updated 2d ago
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
This ability to speak about fictions is the most unique feature of Sapiens language.
from Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari
Mike Benchimol added 8mo ago
Such myths give Sapiens the unprecedented ability to cooperate flexibly in large numbers.
from Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari
Mike Benchimol added 8mo ago
Telling effective stories is not easy. The difficulty lies not in telling the story, but in convincing everyone else to believe it. Much of history revolves around this question: how does one convince millions of people to believe particular stories about gods, or nations, or limited liability companies? Yet when it succeeds, it gives Sapiens immen
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Daniel da Rocha added 5mo ago
What was the Sapiens’ secret of success? How did we manage to settle so rapidly in so many distant and ecologically different habitats? How did we push all other human species into oblivion? Why couldn’t even the strong, brainy, cold-proof Neanderthals survive our onslaught? The debate continues to rage. The most likely answer is the very thing tha
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Daniel da Rocha added 5mo ago
Having so recently been one of the underdogs of the savannah, we are full of fears and anxieties over our position, which makes us doubly cruel and dangerous. Many historical calamities, from deadly wars to ecological catastrophes, have resulted from this over-hasty jump.
from Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari
Daniel da Rocha added 5mo ago
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. The Agricultural
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Daniel da Rocha added 5mo ago
The immense diversity of imagined realities that Sapiens invented, and the resulting diversity of behaviour patterns, are the main components of what we call ‘cultures’. Once cultures appeared, they never ceased to change and develop, and these unstoppable alterations are what we call ‘history’.
from Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari
Daniel da Rocha added 5mo ago
The story of the luxury trap carries with it an important lesson. Humanity’s search for an easier life released immense forces of change that transformed the world in ways nobody envisioned or wanted. Nobody plotted the Agricultural Revolution or sought human dependence on cereal cultivation. A series of trivial decisions aimed mostly at filling a
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Daniel da Rocha added 5mo ago
Culture tends to argue that it forbids only that which is unnatural. But from a biological perspective, nothing is unnatural. Whatever is possible is by definition also natural. A truly unnatural behaviour, one that goes against the laws of nature, simply cannot exist, so it would need no prohibition. No culture has ever bothered to forbid men to p
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Daniel da Rocha added 5mo ago