Technology
by Yuval Noah Harari
After famine, plague and war
For thousands of years, famine, plague and war topped humanity's list of troubles. Yuval Noah Harari argues that we've turned all three from acts of God into manageable problems. That leaves an odd question hanging. What will a rich, healthy, well-fed species want next?
Hear a sample · read by Laura
Harari predicts three new goals. Having cut deaths from hunger and disease, we'll try to beat death itself, to engineer lasting happiness, and to upgrade our bodies and minds into something godlike. Homo sapiens would become Homo deus. He offers these as possibilities for us to argue about.
Harari leans on the life sciences' claim that feelings are biochemical calculations. A baboon deciding whether to grab bananas near a lion is weighing its odds of survival without knowing it. If we work the same way, an outside algorithm with enough data could read us better than we can.
The new creed Harari sees rising. Dataism treats the universe as flows of data and judges any creature or institution by how much it adds to data processing. Its followers record their experiences, upload them and share them. Authority moves from human feelings to algorithms.
As intelligence splits from consciousness, machines needn't feel anything to drive, diagnose or trade better than we do. Harari warns of a growing class of people with no economic or military value. He thinks the hard question will be what they do all day, and what gives their lives meaning.
Old enemies
More people now die from eating too much than from going hungry.
New goals
With famine and war mostly tamed, people will next try to beat death and turn themselves into gods.
Humanism
Modern people stopped looking to God for meaning and started looking inside their own feelings.
Algorithms
Science now treats living things, us included, as algorithms, sets of steps that process data.
The split
Intelligence is coming apart from consciousness. Machines can be smart without feeling anything.
A story from the book
Harari asks why so many homes have a lawn. For French and English aristocrats, a stretch of grass that grew no food showed they could afford to keep land idle. Their lawns became presidents' lawns, then suburban ones. Knowing that, you're freer to plant something else.
Hot take · true or myth?
For humanists, your own feelings are the final judge of right and wrong.
True. Harari says humanism moved authority from gods to human experience. Hence the slogans he lists: the voter knows best, the customer is always right, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
One thing to try
Each time an app picks for you this week, whether a song, a route or a film, jot it down. Tick the ones you'd have chosen yourself. Harari's question is how much authority you've already handed to algorithms, and whether you meant to.
Knotd has the key ideas from 250+ non-fiction books, each in a few minutes, in plain words. Homo Deus comes with a Hot Take round and a Name That Idea round to make it stick.
Get the whole book on KnotdOpen in the appAfter famine, plague and war For thousands of years, famine, plague and war topped humanity's list of troubles. Yuval Noah Harari argues that we've turned all three from acts of God into manageable problems. That leaves an odd question hanging. What will a rich, healthy, well-fed species want next?
The new human agenda; Organisms are algorithms; Dataism; The useless class.
Each time an app picks for you this week, whether a song, a route or a film, jot it down. Tick the ones you'd have chosen yourself. Harari's question is how much authority you've already handed to algorithms, and whether you meant to.
Yes. Knotd has the key ideas from Homo Deus in a few minutes, in plain words, plus a Hot Take round and a Name That Idea round to test them. It's one of 250+ non-fiction books in the app.
