What Yuval Noah Harari and Edward Snowden agree about 2020 and beyond

Conversations on choices, privacy, and trust in the age of crisis

In recent interviews both Yuval Noah Harari and Edward Snowden have discussed the future after 2020. I find it fascinating that their conclusions converge despite different backgrounds, specifically around the choices citizens around the world have to make and the consequences of those choices (episode 1), as well as issues in surveillance and privacy in the age of crisis (episode 2). In episode 3, they discuss why we’ve seen an erosion of trust in experts and authorities around complex and nuanced issues.

What Harari and Snowden agree about the choices we face

Snowden and Harari on surveillance and privacy in the age of crisis

Harari and Snowden on trust in science, experts, and authority

Yuval Noah Harari is a historian and a professor. He is the author of the bestselling books Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2014), Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow (2016), and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century (2018). His writings examine free will, consciousness, intelligence and happiness.

Edward Snowden is a whistleblower who leaked highly classified information from the National Security Agency (NSA) in United States. His disclosures revealed global surveillance programs, many run by the NSA with the cooperation of telecom and technology companies and governments, and prompted public discussions about national security and citizen privacy.

Facing the crisis of 2020, the views of Harari and Snowden echo each other and they converge around the critical choices being made right now that will have long-term impacts. They discuss the current state of surveillance and privacy as governments around the world enact technical measures to combat the pandemic. Snowden lays out the workings of the technical details, and Harari expands his thoughts to what happens when the monitoring of citizens goes underneath the skin. Both Snowden and Harari seem to come to the same conclusions around the issues of trust in science, experts, and authority and the rise of disinformation.

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