Quotes from Yuval Noah Harari

If something exists—it is by definition natural.

All humanist sects believe that human experience is the supreme source of authority and meaning, yet they interpret human experience in different ways.

A seu tempo, os algoritmos podem aprender a compor músicas do início ao fim, usando as emoções humanas como se fossem teclas num piano. Com base nos nossos dados biométricos, os algoritmos até podem produzir melodias personalizadas de que só nós, no mundo inteiro, é que gostamos.

What's the point of doing or experiencing anything if nobody knows about it, and if it doesn't contribute something to the global exchange of information?

La repetición eterna confiere poder al relato, pues implica que este es el devenir natural de las cosas, y que si Arjuna evita el combate o si Simba rehúsa convertirse en rey, estarán rebelándose contra las leyes mismas de la naturaleza.

Catharsis comes when Joy understands her mistake and she—along with the viewers—realizes that Riley isn't Joy, or Sadness, or any of the other characters. Riley is a complex story produced by the conflicts and collaborations of all the biochemical characters together.

Large numbers of strangers can cooperate successfully when they believe in common myths

la religión ha sido la tercera gran unificadora de la humanidad, junto con el dinero y los imperios. Puesto

These forfeited food surpluses fuelled politics, wars, art and philosophy. They built palaces, forts, monuments and temples.

When a single professional makes almost all the decisions, mistakes can be catastrophic.

You want to argue that they in fact improved the conditions of their subjects with new medicines, better economic conditions and greater security? You could fill another encyclopedia with their achievements.

Everyone always wants money because everyone else also always wants money,

Quién fue el responsable? Ni reyes, ni sacerdotes, ni mercaderes. Los culpables fueron un puñado de especies de plantas, entre las que se cuentan el trigo, el arroz y las patatas. Fueron estas plantas las que domesticaron a Homo sapiens, y no al revés.

We mortals daily take chances with our lives, because we know they are going to end anyhow. So we go on treks in the Himalayas, swim in the sea, and do many other dangerous things like crossing the street or eating out. But if you believe you can live forever, you would be crazy to gamble on infinity like that.

If you feel like running down the street crying 'The apocalypse is upon us!', try telling yourself 'No, it's not that. Truth is, I just don't understand what's going on in the world.

La consideración tradicional del mundo como un pastel de tamaño invariable presupone que solo hay dos tipos de recursos en el mundo: materias primas y energía. Pero en realidad hay tres tipos de recursos: materias primas, energía y conocimiento. Las materias primas y la energía pueden agotarse: cuanto más las usamos, menos tenemos. El conocimiento, en cambio, es un recurso en aumento: cuanto más lo usamos, más tenemos.

En una encuesta tras otra, los costarricenses informan de niveles mucho más elevados de satisfacción vital que los singapurenses.

Writing a private diary – a common humanist practice in previous generations – sounds to many present-day youngsters utterly pointless. Why write anything if nobody else can read it? The new motto says: 'If you experience something – record it. If you record something – upload it. If you upload something – share it.

If cooperation is the key, how come the ants and bees did not beat us to the nuclear bomb even though they learned to cooperate en masse millions of years before us? Because their cooperation lacks flexibility. Bees cooperate in very sophisticated ways, but they cannot reinvent their social system overnight. If a hive faces a new threat or a new opportunity, the bees cannot, for example, guillotine the queen and establish a republic.

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

but we have incontrovertible evidence of domesticated dogs from about 15,000 years ago. They may have joined the human pack thousands of years earlier.

The stress of farming had far-reaching consequences. It was the foundation of large-scale political and social systems. Sadly, the diligent peasants almost never achieved the future economic security they so craved through their hard work in the present. Everywhere, rulers and elites sprang up, living off the peasants' surplus food and leaving them with only a bare subsistence. These

History is something that very few people have been doing while everyone else was ploughing fields and carrying water buckets. An

But the soul has no parts. You might argue that human souls did not evolve, but appeared one bright day in the fullness of their glory. But when exactly was that bright day?