Yuval Noah Harari

But ultimately, biologically, if you keep an organism excited all the time, the organism eventually collapses and dies.

We are just not built to be excited all the time.

And in many cases, you know, when I meet people, I would like to meet people who makes me feel calm, not necessarily excited.

Oh, it's so calming to meet you.

And you look at, you know, US politics or Israeli politics or world politics.

I think the whole world is overexcited.

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, the thing is, it doesn't seem that the ideological differences today are bigger than in the past.

In many ways, they seem smaller.

You know, if you think about, say, American politics in the 1960s and the issues back then, the sexual revolution, the Vietnam War, the Cold War, the civil rights movement, the ideological differences, I would say, were much, much bigger.

And, you know, when we talk today about liberalism, and it's good that you mentioned it, we're not talking about this kind of partisan party liberalism.

For me, the test of liberalism, like test yourself, are you a liberal?

is basically three or four questions.

Do you think people should have the right to choose their own government?

Do you think people should have the right to choose their own profession?

Do you think people should have the right to choose their own religion?

And do you think people should have the right to choose their own spouse?

If you answered yes to all four, congratulations, you're a liberal.

The vast majority of people in history did not say yes to these four questions.

For most of history, it was taken for granted that people don't choose their government.