I recently finished Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari. It was written in 2011, published in Hebrew, and transcribed to English in 2014. It was mentioned by someone on my Twitter feed and Sam bought Harari’s latest book so I figured I’d give it a read.
History was never my strong suit despite it being my only AP class in high school. I’m still confused how Jesus walked the Earth around 0 and people existed hundreds of thousands of year prior. This book gave me a perspective on humans and their evolution throughout time.
Human Stupidity
Imaginary Rules – When I was younger it was “don’t do this” or “do that”. You start to get pre-conditioned that some of life is acceptable and other parts aren’t. Yet, it’s all made up by humans in order to achieve a better society. Legal and Illegal are only terms in a human structure. Once you accept that it’s all possible, it helps your mind open doors.
No One Knows – The point made that we try to advance, yet we don’t know what we are advancing for is of interest. Why build a rocket ship to go to Mars? Why develop stem cell research? Why build a database we can store our brains in? There isn’t a definitive answer to these questions. To test human potential I suppose but that is mostly ambiguous for an ending. Or to save humans and make a better life. But why? For the most part, our life is meaningless and no one on this Earth knows differently.
Your Faith and Ideology’s Are Not Right – I believe that capitalism is the best way to accelerate human potential. You may believe that communism is better. My neighbor may think money is pointless and that the inner being is most important to achieve happiness. How can we all be right? You wouldn’t be. There isn’t one right answer to how to live your life and you probably shouldn’t believe anyone who tells you otherwise.
Humans Are Cruel – Humans have wiped out other speices. Make no mistake that humans have ruined the Earth/nature and take very little responsibility. When humans arrived in the past, wherever they landed, they took destroyed whatever lived there prior. Endangered species will go extinct and we will have a wildlife of domesticated dogs and cats, billions of chickens, cows, and pigs we slaughter and eat, and an Earth ready to die. The more of us that populate, the worse it will become. Corona may be the only solution.
“You start to get pre-conditioned that some of life is acceptable and other parts aren’t. Yet, it’s all made up by humans in order to achieve a better society. Legal and Illegal are only terms in a human structure. Once you accept that it’s all possible, it helps your mind open doors.”
How does this thought square with your faith in “capitalism”? They seem entirely antithetical…
You make a good point. The rules have to be in place for capitalism to work. What I’m getting at is people on Earth is nature and we have decided on what is and isn’t right. It’s subjective. I didn’t think how that relates to capitalism. I’m only a peon. Don’t make me think too hard.
There are two types of people in this world: Those who get stomped on and those who do the stomping. – Jesus
My favorite quote from the bible comes from Stone Cold 3:16
“You can talk about your Psalms and your John 3:16. Well Austin 3:16 says I just whooped your a**”
Who says that won’t go down in the history books 200 years from now?