Quotes from Yuval Noah Harari

In ancient agricultural societies, most religions revolved not around metaphysical questions and the afterlife, but around the very mundane issue of increasing agricultural output. Thus

We think we know a lot, even though individually we know very little, because we treat knowledge in the minds of others as if it were our own.

We are suddenly showing unprecedented interest in the fate of so-called lower life forms, perhaps because we are about to become one. If and when computer programs attain superhuman intelligence and unprecedented power, should we begin valuing these programs more than we value humans? Would it be okay, for example, for an artificial intelligence to exploit humans and even kill them to further its own needs and desires? If it should never be allowed to do that, despite its superior intelligence

If you believe in an absolute truth revealed by a transcendent power, you cannot allow yourself to admit any error, for that would nullify your whole story. But if you believe in a quest for truth by fallible humans, admitting blunders is part of the game.

Ironically, the better we map this process, the harder it becomes to explain conscious feelings. The better we understand the brain, the more redundant the mind seems. If the entire system works by electric signals passing from here to there, why the hell do we also need to feel fear?

History began when humans invented gods, and will end when humans become gods…

evolutionary pressures have adapted the human brain to store immense quantities of botanical, zoological, topographical and social information.

If the economy doesn't grow, and the pie therefore remains the same size, you can give more to the poor only by taking something from the rich. That will force you to make some very hard choices, and will probably cause a lot of resentment and even violence. If you wish to avoid hard choices, resentment and violence, you need a bigger pie. […] Economic growth has thus become the crucial juncture where almost all modern religions, ideologies and movements meet.

A single priest often does the work of a hundred soldiers – far more cheaply and effectively.

How do you live in an age of bewilderment, when the old stories have collapsed and no new story has yet emerged to replace them?

Knowledge that does not change behaviour is useless. But knowledge that changes behaviour quickly loses its relevance. The

As a species, humans prefer power to truth.

Alamogordo, 16 July 1945, 05:29:53. Eight seconds after the first atomic bomb was detonated. The nuclear physicist Robert Oppenheimer, upon seeing the explosion, quoted from the Bhagavad Gita: 'Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.

The bitter truth is that the world has simply become too complicated for our hunter-gatherer brains.

Next time a mosquito buzzes in your ear, accuse her of unnatural behaviour. If she were well behaved and content with what God gave her, she'd use her wings only as solar panels. The

Modern-day science is a unique tradition of knowledge, inasmuch as it openly admits collective ignorance regarding the most important questions.

For the first time in history, infectious diseases kill fewer people than old age, famine kills fewer people than obesity, and violence kills fewer people than accidents.

But the most important information that needed to be conveyed was about humans, not about lions and bison. Our language evolved as a way of gossiping.

Rightly or wrongly, people might reach the same conclusions about Big Data algorithms: they have lots of hitches, but we have no better alternative.

Much of ancient mythology is in fact a legal contract in which humans promise everlasting devotion to the gods in exchange for mastery over plants and animals

Revolutions are usually made by small networks of agitators rather than by the masses. If you want to launch a revolution, don't ask yourself, 'How many people support my ideas?' Instead, ask yourself, 'How many of my supporters are capable of effective collaboration?

Studying history aims to loosen the grip of the past. It enables us to turn our head this way and that, and begin to notice possibilities that our ancestors could not imagine, or didn't want us to imagine.

History isn't a single narrative, but thousands of alternative narratives. Whenever we choose to tell one, we are also choosing to silence others.

If we accept a mere tenth of what animal-rights activists are claiming, then modern industrial agriculture might well be the greatest crime in history. When