A bold attempt to capture the complete history of the human species. Harari provides some very interesting insights, but some parts are only superficially covered and argued. I guess this is the natural downside of writing about long periods of history.

The fundamental idea revolves around our common "shared myths" that made cooperation and civilization possible. Interestingly, it makes you think about why you are what you are today and what made it possible.

My Notes

Evolving Into a Superior Species

Homo sapiens has evolved from being an animal like any other to the most dominant and powerful one.

Two major factors explain this rise:

• The ability to use fire: Mainly for cooking, which allowed faster digestion, more time for activities, a smaller intestine (and a larger brain).
• The development of language:
  • While animals have some form of language as well, sapiens is the only species capable of describing an infinite number of events and concepts.
  • Sapiens can transmit information about things that don't physically exist, such as myths — thus the existence of nations, flags, religions, corporations, and institutions.

From there on, sapiens became independent of its biology (e.g., fasting, sexual abstention), though some behaviors wired into our DNA persist.

For example, the tendency to consume high-calorie food is a primitive instinct. In the past, high-calorie foods were usually fruits. When early humans found such food, they would eat it all at once (gorging-gene theory).

The Trap of Agricultural Revolution

From today's viewpoint, the Agricultural Revolution was a significant step forward. But the reality was much different. Instead of making people's lives easier, it made humans entirely dependent on crops.

Despite working more than hunter-gatherers, farmers had less varied diets.

• They worked more and had fewer activities.
• The surge in population canceled out their surplus of food.
• Farmers didn't realize the trap they were in.

We did not domesticate wheat. It domesticated us.

One of history’s few iron laws is that luxuries tend to become necessities and to spawn new obligations. Once people get used to a certain luxury, they take it for granted.

The same is true for today's advanced machines (washing machines, dishwashers, vacuum cleaners). They make our lives easier and save us time, to the extent that we rely exclusively on them.

Another huge misconception someone living today might have is the so-called evolutionary success of animals such as cows, pigs, and chickens. They are the most successful animals throughout history in terms of their abundance, but they are also the most miserable creatures that ever lived.

The Agricultural Revolution is also responsible for humans' tendency to worry about the future. Since agriculture is based on seasonal cycles (harvest, cultivation), farmers' food supply was entirely dependent on long-term planning—different from hunter-gatherers' flexible lives.

Peasants' efforts also went to the minority of the elite, making their lives not only more dependent but also more miserable.

History is something that very few people have been doing while everyone else was plowing fields and carrying water buckets.

Imagined Orders

The only place where universal principles, such as the Code of Hammurabi or the Declaration of Independence of the United States, exist is in the fertile imagination of Sapiens.

We must believe in human rights because the absence of such belief will lead society into chaos. As Voltaire famously pointed out:

There is no God, but don’t tell that to my servant, lest he murder me at night.

• The imagined order is embedded in the material world (individualism can translate into children having their own bedrooms).
• The imagined order shapes our desires (romantic, capitalist, nationalistic, and humanist myths).
• The imagined order is inter-subjective: it exists within the network linking the subjective consciousness of many individuals.

How do you cause people to believe in an imagined order such as Christianity, democracy, or capitalism? First, you never admit that the order is imagined.

There is no way out of the imagined order. To alter the existing imagined order, you must find a group that believes in the imagined order and build on top of that."

Gender Inequalities

The hierarchy of gender has been prevalent in most societies throughout history. In many cultures, women were considered mere property—owned by men, whether husband, father, or brother.

The truth about gender inequality is encapsulated in "biology enables, culture forbids":

Biology enables men to have sex with each other, but cultures forbid this possibility. Homosexuality is natural. Running faster than the speed of light is unnatural.

To this day, the question of whether men are superior to women in society remains a topic of debate.

Global Unification

Societies kept growing after the Agricultural Revolution. From a bird's-eye view perspective, humanity became more unified than separated.

Even though Sapiens initially evolved to think of people as divided into 'us' (people you know) and 'them' (strangers), they gradually became more cooperative.

The first millenium BC laid the ground for the rise of three universally accepted orders: money, imperialism and religion.

• Throughout history, money evolved from different forms: metal coins, gold shells, cigarettes, banknote. Money is the most universal and most efficient system of mutual trust ever devised.
• Everyone always wants money precisely because everyone else always wants money.
• It is the only trust system created by humans that can bridge any cultural gap. It doesn't discriminate on the basis of religion, gender, race and sexual orientation.
• Imperialism also played a significant role in unifying small tribes and groups into a common cultural entity.
• An empire is a political order that rules over a large number of culturally distinct people and possesses flexible borders, allowing it to conquer more states without altering its identity.
• Not all empires are bad. Though the British occupation in India caused the deaths of millions of Indians, much of today's India still retains influence of the British legacy, such as the English language, democracy, and the railway network.
• Religion is the third great unifier of the world.
• A religion is a system of human norms and values that is founded on a belief in a superhuman order. Football is not a religion, but Buddhism, Islam and Communism are religions.
• What distinguishes polytheism from monotheism is that the ultimate power governing the world is devoid of interests.
• Polytheistic followers of a particular deity may become so devoted that their beliefs would gradually shift from polytheism to monotheism.
• Dualism is the idea that the world is ruled by two opposing powers: good and evil.
• While monotheism struggles to explain the existence of evil (why bad things happen in the world), dualism struggles to explain the order and harmony of the world.

Origin of Buddhism

The central figure of Buddhism is Siddhartha Gautama, also referred to as Buddha (the Enlightened One), a human being who lived around 500 BC.

Profoundly affected by the suffering he witnessed, he left his palace at the age of 29, leaving his family and possessions. As a homeless wanderer in Northern India, Gautama sought a way to overcome suffering. He spent six years meditating on the nature and causes of human suffering.

Ultimately, he realized that suffering is not caused by misfortune, injustice, or divine will. Suffering arises from the behavioral patterns of one's own mind.

Regardless of one's circumstances, the mind is always craving something, leading to perpetual dissatisfaction.

• When the mind experiences something distasteful, it craves a way out of the pain.
• When the mind experiences pleasure, it expects pleasure to remain or to intensify.

The mind is always dissatisfied.

The way out of that vicious circle is simple: if the mind experiences something pleasant or unpleasant, it simply understand things as they are, then there is no suffering.

If you experience sadness without craving that the sadness go away, then you continue to feel sad but without suffering. The same is true of joy: if you experience joy without expecting joy to remain, you continue to feel joy without worrying.

When no more desires remain, craving is replaced by Nirvana, a state of perfect contentment and serenity. Those who attain Nirvana, like Gautama, are fully liberated from all suffering. They experience reality free of any cravings and delusions.

Buddha spent the rest of his life teaching this law, called dharma, to others: suffering arises from craving; the only way to be fully liberated from suffering is to be fully liberated from craving; and the only way to be fully liberated from craving is to train the mind to experience reality as it is.

Buddhism does not deny the existence of god, but they do not play a role in the origin of suffering either.

Natural-Law Religions & the Hegemony of Liberalism

Beyond the worship of God, the past few centuries have witnessed the rise of the worship of man.

Communism, capitalism, and liberalism are also considered religions. They differ from Islam only in that they lack a deity and a superhuman order (similar to Buddhism in this respect).

Nationalism asserts that the nation provides ultimate authority and meaning, while liberalism upholds the sanctity of individual human rights.

Liberalism serves as a profound example of modern religious fervor:

• In politics, liberalism advocates that the voter knows best what they are doing.
• In ethics, liberalism promotes the idea that if something feels good, it should be pursued.
• In economics, liberalism champions the belief that the customer is always right.

The Scientific Revolution

The Scientific Revolution started in Europe 500 years ago and culminated with the launch of the first atomic bomb on July 16, 1945. Humans progressively came to believe that investment in scientific research could increase their own capabilities and power.

The essence of science is ignorance. Whereas religion claims to know everything (or at least everything important), science never makes such claims. Instead, scientific discoveries are fueled by the lack of understanding of the world.

In the past, scientific research was conducted because it served a purpose: political or economic (e.g. wars). It was never conducted for its own sake. The measure of knowledge is not truth, but utility. Knowledge becomes power only when it has practical application.

Scientific Imperialism & Capitalism

In 1500, the global production of goods and services was worth $250 billion; today it’s $60 trillion.

The success of capitalism is explained through one word: credit. In the past, humans didn’t have confidence in the future, leading them to be cautious of taking credit. But the scientific revolution made humans believe in progress. This newfound optimism laid the foundations for expeditions and investments, fueling the growth of capialism.

Although the Chinese and Persians had technological innovations, they lacked the values and the institutional and sociopolitical structures that enabled Europeans to discover America.

Adam Smith argued that a business that invest its profits back into production can create more wealth, benefiting both the business and the buyer. According to this vision, egoism is altruism.

Before the Industrial Revolution, the behavior of humans was dictated by solar energy and plant growth.

This is the basic lesson of evolutionary psychology: a need shaped in the wild continues to be felt subjectively even if it is no longer really necessary for survival and reproduction.

Sociologically, the advent of the Industrial Revolution lead the transition from communities to societies.

Happiness

Historians have explored all areas of history, but failed to analyze how happy humans were throughout time.

• If happiness equals pleasure, then an increase our happiness requires an increase in biochemical release (dopamine, serotonin).
• In Aldous Huxley's dystopian novel Brave New World, happiness is the supreme value. Every day, each person takes a dose of "soma" that provides happiness without harming them. The state of the world is never threatened because everyone is happy. Happiness simply equals pleasure.
• If happiness is based on meaning of one's life, then increasing our happiness requires deluding ourselves deliberately.
• According to Buddhism, the root of all suffering is neither the feeling of pain nor of sadness nor of meaninglessness. It is the never-ending pursuit of ephemeral feelings, causing us to be constantly in state of dissatisfaction.
• For Buddha, true happiness is not only independent of external conditions, it is also independent of our inner feelings. The more significance we give our feelings, the more we crave them and the less happy we are. Happiness can be reached only when we stop pursuing our inner feelings.
• In short, you are not the events that happen to you, but you are also not the feelings you have.

The End & The Future

For four billion years, every creature evolved subject to natural selection. Intelligence was not an option. Today, humans are reengineering the very characteristics of life.

• Biological engineering deliberately modifies an organism's structure and desires.
• Cyborg engineering combines the human body with bionic body parts.

As the advent of a new technological and biological era for Sapiens approaches, the question we should seek to answer isn't 'What do we want to become?' but rather 'What do we want to want?'.

Sapiens is today on the threshold of both heaven and hell, moving nervously between the gateway of one and the anteroom of the other.

One thing is sure: the future is unknown.

History teaches us that what seems to be just around the corner may never materialise due to unforeseen barriers, and that other unimagined scenarios will in fact come to pass.