Table of contents
We study history not to know the future but to widen our horizons, to understand that our present situation is neither natural nor inevitable, and that we consequently have many more possibilities before us than we imagine.
Yuval Noah Harari
If we go on a walk 2 million years ago, we'll get to see our human ancestors living in communities, foraging around, and having dominance hierarchies. Nothing out of the ordinary, chimpanzees do that too.
Instead of being at the apex of the food chain, we were just somewhere in the middle, living our insignificant little lives alongside the rest of the animal kingdom.
The question is, how are we different from other animals, that led to us being the masters of the world?
🌈 3 Sentence Summary
- We were an animal of no significance, then one chance mutation (called the Tree of Knowledge mutation) helped us develop myths and belief in things that only exist in the imagination — gods, nation-states, money, companies, and human rights.
- We are able to created a shared fictional reality, and be able to organize ourselves in that shared fictional reality, causing us to develop large-scale trust between all sapiens.
- The agricultural revolution caused an extreme growth in numbers, the unification of humankind caused global cooperation, and the scientific revolution caused us to be masters of the earth.
💡 Thoughts
I liked the deconstruction of modern society into different myths that bind us together. Only by acknowledging these individual pieces of society, can I begin to use them to my advantage.
Even though almost everything can and will be deconstructed, it doesn't take away from its awe and beauty.
I absolutely loved this book, and will be one of my top recommendations for the forseeable future.
👤 Should You Read It?
I'd highly recommend this to anyone who's interested in learning about how modern society developed, and its underlying myths. You'll probably enjoy it if:
- If you want to know what it means to be human.
- If you're interested in why other people act the way they do.
- If you're interested in having your mind blown. Multiple times.
🚀 Actionable takeaways
- Frequently exercise and train with weights. The cost of thinking has atrophied your muscles.
- Learn to use your tools extremely well. They elevate your work to another level (this is particularly true for me as a dentist).
- Use the power of myths in your life. Pick out events from your life and string them into a cohesive story.
- Learn about money as soon as you can. Appreciate your nation. Respect religions and ideologies. These are the myths that bind us together (and the myths that potentially break us apart).
- Acknowledge your ignorance.
✍️ Summary + Notes
🪵 Prehistory (2 million years ago)
Our secret brothers and sisters
There were multiple human species cohabiting the earth from around 2 million years ago to 10,000 years ago, but it seems like Homo sapiens wiped the others out. If we compare our species to other animals/plants, it's reasonable to say that it's our current exclusivity, not our multi-species past, that is weird.
The cost of thinking
Our massive brains take up 2-3% of body weight, but take up 25% of our energy (vs only 8% in other apes). Over time this diverts energy away from our muscles and causes them to atrophy, causing us to be one of the weakest mammals around.
A race of cooks
We tamed fire and controlled its energy to be independent of the limitations of our bodies. Our bodies are weak when compared to our ape cousins, but we are able to leverage that with the tools we use, including fire. We used it to cook, to provide warmth, and to clear paths in the jungle.
🧠 The Cognitive Revolution (70,000 years ago)
Imagination and myths
Somehow there is a mutation somewhere that allowed sapiens to believe in things that purely believe in the imagination (called the Tree of Knowledge mutation). We are able to conceive of the far future, to create stories and myths, and to believe in things that purely exist in the imagination — gods, nation-states, money, companies, and human rights.
These myths and ideas start off having no value or power, but as they are spread and more people adopt them, the more powerful they get. And even if everyone in the founding team were killed off, the idea would still stay strong.
Beneath this mask there is more than flesh, Beneath this mask there is an idea, Mr. Creedy, and ideas are bulletproof.
- V for Vendetta
Large-scale cooperation
Owing to the ability to believe in things that only exist in the imagination, we are able to develop trust in other people even though we don't know them in the least.
We don't run and hide from strangers around us, even as a tourist in another country, because we all believe in the legal system, certain fundamental human rights, or the same religious structure, and the most important myth: money. We pay a travel agent and are willing to follow strangers all the way to a strange land with strange people with strange cultures, and trust them to show us a good time and bring us back to our home country, all because we all believe in the same myth of money.
This enabled us to develop religions, political structures, trade networks, and legal institutions, which causes obedience to god, king, and country. We are able to create a shared fictional reality, and be able to organize ourselves in that shared fictional reality.
Other pack animals also have a dominance hierarchy and cooperation, but their group dynamics rely heavily on gossip and interpersonal relationships. This becomes more and more unsustainable as the group gets larger, and any group above 60 chimpanzees will quarrel and split, forming some sort of Tower of Babel situation.
There might be small-scale cooperation, but as we know all the advances in humanity and technology can only come about through large-scale cooperation.
The cognitive worldview
The natural sciences set the rules of the world, and culture determines our actions in the world.
In a chess game, there are lots of things you can do, although you can’t break the rules of the chess game and continue to play chess. Your biological nature is somewhat like that: it sets the rules of the game, but within those rules you have a lot of leeway.
Jordan B. Peterson
We are still very much chained to our biology, but even within our biological bodies we have quite a lot of freedom to do the things we want. But too much freedom is not necessarily good.
Being alive is like being thrown into a vast field. We can go anywhere and do anything we want, but if we walk around randomly without an aim, it's pretty hard to actually be happy and fulfilled with that life.
This is why we have social and political institutions set up to restrict our movements in the field of life. This restriction is beneficial for us, to help us get where we want, and prevent us from potentially self-destructive behaviours.
☘️ The Agricultural Revolution (10,000 years ago)
History's greatest fraud
The agricultural revolution enabled increased food production and massive population growth.
The problem is it forced the average farmer into monotonous hard labour. Farmers ate one type of meal for their entire lives, were malnourished, prone to diseases, and definitely less psychologically stimulated. The fruits of the Agricultural Revolution were reaped by a few elites.
These were the people who were free to make up history, praising the agricultural revolution for allowing the elite minority to enjoy, while in reality the overwhelming majority are left to labour and starve for their entire existence. The pharaohs made history while the others exchanged their lives to build the pyramids.
In the short to medium-term, this was history's greatest fraud. But in the long-term, it led to the increased average happiness of everyone in the world.
Although we took a long time to sort things out, we are just now beginning to see how technology and socio-political advancements are able to bring happiness to all.
Rulers of the Earth
As time goes on, we are more and more able to control the energy available on our planet, inching closer and closer to a Type 1 Kardashev civilisation.
We domesticated plants and animals. We don't know if plants feel fear or have pain receptors, but from a evolutionary perspective, they've struck gold. The goal of evolution is to reproduce and increase the quantity of their DNA on the earth.
We have huge plantations of wheat, fruiting trees, and whatever else it is we plant. It is unclear if we are in control of wheat, or wheat is in control of us. We are incredibly dependent on it, and if wheat suddenly decided to call it quits, we humans would be in big trouble.
The story for animals is much more grim. It is quite well-documented (and obvious) that animals feel fear and pain. Yes, they've reproduced and spread their DNA more than they ever could naturally, but the horrendous quality of their lives far outweigh the quantity of their DNA. We are so much more willing to be violent to animals than to our own kind.
🤝 The Unification of Humankind (2,000 years ago)
Money
Money is the most universal and most efficient system of mutual trust ever devised.
Yuval Noah Harari
Money only has value in the imagination. Subjective truths are as powerful as objective truths.
Money is a contract with the future. We are willing to sacrifice our present happiness to gain money, in hopes that money will promise us more control over our future (thus more happiness).
Globally speaking, we are able to trust complete strangers because of money. This led to the unification of humankind.
The problem with this is that the trust we place is placed in money, not on the individual handling the money. We don't trust in humans, communities, or any sacred values. This may be why money can destroy relationships, cultural traditions, and even our own personal values.
Quite a powerful thing for just a imaginary story.
Empires
Empires rule over and unify different communities, each with their own cultural identity and geographic territory. Communities normalize these groups of people, and make them more and more similar to each other.
Previously, most empires operated quite independently, and had unlimited appetite to conquer, slaughter, exploit and oppress other people. It's not that clear whether or not empires are good or evil.
Today, no state is able to independently do anything without the advice of the global empire.
Religion
Religion is considered a source of discrimination, disagreement and disunion. Yet, in fact, religion has been the third great unifier of humankind, alongside money and empires.
Humans went from being equal to plants and animals, to being masters of their lives. Plants and animals have become property, because humans are favoured by god as masters of the universe.
Nowadays, people are moving away from religion and believing in various ideologies like Capitalism, Communism, Nationalism, and Liberalism, and Humanism. Ideologies are quite similar to religion.
People also go crazy about Star Wars, Star Trek, or some other cult classic. Some even aligned their life's principle along the lines of the ideologies found in the stories. One could even describe them as religious.
🔬 The Scientific Revolution (500 years ago)
Discovery of Ignorance
Religion came about as a way of explaining what we don't understand.
Then some smart people came around and thought, why don't we just accept that we don't know what's going on, instead of taking that extra step to create some random story to explain it? It takes less effort to say we don't know what's going on, and more effort to try to explain the unknown.
15th century European explorers began to draw maps with empty sections, an ideological breakthrough showing that they were willing to admit their ignorance. This curiosity of the unknown allowed them to explore and conquer.
Modern society is built on a willingness to admit that we don't know. We admit collective ignorance on the most important questions, which allows room for discussion and progression.
Modern Economy
Credit is the single most important factor in the economy today. The government prints money out of thin air, and banks give loans backed by money they don't have. This trust in the future brought about credit, and credit brought about real economic growth.
People and corporations take this money coming out of nowhere to produce productivity and progress, which creates more wealth for everyone, and counteracts the inflation brought about by credit.
Money makes money, let's not be so naïve. If we want to get ahead in this world, we have to learn to leverage what little we have to gain an even bigger credit and be productive with it.
To him who has more, will be given more. To him who has less, even what little he has will be taken away from him.
Peace in our time
This is the one moment in history where we are ruled by elites that see war as evil and avoidable. We have had arms races where nations kept on increasing their military powers, and the amount of nuclear power we have could turn into global suicide. Thus, peace is as important as ever.
If we calculated the energy required to cause collective Armageddon, and slowly scale our global nuclear weapons' total energy contained into a number lower than the threshold of Armageddon, we could very well overcome our current problem.
Homo deus
Humans could very well ascend into the level of godhood.
Recall that we are playing the game of life. The game where we act according to the limitations that culture has given us, in the broader physical limits of biology and science.
We humans could very well break away from the laws of biology that shackle us. If we replace the rules of the game of life (from natural selection with intelligent design), we will ascend into godhood.
Biological engineering like CRISPR allows us to change the genetics that we were born with. We could also revive extinct animals. We could ingest life-extending substances that reduce the rate at which we reach our Hayflick limit, or biological machines like nanoparticles that help repair our bodies.
Immortality: Advances into the study of death in immortal jellyfish and seemingly immortal cancer cells could help us halt the aging process. Another solution is to upload our consciousness into a digital format, making it infinitely reproducible and transferrable.
Non-organic life: Cyborg engineering are quite advanced now, where prosthetics are able to be controlled using only electrical signals from our brain. When we slowly enhance or replace our body parts with cybernetic prostheses, we would become a cyborg-human hybrid, and sooner or later we might become life without any organic carbon-based components.
Conclusion
This book was full of eye-opening, mind blowing ways in which the world works. My naïve self had never thought of things that way before (and probably would have never done so).
It's a fun and interesting read for the vast majority of people. You'll definitely get a kick out of reading it yourself.
If you're a historian or some serious scholar in the field, the book may not have anything new to say, and includes too much of Harari's own opinions to constitute an actual knowledge-synthesizing scientific piece of literature.
I've included the points that were amazing and mind-blowing to me, and I'm sure you could find stuff you're more interested in if you read it yourself. It really is one my top recommended books to read of all time.
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