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applesodaperson's review
emotional
informative
reflective
fast-paced
5.0
This book was absolutely life changing. Like it has seriously changed my brain chemistry and the way I think about the world and myself. It covered so many intense topics, each of which I would love to read a full book from Yuval about. He is for real a genius. I immediately checked out his other book, Sapiens, from the library after reading this one. I feel like he is just on another level of existence and I want to know everything that he knows. One topic that I would love to hear more about is how illogical religion actually is. I have long since wanted to read a book about a secular view of the Bible and Christianity. Also the commentary on souls and evolution was absolutely life changing. He also had some amazing thoughts on free will.
But yeah he just kept saying things that fit perfectly into everything that I have been feeling for like the past year. Just feeling weird about reality.
The section on humanity’s relationship with animals was so heavy and so powerful. Like humans are so crazy cruel to animals, especially livestock, but we are literally the same as them. Just because our brains process reality differently than them does not mean we are inherently better than them. The chapter The Human Spark was my favorite chapter and I could read it a million more times and still learn more from it.
The thesis of this book is that the future of humankind will become increasingly reliant on technology. Which I totally believe and already see happening so much even just since this book came out. Like with AI and self driving cars and even Amazon Alexa.
But yeah this book has such incredible commentary and is just on a whole other level.
Read from the BYU library.
But yeah he just kept saying things that fit perfectly into everything that I have been feeling for like the past year. Just feeling weird about reality.
The section on humanity’s relationship with animals was so heavy and so powerful. Like humans are so crazy cruel to animals, especially livestock, but we are literally the same as them. Just because our brains process reality differently than them does not mean we are inherently better than them. The chapter The Human Spark was my favorite chapter and I could read it a million more times and still learn more from it.
The thesis of this book is that the future of humankind will become increasingly reliant on technology. Which I totally believe and already see happening so much even just since this book came out. Like with AI and self driving cars and even Amazon Alexa.
But yeah this book has such incredible commentary and is just on a whole other level.
Read from the BYU library.
Content Warnings
Minor: War
frantically's review against another edition
informative
reflective
slow-paced
3.5
Harari is an excellent scientist — he manages to portray complex political and historical scenarios in a way that is both easily understood and still neutral. He argues far removed from his own sources, leaves their interpretation almost completely open to his audience. While I greatly admire the skill and diligence he showed in this book (and I enjoyed listening to a lot of the different topics, especially AI and the soul/conscience debate) I missed a clear continuation between the different segments. At times it felt like I had been reading five or so vastly different books. Still, I learned a lot and I've come to understand why Harari has become one of the most important voices of the humanities in our time.
Content Warnings
Graphic: War
Moderate: Sexism and Antisemitism
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