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jcal9 's review for:
Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow
by Yuval Noah Harari
A feeling of dread will come over you at different points while reading "Homo Deus", a follow-up novel to Yuval Noah Harari's highly successful "Homo Sapiens". That feeling of dread may even develop into fear if you believe that Liberalism and Democracy are philosophies that produce the best and fairest modern societies.
Normally I actively avoid works that attempt to explain what the future will be like but Yuval Noah Harari has produced another thought provoking piece of work with the aim to merely outline the potential options ahead for society on decade time scales. His focus is mostly on the role of data in modern life and some of the potential social and political implications as data begins to play an even greater role in our lives.
While the first third of the book is pretty much a recap of "Homo Sapiens", the second third is a phenomenal piece of work on where society is heading with the integration of data into nearly all aspects of life, but particularly the strange bed-fellows of biology and computer science. For example, what will happen to democracy when an algorithm knows with almost certainty how you are going to vote? What does it mean for love if a person torn between two lovers can ask an algorithm to tell them who they really love? These are just some of the questions raised in "Homo Deus". Unfortunately, I do find the last third of the book falls apart, as Harari tries to extend himself into understanding more long term social evolutions. In particular, his outline of the new religions of Dataism and Homo Deus are very preliminary and will likely be outdated within the decade, if not sooner.
While I do not always agree with his philosophy, Harari has again produced a novel that will make you critically think about your life and where society is heading.
Normally I actively avoid works that attempt to explain what the future will be like but Yuval Noah Harari has produced another thought provoking piece of work with the aim to merely outline the potential options ahead for society on decade time scales. His focus is mostly on the role of data in modern life and some of the potential social and political implications as data begins to play an even greater role in our lives.
While the first third of the book is pretty much a recap of "Homo Sapiens", the second third is a phenomenal piece of work on where society is heading with the integration of data into nearly all aspects of life, but particularly the strange bed-fellows of biology and computer science. For example, what will happen to democracy when an algorithm knows with almost certainty how you are going to vote? What does it mean for love if a person torn between two lovers can ask an algorithm to tell them who they really love? These are just some of the questions raised in "Homo Deus". Unfortunately, I do find the last third of the book falls apart, as Harari tries to extend himself into understanding more long term social evolutions. In particular, his outline of the new religions of Dataism and Homo Deus are very preliminary and will likely be outdated within the decade, if not sooner.
While I do not always agree with his philosophy, Harari has again produced a novel that will make you critically think about your life and where society is heading.