Book Review: Homo Deus

How will Homo Sapiens evolve in the twenty first century and beyond? What will be the key agenda for the human beings? What are its consequences for life? Historian and best selling author of 'Homo Sapiens' Yuval Harari engages us with his provocative tho

Yuval Noah Harari, a historian from Israel, picks up from where he left in his previous best seller book "Homo Sapiens". In "Homo Sapiens", Yuval distilled the last 70,000 years history of human race. In "Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow", Yuval provides very interesting perspectives on human lives into the future. Yuval is very opinionated, engages you with stimulating and provocative ideas about the future, not all of which we may agree with but they are not short on entertainment! I read this book first in 2017 and again recently in the context of covid-19 pandemics.

Let's start with some key quotes of Yuval Harari's provocative thoughts from the book:

‘Sugar is now more dangerous than gunpowder'

‘Epicurus was apparently onto something: Being happy doesn’t come easy’

‘The yang and yin of modernity are reason and emotion’

'History is full of big mistakes; history is often shaped by exaggerated hopes'

'Science and religion are like a husband and wife who after 500 years of marriage counselling still don’t know each other. He still dreams about Cinderella and she keeps pining for Prince Charming, while they argue about whose turn it is to take out the rubbish.'

'It appears that our happiness bangs against some mysterious glass ceiling that does not allow it to grow despite all our unprecedented accomplishments.'

'Achieving real happiness is not going to be much easier than overcoming old age and death.'

'Climbing Mount Everest is more satisfying than standing at the top; flirting and foreplay are more exciting than having an orgasm'

'In order to raise global happiness levels, we need to manipulate human biochemistry'

'Upgrading Sapiens will be a gradual historical process rather than a Hollywood apocalypse.'

'In pursuit of health, happiness and power, humans will gradually change first one of their features and then another, and another, until they will no longer be human'

'An economy built on everlasting growth needs endless projects – just like the quests for immortality, bliss and divinity.'

'Studying history will not tell us what to choose, but at least it gives us more options'

'For thousands of years humans played on almost every conceivable kind of ground, from ice to desert. Yet in the last two centuries, the really important games - football, tennis - are played on lawns. Grass is nowadays the most widespread crop in the USA after maize and wheat.'

'The relationship between humans and animals is the best model we have for future relations between superhumans and humans.'

'The single greatest constant of history is that everything changes'

'Humans won’t fight machines; they will merge with them. We are heading toward marriage rather than war.'

Here is my notes of the book:

Up until the twentieth century, the three problems that pre-occupied the people were: Famine, Plague and War. In the twenty first century, we know quite well what needs to be done in order to prevent famine, plague and war - we usually succeed in doing it.

For the first time in history, more people die today from eating too much than from eating too little; more people die from old age than from infectious diseases; and more people commit suicide than are killed by soldiers, terrorists and criminals combined.

In 2014 more than 2.1 billion people were overweight, compared to 850 million who suffered from malnutrition. Half of humankind is expected to be overweight by 2030. In 2010, famine and malnutrition combined killed about 1 million people, whereas obesity killed 3 million.

It is likely that major epidemics will continue to endanger humankind in the future only if humankind itself creates them, in the service of some ruthless ideology. The era when humankind stood helpless before natural epidemics is probably over. But we may come to miss it. Interesting, Yuval Harari wrote this just 3 years before the Covid-19 and we are not missing it still 2021! That is why it is so difficult to predict the future.

Yuval is quick to add that "The message is not that famine, plague and war have completely disappeared from the face of the earth, and that we should stop worrying about them. Just the opposite."

Humans are always on the lookout for something better, bigger, tastier. Humanity’s next targets are likely to be immortality, happiness and divinity. It is what humankind as a collective will do. Most people will probably play a minor role, if any, in these projects.

Immortality: Modern science and modern culture have an entirely different take on life and death. They don’t think of death as a metaphysical mystery, and they certainly don’t view death as the source of life’s meaning. Rather, for modern people death is a technical problem that we can and should solve. In the 20th century we have almost doubled life expectancy from 40 to 70, so in the 21st century we should at least be able to double it again to 150.

Happiness: In one survey after another Costa Ricans report far higher levels of life satisfaction than Singaporeans. Would you rather be a highly productive but dissatisfied Singaporean, or a less productive but satisfied Costa Rican? Even if we are somewhat happier than our ancestors, the increase in our well-being is far less than we might have expected. Should human beings not focus on discovering the purpose of our lives?

Divinity: In the twenty-first century, the third big project of humankind will be to acquire for us divine powers of creation and destruction, and upgrade Homo sapiens into Homo deus. Divinity isn’t a vague metaphysical quality. When speaking of upgrading humans into gods, think more in terms of Greek gods or Hindu devas rather than the omnipotent biblical sky father.

The twenty-first century will be dominated by algorithms. An algorithm is a methodical set of steps that can be used to make calculations, resolve problems and reach decisions. 99 per cent of our decisions are made by the highly refined algorithms we call sensations, emotions and desires.

Sapiens don’t behave according to a cold mathematical logic, but rather according to a warm social logic. We are ruled by emotions. These emotions are in fact sophisticated algorithms that reflect the social mechanisms of ancient hunter-gatherer bands.

In 1016 it was relatively easy to predict how Europe would look in 1050. In contrast, in 2016 we have no idea how Europe will look in 2050.
But the world of 2100 is at present almost unimaginable. We have no idea where we’ll fit in, if at all. We may have built a world that has no place for us.

Looking ahead in twenty years, we trust nanotechnology, genetic engineering, algorithms and artificial intelligence open whole new sections in our ever-expanding super markets. But the real nemesis of modern economy is ecological collapse.

Non-conscious but highly intelligent algorithms may soon know us better than we know ourselves. Democracy and the free market will both collapse once Google and Facebook know us better than we know ourselves, and authority will shift from individual humans to networked algorithms.

Parting Thoughts:

Yuval Harari leaves with three parting thoughts for us:

1. Are organisms really just algorithms, and is life really just data processing?

2. What’s more valuable – intelligence or consciousness?

3. What will happen to society, politics and daily life when non-conscious but highly intelligent algorithms know us better than we know ourselves?