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Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow

by Yuval Noah Harari

4.35 · Rating Details · 12,097 Ratings · 1,360 Reviews

Yuval Noah Harari, author of the critically-acclaimed New York Times bestseller and international phenomenon Sapiens, returns with an equally original, compelling, and provocative book, turning his focus toward humanity’s future, and our quest to upgrade humans into gods.

Over the past century humankind has managed to do the impossible and rein in famine, plague, and war. T

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Kindle Edition, 450 pages

Published February 21st 2017 by Harper (first published 2015)

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Aug 29, 2016 Emma rated it really liked it

Shelves: netgalley

This is a profoundly shocking piece of writing, a tactic which Yuval Noah Harari uses to great effect in getting readers to think about society today. The book is ostensibly about the future of mankind, but really is a means of highlighting how current trends in science, technology, humanity etc may progress and asks if that's really how we want things to go. It's philosophy. That big question that has been posed throughout the ages: how should we live? He makes clear that his hypotheses are onl This is a profoundly shocking piece of writing, a tactic which Yuval Noah Harari uses to great effect in getting readers to think about society today. The book is ostensibly about the future of mankind, but really is a means of highlighting how current trends in science, technology, humanity etc may progress and asks if that's really how we want things to go. It's philosophy. That big question that has been posed throughout the ages: how should we live? He makes clear that his hypotheses are only potential ways the future might unfold, but the text comes across as a warning as much as anything else.

For me, the most interesting and thought-provoking was his argument for the better treatment of animals. While we have placed ourselves at the top of the species ladder, new advents in technology may bring about computer technologies which replace us in the number one spot. Considering we may well end up in the unenviable position of the underdog, perhaps we should take more care of those who, like us, may well depend on the goodwill of this higher in the chain. Not only that, modern technology has increasingly allowed us to understand the emotional and intellectual complexity of animals in a way that should make it difficult to treat them as lesser beings. This is an issue that has been playing on my mind for some time. It seems like every week now we are getting news reports of another animal ripped from its habitat for a selfie and dying as a result. Pictures of intensive farming that have animals in cages so small they can't lay down. My social media newsfeed of animals mistreated, dumped, abused, given no more thought than a piece of trash. Harari is a vegan and his specific set of beliefs come across in the text. Yet, as a current meat eater, it is becoming increasingly difficult to justify my position. I don't know what to do that can help and the book doesn't offer any concrete plans for change, but it has added another dimension to the considerations I have been struggling with myself.

Overall though, it is Harari's style which is the most engaging. I rushed though this book because even the most complex issues are dealt with in accessible language and an approachable tone. It's fun and despite the subject matter, doesn't take itself too seriously. It felt like the starting point of a conversation, somewhat controversial of course, but isn't that the best way to get a debate going?

Many thanks to Yuval Noah Harari, Random House/Vintage, and Netgalley for this copy in exchange for an honest review. ...more

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Mar 24, 2017 Darwin8u rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2017

“Every day millions of people decide to grant their smartphone a bit more control over their lives or try a new and more effective antidepressant drug. In pursuit of health, happiness and power, humans will gradually change first one of their features and then another, and another, until they will no longer be human.”
― Yuval Noah Harari, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow

description

Harari takes us, with this continuation to his blockbuster book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, from the past to t “Every day millions of people decide to grant their smartphone a bit more control over their lives or try a new and more effective antidepressant drug. In pursuit of health, happiness and power, humans will gradually change first one of their features and then another, and another, until they will no longer be human.”
― Yuval Noah Harari, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow

description

Harari takes us, with this continuation to his blockbuster book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, from the past to the future. This book shares a lot of the same limitations of the previous book. But because "speculation" is inherent in writing about the future, Harari's jumps are easier to forgive when talking about tomorrow than when talking about today.

I'm a diabetic and have an insulin pump and I've thought of myself, only partially in jest, as a early, unsophisticated, cyborg the last ten years. I walk around with my iphone plugged into my ears, my artificial pancreas plugged into my thigh, my sensor for my pump plugged into my stomach. It isn't very neat. We have miles to go before all of this technology becomes aesthetically amazing, and loses all the wires and clunky functionality, but it still gives me pause about the future. My friend's Tesla drives by itself, big data seems able to predict what I will buy next, my smart phone really is smart. Perhaps we are all surfing towards some Omega Point.

I have a friend who is a Transhumanist and it has been interesting to hear him discuss the values and virtues of Transhumanism. I'm a little more hesitant. I'm no Luddite, but I DO worry about these big technological/cultural/commercial shifts. Will technology make Homo Sapiens the next Homo Neanderthalensis? Will these gains through AI, technology, genetic modification, etc., be well-thought-out? Harari hedges by saying he doesn't know what the future brings (If he did, perhaps we should just join his church), but is only using this discussion to suggest the type of ethical and moral and even survival discussions we SHOULD probably be having. As we incrementally crawl towards some form of technological singularity, perhaps we need to give pause to not just the benefits, but costs of self-driving cars and sex robots. ...more

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May 15, 2017 Helen 2.0 rated it it was amazing

Shelves: non-fic, own, read-17

Obviously I need to get a copy of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind because I loved this book. I can't claim to be well-read in the topic of Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, so I'm definitely biased in my opinion that Harari is a genius. Every few pages my copy has lengthy passages highlighted, brilliant bits I just knew I would want to reference when I pitched this book to family and friends later on.

In Homo Deus, Harari holds that now that humanity has all but solved the mammoth pr Obviously I need to get a copy of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind because I loved this book. I can't claim to be well-read in the topic of Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, so I'm definitely biased in my opinion that Harari is a genius. Every few pages my copy has lengthy passages highlighted, brilliant bits I just knew I would want to reference when I pitched this book to family and friends later on.

In Homo Deus, Harari holds that now that humanity has all but solved the mammoth problems plaguing it before the 21st century - disease, famine, and violence - it will turn to a new agenda, namely attaining happiness, immortality, and divinity. This is what the blurb will tell you, but the book addresses many more topics beyond the above.
The author writes about our potential future in terms of our recent and ancient past (he is, after all, first and foremost a historian). He explains how humans distinguished themselves from the animal world and came to recognize the human experience and economic growth as the ultimate powers of the recent centuries. Harari then turns to look at where the unstoppable tide of technology and progress may take us in a few decades - whether intelligent algorithms and a genetically upgraded superhuman elite may make ordinary humans obsolete.

His ideas, put starkly, may sound like far-fetched science fiction, but Harari supports his assertions with historical and current evidence as well as deep insights that make his predictions seem chillingly close to prophecy. Even though he states that Homo Deus is meant to help readers explore all possible future routes of humankind, the book still induced an ominous feeling in me the whole way.

One of my favorite passages concerns the belief in a potential scientific "Noah's Ark" which will deliver the rich and social elite from detrimental future effects of climate change, leaving the poor masses to deal with the fallout:
Even if bad comes to worse and science cannot hold off the deluge, engineers could still build a hi-tech Noah's Ark for the upper caste, while leaving billions of others to drown. The belief in this hi-tech Ark is currently one of the biggest threats to the future of humankind and of the entire ecosystem. People who believe in the hi-tech Ark should not be put in charge of the global ecology, for the same reason that people who belive in a heavenly afterlife should not be given nuclear weapons.
Touché.

And one of the best "food for thought" snippets, in a chapter discussing (among other things) the moral implications of farming animals:
If and when computer programs attain superhuman intelligence and unprecedented power, should we begin valuing these programs more than we value humans? Would it be okay, for example, for an artificial intelligence to exploit humans and even kill them to further its own needs and desires? If it should never be allowed to do that, despite its superior intelligence and power, why is it ethical for humans to exploit and kill pigs?

All that being said, the book does have a tendency to ramble a bit. Harari hammers his main points into the reader through numerous repetitions and returns. There are 50 page chapters in Homo Deus, elaborating on and illustrating one single-sentence argument. However, lots of the evidence the author presents is interesting in itself - often it was a historical case applicable to current events - so it never gets boring. ...more

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Aug 28, 2016 David rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction, history, psychology, politics, philosophy, religion, computers, ethics

This is a powerful book by a truly insightful author. I recently read Harari's previous great book, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, and I enjoyed this one just as much. There is so much packed into Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, that it is hard to do justice to the book in a review. Yuval Harari has such a unique insight into how the world turns. He is sometimes very blunt, but he "tells it like he sees it." The first two-thirds of the book is devoted to a description of how the This is a powerful book by a truly insightful author. I recently read Harari's previous great book, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, and I enjoyed this one just as much. There is so much packed into Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, that it is hard to do justice to the book in a review. Yuval Harari has such a unique insight into how the world turns. He is sometimes very blunt, but he "tells it like he sees it." The first two-thirds of the book is devoted to a description of how the humanist philosophy developed, while the last third is about how humanism may very well fall to the wayside in the not-too-distant future.

In the beginning of the book, Harari describes two new human agendas. The first is how humans attempt to extend their lifetimes, and the second is to increase happiness. The goal is to upgrade homo sapiens into homo deus. That is, the desire to re-engineer our bodies and minds, escape old age, death and misery. Basically, to attain divinity. Harari gives numerous examples of how were technologies developed to aid ill or handicapped people, and then were borrowed to help "normal" healthy people; prosthetics, bionics, Viagra, memory aid drugs, plastic surgery, and genetic engineering. (In 2000, a baby girl was born with genetic inheritance from three parents; nuclear genes from mother and father, and mitochondrial DNA from another woman! A year later, the U.S. government banned this special treatment, but the U.K. has since approved it.)

Harari contends that historians study the past, not in order to repeat it, or to foretell the future, but to be liberated from it. He gives a marvelous example of the history of the grass lawn. He writes that the best reason to study history is not to predict the future, but to "free yourself of the past and imagine alternative destinies."

Harari has some interesting insights into the founding of modern religions. He writes that they were founded when humans switched from hunting/foraging to agriculture. A central point of the religions was to give humans dominion over all animals, in order to justify their domestication and superiority, and to justify the terrible suffering humans cause for animals. The agricultural revolution was both an economic and a religious revolution, used to justify brutal exploitation of animals. Agricultural societies also started treating some classes of people as property. I wonder, though, didn't pre-agricultural societies practice slavery? When I try to do some simple online research in this subject, it seems like Harari might be correct; slavery was established to mimic the domestication of animals. And, the agricultural revolution was bad for humans in other ways, as well. A peasant in 1850 in China or Britain had a worse life than an archaic hunter-gatherer, from the point of view of diet and hygiene.

Harari has some unique insights into the dichotomy between religion and science. He describes science as a new "religion" that replaced theist religions with humanist religions, replacing gods with humans. The hatred of monotheists for the theory of evolution is inspired by the lack of scientific evidence for a human soul. A soul has no parts, and evolution operates through incremental changes to various parts of a whole. But, both religion and science, in theory at least, are both devoted to the truth. But since their truths are different they seem doomed to clash. However, since neither religion nor science really care much about truth, they can coexist. Religion is mostly interested in social order and structure, while science is mostly interested in power. That is, the power to cure disease, fight war and produce food. So, since religion and science prefer order and power over truth, they "make good bedfellows."

Modernity is a simple deal based on a contract: Humans agree to give up meaning in exchange for power. Plagues, droughts and wars have no cosmic meaning to modern humanism, but we have the power to eradicate them. Paradise does not await us after death, but we have the power, in principle, to create paradise here on Earth. Modernity is based on the belief that growth is essential. Growth is the supreme value. Because avarice and greed help to fuel growth, they are encouraged.

Traditional religions offer no alternative to liberalism because they are reactive instead of creative. This wasn't always true. During the Middle Ages, Christian monasteries were among the most advanced centers for innovations--Harari lists a number of their innovations. But today religions look to scriptures for answer. But scriptures are no longer a source of creativity, as they say nothing about modern technologies such as genetic engineering or artificial intelligence. Harari describes three different possible futures for humanism. In one of these, liberalism may die out as technology displaces humans. The masses will lose their economic and military importance. Harari suggests that "Dataism" may appear as a new religion. Dataism advances the first truly new value in nearly 200 years; the value of freedom of information. Dataism is firmly entrenched in its two mother disciplines, computer science and biology. Organisms are seen by scientists as data-processing systems. The stock market is the most powerful of all data processing systems, and centralized government is one of the worst. Capitalism defeated Communism during the Cold War, not because it is more ethical or because individual liberties are sacred, but because in times of rapid technological change, distributed processing systems work better than centralized systems.

Humanists rely on feelings to make important decisions, and these feelings evolved over millions of years. But often our feelings are just irrational and wrong. Computer algorithms can surpass feelings in making good decisions. So, the humanist recommendation to "get in touch with your feelings" may not he given in the future. Perhaps, meaning in life will not lie in our experiences, until they are shared with others, through social media. And, these social media will analyze our experiences, and be able to give expert advice on important decisions. Harari gives some pretty good evidence that this trend may come to pass.

I do want to quibble with some numbers that Harari proposes. He writes that the one billion cars owned around the world could be reduced to 50 million, if they were jointly owned and operated autonomously. People could share rides. However, people want to commute to work in cars all at the same time. They sit in parking lots at work and at home because people have no need for them during work hours and overnight.

But this is perhaps a minor point in Harari's argument. Many people will pooh-pooh much of what Harari has to say. But, it is all extremely thought-provoking. I have just scratched the surface of this book. I highly recommend it to all open-minded people who are not afraid to think a bit differently about the meaning of life, about our political structures, and the future. ...more

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Jul 13, 2016 Atila Iamarino rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: futuro, tecnologia, psicologia, humanidade

Que livro amigos, que livro. Não lembro do que li que me fez pensar tanto e mudar a forma como vejo o mundo. Uma ótima análise rápida sobre como chegamos aqui, que se conecta muito bem com o Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, e uma análise mais extensa sobre para onde podemos ir. A análise em terceira pessoa sobre humanismo, capitalismo e tendências futuras é excelente. E a reflexão que ele traz sobre os valores que damos para o valor individual, consciência e autonomia só deve ganhar import ...more

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Oct 07, 2016 Cj Dufficy rated it it was ok

Certainly a disappointment when compared to Sapiens. The insights were generally already well presented in the earlier book. The section on animal lives is not convincingly warranted for inclusion but more obviously just a passion for the author leading me to feel I was being preached too. His criticism of Dawkins et al although correct could be equally pointed at himself. The universe will move from hot to cold regardless of quantum mechanical randomness at the quanta scale and equally at our b Certainly a disappointment when compared to Sapiens. The insights were generally already well presented in the earlier book. The section on animal lives is not convincingly warranted for inclusion but more obviously just a passion for the author leading me to feel I was being preached too. His criticism of Dawkins et al although correct could be equally pointed at himself. The universe will move from hot to cold regardless of quantum mechanical randomness at the quanta scale and equally at our barely greater scale (in universal terms) the path of the universe need not worry about human probabilistic behaviour, our free will is irrelevant to the progress of the universe. The fact that it is buried in our consciousness where language based thought is absent is hardly surprising as without it we could never have arrived at language based thought.

All living things will die (even if capable of life spans we can't comprehend now) something terminal eventually happens to everything. As finally when the universe is so cold nothing can happen, long after this proton decay will plant the last nail in all coffins. Dr Hariri is no different to a WW1 general asking people to sacrifice some of their one and only life to benefit some unknown present or future person or animal with zero guarantees the sacrifice pays off but 100% certainty of the personal cost. Technology won't replicate humans, why would anyone want to copy such an imperfect organism when so many better options would be available?

He admits, to paraphrase Dr King, that the arc of history is towards justice. The future is not a destination we choose any effort to dictate global outcomes never succeeds and this book is just another "I know best contribution" that will soon be forgotten.

Generally the book feels as a world view supported selectively and not the wonderful voyage of discovery presented in Sapiens. Like Dawkins hating God though not believing, the author to object to humanism sneers at humans. No one ever said humans should act justly towards anything as a result of evolution but wth curiosity, generosity and empathy we have achieved a lot and are headed to achieve more although doomed anyway either in the long or short term. He fails completely to demonstrate any logic for a human that is mortal caring the exact length of time left to the species and acting altruistically as a result, and so totally unaware his action would have a measurable affect. If Mr Schickelbach hadn't changed his name to Hitler how different would the 20th century have been? What is the possibility of picking out causal events like these or knowing preventing them offers a better present. Everyone alive today must selfishly accept all of the great or horrible past or simply not exist.

I'm happy I read it just a little deflated that so little eye opening left field explanations are in it and so many unsupported claims are made.

To sum up he reminds me of the experimenter that forgets he is part of the experiment and can never not be. ...more

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Sep 17, 2016 Safat rated it liked it

We are not so taken aback when we hear computer programs can beat human chess masters. After all, computers are far more efficient calculators than humans, and chess can be broken down to calculations (In fact, nowadays chess masters don't stand a chance against present day computer Chessmaster programs. It's simply not possible for a human mind to beat them). And we're also not at all shocked when Google and Tesla present us automated cars driven by computer programs. Nevertheless, we reason,co We are not so taken aback when we hear computer programs can beat human chess masters. After all, computers are far more efficient calculators than humans, and chess can be broken down to calculations (In fact, nowadays chess masters don't stand a chance against present day computer Chessmaster programs. It's simply not possible for a human mind to beat them). And we're also not at all shocked when Google and Tesla present us automated cars driven by computer programs. Nevertheless, we reason,computers can never rival humans in arts, because arts require something distinctively(perhaps even spiritually) humane, which can never be replicated by computers.

If you're a believer in this sort of human distinctiveness, perhaps you would naturally be thrown off upon hearing that a computer program written by a professor of musicology produced musical piece that the audience thought was superior to Bach. In other words, AI has already passed the Turing test in music.

If programs can outperform us in our allegedly distinct 'human art' form, there's really no reason to think that it can't outperform us in every other field. Programs may lack subjective consciousness like us, but that doesn't stop them to outperform us in intellectual and artistic fields.

Harari's new book explores the dimensions of the marriage between man and machine. He basically paints a dystopian vision of the future where humanity is by and large subjugated to non conscious intelligent machines. He even entertains the idea with the rise of brain-machine interfaces, where today's elite class of human beings would upgrade themselves to a biologically improved version of humans, which the general mass couldn't possibly afford for their lives. This would create a real caste system with real biological hierarchies.

After reading Harari's previous book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, I must say that I am a bit disappointed with this book. Much of the book is reiteration of the previous book which seemed to me largely redundant. However, although this book is not as articulated or entertaining as the previous one, it is probably more important, considering the topics it deals with. ...more

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Jun 19, 2017 Tudor Vlad rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction

I’ve only read one other book written by Yuval Noah Harari and that was Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, this follows in the steps of that to the point that it seems more like a sequel even if they can be read in whatever order you wish. Just as Sapiens, Homo Deus is a gripping book, I love Yuval’s writing style because it never bores me, he always manages to draw my full attention.

Homo Deus is a book that wants to present the possible roads that the future might lead us to. It’s not a pr ...more

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Jun 05, 2016 Nir rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Harari is a fantastic historian: he writes effortlessly and fascinatingly about historic trends, and has a great big picture perspective of the revolutions and contexts of historical progression.

Harari, however, is not a good futurologist and an absolutely terrible cognitive scientist. Being educated in Cognitive Science and technology myself, all I can say, with the utmost respect I can offer to a fellow Israeli, is that he's full of shit.

Homo Deus is an attempt to make a sequel to the wildly p Harari is a fantastic historian: he writes effortlessly and fascinatingly about historic trends, and has a great big picture perspective of the revolutions and contexts of historical progression.

Harari, however, is not a good futurologist and an absolutely terrible cognitive scientist. Being educated in Cognitive Science and technology myself, all I can say, with the utmost respect I can offer to a fellow Israeli, is that he's full of shit.

Homo Deus is an attempt to make a sequel to the wildly popular (and actually quite good) "From Animals into Gods" - its main thesis is that in the 21st century, liberal humanism would progress into "techno humanism"; and that humanity's main efforts would be to upgrade humans into some bizarre godlike cyborg entity. He focuses on some aspects of modern progress (e.g. genetic engineering) and extrapolates completely insane uses. An example of a claim that he makes: In the near future, the efforts of medical science would be tuned to upgrading the rich rather than healing the diseases of the poor.

His underlying zeal for a hunter gatherer sociological eco-utopia notwithstanding - this is bullshit, and focuses on a remote obscure threat rather than a very real threat that's already here: If there's a threat to modern society from modern medical science, it's is the personalization of medicine, rather than "upgrades". That is, drugs would be concocted to be maximally efficient according to a genotype. This is already happening at a very rough scale (for instance, there are drugs that are more effective on people of African American descent) - but in the near future, rather than upgrade themselves, the rich people would simply have far more effective cancer treatment because they'd be able to afford genotyping and personal medicine.

If the cyborg-upgrade part sounds to you like a bad synopsis of a Neal Stephenson novel, you're absolutely right. Let's all jack into the Matrix now!

Needless to say, the views have the grounding in scientific and research reality that a SciFi fanfic about Kirk banging Uhura has, and it is written with the same brain addling juvenile exuberance.

Read the first book of his; avoid the second. ...more

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Mar 12, 2017 Carlos rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction-btr

4.5 stars actually, this book give us a comprehensive look into the near and distant future . Homo sapiens (modern humans) were able to gain dominance over all of nature because of their ability to communicate and to collaborate with each other and because they could use their collective brain to come up with novel ideas, but as technology progresses and we rely more and more in computers and algorithms these computers programs are based on , are we as a species giving up dominance to technology ...more

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Sep 09, 2016 Anastasia Alén rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommends it for: fans of Sapiens, fans of Yuval Noah Harari, anyone interested in reading excellent nonfiction

Shelves: nonfiction, 5-stars, netgalley-or-arc

Shocking. Entertaining. Incredibly thoughtful. Freaking fantastic!

One of the most informative books I have ever read. I think Homo Deus poses some excellent questions that make you question your existence. Why do we think of ourselves as superior to all other life forms. Why do we have such strong faith in imaginary things such as money, gods, human rights, companies...And what will become of us if dataism succeeds. All in all, it's clear that we can't keep living like this.

Harari's writing sty ...more

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Feb 10, 2017 Ram rated it it was amazing

Shelves: popular-science

Now that the Human kind, in the 20th century, has managed to control famine, plague and war, it is ready for it's next challenge.

According to Yuval Noah Harari, the main reason that humans have managed to attain such a strong position in this planet is their ability to believe in "imaginary orders" such as countries, religion, money etc.

Many believe that we have something in us that could be called a soul or consciousness or similar but it is not clear that this exists and our behavior could po ...more

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Mar 04, 2017 Tanja Berg rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, evolution

"Looking back, many think that the downfall of the pharaohs and the death of God were both positive developments. People are usually afraid of change because they fear the unknown. But the single greatest constant of history is that everything changes."

Knowing where we are is a prerequisite for having any idea of where we are going. Common fantasies is what put humans on top. Not only can we communicate, but we can also comminuticate about thing that exist only in our common imagination, such as ...more

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Jan 04, 2017 Elena rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, histories-of-people-events-things, super-favorites, about-future

Awesome. This book, as the previous one by this author, goes directly to the shelf of my favourites.

Some quotes.

"Unlike the narrating self that controls us today, Google will not make decisions on the basis of cooked-up stories, and will not be misled by cognitive short cuts and the peak-end rule. Google will actually remember every step we took and every hand we shook."

"In exchange for such devoted counselling services, we will just have to give up the idea that humans are individuals, and th ...more

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Jul 06, 2017 Nelson Zagalo rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: academic, non-fiction

Estamos no início do terceiro milénio, uma ferramenta online criada numa universidade americana permite aos rapazes e raparigas da elite da sociedade partilhar ideias, textos, fotografias, vídeos, estreitar laços e fortalecer relações. Em poucos anos essa ferramenta chega a mais universidades, ultrapassa as fronteiras dos campus e começa a ser usada livremente pela sociedade. Em 2017 são já dois mil milhões de pessoas que estão ligadas nessa rede. Todos os dias partilham ali sentires, preocupaçõ ...more

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Dec 07, 2016 Weronika rated it it was ok

The book is hugely disappointing. A year or so ago I read an interview with Harari on this book, which was still work in progress, and I found his views on biological inequality (and, to a lesser extent, the decoupling of intelligence from consciousness) very insightful. Actually, it was that interview that inspired me to read Sapiens, which, despite certain flaws, unfortunately amplified in Deus, is a book definitely worth reading. Meanwhile, Deus is wordy, chaotic and repetitive; most of the b ...more

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Jun 19, 2016 Andrew rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Remember Sapiens ? Remember how it brilliantly explained all of human history? Well, now Yuval Noah Harari explains some of the possibilities for humanity's future.

Picking up on his thesis of humans as storytellers, he looks at the main stories we've told: religion and humanism and how they may fare in an increasingly technological world. The old certainties are built on these old stories. Can liberalism and democracy survive in a world where the biological algorithms of our bodies bring free w ...more

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Oct 09, 2016 Mandy rated it it was amazing

What a compelling, engaging, thought-provoking, and ultimately quite terrifying book this is. I found it unputdownable - there’s just so much food for thought in its pages and I often find myself thinking back to it when I hear of advances in science and technology with which the author’s vision of the future begins to seem ever more plausible. He describes how human nature, indeed our very humanity, could be transformed in the not very distant future due to developments in bio-technology, bio-e ...more

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Jan 12, 2017 Joachim Stoop rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind 4,5/5
Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow 3,5/5

Only the last part (1/3) is actually about the future.

Warning: I cannot unread this book, but if I could...
I became very dark and depressed about the future possibilities formulated by Harari. And I'm afraid he's right about DNA, computers, inequality and their effect on what is to be human.

pfffft

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Feb 21, 2017 ধনঞ্জয় বিশ্বাস rated it liked it

The title is misleading.
What this book did was to speculate about the future of horse carriages while disregarding the possibility of a car. In that respect, Harari did a pretty good job.

But as far as the future goes, outside science fictions, speculating is pretty pointless. Even the best of the carriages becomes obsolete once a car comes along.

What will happen if P is proven to be equal to NP?
What if interstellar flights becomes a reality?
Absurd? In 1940s there was no computer, just seventy ye ...more

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Jan 08, 2017 Argos rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Öncelikle bu kitabın "SAPIENS" kadar çarpıcı ve etkileyici olmadığı kanısındayım. Ancak kitap hem ilgi çekici hem de kışkırtıcı ve akıcı bir okumaya sahip. İlk bölüm yani "Sapiens Dünyayı Fethediyor" bölümü biraz sıkıcı olsa da muhteşem analizlerin yeraldığı ikinci bölüme hazırlıyor sizi. Üçüncü ve son bölüm ise bilimkurgu gibi yazılmış. Biraz ürkütücü olan bu bölüm yazarın kitabı yazma amacını oluşturuyor. Hümanizmi bir din olarak tanımlaması çok ilginç ve haklılık payı var bence. Dr Hariri tar ...more

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Nov 19, 2016 Arvind rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: science-sci-fi

3.5/5 The book discusses what lies in the future for us as a species wrt Artificial Intelligence and conquest of death and immortality. Some really astonishing examples were posted as status updates by me.
It starts off very well introducing the topic, but after that I felt a lot of time and pages was spent on discussing the past in unneeded detail. Also, I felt the view was largely dystopian, was sometimes reminded of the world of the movie "Matrix". The last section was relevant but it seemed a ...more

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May 20, 2017 Thomas Strömquist rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Since we are unable to learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it. The one thing that appeals about future humans possibly being able to live for 3, 4 or even 5 hundred years is that the one thing that evolution has not provided - a long enough life span to really understand processes on a historical level. Global we're getting better at, how things happening elsewhere affects environment at ours often works fine, if the span is time, however, no such luck. One dark part of Harari's new book Since we are unable to learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it. The one thing that appeals about future humans possibly being able to live for 3, 4 or even 5 hundred years is that the one thing that evolution has not provided - a long enough life span to really understand processes on a historical level. Global we're getting better at, how things happening elsewhere affects environment at ours often works fine, if the span is time, however, no such luck. One dark part of Harari's new book that stayed with me is the fact that humans do horrible things for what they believe are the right reasons. Fast forward a hundred years and a descendant do pretty much the same - only the actual reasons shifted. Not seldom they more or less have been inverted. I believe that this is both due to our inability to really understand our ancestors, the world they lived in, what the based their decisions on - and at the same time, we cannot picture the ones that will come after us. And certainly not the fact that much of what we think is the ultimate truths, correct reasons and right way to reason will be regarded by them as ignorance, delusions and lack of comprehension. Basically, we understand the current status - and most of us work very hard to secure status quo.

"Homo Deus" is even better that it's predecessor "Sapiens: En kort historik över mänskligheten" in my opinion. The subtitle; "A Brief History of Tomorrow", is slightly misleading though. Most of the text actually covers and expand the same ground as the first book and is really more of an expose over how we got where we are and, based on current status, where we might go from here. It's a good thing that the author writes so accessible, because it is often a hard read. But at the same time it's often an entertaining one at that, many of the realizations why we are like we are, do what we do and like what we like are not only plausible and a bit mindbending, but quite funny at times.

What drives me towards despair more than anything, is while Harari explains the logical outcome of historical events, gained knowledge and experience, I'm left with the feeling that our own time constitutes a badly scratched record; how is it that we in 2017 seem to be very far from shaking some bronze age superstitions that affect our daily life profoundly? I hope for coming generations that this is just me and my flawed historical perspective and grasp and that the process are ticking along nicely, despite what I think I see.

The book should really be read by everyone - unfortunately, those who stand to gain most from doing so will most likely proclaim the author "wrong" and wash their hands of it. ...more

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Feb 09, 2017 Davut Cikrikci rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Saphiens den sonra bunu da okumak oldukça iyi geldi. Genel olarak sosyal medya ve arama motorlarının izin verdiği derinlikte ve yönde bilgiyi aldığımız, ve hatta onu da oldukça gereksiz derecede fazla alarak bir anlamda uyuşma yaşadığımızı düşünürsek, yazarın bahsettiği gelecek kehanetleri hiç de ulaşılmaz gözükmüyor. Günümüzde ekonomi ya da sosyal bilimler bir yana tıp ve mühendislik alanında bile artık teşhisler tasarımlar tamamen istatistik oranlarıyla ifade ediliyor. Bu anlamda yazarın bahse ...more

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Sep 17, 2016 kartik narayanan rated it it was amazing

If there was a way to give 6 stars for this book, I would have. This is one of the most thought provoking books I have ever read. It has changed the way I think about humanity. I would say that this is an even better book than sapiens

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Sep 23, 2016 Alasdair Reads rated it liked it

More interesting as provocation than enlightenment. Some great turns of phrase though

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Dec 01, 2016 Krista rated it liked it

Shelves: nonfiction, 2016

Like capitalism, Dataism too began as a neutral scientific theory, but is now mutating into a religion that claims to determine right and wrong. The supreme value of this new religion is 'information flow'. If life is the movement of information, and if we think that life is good, it follows that we should extend, deepen and spread the flow of information in the universe. According to Dataism, human experiences are not sacred and Homo sapiens isn't the apex of creation or the precursor of some f

Like capitalism, Dataism too began as a neutral scientific theory, but is now mutating into a religion that claims to determine right and wrong. The supreme value of this new religion is 'information flow'. If life is the movement of information, and if we think that life is good, it follows that we should extend, deepen and spread the flow of information in the universe. According to Dataism, human experiences are not sacred and Homo sapiens isn't the apex of creation or the precursor of some future Homo deus. Humans are merely the tools for creating the Internet-of-All-Things, which may eventually spread out from planet Earth to cover the whole galaxy and even the whole universe. This cosmic data-processing system would be like God. It will be everywhere and will control everything, and humans are destined to merge into it.

In Homo Deus – the follow-up to his bestselling Sapiens – Yuval Noah Harari recaps the sorry history of mankind, unmasks the reality of our meaningless present, and shares his vision for our irrelevant future. As with the previous book, I found Harari's misanthropy to be patience-straining and not necessarily supported by the “facts” he shares; yet once again, I found his writing to be engaging and interesting, and reading this book wasn't a waste of my time. I concluded that if I thought of Harari's work as philosophy – pure opinion based on what he sees as the truth rather than a straight historical or scientific work – then it's much more palatable. I marked so many passages as I went along (many more than shared here), so I'm going to let Harari do most of the talking in this review.

Once again, Harari's main thesis is that there's nothing very special about Sapiens; through chance and random mutations, we became the apex species on Earth. This time, however, he adds that all life is designed to process algorithms and our true strength as a species has always been our ability to collaborate in large groups to do this work; with religion (which doesn't necessarily mean “the worship of gods”) developing as a means to compel us to behave cooperatively. Consequently, anything we sense within ourselves that makes us believe we are superior to other lifeforms – that we have a “mind” or a “soul” – is pure delusion. Harari cites some fMRI studies (a field which is dismissed as the voodoo of neuroscience by many experts) which found no evidence for the mind as a physical object, and then proceeds as though the absence of proof is definitively the proof of absence:

Some scientists concede that consciousness is real and may actually have great moral and political value, but that it fulfills no biological function whatsoever. Consciousness is the biologically useless by-product of certain brain processes...If this is true, it implies that all the pain and pleasure experienced by billions of creatures for millions of years is just mental pollution. This is certainly a thought worth thinking, even if it isn't true.

Consider that last line closely: This is certainly a thought worth thinking, even if it isn't true. Harari also briefly goes over his anti-soul argument: since Sapiens evolved from earlier lifeforms, and the soul is supposed to have appeared suddenly in just our species, the soul itself couldn't have evolved from an earlier prototype (as in the evolution of the human eye from primitive light-sensing organs), and therefore, doesn't exist. He then extrapolates this “proof” to the conclusion that Sapiens don't have free will; even murderers are simply at the mercy of the chemical and electrical processes in their brains of which they aren't consciously aware:

Once we accept that there is no soul, and that humans have no inner essence called 'the self', it no longer makes sense to ask, 'How does the self choose its desires?' It's like asking a bachelor, 'How does your wife choose her clothes?' In reality, there is only a stream of consciousness, and desires arise and pass within this stream, but there is no permanent self who owns the desires, hence it is meaningless to ask whether I choose my desires deterministically, randomly or freely.

Obviously, this has serious moral implications: in the early days of human civilisation, we followed a moral code in order to please the gods. Once we killed our gods – with the rise of liberalism – we still followed a moral code because we believed in the inherent dignity and value of individual humans. If we can now “prove” that we are special neither as a collective nor as individuals, where does that leave humanity?

What, then, is the meaning of life? Liberalism maintains that we shouldn't expect an external entity to provide us with some ready-made meaning. Rather, each individual voter, customer and viewer ought to use his or her free will in order to create meaning not just for his or her life but for the entire universe.

The life sciences undermine liberalism, arguing that the free individual is just a fictional tale concocted by an assembly of biochemical algorithms. Every moment, the biochemical mechanisms of the brain create a flash of experience, which immediately disappears. Then more flashes appear and fade, appear and fade, in quick succession. These momentary experiences do not add up to any enduring essence. The narrating self tries to impose order on this chaos by spinning a never-ending story, in which every such experience has its place, and hence every experience has some lasting meaning. But, as convincing and tempting as it may be, this story is a fiction.

So, we have neither minds nor souls, our emotions are chemical responses and our every action is predetermined by our internal wiring. The activities that we've always assumed could never be replicated by computers – writing beautiful music or besting a chess champion – have come to pass, and in the near future, everyone from taxi drivers to doctors will be replaced by microchips. What's the point in even keeping humans around? Harari proposes that it was the need for cannon fodder and salt miners that urged the ruling elite to extend the welfare state throughout the twentieth century, but if only the super rich will be able to afford the coming grasps at immortality – and since the masses who can't afford the biotechnical upgrades won't have any jobs anyway – average humans will soon be seen for exactly what they are:

The great human projects of the twentieth century – overcoming famine, plague and war – aimed to safeguard a universal norm of abundance, health and peace for all people without exception. The new projects of the twenty-first century – gaining immortality, bliss and divinity – also hope to serve the whole of humankind. However, because these projects aim to surpass rather than safe-guarding the norm, they may well result in the creation of a new superhuman caste that will abandon its liberal roots and treat normal humans no better than nineteenth-century Europeans treated Africans.

Putting aside worries about evil bankers and tech billionaires, if all of life is here simply to process logarithms, and we have now created computers that can outprocess even humans, should we be frightened for the future? Harari doesn't see us being blindsided by a robot uprising, but he does warn of us sleepwalking towards irrelevancy: with every Facebook like and Google search, each of us is adding to the massive database of the human experience, and once that is complete, there simply won't be a need for flesh and blood Sapiens.

In the high days of European imperialism, conquistadors and merchants bought entire islands and countries in exchange for coloured beads. In the twenty-first century our personal data is probably the most valuable resource most humans still have to offer, and we are giving it to the tech giants in exchange for email services and funny cat videos.

Here's my basic beef with this whole book: Harari repeatedly makes definitive statements based on sketchy proofs – “the only purpose to life is processing algorithms”, “the mind doesn't exist”, “there's no such thing as free will” – and then proceeds to build on these planks as though they are incontrovertible; remove one plank and the whole edifice falls. In the end, even Harari says that the future is unknowable and the purpose of Homo Deus is simply to give something to think about; and especially as we do seem to be sleepwalking towards something never seen before on Earth. And that's a worthwhile subject to read about. ...more

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Aug 24, 2016 Louise Wilson rated it really liked it

A brief history of tomorrow brings us an insight of the authors focus towards humanity's future and quest to upgrade humans into Gods.

Humankind has been able to rein in famine, plague and war. For the first time ever more people die from eating too much than from eating to little. More people die from old age than from infectious diseases.

A wonderfully written insight to our future.

I would like to thank Net Galley, Random House UK, Vintage Publishing and the author Yuval Noah Harari for my ARC ...more

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Apr 08, 2017 Emma Sea rated it it was amazing

Shelves: paperback, non-fiction, i-own-it, history, futurism, dataism

Fantastic. Best book of the year for me so far.

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Jun 15, 2017 Book rated it it was amazing

Shelves: evolution, neuroscience, science, social-science

Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari

“Homo Deus” is an intellectually provocative book that looks at the future of the human species. Israeli professor of history and best-selling author, Yuval Noah Harari provides the public with a cerebral treat. In this fantastic book the perceptive professor looks into his crystal ball and makes fascinating and insightful predictions of the future of humanity, Homo Deus. This captivating 450-page book is broken out into the following t ...more

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About Yuval Noah Harari

Professor Harari was born in Haifa, Israel, to Lebanese parents in 1976. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Oxford in 2002, and is now a lecturer at the Department of History, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

He specialized in World History, medieval history and military history. His current research focuses on macro-historical questions: What is the relation between history and biolo ...more

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Special Operations in the Age of Chivalry, 1100-1550

Sapiens and Homo Deus: The E-book Collection: A Brief History of Humankind and A Brief History of Tomorrow

The Ultimate Experience: Battlefield Revelations and the Making of Modern War Culture, 1450-2000

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“This is the best reason to learn history: not in order to predict the future, but to free yourself of the past and imagine alternative destinies. Of course this is not total freedom – we cannot avoid being shaped by the past. But some freedom is better than none.” — 31 likes

“We do not become satisfied by leading a peaceful and prosperous existence. Rather, we become satisfied when reality matches our expectations. The bad news is that as conditions improve, expectations balloon.” — 19 likes

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