Quotes from Yuval Noah Harari

Wheat did it by manipulating Homo sapiens to its advantage. This ape had been living a fairly comfortable life hunting and gathering until about 10,000 years ago, but then began to invest more and more effort in cultivating wheat. Within a couple of millennia, humans in many parts of the world were doing little from dawn to dusk other than taking care of wheat plants. It wasn't easy. Wheat demanded a lot of them.

Of course, there is no lack of organizations that lament the breakdown of human communities and strive to rebuild them. A wide variety of groups, from feminist activists to Islamic fundamentalists, are in the business of community-building, and we will examine some of these efforts in later chapters. What makes Facebook's gambit unique is its global scope, its corporate backing, and its deep faith in technology. Zuckerberg

Even Nobel laureates in economics make only a tiny fraction of their decisions using pen, paper and calculator; 99 per cent of our decisions – including the most important life choices concerning spouses, careers and habitats – are made by the highly refined algorithms we call sensations, emotions and desires.

John Watson, a leading childcare authority in the 1920s, sternly advised parents, 'Never hug and kiss [your children], never let them sit in your lap. If you must, kiss them once on the forehead when they say goodnight. Shake hands with them in the morning.'22

It was only 400,000 years ago that several species of man began to hunt large game on a regular basis,

A second theory agrees that our unique language evolved as a means of sharing information about the world. 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.

Whenever they decided to do a bit of extra work – say, to hoe the fields instead of scattering seeds on the surface – people thought, 'Yes, we will have to work harder. But the harvest will be so bountiful! We won't have to worry any more about lean years. Our children will never go to sleep hungry.' It made sense. If you worked harder, you would have a better life. That was the plan.

Praeityje keli? informacijos t?kmei užkirsdavo cenz?ra. XXI a. cenz?ruojama užtvindant žmones neaktualia informacija.

The Buddha taught that the three basic realities of the universe are that everything is constantly changing, nothing has any enduring essence, and nothing is completely satisfying.

Según los legisladores franceses, si un abogado autorizado seguía la liturgia y los rituales adecuados, escribía todos los conjuros y juramentos en un pedazo de papel bellamente decorado, y añadía su adornada rúbrica al final del documento, entonces (¡abracadabra!) se constituía legalmente una nueva compañía. Cuando

In contrast, upgrading the healthy is an elitist project, because it rejects the idea of a universal standard applicable to all and seeks to give some individuals an edge over others.

La hambruna, la peste y la guerra coparon siempre los primeros puestos de la lista. Generación tras generación, los seres humanos rezaron a todos los dioses, ángeles y santos, e inventaron innumerables utensilios, instituciones y sistemas sociales…, pero siguieron muriendo por millones a causa del hambre, las epidemias y la violencia.

Gnostics and Manichaeans argued that the good god created the spirit and the soul, whereas matter and bodies are the creation of the evil god.

rise of a number of new natural-law religions, such as liberalism, Communism, capitalism, nationalism and Nazism. These

A few serious scholars suggest that by 2050, some humans will become a-mortal (not immortal, because they could still die of some accident, but a-mortal, meaning that in the absence of fatal trauma their lives could be extended indefinitely).

Human communities and families have always been based on belief in 'priceless' things, such as honour, loyalty, morality and love. These things lie outside the domain of the market, and they shouldn't be bought or sold for money.

Between the years 3500 BC and 3000 BC, some unknown Sumerian geniuses invented a system for storing and processing information outside their brains, one that was custom-built to handle large amounts of mathematical data. The Sumerians

The average farmer worked harder than the average forager, and got a worse diet in return. The Agricultural Revolution was history's biggest fraud.2 Who was responsible? Neither kings, nor priests, nor merchants. The culprits were a handful of plant species, including wheat, rice and potatoes. These plants domesticated Homo sapiens, rather than vice versa.

What, exactly, happens to a Communist after he or she dies?

Las nuevas tareas agrícolas exigían tanto tiempo que la gente se vio obligada a instalarse de forma permanente junto a sus campos de trigo. Esto cambió por completo su modo de vida. No domesticamos el trigo. El término "domesticar" procede del latín domus, que significa "casa". ¿Quién vive en una casa? No es el trigo. Es el sapiens.

The result was several distinct species, to each of which scientists have assigned a pompous Latin name.

A maior parte das redes de cooperação humana foi concebida para a opressão e a exploração.

Qué lástima!, los primeros textos de la historia no contienen ideas filosóficas, ni poesía, leyendas, leyes, ni siquiera triunfos reales. Son documentos económicos aburridos que registran el pago de impuestos, la acumulación de deudas y la posesión de propiedades

Sin embargo, en las últimas décadas, la situación se ha invertido, y la visión de Bentham se ha tomado mucho más en serio. Cada vez más gente cree que los inmensos sistemas establecidos hace más de un siglo para fortalecer la nación deberían en verdad estar al servicio de la felicidad y el bienestar de los ciudadanos. No estamos aquí para servir al Estado: él está aquí para servirnos.