Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
Yuval Noah Harari · ★★★★★ · 512 pages · 2011
Every human should read this book. Sure there are some generalizations from history but in terms of the grand idea that he put forth about where humans came from and where we are going it is just a magnificent book.
Somethings I came away with:
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Homo sapiens were not the only humans other Genus Homo were also considered human and lived at the same time as sapiens.
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the debate over if those other genus homo merged with sapiens in the different regions of the earth creating the different races is still open.
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hunter gather society was pretty great and we've been sort of downhill since. We traded boundless food, mobility and health for crappier food, immobility and terrible health.
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we have become gods and hence intelligent designers. Instead of intelligent design giving rise to evolution it was evolution that gave rise to intelligent design.
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we are likely sa the last stages of sapiens and we may move to different realms.
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happiness hasn't really improved with each new breakthrough. In fact we may be way unhappier with our lot now.
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progress has given us less certainty of where we as humans are going.
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polytheism probably got it right and monotheistic religions just seem to be taking many of the aspects of polytheism and incorporating them. Saints who give privilege, etc.