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4.0 AVERAGE
4.0 AVERAGE
Fantastic book full of very thought provoking ideas. Preferred the shorter chapters. Sometimes the longer ones were a bit over indulgent
As always with Harari, I really enjoyed the book. It is tricky to be very hopeful after reading these types of books, but there is a lot of learning that can be done. For anybody interested in this type of material, I think it is very much worth reading.
challenging
informative
medium-paced
3.75 - Fun, short essays on a variety of topics regarding humans today and things to think about for the future. Most chapters provided some great thinking while a few others felt a bit less focused.
I didn't love Sapiens, so I began this book unsure of whether it would be a productive use of my time. I was pleasantly surprised. Where Sapiens had an occasional issue of rooting its claims in unverifiable speculation, the claims presented in this book were, by virtue of being about the modern world, much easier to judge. And they were quite good!
While not particularly deep in any one area, this book does a great job of introducing some of the biggest questions and influences with which we must contend. Best, it doesn't so much make grand declarations as it describes. It is largely a meditation on the world as it is today, and so I expect it would be a worthwhile read for people of many political persuasions.
While not particularly deep in any one area, this book does a great job of introducing some of the biggest questions and influences with which we must contend. Best, it doesn't so much make grand declarations as it describes. It is largely a meditation on the world as it is today, and so I expect it would be a worthwhile read for people of many political persuasions.
Me gustó mucho.
Lo devoré en audiolibro y en kindle simultáneo.
Obvio que cualquier ser humano que quiera predecir el futuro se va a equivocar.
Como a principios del siglo XX creían que íbamos a tener globos aerostáticos personales para transportarnos.
Pero da mucho que pensar. Me gusta mucho como habla en contra de los "Relatos" que nos contamos los seres humanos, ya sea religión, nacionalismo, etc.
Las dos últimas partes, Verdad y Resiliencia son definitivamente las mejores.
Me gustó haberlo leído. Me dio mucho que pensar y me inspiró en algunas ideas.
Lo devoré en audiolibro y en kindle simultáneo.
Obvio que cualquier ser humano que quiera predecir el futuro se va a equivocar.
Como a principios del siglo XX creían que íbamos a tener globos aerostáticos personales para transportarnos.
Pero da mucho que pensar. Me gusta mucho como habla en contra de los "Relatos" que nos contamos los seres humanos, ya sea religión, nacionalismo, etc.
Las dos últimas partes, Verdad y Resiliencia son definitivamente las mejores.
Me gustó haberlo leído. Me dio mucho que pensar y me inspiró en algunas ideas.
3.5 Interesting read; thought-provoking arguments and questioning. The reflections which drew upon his analysis of historical evolution were particularly well developed and of interest. Some of the arguements felt less researched and oversimplified, such as in relation to AI, which seemed to lack understanding of how they work and what they can actually achieved vs what people think/ fear they (will) do. Overall a good read.
In the beginning there is some repetition from Homo Deus. I feared that the whole book might be a kind of a copy of the previous book. But it turned out very well. The book is structured very intelligent and is read very easily. I don't have to say something about the content, since, like all the books of Yuval Noah Harari, it is just great!
A Hyperopic Vision:
“As biotechnology and machine learning improve, it will become easier to manipulate people’s deepest emotions and desires, and it will become more dangerous than ever to just follow your heart. When Coca Cola, Amazon, Baidu or the government knows how to pull the stings of your heart and press the buttons of your brain, could you still tell the difference between yourself and their marketing experts?
To succeed in such a daunting task, you will need to work very hard on getting to know your operating system better. To know what you are and what you want from life. This is, of course, the oldest advice in the book: know thyself. For thousands of years philosophers and prophets have urged people to know themselves. But this advice was never more urgent than in the 21st Century because unlike in the days of Laozi or Socrates, now you have serious competition. Coca Cola, Amazon, Baidu and the government are all racing to hack you. Not your smartphone, not your computer and not your bank account – they are in a race to hack you and your organic operating system. You might have heard that we are living in an era of hacking computers, but that’s hardly half the truth. In fact, we are living in the era of hacking humans.
The algorithms are watching you right now. They are watching where you go, what you buy, who you meet. Soon they will monitor all your steps, all your breaths, all your heartbeats. They are relying on Big Data and machine learning to get to know you better and better. And once these algorithms know you better than you know yourself, they could control and manipulate you and you won’t be able to do much about it. You will live in the Matrix or in The Truman Show. In the end, it’s a simple empirical matter: if the algorithms indeed understand what’s happening within you better than you understand it, authority will shift to them.
Of course, you might be perfectly happy ceasing all authority to the algorithms and trusting them to decide things for you and for the rest of the world. If so, just relax and enjoy the ride. The algorithms will take care of everything. If, however, you want to retain some control of your personal experience and of the future of life, you have to run faster than the nemesis and get to know yourself before they do. To run fast, don’t take much luggage with you. Leave all your illusions behind. They are heavy”.
Yuval Noah Harari’s (author of the internationally bestselling books, Sapiens and Home Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow) latest tome, ’21 Lessons for the 21st Century’, is an analysis of the current times. (Sapiens was a study of the human past whereas Homo Deus represented Harari’s brilliant, albeit, disturbingly speculative take on the shape of the future).
It was with great anticipation, therefore, that I got my hands on Mr. Harari’s latest opus only to end up being greatly disappointed with the overall reading experience, as in contrast with the sheer originality of Sapiens or the deep insight into the future represented by Homo Deus, the current book is just a rehashing of the same old ingredients (cherry-picked mostly from Homo Deus).
Furthermore the material, in addition to feeling like some leftover from previous night’s dinner, is organized as a collection of essays that badly lacks a coherent framework. The author falls victim to the highly ambitious goal of casting a wide enough net and failing to do justice to the subject, for instance, the discussion of a wide plethora of themes like Disillusionment, Liberty, Equality, Nationalism, Religion, Immigration, Terrorism, Secularism, Ignorance, Justice, God, Post-Truth and War follows less like a cogent argument and more like the author’s musings on just about everything.
My critique in this case does not preclude the design cover (for while Sapiens had a brilliant white cover which represented the known past whereas Homo Deus had an overall black theme for the future remains unknown) the ’21 Lessons for the 21st Century’ one is distastefully done and even features a bionic, Big Brother style ‘All Seeing Eye’ in the center.
With ’21 Lessons for the 21st Century’, Mr. Harari just proved that you can’t write a bestseller every day and that even good Futurists are not exempt from hyperopia which is the most important lesson that I draw from this book.
“As biotechnology and machine learning improve, it will become easier to manipulate people’s deepest emotions and desires, and it will become more dangerous than ever to just follow your heart. When Coca Cola, Amazon, Baidu or the government knows how to pull the stings of your heart and press the buttons of your brain, could you still tell the difference between yourself and their marketing experts?
To succeed in such a daunting task, you will need to work very hard on getting to know your operating system better. To know what you are and what you want from life. This is, of course, the oldest advice in the book: know thyself. For thousands of years philosophers and prophets have urged people to know themselves. But this advice was never more urgent than in the 21st Century because unlike in the days of Laozi or Socrates, now you have serious competition. Coca Cola, Amazon, Baidu and the government are all racing to hack you. Not your smartphone, not your computer and not your bank account – they are in a race to hack you and your organic operating system. You might have heard that we are living in an era of hacking computers, but that’s hardly half the truth. In fact, we are living in the era of hacking humans.
The algorithms are watching you right now. They are watching where you go, what you buy, who you meet. Soon they will monitor all your steps, all your breaths, all your heartbeats. They are relying on Big Data and machine learning to get to know you better and better. And once these algorithms know you better than you know yourself, they could control and manipulate you and you won’t be able to do much about it. You will live in the Matrix or in The Truman Show. In the end, it’s a simple empirical matter: if the algorithms indeed understand what’s happening within you better than you understand it, authority will shift to them.
Of course, you might be perfectly happy ceasing all authority to the algorithms and trusting them to decide things for you and for the rest of the world. If so, just relax and enjoy the ride. The algorithms will take care of everything. If, however, you want to retain some control of your personal experience and of the future of life, you have to run faster than the nemesis and get to know yourself before they do. To run fast, don’t take much luggage with you. Leave all your illusions behind. They are heavy”.
Yuval Noah Harari’s (author of the internationally bestselling books, Sapiens and Home Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow) latest tome, ’21 Lessons for the 21st Century’, is an analysis of the current times. (Sapiens was a study of the human past whereas Homo Deus represented Harari’s brilliant, albeit, disturbingly speculative take on the shape of the future).
It was with great anticipation, therefore, that I got my hands on Mr. Harari’s latest opus only to end up being greatly disappointed with the overall reading experience, as in contrast with the sheer originality of Sapiens or the deep insight into the future represented by Homo Deus, the current book is just a rehashing of the same old ingredients (cherry-picked mostly from Homo Deus).
Furthermore the material, in addition to feeling like some leftover from previous night’s dinner, is organized as a collection of essays that badly lacks a coherent framework. The author falls victim to the highly ambitious goal of casting a wide enough net and failing to do justice to the subject, for instance, the discussion of a wide plethora of themes like Disillusionment, Liberty, Equality, Nationalism, Religion, Immigration, Terrorism, Secularism, Ignorance, Justice, God, Post-Truth and War follows less like a cogent argument and more like the author’s musings on just about everything.
My critique in this case does not preclude the design cover (for while Sapiens had a brilliant white cover which represented the known past whereas Homo Deus had an overall black theme for the future remains unknown) the ’21 Lessons for the 21st Century’ one is distastefully done and even features a bionic, Big Brother style ‘All Seeing Eye’ in the center.
With ’21 Lessons for the 21st Century’, Mr. Harari just proved that you can’t write a bestseller every day and that even good Futurists are not exempt from hyperopia which is the most important lesson that I draw from this book.
Not as groundbreaking as his previous books. Lots of basic ideas, but not a lot of new ones.