Harari's 21 Lessons and My Thoughts

A book review of 21 Lessons for the 21st Century

Philosophy, religion and science are all running out of time.

In Sapiens, Harari tells us the history of humankind. In Homo Deus, he projects the possible future of homo sapiens, when they may emerge into a different species- homo deus. In 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, we are in between these two. We are currently creating history. And unlike any other time of history, our steps had never been so giant.

While reading the previous books of Harari, I had nothing to worry about the past or the future. Because, whatever happened, happened. Whatever will happen, will happen. I am out of these. But this book trapped me in contemplating the present.

The book starts with the very threat of uniting biotech and infotech. Have we realized, we are living in the science fiction we used to fantasize about a hundred years ago? That we are controlled by tech giants like Google and Microsoft? While the real science fiction began, we are still writing science fiction about a robot falling in love with a homo sapiens, as if that will be the only power of a machine trained AI robot- to love.

"Philosophers are very patient people, but engineers are far less patient, and investors are the least patient of all. If you don't know what to do with the power to engineer life, market forces will not wait a thousand years for you to come up with an answer. The invisible hand of the market will force upon you its own blind reply. Unless you are happy to entrust the future of life to the mercy of quarterly revenue reports, you need a clear idea what life is all about."

I was pondering deeply how we are forgetting or have forgotten that we are bodies. We have feelings, we have consciousness, but our worries are more concerned about far-off hypothetical debates like- what did the author actually mean in her 150 lettered tweet.

"My boss wants me to answer emails as quickly as possible, but he has less interest in my ability to taste and appreciate the food I am eating. Consequently, I check my emails during meals, while losing the ability to pay attention to my own sensations. The economic system pressures me to expand and diversify my investment portfolio, but it gives me zero incentives to expand and diversify my compassion."

"During the last century technology has been distancing us from our bodies"

"It is easier than ever to talk to my cousin in Switzerland, but it is harder to talk to my husband over breakfast, because he constantly looks at his smartphone instead of at me."

"Zuckerberg says that Facebook is committed 'to continue improving our tools to give you the power to share your experience' with others. Yet what people might really need are the tools to connect to their own experiences."

"Facebook and other online giants tend to view humans as audiovisual animals- a pair of eyes and a pair of ears connected to ten fingers, a screen and a credit card. A crucial step towards uniting humankind is to appreciate that humans have bodies."

"Once the tech-giants come to terms with the human body, they might end up manipulating our entire bodies in the same way they currently manipulate our eyes, fingers and credit cards. We may come to miss the good old days when online was separated from offline."

I am gonna compile a lot of quotes from the book here. So that I can read them anytime from here.

"The heated argument about the true essence of Islam is simply pointless. Islam has no fixed DNA. Islam is whatever Muslims make of it."

This book gave me a hard time contemplating religion. I asked myself a lot of questions. I was questioning myself about is it okay to question? I think the only thing I know is ‘I don’t know a lot of things’.

"Most religions... considered faith to be a cardinal virtue and doubt to be among the worst sins possible. As if there was something intrinsically good about believing things without evidence."

If the 6000 years old civilization moved like a tortoise, the 21st century is moving like a bullet train. Are you looking out the window, to see what garbage we are leaving behind for the 22nd century riders?

"For thousands of years homo sapiens behaved as an ecological serial killer; now it is morphing into an ecological mass murderer."

"We need to enter rehab today. Not next year or next month, but today. 'Hello, I am Homo sapiens, and I am a fossil-fuel addict'"

"The internal combustion engine is to be thanked for many of the advancements of the last 150 years, but if we are to keep a stable physical and economic environment it must now be retired and substituted by new technologies that do not burn fossil fuels."

We can start acting, only after we admit our wrong steps.

"Scientists too know how to cut corners and twist the evidence, but in the end, the mark of science is the willingness to admit failure and try a different tack. That's why scientists gradually learn how to grow better crops and make better medicines whereas priests and gurus learn only how to make better excuses."

I particularly liked the terrorism chapter. It explained with numbers, how terrorism keeps impact on us with a poor figure but grand visual image of destruction whereas, we overlook the giant number of destructions that we make consciously.

"A terrorist is like a gambler holding a particularly bad hand, who tries to convince his rivals to reshuffle the cards. He cannot lose anything and he may win everything."

"There is something deeply troubling and dangerous about people who avoid killing just because 'God says so'. Such people are motivated by obedience rather than compassion and what will they do if they come to believe that their god commands them to kill heretics, witches, adulterers or foreigners?"

And does one human of the 21st century know more, equal or less than his hunter gatherer ancestor from 12,000 years ago?

"The world is becoming ever more complex, and people feel to realize just how ignorant they are of what's going on. Consequently some who know next to nothing about meteorology or biology nevertheless propose policies regarding climate change and genetically modified crops, while others hold extremely strong views about what should be done in Iraq or in Ukraine without being able to locate these countries on a map. People really appreciate their ignorance, because they lock themselves inside an echo chamber of like-minded friends and self-confirming newsfeeds, where their beliefs are constantly reinforced and seldom challenged."

"When you have a hammer in your hand, everything looks like a nail; and when you have great power in your hand, everything looks like an invitation to meddle."

Neither did we increase our level of our happiness.

"People spend countless hours constructing and embellishing a perfect self online.
...
You see yourself standing on a tropical beach, the blue sea behind you, a big smile on your face, one hand holding a cocktail, the other arm around your lover's waist. Paradise. What the picture does not show is the annoying fly that bites your leg, the cramped feeling in your stomach from eating the rotten fish soup, the tension in your jaw as you fake a big smile, and the ugly fight the happy couple had five minutes ago. If we could only feel what the people in the photos felt while taking them!"

It’s a lot of food for thought. I took more than a month to finish this book. The last chapter is my most favorite. It projects a question that was built throughout the previous 20 chapters, who am I? The 21st chapter doesn’t answer the question. Rather it tells its readers to observe very simply that the answer might be much nearer than we expect it to be.

I will cherish a lot of things from this book. Thanks Harari for writing it. And thanks to my friend Samudro for giving me this wonderful book and staying with me throughout my emotional journey while reading it.