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Sapiens by contrast is more like a banana-republic dictator. Having so recently been one of the underdogs of the savannah, we are full of
fears and anxieties over our position, which makes us doubly cruel and dangerous. Many historical calamities, from deadly wars to ecological catastrophes, have resulted from this over-hasty jump.
Sapiens were more proficient hunters and gatherers – thanks to better technology and superior social skills – so they multiplied and spread.
How is this possible,because neanderthal brains were larger than sapiens's
Perhaps this is exactly why our ancestors wiped out the Neanderthals. They were too familiar to ignore, but too different to tolerate.
Sociological research has shown that the maximum ‘natural’ size of a group bonded by gossip is about 150 individuals.
Large numbers of strangers can cooperate successfully by believing in common myths.
Yet none of these things exists outside the stories that people invent and tell one another. 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.
Telling effective stories is not easy. The
difficulty lies not in telling the story, but in convincing everyone else to believe it.
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.
In other words, while the behaviour
patterns of archaic humans remained fixed for tens of thousands of years, Sapiens could transform their social structures, the nature of their interpersonal relations, their economic activities and a host of other behaviours within a decade or two.
The real difference between us and chimpanzees is the mythical glue that binds together large numbers of individuals, families and groups. This glue has made us the masters of creation.
The human collective knows far more today than did the ancient bands. But at the individual level, ancient foragers were the
most knowledgeable and skilful people in history.
Animism (from ‘anima’, ‘soul’ or ‘spirit’ in Latin) is the belief that almost
every place, every animal, every plant and every natural phenomenon has awareness and feelings, and can communicate directly with humans.
This is the essence of the Agricultural Revolution: the ability to keep more people alive under worse conditions.
Humans, like many mammals, have hormonal and genetic mechanisms that help control procreation. In good times females reach puberty earlier, and their chances of
getting pregnant are a bit higher. In bad times puberty is late and fertility decreases.
One of history’s few iron laws is that luxuries tend to become necessities and to spawn new obligations.
The story of the luxury trap carries with it an important lesson. Humanity’s search for an easier life released immense forces of change that transformed the world in ways nobody envisioned or wanted.
This discrepancy between evolutionary success and individual suffering is perhaps the most important lesson we can draw from the Agricultural Revolution.
History is something that very few people have been doing while everyone else was ploughing fields and carrying water buckets.
The most important impact of script on human history is precisely this: it has gradually changed the way humans think and view the world. Free association and holistic thought have given way to compartmentalisation and bureaucracy.
Our computers have trouble understanding how Homo sapiens talks, feels and dreams. So we are teaching Homo sapiens to talk, feel and dream in the language of numbers, which can be
understood by computers.
Hierarchies serve an important function. They enable complete strangers to know how to treat one another without wasting the time and energy needed to become personally acquainted.
Consistency is the playground of dull minds.
money is the most universal and most efficient system of mutual trust ever devised.
because whereas religion asks us to believe in something, money asks us to believe
that other people believe in something.
Money is the only trust system created by humans that can bridge almost any cultural gap, and
that does not discriminate on the basis of religion, gender, race, age or sexual orientation.
Religion can thus be defined as a system of human laws that is founded on a belief in superhuman laws.
He encapsulated his teachings in a single law: suffering arises from craving; the only way to be fully liberated from suffering is to be fully liberated from craving; and the only way to be liberated from craving is to train the mind to experience reality as it is.
What made Europeans exceptional was their unparalleled and insatiable ambition to explore and conquer.
The European empires did so many different things on such a large scale, that you can find plenty of examples to support whatever you want to say about them.
if you have a why to live, you can bear almost any how.
As far as we can tell, from a purely scientific viewpoint, human life has absolutely no meaning.
Hence any meaning that people ascribe to their lives is just a delusion.
‘What I feel to be good – is good. What I feel to be bad – is bad.’
On liberalism
