Quotes from Yuval Noah Harari

Democracy assumes that human feelings reflect a mysterious and profound 'free will', that this 'free will' is the ultimate source of authority, and that while some people are more intelligent than others, all humans are equally free. Like Einstein and Dawkins, an illiterate maid also has free will, hence on election day her feelings - represented by her vote - count just as much as anybody else's.

Qué potencial desarrolló Europa a principios del período moderno que le permitió dominar el mundo moderno tardío? Hay dos respuestas complementarias a esta pregunta: la ciencia moderna y el capitalismo. Los

What is a spaceship compared to an eternally young cyborg who does not breed and has no sexuality, who can share thoughts directly with other beings, whose abilities to focus and remember are a thousand times greater than our own, and who is never angry or sad, but has emotions and desires that we cannot begin to imagine?

Since AlphaZero had learned nothing from any human, many of its winning moves and strategies seemed unconventional to the human eye. They may well be considered creative, if not downright genius.

War might be hell, but it was also the gateway to heaven.

O algoritmo de pesquisa do Google tem gostos muito sofisticados no que toca a hierarquizar as páginas dos vendedores de gelados, e os vendedores de gelados mais bem-sucedidos do mundo são os que o algoritmo de pesquisa do Google mostra em primeiro lugar – não os que produzem o gelado mais saboroso.

The Catholic alpha male abstains from sexual intercourse and raising a family, even though there is no genetic or ecological reason for him to do so.

Simultaneously, scientists have studied the mental states of people considered to be healthy and normative. However, most relevant researches have been conducted on people from Western, educated, industrialised, rich and democratic (WEIRD) societies, who do not constitute a representative sample of humanity. The study of the human mind has so far assumed that Homo sapiens is Homer Simpson. A

if humankind doesn't annihilate itself meanwhile – the Scientific Revolution might prove itself far greater than a mere historical revolution. It may turn out to be the most important biological revolution since the appearance of life on earth.

Just imagine how difficult it would've been to create churches, states or laws, if we could only speak about things that really exist, like lions or rivers

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,

Does the data about my DNA, my brain, and my life belong to me, to the government, to a corporation, or to the human collective?

The individual will not be crushed by Big Brother; it will disintegrate from within.

Why not go back to God's drawing board and design a better Sapiens?

Australia is one of the most important events in history, at least as important as Columbus' journey to America or the Apollo II expedition to the moon. It was the first time any human had managed to leave the Afro-Asian ecological system – indeed, the first time any large terrestrial mammal had managed to cross from Afro-Asia to Australia.

When religions advertise themselves, they tend to emphasise their beautiful values. But God often hides in the small print of factual statements.

This is no kindergarten fairy tale, but an extremely powerful myth that continues to shape the lives of billions of humans and animals in the early twenty-first century. The belief that humans have eternal souls whereas animals are just evanescent bodies is a central pillar of our legal, political and economic system. It explains why, for example, it is perfectly okay for humans to kill animals for food, or even just for the fun of it.

Which better represents the world of the ancient foragers: the peaceful skeletons from Israel and Portugal, or the abattoirs of Jabl Sahaba and Ofnet? The answer is neither. Just as foragers exhibited a wide array of religions and social structures, so, too, did they probably demonstrate a variety of violence rates.

We identify with the inner system that takes the crazy chaos of life and spins out of it seemingly logical and consistent yarns. It doesn't matter that the plot is full of lies and lacunas, and is rewritten again and again, so that today's story flatly contradicts yesterday's. The important thing is that we always retain the feeling that we have a single unchanging identity from birth to death (and perhaps even beyond).

The most likely answer is the very thing that makes the devate possible: Homo sapiens conquered the world thanks above all to its unique language

To say that a social order is maintained by military force immediately raises the question: what maintains the military order? It is impossible to organise an army solely by coercion. At least some of the commanders and soldiers must truly believe in something, be it God, honour, motherland, manhood or money.

while we cannot be certain that some new Ebola outbreak or an unknown flu strain won't sweep across the globe and kill millions, we will not regard it as an inevitable natural calamity. Rather, we will see it as an inexcusable human failure and demand the heads of those responsible

the heroes face difficulties and dangers, but they eventually triumph by finding their authentic self and following their free choices.

Hardly anyone has just one identity. Nobody is just a Muslim, or just an Italian, or just a capitalist.