Quotes from Yuval Noah Harari

The humanities and social sciences devote most of their energies to explaining exactly how the imagined order is woven into the tapestry of life. In the limited space at our disposal we can only scratch the surface. Three main factors prevent people from realising that the order organising their lives exists only in their imagination:

Al haber sido hasta hace muy poco uno de los desvalidos de la sabana, estamos llenos de miedos y ansiedades acerca de nuestra posición, lo que nos hace doblemente crueles y peligrosos.

Religion can thus be defined as a system of human laws that is founded on a belief in superhuman laws.

Contar histórias eficazes não é fácil. A dificuldade está não em contar a história, mas em convencer todos os demais a acreditarem nela.

Legends, myths, gods and religions appeared for the first time with the Cognitive Revolution. Many animals and human species could previously say, 'Careful! A lion!' Thanks to the Cognitive Revolution, Homo sapiens acquired the ability to say, 'The lion is the guardian spirit of our tribe.' This ability to speak about fictions is the most unique feature of Sapiens language.

To colour all empires black and to disavow all imperial legacies is to reject most of human culture.

The new Romanian elite that controls the country to this day is composed mostly of former communists and their families.

H}umankind ascended to the top so quickly that the ecosystem was not given time to adjust. Moreover, humans themselves failed to adjust.

The secret was probably the appearance of fiction. Large numbers of strangers can cooperate successfully by believing in common myths.

Kadaise žalia ir žydra m?s? planeta pamažu tampa iš betono ir plastiko nulietu prekybos centru.

Big data is watching you

Scientists studying the inner workings of the human organism have found no soul there. They increasingly argue that human behaviour is determined by hormones, genes and synapses, rather than by free will – the same forces that determine the behaviour of chimpanzees, wolves, and ants.

Siria cu frica de Dumnezeu este un luc mult mai violent decat Olanda laica.

in many countries around the world biological poverty is a thing of the past.

What will be the fate of all these lawyers once sophisticated search algorithms can locate more precedents in a day than a human can in a lifetime, and once brain scans can reveal lies and deceptions at the press of a button?

There were pacifists in the past, such as the early Christians, but in the rare cases that they gained power, they tended to forget about their requirement to 'turn the other cheek'.)

So while present-day terrorism is mostly theater, future nuclear terrorism, cyberterrorism, or bioterrorism would pose a much more serious threat and would demand a far more drastic reaction from governments.

Those arguing that the world of 2016 is as hungry, sick and violent as it was in 1916 perpetuate this age-old defeatist view. They imply that all the huge efforts humans have made during the twentieth century have achieved nothing, and that medical research, economic reforms and peace initiatives have all been in vain. If so, what is the point of investing our time and resources in further medical research, novel economic reforms or new peace initiatives?

In the Afro-Asian world from which the Spaniards came, the obsession for gold was indeed an epidemic.

Sapiens use language to create completely new realities. During the last 70,000 years the intersubjective realities that Sapiens invented became ever more powerful, so that today they dominate the world.

Incluso Estados Unidos, ultracapitalista, se ha dado cuenta de que la protección de la libertad requiere al menos algunos servicios de bienestar facilitados por el gobierno. Los niños hambrientos no tienen libertades.

No hay contradicción entre esta globalización y el patriotismo. Porque el patriotismo no tiene que ver con odiar a los extranjeros. El patriotismo tiene que ver con cuidar bien a nuestros compatriotas. Y en el siglo XXI, con el fin de cuidar bien a nuestros compatriotas, hemos de cooperar con extranjeros. De modo que los buenos nacionalistas tienen que ser ahora globalistas.

This is the essence of the Agricultural Revolution: the ability to keep more people alive under worse conditions

Christians and Muslims who could not agree on religious beliefs could nevertheless agree on a monetary belief, because whereas religion asks us to believe in something, money asks us to believe that other people believe in something. For