CapitalistImperialistPig

Harari: Indeed, even Richard Dawkins, Steven Pinker and the other champions of the new scientific world view refuse to abandon liberalism. After dedicating hundreds of erudite pages to deconstructing the self and the freedom of will, they perform breathtaking intellectual somersaults that miraculously land them back in the eighteenth century, as if all the amazing discoveries of evolutionary biology and brain science have absolutely no bearing on the ethical and political ideas of Locke, Rousseau and Jefferson. Harari, Yuval Noah. Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow (p. 305). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

Harari thinks science has begun eroding some of the foundations of liberal humanism: Over the last century, as scientists opened up the Sapiens black box, they discovered there neither soul, nor free will, nor ‘self’ – but only genes, hormones and neurons that obey the same physical and chemical laws governing the rest of reality. Today when scholars ask why a man drew a knife and stabbed someone to death, answering ‘Because he chose to’ doesn’t cut the mustard. Instead, geneticists and brain scientists provide a much more detailed answer: ‘He did it due to such-and-such electrochemical processes in the brain that were shaped by a particular genetic make-up, which in turn reflect ancient evolutionary pressures coupled with chance mutations.’ Harari, Yuval Noah. Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow (p. 282). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition. Deliberately provocative? Well duh.

Readers of Sapiens will recognize many familiar themes in Harari's new book, Homo Deus , above all the centrality of what he calls intersubjective realities - things that exist and have meaning only because lots of people believe in them, including God, money, nations, corporations and religions. The second part of his new book is devoted to a discussion and critique of what he calls the dominant modern religion, Humanism. He begins, though, with the transformative power of the twin inventions in ancient Sumer of money and writing, and the consequent multiplication of the importance of bureaucratic classes. Harari is a witty and engaging writer, and he deploys a powerful erudition in illustrating his points.

Harari on the search for immortality: If you think that religious fanatics with burning eyes and flowing beards are ruthless, just wait and see what elderly retail moguls and ageing Hollywood starlets will do when they think the elixir of life is within reach. If and when science makes significant progress in the war against death, the real battle will shift from the laboratories to the parliaments, courthouses and streets. Once the scientific efforts are crowned with success, they will trigger bitter political conflicts. All the wars and conflicts of history might turn out to be but a pale prelude for the real struggle ahead of us: the struggle for eternal youth. Harari, Yuval Noah. Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow (p. 29). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

And every technical problem has a technical solution. We don’t need to wait for the Second Coming in order to overcome death. A couple of geeks in a lab can do it. If traditionally death was the speciality of priests and theologians, now the engineers are taking over. Harari, Yuval Noah. Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow (p. 23). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.