Book review: Sapiens (by Yuval Noah Harari)

The book 'Sapiens' is a must read for people curious about the human race's history and development. The author traces Homo Sapiens' history from when they were monkeys and isolates some of the major reasons (in his opinion) which affected how they developed and how today's world as we know it came about.

The book is written in a very light manner, is easy to read and very gripping. Even if you may not agree with what is said, you will be interested to know more about what the author says and why. Below are some of the highlights of the book which I found worth mentioning:

• When humans started appearing on earth, there were 6 different types of human species in different parts of the world, of which only us (the Homo Sapiens) have survived. While Sapiens from East Africa still have strains in them of the Neanderthal and Denisovans species, the ones in Europe and Asia have none of it - they had completely wiped out the other human species. So even in ancient history, Homo Sapiens have committed genocide and wiped out all remains of our cousins?

• The fact that only one of the homo species survive could be attributed to the cognitive skills of Sapiens, to develop a language for gossip (which could spread to up to 150 people) and ability to imagine the unknown (e.g., religions and companies are all unknown and imaginary entities which the human mind can fathom). This ability enables Sapiens to get together and work as one entity in large groups and also change our social structures as we move ahead. Interestingly and not surprisingly, we are different from chimpanzees only when in large groups, but not as much when in smaller ones

• When Sapiens started standing up erect, it led to women giving birth to underdeveloped children (as compared to the rest of the animal world). This turned out to be a boon for the species as children could now be educated and molded. And hence creating a common thinking within a human community became possible

• Sapiens moved to the top of food chain too quickly and unnaturally - hence they are not majestic creatures like in the animal world. And there are limited checks and balances to control them, in fact there are none! Which is leading to the uncontrolled and widespread devastation in the world today. In fact, Homo Sapiens were responsible for destruction of the entire Australian, American and many other islands' "mega fauna". When Homo Sapiens landed at these new landmasses, they changed the ecological balance and led to extinction of many life forms - we are and have been ecological serial killers for a long time!!

• "If our minds are same as of our ancient forager ancestors, our cuisine is same as of ancient farmers". Sapiens till today still behave similar to our forager ancestors and their way of life. Also, according to the book, the wholesome and varied diet they ate, the relatively short working week they had, and the rarity of infectious diseases have led many experts to define the agricultural forager societies as the original (and best of our ancient) affluent societies

• On the other hand, the agricultural revolution is history's biggest fraud - it did not make people's lives easier at all. In fact all it did was provide an ability for more people to live in worse conditions. Farmers starting worrying more about the future and this changed the whole structure of human societies. Essentially farmers had tougher lives while some of the others improved theirs: "History is something that very few people have been doing while everyone else was ploughing fields and carrying water buckets (which is 90% of the population)". And agriculture had a negative effect on domesticated animals' lives also - they were subjugated and their natural instincts slowly and consistently killed (this whole concept is very revolutionary and worth a read in the book in detail).

• The human social order is totally imagined and is not natural or in our genes - unlike say the bees, as well as other animals who are born with the rules of how they stay together. That is the reason why we strike and rebel and break rules! Biology enables everything, it is only culture that forbids certain things. For example, culture says things that are unnatural and should not be done. But if such a thing can happen, how can it be unnatural?

• Scripts and writing was developed because of information overload. But its development also led to compartmentalization and bureaucracy - there came a new class of people, clerks who's job was just to catalog stuff and file it away properly:)

• After the development of small human communities, there were three things which then united Mankind on a larger scale - money, empires and religions:

- Money enabled people to trust each other as they all trust in money. It is a single uniting global force, understood and accepted across the whole world and able to bridge all divisions and differences in opinions, thinking, culture and so on. Have you ever thought about this? We all think of money and its capabilities in the same way across the world!

- Empires brought people together and created cultures which bind people across many geographies and cultures. Even though they are sometimes portrayed so, empires were not all bad and their legacy not all bad either. They helped in moving of ideas and bringing standardisation across their controlled areas 

- Religions: Apparently, polytheism religions also believe in a single all encompassing God. They just have a lot more smaller Gods for smaller needs of regular people:). The bigger God has no biases and hence does not discriminate. Monotheists have tended to be far more fanatical and missionary than polytheists. Interesting quote on this confusion - 'Monotheism explains order but is mystified by evil. Dualism explains evil but is puzzled by order. There is one logical way of solving the riddle: to argue that there is a single omnipotent God who created the entire universe - and He's evil. But nobody in history has had the stomach for such a belief.' 😀

• The basic pillar of science is accepting our ignorance and that things we know and accept today may change in the future. Rhetoric, logic and theology - popular sciences of the past - have since been replaced with arithmetic. Scientific research is driven by funding from businesses and governments. And there is also an alliance of scientific research with religion or ideology which influences the scientific agenda and direction.

• Imperialism and science are closely linked to each other. Europe raced ahead from the rest of the world because it much earlier transformed to a culture based on capitalism; and consequently linked funding to science. They were the first nations to accept that they did not know a lot (in fact they made empty maps with gaps accepting this fact). And accepting this made them willing to explore, to learn more about the world. Which led them to conquests too. Unlike nations which were comfortable with what they knew and never ventured beyond.

• Capitalism brought the idea of growth and credit linked to each other; all built on the trust that the future would be better.  The notion that the size of the pie could grow helped comfort people, and it propelled the notion that it is in everyone's interest to be rich (and more greedy!). This fuelled a cycle of investment and economies starting to grow globally, consequently leading to more investment into science. And reinvestment into production is a key pillar of this world of capitalism.

• The industrial revolution was all about converting energy from one form to another. But it also destroyed the family, village and community life. This way of life was replaced with different types of imagined communities - nations and consumers.

• The world is a much more peaceful place now even if it doesn't feel so. Realistically, plausibility of war is low because the costs of war are high and benefits low.

• Is human happiness more now - that is something that cannot be easily answered. Biochemistry or the hormonal change that happens in a person affects their happiness. But that hasn't changed over history. So whats the point of it all?:)

• Human genome is being changed in labs now, natural selection is being thrown out of the window. Where will this lead us?

Some more random thoughts from the book 

• If someone from the future tries to understand teenagers from today, they will have to use the barely existing snail mail as everything on the Internet, SMSes will be deleted!!! So in effect, they would have a very wrong and incomplete view
• Equality and individual freedom are contradictory - this contradiction is what propels the human mind forward
• 'Consistency is the playground for dull minds'
• 'Nobody wants to pay taxes. Everyone is happy to invest'