Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

by Yuval Noah Harari

There are no gods in the universe, no nations, no money, no human rights, no laws and no justice outside the common imagination of human beings.

Ever since the Cognitive Revolution, Sapiens have thus been living in a dual reality. On the one hand, the objective reality of rivers, trees and lions; and on the other hand, the imagined reality of gods, nations and corporations. As time went by, the imagined reality became ever more powerful, so that today the very survival of rivers, trees and lions depends on the grace of imagined entities such as the United States and Google.

money isn’t a material reality – it is a psychological construct.

In reply to Roman peace offers, the chieftain Calgacus called the Romans ‘the ruffians of the world’, and said that ‘to plunder, slaughter and robbery they give the lying name of empire; they make a desert and call it peace’.2

Egoism is altruism.