Sapiens - A brief history of humankind by Yuval Noah Harari
[A great book to read and study]
The cognitive revolution:
Three important evolutions shaped the
history: Cognitive revolution about 70,000 years ago. Agricultural revolution
about 120,000 years ago and scientific revolution about 500 years ago.
Humans evolved in East Africa about 2.5
m years ago from an earlier genus of apes called Australopithecus. They spread
to different parts of the world and transformed into different types - humans
in Europe and West Asia evolved into Homo Neanderthals (aka Neanderthals). The
more eastern regions of Asia were populated by Homo erectus, who survived for 2
m years. Some of the Eastern Africa into Homo Sapiens, who existed
150,000 years ago.
Despite
their many differences, all human species share several defining
characteristics. They have extraordinarily large brains compared to other
animals. They walk upright on two legs. Standing up, it is much easier to scan
the area for food and enemies and arms are unnecessary for locomotion for other
purposes. They domesticated fire and with fire, they ate cooked food which shorten
time to eat and more time for other things.
When Sapiens
spread to other parts of the world, other human species cease to exist in the
world. How did Sapiens became the only human species, what was their success,
The book alluding to the fact that Sapiens have been very good in cognitive
knowledge
Compared to
other animals limited communication skills, Sapiens improved their
communication skills with which they could convey more meaningful information.
They can not only pass information about the facts of life, but also talk about
entities that they have never seen, touched or smelled. Secondly, Sapiens are
social animal and the social cooperation is our key for survival and
reproduction.
Even today, a critical threshold in
human organization is around 150 people. Beyond that number, to keep people
connected requires common belief system. The ability to create an imagined
reality out of words enabled large numbers of strangers to cooperate
effectively. Under the right circumstances, myths can change rapidly (e.g.
French revolution) , which opened a fast line of cultural evolution, which
helped Sapiens to outstripped all other human and animal species in its ability
to cooperate.
Dog was the first domesticated animal
from about 15,000 years ago. Dogs are most attentive to the needs and feelings
of their human companions.
When Sapiens spread, mammoth mammals
who inhabited the earth cease to exist. There are three reasons that are
commonly agreed among researchers.
First - Large animals breed slowly,
their pregnancy is long and offspring per pregnancy are few and there are long
breaks between pregnancies. If Sapiens cut down one female of the mammoth
species, it is enough to bring down their numbers and in the long run, they
cease to exist. Considering their huge size, these species never considered
humans as a threat, but by the time they realized, it was too late in the game.
Second - Sapiens mastered agriculture
which needed to fire down large area, which resulted in smaller forest for these
species to survive. When Sapiens burned down forest, the fire incinerated
larger areas of forest than needed (due to wind and other matters), which
reduced areas for other mammals to stay afloat.
Third - change in climate change
devastated these species due to their inability to co-op the change in the
environment.
The agricultural revolution:
The transition to agriculture began
around 9500-8500 BC in the hill country of south eastern Turkey, western Iran
and the Levant. Cultivating wheat provided much more food per unit of territory
and thereby enabled Sapiens to multiply exponentially.
The currency of evolution is neither
hunter nor pain, but rather copies of DNA. If a species boasts many DNA copies,
it is a success and the species flourishes. The essence of agricultural
revolution was the ability to keep more people alive under worse conditions.
The second phase of settlers after the
agricultural revolution was the domestication of other species for their needs
(sheep, pigs, and chickens). Aggressive animals (e.g. sheep) that are greatest
resistance to human control are slaughtered first and with passing generation,
the sheep became fatter, more submissive and less curious.
The pursuit of easier life resulted in
much hardship and it happens even today. One of the human’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. Then they begin
to count on it. Finally, they reach a point where they cannot live without it.
Peasants were worried about the future
not just because they had more cause for worry, but also because they could do
something about it. The stress of farming had far reaching consequences. It was
the foundation of large scale political and social systems Everywhere
rulers, and elites sprang up, living off the peasants’ surplus food and leaving
them with only a bare subsistence. These fortified food surpluses fueled
politics wars, art and philosophy.
Until the modern era, 90% of the humans
were peasants and the extra they produced fed the tiny minority of elites,
kings, gov. Officials, soldiers priest, thinkers who fill the history books.
Voltaire said about God that “there is
no God, but don’t tell that to my servants, lest he murder me at night”. It is
impossible to organize an army solely by coercion. At least some of the
commanders and soldiers must truly believe in something, be it God, honor,
motherhood, manhood or money.
How do you cause people to believe in
an imagined order such as Christianity, democracy, or capitalism? From the
moment they are born, you constantly remind them of the principles of the
imagined orders, which are incorporated into anything and everything. They are
incorporated into fairy tales, dramas, paintings, songs, etiquette, political
propaganda, architecture, recipes and fashions.
Three main factors prevent people from realizing
that the order organizing their lives exists only in their imaginations.
- The imagined order to embedded in the material
world. Kids living up in the modern world (where they have private room in
their house) cannot help but imagine himself an individual his true worth
emanating from within rather than from without. In the medieval world, a
man’s true worth was determined by his place in the social hierarchy and
by what other people said of him.
2.
The imagined order shapes our desires.
A wealthy man in ancient Egypt would never have dreamed of solving a
relationship crisis by taking his wife on holiday to Babylon. Instead, he might
have built for her the sumptuous tomb she had always wanted. Like the elite of
ancient Egypt, most people in most cultures dedicate their lives to building
pyramids. Only the names, shapes, and sizes of these pyramids chanted from one
culture to the other. They may take the form, of a suburban cottage with a
swimming pool, and an evergreen lawn, or a gleaming penthouse with an enviable
view. Few questions they myths that cause us to desire the pyramid in the first
place.
3.
The imagined order is intersubjective.
In order to change the imagined order, I must convince millions of strangers to
cooperate with me. For the imagined order is not a subjective order existing in
my own imagination, it is rather inter-subjective order existing in the shared
imagination of thousands and millions of people. Similarly, dollar, human
rights, exists in the shared imagination of billions and no single individual
can threaten their existence. A change in such magnitude can be accomplished
only with the help of a complex organizations, such as political party, an
ideological movement, or a religious cult.
All societies are based on imagined
hierarchies, but no necessarily on the same hierarchies. Why did
traditional Indian society classify people according to cast, Ottoman society
according to religion and American society according to race/. In most cases,
the hierarchy originated as the result of a set of accidental historical circumstances
and was perpetuated and refined over many generations as different groups
developed vested interested in.
For instances, many scholar’s sunrise
that the Hindu caste system took shape when the Indo-Aryan people invaded the
Indian subcontinent about 3000 years ago, subjugating local population. The
invaders established a stratified society, in which they occupied the leading
position (priests and warriors), leaving the natives to live as servants and
slaves. The invaders, who were few in number, feared losing their privileges
status, unique identity. Too forestall the danger, they divided the population
into castes.
Similar story is true with American
race.
- Chance a historical event
- White control blacks
- Discriminatory laws
- Poverty and lack of education among blacks
- Cultural prejudices
The vicious circle - a chance
historical situation is translated into a rigid social system.
The unification of humankind:
Prior to the age of European
exploration, earth still contained a significant number of human worlds. 90% of
humans lived in a single mega world: the world of afro-Asia. Most of the Asia,
most of the Europe, and most of the Africa were already connected by
significant cultural, political and economic ties. Most of the remaining 10% of
the world population was divided between 4 worlds of considerable size and
complexity:
- The Mesoamerican world, which encompassed most
of Central America and parts of North America
- The Andean World, which encompassed most of
the western South America
- The Australian World, which encompassed the
continent of Australia
- The Oceanic World, which encompassed most of
the islands of the southwestern Pacific Ocean, from Hawaii to New Zealand.
Over the next 300 years, the Afro-Asian
giant swallowed up all the other worlds. It consumed Mesoamerican world in 1521
(When Spain conquered Aztec empire), Andean world in 1532 (Spaniards conquered
Inca), Australia in 1606 and the Oceanic world by 1788.
Today most human share the political
system (into countries & states), same economic system (capitalist market),
same legal system (human rights and international law), same scientific view
The sum of total money in the world is
around $60tn, but the total money in coins and banknotes are only about $6tn
and the rest are in computer servers. As long as people are willing to trade
goods and services in exchange for electronic data, it is even better than
exchanging coins and back notes.
Money is not a material construct, it
is a psychological construct. It works by converting matter into mind. Trust is
the raw material from which all types of money are minted.
Why should Chinese, Indians, Muslims
and Spaniards started believe in gold? Economists have an answer: Once trade
connects two areas, the forces of supply and demand tend to equalize the prices
of transportable goods.
Money is based on two universal
principles:
- Universal convertibility: with money, as an
alchemist, you can turn land into loyalty, justice into health and
violence into knowledge.
- Universal trust : with money as a go-between
any two people can cooperate on any project.
Religion
Today religion is considered a source
of discrimination, disagreement and disunion. Yet, it has been the 3rd great
unifier alongside money and empire. Religion can be defined as a system of
human norms and values that is funded on a belief in a superhuman order.
This involves two distinct criteria:
- Religion hold that there is a superhuman
order, which is not the product of human whims or agreements.
- Base on the superhuman order, religion
establishes norms and values that it considers binding.
A leading theory about the origin of
gods argues that gods gained importance because they offered a solution to
problems.
In Hindu Polytheism, Atman is the
essence or soul of the entire universe as well as of every individual and every
phenomenon. Hindu Sadhus devote their lives to uniting with Atman,
thereby achieving enlightenment. Most Hindus, however are not sadhus. They are
sunk deep in the morass of mundane concerns, where Atman is not much help.
Hindu approach the gods with their partial powers. Precisely because
their powers are partial rather than all -encompassing, gods such as Ganesha,
Lakshmi, Sarasvati have interests and biases.
During the Roman era during
Christianity’s inception of three centuries, Romans killed no more than a few
thousand Christian. In contrast, over the course of the next 1500 years, Christians
slaughtered Christians by the millions to defend slightly different
interpretations of the religion of love and compassion.
Historians can describe ‘how’
Christianity took over Roman empire, but they cannot explain ‘why’ this
particular possibility was released. The same puzzle is true for the spread of
Islam which is difficult to know why it took over Arabian peninsula and beyond.
History cannot be explained
deterministically and it cannot be predicted because it is level 2 chaotic.
Some of the level 2 chaotic are unpredictability of market share price,
& tide of political wave.
The scientific revolution
The scientific revolution’s feedback
loop. Science needs more than just research to make progress. It depends on the
mutual reinforcement of science, politics and economics. Political and economic
institution provide the resources without which scientific research is almost
impossible. In return, scientific research provides new powers that are used
among other things, to obtain new sources, some of the which are reinvested in
research.
Modern science differs from all
previous traditions of knowledge in three critical ways:
- The willingness to admit ignorance
- The centrality of observation and mathematics
- The acquisition of new powers.
Most scientific studies are funded
because somebody believed they can help attain some political, economic or
religious goal. Scientific research can flourish only in alliance with some
religion or ideology. The ideology justifies the cost of the research. In exchange,
the ideology influences the scientific agenda and determine what to do with the
discoveries.
The feedback loop between science,
Imperialism and capitalism has arguably been history’s chief engine for the
past 500 years. European imperialism was entirely unlike all other imperial
projects in history. Previous seekers of empire tended to assume that they
already understood the world. Conquest merely utilized and spread their view of
the world and search of power and wealth - not of knowledge. In contrast,
European imperialism set out to distant shores in the hope of obtaining new
knowledge along with new territories.
As time went by , the conquest of
knowledge and the conquest of territory became even more intertwined. In the
18th & 19th centuries, almost every important military expedition that left
Europe for distant land had on board scientists who set out not to fight but to
make scientific discoveries (Charles Darwin was one such scientist in one such
expedition).
When Muslims conquered India, they did
not bring along archaeologists to systematically study Indian history,
anthropologist to study Indian culture, geologists to study Indian soils, or
geologist to study Indian fauna. When British conquered India, they did all
these things. On 10 April 1802, the Great Survey of India was launched. No one
before British took a notice of Mohenjo-Daro site, but British excavated it in
1922.
In 1500, global production of goods and
services was equal to $250bn and it is $60tn today, This is where economics
played a major role. Following example explains the intricate of money chain.
Mr. Greedy founds a bank and Mr. Stone,
a contractor, deposited $1m, his profit from previous work, to the Mr. Greedy’s
bank. Ms. McDoughnet wanted to start a bakery and approached Mr. Stone
for the expense of the bakery buildings and the cost of the construction quoted
was $1m. Ms. McDoughnut approached Mr. Greedy for $1m loan, which got approved
and handed over. Ms. McDoughnt handed over $1m to Mr. Stone for the
bakery construction. Mr. Stone deposited $1m to Mr. Greedy’s bank, totaling his
deposit to $2 m, while the Mr. Greedy’s bank had only $1m (the first deposited
from Mr. Stone). In economics, there are $2m in transaction happened, but only
$1m was actually involved.
Current US banking law permits the bank
to repeat the above exercise seven more time (while having $1m in cash, they
can lend money up to $7 M, hoping, the initial depositor would not be pulling
$1m from the bank)
In premodern times, people believed
that production was more or less constant. So why reinvest your profits in
production won’t increase much. They spent their revenues on banquets,
tournaments, palaces and wars. In today’s world, venture capitalist is not
going after conspicuous consumption, but reinvesting the profits again and
again.
The success story of Dutch Protestant
revolt against Catholic Spain kingdom was due to the credit that Dutch had
access to. Their famous company VOC built a settlement called New Amsterdam,
which got renamed after British took control of it as New York. During the VOC
era, they built a wall to defend their settlement, which became known as the
famous Wall Street.
When the investors lose trust in a
company, something unexpected could happen. The Mississippi Company, chartered
in France set out to colonies the lower Mississippi valley. To accumulate
money, they sold bond in Paris exchange and it was supportive of the French
King. Its price started to skyrocket and more people invested which again
skyrocketed the price. Some speculators realized that the share price was
totally unrealistic and unsustainable, they started to sell which became an
avalanche effect on the share price.
The way Mississippi company used its
political clout to manipulate the share price ended up in losing faith in
French banking system and king found it more & more difficult to raise
credit to keep the banking system intact. This become one of the chief reasons
that overseas French empire fell into British hands, which led to French
revolution due to increasing debt and resulting tax put on the French people.
Capital and politics influence each
other to such an extent that their relations are hotly debated by economists,
politicians and general public alike. When Greek region rebelled against
Ottoman empire, London financiers sold Greek bond in conjunction with Greek rebels’
leaders on payment return of the bond. Many Londoners bought the bond and Greek
rebels got enough money to fight against Ottoman. During the hefty battle, when
Greek was losing the battle, Londoners exert political pressure on the British
gov., resulting British got involved in the battle and won against Ottoman for
the sake of London investors.
Industrial revolution which was fueled
by capitalist involvement, caused many improvements in human’s life and
population burgeoned as never before. In 1700, world’s population was 700m, in
1800, it was 950m. By 1900, it reached 1.6bn and by 2000, it became 6 bn. In
2017, it became 7 bn.
The Third World discontent is fomented
not merely by poverty, disease, corruption and political oppression, but also
by mere exposure to First World standards. The male youth is not comparing
himself with his local youths, but with Cristiano Ronaldo and finding happiness
when compared.
The average Egyptian was far less
likely to die from starvation, plague or violence under Hosni Mubarak than
under Ramses II or Cleopatra. Never had the material condition of most
Egyptians been so good. Instead, they rose up furiously to overthrow Mubarak.
They were not comparing themselves to their ancestors, under the pharaohs, but
rather to their contemporaries in the affluent west.
As Nietzsche put it, if you have a why
to live, you can bear almost any how. A meaningful life can be extremely
satisfying even in the midst of hardships, whereas a meaningless life is a
terrible ordeal no matter how comfortable it is.
As far as we can scientifically tell,
human life has absolutely no meaning. Our actions are not part of any divine
cosmic plan. According to selfish gene theory, natural selection makes people,
like other organisms, choose what is good for the reproduction of their genes,
even if it bad for them as individuals. Most males spend their lives toiling,
worrying, competing and fighting, instead of enjoying the bliss, because their
DNA manipulates them for its own selfish aims.
Many scholars began to study the
history of happiness only a few years ago and we are still formulating initial
hypotheses and searching for appropriate research methods.
The end of Homo Sapiens
Homo Sapiens is transcending the
limits. It is now beginning to break the laws of natural selection, replacing
them with the laws of intelligent design. For billions of years, intelligent
design was not even an option, because there was no intelligence which could
design things. In labs throughout the world, scientists are engineering living
beings. They break the laws of natural selection with impunity, unbridled even
by an organism’s original characteristics.
Eduardo Kac, a Brazilian bio-artist
decided in 2000 to create a new work of art - a fluorescent rabbit. French
scientist implanted DNA gene from a green fluorescent jellyfish in white
Rabbit, creating a green fluorescent rabbit. It is a product of intelligent
design and is also a harbinger of things to come.
The replacement of natural selection by
intelligent design could happen in any of the three ways: through biological
engineering (implanting genes), cyborg engineering (cyborgs are beings that
combine organic with non-organic parts; e.g. bionic arms) or the engineering of
inorganic life (e.g. AI based robots).
In 1818 Mary Shelley published
Frankenstein, the story of a scientist who tries to create a superior being and
instead creates a monster. It warns us that if we try to play God and engineer
life we will be punished severely. Considering the progress of
intelligent design, the last days of Homo Sapiens are fast approaching. . On
the sake of Gilgamesh project (establishing a-mortality for Homo Sapiens), we
are crossing the limits without any direction.
70,000 years ago, Homo Sapiens was an
insignificant animal and in the following millennia, it transformed itself into
the master of the entire planet and the terror of the ecosystems. Today, it stands
on the verge of becoming a god, poised to acquire not only eternal youth, but
also the divine abilities of creation and destruction.
We are consequently weakening havoc on
our fellow animals and on the surrounding ecosystems, seeking little more than
our own comfort and amusement, yet never finding satisfaction.
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