin. He also claimed that many of the sightings were simply misidentifications of normal aircraft.

This lackluster answer has only further inflamed national anxieties and raised even more questions. If the government is unsure of the identity of the drones, how do they know if they are a threat or if they aren't foreign assets? If they aren't foreign, does that mean they are U.S. assets? If so, why not just say so?

The Pentagon has also stated that they are leaving it up to local law enforcement to spearhead the investigation after concluding that these drones pose no threat to any military installation. This has left many feeling like the federal government has turned a blind eye to a serious issue that many Americans are very concerned about.

Where's Pete Buttigieg?

Chip Somodevilla / Staff | Getty Images

We are in the closing weeks of the Biden administration, and with the finish line in sight, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg probably figured nothing else could go wrong on his watch—but boy was he wrong. As Secretary of Transportation, Buttigieg is in charge of the FAA, the agency responsible for managing all air traffic across the nation. One would think that mysterious, 6-foot-long, seemingly intractable drones are invisible on radar and flying above major cities would pose a serious threat to the myriad of legal aircraft that traverse our skies. Yet, Buttigieg has been silent on the issue, adding another failure to his resume which includes: malfunctioning airplanes, the train derailment in Ohio, and the Baltimore Key Bridge collapse, just to name a few.

Glenn: How Alvin Bragg turned hero Daniel Penny into a villain

Michael M. Santiago / Staff | Getty Images

We cannot allow corrupt institutions to punish those who act to protect life and liberty.

America no longer has a single, shared understanding of justice. Two Americas now exist, each applying justice differently depending on who you are and where you live. One America, ruled by common sense and individual courage, praises heroes who stand up to protect others. The other, driven by political agendas and corrupted institutions, punishes those same heroes for daring to act.

This stark division couldn’t be clearer than in the case of Daniel Penny, the Marine whose trial in New York City this week drew strong reactions from both sides across the divided line of justice.

If we let this slide, we accept a world in which heroes are treated as criminals and the law is a weapon for ideological warfare.

Penny was on a subway train last year when Jordan Neely — a man suffering from severe mental illness and reportedly high on drugs — began threatening passengers, saying, “I’m going to kill you all.” The fear on that subway car was palpable, but nobody moved. Nobody, that is, until Penny did what needed to be done. He took action to protect innocent lives.

In the America many of us used to believe in, Penny’s response would be heralded as heroic. His actions mirrored the courage of Todd Beamer on Flight 93, who, on September 11, 2001, rallied others with the words, “Let’s roll,” to prevent further tragedy. But in New York, courage doesn’t seem to count anymore. There, the system turns heroes into villains.

Penny subdued Neely using a chokehold, intending only to restrain him, not kill him. Tragically, Neely died. Penny, filled with remorse, told the police he never meant to hurt anyone. Yet, instead of being recognized for protecting others from a clear and present threat, Penny stood trial for criminally negligent homicide.

In Alvin Bragg’s New York, justice bends to ideology. The Manhattan district attorney has made a career of weaponizing the law, selectively prosecuting those who don’t fit his narrative. He’s the same prosecutor who twisted legal precedent to go after Donald Trump on business charges no one had ever faced before. Then, he turned his sights on Daniel Penny.

A jury may have acquitted Penny, but what happened in New York City this week isn’t justice. When the rule of law changes depending on the defendant’s identity or the prosecutor's political motives, we’re no longer living in a free country. We’re living in a state where justice is a game, and ordinary Americans are the pawns.

The system failed Jordan Neely

It’s worth asking: Where were activists like Alvin Bragg when Neely was suffering on the streets? Jordan Neely was a tragic figure — a man with a long history of mental illness and over 40 arrests, including violent assaults. The system failed him long before he stepped onto that subway train. Yet rather than confront that uncomfortable truth, Bragg’s office decided to target the man who stepped in to prevent a tragedy.

This isn’t about justice. It’s about power. It’s about advancing a narrative where race and identity matter more than truth and common sense.

It’s time to demand change

The Daniel Penny case — and others like it — is a wake-up call. We cannot allow corrupt institutions to punish those who act to protect life and liberty. Americans must demand an end to politically driven prosecutions, hold DAs like Alvin Bragg accountable, and stand up for the principle that true justice is blind, consistent, and fair.

If we let this slide, we accept a world in which heroes are treated as criminals and the law is a weapon for ideological warfare. It’s time to choose which America we want to live in.

Editor's Note: This article was originally published on TheBlaze.com.

CEO Brian Thompson's killer reveals COWARDICE of the far-left death cult

Jeff Swensen / Stringer | Getty Images

Early on the chilly morning of Wednesday, December 4th, Brian Thompson, CEO of health insurance giant, UnitedHealthcare, was walking through Midtown Manhattan on his way to a company conference. Suddenly, a masked and hooded figure silently allegedly stepped onto the sidewalk behind Thompson, drew a 3-D printed, silenced pistol, and without warning fired multiple shots into Thompson's back before fleeing the scene on an electric bicycle. After a multiple-day manhunt, a 26-year-old lead suspect was arrested at a McDonald's in Altoona, Pennsylvania after being recognized by an employee.

This was not "vigilante justice." This was cold-blooded murder.

As horrific as the murder of a husband and father in broad daylight in the center of New York City is, the story only gets worse. Even before the murder suspect was arrested, left-wing extremists were already taking to X to call him a "hero" and a "vigilante" who "took matters into his own hands." Even the mainstream media joined in on the glorification, as Glenn pointed out on air recently, going out of the way to show how physically attractive the murder suspect was. This wave of revolting and nihilistic fanfare came in response to the findings of online investigators who surmised the murder suspect's motives to retaliate against healthcare companies for corruption and denied coverage. The murder suspect supposedly underwent a major back surgery that left him with back pain, and some of his internet fans apparently viewed his murder of Thompson as retribution for the mistreatment that he and many other Americans have suffered from healthcare companies.

me liking tweets celebrating the assassination of the united healthcare ceo pic.twitter.com/N41w51ZuZR
— 🔻 (@pegasustits) December 5, 2024

The murder suspect and his lackeys don't seem to understand that, other than depriving two children of their father right before Christmas, he accomplished nothing.

The murder suspect failed to achieve his goal because he was too cowardly to try.

If the murder suspect's goals were truly to "right the wrongs" of the U.S. healthcare system, he had every tool available to him to do so in a constructive and meaningful manner. He came from a wealthy and prominent family in the Baltimore area, became the valedictorian at a prestigious all-boys prep school, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a master's in engineering. Clearly, the murder suspect was intelligent and capable, and if he had put his talent into creating solutions for the healthcare industry, who knows what he could have accomplished?

This is the kind of behavior the far-left idolizes, like communists on college campuses who wear shirts that celebrate the brutal Cuban warlord, Che Guevara. Merchandise celebrating the UnitedHealthcare CEO murder suspect is already available, including shirts, hoodies, mugs, and even Christmas ornaments. Will they be sporting his face on their T-shirts too?

A liberal TikToker is selling a t-shirt that glorifies the recent assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in NYC.
“deny , defend, depose” was reported to have been on the shell casings. pic.twitter.com/IWpHYkx2lF
— SteveSant66 🇺🇸 (@SSant66) December 8, 2024

This macabre behavior does not breed creation, achievement, success, or life. It only brings death and risks more Americans falling into this dangerous paradigm. But we still have a chance to choose life. We just have to wake up and take it.

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