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Yuval Noah Harari
“The natural lifespan of wild chickens is about seven to twelve years, and of cattle about twenty to twenty-five years. In the wild, most chickens and cattle died long before that, but they still had a fair chance of living for a respectable number of years. In contrast, the vast majority of domesticated chickens and cattle are slaughtered at the age of between a few weeks and a few months, because this has always been the optimal slaughtering age from an economic perspective. (Why keep feeding a cock for three years if it has already reached its maximum weight after three months?) Egg-laying hens, dairy cows and draught animals are sometimes allowed to live for many years. But the price is subjugation to a way of life completely alien to their urges and desires. It’s reasonable to assume, for example, that bulls prefer to spend their days wandering over open prairies in the company of other bulls and cows rather than pulling carts and ploughshares under the yoke of a whip-wielding ape.”
Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

Yuval Noah Harari
“People easily understand that ‘primitives’ cement their social order by believing in ghosts and spirits, and gathering each full moon to dance together around the campfire. What we fail to appreciate is that our modern institutions function on exactly the same basis.”
Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

Yuval Noah Harari
“As the twenty-first century unfolds, nationalism is fast losing ground. More and more people believe that all of humankind is the legitimate source of political authority, rather than the members of a particular nationality, and that safeguarding human rights and protecting the interests of the entire human species should be the guiding light of politics.”
Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

Yuval Noah Harari
“This is the essence of the Agricultural Revolution: the ability to keep more people alive under worse conditions.”
Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

Yuval Noah Harari
“In the wake of the Cognitive Revolution, gossip helped Homo sapiens to form larger and more stable bands. But even gossip has its limits. Sociological research has shown that the maximum ‘natural’ size of a group bonded by gossip is about 150 individuals. Most people can neither intimately know, nor gossip effectively about, more than 150 human beings.”
Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

53954 Exceptional Books — 2576 members — last activity Sep 20, 2025 02:26PM
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