Peter Myers Digest: Australia’s Left vote against Senate Motion to Publish Pfizer Vaccine Contracts

(1) Zelensky trapped by Moscow and Washington – Thierry Meyssan
(2) Australia’s Left (Labor+Greens) vote against Senate Motion to Publish Pfizer Vaccine Contracts
(3) Australian Senators Call for Release of COVID-19 Vaccine Agreements
(4) Bill Gates pushes for ‘Green Revolution’ in Africa – meaning Industrial farming & GM crops controlled by foreign Oligarchs
(5) Transhumanist Yuval Noah Harari, a key advisor to WEF: humans will be replaced by cyborgs

(1) Zelensky trapped by Moscow and Washington – Thierry Meyssan

Subject: Zelensky trapped by Moscow and Washington – Thierry Meyssan
From: JP Desmoulins <jean-pierre.desmoulins@orange.fr>

The following is the translation of an article published in french by
Thierry Meyssan on his website:

https://www.voltairenet.org/article218419.html

This is a “google translate” translation with a minimum of revisions by
Jean-Pierre Desmoulins

The evolution of the balance of power on the Ukrainian battlefield and
the tragic episode of the G20 in Bali mark a reversal of the situation.
If Westerners still believe they will soon defeat Moscow, the United
States has already started secret negotiations with Russia. They are
preparing to drop Ukraine and blame only Volodymyr Zelensky. As in
Afghanistan, the awakening will be brutal.

Talking about ten days ago in Brussels with a leader of the European
deputies who is said to be open-minded, I listened to him tell me that
the Ukrainian conflict was certainly complex, but that the most obvious
was that Russia had invaded that country. I replied by observing that
international law required Germany, France and Russia to implement
resolution 2202, which Moscow alone had done. I continued by reminding
him of the responsibility to protect populations in the event of failure
of their own government. He cut me off and asked: “If my government
complains about the fate of its nationals in Russia and attacks this
country, you will find that normal? “. Yes, I replied, if you have a
Security Council resolution. Do you have one? Taken aback, he changed
the subject. Three times I asked him if we could address the question of
the Ukrainian “integral nationalists”. Three times he refused. We parted
politely.

The question of the responsibility to protect should have been nuanced.
This principle does not authorize a war, but a police operation, carried
out with military means. This is why the Kremlin is careful not to
designate this conflict as a “war”, but as a “special military
operation”. Both ways of speaking refer to the same facts, but “special
military operation” limits the conflict. As soon as his troops entered
Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin made it clear that he did not
intend to annex this territory, but only to liberate the populations
persecuted by the Ukrainian “Nazis”. In a previous lengthy article, I
pointed out that, while the term “Nazis” is correct in the historical
sense, it does not correspond to how these people refer to themselves.
They use the expression: “integral nationalists”. Remember that Ukraine
is the only state in the world to have an explicitly racist Constitution.

Observing that international law agrees with Russia does not mean giving
it a blank check. Everyone must criticize the way in which it applies
the law. Westerners still find Russia “Asian”, “wild” and “brutal”, even
though they themselves have been far more destructive on many occasions.

Situation reversal

The Russian and Western points of view having been clarified, it is
clear that several events have prompted a Western evolution.

– We are entering winter, a harsh season in Central Europe. The Russian
population has been aware since the Napoleonic invasion that they cannot
defend such a large country. So it learned to use precisely the vastness
of her territory and the seasons to defeat those who attacked it. With
winter, the front is frozen for several months. Everyone can see that,
contrary to the rhetoric that the Russians are defeated, the Russian
army has liberated Donbass and part of Novorussia.

– Before winter fell, the Kremlin withdrew the liberated population
living north of the Dnieper, then withdrew its army, abandoning the part
of Kershon located on the north bank of the Dnieper. For the first time,
a natural border, the Dnieper River, marks a border between the
territories controlled by Kyiv and those controlled by Moscow. However,
during the interwar period, it was the absence of natural borders that
brought down all the successive powers in Ukraine. Now Russia is in a
position to hold out.

– Since the start of the conflict, Ukraine has been able to count on the
unlimited help of the United States and its allies. However, the midterm
elections in the United States removed the majority of the Biden
administration in the House of Representatives. From now on,
Washington’s support will be limited. Identically, the European Union
also finds its limits. Its populations do not understand the rising cost
of energy, the closure of certain factories and the impossibility of
heating normally.

– Finally, in certain circles of power, after having admired the
communication skills of actor Volodymyr Zelensky, we are beginning to
wonder about the rumors concerning his sudden fortune. In eight months
of war, he would have become a billionaire. The attribution is
unverifiable, but the scandal of the Pandora Papers (2021), makes it
credible. Is it necessary to bleed oneself in the four veins so as not
to see the donations arrive in Ukraine, but disappear in offshore companies?

The Anglo-Saxons (i.e. London and Washington) wanted to turn the Bali
G20 into an anti-Russian summit. They had first lobbied for Moscow to be
excluded from the Group as they succeeded in the G8. But if Russia had
been absent, China, by far the world’s largest exporter, would not have
come. Also, it was the Frenchman Emmanuel Macron who was responsible for
convincing the other guests to sign a bloody declaration against Russia.
For two days, Western news agencies assured that the case was in the
bag. But, in the end, the final declaration, if it summarizes the
Western point of view, closes the debate in these words: “There were
other points of view and different evaluations of the situation and the
sanctions. Recognizing that the G20 is not the forum to resolve security
issues, we know that security issues can have significant consequences
for the global economy.” In other words, for the first time, Westerners
have failed to impose their worldview on the rest of the planet.

The trap

Worse: the West imposed a video intervention by Volodymyr Zelensky as
they had done on August 24 and September 27 at the United Nations
Security Council. However, while Russia had unsuccessfully tried to
oppose it in September in New York, it accepted it in November in Bali.
At the Security Council, France, which held the presidency, had violated
the rules of procedure to give the floor to a head of state by video. On
the contrary, at the G20, Indonesia held an absolutely neutral position
and was in no danger of agreeing to give him the floor without Russian
authorization. It was obviously a trap. President Zelensky, who does not
know how these bodies work, fell for it.

After having caricatured Moscow’s action, he called for it to be
excluded from … “G19”. In other words, the little Ukrainian gave, on
behalf of the Anglo-Saxons, an order to the heads of state, prime
ministers and foreign ministers of the 20 largest world powers and was
not heard. In reality, the dispute between these leaders was not about
Ukraine, but about their submission or not to the “American world
order”. All the Latin American, African and four Asian participants said
that this domination was over; that now the world is multipolar.

Westerners must have felt the ground shake under their feet. They
weren’t the only ones. Volodymyr Zelensky saw, for the first time, that
his godfathers, hitherto absolute masters of the world, let him down
without hesitation to maintain their position for a while longer.

It is likely that Washington has been in cahoots with Moscow. The United
States finds that on a world scale, things are turning against them.
They will have no hesitation in blaming the Ukrainian regime. William
Burns, director of the CIA and opponent of the Straussian line, has
already met Sergei Narychkine, the director of the SVR, in Turkey. These
interviews follow those of the Straussian Jacob Sullivan, the US
national security adviser, with several Russian officials. However,
Washington has nothing to negotiate in Ukraine. Two months before the
conflict in Ukraine, I explained that the root of the problem had
nothing to do with that country, any more than with NATO. It is
essentially about the end of the unipolar world.

So we should not be surprised that, a few days after the slap in the
face of the G20, Volodymyr Zelensky contradicted, for the first time in
public, his American sponsors. He accused Russia of launching a missile
at Poland and stood by his words when the Pentagon said they were wrong
it was a Ukrainian counter-missile. It was for him to continue to act in
line with the Treaty of Warsaw, concluded on April 22, 1920, by the
integral nationalists of Symon Petlioura with the regime of Pilsudski;
to push Poland into war against Russia. This is the second time that
Washington has rung a bell in his ears. He didn’t hear her.

Probably, these contradictions will no longer manifest themselves in
public. Western positions will soften. Ukraine has been warned: in the
coming months, it will have to negotiate with Russia. President Zelensky
can already foresee his flight because his bruised compatriots will not
forgive him for having deceived them.

(2) Australia’s Left (Labor+Greens) vote against Senate Motion to
Publish Pfizer Vaccine Contracts

The vote on this Senate motion was split 29 to 29; so the motion failed.

https://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/motion-to-publish-vaccine-contracts-defeated-by-labor-greens/

MOTION TO PUBLISH VACCINE CONTRACTS DEFEATED BY LABOR/GREENS

Today I joined Senators Hanson, Antic, Rennick and Canavan in sponsoring
a motion that would have forced the government to publish the Pfizer
contracts. These contracts have cost taxpayers billions of dollars and
include unspecified indemnities for harm big pharma’s products cause.

Ironically, the “my body my choice” greens teamed up with labor to block
this motion that would have ensured transparency and accountability
around the products that were mandated into people’s bodies.

NOVEMBER 22, 2022

https://parlwork.aph.gov.au/motions/d6d7b399-8269-ed11-b87c-005056b55c61

MOTION DETAILS
Fri 25/11/2022

Order for production of documents – COVID-19 vaccine contracts
*81 Senators Antic, Rennick, Canavan and Babet: To move—That there be
laid on the table by the Minister representing the Minister for Health
and Aged Care, by no later than 3 pm on Tuesday, 29 November 2022:

any contractual documents (without redaction) including any schedules,
appendices or similar document (without redaction), for the supply,
production, distribution or administration of any COVID-19 vaccine in
Australia (‘the vaccine contracts’) executed by or on behalf of the
Australian Government and any of the following (‘the vaccine producers’):
Pfizer Australia Pty Ltd and/or its parent companies, nominees, agents
or subsidiaries,
AstraZeneca Pty Ltd and/or its parent companies, nominees, agents or
subsidiaries,
Moderna Australia Pty Ltd and/or its parent companies, nominees, agents
or subsidiaries, and
Novavax Inc and/or its parent companies, nominees, agents or subsidiaries;
any other document referenced, referred to or incorporated into any of
the vaccine contracts but not included in the contractual document;
any other document evidencing any pre-contractual representations with
respect to effectiveness, side effects, fitness for purpose,
merchantability, warranties or exclusions of warranty related to the
supply, production, distribution or administration of any COVID-19
vaccine in Australia by any of the vaccine producers; and
any other document evidencing any indemnity, guarantee, waiver or
release of liability, forbearance to sue or similar enforceable right
provided by or on behalf of the Australian Government to any of the
vaccine producers with respect to the supply, production, distribution
or administration of any COVID-19 vaccine in Australia.
Chamber
Senate

Notice Given
21/11/2022

(3) Australian Senators Call for Release of COVID-19 Vaccine Agreements

https://www.theepochtimes.com/senators-call-for-release-of-covid-19-vaccine-agreements_4877775.html

Senators Call for Release of COVID-19 Vaccine Agreements

By Daniel Y. Teng

November 21, 2022 Updated: November 22, 2022

UPDATE: The motion has been voted down in the Australian Senate.

Four Australian senators have lodged an order for the release of
contracts between the federal government and pharmaceutical companies
for the production of COVID-19 vaccines.

The senators will lodge the motion on Nov. 22, 2022, for the current
Labor health minister to release agreements with Pfizer, AstraZeneca,
Moderna, and Novavax, including details on vaccine efficacy, side
effects, and supply of the jab.

Further, the motion will ask for documents outlining any “indemnity,
guarantee, waiver, or release of liability” provided by the Australian
government to pharmaceutical companies.

“The Australian taxpayer deserves to know the details of these deals,
including the indemnities given to these companies in relation to the
rollout,” said South Australian Liberal Senator Alex Antic in a post on
Facebook.

Antic was joined by Queensland Senators Matthew Canavan (of the
Nationals), Gerard Rennick (also of the Liberal Party), and Victoria’s
Ralph Babet (of the United Australia Party).

In an update on Nov. 22, Senator Antic moved the motion in the
Australian Senate with the support of two One Nation senators, but it
failed to pass with the vote split 29 to 29.

Liberal-National, One Nation, United Australia Party, and independents
Jacqui Lambie and David Pocock were in favour, while the the Labor and
Greens Party voted against.

https://gerardrennick.com.au/labor-and-the-greens-voted-to-cover-up-the-governments-covid-vaccine-contracts/

Labor and The Greens voted to cover up the government’s Covid vaccine
contracts
22 November 2022

Today the Greens and Labour voted down our motion for the Australian
government to provide documentation in relation to the vaccine contracts.

This is just another example of how the Greens are just a puppet of big
multinationals.

Thanks to my colleague Alex Antic for putting the motion together and
trying to gain cross party support.

The Greens should rename themselves “The Reds” because at the end of the
day they are just communists masquerading as environmentalists.

MOTION:

Senator ANTIC (South Australia) (16:25): As to general business notice
of motion No. 81, I inform the chamber that Senators Hanson and Roberts
will also sponsor the motion. I, and also on behalf of Senators Hanson,
Roberts, Rennick, Canavan and Babet, move:

That there be laid on the table by the Minister representing the
Minister for Health and Aged Care, by no later than 3 pm on Tuesday, 29
November 2022:

(a) any contractual documents (without redaction) including any
schedules, appendices or similar document (without redaction), for the
supply, production, distribution or administration of any COVID-19
vaccine in Australia (‘the vaccine contracts’) executed by or on behalf
of the Australian Government and any of the following (‘the vaccine
producers’):

(i) Pfizer Australia Pty Ltd and/or its parent companies, nominees,
agents or subsidiaries,

(ii) AstraZeneca Pty Ltd and/or its parent companies, nominees, agents
or subsidiaries,

(iii) Moderna Australia Pty Ltd and/or its parent companies, nominees,
agents or subsidiaries, and

(iv) Novavax Inc and/or its parent companies, nominees, agents or
subsidiaries;

(b) any other document referenced, referred to or incorporated into any
of the vaccine contracts but not included in the contractual document;

(c) any other document evidencing any pre-contractual representations
with respect to effectiveness, side effects, fitness for purpose,
merchantability, warranties or exclusions of warranty related to the
supply, production, distribution or administration of any COVID-19
vaccine in Australia by any of the vaccine producers; and

(d) any other document evidencing any indemnity, guarantee, waiver or
release of liability, forbearance to sue or similar enforceable right
provided by or on behalf of the Australian Government to any of the
vaccine producers with respect to the supply, production, distribution
or administration of any COVID-19 vaccine in Australia.

The PRESIDENT: The question is that general business notice of motion
No. 81 standing in the names of Senators Antic, Hanson, Roberts and
others be agreed to.

Division: AYES 29, NOES 29, PAIRS 0

MOTION LOST (NEGATED)

(4) Bill Gates pushes for ‘Green Revolution’ in Africa – meaning
Industrial farming & GM crops controlled by foreign Oligarchs

https://takecontrol.substack.com/p/regenerative-farming

https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2022/11/25/regenerative-farming.aspx

Regenerative Farming Is More Important Now Than Ever Before

by Dr. Joseph Mercola

November 25, 2022

A decades-old anticorporate-farming law in North Dakota makes it illegal
for corporations and limited liability companies to purchase farmland in
the state. So when Bill Gates received legal approval to do just that,
it did more than raise a few eyebrows.

Gates secured approval to purchase 2,100 acres from Campbell Farms, a
potato grower in northeastern North Dakota, for $13.5 million.1 This,
along with the 270,000 other acres of farmland he’s previously purchased
in the U.S., makes him the largest private farmland owner in the country.2

Doug Goehring, North Dakota’s Agriculture Commissioner, told KFYR-TV
that he’s gotten a lot of backlash since word got out. “I’ve gotten a
big earful on this from clear across the state, it’s not even from that
neighborhood. Those people are upset, but there are others that are just
livid about this.”3

Moving Toward Modern-Day Feudalism
Gates was able to purchase the land legally via a loophole that allows
individual trusts to own farmland as long as it’s leased to farmers.4
The law is meant to protect family farms because the farmland must be
leased back to them.5 However, while this is Gates’ intention, it
amounts to modern-day feudalism.

“If this was the game Risk, Bill Gates is closing in. He’s acquiring all
of the territory. If this was Monopoly or any other board game, you’d
think, ‘Uh-oh, Gates is up to something,” Russel Brand said, referring
to data that Gates owns sizeable amounts of farmland in 18 states.6

Will Harris, owner of White Oak Pastures in Bluffton, Georgia, is among
those who objects to Gates’ increasing ownership of farmland. First off,
he states, Gates isn’t a farmer. He doesn’t know what to do with the land:7

“I have concerns about Gates controlling farmland. Just like I don’t
want a child abuser controlling even one child, I don’t want him to
control a single acre. First, land is precious. It may be more precious
than anything.

I hate to see someone, who has no idea what to do with it, be put in a
position to control it. How well do you think that I would do running a
tech company or financial institution? It’s the same logic as letting a
guy like Gates manage something as complex as an ecosystem. He lacks the
understanding to steward it properly.”

The Secrecy Is Unsettling
What else is unsettling, Harris says, is the secrecy behind Gates’ land
purchases, which are often made under the cover of investment firms.
Eric O’Keefe’s magazine, The Land Report, puts out a list of the 100
biggest landowners in the U.S. each year. A 2020 purchase of 14,500
“prime” acres in Washington state caught O’Keefe’s attention, as he
calls any sale of more than 1,000 acres “blue moon events.”

When he dug deeper, the purchaser of the 14,500 acres — in the heart of
some of the most expensive acreage in America — was recorded as a small
Louisiana company. “That immediately set off alarm bells,” O’Keefe told
the New York Post.8 It turned out the company was acting on behalf of
Cascade Investment, LLC for Bill Gates.

“Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft, has an alter ego,” O’Keefe wrote.
“Farmer Bill, the guy who owns more farmland than anyone else in
America.”9 Clearly Gates has a big vision for all that land, but
unfortunately it doesn’t involve organic, biodynamic or regenerative
farming, which are needed to heal ecosystems and produce truly
sustainable, nourishing food for future generations.

Instead, the acreage seems earmarked for even more genetically
engineered (GE) corn and soy crops — the base foods for what will become
an increasingly synthetic, ultra-processed food supply focused on fake
meat. As Harris wrote on his blog:10

“An article that was dated May 4, 2021 informed us that Gates has
purchased over 200,000 acres in 18 states. Georgia was not listed as one
of the 18 states, but an acquaintance of mine sold his farm located in
Georgia to Gates prior to that time. What else are they lying about?”

Gates’ Influence Worsened Hunger in Africa
Gates won’t be implementing the restorative farming methods that Harris
embraces on his farm. Instead, biotechnology will be king. Harris points
to the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), an organization
funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation,11 as a sobering harbinger
of what’s to come.

AGRA was launched in 2006 with funding from Gates Foundation and the
Rockefeller Foundation. It’s essentially a Gates Foundation subsidiary
and most of its goals are centered on promoting biotechnology and
chemical fertilizers.

After more than a decade, AGRA’s influence has significantly worsened
the situation in the 18 African nations targeted by this “philanthropic”
endeavor. Hunger under AGRA’s direction increased by 30% and rural
poverty rose dramatically.12 “Ask the farmers of India and Africa how
beneficial Gates’ influence was to their agricultural systems,” Harris
said.13

“If you research the failed AGRA … program, you’ll get a sneak peek on
the repercussions of letting a businessman make farming decisions. That
billionaire-leopard ain’t gonna change the spots that made him the most
powerful man in the world.”14

Risks of Food Production Based on Efficiency, Not Resiliency
Video Link
The technologies that industrial agriculture relies on to “improve” food
production are destructive. Yet, they’re the technologies that Gates
embraces. “Pesticides, chemical fertilizers, GMOs, sub-therapeutic
antibiotics, and hormone implants … These technologies result in
horrible, unintended consequences that adversely affect our land, water,
climate, and livestock,” Harris said.15

Further, they’ve allowed agriculture to become scalable to the point
that a limited number of multinational corporations control most of the
food supply. A centralized food system benefits no one but those who
control it, and puts consumers at risk. Harris explained:16

“The centralization of food production impoverishes our rural
communities as it creates an oligopoly. This centralization of food
production is also bad for consumers. This system lacks resilience.

When mega-production facilities that are focused on efficiency break
down, consumers’ access to food can become limited, which causes panic.
This state of panic allows multinational companies to increase their
profits exponentially. When the driving goal of our food production
system is efficiency, as opposed to resiliency, consumers suffer.”

Harris’ farming methods represent the opposite of Gates’ industrialized
approach, demonstrating how you can convert conventionally farmed land
into a healthy, thriving farm based on regenerative methods. At White
Oak Pastures, they’ve:17

De-commoditized — Instead of relying on commodities, they produce five
types of pastured red meats, five types of pastured poultry, pastured
eggs and organic vegetables.
De-industrialized — Instead of operating as a monoculture that grows one
destructive crop, like GE soy, they’ve created a living ecosystem that
includes 10 species of humanely treated animals that live in a symbiotic
relationship. All of their land is managed using holistic principles.
De-centralized — They were able to break away from the centralized food
processing system, building their own abattoirs to retain control of the
quality of their products.
Going Beyond Sustainable to Regeneration
White Oak Pastures wasn’t always the picture of regeneration. From 1946
— when his father was still running the farm — to 1995, the farm used
industrial farming methods and chemicals. Harris had just one focus —
how many pounds of beef he could produce at the lowest price possible.
Now, in addition to a focus on animal welfare, Harris is focused on
going beyond sustainable farming to land regeneration.

“We believe farming must not only be sustainable, it has to be
regenerative to rebuild our soil,” White Oak Pastures’ website reads.18
At White Oak Pastures:19 …

(5) Transhumanist Yuval Noah Harari, a key advisor to WEF: humans will
be replaced by cyborgs

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2022/07/the-dangerous-populist-science-of-yuval-noah-harari/

The Dangerous Populist Science of Yuval Noah Harari
Originally published in our magazine’s hallowed print edition
2022MARCH/APRIL

The best-selling author is a gifted storyteller and popular speaker. But
he sacrifices science for sensationalism, and his work is riddled with
errors.

Darshana Narayanan
filed 06 July 2022

Watch videos of Yuval Noah Harari, the author of the wildly successful
book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, and you will hear him being
asked the most astonishing questions.

… Harari’s manner is soft spoken, even shy, in these encounters. On
occasion, he good-naturedly says that he doesn’t possess the powers of
divination, then briskly moves on to answer the question with an
authority that makes you wonder if indeed he does. A hundred years from
now it is quite likely that humans will disappear, and the earth will be
populated by very different beings like cyborgs and A.I., Harari said to
Paikin, asserting that it is difficult to predict “what kind of
emotional or mental life such entities will have.” Diversify, he advised
the university student, because the job market of 2040 will be very
volatile. We should “want to want to know the truth,” he announced at
the TED Conference. “I practice Vipassana meditation to see reality more
clearly,” Harari said to the India Today Conclave, without so much as
cracking a smile at the absurdity of the question. Moments later, he
elaborated: “If I can’t observe the reality of my own breath for 10
seconds, how can I hope to observe the reality of the geopolitical system?”

If you are not yet disquieted, consider: among Harari’s flock are some
of the most powerful people in the world, and they come to him much like
the ancient kings to their oracles. Mark Zuckerberg asked Harari if
humanity is becoming more unified or fragmented by technology. The
Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund asked him if
doctors will depend on Universal Basic Income in the future. The CEO of
Axel Springer, one of the largest publishing houses in Europe, asked
Harari what publishers should do to succeed in the digital world. An
interviewer with The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO) asked him what effect COVID would have on
international scientific cooperation. In favor of Harari’s half-formed
edicts, each subverted their own authority. And they did it not for an
expert in any one of their fields, but for a historian who, in many
ways, is a fraud—most of all, about science. […]

Harari’s speculations are consistently based on a poor understanding of
science. His predictions of our biological future, for instance, are
based on a gene-centric view of evolution—a way of thinking that has
(unfortunately) dominated public discourse due to public figures like
him. Such reductionism advances a simplistic view of reality, and worse
yet, veers dangerously into eugenics territory.

In the final chapter of Sapiens, Harari writes:

“Why not go back to God’s drawing board and design better Sapiens? The
abilities, needs and desires of Homo sapiens have a genetic basis. And
the sapiens genome is no more complex than that of voles and mice. (The
mouse genome contains about 2.5 billion nucleobases, the sapiens genome
about 2.9 billion bases, meaning that the latter is only 14 percent
larger.) … If genetic engineering can create genius mice, why not genius
humans? If it can create monogamous voles, why not humans hard-wired to
remain faithful to their partners?”2 […]

Neither chickens nor humans are mere algorithms. Our brains have a body,
and that body is situated in a world. Our behaviors emerge because of
our worldly and bodily activities. Living beings are not just absorbing
and processing the data flows of our environment; we are continuously
altering and creating our own—and each other’s—environments, a process
called “niche construction” in  evolutionary biology. When a beaver
builds a dam over a stream, it creates a lake, and all the other
organisms now have to live in a world with a lake in it. Beavers can
create wetlands that persist for centuries, changing the selection
pressures their descendants are exposed to, potentially causing a shift
in the evolutionary process. Homo sapiens have unrivaled flexibility; we
have extraordinary ability to adapt to our environments, and also modify
them. Our acts of living don’t just differentiate us from algorithms;
they make it near impossible for the algorithms to accurately predict
our social behaviors, such as who we will love, how well we will do at
future jobs,3 or whether we are likely to commit a crime.

Harari is careful to fashion himself as an objective scribe. He takes
pains to tell us he is presenting the worldview of the Dataists, and not
his own. But then he does something very sneaky. The Dataist view “may
strike you as some eccentric fringe notion,” he says, “but in fact it
has already conquered most of the scientific establishment.” In
presenting the Dataist worldview as conclusive (having “conquered most
of the scientific establishment”), he tells us that it is “objectively”
true that humans are algorithms, and our march to obsolescence—as the
passive recipients of decisions made by better algorithms—is
unavoidable, because it is integrally tied to our humanity. Turning to
the footnote in support of this sweeping statement, we find that of the
four books he cites, three have been written by non-scientists—a music
publicist, a trendcaster, and a magazine publisher.4

There is nothing predetermined about the fate of humanity. Our autonomy
is eroding not because of cosmic karma, but because of a new economic
model invented by Google and perfected by Facebook— a form of capitalism
that has found a way to manipulate us for the purposes of making money.
Social scientist Shoshana Zuboff has given this economic model the name
“surveillance capitalism.” Surveillance capitalist corporations—Google,
Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, and others—construct the digital platforms
we increasingly rely on to live, work, and play. They monitor our online
activities in astounding detail and use the information to influence our
behaviors in order to maximize their profits. As a byproduct, their
digital platforms have helped create echo chambers resulting in
widespread climate denialism, science skepticism, and political
polarization. By naming the enemy, and characterizing it as an invention
of humans—not a fact of nature or technological inevitability— Zuboff
gives us a way to fight it. As you can imagine, Zuboff, unlike Harari,
is not a loved figure in Silicon Valley.

In October of 2021, Harari released Volume 2 of the graphic adaptation
of Sapiens. Coming up next are a Sapiens children’s book, Sapiens Live,
an immersive experience, and a multi-season TV show inspired by Sapiens.
Our Populist Prophet is relentless in his search for new followers—and
with them new heights of fame and influence.

Harari has seduced us with his storytelling, but a close look at his
record shows that he sacrifices science to sensationalism, often makes
grave factual errors, and portrays what should be speculative as
certain. The basis on which he makes his statements is obscure, as he
rarely provides adequate footnotes or references and is remarkably
stingy with acknowledging thinkers5 who formulated the ideas he presents
as his own. And most dangerous of all, he reinforces the narratives of
surveillance capitalists, giving them a free pass to manipulate our
behaviors to suit their commercial interests. To save ourselves from
this current crisis, and the ones ahead of us, we must forcefully reject
the dangerous populist science of Yuval Noah Harari. […]

But there’s another side to all this — probably a more important one:
Harari considers free will a “dangerous” myth, a point on which
neurosurgeon Michael Egnor has taken issue with him here. On the
contrary, Egnor argues, denial of free will is a cornerstone of
totalitarianism: “Without free will, we are livestock, without the
presumption of innocence, without actual innocence, and without rights.”

But then, it’s not clear that, given his intense, dramatic focus on
“useless,” “meaningless,” and “worthless” people, that Harari is far off
from totalitarianism anyway. …