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jdintr 's review for:
Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow
by Yuval Noah Harari
Those who read Harari's first book, Sapiens, may have looked askance at the pie-eyed humanism of that text, a history of mankind over the past 10,000 years.
Harari displayed in that book fascinating observations about humanity--its ability to believe in stories, its growth as a species both into and out of a need for god, and its almost supernatural future, aided by technology and science. When I saw the title for his new book was Homo Deus, my first thought was, "of course, wasn't that the point of the last book?"
It isn't, actually.
Instead, in HD Harari steps back from the optimistic ending of Sapiens and demonstrates a healthy skepticism of the religion of humanism itself. As with his earlier work, Harari's evidence is remarkable, but I don't really put much stock in his conclusions.
The ideal behind Enlightenment liberalism was that every person was a unique individual, who deserved the right to choose for herself. Pointing to recent discoveries, Harari declares (1) that there is no soul and that the mind is merely an array of impulses that can be manipulated externally, and (2) that non-human technology can and will do many of the unique actions once described by these same liberals as human.
I am a Christian believer, which may explain my skepticism of Harari's hypotheses, but I think most readers will find his evidence fascinating, his claims challenging, and this book to be an altogether fascinating read.
Harari displayed in that book fascinating observations about humanity--its ability to believe in stories, its growth as a species both into and out of a need for god, and its almost supernatural future, aided by technology and science. When I saw the title for his new book was Homo Deus, my first thought was, "of course, wasn't that the point of the last book?"
It isn't, actually.
Instead, in HD Harari steps back from the optimistic ending of Sapiens and demonstrates a healthy skepticism of the religion of humanism itself. As with his earlier work, Harari's evidence is remarkable, but I don't really put much stock in his conclusions.
The ideal behind Enlightenment liberalism was that every person was a unique individual, who deserved the right to choose for herself. Pointing to recent discoveries, Harari declares (1) that there is no soul and that the mind is merely an array of impulses that can be manipulated externally, and (2) that non-human technology can and will do many of the unique actions once described by these same liberals as human.
I am a Christian believer, which may explain my skepticism of Harari's hypotheses, but I think most readers will find his evidence fascinating, his claims challenging, and this book to be an altogether fascinating read.