Quotes from Yuval Noah Harari

Yet it is an iron rule of history that every imagined hierarchy disavows its fictional origins and claims to be natural and inevitable. For

Leyendas, mitos, dioses y religiones aparecieron por primera vez con la revolución cognitiva.

Una reconstrucción especulativa de un niño neandertal. Las pruebas genéticas indican que al menos algunos neandertales pudieron haber tenido la piel y el pelo claros.

Nationalist isolationism is probably even more dangerous in the context of climate change than of nuclear war

What Rwanda earned from an entire year of looting Congolese coltan, the Chinese earn in a single day of peaceful commerce.

The modern age has witnessed the rise of a number of new natural-law religions, such as liberalism, Communism, capitalism, nationalism and Nazism. These creeds do not like to be called religions, and refer to themselves as ideologies. But this is just a semantic exercise. If

The only thing we can try to do is to influence the direction scientists are taking. But since we might soon be able to engineer our desires too, the real question facing us is not 'What do we want to become?', but 'What do we want to want?' Those who are not spooked by this question probably haven't given it enough thought.

el sufrimiento surge del deseo; la única manera de liberarse completamente del sufrimiento es liberarse completamente del deseo; y la única manera de liberarse del deseo es educar la mente para experimentar la realidad tal como es.

But if both liberalism and communism are now discredited, maybe humans should abandon the very idea of a single global story? Why should Vietnamese villagers put their faith in the brainchild of a German from Trier and a Manchester industrialist? Maybe each country should adopt a different idiosyncratic path, defined by its own ancient traditions? Perhaps even Westerners should take a break from trying to run the world, and focus on their own affairs for a change?

magic circle of imperial capitalism: credit financed new discoveries; discoveries led to colonies; colonies provided profits; profits built trust; and trust translated into more credit.

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?

babies and children

Religion is anything that confers superhuman legitimacy on human social structures. It legitimises human norms and values by arguing that they reflect superhuman laws.

Puede sufrir en verdad una nación? ¿Tiene una nación ojos, manos, sentidos, afectos y pasiones? Si se la pincha, ¿sangrará? Claro que no. Si es vencida en la guerra, pierde una provincia o incluso renuncia a su independencia, pero no puede experimentar dolor, tristeza ni ningún otro tipo de desgracia porque no tiene cuerpo, ni mente, ni ningún tipo de sentimiento. Lo cierto es que se trata solamente de una metáfora.

Durante nuestra estancia infinitesimalmente breve en la diminuta mota que es nuestro planeta, nos preocupamos y nos pavoneamos de esto o de aquello, y después ya no se oye más de nosotros.

There are two conflicting theories. The 'Interbreeding Theory

Hitler wasn't a senior officer – in four years of war, he rose no higher than the rank of corporal. He had no formal education, no professional skills and no political background. He wasn't a successful businessman or a union activist, he didn't have friends or relatives in high places, nor any money to speak of. At first, he didn't even have German citizenship. He was a penniless immigrant.

At the time of the Cognitive Revolution, the planet was home to about 200 genera of large terrestrial mammals weighing over fifty kilograms. At the time of the Agricultural Revolution, only about a hundred remained. Homo sapiens drove to extinction about half of the planet's big beasts long before humans invented the wheel, writing or iron tools. This

good hunters, and apparently took care of their sick and infirm. (Archaeologists have discovered the bones of Neanderthals who lived for many years with severe physical handicaps, evidence that they were cared for by their relatives.)

A revolução tecnológica pode, em breve, deixar milhões de seres humanos fora do mercado de trabalho e criar uma gigantesca classe social inútil, levando a convulsões sociais e políticas que nenhuma ideologia existente sabe como gerir.

Rather than heralding a new era of easy living, the Agricultural Revolution left farmers with lives generally difficult and less satisfying than those of foragers.

the mind is never free of manipulation.

There are no gods in the universe, no nations, no money, no human rights, no lawn, no justice outside the common imagination of human beings

Despite their having no real bodies, the American legal system treats corporations as legal person, as if they were flesh-and-blood human beings.