Status
Call number
Genres
Publication
Description
History. Science. Sociology. Nonfiction. HTML: Yuval Noah Harari, author of the critically-acclaimed New York Times bestseller and international phenomenon Sapiens, returns with an equally original, compelling, and provocative book, turning his focus toward humanity's future, and our quest to upgrade humans into gods. Over the past century humankind has managed to do the impossible and rein in famine, plague, and war. This may seem hard to accept, but, as Harari explains in his trademark style�??thorough, yet riveting�??famine, plague and war have been transformed from incomprehensible and uncontrollable forces of nature into manageable challenges. For the first time ever, more people die from eating too much than from eating too little; more people die from old age than from infectious diseases; and more people commit suicide than are killed by soldiers, terrorists and criminals put together. The average American is a thousand times more likely to die from binging at McDonalds than from being blown up by Al Qaeda. What then will replace famine, plague, and war at the top of the human agenda? As the self-made gods of planet earth, what destinies will we set ourselves, and which quests will we undertake? Homo Deus explores the projects, dreams and nightmares that will shape the twenty-first century�??from overcoming death to creating artificial life. It asks the fundamental questions: Where do we go from here? And how will we protect this fragile world from our own destructive powers? This is the next stage of evolution. This is Homo Deus. With the same insight and clarity that made Sapiens an international hit and a New York Times bestseller, Harari maps out our fut… (more)
User reviews
The prose reads fine, though I don't find it as
Well, according to the author, “what now” is a quest for immortality, and the concept may not be as far-fetched as many people think, leading to a new form of human, hence the title of the book, Homo Deus.
I purchased this book, because I thought it might contain a lot of predictions on the future of the human race, based upon recent advances in biotechnology and medical sciences. Instead, it largely consisted of long screeds on the development of humanistic philosophies, with only very broad, non-specific statements on what the future may hold. In other words, a lot of philosophical discussion of the past and current state of the human race, and very little on the future.
Finally, this is the densest book I have ever read. No, not necessarily the subject matter, though if you are not into philosophy, the subject matter may (will) bore you to tears. I’m talking about physical density. I don’t know what kind of paper stock the publisher used, but this book weighed about 10 pounds. If Dickens had used similar stock, David Copperfield would have required a forklift to move.
I shouldn't have been surprised, though, given that in the introduction Harari makes it clear that his definition of "humanity" is limited to wealthy, white Christians from the Western world. Using that definition, he also states confidently that the only remaining threats to humanity in the 21st century are obesity and Ritalin abuse. This is... certainly a take! Not to mention that his numerical claims for obesity-caused deaths and prescription stimulant abuse are debunked and unsubstantiated, respectively (a citation for something presented as fact which has to begin with "evidence is insufficient" should also not have made it past the editing process).
But even if you agree that these are problems for some societies, believing that humanity as a whole faces no other challenges is wild. It also makes for a very dull book because Harari has to talk about utterly random things (whether animals have souls, for example) at great length to avoid acknowledging pandemics, climate change, genocide, etc. What a waste of time.
Take famine. We are told that "famine is rare". But across what data-set is that claim true? Across the data-set of what we actually know, about what is actually happening, at the present time? But that is a profoundly-inadequate data-set. We ought to consider also what we don't know about what is happening right now (Do we know whether or not, even right now, a serious famine is underway in under-reported/remote in parts of Africa?). More important, we ought to consider what might have happened, in recent history (has humanity quite possibly been merely lucky not to have experienced a mega-famine, in recent times (we may have come close, for instance, in 2007-9, during which period most of the world's countries resorted to banning food exports)? If so, then we can take very little consolation from the fact that it didn't happen). Most importantly of all, we ought to consider what might be about to happen (Can we really be confident that we’re not in the position of the turkey who claims loudly to any other turkeys that will listen to have ever-increasing evidence that famine is a thing of the past, the closer it gets to Christmas? Perhaps in a decade's time, historians will look back on casual remarks along the lines of some people I know as some kind of cruel or bizarre joke. (Assuming that there are historians to look back, at all).
The so-called 'evidence' of our power isn't really statistically-significant evidence, once we take into account the vast seas of our ignorance. In order to be (justifiably) confident that "famine is rare", we would need to be justifiably confident that our systems are not fragile. That we have enough resilience to weather the storms of misfortune, which might for instance be about to hit us by way of unprecedented climate-disasters, now that our weather appears to be tipping into an unprecedented state. We would need a data-set that covered the three categories of unknowns that I outlined in the previous paragraph.
Of course, the vastly-greater 'data-set' of which I speak here is in principle unavailable to us, stuck as we are in highly-limited epistemic horizons, unable to experience history's counter-factuals, let alone those of the future. The thoroughly counter-factual nature of the 'data-set' that would be needed in order to undergird Harari's claims ensures that we will never become the kinds of masters of the universe that it is so tempting to imagine ourselves being or becoming.
So what can we do? For starters, we can stop patting ourselves on the back that we are living in a safe and secure world, when we simply don't know that. Harari tells us that we have "conquered nature" (my reading); on the contrary, in the very act of struggling to outgrow (our) nature we are unleashing terrifying new post-natural forces that are quite likely to unravel the complex systems and long-supply lines we have created. We are radically fragilising ourselves and our one and only home. What can we do? We can stop doing this. But only if we adopt a radically different vision from the widespread complacent 'progressivism' of Harari and a million other well-fed intellectuals. The real, Janus-faced evidence of our power is in the extent to which we have created a world that is hurtling ever further out of our control. The only way to turn this around is to stop pretending that we have evidence that we are in control, and start taking a properly precautionary attitude. That means starting to radically 'build down' the level of our impacts upon the world around us. Rather than self-defeatingly fantasising ourselves a 'God-species', we need to start acting as if we are what we are: one species, with a responsibility not to destroy our descendants and ourselves -- and not to take most of the other species with us.
What I sense behind the Data driven mindset is the age old human need to eradicate uncertainty. Just to stop having to live in an uncertain world. So no surprises, nothing off the wall, everything predicted, containable, knowable in all its parts. Yet the problem to be dealt with is not really social life and data, the problem is existential and profound, it's intrinsically unmanageable, something functioning entirely within what in the end is an open-ended universe of possibilities (predict that Jimmy) also known to us all as human self-consciousness. I sympathise with the drive (I have one too, a consciousness solid until searched for then turning to air) but no sympathy for the infantile drive of the methodology. There is now way out of our predicament, if there is a way through it may be to live deeply enjoyably, with deep uncertainty.
Bottom-line: I enjoy the way that Harari considers big issues, but so far a number of the ideas seem to reiterate Karl Popper's notion of "world 3", and other themes have been covered in previous SF by Olaf Stapledon (“First and Last Men”), and Isaac Asimov, passim. A bigger problem is that by writing this book Harari has highlighted a problem with the "big history" approach, promoted by people such as Bill Gates. His previous book, “Sapiens”, was a good example of the genre and sought to see human history both in how it fits into the history of the cosmos, biological life, mammal physiology, and the long period in which modern humans existed but wrote nothing. From that Olympic perspective "big history" seeks to move away from both the modern academic resistance to "grand narratives" and from the antiquarianism and micro-history into which some modern academics have retreated. The problem for Harari is that once you have written one "big history" book, there is not really a need to write another, or at least not until new information (from science, diligent archivists, or even intelligent algorithms) changes the big picture. Hence this book is a mix of shitty philosophy, Alvin Toffler-style futurism, and a whole jumble of the author's personal fads and prejudices. Whatever it is, it is not "history".
And that presents a problem. If even author the greatest recent publishing success in "big history" cannot produce a second book on the subject, the whole area does not look that promising for other authors. Provocative book? Not in the least. If you want “provocative” you should instead read “The Trouble with Physics” by Lee Smolin.
SF = Speculative Fiction.
I very much enjoyed Sapiens, so the sloppy thinking here was quite disappointing. One star for being provocative.
Indeed, in today's world of big data, electronic eavesdropping, AI, genetic research etc, indeed the possibility of a race of 'superhuman', with the mass of humanity being stooges of the same, is not that remote a possibility.
The question then becomes, what happens to nations?
The book is indeed well written, and is quite accessible in its style. You could argue some points. I personally believe that, despite our data and the modern rush towards algorithms, we are not algorithms. We are emotional beings who will burn the planet (and ourselves) to extinction. Having said that, he raises many pertinent issues, and it would be a mistake to dismiss them as mere speculation.
An excellent book, and one that we should all read, and ponder over.
Harari is a MUST READ - even if you don't agree with him - he will deepen your understanding of the forces at work today that are shaping the future we are creating. His grasp of the future is based on a deep
5 stars-- and well deserved.
If you are as old as me, you will remember
The author does raise many interesting concepts: the end of the liberal era is something which I could see coming to pass but, I did find his dismissive attitude to religion irritating. Naturally, Mr Harari is entitled to his view as to whether a, or indeed any, religion is based on more than superstition, but to write a supposedly factual book and simply state that religion is now dead, is a little far fetched. Mr Harari goes further than this, he offers us the replacement 'religion' for the new era; he calls this 'Dataism'.
Dataism is described as a new, fact based religion. It seems that human beings, if they survive, will become a sort of universal virus, collecting information just for the pleasure of knowledge. I say, 'if they survive, because the suggestion is that artificial intelligence will be far more effective at this task and that we will either become enhanced human/computer mergers or, we will replace ourselves with a homo sapiens creation. This seems unlikely to me.
The wealthy, the influential, the high rollers will not negotiate themselves into a position of less power and the underclasses are sadly showing a lack of concern for the issues of significance; they are neatly side tracked into a world of 'needing the latest technology', and playing with these new toys. Capitalism will not go gently into that good night.
Interestingly, a brief study of t'interweb, shows that the whole concept of 'Dataism' is far from a rapidly expanding new religion, it is a crank idea with little following.
An interesting book, but don't expect it to change your life.