This was a heavy book, figuratively and literally! Harari has a PhD in history and specializes in world history. He wrote an earlier book on the history of mankind called Sapiens. This book is a sort of sequel, describing the future of the human species. He presents many provocative ideas based on the evolution of industry and technology in the modern age. I was fascinated and fearful of some of his predictions. Here are some quotes and snipets I wanted to keep:
Page 54 - "A baby was conceived using the mitochondrial DNA of a 3rd person so she has biologically three parents (this procedures was subsequently banned in the U.S.)"
Page 58 - "This is the paradox of historical knowledge. Knowledge that does not change behaviour is useless. But knowledge that changes behaviour quickly loses it relevance. The more data we have and the better we understand history, the faster history alters its course and the faster our knowledge becomes outdated."
Page 132 - "...the crucial factor in our [humans] conquest of the world was our ability to connect many humans to one another."
Page - 143 - "All large-scale human cooperation is ultimately based on our belief in imagined orders. These are set of rules that, despite existing only in our imagination, we believe to be a real and inviolable as gravity [examples, God]. As long as all Sapiens living in a particular locality believe in the sames stories, they all follow the same rules, making it easy to predict the behaviour of strangers and to organize mass-cooperation networks."
When he talks of "imagined orders" he's referring to a belief that is intersubjective - a belief that depends on communication among many humans, money being an example. He posits that religious and nationalistic beliefs are also intersubjective and cease to exist if we cease to believe in them.
He goes on from this explanation of how the species acts based on commonly held beliefs to describe "The Modern Covenant" - an agreement we have made "to give up meaning in exchange for power". Religion and nationalistic beliefs gave meaning to human life but restricted their power. By letting go of a belief in a great cosmic plan life has no meaning. "The modern world does not believe in purpose, only in cause. If modernity has a motto, its 'shit happens'." From this, he surmises, humans can do anything we want. "On the practical level modern life consists of a constant pursuit of power within a universe devoid meaning."
Page 304 - "If you want to make people believe in imaginary entities such as gods and nations, you should make them sacrifice something valuable".
Page 350 - "Most scientific research about the human mind and the human experience has been conducted on people from Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic (WEIRD) societies. The study of the human mind has so far assumed that Homo sapiens is Homer Simpson."
Page 366 - "Modern humanity is sick with FOMO - Fear of Missing Out and though we have more choice than ever before, we have lost the ability to really pay attention to whatever we choose."
He ends with three challenging questions:
- Are organisms really just algorithms, and is life really just data processing?
- What's more valuable intelligence or consciousness?
- What will happen to society, politics and daily life when non-conscious but highly intelligent algorithms know us better than we know ourselves?
Published: 2015 Read: March 2018 Genre: History, Science
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