21 Lessons for the 21st century is not comparable to Harari’s previous landmark works of history and prognostication Sapiens and Homo Deus. Written with the purpose of focusing not on the future nor the past but on contemporary civilization, Harari tends to make sweeping assumptions and badly reasoned arguments when he is not flat out contradictory. Even worse, most of the content is the sort of generalizations seen in futurist websites and Facebook groups. It’s not so much that it’s false as that it’s not new.
I will try to summarize some examples of why I think this book is a poor relative to Harari’s previous works. Harari argues that elections might be infeasible in the future. Why? Because if elections were about reason then obviously we would appoint a committee of experts to choose our leaders. Since we don’t, elections must be all about emotions which, as seen in 2016, are increasingly going to be controlled by AI. Therefore, per Harari, elections will become passé. He does not consider that, like guessing the number of coins in a jar, elections might be held because, when you combine millions of voters responses, individual biases in reasoning will balance each other out and you will arrive at the best answer.
Another example: AI will soon create works of art superior to humans. This is because Harari asserts that art is all about the emotions and so AI will be able to manipulate these emotions better than a human artist. However, when I, for one, read Aeschylus I don’t experience much emotion but do enjoy the incredible craftsmanship and artistry of a creative genius. Many patrons of the arts I think would agree.
Lastly, the book concludes with Harari explaining that all meta-narratives—Christian, liberal, communist, Islamic, etc.— have been proven wrong by modern science. Even the stories of personal identity we tell ourselves—what we were like as children and how that made us into the adults we are today—are bogus because there’s no human soul that would make different times in our life into a unity.
So, having dismissed all personal narratives, Harari then goes on to tell his own story about how Buddhist meditation led him from being a confused and stressed teenager into the confident author of Sapiens and Homo Deus. Doesn’t Harari see that he cannot recommend mindfulness meditation as the correct response to personal suffering by telling a story if several pages earlier he said that personal narratives are illusory?
Harari is a talented writer and one can enjoy reading this book as an intelligent man’s musings about the contemporary world picture. But it simply cannot be considered in the same light as his previous monumental achievements.
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Editorial Reviews
Review
“The human mind wants to worry. This is not necessarily a bad thing—after all, if a bear is stalking you, worrying about it may well save your life. Although most of us don’t need to lose too much sleep over bears these days, modern life does present plenty of other reasons for concern: terrorism, climate change, the rise of A.I., encroachments on our privacy, even the apparent decline of international cooperation. In his fascinating new book, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, the historian Yuval Noah Harari creates a useful framework for confronting these fears. While his previous best sellers, Sapiens and Homo Deus, covered the past and future respectively, his new book is all about the present. The trick for putting an end to our anxieties, he suggests, is not to stop worrying. It’s to know which things to worry about, and how much to worry about them. . . . Harari is such a stimulating writer that even when I disagreed, I wanted to keep reading and thinking. . . . [Harari] has teed up a crucial global conversation about how to take on the problems of the twenty-first century.”—Bill Gates, The New York Times Book Review
“If there were such a thing as a required instruction manual for politicians and thought leaders, Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari’s 21 Lessons for the 21st Century would deserve serious consideration. In this collection of provocative essays, Harari, author of the critically praised Sapiens and Homo Deus, tackles a daunting array of issues, endeavoring to answer a persistent question: ‘What is happening in the world today, and what is the deep meaning of these events?’ . . . Harari makes a passionate argument for reshaping our educational systems and replacing our current emphasis on quickly outdated substantive knowledge with the ‘four Cs’—critical thinking, communication, collaboration and creativity. . . . Thoughtful readers will find 21 Lessons for the 21st Century to be a mind-expanding experience.”—BookPage (top pick)
“A sobering and tough-minded perspective on bewildering new vistas.”—Booklist (starred review)
“Magnificently combining historical, scientific, political, and philosophical perspectives, Harari . . . explores twenty-one of what he considers to be today’s ‘greatest challenges.’ Despite the title’s reference to ‘lessons,’ his tone is not prescriptive but exploratory, seeking to provoke debate without offering definitive solutions. . . . Within this broad construct, Harari discusses many pressing issues, including problems associated with liberal democracy, nationalism, immigration, and religion. This well-informed and searching book is one to be savored and widely discussed.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“A highly instructive exploration of ‘current affairs and . . . the immediate future of human societies.’ Having produced an international bestseller about human origins and avoided the sophomore jinx writing about our destiny, Harari proves that he has not lost his touch, casting a brilliantly insightful eye on today’s myriad crises, from Trump to terrorism, Brexit to big data. . . . [In] twenty-one painfully astute essays, he delivers his take on where our increasingly ‘post-truth’ world is headed. Human ingenuity, which enables us to control the outside world, may soon re-engineer our insides, extend life, and guide our thoughts. Science-fiction movies get the future wrong, if only because they have happy endings. Most readers will find Harari’s narrative deliciously reasonable, including his explanation of the stories (not actually true but rational) of those who elect dictators, populists, and nationalists. His remedies for wildly disruptive technology (biotech, infotech) and its consequences (climate change, mass unemployment) ring true, provided nations act with more good sense than they have shown throughout history. Harari delivers yet another tour de force.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“If there were such a thing as a required instruction manual for politicians and thought leaders, Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari’s 21 Lessons for the 21st Century would deserve serious consideration. In this collection of provocative essays, Harari, author of the critically praised Sapiens and Homo Deus, tackles a daunting array of issues, endeavoring to answer a persistent question: ‘What is happening in the world today, and what is the deep meaning of these events?’ . . . Harari makes a passionate argument for reshaping our educational systems and replacing our current emphasis on quickly outdated substantive knowledge with the ‘four Cs’—critical thinking, communication, collaboration and creativity. . . . Thoughtful readers will find 21 Lessons for the 21st Century to be a mind-expanding experience.”—BookPage (top pick)
“A sobering and tough-minded perspective on bewildering new vistas.”—Booklist (starred review)
“Magnificently combining historical, scientific, political, and philosophical perspectives, Harari . . . explores twenty-one of what he considers to be today’s ‘greatest challenges.’ Despite the title’s reference to ‘lessons,’ his tone is not prescriptive but exploratory, seeking to provoke debate without offering definitive solutions. . . . Within this broad construct, Harari discusses many pressing issues, including problems associated with liberal democracy, nationalism, immigration, and religion. This well-informed and searching book is one to be savored and widely discussed.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“A highly instructive exploration of ‘current affairs and . . . the immediate future of human societies.’ Having produced an international bestseller about human origins and avoided the sophomore jinx writing about our destiny, Harari proves that he has not lost his touch, casting a brilliantly insightful eye on today’s myriad crises, from Trump to terrorism, Brexit to big data. . . . [In] twenty-one painfully astute essays, he delivers his take on where our increasingly ‘post-truth’ world is headed. Human ingenuity, which enables us to control the outside world, may soon re-engineer our insides, extend life, and guide our thoughts. Science-fiction movies get the future wrong, if only because they have happy endings. Most readers will find Harari’s narrative deliciously reasonable, including his explanation of the stories (not actually true but rational) of those who elect dictators, populists, and nationalists. His remedies for wildly disruptive technology (biotech, infotech) and its consequences (climate change, mass unemployment) ring true, provided nations act with more good sense than they have shown throughout history. Harari delivers yet another tour de force.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Amazon.com Review
An Amazon Best Book of September 2018: It’s hard to imagine having as many deep thoughts as Yuval Noah Harari. His 2015 book, Sapiens, examined the human race through the vectors of history and biology, illuminating how each has influenced our behavior and evolution. Two years later, Homo Deus took us in the opposite direction, predicting the profound changes we will undergo as technology becomes increasingly intertwined in our lives and bodies. Just a year and a half later, Harari turns his attention to more immediate concerns. Using the same tack-sharp lens as his previous books, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century addresses urgent, shape-shifting topics that will shape our present and near future, including nationalism, religion, immigration, artificial intelligence, and even the nature of Truth—in other words, everything you're not supposed to talk about at Thanksgiving. Harari is not always reassuring, and he's certainly unafraid of questions challenging widely held views on both global and personal scales, i.e. yours. His quest is not to tear holes in belief systems, but to expand conversations and strip the -isms that channel us into predictably intractable stand-offs. Calling any book "urgent" or "a must-read" is almost always hyperbolic, even shrill. But especially now, 21 Lessons fits the bill. —Jon Foro, Amazon Book Review
--This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
1
Disillusionment
The End of History Has Been Postponed
Humans think in stories rather than in facts, numbers, or equations, and the simpler the story, the better. Every person, group, and nation has its own tales and myths. But during the twentieth century the global elites in New York, London, Berlin, and Moscow formulated three grand stories that claimed to explain the whole past and to predict the future of the entire world: the fascist story, the communist story, and the liberal story. The Second World War knocked out the fascist story, and from the late 1940s to the late 1980s the world became a battleground between just two stories: communism and liberalism. Then the communist story collapsed, and the liberal story remained the dominant guide to the human past and the indispensable manual for the future of the world—or so it seemed to the global elite.
The liberal story celebrates the value and power of liberty. It says that for thousands of years humankind lived under oppressive regimes that allowed people few political rights, economic opportunities, or personal liberties, and which heavily restricted the movements of individuals, ideas, and goods. But people fought for their freedom, and step by step, liberty gained ground. Democratic regimes took the place of brutal dictatorships. Free enterprise overcame economic restrictions. People learned to think for themselves and follow their hearts instead of blindly obeying bigoted priests and hidebound traditions. Open roads, wide bridges, and bustling airports replaced walls, moats, and barbed-wire fences.
The liberal story acknowledges that not all is well in the world and that there are still many hurdles to overcome. Much of our planet is dominated by tyrants, and even in the most liberal countries many citizens suffer from poverty, violence, and oppression. But at least we know what we need to do in order to overcome these problems: give people more liberty. We need to protect human rights, grant everybody the vote, establish free markets, and let individuals, ideas, and goods move throughout the world as easily as possible. According to this liberal panacea—accepted, in slight variations, by George W. Bush and Barack Obama alike—if we just continue to liberalize and globalize our political and economic systems, we will produce peace and prosperity for all.1
Countries that join this unstoppable march of progress will be rewarded with peace and prosperity sooner. Countries that try to resist the inevitable will suffer the consequences until they too see the light, open their borders, and liberalize their societies, their politics, and their markets. It may take time, but eventually even North Korea, Iraq, and El Salvador will look like Denmark or Iowa.
In the 1990s and 2000s this story became a global mantra. Many governments from Brazil to India adopted liberal recipes in an attempt to join the inexorable march of history. Those failing to do so seemed like fossils from a bygone era. In 1997 U.S. president Bill Clinton confidently rebuked the Chinese government, stating that its refusal to liberalize Chinese politics put it “on the wrong side of history.”2
However, since the global financial crisis of 2008 people all over the world have become increasingly disillusioned with the liberal story. Walls and firewalls are back in vogue. Resistance to immigration and to trade agreements is mounting. Ostensibly democratic governments undermine the independence of the judiciary system, restrict the freedom of the press, and portray any opposition as treason. Strongmen in countries such as Turkey and Russia experiment with new types of illiberal democracies and outright dictatorships. Today, few would confidently declare that the Chinese Communist Party is on the wrong side of history.
The year 2016—marked by the Brexit vote in Britain and the rise of Donald Trump in the United States—signified the moment when this tidal wave of disillusionment reached the core liberal states of Western Europe and North America. Whereas a few years ago Americans and Europeans were still trying to liberalize Iraq and Libya at gunpoint, many people in Kentucky and Yorkshire now have come to see the liberal vision as either undesirable or unattainable. Some discovered a liking for the old hierarchical world, and they just don’t want to give up their racial, national, or gendered privileges. Others have concluded (rightly or wrongly) that liberalization and globalization are a huge racket empowering a tiny elite at the expense of the masses.
In 1938 humans were offered three global stories to choose from, in 1968 just two, and in 1998 a single story seemed to prevail. In 2018 we are down to zero. No wonder that the liberal elites, who dominated much of the world in recent decades, are in a state of shock and disorientation. To have one story is the most reassuring situation of all. Everything is perfectly clear. To be suddenly left without any story is terrifying. Nothing makes any sense. A bit like the Soviet elite in the 1980s, liberals don’t understand how history deviated from its preordained course, and they lack an alternative prism through which to interpret reality. Disorientation causes them to think in apocalyptic terms, as if the failure of history to come to its envisioned happy ending can only mean that it is hurtling toward Armageddon. Unable to conduct a reality check, the mind latches onto catastrophic scenarios. Like a person imagining that a bad headache signifies a terminal brain tumor, many liberals fear that Brexit and the rise of Donald Trump portend the end of human civilization.
From Killing Mosquitoes to Killing Thoughts
Our sense of disorientation and impending doom is exacerbated by the accelerating pace of technological disruption. The liberal political system was shaped during the industrial era to manage a world of steam engines, oil refineries, and television sets. It has difficulty dealing with the ongoing revolutions in information technology and biotechnology.
Both politicians and voters are barely able to comprehend the new technologies, let alone regulate their explosive potential. Since the 1990s the internet has changed the world probably more than any other factor, yet the internet revolution was directed by engineers more than by political parties. Did you ever vote about the internet? The democratic system is still struggling to understand what hit it, and it is unequipped to deal with the next shocks, such as the rise of AI and the blockchain revolution.
Already today, computers have made the financial system so complicated that few humans can understand it. As AI improves, we might soon reach a point when no human can make sense of finance anymore. What will that do to the political process? Can you imagine a government that waits humbly for an algorithm to approve its budget or its new tax reform? Meanwhile, peer-to-peer blockchain networks and cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin might completely revamp the monetary system, making radical tax reforms inevitable. For example, it might become impossible or irrelevant to calculate and tax incomes in dollars, because most transactions will not involve a clear-cut exchange of national currency, or any currency at all. Governments might therefore need to invent entirely new taxes—perhaps a tax on information (which will be both the most important asset in the economy and the only thing exchanged in numerous transactions). Will the political system manage to deal with the crisis before it runs out of money?
Even more important, the twin revolutions in infotech and biotech could restructure not just economies and societies but our very bodies and minds. In the past, we humans learned to control the world outside us, but we had very little control over the world inside us. We knew how to build a dam and stop a river from flowing, but we did not know how to stop the body from aging. We knew how to design an irrigation system, but we had no idea how to design a brain. If a mosquito buzzed in our ear and disturbed our sleep, we knew how to kill the mosquito, but if a thought buzzed in our mind and kept us awake at night, most of us did not know how to kill the thought.
The revolutions in biotech and infotech will give us control of the world inside us and will enable us to engineer and manufacture life. We will learn how to design brains, extend lives, and kill thoughts at our discretion. Nobody knows what the consequences will be. Humans were always far better at inventing tools than using them wisely. It is easier to manipulate a river by building a dam than it is to predict all the complex consequences this will have for the wider ecological system. Similarly, it will be easier to redirect the flow of our minds than to divine what that will do to our personal psychology or to our social systems.
In the past, we gained the power to manipulate the world around us and reshape the entire planet, but because we didn’t understand the complexity of the global ecology, the changes we made inadvertently disrupted the entire ecological system, and now we face an ecological collapse. In the coming century biotech and infotech will give us the power to manipulate the world inside us and reshape ourselves, but because we don’t understand the complexity of our own minds, the changes we will make might upset our mental system to such an extent that it too might break down.
The revolutions in biotech and infotech are currently being started by engineers, entrepreneurs, and scientists who are hardly aware of the political implications of their decisions, and who certainly don’t represent anyone. Can parliaments and political parties take matters into their own hands? At present it does not seem so. Technological disruption is not even a leading item on the political agenda. During the 2016 U.S. presidential race, the main reference to disruptive technology concerned Hillary Clinton’s email debacle, and despite all the talk about job loss, neither candidate addressed the potential impact of automation.3 Donald Trump warned voters that the Mexicans and Chinese would take their jobs, and that they should therefore build a wall on the Mexican border.4 He never warned voters that algorithms would take their jobs, nor did he suggest building a firewall on the border with California.
This might be one of the reasons (though not the only one) voters even in the heartlands of the liberal West are losing faith in the liberal story and in the democratic process. Ordinary people may not understand artificial intelligence and biotechnology, but they can sense that the future is passing them by. In 1938 the condition of the common person in the USSR, Germany, or the United States may have been grim, but he was constantly told that he was the most important thing in the world, and that he was the future (provided, of course, that he was an “ordinary person” rather than a Jew or an African). He looked at the propaganda posters—which typically depicted coal miners, steelworkers, and housewives in heroic poses—and saw himself there: “I am in that poster! I am the hero of the future!”5
In 2018 the common person feels increasingly irrelevant. Lots of mysterious words are bandied around excitedly in TED Talks, government think tanks, and high-tech conferences—globalization, blockchain, genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, machine learning—and common people may well suspect that none of these words are about them. The liberal story was the story of ordinary people. How can it remain relevant to a world of cyborgs and networked algorithms?
In the twentieth century, the masses revolted against exploitation and sought to translate their vital role in the economy into political power. Now the masses fear irrelevance, and they are frantic to use their remaining political power before it is too late. Brexit and the rise of Trump might therefore demonstrate a trajectory opposite to that of traditional socialist revolutions. The Russian, Chinese, and Cuban revolutions were made by people who were vital to the economy but who lacked political power; in 2016, Trump and Brexit were supported by many people who still enjoyed political power but who feared that they were losing their economic worth. Perhaps in the twenty-first century populist revolts will be staged not against an economic elite that exploits people but against an economic elite that does not need them anymore.6 This may well be a losing battle. It is much harder to struggle against irrelevance than against exploitation. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.
Disillusionment
The End of History Has Been Postponed
Humans think in stories rather than in facts, numbers, or equations, and the simpler the story, the better. Every person, group, and nation has its own tales and myths. But during the twentieth century the global elites in New York, London, Berlin, and Moscow formulated three grand stories that claimed to explain the whole past and to predict the future of the entire world: the fascist story, the communist story, and the liberal story. The Second World War knocked out the fascist story, and from the late 1940s to the late 1980s the world became a battleground between just two stories: communism and liberalism. Then the communist story collapsed, and the liberal story remained the dominant guide to the human past and the indispensable manual for the future of the world—or so it seemed to the global elite.
The liberal story celebrates the value and power of liberty. It says that for thousands of years humankind lived under oppressive regimes that allowed people few political rights, economic opportunities, or personal liberties, and which heavily restricted the movements of individuals, ideas, and goods. But people fought for their freedom, and step by step, liberty gained ground. Democratic regimes took the place of brutal dictatorships. Free enterprise overcame economic restrictions. People learned to think for themselves and follow their hearts instead of blindly obeying bigoted priests and hidebound traditions. Open roads, wide bridges, and bustling airports replaced walls, moats, and barbed-wire fences.
The liberal story acknowledges that not all is well in the world and that there are still many hurdles to overcome. Much of our planet is dominated by tyrants, and even in the most liberal countries many citizens suffer from poverty, violence, and oppression. But at least we know what we need to do in order to overcome these problems: give people more liberty. We need to protect human rights, grant everybody the vote, establish free markets, and let individuals, ideas, and goods move throughout the world as easily as possible. According to this liberal panacea—accepted, in slight variations, by George W. Bush and Barack Obama alike—if we just continue to liberalize and globalize our political and economic systems, we will produce peace and prosperity for all.1
Countries that join this unstoppable march of progress will be rewarded with peace and prosperity sooner. Countries that try to resist the inevitable will suffer the consequences until they too see the light, open their borders, and liberalize their societies, their politics, and their markets. It may take time, but eventually even North Korea, Iraq, and El Salvador will look like Denmark or Iowa.
In the 1990s and 2000s this story became a global mantra. Many governments from Brazil to India adopted liberal recipes in an attempt to join the inexorable march of history. Those failing to do so seemed like fossils from a bygone era. In 1997 U.S. president Bill Clinton confidently rebuked the Chinese government, stating that its refusal to liberalize Chinese politics put it “on the wrong side of history.”2
However, since the global financial crisis of 2008 people all over the world have become increasingly disillusioned with the liberal story. Walls and firewalls are back in vogue. Resistance to immigration and to trade agreements is mounting. Ostensibly democratic governments undermine the independence of the judiciary system, restrict the freedom of the press, and portray any opposition as treason. Strongmen in countries such as Turkey and Russia experiment with new types of illiberal democracies and outright dictatorships. Today, few would confidently declare that the Chinese Communist Party is on the wrong side of history.
The year 2016—marked by the Brexit vote in Britain and the rise of Donald Trump in the United States—signified the moment when this tidal wave of disillusionment reached the core liberal states of Western Europe and North America. Whereas a few years ago Americans and Europeans were still trying to liberalize Iraq and Libya at gunpoint, many people in Kentucky and Yorkshire now have come to see the liberal vision as either undesirable or unattainable. Some discovered a liking for the old hierarchical world, and they just don’t want to give up their racial, national, or gendered privileges. Others have concluded (rightly or wrongly) that liberalization and globalization are a huge racket empowering a tiny elite at the expense of the masses.
In 1938 humans were offered three global stories to choose from, in 1968 just two, and in 1998 a single story seemed to prevail. In 2018 we are down to zero. No wonder that the liberal elites, who dominated much of the world in recent decades, are in a state of shock and disorientation. To have one story is the most reassuring situation of all. Everything is perfectly clear. To be suddenly left without any story is terrifying. Nothing makes any sense. A bit like the Soviet elite in the 1980s, liberals don’t understand how history deviated from its preordained course, and they lack an alternative prism through which to interpret reality. Disorientation causes them to think in apocalyptic terms, as if the failure of history to come to its envisioned happy ending can only mean that it is hurtling toward Armageddon. Unable to conduct a reality check, the mind latches onto catastrophic scenarios. Like a person imagining that a bad headache signifies a terminal brain tumor, many liberals fear that Brexit and the rise of Donald Trump portend the end of human civilization.
From Killing Mosquitoes to Killing Thoughts
Our sense of disorientation and impending doom is exacerbated by the accelerating pace of technological disruption. The liberal political system was shaped during the industrial era to manage a world of steam engines, oil refineries, and television sets. It has difficulty dealing with the ongoing revolutions in information technology and biotechnology.
Both politicians and voters are barely able to comprehend the new technologies, let alone regulate their explosive potential. Since the 1990s the internet has changed the world probably more than any other factor, yet the internet revolution was directed by engineers more than by political parties. Did you ever vote about the internet? The democratic system is still struggling to understand what hit it, and it is unequipped to deal with the next shocks, such as the rise of AI and the blockchain revolution.
Already today, computers have made the financial system so complicated that few humans can understand it. As AI improves, we might soon reach a point when no human can make sense of finance anymore. What will that do to the political process? Can you imagine a government that waits humbly for an algorithm to approve its budget or its new tax reform? Meanwhile, peer-to-peer blockchain networks and cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin might completely revamp the monetary system, making radical tax reforms inevitable. For example, it might become impossible or irrelevant to calculate and tax incomes in dollars, because most transactions will not involve a clear-cut exchange of national currency, or any currency at all. Governments might therefore need to invent entirely new taxes—perhaps a tax on information (which will be both the most important asset in the economy and the only thing exchanged in numerous transactions). Will the political system manage to deal with the crisis before it runs out of money?
Even more important, the twin revolutions in infotech and biotech could restructure not just economies and societies but our very bodies and minds. In the past, we humans learned to control the world outside us, but we had very little control over the world inside us. We knew how to build a dam and stop a river from flowing, but we did not know how to stop the body from aging. We knew how to design an irrigation system, but we had no idea how to design a brain. If a mosquito buzzed in our ear and disturbed our sleep, we knew how to kill the mosquito, but if a thought buzzed in our mind and kept us awake at night, most of us did not know how to kill the thought.
The revolutions in biotech and infotech will give us control of the world inside us and will enable us to engineer and manufacture life. We will learn how to design brains, extend lives, and kill thoughts at our discretion. Nobody knows what the consequences will be. Humans were always far better at inventing tools than using them wisely. It is easier to manipulate a river by building a dam than it is to predict all the complex consequences this will have for the wider ecological system. Similarly, it will be easier to redirect the flow of our minds than to divine what that will do to our personal psychology or to our social systems.
In the past, we gained the power to manipulate the world around us and reshape the entire planet, but because we didn’t understand the complexity of the global ecology, the changes we made inadvertently disrupted the entire ecological system, and now we face an ecological collapse. In the coming century biotech and infotech will give us the power to manipulate the world inside us and reshape ourselves, but because we don’t understand the complexity of our own minds, the changes we will make might upset our mental system to such an extent that it too might break down.
The revolutions in biotech and infotech are currently being started by engineers, entrepreneurs, and scientists who are hardly aware of the political implications of their decisions, and who certainly don’t represent anyone. Can parliaments and political parties take matters into their own hands? At present it does not seem so. Technological disruption is not even a leading item on the political agenda. During the 2016 U.S. presidential race, the main reference to disruptive technology concerned Hillary Clinton’s email debacle, and despite all the talk about job loss, neither candidate addressed the potential impact of automation.3 Donald Trump warned voters that the Mexicans and Chinese would take their jobs, and that they should therefore build a wall on the Mexican border.4 He never warned voters that algorithms would take their jobs, nor did he suggest building a firewall on the border with California.
This might be one of the reasons (though not the only one) voters even in the heartlands of the liberal West are losing faith in the liberal story and in the democratic process. Ordinary people may not understand artificial intelligence and biotechnology, but they can sense that the future is passing them by. In 1938 the condition of the common person in the USSR, Germany, or the United States may have been grim, but he was constantly told that he was the most important thing in the world, and that he was the future (provided, of course, that he was an “ordinary person” rather than a Jew or an African). He looked at the propaganda posters—which typically depicted coal miners, steelworkers, and housewives in heroic poses—and saw himself there: “I am in that poster! I am the hero of the future!”5
In 2018 the common person feels increasingly irrelevant. Lots of mysterious words are bandied around excitedly in TED Talks, government think tanks, and high-tech conferences—globalization, blockchain, genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, machine learning—and common people may well suspect that none of these words are about them. The liberal story was the story of ordinary people. How can it remain relevant to a world of cyborgs and networked algorithms?
In the twentieth century, the masses revolted against exploitation and sought to translate their vital role in the economy into political power. Now the masses fear irrelevance, and they are frantic to use their remaining political power before it is too late. Brexit and the rise of Trump might therefore demonstrate a trajectory opposite to that of traditional socialist revolutions. The Russian, Chinese, and Cuban revolutions were made by people who were vital to the economy but who lacked political power; in 2016, Trump and Brexit were supported by many people who still enjoyed political power but who feared that they were losing their economic worth. Perhaps in the twenty-first century populist revolts will be staged not against an economic elite that exploits people but against an economic elite that does not need them anymore.6 This may well be a losing battle. It is much harder to struggle against irrelevance than against exploitation. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.
About the Author
Born in Haifa, Israel, in 1976, YUVAL NOAH HARARI received his PhD from the University of Oxford in 2002, and is currently a lecturer at the Department of History, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Published in 2014, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind has become an international hit and is published in nearly 40 languages worldwide. It was listed on the Sunday Times bestseller list for over six months in paperback, and was a New York Times top 10 bestseller. In 2016, Harari published Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, which was also a widely hailed international bestseller. He lectures around the world on the topics explored in his books and articles, and has written for newspapers such as the Guardian, Financial Times, The Times and the Wall Street Journal. He also offers his knowledge and time to various organizations and audiences on a voluntary basis.
--This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.
Product details
- File Size : 4454 KB
- Print Length : 345 pages
- Publisher : Random House; Reprint Edition (September 4, 2018)
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Publication Date : September 4, 2018
- ASIN : B079WM7KLS
- Enhanced Typesetting : Enabled
- Language: : English
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- X-Ray : Enabled
- Lending : Not Enabled
-
Best-sellers rank #5,900 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
#2 in 21st Century World History
#3 in International & World Politics (Kindle Store)
#4 in Ancient Early Civilization History
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Reviewed in the United States on September 6, 2018
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Clarity Is Power and the Ability to Ward Off Nihilism So We Can Move Forward into the 21st Century
Reviewed in the United States on July 6, 2018
Yuval Noah Harari’s name came up when a few years ago a friend urged me to read Harari’s best-selling Sapiens, which I have put off, but since reading 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, a book that reads more like an essay collection, than a outright book (not a bad thing in this case), I do want to feast on all of Harrari’s books. I had to underline close to a hundred cogent insights throughout the book.
If anything unifies these essays--ranging from religion, morality, AI, terrorism, universal basic income, freedom, equality, meditation, nationalism, post-truth fascism, Trumpism, justice, secularism, and education—it is Harari’s desire to use his expertise as a historian, and by turn, a futurist, to equip us with the tools, attitudes, and moral approaches to moving forward in the 21st Century, shedding unwanted baggage such as fundamentalism, nationalism, racism, and other “isms.”
In his Introduction, he brilliantly begins: “In a world deluged by irrelevant information, clarity is power. . . . As a historian, I cannot give people food or clothes—but I can try to offer some clarity, thereby helping to level the global playing field.”
He warns us that the liberal secular vision of humankind moving forward with the powers of reason has taken a huge hit with the nihilism of Trumpism.
Taken as a whole, Harari’s book is intended to give us the tools to ward off nihilism, arrogance, and primitive “isms” and to become a fully realized modern human being. Highly recommended.
If anything unifies these essays--ranging from religion, morality, AI, terrorism, universal basic income, freedom, equality, meditation, nationalism, post-truth fascism, Trumpism, justice, secularism, and education—it is Harari’s desire to use his expertise as a historian, and by turn, a futurist, to equip us with the tools, attitudes, and moral approaches to moving forward in the 21st Century, shedding unwanted baggage such as fundamentalism, nationalism, racism, and other “isms.”
In his Introduction, he brilliantly begins: “In a world deluged by irrelevant information, clarity is power. . . . As a historian, I cannot give people food or clothes—but I can try to offer some clarity, thereby helping to level the global playing field.”
He warns us that the liberal secular vision of humankind moving forward with the powers of reason has taken a huge hit with the nihilism of Trumpism.
Taken as a whole, Harari’s book is intended to give us the tools to ward off nihilism, arrogance, and primitive “isms” and to become a fully realized modern human being. Highly recommended.
Reviewed in the United States on September 9, 2018
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How safe from obsolescence is the job you have now? Do you have the skills to adapt in the rapidly changing Big Data environment? How will the merger of infotech and biotech affect our collective future? How can we prevent climate change from irrevocably changing the planet? What will the next global armed conflict look like? Is the recent rise in nationalism a threat to world security? How does “post-truth” (i.e., fake news) affect our thinking? Do terrorist attacks create more fear and suffering than they should? How do the stories we tell ourselves, whether religious or secular in nature, influence our behavior?
These are all questions that are clearly of concern to each of us in the here and now. They also motivate many of the “lessons” discussed in 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, a volume that once again combines Yuval Noah Harari’s unique blend of history, science, philosophy, and anthropology. Unlike Sapiens, which explored mankind’s past 10,000 years, and Homo Deus, which projects humanity’s long-term future, this book purports to assess the major issues facing us in the present. Unfortunately, this exploration is neither wholly successful nor is it nearly as compelling as the author’s previous two efforts.
To be sure, there is a lot to like about what appears here. In particular, Harari’s discussion of the economic, legal, and social challenges created by the ascent of Big Data is very illuminating. Who owns the information summarizing our lives—or, perhaps more critically, who controls it—is indeed likely to be one of the major issues defining our near-term future. I also thought that the author’s interpretations of nationalism and secularism were insightful. Overall, he did a nice job of connecting several disparate themes into a cohesive bigger picture (e.g., a discussion of the importance of developing a global community is followed by an examination of nationalist sentiment which leads to a consideration of the immigration problem and then to the threat posed by terrorism).
The main problem I had with all of this is that major portions of the book were not especially original and often seemed like slightly reworked versions of arguments used in the author’s previous studies. For instance, the rise of biotech was thoroughly covered in Homo Deus and humankind’s use of rituals and ability to create useful fictions were essential parts of Sapiens. As such, there are really far fewer than 21 distinct lessons presented here, despite the volume containing 21 different chapters. Finally, the last two chapters involving the role of personal stories and the importance of meditation were woefully self-indulgent and had an off-putting pop-psychology/self-help feel to them. So, while 21 Lessons for the 21st Century is not at all a bad book, the reader might be better served by considering the author’s earlier work instead.
These are all questions that are clearly of concern to each of us in the here and now. They also motivate many of the “lessons” discussed in 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, a volume that once again combines Yuval Noah Harari’s unique blend of history, science, philosophy, and anthropology. Unlike Sapiens, which explored mankind’s past 10,000 years, and Homo Deus, which projects humanity’s long-term future, this book purports to assess the major issues facing us in the present. Unfortunately, this exploration is neither wholly successful nor is it nearly as compelling as the author’s previous two efforts.
To be sure, there is a lot to like about what appears here. In particular, Harari’s discussion of the economic, legal, and social challenges created by the ascent of Big Data is very illuminating. Who owns the information summarizing our lives—or, perhaps more critically, who controls it—is indeed likely to be one of the major issues defining our near-term future. I also thought that the author’s interpretations of nationalism and secularism were insightful. Overall, he did a nice job of connecting several disparate themes into a cohesive bigger picture (e.g., a discussion of the importance of developing a global community is followed by an examination of nationalist sentiment which leads to a consideration of the immigration problem and then to the threat posed by terrorism).
The main problem I had with all of this is that major portions of the book were not especially original and often seemed like slightly reworked versions of arguments used in the author’s previous studies. For instance, the rise of biotech was thoroughly covered in Homo Deus and humankind’s use of rituals and ability to create useful fictions were essential parts of Sapiens. As such, there are really far fewer than 21 distinct lessons presented here, despite the volume containing 21 different chapters. Finally, the last two chapters involving the role of personal stories and the importance of meditation were woefully self-indulgent and had an off-putting pop-psychology/self-help feel to them. So, while 21 Lessons for the 21st Century is not at all a bad book, the reader might be better served by considering the author’s earlier work instead.
Top international reviews
Hande Z
5.0 out of 5 stars
Eternal lessons
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 15, 2018Verified Purchase
Harari’s first two books, ‘Sapiens’, ‘and ‘Homo Deus’ have been critically acclaimed, and one wonders what else can he come up with. This question is normally asked of fiction writers, but Harari’s first two books have been so tremendously popular to the extent that they were likened to best-selling novels. This, his third book, does not disappoint.
It is a book of 21 essays on different subjects beginning with ‘Disillusionment’, ‘Work’, ‘Liberty’, and ‘Equality’ under Part I, entitled, ‘The Technological Challenge’. The book has a total of five Parts. The other four are: ‘The Political Challenge’, Despair and Hope’, Truth’, and ‘Resilience’.
Harari’s thoughts spring from the basic, but important question, ‘What can we say about the meaning of life today?’ In order to put the age-old question into the context of today, Harari examines the scientific and cultural changes that have transformed human societies across the world. One major change wrought by technology is the phenomenon in which we get increasingly distanced from our own bodies, and are being absorbed into smartphones and computers.
Harari shows how ‘benign patriotism’ can so easily be transformed into ultra-nationalism; form the belief that ‘My nation is unique’ (every nation is) to ‘My nation is supreme’. Once we get to that, war and strife is, frighteningly, just a step away. He devotes a chapter each to ‘immigration’ and ‘terrorism’ because these are the two bogeymen of the world – not just the Western world. Harari fears that when New York or London eventually sinks below the Atlantic Ocean, people will be blaming Bush, Blair and Obama for focussing on the wrong front.
Given the undertones of religious conflicts and differences in the wars that an American-led West had inflicted on various parts of the world, Harari had much to say in his chapters on ‘God’ and ‘Secularism’. He tries to show how irrational belief in a personal God is. ‘Science cannot explain the “Big Bang”, they exclaim, “so that must be God’s doing”…After giving the name of “God” to the unknown secrets of the cosmos, they then use this to somehow condemn bikinis and divorces’. Not to mention abortion, eating pork, and drinking beer. What does it mean ‘Not to use the name of God in vain’? Harari suggests that it should mean that ‘we should never use the name of God to justify our political interests, our economic ambitions or our personal hatred’. He exposes the problems of dogmatism, and warns against the illusion that the falsity in one’s creed or ideology will never be allowed to happen. ‘if you believe in an absolute truth revealed in a transcendent power’, he writes, ‘you cannot allow yourself to admit any error – for that would nullify your whole story. But if you believe in a quest for truth by fallible humans, admitting blunders is an inherent part of the game’.
Harari’s conclusion is a treat to read and has much to commend in the way he reconciles religious beliefs and rational thinking. Humans love story-telling, he writes, and the answers to the question, ‘what is the meaning of life?’ lie in the stories – but we do not have just one story each. And this is crucial. We not just a Muslim, or an Italian, or a capitalist. We do not have just one identity as a human. And we have many stories. We must not shut them out for the sake of one favourite.
It is a book of 21 essays on different subjects beginning with ‘Disillusionment’, ‘Work’, ‘Liberty’, and ‘Equality’ under Part I, entitled, ‘The Technological Challenge’. The book has a total of five Parts. The other four are: ‘The Political Challenge’, Despair and Hope’, Truth’, and ‘Resilience’.
Harari’s thoughts spring from the basic, but important question, ‘What can we say about the meaning of life today?’ In order to put the age-old question into the context of today, Harari examines the scientific and cultural changes that have transformed human societies across the world. One major change wrought by technology is the phenomenon in which we get increasingly distanced from our own bodies, and are being absorbed into smartphones and computers.
Harari shows how ‘benign patriotism’ can so easily be transformed into ultra-nationalism; form the belief that ‘My nation is unique’ (every nation is) to ‘My nation is supreme’. Once we get to that, war and strife is, frighteningly, just a step away. He devotes a chapter each to ‘immigration’ and ‘terrorism’ because these are the two bogeymen of the world – not just the Western world. Harari fears that when New York or London eventually sinks below the Atlantic Ocean, people will be blaming Bush, Blair and Obama for focussing on the wrong front.
Given the undertones of religious conflicts and differences in the wars that an American-led West had inflicted on various parts of the world, Harari had much to say in his chapters on ‘God’ and ‘Secularism’. He tries to show how irrational belief in a personal God is. ‘Science cannot explain the “Big Bang”, they exclaim, “so that must be God’s doing”…After giving the name of “God” to the unknown secrets of the cosmos, they then use this to somehow condemn bikinis and divorces’. Not to mention abortion, eating pork, and drinking beer. What does it mean ‘Not to use the name of God in vain’? Harari suggests that it should mean that ‘we should never use the name of God to justify our political interests, our economic ambitions or our personal hatred’. He exposes the problems of dogmatism, and warns against the illusion that the falsity in one’s creed or ideology will never be allowed to happen. ‘if you believe in an absolute truth revealed in a transcendent power’, he writes, ‘you cannot allow yourself to admit any error – for that would nullify your whole story. But if you believe in a quest for truth by fallible humans, admitting blunders is an inherent part of the game’.
Harari’s conclusion is a treat to read and has much to commend in the way he reconciles religious beliefs and rational thinking. Humans love story-telling, he writes, and the answers to the question, ‘what is the meaning of life?’ lie in the stories – but we do not have just one story each. And this is crucial. We not just a Muslim, or an Italian, or a capitalist. We do not have just one identity as a human. And we have many stories. We must not shut them out for the sake of one favourite.
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Richard Ellis
5.0 out of 5 stars
He's done the past and the future - now it's the turn of the present
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 23, 2018Verified Purchase
Unlike Sapiens (about the past) and Homo Deus (the future), 21 Lessons for the 21st Century is a series of commentaries, thoughts and meditations on the present. Some of the main themes are ones which readers of the earlier books will be familiar with – for example, how what separates man from our ape cousins is our ability to believe in and live by stories. We are able to believe in things (religion, democracy, money) which have no objective reality or independent existence, or be part of communities (nations, corporations, online) of people we don’t know. A historian, polymath, atheist and cynic, Harari is capable of insights of dazzling simplicity yet which are backed by deep reading and thought. Here are just a few, taken out of context but I promise it’s worth following up the context:
The revolutions in biotech and infotech are made by engineers, entrepreneurs and scientists who are hardly aware of the political implications of their decisions…
Donald Trump warned voters that the Mexicans and Chinese will take their jobs, and that they should therefore build a wall on the Mexican border. He never warned voters that algorithms will take their jobs, nor did he suggest building a firewall on the border with California.
Humans have two abilities – physical and cognitive. The former have been partly supplemented by machines. Artificial Intelligence is challenging the latter…. Communism has no answer to automation, as the masses lose their economic value and become irrelevant.
Artificial Intelligence and human stupidity – if we concentrate too much on AI and not enough on human consciousness, AI will end up merely empowering the stupidity of humans.
Globalisation has resulted in growing inequality – the richest 100 own more than poorest 4 billion – and might in time lead to speciation. [People and species are opposite - species split, whereas people coalesce into larger groups, though mergers change.] Challenges are now supra-national – there are no national solutions to global warming. Nations have no answer to technological disruption. The nationalist wave [which he attributes in some measure to nostalgia] cannot turn the clock back to 1939 or 1914. Europe is a good example of supra-national solutions [he thinks Brexit is a bad idea]. Early humans faced problems which local tribes couldn’t handle (for example, Nile floods). Nowadays problems are supra-national.
Most stories are held together by the weight of their roof rather than by the strength of their foundations. Consider the Christian story. It has the flimsiest of foundations…. Yet enormous global institutions have been built on top of that story, and their weight presses down with such overwhelming force that they keep the story in place.
This is another intellectual tour de force from Harari, though as other reviewers have said it’s essential to have read the other two books first.
The revolutions in biotech and infotech are made by engineers, entrepreneurs and scientists who are hardly aware of the political implications of their decisions…
Donald Trump warned voters that the Mexicans and Chinese will take their jobs, and that they should therefore build a wall on the Mexican border. He never warned voters that algorithms will take their jobs, nor did he suggest building a firewall on the border with California.
Humans have two abilities – physical and cognitive. The former have been partly supplemented by machines. Artificial Intelligence is challenging the latter…. Communism has no answer to automation, as the masses lose their economic value and become irrelevant.
Artificial Intelligence and human stupidity – if we concentrate too much on AI and not enough on human consciousness, AI will end up merely empowering the stupidity of humans.
Globalisation has resulted in growing inequality – the richest 100 own more than poorest 4 billion – and might in time lead to speciation. [People and species are opposite - species split, whereas people coalesce into larger groups, though mergers change.] Challenges are now supra-national – there are no national solutions to global warming. Nations have no answer to technological disruption. The nationalist wave [which he attributes in some measure to nostalgia] cannot turn the clock back to 1939 or 1914. Europe is a good example of supra-national solutions [he thinks Brexit is a bad idea]. Early humans faced problems which local tribes couldn’t handle (for example, Nile floods). Nowadays problems are supra-national.
Most stories are held together by the weight of their roof rather than by the strength of their foundations. Consider the Christian story. It has the flimsiest of foundations…. Yet enormous global institutions have been built on top of that story, and their weight presses down with such overwhelming force that they keep the story in place.
This is another intellectual tour de force from Harari, though as other reviewers have said it’s essential to have read the other two books first.
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Anurag Tiwari
1.0 out of 5 stars
Pirated! Bad paper! Don't buy!
Reviewed in India on October 12, 2018Verified Purchase
Basically, they are giving pirated third class paper quality version. This is expected from Flipkart but not Amazon.
People might argue that expectations should be low for a low price, but I say that the Big discounts displayed on products should also be according to similar quality stuff, and not the original publication.
People might argue that expectations should be low for a low price, but I say that the Big discounts displayed on products should also be according to similar quality stuff, and not the original publication.
120 people found this helpful
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Amazon Customer
4.0 out of 5 stars
Important point of view of the global context. (However poor quality of print)
Reviewed in India on September 23, 2018Verified Purchase
Essential reading. Quality of ideas, opinions and writing in line with his earlier books.
A note to Penguin and its imprints. Please stop printing with Replika. The quality of print is abysmal and this is the second such experience for me (Devlok 2). I know of others who have felt the same. If this continues, readers will complain in droves and/or stop buying your books printed with Replika. So change the quality of printing or the Press in question.
A note to Penguin and its imprints. Please stop printing with Replika. The quality of print is abysmal and this is the second such experience for me (Devlok 2). I know of others who have felt the same. If this continues, readers will complain in droves and/or stop buying your books printed with Replika. So change the quality of printing or the Press in question.
82 people found this helpful
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red0209
4.0 out of 5 stars
Thought provoking
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 19, 2018Verified Purchase
Having read this book, I'm not sure that I have learnt the 21 lessons that were promised in the title. The book however is certainly thought-provoking and debates many of the questions I have asked myself about the future. The main theme is that the pace of change is much faster than at any other time in human history, and that by 2050 (a date often quoted by the author) life on Earth will look significantly different. Yuval Noah Harari speculates that biotechnology, information technology and 'Big Data algorithms' will reshape the world for Homo sapiens (humans) over the coming decades to the point that the species will cease to exist in its current form by the beginning of the 22nd century. The author debates in detail the role that artificial intelligence and these algorithms will have and how they will influence and possibly even control large aspects of our lives as time goes on.
The book begins with a lot of detail about how collection and analysis of huge amounts of data and advances in technology will allow us to even re-engineer our bodies, and in particular our brains, to allow artificial intelligence to know what we are thinking in order for it to make better decisions for us. It goes on to speculate that robots could make huge numbers of people redundant and irrelevant, forcing people to change careers at an increasingly regular rate. There is then a lot of discussion about religion, in particular the author's own Jewish religion, and how fiction has played and continues to play a crucial role in life.
I enjoyed the book but if you are looking for life lessons to follow, then it probably isn't the book for you. If you want a glimpse into the (possible) future of the human race and a summary of how we got to the point we are at now, then this is something for you. It is certainly a very well-written book.
The book begins with a lot of detail about how collection and analysis of huge amounts of data and advances in technology will allow us to even re-engineer our bodies, and in particular our brains, to allow artificial intelligence to know what we are thinking in order for it to make better decisions for us. It goes on to speculate that robots could make huge numbers of people redundant and irrelevant, forcing people to change careers at an increasingly regular rate. There is then a lot of discussion about religion, in particular the author's own Jewish religion, and how fiction has played and continues to play a crucial role in life.
I enjoyed the book but if you are looking for life lessons to follow, then it probably isn't the book for you. If you want a glimpse into the (possible) future of the human race and a summary of how we got to the point we are at now, then this is something for you. It is certainly a very well-written book.
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Deepblue
5.0 out of 5 stars
Must Read..!
Reviewed in India on September 2, 2018Verified Purchase
With a simple narrative, Yuval Noah Harari, one of the most innovative thinkers of our times, envisions the most profound changes expected in our lifetime. Simply Brilliant! My next must read will be Homo Deus & Sapiens.
48 people found this helpful
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M. P. Thomas
5.0 out of 5 stars
A compulsive read for all who are interested in the future
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 12, 2018Verified Purchase
This is another remarkable book from the author of Sapiens and Homo Deus. But the reader need not know either of them to appreciate these 21 Lessons. Harari takes a very long view of the history of mankind and the driving forces that shape the world as we know it. Given the pent-up forces for change (especially infotech and biotech) that make bewilderment a normal state of mind, he attempts to offer our children (and us) some ways of preparing for our collective futures.
Recognizing and exploding many of the narratives that have allowed the human ape to dominate the planet, he suggests that our children’s education should be characterized by greater humility, respect for the “other” and for the biosphere that we are rapidly destroying. Skills will become obsolete in a decade and therefore in need of constant renewal. The ability to adapt to whatever the world needs will therefore become the vital learning required by the whole of humanity. But “what should we wish to become?” remains the unanswerable question. Identity and philosophy therefore become vital subjects.
While the progress of science enables mankind to design and create modified forms of humans, our ethical and philosophical understanding has not kept up the pace of change offered by the sciences. Science fiction allows us to imagine plausible futures, but we should be wary of taking any of them literally, says Harari. But the reality is that any future we will face by 2050 or 2100 is likely to be a future that in 2018 seems like science fiction.
This book should be mandatory reading for everybody involved in education and in preparing for the future. That means all of us! Harari’s grasp of historic reality and his wide fields of knowledge are here presented in a manner accessible to us all. As a primer to change management, there can be no better text book. I happen to agree with 99% of his views. But even when I am not convinced, I am driven to consider carefully why not. It is therefore a compulsive read!
Recognizing and exploding many of the narratives that have allowed the human ape to dominate the planet, he suggests that our children’s education should be characterized by greater humility, respect for the “other” and for the biosphere that we are rapidly destroying. Skills will become obsolete in a decade and therefore in need of constant renewal. The ability to adapt to whatever the world needs will therefore become the vital learning required by the whole of humanity. But “what should we wish to become?” remains the unanswerable question. Identity and philosophy therefore become vital subjects.
While the progress of science enables mankind to design and create modified forms of humans, our ethical and philosophical understanding has not kept up the pace of change offered by the sciences. Science fiction allows us to imagine plausible futures, but we should be wary of taking any of them literally, says Harari. But the reality is that any future we will face by 2050 or 2100 is likely to be a future that in 2018 seems like science fiction.
This book should be mandatory reading for everybody involved in education and in preparing for the future. That means all of us! Harari’s grasp of historic reality and his wide fields of knowledge are here presented in a manner accessible to us all. As a primer to change management, there can be no better text book. I happen to agree with 99% of his views. But even when I am not convinced, I am driven to consider carefully why not. It is therefore a compulsive read!
14 people found this helpful
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Thomas A. Regelski
4.0 out of 5 stars
Sometimes brilliant, sometimes glib
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 1, 2018Verified Purchase
This is in many ways a brilliant survey of problems and issues facing the world in the present and future. There are a range of very brilliant insights throughout. Unfortunately, there is also a lot of claims and statements that are cliches, common sense, or puerile generalization. The writing is crisp for the most part and frequently provocative. A reader will learn many things not otherwise typical of a well-read person. The glib parts don't detract too much: after sketching a scenario that is less than happy, readers are told "Deal with it"--in other words, no solution, no lesson on that topics. On some topics (e.g., religion, god, nationalism) close-minded readers will likely be offended, but that's all the more reason they should read it and learn about the vulnerability of their own closed opinions. The author is extremely well read, and the citations and references represent a wide knowledge of many fields. It starts out, for me, very slowly with a lot of future-speculation, but then settles into some very interesting and provocative analyses of other of today's leading problems. Should be read, if only to open minds on a lot of topics. Low ratings are probably those of readers whose present views are dissected in the book.
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Serghiou Const
5.0 out of 5 stars
Society, AI, biotechnology, ideology, nationality, religion, identity, truth and myth
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 2, 2019Verified Purchase
The topics in the subject heading, a partial list, constitute chapters of the five parts comprising the book. The treatment is comprehensive and cohesive and illuminates the society we live in while contemplating its evolution in the near future.
On the eve of the Second World War there were globally three main ideologies: liberal democracy, fascism, and communism. At the end of the war and the collapse of fascism there remained only two, liberal democracy and communism. And with the fall of communism in 1989 there remained only one, liberal democracy. By the early 1990s, thinkers and politicians alike hailed 'the end of History', confidently asserting that all the big political and economic questions of the past had been settled and that the refurbished liberal package of democracy, human rights, free markets, and government welfare services remained the only game in town. This package seemed destined to spread around the whole world, overcome all obstacles, erase all national borders, and turn humankind into one free global community.
But suddenly with the financial crisis of 2008 and the ensuing widespread skepticism on financial markets, globalization and liberal capitalism - the world is left without ideology. Liberalism is losing credibility as the twin revolutions of information technology and biotechnology might soon push billions of humans out of the job market and undermine both liberty and equality. Big Data algorithms might create digital dictatorships in which all power is concentrated in the hands of a tiny elite while most people suffer not from exploitation, but from something far worse - irrelevance. And as a result precipitating social, economic and political crises.
The above is just one theme of the poly thematic book. Of the remaining, I found particularly interesting the chapters on education and meaning.
In the light of the enormous speed of change, many pedagogical experts argue that schools should switch to teaching 'the four Cs' - critical thinking, communication, collaboration and creativity. - Most important of all will be the ability to deal with change, to learn new things, and to preserve your mental balance in unfamiliar situations.
When we look for the meaning of life, we want a story that will explain what reality is all about and what is my particular role in the cosmic drama. This role defines who I am, and gives meaning to all my experiences and choices.
The stories that provide us with meaning and identity ( religion,nationality) are all fictional but humans need to believe in them. If you want to know the ultimate truth of life, rites and rituals are a huge obstacle. But if you are interested - e.g. Confucius - in social stability and harmony, truth is often a liability, whereas rites and rituals are among your best allies.
What is then the aim of my life? To create meaning by feeling, by thinking, by desiring and by investing. Anything that limits the human liberty to feel, to think, to desire and to invest, limits the meaning of the universe. Hence liberty from such limitations is the supreme ideal.
On the eve of the Second World War there were globally three main ideologies: liberal democracy, fascism, and communism. At the end of the war and the collapse of fascism there remained only two, liberal democracy and communism. And with the fall of communism in 1989 there remained only one, liberal democracy. By the early 1990s, thinkers and politicians alike hailed 'the end of History', confidently asserting that all the big political and economic questions of the past had been settled and that the refurbished liberal package of democracy, human rights, free markets, and government welfare services remained the only game in town. This package seemed destined to spread around the whole world, overcome all obstacles, erase all national borders, and turn humankind into one free global community.
But suddenly with the financial crisis of 2008 and the ensuing widespread skepticism on financial markets, globalization and liberal capitalism - the world is left without ideology. Liberalism is losing credibility as the twin revolutions of information technology and biotechnology might soon push billions of humans out of the job market and undermine both liberty and equality. Big Data algorithms might create digital dictatorships in which all power is concentrated in the hands of a tiny elite while most people suffer not from exploitation, but from something far worse - irrelevance. And as a result precipitating social, economic and political crises.
The above is just one theme of the poly thematic book. Of the remaining, I found particularly interesting the chapters on education and meaning.
In the light of the enormous speed of change, many pedagogical experts argue that schools should switch to teaching 'the four Cs' - critical thinking, communication, collaboration and creativity. - Most important of all will be the ability to deal with change, to learn new things, and to preserve your mental balance in unfamiliar situations.
When we look for the meaning of life, we want a story that will explain what reality is all about and what is my particular role in the cosmic drama. This role defines who I am, and gives meaning to all my experiences and choices.
The stories that provide us with meaning and identity ( religion,nationality) are all fictional but humans need to believe in them. If you want to know the ultimate truth of life, rites and rituals are a huge obstacle. But if you are interested - e.g. Confucius - in social stability and harmony, truth is often a liability, whereas rites and rituals are among your best allies.
What is then the aim of my life? To create meaning by feeling, by thinking, by desiring and by investing. Anything that limits the human liberty to feel, to think, to desire and to invest, limits the meaning of the universe. Hence liberty from such limitations is the supreme ideal.
6 people found this helpful
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D. Sanders
5.0 out of 5 stars
A thought provoking read
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 22, 2018Verified Purchase
This is an excellent book and explores a whole range of issues facing mankind. It is eminently readable for a complex subject. As a member of the older generation the book sets out the many challenges which face our children and future generations. We are in difficult times with leading nations embroiled in petty politics. To me, this book concentrates the mind on the very serious and real issues that governments should be addressing now.
9 people found this helpful
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BR41
5.0 out of 5 stars
well written, identifying the most crucial and interesting issues of the day
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 21, 2018Verified Purchase
This is an immensely clearsighted book identifying where we are now and therefore where we might be heading; it is dispassionate, the antithesis of dramatic, but it heightens how much we have to learn about co operation and getting rid of the silo mentality if we are to understand and deal with AI, technology, the ways we injure the environment and how we might unleash nuclear destruction; the most alarming scenarios are unleashed, but others debunked, saying it is not terrorism which terrorises, but our reactions to it. Original thought provoking and in spite of the huge issues, easy to read. A personal attitude is revealed in just a few pages in conclusion, and it is surprising----the author meditates.
6 people found this helpful
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Raluca
1.0 out of 5 stars
Utter garbage
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 25, 2019Verified Purchase
I had to stop reading a quarter In the book as I could not bear finishing it. This is utter garbage, biased opinions without any scientific back up narrated in the most condescending tone. I m glad I haven’t read his other 2 book as I can imagine they are similar
5 people found this helpful
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Vaidehi Kale
4.0 out of 5 stars
21 lessons for 21st century
Reviewed in India on January 22, 2019Verified Purchase
The quality of the product is really good for its price. The book, I mean its Yoval Noah Harari!!! His work is impeccable. I would recommend this book to every millennial who has unanswered questions.
28 people found this helpful
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Reader, gamer, coffee drinker
2.0 out of 5 stars
More of a political bias than previous books
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 2, 2018Verified Purchase
Unlike his first two books that I enjoyed reading, I think this is more of a collection of political bias opinions. Most of the first chapters are "maybe chapters", maybe this will happen maybe that will happen, maybe the rich will become superhumans, etc. There's a few good chapters but this is not a great read and a long way from his better work.
5 people found this helpful
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Cliente Amazon
4.0 out of 5 stars
21 agendas for XXI century, not a to do list.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 1, 2018Verified Purchase
After two astonishing books ( Sapiens and Homo Deus) it was very difficult to capture the reader’s mind with the same disruptive novelty. Nevertheless , although the book doesn’t show any really new ideas (referring to the previous books) , is full of inspiring and thoughtful suggestions. It is written with provocative and witty style ( I appreciate the english and spanish versions), with strong visions and unconventional way to see the human problems . I found this book comparing with the others two more intimate and autobiographical.
The impactful patterns to see the world in the past and in the future, mature in a more doubtful experienced view. Love it.
The impactful patterns to see the world in the past and in the future, mature in a more doubtful experienced view. Love it.
2 people found this helpful
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