Talk:Yuval Noah Harari

Views

 * Complaint: Harari claims that Netanyahu is on a par with Putin and Erdogan as leading an 'authoritarian' regime.
 * It seems fine as long as it's shown as the authors POV. CeruleanAir (talk) 17:47, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

TED talk
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needs to be mentioned. It's new this week. Benvhoff (talk) 04:13, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

His husband?
I am slightly confused. The article says that he lives with his husband. However, isn't gay marriage illegal in Israel? JDiala (talk) 00:04, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
 * According to FT, married in Canada, see FT article. -- ℕ  ℱ  00:09, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

I wondered about this too, and have just checked out as many of the other language versions of the article as I can read. The German, Spanish and Czech ones all agree that it's his husband, and the Czech one even mentions the guy's name (Itzik Yahav, transliterated from the Czech version). Only the Portuguese version refers to 'his wife' ('sua mulher'), so I've pointed out this discrepancy on the Portuguese talk page. If it turns out Harari is in fact married to a woman, comments will need to be added on the German, Spanish and Czech talk pages (and possibly others that I can't read, such as Korean and Hebrew).213.127.210.95 (talk) 14:20, 23 July 2016 (UTC)
 * So much for privacy. Makes one feel like an animal in a zoo cage. Tony   (talk)  01:08, 31 March 2017 (UTC)
 * That's ok. Harari speaks about the coming AI revolution and "useless humans" but went vegan because the bond between a cow and its calf is broken by the dairy industry so being an animal is a zoo cage is a step above being a useless human but a step down from a cow — Preceding unsigned comment added by 47.223.41.49 (talk) 23:13, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

Gay marriage is not illegal in Israel, but rather to be married you have to go through a religious office, which will obviously not accept same sex marriage. The catch is, and the method most same-sex couples in Israel use, is that Israel recognises marriages in most foreign countries, so couples fly out to marry and come back. This is the reason Yuval had to marry his husband in Canada. IsraelHelp1 (talk) 18:31, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, than gay marriage is illegal in Israel! --93.211.222.26 (talk) 20:22, 20 May 2019 (UTC)
 * No, it simply can't be performed in Israel but it is fully recognised as are most foreign marriages.--Taillevent (talk) 08:09, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

Homo sapiens
Homo sapiens and all binomial names should be in italics. 190.20.237.123 (talk) 17:02, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

Veganism
Yuval seems to be not so religious about being a vegan. I have found two articles now of him saying that he tries to eat vegan as much as possible but will still eat non-vegan food from time to time. Although he identifies as being a vegan still, is it still appropriate to call him a vegan? I think it is probably better off to call him vegan but leave a note about his views somewhere.


 * Article 1
 * Quote from above article: "Harari describes himself as 'vegan-ish'. 'I try to be involved as little as possible with the meat and dairy industry,' he says. 'But if I go to my Mom’s and she makes a cake with cheese, or whatever, I eat it.'" — Preceding unsigned comment added by Get-the-bob-done (talk • contribs) 11:28, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Article 2 (Not sure if this is the one, but it's behind a paywall)

Biography: Inappropriate synthesis of disparate family origin accounts?
Under "Biography", this article says Harari "grew up in a secular Jewish family[3] with Lebanese and Eastern European roots in Haifa, Israel.[4]" Source [3], as currently enumerated, is a French-language article in L'Arche magazine, which says he was born (my translation) "[to] a secular family and [to] Lebanese parents of Sephardic origin" (d’une famille laïque et de parents libanais d’origine séfarade), by "Sephardic" indicating Jewish cultural roots in Mediterranean Europe, especially Spain or Portugal. Source [4] is an English-language article from The Guardian (UK), which says Harari "grew up in a secular Jewish family of eastern European origin", indicating his family are probably not Sephardic but Ashkenazic. The sentence in question (under "Biography") appears to deal with this discrepancy by assuming that Harari is of both origins. If so, that would be an inappropriate synthesis of material from sources that disagree. (See WP:SYNTH: "Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources.") At a minimum, for this claim of dual origins to stand, a reliable source must be found that explicitly states Harari is of both backgrounds.--IfYouDoIfYouDon&#39;t (talk) 10:13, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

Requested Criticism &sect;
The individual spouts poorly supported and often contradictory claims for which he has little authority or expertise. This sort of thing is what might be in such a section. I just watched an interview where after declaring a range of far fetched predictions as things that were "going to happen" not "could happen" he then shortly later said you can't predict the future. 98.4.103.219 (talk) 21:31, 18 June 2019 (UTC)


 * I just read Harari's "Brief History of Mankind" (in German). Obviously he knows human history quite well, but not Soviet history. Like a 1st semester student he re-dated the end of the Soviet Union from 1991 to 1989 (p. 451 in the 30th edition, 2018). Writing about war and peace in 20th and 21st centuries he totally missed out all the US wars and interventions, the huge US net of military bases and so on. -C.G. (talk) 16:40, 25 December 2019 (UTC)


 * Do either of you have citations you would like to add or query in the article? This talk page is not a forum for general, personal opinions. Neither is the article. This page is for constructive, referenced improvement of the article as an encyclopaedic entry. Anna (talk) 22:47, 25 December 2019 (UTC)

Clarification needed?

 * "Harari gave the first TED Talk as a digital avatar". Comment: Arguably there is some information needed (or the sentence/period does not belong in a general encyclopedia). 89.8.107.196 (talk) 17:39, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

Addition of key ideas from Sapiens
I think the omission of these radical ideas coming from Harari is a gross omission, that minimises his impact as a thinker. Soler97 (talk) 12:22, 25 September 2021 (UTC)
 * , I agree the ideas are fascinating. However they do not belong in the lede per MOS:LEADBIO. If you want to include these points, add them to the "Literary career" or "Views and opinions" section, along with citations in reliable sources to back up the content. Netherzone (talk) 22:29, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

Correcting place he lives
I found an interview by the subject giving his actual place of residence, and explicitly called out WP for having the wrong information (likely on the Hebrew language version). I will correct this article with the citation. I would appreciate it if someone were to correct the other language versions of this article, which all seem to contain the same error. FeedTheRat (talk) 18:09, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

Is he a scientist?
In the box it says, "Scientific career" His degrees are in HISTORY. He is not a scientist. Recently his "scientific" pronouncements have been questioned.

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

Somebody please fix. Surjit Singh (talk) 16:10, 9 July 2022 (UTC)


 * I agree that he is not a scientist, he is an academic. This is independent from whether or not his pronouncements in the area of science are accurate or not. Even if he does have a science degree (it seems he doesn't), putting Scientific carrer above the fields of Big History and Social philosophy is inaccurate, even if Big History were a science, because Social philosophy is certainly not a science.
 * Given more than a year has passed since this point was raised, I will change Scientific carreer to Academic carreer. 23d49h24 (talk) 13:16, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

Claim of teaching himself to read at the age of 3
This seems a hyperbole or exaggeration and no citation is given too Themisislegal (talk) 03:02, 20 October 2023 (UTC)


 * Citation added 24 October 2023. Mcljlm (talk) 14:18, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
 * This source only claims that his mother said his sisters told her he had taught himself to read when he was 3 or 4. This is immediately followed by him saying it was probably 4 or 5. This is shocking tone as well, for something supposedly biographical. The inclusion of this anecdote at all seems bizarre, to say the least. 2600:1009:A021:49D7:F6E1:E461:845A:2DC (talk) 03:30, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
 * This is literally a story from his mother. This feels like a bad joke, can we try to maintain a more neutral tone and refrain from putting anecdotes in articles like this? It makes us look like a bunch of tone-deaf, nakedly biased idiots. 2600:1009:A021:49D7:79B9:3798:291E:6AB6 (talk) 21:12, 1 February 2024 (UTC)