Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow

by Yuval Noah Harari

Religion is interested above all in order. It aims to create and maintain the social structure. Science is interested above all in power. Through research, it aims to acquire the power to cure diseases, fight wars and produce food.

Over the last century, as scientists opened up the Sapiens black box, they discovered there neither soul, nor free will, nor ‘self’ – but only genes, hormones and neurons that obey the same physical and chemical laws governing the rest of reality.

Most published studies of transcranial stimulators are based on very small samples of people operating under special circumstances, and the long-term effects and hazards are completely unknown.

The narrating self doesn’t aggregate experiences – it averages them.

It is much easier to live with the fantasy, because the fantasy gives meaning to the suffering.

If you want to make people believe in imaginary entities such as gods and nations, you should make them sacrifice something valuable.

However, Dataists believe that humans can no longer cope with the immense flows of data, hence they cannot distil data into information, let alone into knowledge or wisdom.