Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari
Homo Deus explores the impact of major technological developments on human society. The author uses these past events to predict humankind’s main goals in the next millennium.
Harari explains that throughout the history of humanity, we have focused on surpassing three obstacles: famine, disease, and war. However, with the rapid progress of computer science and biology, we are already focusing our efforts to turn ourselves from Homo Sapiens to Homo Deus thanks to our focus on what he claims are our three new priorities from the 21st century: immortality, bliss, and divinity.
The book’s main themes include the impact of technology on human society, the evolution of humanity, and the future of our species. Harari argues that the principles that have organized society will undergo a huge shift in the 21st century, with major consequences for life as we know it.
He also explores the idea that human society has largely been driven by our species’ capacity to believe in fictions, those things whose power is derived from their existence in our collective imaginations, whether they be gods or nations.
Useful takeaways from the book include:
- The future of humanity will be shaped by technological advancements.
- The focus of society will shift from overcoming famine, disease, and war to achieving immortality, bliss, and divinity.
- The principles that have organized society will undergo a huge shift in the 21st century.
- Human society has largely been driven by our species’ capacity to believe in fictions.
- The era of inorganic life is now beginning.
What I Liked
The book is so readable and engaging. It’s terrific prose with big, complicated ideas presented in an accessible way.
I love the push to imagine big, civilization-level ideas. It’s useful to zoom out a bit and see just how truly amazing things are for humanity right now vs. the recent past and what could change in teh very near future.
What I Did Not Like
Some of his ideas are presented in such an engaging way that it’s hard to pick out some of his premises. There’s a few arguments that are wrong, but are hard to approach because of his framing.
