Sapiens – A Brief History of Humankind

by Yuval Noah Harari

‘I encourage all of us, whatever our beliefs, to question the basic narratives of our world, to connect past developments with present concerns, and not to be afraid of controversial issues’ – Dr Yuval Noah Harari

Part One The Cognitive Revolution

Apes and Chimps

  • Just 6 million years ago, a single female ape had two daughters. One became the ancestor of all chimpanzees, the other is our own grandmother.
  • We are embarrassingly similar to chimpanzees.
  • Just as human politicians on election campaigns go around shaking hands and kissing babies, so aspirants to the top position in a chimpanzee group spend much time hugging, back-slapping and kissing baby chimps.

Other human species

  • Not only do we possess an abundance of uncivilized cousins, once upon a time we had quite a few brothers and sisters as well. The earth was once walked by at least six species of man.

Our Intelligence

  • We are so enamored of our high intelligence that we assume that when it comes to cerebral power, more (a bigger brain) must be better. The fact is that a jumbo brain is a jumbo drain on the body. In Homo sapiens, the brain accounts for about 2–3 percent of total body weight, but it consumes 25 percent of the body’s energy when the body is at rest.

Food and Food Chain

  • Humankind ascended to the top of the food chain so quickly that the ecosystem was not given time to adjust. Moreover, humans themselves failed to adjust. Sapiens is more like a banana-republic dictator.
  • The advent of cooking enabled humans to eat more kinds of food, to devote less time to eating, and to make do with smaller teeth and shorter intestines.
  • Today’s affluent societies are in the throes of a plague of obesity, which is rapidly spreading to developing countries. The instinct to gorge on high-calorie food is hard-wired into our genes. Today we may be living in high-rise apartments with overstuffed refrigerators, but our DNA still thinks we are in the savannah. 

Gossip

  • Our language is amazingly supple. Our language evolved as a way of gossiping. Homo sapiens is primarily a social animal. Social cooperation is our key for survival and reproduction.
  • The gossip theory might sound like a joke, but numerous studies support it. Even today the vast majority of human communication – whether in the form of emails, phone calls or newspaper columns – is gossip. Gossip usually focuses on wrongdoings.
  • Sociological research has shown that the maximum ‘natural’ size of a group bonded by gossip is about 150 individuals.

Fiction

  • Only Sapiens can talk about entire kinds of entities that they have never seen, touched or smelled such as legends, myths, gods and religions. This ability to speak about fictions is the most unique feature of Sapiens language.
  • As time went by, the imagined reality became ever more powerful, so that today the very survival of rivers, trees and lions (actual reality) depends on the grace of imagined entities such as the United States and Google.
  • No animal other than Sapiens engages in trade. The global trade network of today is based on our trust in such fictional entities as currencies, banks and corporations.

Cooperation and Social Structures

  • Sapiens can cooperate in extremely flexible ways with countless numbers of strangers. That’s why Sapiens rule the world, whereas ants eat our leftovers and chimps are locked up in zoos and research laboratories.
  • Large numbers of strangers can cooperate successfully by believing in common myths.
  • While the behavior patterns of archaic humans remained fixed for tens of thousands of years, Sapiens could transform their social structures, the nature of their interpersonal relations, their economic activities and a host of other behaviors within a decade or two.

Modern vs Ancient

  • The human collective knows far more today than did the ancient bands. But at the individual level, ancient foragers were the most knowledgeable and skilful people in history.
  • The forager economy provided most people with more interesting lives than agriculture or industry do.
  • The wholesome and varied diet, the relatively short working week, and the rarity of infectious diseases have led many experts to define pre-agricultural forager societies as ‘the original affluent societies’.
  • Modern foragers occasionally abandon and even kill old or disabled people who cannot keep up with the band. Unwanted babies and children may be slain, and there are even cases of religiously inspired human sacrifice.

Climate and Ecology

  • It’s common today to explain anything and everything as the result of climate change, but the truth is that earth’s climate never rests. It is in constant flux.
  • Historical record makes Homo sapiens look like an ecological serial killer.
  • The first wave of Sapiens colonization was one of the biggest and swiftest ecological disasters to befall the animal kingdom.
  • Homo sapiens drove to extinction about half of the planet’s big beasts long before humans invented the wheel, writing or iron tools.
  • Don’t believe tree-huggers who claim that our ancestors lived in harmony with nature.
  • We have the dubious distinction of being the deadliest species in the annals of biology.

Arrogance

  • We have immodestly named our own species Homo sapiens, ‘Wise Man’.
  • Tolerance is not a Sapiens trademark.
  • When Charles Darwin indicated that Homo sapiens was just another kind of animal, people were outraged. Even today many refuse to believe it.
  • It is doubtful whether Homo sapiens will still be around a thousand years from now.

Part Two The Agricultural Revolution

  • Scholars once proclaimed that the agricultural revolution was a great leap forward for humanity.
  • Rather than heralding a new era of easy living, the Agricultural Revolution left farmers with lives generally more difficult and less satisfying than those of foragers. 
  • The Agricultural Revolution certainly enlarged the sum total of food at the disposal of humankind, but the extra food did not translate into a better diet or more leisure. Rather, it translated into population explosions and pampered elites. The average farmer worked harder than the average forager, and got a worse diet in return. 
  • Much like the Agricultural Revolution, so too the growth of the modern economy might turn out to be a colossal fraud. The human species and the global economy may well keep growing, but many more individuals may live in hunger and want.
  • The Agricultural Revolution helped to keep more people alive under worse conditions.
  • Domesticated chickens and cattle are  among the most miserable creatures that ever lived. 
  • The Agricultural Revolution was history’s biggest fraud.

Part Three The Unification of Humankind

  • The greatest conqueror in history is a conqueror that possessed extreme tolerance and adaptability, which consequently managed to gain the allegiance of all people. This conqueror is money. 
  • In modern prisons and POW camps, cigarettes have often served as money. 
  • Money is the most universal and most efficient system of mutual trust ever devised.
  • For thousands of years, philosophers, thinkers and prophets have besmirched money and called it the root of all evil. Be that as it may, money is also the apogee of human tolerance. 
  • Money is the only trust system created by humans that can bridge almost any cultural gap, and that does not discriminate on the basis of religion, gender, race, age or sexual orientation.
  • Thanks to money, even people who don’t know each other and don’t trust each other can nevertheless cooperate effectively.
  • Money does indeed bring happiness. But only up to a point, and beyond that point it has little significance.

Part Four The Scientific Revolution

  • The Scientific Revolution has not been a revolution of knowledge; it has been a revolution of ignorance. 
  • After centuries of extensive scientific research, biologists admit that they still don’t have any good explanation for how brains produce consciousness.
  • The willingness to admit ignorance has made modern science more dynamic, supple and inquisitive than any previous tradition of knowledge.
  • Scientists usually assume that no theory is 100 percent correct. Consequently, truth is a poor test for knowledge. The real test is utility. A theory that enables us to do new things constitutes knowledge.
  • As the world was molded to fit the needs of Homo sapiens, habitats were destroyed and species went extinct. Our once green and blue planet is becoming a concrete and plastic shopping center.
  • Our children’s books, our iconography and our TV screens are still full of giraffes, wolves and chimpanzees, but the real world has very few of them left.
  • The future may see Sapiens gaining control of a cornucopia of new materials and energy sources, while simultaneously destroying what remains of the natural habitat and driving most other species to extinction.
  • Illness decreases happiness in the short term, but is a source of long-term distress only if a person’s condition is constantly deteriorating or if the disease involves ongoing and debilitating pain. 
  • Family and community seem to have more impact on our happiness than money and health. 
  • Studies have found that there is a very close correlation between good marriages and high subjective well-being, and between bad marriages and misery.
  • Lasting happiness comes only from serotonin, dopamine and oxytocin.
  • If you have a ‘why’ to live, you can bear almost any ‘how’. A meaningful life can be extremely satisfying even in the midst of hardship, whereas a meaningless life is a terrible ordeal no matter how comfortable it is.
  • Whatever we do throughout our lives, whether scratching our leg, fidgeting slightly in the chair, or fighting world wars, we are just trying to get pleasant feelings.
  • We may be fast approaching a new singularity, when all the concepts that give meaning to our world – me, you, men, women, love and hate – will become irrelevant.

Disclaimer: The key points of the book presented here are not a substitute for reading the book. To get the entire holistic message the author has offered requires reading the book.

#Sapiensbookexcerpt #YuvalNoahHarariSapiensexcerpt #Sapienschaptersummary #Sapienskeypassages #YuvalHarariSapiensquotes #HumanhistoryexcerptSapiens #Sapiensevolutionexcerpt #SapiensHomosapiensexcerpt #Sapienscognitiverevolutionexcerpt #Sapiensculturalevolutionexcerpt #YuvalNoahHarariexcerpt #HomosapiensnotuniqueHarari #Sapiensbigbrainmystery #Sapiensexcerpt #howtowinfriends #dalecarnegie #morganhousel #housel #bestseller #Bookexcerpt #Freesample #Sneakpeek #Readnow #Chapter1 #Bookpreview #Newrelease #Comingsoon #Romance #Lovestory #secondchance #forbiddenlove #smalltown #contemporaryromance #historicalromance #Mystery #Detective #thriller #suspense #murder #crime #whodunit #Scifi #Spaceopera #dystopian #cyberpunk #alien #artificialintelligence #Fantasy #Epicfantasy #highfantasy #urbanfantasy #magic #mythicalcreatures #YoungAdult #Comingofage #dystopian #adventure #friendship #Nonfiction #Selfhelp #business #history #biography #travel #Strongfemalelead #Antihero #Relatablecharacters #Diversecast #Complexcharacters #Unforgettablecharacters #Pageturner #Unputdownable #Fastpaced #Actionpacked #Gripping #Emotional #Heartwarming #Humorous #Awardwinningauthor #Bestsellingauthor #Debutnovel #Indieauthor #Availablenow #Orderyourcopytoday #AmazonKindle #AppleBooks #Kobo #Barnes&Noble #GooglePlay #Scribd #Bookstagram #Booktok #BookTwitter #Teaserexcerpts #Previewchapters #Exploresnippets #Samplepages #Discoverhighlights #Readasnippet #Tasteofthebook #Diveintoexcerpts #Shortreads #Getaglimpse #Quickinsights #Sneakpeek #Introductorypassages #Highlightedmoments #Chaptersnapshots #booklovers #book #bookmarketing #booklover #bookclub #bookish #bookcommunity #bookaddict #booknerd #booklaunch #booklove #bookaholic #bookblog #bookboost #reading #readingcommunity #readinglist #readingtime #readers #read #readnow #reads #readabook #readingaddict #readingbooks #readingisfun #readingjourney #readinghabits #selfdiscovery #selfcare #selfimprovement #selfhelpbooks #selfhelp #selfconfidence #selfhealingjourney #selfbelief #selfempowerment #learning #learning #learninganddevelopment #learningeveryday #learningandgrowth #growthmindset #happiness #happinessisachoice #happinessmatters #savetime #emotions #emotionalintelligence #emotionalwellbeing #emotionalwellness #emotionalhealth

Do you know someone you would like to change and regulate and improve? Good! That is fine. I am all in favor of it, But why not begin with yourself? – How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

Read excerpts of this book here – 

#BhagavadGitaAsItIs #ACBhaktivedantaSwamiPrabhupāda #InternationalSocietyforKrishnaConsciousness #iskcon #BhagavadGitaverses #Krishnaphilosophy #Gitacommentary #Sanskritversestranslation #SpiritualteachingsofKrishna #PrabhupādaBhagavadGitaquotes #ISKCONfoundersinterpretation #howtowinfriends #dalecarnegie #morganhousel #housel #bestseller #Bookexcerpt #Freesample #Sneakpeek #Readnow #Chapter1 #Bookpreview #Newrelease #Comingsoon #Romance #Lovestory #secondchance #forbiddenlove #smalltown #contemporaryromance #historicalromance #Mystery #Detective #thriller #suspense #murder

#crime #whodunit #Scifi #Spaceopera #dystopian #cyberpunk #alien #artificialintelligence #Fantasy #Epicfantasy #highfantasy #urbanfantasy #magic #mythicalcreatures #YoungAdult

#Comingofage #dystopian #adventure #friendship #Nonfiction #Selfhelp #business #history

#biography #travel #Strongfemalelead #Antihero #Relatablecharacters #Diversecast #Complexcharacters #Unforgettablecharacters #Pageturner #Unputdownable #Fastpaced #Actionpacked #Gripping #Emotional #Heartwarming #Humorous #Awardwinningauthor #Bestsellingauthor #Debutnovel #Indieauthor #Availablenow #Orderyourcopytoday

#AmazonKindle #AppleBooks #Kobo #Barnes&Noble #GooglePlay #Scribd #Bookstagram #Booktok #BookTwitter #Teaserexcerpts #Previewchapters #Exploresnippets #Samplepages #Discoverhighlights #Readasnippet #Tasteofthebook #Diveintoexcerpts #Shortreads #Getaglimpse #Quickinsights #Sneakpeek #Introductorypassages #Highlightedmoments #Chaptersnapshots #booklovers #book #bookmarketing #booklover #bookclub #bookish #bookcommunity #bookaddict #booknerd #booklaunch #booklove #bookaholic #bookblog #bookboost #reading #readingcommunity #readinglist #readingtime #readers #read #readnow #reads #readabook #readingaddict #readingbooks #readingisfun #readingjourney #readinghabits #selfdiscovery #selfcare #selfimprovement #selfhelpbooks #selfhelp #selfconfidence #selfhealingjourney #selfbelief #selfempowerment #learning #learning #learninganddevelopment #learningeveryday #learningandgrowth #growthmindset #happiness #happinessisachoice #happinessmatters #savetime #emotions #emotionalintelligence #emotionalwellbeing #emotionalwellness #emotionalhealth

·