21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari

[Drew]

(Discussed May 16, 2019)

Greetings Bibliophiles,

Thanks to everyone who attended the Book Lovers’ Group last Thursday to discuss 21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari! The afternoon session had five in attendance (Brian, Ayako, Lee, Joseph, and myself) and the evening session had three in attendance (Lin, Lee, and myself).

I think we make a good effort in our book club to read and discuss varied topics at each meeting, and this meeting certainly was different than past ones. One of the attendees summarized it well in an email I received yesterday: “So many new things! And such enthusiasm, such energy!” Just like Harari’s book, our discussions covered a wide range of topics and I made a sort of map below:

-The trajectory of western liberalism and how it may change in the future

-The Jewish community in historic New Orleans that is often overlooked in history books

-The need in education for young people to prioritize emotional fortitude and resilience to change rather than information cramming

-The swing from promoting generalized skills, then specializing in skills, and then now going back to a preference for generalized skills

-Contrasting the generals of the American Civil War

-The fragmentation of societies and local communities

-AI and Algorithm driven morality and justice

-Pharmacogenetics and IPS cells

-The next big innovation in AI will be in its ability to recognize and interpret scent and body movements

-The implications of editing the genes and how governments may choose to ban it, not out of moral reasons, but because they want their citizens to be a certain way

-Whether the liberation of third world societies by way of technological advances would result in less immigration and colonization

-If longer lifespans would invariably lead to depression and other mental health concerns

-If our jobs are automated, whether we could spend our new free time doing ‘good’ things or ‘bad’ things

-Whether creativity can be learned, and if AI can be just as creative as humans

-That we are comfortable with AI and algorithms taking care of the preliminary work of research, but not comfortable with letting it make the final decision (like with matchmaking)

-The role of librarians in the info-dense world of the future



We will be taking a break for the summer now, so our next meeting won’t be until September 19th and it will be an open discussion. Looking forward to hearing about the books you read over the summer.