For centuries, humanity has lived with a basic certainty: even if the world changed unpredictably, the fundamental skills for living and working were always the same. Now the future scares us, and rightly so. This is how the philosopher, historian and writer explains it Yuval Noah Hararione of the most relevant current voices on the future of humanity.

The philosopher gives us the example of a peasant from the 15th century. He might have no idea if his king would fall in battle or if there would be a devastating drought, But he knew that, no matter what happened, his children would need to know how to reap wheat, sow crops, and build a home.. But now, for the first time in history, that logic no longer makes sense.

For the first time in history

“It is the first time in history that we do not know what the world will be like in twenty or thirty years,” explains the historian when a teacher asks him what skills will be necessary for the jobs of the future. “Obviously, we have never predicted the future,” the expert clarifies. However, he adds, “throughout history, we have known the skills we would need to survive and work.”

This doesn’t happen to us anymore. Now, if we try to imagine what the world will be like in twenty years, “it is not only that we do not know what the political situation will be, but that we have no idea what the economy, the labor market will be like, or what jobs there will be,” Harari explains in a conference for We learn together from BBVA.

This is what leaves us in a delicate situation, because for the first time in history we do not know what we should teach. “We know that many current professions are going to disappear,” he warns.“others will emerge, but we don’t know which ones.”

Amidst so much uncertainty, This collapse of predictability makes it clear to us that educating through specialization is a risky bet.. Instructing young people in specific skills, as if they were definitive tools, is training them for a world that will probably no longer exist when they reach adulthood. This is what happened, for example, with the case of programming.

The danger of clinging to a single skill

Just a few years ago, it was repeated like a mantra that teaching programming was the passport to an ideal future. In a digital world, the mastery of code seemed absolute. “Now, cutting-edge AI already knows how to program and is improving by leaps and bounds,” says the historian. «In twenty years, there may be no need for programmers either. At least, not human programmers.»

This example, proposed by Harari, is evidence that dependence on specific skills is a trap for the future. As technology advances, many of the skills we consider essential today will become obsolete.. The only way to be prepared is to develop a flexible mindset, capable of continually learning, unlearning and relearning.

Forget in order to learn

“The only certainty about the future is that there are going to be more and more bigger and faster changes,” explains Harari. This means that, in many cases, “what you learned in your youth, when you reach thirty or fifty, is no longer useful.”. The world is radically different. «We have to relearn everything.»

The advice that the historian offers us about what the future holds is based precisely on this: “the key to adapting to the new world is to forget.” This does not mean that we throw away all our knowledge, but that we forget what we think we know.“because what you think you know often interrupts and makes it difficult for you to learn new things.” That is, get rid of the biases that distance us from the truth.

“You may even have to relearn how to walk and see,” he explains.. And the expert theorizes that with the emergence of virtual reality we will increasingly spend more and more time in virtual worlds in which the laws of physics may be different.

It is for all this that, for Harari, “The most important skill in life is to be flexible, to be able to reinvent yourself again and again throughout history.”. And to achieve this, he says, it is «crucial to be able to let go of your ideas, to be able to say ‘I don’t know’.» The expert recognizes that «it is not easy at all, because in school and university, when someone says they don’t know something, they give them a bad grade. But the ability to say ‘I don’t know’ requires a lot of honesty and courage.»

Things haven’t changed that much

All of this reflection by Harari leads us, inevitably, to think about the advancement of science. And that is precisely where we realize that, in reality, nothing has changed much.. Because yes, all this is very important now, but in reality, it has always been. «Science is based on ignorance,» he explains, «what modern science invented was not a discovery of knowledge in Geography or Astronomy, of Copernicus or Darwin, no. The great scientific revolution that gave rise to modern science was the discovery of ignorance.»

This fact, which is universal and does not seem to change, never hides the key for new generations, and ourselves, to be useful in the future. “If you pretend to know everything, you will never learn anything new.” The secret, therefore, will be to keep ourselves open to understanding what Socrates said more than 2,000 years ago. That the true secret of happiness and wisdom is found in his “I only know that I know nothing.”

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