Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

by Harari, Yuval Noah

Published: January 1, 2011

Read: December 8, 2018

★★★★★

Review

This book offers insightful perspective after insightful perspective. The author follows all of human history from the first homos to writing to the present day in a single book. This isn't your normal history book. Instead of just conveying details, the author casts each period under an overarching story with an idea or framework showing history as a logical progression rather than a jumble of events. He presents the fundamental frameworks in which we view the world like time, capitalism, and human rights are just dynamic cultural ideas. The world now is just one way the world could be. I have never read a book that offered more unique perspectives. The reductionist perspectives taken are probably too narrow to accurately represent humans and human history. But, they are compelling, interesting, and reasonable. You will gain an appreciation for everything from animals and laws to religion and capitalism. And throughout the book, he questions whether the societal change and technological progress actually make human life better. What was it all for? Humans with immense power to shape their environment haphazardly seek their own amusement and comfort. And "is there anything worse than irresponsible gods that don't know what they want?"

Notes

#Book by [[Yuval Noah Harari]]

Human society revolves around the stories we all believes
- Imagine a [[Company]]
  - It can own and sell things
  - But even if all the employees died or the capital exploded, the company would still exist
  - You can't really point to this physical thing but it exists in our imagination
  - Lawyers go through some sacred steps and then everyone acts as if this company exists.
- Religion make Jesus and shamans make gods. And then everyone believes it exists
- Natural things like gravity don't change.
- If order must be maintained by force, then what maintains the force. Even those who are [[Leaders]] must believe in something.
- A true [[Cynic]] would want or work for nothing if nothing matters.
- You wouldn't be greedy if you didn't believe there is some value in something.
- 3 things keep us from seeing order is imagined:
  - 1. It's woven into material work even though it's imagined i.e how we organize our society. We have rooms with doors that we expect to lend privacy.
  - 1. Order shapes our desire, follow your heart(your heart is programmed) i.e we believe now a variety of experience is essential(consume as much as possible) romantic ideas of variety melds great with consumerism
  - 1. There's [Subjective], and [[Objective]](without human), and [[Intersubjective]]! Intersubjective exists between people. If I stop believing, it doesn't go away need to change millions of people's minds.
[[Homo Sapiens]]
- [[Homo Erectus]], [[Homo Sapiens]], homo [[Neanderthals]] each adapted to their env. There was even a dwarf species.
- Why was big [[Brain]] created?
  - 2-3% of body size, but 25% of energy usage. Why hasn't every species adapted this if it's so useful? 2 million years where we didn't get huge gains. Two-legged with arms with hands.
- The author believes it is unlikely Homo sapiens will survive for another 1,000 years
- Got upright which narrowed hips/birth canal. Premature births that needed strong [[Social]] ties. With so much developing outside, we can adapt more to our environment.
- First humans perhaps extracted marrow from bones using tools.
- We fucking jumped to the top of the food chain 100k years ago, with no room for ecosystem to adjust. Even we failed to adjust.
- [[Fire]] was epic serving as a weapon, changing environments, and opening up new foods.
- Sapiens vs neanderthals
  - 70k years ago what happened?
  - Interbreeding theory: Merged with them and reproduced meaning we all have some genetic racial theories.
  - Replacement theory: we were incompatible with locals and we replace them
  - 1-4% of our dna is nestrandal dna proving 6% of austrislian fna is over there.
  - Probably a mix of both theories.
  - Genocide or perhaps competition for resource overtime.
- [[Language]], our advantage over world
  - we definitely aren't the only animals with language and means of communication. Monkeys warn of different predators
  - We got interchangable words of language that can convey novel ideas
  - [[Gossip]] theory?
    - Very important for [[Social]] creatures to understand the [[Relationships]] of individuals
    - who loves who, who has [[sex]] or could have sex with who, who cheats, who will help you
  - We can now speak about fiction and gods. Only we can talk about things that we don't interact with.
  - In chimps, we have [[alpha males]] winning by forming stable coalitions within hierarchies. Make for small intimate groups. If groups more than 50 often broke into two groups as it's hard to know if other chimps can be trusted or where the hierarchy is if you don't have interactions with them.
  - Humans, group size is around 150 as beyond that you cant rely on gossip, need more
- Cognitive revolution
  - Humans live in a dual reality: the physical reality and the imagined reality.
  - Common myths allow people to work together. Religious, judicial systems all believe in core beliefs, but don't really exist outside of common imaginations.
  - Bobos are female led. Chimps are alpha male. French changed from believing in divine right of Kings to the right of people in a lifetime
  - Sapiens can transmit behaviors to future generations without environment change.
  - It's our glue between each other that differentiates us.
  - As far as we know, the humans of 30,000 years ago had the same physical, emotional, and intellectual capabilities that we have today.
  - Now we cooperate on an unprecedented level worldwide because of myths and trust and communicating information among society is the real difference.
- We really don't know about [[How did you decide what to be?]] or socio organization of different ancient tribes. Prob different for different tribes. Deaths adorned with many very complex beads/artifacts show there was some cultural stuff going on.
- Homosapiens were only humans to reach NA across Alaska because required dealing with extreme cold in Siberia.
- In ancient human groups (over 10,000 years ago) there was very little [[Privacy]], but also very little [[Loneliness]].
Chapter 4: The Flood
- We think we see pristine lands, but human bands over millions of years had huge impact on ecology
- 65k years ago humans got to [[Australia]] and to get there is difficult.
  - Some evidence that seafaring civs existed and this was huge. Humans didn't need to evolve seafaring bodies, but just built it.
  - As soon as humans set foot into a new ecology, they fucking dominated because they had no predatorssss.
  - In Australia, food chains were broken and rearranged and many giant megafaunas went extinct. Huge upheavals. Happened every time humans arrived, New Zealand, etc.
  - Homosapiens ecological serial killer especially of megafuana. These huge animals were possible to hunt with coordination and reproduced so slowly they get wrecked and didn't evolve fear of humans.
  - Or maybe humans burned the lands to create better hunting grounds.
- 16k years ago humans came across that Alaska/Russia strait into the [[Americas]]
  - Americas had some massive rodents, mammoths, and mastodons. 34 out of 40 large fauna quickly disappeared. Happened as humans wave came
- Pretty clear we were the biggest thing to hit the animal world.
No Justice in history.
Chapter 5?: Agriculture Revolution
- For 2.5 million, humans hunted and gathered, then 10k years ago humans started living off specific animals and plants, [[Domestication]]
- Even now, 90 percent of calories come from animals and plants domesticated from 9500bc to 3500bc.
- Amazingly, agriculture seemed to have developed independently around the world
- Only a few animals are domesticatable and so it developed in some areas and not others.
- It's a myth that it was a great leap forward because of evolutionary increasingly powerful intellect
- **Farmers generally lived a worse life **
  - It was the biggest fraud. If anything grain took advantage of us and is soooo successful. We were meant for this task and created so many problems.
  - Worse diet and a single disease on crop kills.
  - Harder life and each generation didn't realize how their life was becoming worse
  - Got more disease and soaring mortality as weakened immunity.
  - With more food, families had more children so must do farming
  - Great cause for human as well as animal suffering
- But grain offered more food per unit of land allowing humans as a whole to be better.
- How did it happen? Grains are good after fires humans make. They require processing. So you have to take it back to your camp. So you drop some and now grain grows along your favorite paths. Well now you can stay in one place and harvest and eat for a few weeks. And then several weeks. Etc......
- Better processing and more children.
- [[Luxury]]
  - "Luxuries tend to become necessities and spawn new obligations. We thought we were saving time, instead, we revved up the treadmill of life to 10x it's former speed and made our days more anxious and agitated."
- Another explanation besides accident of short term thinking and demographics is religion. They need to stay put to build and run a temple.
- We got animals too and they are successful in spreading, but have brutttall lives.
- A family had more stuff than an entire tribe and needed to plan ahead always working in service of the [[Future]], weather, crop yield, etc
- Everywhere farmers surplus started going to leaders leading to politics and thinkers.
- Food shortage rarely was a reason for war and revolution
Chapter 6?: Origins of [[Civilization]]
- We evolved tribal cooperation not enough time to evolve mass cooperation. Mythology and myths enabled some weak cooperation. Myths and stories essential and social links.
- Like the ancient Egyptians, most people dedicate their lives to building pyramids. It's just that the names, shapes, and sizes of the pyramids change from one culture to another.
- Civilizations are seldom [[Egalitarian]] and often built on oppression
- Towns, then cities, then city states then kingdoms then empires.
- [[Hammaburu Code]] is Babylon code of ethics
  - Hierarchy of superiors, commoners, and slaves with two genders
  - "if you blind a superior, you are to blinded"
  - if you kill slave, give 30 silver pieces
- Americans declare [[Equality]] for all from ideas of Christianity.
- But they are both wrong, it is not a fundamental thing but only exist in our minds.
- This isn't to say it's useless, can create stable and prosperous society. [[Human Rights]]? No it's fake, but don't tell that to our servants or we are gonna be murdered.
- In order to change the imagined order, you must first find a group that believes in a current imagined order. New myths must build upon or evolve from previous myths.
Chapter 7?: [[Setup Second Brain]]
- Human had to remember specific types of knowledge like social, zoological, topological, and biological, not numbers
- Writing great for numbers
- Sumarians invented writing storing info outside of brain breaking the knowledge limit with mateiral science.
- Limited script couldn't capture all words.
- Writing needed for math and taxes, thus allowing empires
- Still very difficult for redundancy, retrieval, and cataloging.
- Writing has actually changed the way humans think. We can use writing and record-keeping to think far more categorically than ever before.
Chapter 8: [[Hierarchy]]
- How do we have cooperation networks without biological instinct???
- Not fair. Thought to be natural or holy order that rewards merit. Focus on place in society as a reflection of nature.
- We are shocked blacks would be [[segregated]] in schools or restaurants, but that makes perfect sense segregating rich and poor. Even though the rich were usually born into it.
- Hierarchies allow people to understand their relationships to others.
- [[Hindu]] [[caste]]
  - gives people different careers and interactions between would pollulate purity of society.
  - Very common. Taking advantage of people disgust for diseased people. If you didn't get a recognized caste, you would be an "untouchable" rejected by everyone even the lowest in society.
- America [[Slavery]]
  - Africans had good genetic resistance to farming tropical diseases. So white masters and black slaves
  - Then myths sprung up arguing white superiority and black inferiority. Popular ideas and racist myths continued a self reenforcing cycle.
  - Poverty begets poverty and stereotypes cause unequal treatment because truth
  - Look blacks were free, but still largely unintelligent. PROOF. white=beautiful.
- Perpetuates imagined hierarchy from chance historical occurrence.
- Human hierarchy becomes more of a study of chance rather than Biological Differences.
- [[Gender]] hierarchy
  - Men on top, women was property
  - Raping wife makes no sense. If you [[Rape]], property problem so you pay owner like father.
  - Biological differences especially with child bearing, but later on layer of cultural ideas.
  - How to tell the difference between biology and culture?
    - [[Biology]] enables, [[How did you decide what to be?]] forbids
    - If its possible to do it, like walk or gay sex, its biology. You cant forbid men from photosynthesis
    - Evolution doesn't know purpose. Organs come into beings and then are adpated to serve different purposes.
    - [[How did you decide what to be?]] assign roles
    - [[Gender]] is a cultural category and highly varied. Sex is biological.
  - Men's ideals are more valuable in patriarchy giving more rewards.
  - Why universally [[Patriarchy]]?
    - Strength, monopolize hard tasks like food production which are societal power
      - Poor classes do menial labor.
    - Men aggression valuable for warfare
      - Nah
    - Genes making it to next gen are the best of the man not the best of the women
    - Women fighting for power don't have tons of children.
      - But bobos have women in power even though weaker
    - Isn't more cooperation better? So why is it a patriarchy so universal.
      - Elders are weaker, but powerful. All about social skills.
    - Iffy differences, women are excluded mainly from mental acitvities.
Chapter 9: Unifying Humans
- [[How did you decide what to be?]] is artificial instinct
- Scholars used to believe culture were unchanging and perfectly unifying. If left alone, no change goes in same direction. The opposite is actually true.
- [[Chivalry]] and fighting to death for [[Honor]] and [[Christianity]] forgiveness are contradictory.
- As is Individual [[Freedom]]/liberty and [[Equality]] now.
  - Equality comes from curtailing individual freedom. Just like taxes.
- These contradictions are the engines of change.
- Consistency is dulling of mind.
- [[Cognitive Dissonance]] is considered a failure of humans, but maybe it's a feature
- To understand [[Islam]] culture look at the edges where ideals are in question
- Trend towards unity of culture and a bigger more complex one.
- Countries now argue as [[Capitalist]] nation states
- A real war is between civilizations can't understand each other
- Globalization spread ideas and things blah blah. Powerful idea of global order and cooperation. Monterary, political, and religious order.
- In human history, there have been three grand creators of order: [[Money]], [[Empires]], and [[Modern Religion]]
Chapter 10: [[Money]]
- [[Money]] succeeds in uniting where God's failed
- Everyone wants US [[dollar]] from bin laden to anti-americans.
- Conquers always loved [[gold]] confusing natives, it's a nice shiny metal but wow
- Limits of bartering introduce exponentially increasing number of exchange rates.
- [[Trust]] is the raw material money is minting
- [[Money]] is thing representing value that people accept. Money is valuable and wanted because everyone wants and values it.
- Allows you to transform value into any other value while being easy to transport and store.
- Sumanian in 3k bc barley actually had value because less trust. Gallons of barley.
- Coins have a mark guaranteeing value making it better than weighting and verifying the purity of gold on every trade. Kings would punish those who make the mark.
- Allowed Roman empire adminstration. Arbitration makes nearby civilization also value it.
- [[Modern Religion]] asks us to believe. [[Money]] asks us to believe other people believe.
- There are things beyond market forces that can't be bought or sold like honor, love, and family.
- The story of humanity isn't one of economic market forces and there have been strong dams reshaping the economy by clerics and Kings and concerned citizens.
- More than 90 percent of all money is just electronic data, not physical money.
Chapter 11: [[Empires]]
- Almost everyone is a descendant of an empire, rules over distinct people of territory and culture around 20 to 30.
- Flexible borders. Uniting. Not defined by government or creation. Not military conquest necessarily.
- Some emperor's conquered for glory of their people, others considered themselves king of all. Conquer to help others. Duty bound to spread ideal culture
- Right now, imperial is practically a swear word
  - It doesn't work managing over large people
  - It is subjectively wrong to conquer and manipulate people.
- Sapiens instinctually separate the we and they
- In China, united empires are seen as golden ages.
- Empires actively spread [[How did you decide what to be?]]
  - Culture of most countries forced upon it by ancient empires
    - Spain and Isreal have more in common with the Roman empire than their "original" culture
  - Even after empire collapses, cities adopt the culture and spread it.
  - Every culture now in part legacy of imperial and civilization and they defined society though often founded on blood.
- We try to separate civs into good and bad.
- States now are subject to global markets, global eyes and judgement, and international businesses. Very empire like as we move toward a single global empire
Chapter 12: [[Modern Religion]]
- Gives superhuman legitimacy to societal order
- [[Modern Religion]] is system of human norms and values based on superhuman order
- Binding laws. It must have universal order and be based on spreading it. You need both to stay around.
- We think we are better than the animals we hunt, ha tigers aren't better than us.
- Animalistic.
- [[Polytheism]] believe in many God's
  - Though we think of it as barbaric, it is more accepting of different beliefs
  - Key insight is supreme power doesn't care about human and has no bias. Can't pray to it for victory, it doesn't care.
- [[Hindu]]/eastern Atma approach to give up humanly desire
  - not missionary and open-minded to other gods
  - Other partial powers dividing it up and those you can pray to with bias.
- Rome allowed other God's into their Temple. But, [[Christians]] with their one God religion were persecuted for refusing to pay homage to Roman gods like those conquered before.
- [[Monotheism]] one god of supreme powerlike
  - [[Protestants]] argue Jesus death forgave all sin and refuse idea that it matters what we do to get into heaven
  - [[Judaism]]
  - [[Christianity]] very unique because missionary, [[Islam]] took a similar approach. Believe they have the ultimate answer rejecting other religions.
  - [[Christianity]]
    - Even [[Christianity]] has patron saints though to pray for individual reasons, so fragmentation happens. Some local God's even remained mostly the same being adapted into Christianity.
    - [Dualism] places everything as a struggle between two forces like good and evil. Solves the problem of evil and suffering unlike gymnastics required by monotheism.
    - Heaven and hell never mentioned in the old testament.
    - Polytheism of saints, dualism of devil, and polytheism of God, and ghosts sometimes too is a crazy combo of religion.
- [[Jainism]] and [[Buddhism]] and [[Daoism]] had religion based on natural law and gods were subject to nature's will.
- [[Buddhism]]
  - [[Budda]] is a real person.
  - Thought of [[Suffering]] and realized the [[Pain]] wasn't due to divine whims, but mental patterns with responses and desires
  - Can have joy and suffering without desire for it to continue or stop. If they accept things as they are.
  - [[Meditation]] techniques: Idea focusing on what I am experiencing now rather than what I should be experiencing
  - Dharma
  - Buddhism is based on the idea of suffering not gods
- How is this different than [[Communism]] with it's theologians and ideas? It's a missionary idea with books and Marx.
  - Cant really divide [[Ideologies]] and religions
- [[Capitalism]] is a very successful modern religion
- [[Humanism]] has 3 major sects
  - 1) [[Liberal Humanism]] focuses on core humanity present in every individual and purity. [[Human Rights]] to defend this and cultivate this purity. Legacy of souls.
  - 1. [[Socialist Humanism]], collective rather than individualist.
  - 1. [[Evolutionary Humanism]] has a definition of what is human
    - Idea that species can deteriorate from this core. Now we know there isn't huge differences, but not then.
    - Reflected in US [[Immigration]] policies.
    - [[Hilter]] could be considered the death of evolutionary racism as his enemies had to differentiate themselves.
  - 2 and 3 do go against natural [[Evolution]] allowing weak to not only survive but reproduce fighting against principles that bought us into existence
  - [[Science]] increasingly undermining divinity of humans, how hard will it be to maintain this wall between science and laws?
Chapter 13: Secrets of Success
- How likely are is each [[Modern Religion]] likely to emerge given humans?
- The deeper your knowledge of a particular area of [[History]], the harder it becomes to explain why one particular outcome occurred and not another.
- [[Hindsight Fallacy]] when what happens seems obvious
  - Those living through events know the least
  - Whatever happens next people will say it was obvious
- People like believing their beliefs are inevitable. But it really isn't.
- Islam is from some random dude in the Middle East, t's could be obvious Islam too of with it's speaking divine or obvious it would fail from some random dude in the middle East. Revolutions aren't predictable.
- [[How did you decide what to be?]] and ideas don't spread because they are beneficial. Not true that human life progressively gets better.
- A [[Parasite]] spreads even if they hurt and kill their hosts and so too with ideas.
- [[Scientific Revolution]] in 1500 started in Europe and changed everything
Chapter 14: [[Scientific Revolution]]
- [[Science]] unlike [[Modern Religion]] doesn't claim to know everything including life's biggest questions
- [[Science]] changed the myths of our society like [[Nazi]] evolutionary ideology
- New experiments use observation and say observation of new is better than any old.
- Mathematics instead of human stories. Newton's science of motion was universal and perhaps most revolutionary.
- The unknowable complexity of life has been broken down
- [[Statistics]] and probabilities with [[Law of Large Numbers]] gives pretty reliable measures. Insurance founded by Scottish ministers.
- Across all bodies of knowledge there has been a drift to precision of science
- The New Instrument by[[ Francis Bacon]] in 1620
  - [[Knowledge]] is [[Power]] in 1620.
  - Truth is a poor test of knowledge, utility is knowledge.
- [[Science]] and [[Technology]] were separate ideas
  - Kings who wanted great armies never invested in research, but human organization
  - Roman and Napolean never invested in research, but focused on strategy and organization
  - Tech was done through trial and error by craftsmen
- Now, tech and science are closely linked and war propels research
- Used to be this notion that the best days were behind us and society was stagnant. Thunder was God's anger until the lightning rod subdued it.
- Now, [[Science]] gives hope anything can be overcome even poverty
- [[Death]] is ultimate destiny for many religious, but to scientists it's a technical failure
  - Injuries that killed in the past are a day off work today
  - [[Nationalism]] only cultural idea left defending death. Where do capitalists go when they die?
- Funded [[Scientific Research]] is great leap forward
  - Research directly not by scientists, but societial value, government allocation, and business
  - Research requires ideology: [[Imperialism]] and [[Capitalism]] especially
Chapter 15: Science and Empires
- English empire sent Cook expedition to find the distance from the sun
- Scurvy proved solved by citrus fruits during Cook
- Eventually lead to conquering of Australia and New Zealand.
- Until 1700-1850, [[India]] and [[China]] were 2/3 of [[GDP]]. Now everyone is [[European]]
- Why did Europeans take over?
  - Not significant military advantage over China and India
  - [[Values]]? The [[Technology]] and [[Knowledge]] could be transferred, not values.
  - Base to build was [[Capitalism]] and [[Science]], now its just legacy
  - Europeans wanted new knowledge in conquering.
    - Others just conquered for wealth and to spread their views. Europes went out with scientists.
    - Maps done always, but old complete world maps had monsters where unknown was. Europeans added empty space.
    - Conquering America required lots of new knowledge to survive there and drawn to blank spots.
    - British sent teams of scientists to study gains, languages, history and geography.
- Long distance conquest was new.
- [[Native American]] hygiene better than Spaniard. They fucking stank.
- [[Cortez]] captured [[Aztec]] king of millions with 500 men. With help of locals, he attacked.
- First map in China with America was 1602.
- Even small European countries dominated.
- Aryans historically very racist, now [[Culturalism]] says it's in their culture, not race.
Chapter 16: [[Capitalism]]
- Economic growth is supreme, but can go bad without morals
- Incredible Growth because of capitalism, before 1500, [[GDP]] per capita stagnant
- Banks can give out 10x money than they actually have
- Loans, Investment, [[Credit]] all rely on belief in better [[Future]]
  - Used before, but people believed it was a zero sum game and the future didn't have a bigger pie
  - Scientists ultimately foot the bill of capitalism
  - Science first offered the idea of progress
  - For some reason, we believe it will just keep growing
- Adam Smith pushed greed increases collective good
- Output of production invested back in production. Capitalism chooses [[Scientific Research]]that increases productivity.
- Europe success also because they raise capital quickly.
- Amsterdam hella won over Spain because of credit and it's protection of private property. Credit > high taxes.
- Companies would by off the shelf armies.
- British vs French because of economic
- [[Opium Wars]] because China didn't want British drugs
- Some argue government should stay out of the economy, but that doesn't make sense it only functions because of it
- [[Slave Trade]] made for completely economic reasons: sugar in America's for British.
Chapter 17: Wheels of Industry
- Despite crazy production, material, and energy needs, we keep finding new materials and energy forces throwing [[Scientific Research]] at the problem
- Before, [[Animals]] and plants were treated as machines
- [[Industrial Revolution]] and [[Steam Engine]] brought a new machine besides a biological body for the first time
- [[Play]] teaches social behavior.
- Necessary culture of [[Consumerism]]
  - Most "needs" subjective and not needed for life objectively
  - Can't just create products, need someone to buy
  - Before there was scarcity and frugality important.
  - Each year the [[US]], spends more money on diets than it takes to feed everyone hungry in the world
  - How can this happen if capitalism ethic is to invest?
    - [[Rich]] invest, the rest consume.
Chapter 18: A Permanent Revolution
- “This is the basic lesson of [[Evolutionary Psychology]]: a need shaped in the wild continues to be felt subjectively even if it is no longer really necessary for survival and reproduction.”
- Idea of year and [[time]] is new.
  - Industrial revolution brought assembly lines which required everyone, so time tables became king everywhere
  - Pubs needed to open and trains needed to be on time.
  - Family now had more clocks then medivial country
- Ancient [[Family]] And Local [[Community]]
  - Extended family was insurance company, welfare, trade, need, and healthcare.
  - Local community handled big problems.
  - Local barrons taxed for defense
  - Less than 10 Percent of Goods bought in markets.
  - King and Hierarchy were protection racket.
- Modern States and Markets
  - Now society is our mother and father and we are individuals.
  - They provide us much it's not a struggle.
  - Amazing this works at all, our family was everything
  - Now we got imagined communities serving a need. Interpersonal reality.
- Social order always thought to be unchanging. Social order in flux.
- Not even [[Conservative]] parties offer to keep things the same.
- World is unbelievable peaceful
  - 1/4 used to die eventually to violence for women or prestige
  - More people die from [[Suicide]] or car accidents each year than from war and violent crime
  - Gandhi was great, but the British didn't figure back super violently.
  - No more war for conquest. Lasting peace and war unimaginable.
  - [[Existential Risk]], nuclear war increases costs of war
  - Capital is now [[Human Capital]] and can't be stolen. They are no longer independent.
  - International trade is more lucrative than conquest
  - International connections create worldwide culture that is less likely to fight itself
Chapter 19?: [[Happiness]]
- Are we happier? If not what was the point? These are the most important questions.
- What if independence and capitalistic self reliance make us less happy? Unanswered. Researchers rarely study history of progress.
- We could be creating a tragedy. We torture animals and build empires on the back of slaves. British Empire was great for progress, but killed massive populations with war and disease
- [[Happiness]]
  - Subjective wellbeing
  - How measure? Ask them.
  - Families and communities matter.
  - Good marriage important.
  - Money good up to point.
  - About wants and expect and what you get.
  - Expectation create happiness so marketing is essential.
  - Compare ourselves to some global perfect.
  - Happiness is the reward for achieving things not yet reached
  - Ephemeral
- [[Modern Religion]] benefit: belief in afterlife gives meaning to your life in the present
- [[Buddhism]] agrees with [[Science]] in many ways, specifically happiness comes from you not the world
- Does happiness come from good marriage or do happy people have good marriages? Makes no difference the way the world is.
- Maybe we can study biochemistry to increase happiness
- Raising [[Children]] is moment to moment unhappy but seen as source of happiness. So it's worthwhile work and perspective.
- Maybe happiness is based on self delusion, lining up your meaning with those around you.
- Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Be true to yourself. The customer is always right. Think for yourself. We think we know best what will make us happy. Older people thought we didn't know. Do people understand the truth about themselves? Could be a better question.
Chapter 20: Next Human
- With technology, we can actually have intelligent design where desires are designed like in [[AI Ideas]]
- Sapiens are subject to natural selection, but biological/[[Genetic Engineering]], [[Cyborgs]], or Inorganic life are three ways beyond
  - [[Genetic Engineering]]
    - Biological engineering is old like castration or selective breeding
    - Now genetic engineering completely ignores natural selection with luminous bunnies and ears on mice.
    - Could bring back mammoths. Could go back to drawing board for sapiens as our biological material isnt much more complex than other animals.
  - [[Cyborgs]]
    - Neural implants or memory storage
    - Hearing aids filters noise and sends it directly to the brain
    - What if neural links could connect to some internet of memories? A collective consciousness? You could actually see memories.
  - Inorganic Life
    - Artificial human brain is that you or someone else
    - Is turning it off murder?
- All these changes will cause institutions to redefine laws and fair play and achievements.
  - Can you have genetic discrimination? Can insurance companies and employers ask for dna?
  - Is access to enchantments for all or the rich? Will the rich actually be more intelligent and faster unlike just thinking they are?
- These new species will look at us as condescendingly as we do to [[Neanderthals]]
- These future species will have such drastically different desires and abilities that we wouldn't even understand or related to stories about them.
- Science fiction today is just human stories told with new tech. But the future might be without the human part
- The standard answer of why push this tech of Gilgamesh project is to save human lives and cure disease. Our future Frankenstein will piggyback on this, can't be stopped only change direction.
- Instead of "What do we want to become?" we should ask "What do we want to want?"
Foreword
- This entire thing is gold!
- Humans becoming god with immorality and creation. Little good on happiness especially for some animals. We are unsatisfied, unaccountable, and irresponsible to anything and just mindlessly seeking our own comfort and amusement.
- "Is there anything worse than irresponsible gods that don't know what they want?"