yuval noah harari 21 lessons for the 21st century

But ultimately they are all just stories to make us feel better. Belief systems comfort us and bind us together.

Religion: There are many good things about religions. It is tricky to know what to do about this. This still may happen in the future but we may also face more global challenges like ecological catastrophes and computers taking over the world. In the past wars have been clashes between civilisations. We like to feel we have both national and social identities – even if many of our online communities are being spied on by Facebook. This is very bad and may well get worse unless we do something about it.Ĭivilisation: We all like to have a sense of belonging. Yet the world has never felt more unequal with vast wealth and power concentrated in the hands of the few while others have nothing. Already algorithms control much of our daily lives, and in 50 years’ time, who knows what may happen? I don’t, but I’m not that hopeful as Google and Facebook could be ruling the world.Įquality: In the past few decades, people all over the world have been told that humankind is on the path to equality. The reality is that we are as much products of what we feel as what we think. Liberty: The liberal story cherishes human freedom as its number one value. My own hope is that AI and humans will learn to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony. Others think that automation will generate new types of employment possibilities that we have not considered.

Some people believe that machine learning and robotics will make humans economically redundant and that we should prepare for the future by lying on sun loungers on the beach.

Work: We have no idea what the job market will look like in 2050. So we had better keep an open mind and hope for the best. New technology and climate change might make the world more different than we can possibly imagine. But none of these can adequately prepare us for what may happen in the next 50 years. Humans like to tell themselves stories, be they in the form of religion or political ideologies, such as nationalism, communism and liberalism. So here we go.ĭisillusionment: No one knows what the future will look like.

Even though they also invariably dealt with the future. If my previous books had dealt with the past and the future, why didn’t I just recycle a whole load of articles I had written for other publications and try to present them as my take on the present. For a few hours I was in a state of panic, before inspiration came to me. So I was totally unprepared when my publishers immediately demanded a follow-up. When I wrote Sapiens and Homo Deus I had no idea they would both become worldwide bestsellers.

Yuval noah harari 21 lessons for the 21st century