21 Lessons for the 21st Century
When you are confronted by some great story and you wish to know whether it is real or imaginary, one of the key questions to ask is whether the central hero of the story can suffer.
Yuval Noah Harari • 21 Lessons for the 21st Century
The revolutions in biotech and infotech will give us control of the world inside us and will enable us to engineer and manufacture life.
Yuval Noah Harari • 21 Lessons for the 21st Century
The first thing I learned by observing my breath was that notwithstanding all the books I had read and all the classes I had attended at university, I knew almost nothing about my mind, and I had very little control over it. Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t observe the reality of my breath coming in and out of my nostrils for more than ten secon
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Science finds it hard to decipher the mysteries of the mind largely because we lack efficient tools. Many people, including many scientists, tend to confuse the mind with the brain, but they are really very different things. The brain is a material network of neurons, synapses, and biochemicals. The mind is a flow of subjective experiences, such as
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The most important thing I realized was that the deepest source of my suffering is in the patterns of my own mind. When I want something and it doesn’t happen, my mind reacts by generating suffering. Suffering is not an objective condition in the outside world. It is a mental reaction generated by my own mind. Learning this is the first step toward
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In politics, liberalism believes that the voter knows best. It therefore upholds democratic elections. In economics, liberalism maintains that the customer is always right. It therefore hails free-market principles. In personal matters, liberalism encourages people to listen to themselves, be true to themselves, and follow their hearts—as long as t
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Democracy is based on Abraham Lincoln’s principle that “you can fool all the people some of the time, and some people all of the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.” If a government is corrupt and fails to improve people’s lives, enough citizens will eventually realize this and replace the government. But government control of th
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The liberal story celebrates the value and power of liberty. It says that for thousands of years humankind lived under oppressive regimes that allowed people few political rights, economic opportunities, or personal liberties, and which heavily restricted the movements of individuals, ideas, and goods. But people fought for their freedom, and step
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In 1938 humans were offered three global stories to choose from, in 1968 just two, and in 1998 a single story seemed to prevail. In 2018 we are down to zero. No wonder that the liberal elites, who dominated much of the world in recent decades, are in a state of shock and disorientation. To have one story is the most reassuring situation of all. Eve
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Humans vote with their feet. In my travels around the world I have met numerous people in many countries who wish to immigrate to the United States, Germany, Canada, or Australia. I have met a few who want to move to China or Japan. But I have yet to meet a single person who dreams of immigrating to Russia.