Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

by Yuval Noah Harari

jaundiced,

scurvy

provisions,

Persia

stupendous

scullery

Egoism is altruism.

inculcate

shrewder

Today some people warn that twenty-first-century corporations are accumulating too much power. Early modern history shows just how far that can go if businesses are allowed to pursue their self-interest unchecked.

Biz power

Mississippi Bubble,

this view, the wisest economic policy is to keep politics out of the economy, reduce taxation and government regulation to a minimum, and allow market forces free rein to take their course. Private investors, unencumbered by political considerations, will invest their money where they can get the most profit, so the way to ensure the most economic growth – which will benefit everyone, industrialists and workers – is for the government to do as little as possible. This free-market doctrine is today the most common and influential variant of the capitalist creed.

But in its extreme form, belief in the free market is as naïve as belief in Santa Claus.

Throughout the eighteenth century the yield on slave-trade investments was about 6 per cent a year – they were extremely profitable, as any modern consultant would be quick to admit.

Sugar.slave.free mkt greed

Some religions, such as Christianity and Nazism, have killed millions out of burning hatred. Capitalism has killed millions out of cold indifference coupled with greed.

more precisely, that the only limit is set by our ignorance.

psychologist Harry Harlow

Hence any attempt to define the characteristics of modern society is akin to defining the colour of a chameleon.

pacifism;

When evaluating global happiness, it is wrong to count the happiness only of the upper classes, of Europeans or of men. Perhaps it is also wrong to consider only the happiness of humans.

synapses

oxytocin.

if you have a why to live, you can bear almost any how.

So perhaps happiness is synchronising one’s personal delusions of meaning with the prevailing collective delusions.

‘Know thyself!’ The implication was that the average person is ignorant of his true self, and is therefore likely to be ignorant of true happiness. Freud would

but rather when they understand the impermanent nature of all their feelings, and stop craving them.

You live in the present moment instead of fantasising about what might have been.

Yet his more important and far more profound insight was that true happiness is also independent of our inner feelings. Indeed, the more significance we give our feelings, the more we crave them, and the more we suffer.

Most people wrongly identify themselves with their feelings, thoughts, likes and dislikes.

mastitis,

Self-made gods with only the laws of physics to keep us company, we are accountable to no one.

In essence, terrorism is a theatrical show.

Terrorists are like a fly that tries to destroy a china shop.