Humans have been enslaved by their creations for tens of thousands of years—by these stories that they create about gods, about nations, about money. They forget that we created them, and then, you know, we are trapped inside the dreams of dead people.

The idea that COVID-19 was created in order to implant people with computer chips to control them, this is ridiculous ... But it represents a real and realistic fear of surveillance technology. And it is, I think, true that one of the consequences of the pandemic ... I think that it is a reality that we see a huge rise in the implementation and acceptance of surveillance technology all over the world.

It's not easy to know the difference between deceiving others and deceiving yourself. Very often, even if people start by lying, somewhere along the way, they start to believe their own lies.

You don't need the truth for power. Power is based on making a lot of people believe the same story. The truth usually gets in the way ... You can have enormous social power by making a lot of people believe in fiction.

We don't like things that are difficult to understand; we prefer things that are easy to understand. Now, compare trying to really understand the epidemiological chain of events leading from some bat to humans, and it spread over the world—it's so complicated—to the idea, the conspiracy, that there are a couple of billionaires who are doing all this to control the world.

The kind of Hollywood science fiction scenario of 'the robots are coming to kill us because they are evil, and they want to take over the world'... We don't need to worry about that. But the other kind of autonomy, it's already here. I mean, the idea that a bank won't give you a loan because an algorithm said no, this is not science fiction; this is reality increasingly in more and more parts of the world.

I think that there is a possibility that people would look back, certainly in the West, people will look back at the period from, say, 1990 to 2015 as a kind of golden age. And it's downhill from there.

You should never underestimate human stupidity ... Data and science and all that, it's great, but you should never underestimate human stupidity.

I think, basically, humans control the world because we cooperate better than any other animal. And we cooperate better because we are so good at inventing and believing fictional stories. All large-scale human cooperation is based on inventing and believing fictional stories.

Even if you want to lie, you need to convince people. And the best way to convince people is to believe the lie yourself.

We shouldn't dismiss conspiracy theories too easily. They often represent deep and sometimes justified fears that humans have.

I think our biggest enemy now is not the virus; it's our own inner demons of hatred and greed and ignorance.

Lies that are believed by people with nuclear weapons are more dangerous than lies that are believed by people with stone spears.

Every new tool for spreading information is also a new tool for spreading lies and fictions and conspiracies.

Usually the hallmark of conspiracy theories and things like that, they are simple.

I often say that the most real thing in the world is suffering. Suffering is often caused by the stories in which we believe.