#readwise # Sapiens  ## Metadata - Author: [[Yuval Noah Harari]] - Full Title: Sapiens - Genres: [[Sociology]], [[Psychology]], [[Anthropology]], [[History]], [[Historical]], [[Science]], [[Nonfiction]], [[Philosophy]], [[Evolution]] - URL: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20873740-sapiens ## Highlights - most scientists agree that by 150,000 years ago, East Africa was populated by Sapiens that looked just like us. If one of them turned up in a modern morgue, the local pathologist would notice nothing peculiar. ([Location 261](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=261)) - Since Neanderthals and Denisovans contributed only a small amount of DNA to our present-day genome, it is impossible to speak of a ‘merger’ between Sapiens and other human species. Although differences between them were not large enough to completely prevent fertile intercourse, they were sufficient to make such contacts very rare. ([Location 298](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=298)) - Our language evolved as a way of gossiping. ([Location 389](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=389)) - Rumour-mongers are the original fourth estate, journalists who inform society about and thus protect it from cheats and freeloaders. ([Location 409](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=409)) - Yet the truly unique feature of our language is not its ability to transmit information about men and lions. Rather, it’s the ability to transmit information about things that do not exist at all. ([Location 411](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=411)) - It’s relatively easy to agree that only Homo sapiens can speak about things that don’t really exist, and believe six impossible things before breakfast. You could never convince a monkey to give you a banana by promising him limitless bananas after death in monkey heaven. ([Location 416](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=416)) - fiction has enabled us not merely to imagine things, but to do so collectively. We can weave common myths such as the biblical creation story, the Dreamtime myths of Aboriginal Australians, and the nationalist myths of modern states. Such myths give Sapiens the unprecedented ability to cooperate flexibly in large numbers. ([Location 421](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=421)) - How did Homo sapiens manage to cross this critical threshold, eventually founding cities comprising tens of thousands of inhabitants and empires ruling hundreds of millions? The secret was probably the appearance of fiction. Large numbers of strangers can cooperate successfully by believing in common myths. ([Location 462](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=462)) - Telling effective stories is not easy. The difficulty lies not in telling the story, but in convincing everyone else to believe it. Much of history revolves around this question: how does one convince millions of people to believe particular stories about gods, or nations, or limited liability companies? Yet when it succeeds, it gives Sapiens immense power, because it enables millions of strangers to cooperate and work towards common goals. Just try to imagine how difficult it would have been to create states, or churches, or legal systems if we could speak only about things that really exist, such as rivers, trees and lions. ([Location 529](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=529)) - Unlike lying, an imagined reality is something that everyone believes in, and as long as this communal belief persists, the imagined reality exerts force in the world. ([Location 540](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=540)) - Without an ability to compose fiction, Neanderthals were unable to cooperate effectively in large numbers, nor could they adapt their social behaviour to rapidly changing challenges. ([Location 583](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=583)) - Thirty thousand years ago, a Chinese forager might leave camp with her companions at, say, eight in the morning. They’d roam the nearby forests and meadows, gathering mushrooms, digging up edible roots, catching frogs and occasionally running away from tigers. By early afternoon, they were back at the camp to make lunch. That left them plenty of time to gossip, tell stories, play with the children and just hang out. Of course the tigers sometimes caught them, or a snake bit them, but on the other hand they didn’t have to deal with automobile accidents and industrial pollution. ([Location 836](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=836)) - Don’t believe tree-huggers who claim that our ancestors lived in harmony with nature. Long before the Industrial Revolution, Homo sapiens held the record among all organisms for driving the most plant and animal species to their extinctions. We have the dubious distinction of being the deadliest species in the annals of biology. ([Location 1208](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=1208)) - No noteworthy plant or animal has been domesticated in the last 2,000 years. ([Location 1242](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=1242)) - The Agricultural Revolution certainly enlarged the sum total of food at the disposal of humankind, but the extra food did not translate into a better diet or more leisure. Rather, it translated into population explosions and pampered elites. ([Location 1267](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=1267)) - The culprits were a handful of plant species, including wheat, rice and potatoes. These plants domesticated Homo sapiens, rather than vice versa. ([Location 1271](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=1271)) - ‘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. ([Location 1382](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=1382)) - One of history’s few iron laws is that luxuries tend to become necessities and to spawn new obligations. Once people get used to a certain luxury, they take it for granted. Then they begin to count on it. Finally they reach a point where they can’t live without it. ([Location 1398](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=1398)) - Humanity’s search for an easier life released immense forces of change that transformed the world in ways nobody envisioned or wanted. ([Location 1415](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=1415)) - A series of trivial decisions aimed mostly at filling a few stomachs and gaining a little security had the cumulative effect of forcing ancient foragers to spend their days carrying water buckets under a scorching sun. ([Location 1417](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=1417)) - History is something that very few people have been doing while everyone else was ploughing fields and carrying water buckets. ([Location 1604](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=1604)) - The mere fact that one can feed a thousand people in the same town or a million people in the same kingdom does not guarantee that they can agree how to divide the land and water, how to settle disputes and conflicts, and how to act in times of drought or war. And if no agreement can be reached, strife spreads, even if the storehouses are bulging. It was not food shortages that caused most of history’s wars and revolutions. The French Revolution was spearheaded by affluent lawyers, not by famished peasants. The Roman Republic reached the height of its power in the first century BC, when treasure fleets from throughout the Mediterranean enriched the Romans beyond their ancestors’ wildest dreams. Yet it was at that moment of maximum affluence that the Roman political order collapsed into a series of deadly civil wars. Yugoslavia in 1991 had more than enough resources to feed all its inhabitants, and still disintegrated into a terrible bloodbath. The problem at the root of such calamities is that humans evolved for millions of years in small bands of a few dozen individuals. The handful of millennia separating the Agricultural Revolution from the appearance of cities, kingdoms and empires was not enough time to allow an instinct for mass cooperation to evolve. ([Location 1609](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=1609)) - Hammurabi and the American Founding Fathers alike imagined a reality governed by universal and immutable principles of justice, such as equality or hierarchy. Yet the only place where such universal principles exist is in the fertile imagination of Sapiens, and in the myths they invent and tell one another. These principles have no objective validity. ([Location 1717](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=1717)) - There is no such thing in biology. Just like equality, rights and limited liability companies, liberty too is a political ideal rather than a biological phenomenon. ([Location 1738](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=1738)) - We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men evolved differently, that they are born with certain mutable characteristics, and that among these are life and the pursuit of pleasure. ([Location 1744](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=1744)) - Voltaire said about God that ‘there is no God, but don’t tell that to my servant, lest he murder me at night’. ([Location 1756](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=1756)) - There is no such thing in biology. Just like equality, rights and limited liability companies, liberty is something that people invented and that exists only in their imagination. ([Location 1760](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=1760)) - A single priest often does the work of a hundred soldiers – far more cheaply and effectively. Moreover, no matter how efficient bayonets are, somebody must wield them. Why should the soldiers, jailors, judges and police maintain an imagined order in which they do not believe? Of all human collective activities, the one most difficult to organise is violence. To say that a social order is maintained by military force immediately raises the question: what maintains the military order? ([Location 1769](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=1769)) - The humanities and social sciences devote most of their energies to explaining exactly how the imagined order is woven into the tapestry of life. ([Location 1797](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=1797)) - Romanticism tells us that in order to make the most of our human potential we must have as many different experiences as we can. ([Location 1830](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=1830)) - Consumerism tells us that in order to be happy we must consume as many products and services as possible. ([Location 1835](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=1835)) - Every television commercial is another little legend about how consuming some product or service will make life better. ([Location 1837](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=1837)) - The tourism industry does not sell flight tickets and hotel bedrooms. It sells experiences. ([Location 1839](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=1839)) - Consequently, when the relationship between a millionaire and his wife is going through a rocky patch, he takes her on an expensive trip to Paris. ([Location 1841](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=1841)) - When we break down our prison walls and run towards freedom, we are in fact running into the more spacious exercise yard of a bigger prison. ([Location 1881](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=1881)) - UNDERSTANDING HUMAN HISTORY IN THE millennia following the Agricultural Revolution boils down to a single question: how did humans organise themselves in mass-cooperation networks, when they lacked the biological instincts necessary to sustain such networks? ([Location 2091](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=2091)) - All the above-mentioned distinctions – between free persons and slaves, between whites and blacks, between rich and poor – are rooted in fictions. (The hierarchy of men and women will be discussed later.) Yet it is an iron rule of history that every imagined hierarchy disavows its fictional origins and claims to be natural and inevitable. ([Location 2110](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=2110)) - By 1865 whites, as well as many blacks, took it to be a simple matter of fact that blacks were less intelligent, more violent and sexually dissolute, lazier and less concerned about personal cleanliness than whites. ([Location 2230](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=2230)) - Most sociopolitical hierarchies lack a logical or biological basis – they are nothing but the perpetuation of chance events supported by myths. ([Location 2264](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=2264)) - ‘If a man meets a virgin who is not betrothed, and seizes her and lies with her, and they are found, then the man who lay with her shall give to the father of the young woman fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife’ (Deuteronomy 22:28–9). ([Location 2284](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=2284)) - from a biological perspective, nothing is unnatural. Whatever is possible is by definition also natural. A truly unnatural behaviour, one that goes against the laws of nature, simply cannot exist, so it would need no prohibition. No culture has ever bothered to forbid men to photosynthesise, women to run faster than the speed of light, or negatively charged electrons to be attracted to each other. In truth, our concepts ‘natural’ and ‘unnatural’ are taken not from biology, but from Christian theology. ([Location 2319](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=2319)) - There is little sense, then, in arguing that the natural function of women is to give birth, or that homosexuality is unnatural. Most of the laws, norms, rights and obligations that define manhood and womanhood reflect human imagination more than biological reality. ([Location 2342](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=2342)) - Fewer resources are invested in the health and education of women; they have fewer economic opportunities, less political power, and less freedom of movement. Gender is a race in which some of the runners compete only for the bronze medal. ([Location 2384](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=2384)) - Ever since the French Revolution, people throughout the world have gradually come to see both social equality and individual freedom as fundamental values. Yet the two values contradict each other. Equality can be ensured only by curtailing the freedoms of those who are better off. Guaranteeing that every individual will be free to do as he wishes inevitably short-changes equality. The entire political history of the world since 1789 can be seen as a series of attempts to reconcile this contradiction. ([Location 2529](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=2529)) - Ever since the French Revolution, people throughout the world have gradually come to see both equality and individual freedom as fundamental values. Yet the two values contradict each other. Equality can be ensured only by curtailing the freedoms of those who are better off. Guaranteeing that every individual will be free to do as he wishes inevitably short-changes equality. The entire political history of the world since 1789 can be seen as a series of attempts to reconcile this contradiction. ([Location 2558](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=2558)) - Perceiving the direction of history is really a question of vantage point. When we adopt the proverbial bird’s-eye view of history, which examines developments in terms of decades or centuries, it’s hard to say whether history moves in the direction of unity or of diversity. However, to understand long-term processes the bird’s-eye view is too myopic. We would do better to adopt instead the viewpoint of a cosmic spy satellite, which scans millennia rather than centuries. From such a vantage point it becomes crystal clear that history is moving relentlessly towards unity. The sectioning of Christianity and the collapse of the Mongol Empire are just speed bumps on history’s highway. ([Location 2560](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=2560)) - When the natives questioned Cortés as to why the Spaniards had such a passion for gold, the conquistador answered, ‘Because I and my companions suffer from a disease of the heart which can be cured only with gold.’1 ([Location 2665](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=2665)) - ‘Everyone would work according to their abilities, and receive according to their needs’ turned out in practice into ‘everyone would work as little as they can get away with, and receive as much as they could grab’. ([Location 2721](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=2721)) - In fact, even today coins and banknotes are a rare form of money. The sum total of money in the world is about $60 trillion, yet the sum total of coins and banknotes is less than $6 trillion.7 More than 90 per cent of all money – more than $50 trillion appearing in our accounts – exists only on computer servers. ([Location 2743](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=2743)) - In fact, even today coins and banknotes are a rare form of money. The sum total of money in the world is about $60 trillion, yet the sum total of coins and banknotes is less than $6 trillion. More than 90 percent of all money – more than $50 trillion appearing in our accounts – exists only on computer servers. ([Location 2775](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=2775)) - century, ([Location 3183](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=3183)) - Since all social orders and hierarchies are imagined, they are all fragile, and the larger the society, the more fragile it is. The crucial historical role of religion has been to give superhuman legitimacy to these fragile structures. Religions assert that our laws are not the result of human caprice, but are ordained by an absolute and indisputable authority. This helps place at least some fundamental laws beyond challenge, thereby ensuring social stability. Religion can thus be defined as a system of human norms and values that is founded on a belief in a superhuman order. This involves two distinct criteria: 1. Religion is an entire system of norms and values, rather than an isolated custom or belief. Knocking on wood for good luck isn’t a religion. Even a belief in reincarnation does not constitute a religion, as long as it does not validate certain behavioral standards. 2. To be considered a religion, the system of norms and values must claim to be based on superhuman laws rather than on human decisions. Professional soccer is not a religion, because despite its many rules, rites and often bizarre rituals, everyone knows that human beings invented soccer themselves, and FIFA may at any moment enlarge the size of the goal or cancel the offside rule. ([Location 3215](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=3215)) - As the twenty-first century unfolds, nationalism is fast losing ground. More and more people believe that all of humankind is the legitimate source of political authority, rather than the members of a particular nationality, and that safeguarding human rights and protecting the interests of the entire human species should be the guiding light of politics. ([Location 3221](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=3221)) - As of 2014, the world is still politically fragmented, but states are fast losing their independence. Not one of them is really able to execute independent economic policies, to declare and wage wars as it pleases, or even to run its own internal affairs as it sees fit. States are increasingly open to the machinations of global markets, to the interference of global companies and NGOs, and to the supervision of global public opinion and the international judicial system. States are obliged to conform to global standards of financial behaviour, environmental policy and justice. Immensely powerful currents of capital, labour and information turn and shape the world, with a growing disregard for the borders and opinions of states. ([Location 3229](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=3229)) - Since all social orders and hierarchies are imagined, they are all fragile, and the larger the society, the more fragile it is. The crucial historical role of religion has been to give superhuman legitimacy to these fragile structures. Religions assert that our laws are not the result of human caprice, but are ordained by an absolute and supreme authority. This helps place at least some fundamental laws beyond challenge, thereby ensuring social stability. Religion can thus be defined as a system of human norms and values that is founded on a belief in a superhuman order. This involves two distinct criteria: 1. Religions hold that there is a superhuman order, which is not the product of human whims or agreements. Professional football is not a religion, because despite its many laws, rites and often bizarre rituals, everyone knows that human beings invented football themselves, and FIFA may at any moment enlarge the size of the goal or cancel the offside rule. 2. Based on this superhuman order, religion establishes norms and values that it considers binding. Many Westerners today believe in ghosts, fairies and reincarnation, but these beliefs are not a source of moral and behavioural standards. As such, they do not constitute a religion. ([Location 3254](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=3254)) - The religious wars between Catholics and Protestants that swept Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are particularly notorious. All those involved accepted Christ’s divinity and His gospel of compassion and love. However, they disagreed about the nature of this love. Protestants believed that the divine love is so great that God was incarnated in flesh and allowed Himself to be tortured and crucified, thereby redeeming the original sin and opening the gates of heaven to all those who professed faith in Him. Catholics maintained that faith, while essential, was not enough. To enter heaven, believers had to participate in church rituals and do good deeds. Protestants refused to accept this, arguing that this quid pro quo belittles God’s greatness and love. Whoever thinks that entry to heaven depends upon his or her own good deeds magnifies his own importance, and implies that Christ’s suffering on the cross and God’s love for humankind are not enough. These theological disputes turned so violent that during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Catholics and Protestants killed each other by the hundreds of thousands. On 23 August 1572, French Catholics who stressed the importance of good deeds attacked communities of French Protestants who highlighted God’s love for humankind. In this attack, the St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, between 5,000 and 10,000 Protestants were slaughtered in less than twenty-four hours. When the pope in Rome heard the news from France, he was so overcome by joy that he organised festive prayers to celebrate the occasion and commissioned Giorgio Vasari to decorate one of the Vatican’s rooms with a fresco of the massacre (the room is currently off-limits to visitors).2 More Christians were killed by fellow Christians in those twenty-four hours than by the polytheistic Roman Empire throughout its entire existence. ([Location 3316](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=3316)) - Freedom of will allows humans to choose evil. Many indeed choose evil and, according to the standard monotheist account, this choice must bring divine punishment in its wake. If God knew in advance that a particular person would use her free will to choose evil, and that as a result she would be punished for this by eternal tortures in hell, why did God create her? ([Location 3390](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=3390)) - dualists, it’s easy to explain evil. Bad things happen even to good people because the world is not governed single-handedly by a good God. There is an independent evil power loose in the world. The evil power does bad things. Dualism has its own drawbacks. While solving the Problem of Evil, it is unnerved by the Problem of Order. If the world was created by a single God, it’s clear why it is such an orderly place, where everything obeys the same laws. But if Good and Evil battle for control of the world, who enforces the laws governing this cosmic war? Two rival states can fight one another because both obey the same laws of physics. A missile launched from Pakistan can hit targets in India because gravity works the same way in both countries. When Good and Evil fight, what common laws do they obey, and who decreed these laws? ([Location 3394](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=3394)) - So, monotheism explains order, but is mystified by evil. Dualism explains evil, but is puzzled by order. There is one logical way of solving the riddle: to argue that there is a single omnipotent God who created the entire universe – and He’s evil. But nobody in history has had the stomach for such a belief. ([Location 3400](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=3400)) - humans have a wonderful capacity to believe in contradictions. ([Location 3418](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=3418)) - In fact, monotheism, as it has played out in history, is a kaleidoscope of monotheist, dualist, polytheist and animist legacies, jumbling together under a single divine umbrella. The average Christian believes in the monotheist God, but also in the dualist Devil, in polytheist saints, and in animist ghosts. ([Location 3429](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=3429)) - During the first millennium BC, religions of an altogether new kind began to spread through Afro-Asia. The newcomers, such as Jainism and Buddhism in India, Daoism and Confucianism in China, and Stoicism, Cynicism and Epicureanism in the Mediterranean basin, were characterised by their disregard of gods. These creeds maintained that the superhuman order governing the world is the product of natural laws rather than of divine wills and whims. ([Location 3436](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=3436)) - The central figure of Buddhism is not a god but a human being, Siddhartha Gautama. ([Location 3443](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=3443)) - Gautama grounded these meditation techniques in a set of ethical rules meant to make it easier for people to focus on actual experience and to avoid falling into cravings and fantasies. He instructed his followers to avoid killing, promiscuous sex and theft, since such acts necessarily stoke the fire of craving (for power, for sensual pleasure, or for wealth). When the flames are completely extinguished, craving is replaced by a state of perfect contentment and serenity, known as nirvana (the literal meaning of which is ‘extinguishing the fire’). Those who have attained nirvana are fully liberated from all suffering. They experience reality with the utmost clarity, free of fantasies and delusions. While they will most likely still encounter unpleasantness and pain, such experiences cause them no misery. A person who does not crave cannot suffer. ([Location 3476](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=3476)) - Buddha spent the rest of his life explaining his discoveries to others so that everyone could be freed from suffering. He encapsulated his teachings in a single law: suffering arises from craving; the only way to be fully liberated from suffering is to be fully liberated from craving; and the only way to be liberated from craving is to train the mind to experience reality as it is. This law, known as dharma or dhamma, is seen by Buddhists as a universal law of nature. That ‘suffering arises from craving’ is always and everywhere true, just as in modern physics E always equals mc². Buddhists are people who believe in this law and make it the fulcrum of all their activities. Belief in gods, on the other hand, is of minor importance to them. The first principle of monotheist religions is ‘God exists. What does He want from me?’ The first principle of Buddhism is ‘Suffering exists. How do I escape it?’ ([Location 3483](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=3483)) - Soviet Communism was a fanatical and missionary religion. A devout Communist could not be a Christian or a Buddhist, and was expected to spread the gospel of Marx and Lenin even at the price of his or her life. ([Location 3518](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=3518)) - If it makes you feel better, you are free to go on calling Communism an ideology rather than a religion. It makes no difference. We can divide creeds into god-centred religions and godless ideologies that claim to be based on natural laws. But then, to be consistent, we would need to catalogue at least some Buddhist, Daoist and Stoic sects as ideologies rather than religions. Conversely, we should note that belief in gods persists within many modern ideologies, and that some of them, most notably liberalism, make little sense without this belief. ([Location 3526](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=3526)) - Humanism is a belief that Homo sapiens has a unique and sacred nature, which is fundamentally different from the nature of all other animals and of all other phenomena. Humanists believe that the unique nature of Homo sapiens is the most important thing in the world, and it determines the meaning of everything that happens in the universe. The supreme good is the good of Homo sapiens. The rest of the world and all other beings exist solely for the benefit of this species. ([Location 3538](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=3538)) - Today, the most important humanist sect is liberal humanism, which believes that ‘humanity’ is a quality of individual humans, and that the liberty of individuals is therefore sacrosanct. According to liberals, the sacred nature of humanity resides within each and every individual Homo sapiens. The inner core of individual humans gives meaning to the world, and is the source for all ethical and political authority. If we encounter an ethical or political dilemma, we should look inside and listen to our inner voice – the voice of humanity. The chief commandments of liberal humanism are meant to protect the liberty of this inner voice against intrusion or harm. These commandments are collectively known as ‘human rights’. ([Location 3544](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=3544)) - Even though liberal humanism sanctifies humans, it does not deny the existence of God, and is, in fact, founded on monotheist beliefs. The liberal belief in the free and sacred nature of each individual is a direct legacy of the traditional Christian belief in free and eternal individual souls. Without recourse to eternal souls and a Creator God, it becomes embarrassingly difficult for liberals to explain what is so special about individual Sapiens. ([Location 3556](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=3556)) - Another important sect is socialist humanism. Socialists believe that ‘humanity’ is collective rather than individualistic. They hold as sacred not the inner voice of each individual, but the species Homo sapiens as a whole. Whereas liberal humanism seeks as much freedom as possible for individual humans, socialist humanism seeks equality between all humans. According to socialists, inequality is the worst blasphemy against the sanctity of humanity, because it privileges peripheral qualities of humans over their universal essence. For example, when the rich are privileged over the poor, it means that we value money more than the universal essence of all humans, which is the same for rich and poor alike. ([Location 3559](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=3559)) - The only humanist sect that has actually broken loose from traditional monotheism is evolutionary humanism, whose most famous representatives were the Nazis. What distinguished the Nazis from other humanist sects was a different definition of ‘humanity’, one deeply influenced by the theory of evolution. In contrast to other humanists, the Nazis believed that humankind is not something universal and eternal, but rather a mutable species that can evolve or degenerate. Man can evolve into superman, or degenerate into a subhuman. The main ambition of the Nazis was to protect humankind from degeneration and encourage its progressive evolution. This is why the Nazis said that the Aryan race, the most advanced form of humanity, had to be protected and fostered, while degenerate kinds of Homo sapiens like Jews, Roma, homosexuals and the mentally ill had to be quarantined and even exterminated. The Nazis explained that Homo sapiens itself appeared when one ‘superior’ population of ancient humans evolved, whereas ‘inferior’ populations such as the Neanderthals became extinct. ([Location 3566](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=3566)) - The only humanist sect that has actually broken loose from traditional monotheism is evolutionary humanism, whose most famous representatives are the Nazis. What distinguished the Nazis from other humanist sects was a different definition of ‘humanity’, one deeply influenced by the theory of evolution. In contrast to other humanists, the Nazis believed that humankind is not something universal and eternal, but rather a mutable species that can evolve or degenerate. Man can evolve into superman, or degenerate into a subhuman. The main ambition of the Nazis was to protect humankind from degeneration and encourage its progressive evolution. This is why the Nazis said that the Aryan race, the most advanced form of humanity, had to be protected and fostered, while degenerate kinds of Homo sapiens like Jews, Roma, homosexuals and the mentally ill had to be quarantined and even exterminated. The Nazis explained that Homo sapiens itself appeared when one ‘superior’ population of ancient humans evolved, whereas ‘inferior’ populations such as the Neanderthals became extinct. ([Location 3610](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=3610)) - Our liberal political and judicial systems are founded on the belief that every individual has a sacred inner nature, indivisible and immutable, which gives meaning to the world, and which is the source of all ethical and political authority. ([Location 3623](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=3623)) - History cannot be explained deterministically and it cannot be predicted because it is chaotic. So many forces are at work and their interactions are so complex that extremely small variations in the strength of the forces and the way they interact produce huge differences in outcomes. ([Location 3682](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=3682)) - There is no proof that history is working for the benefit of humans because we lack an objective scale on which to measure such benefit. ([Location 3712](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=3712)) - the single most remarkable and defining moment of the past 500 years came at 05:29:45 on 16 July 1945. At that precise second, American scientists detonated the first atomic bomb at Alamogordo, New Mexico. From that point onward, humankind had the capability not only to change the course of history, but to end it. ([Location 3800](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=3800)) - The great discovery that launched the Scientific Revolution was the discovery that humans do not know the answers to their most important questions. ([Location 3832](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=3832)) - Leave science out of it and live in accordance with a non-scientific absolute truth. This has been the strategy of liberal humanism, which is built on a dogmatic belief in the unique worth and rights of human beings – a doctrine which has embarrassingly little in common with the scientific study of Homo sapiens. ([Location 3875](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=3875)) - ‘The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me’ (Mark 14:7). ([Location 4064](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=4064)) - The Chinese and Persians did not lack technological inventions such as steam engines (which could be freely copied or bought). They lacked the values, myths, judicial apparatus and sociopolitical structures that took centuries to form and mature in the West and which could not be copied and internalised rapidly. France and the United States quickly followed in Britain’s footsteps because the French and Americans already shared the most important British myths and social structures. The Chinese and Persians could not catch up as quickly because they thought and organised their societies differently. ([Location 4332](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=4332)) - What potential did Europe develop in the early modern period that enabled it to dominate the late modern world? There are two complementary answers to this question: modern science and capitalism. Europeans were used to thinking and behaving in a scientific and capitalist way even before they enjoyed any significant technological advantages. When the technological bonanza began, Europeans could harness it far better than anybody else. So it is hardly coincidental that science and capitalism form the most important legacy that European imperialism has bequeathed the post-European world of the twenty-first century. Europe and Europeans no longer rule the world, but science and capital are growing ever stronger. ([Location 4343](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=4343)) - What Smith says is, in fact, that greed is good, and that by becoming richer I benefit everybody, not just myself. Egoism is altruism. ([Location 4793](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=4793)) - Smith therefore repeated like a mantra the maxim that ‘When profits increase, the landlord or weaver will employ more assistants’ and not ‘When profits increase, Scrooge will hoard his money in a chest and take it out only to count his coins.’ ([Location 4801](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=4801)) - Capitalism began as a theory about how the economy functions. It was both descriptive and prescriptive – it offered an account of how money worked and promoted the idea that reinvesting profits in production leads to fast economic growth. But capitalism gradually became far more than just an economic doctrine. It now encompasses an ethic – a set of teachings about how people should behave, educate their children and even think. Its principal tenet is that economic growth is the supreme good, or at least a proxy for the supreme good, because justice, freedom and even happiness all depend on economic growth. ([Location 4832](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=4832)) - When growth becomes a supreme good, unrestricted by any other ethical considerations, it can easily lead to catastrophe. ([Location 5109](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=5109)) ^lu45ff - Some religions, such as Christianity and Nazism, have killed millions out of burning hatred. Capitalism has killed millions out of cold indifference coupled with greed. ([Location 5110](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=5110)) - THE MODERN ECONOMY GROWS THANKS to our trust in the future and to the willingness of capitalists to reinvest their profits in production. Yet that does not suffice. Economic growth also requires energy and raw materials, and these are finite. When and if they run out, the entire system will collapse. ([Location 5151](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=5151)) - Refrigerators, ships and aeroplanes have made it possible to store produce for months, and transport it quickly and cheaply to the other side of the world. Europeans began to dine on fresh Argentinian beef and Japanese sushi. ([Location 5277](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=5277)) - Just as the Atlantic slave trade did not stem from hatred towards Africans, so the modern animal industry is not motivated by animosity. Again, it is fuelled by indifference. Most people who produce and consume eggs, milk and meat rarely stop to think about the fate of the chickens, cows or pigs whose flesh and emissions they are eating. Those who do think often argue that such animals are really little different from machines, devoid of sensations and emotions, incapable of suffering. ([Location 5302](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=5302)) - Those who do think often argue that such animals are really little different from machines, devoid of sensations and emotions, incapable of suffering. ([Location 5304](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=5304)) - The conclusion was inescapable: monkeys must have psychological needs and desires that go beyond their material requirements, and if these are not fulfilled, they will suffer greatly. ([Location 5332](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=5332)) - Harlow’s infant monkeys preferred to spend their time in the hands of the barren cloth mother because they were looking for an emotional bond and not only for milk. ([Location 5334](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=5334)) - Before the industrialisation of agriculture, most of the food produced in fields and farms was ‘wasted’ feeding peasants and farmyard animals. Only a small percentage was available to feed artisans, teachers, priests and bureaucrats. Consequently, in almost all societies peasants comprised more than 90 per cent of the population. Following the industrialisation of agriculture, a shrinking number of farmers was enough to feed a growing number of clerks and factory hands. Today in the United States, only 2 per cent of the population makes a living from agriculture, yet this 2 per cent produces enough not only to feed the entire US population, but also to export surpluses to the rest of the world.9 ([Location 5340](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=5340)) - The capitalist and consumerist ethics are two sides of the same coin, a merger of two commandments. The supreme commandment of the rich is ‘Invest!’ The supreme commandment of the rest of us is ‘Buy!’ ([Location 5385](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=5385)) - Before the industrialisation of agriculture, most of the food produced in fields and farms was ‘wasted’ feeding peasants and farmyard animals. Only a small percentage was available to feed artisans, teachers, priests and bureaucrats. Consequently, in almost all societies peasants comprised more than 90 percent of the population. Following the industrialisation of agriculture, a shrinking number of farmers was enough to feed a growing number of clerks and factory hands. Today in the United States, only 2 per cent of the population makes a living from agriculture, yet this 2 per cent produces enough not only to feed the entire US population, but also to export surpluses to the rest of the world.9 ([Location 5412](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=5412)) - People tended to reconcile themselves to the status quo, declaring that ‘this is how it always was, and this is how it always will be’. ([Location 5630](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=5630)) - The tightening web of international connections erodes the independence of most countries, lessening the chance that any one of them might single-handedly let slip the dogs of war. Most countries no longer engage in full-scale war for the simple reason that they are no longer independent. Though citizens in Israel, Italy, Mexico or Thailand may harbour illusions of independence, the fact is that their governments cannot conduct independent economic or foreign policies, and they are certainly incapable of initiating and conducting full-scale war on their own. ([Location 5783](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=5783)) - Most current ideologies and political programmes are based on rather flimsy ideas concerning the real source of human happiness. Nationalists And They Lived Happily Ever After believe that political self-determination is essential for our happiness. Communists postulate that everyone would be blissful under the dictatorship of the proletariat. Capitalists maintain that only the free market can ensure the greatest happiness of the greatest number, by creating economic growth and material abundance and by teaching people to be self-reliant and enterprising. What would happen if serious research were to disprove these hypotheses? If economic growth and self-reliance do not make people happier, what’s the benefit of Capitalism? What if it turns out that the subjects of large empires are generally happier than the citizens of independent states and that, for example, Ghanaians were happier under British colonial rule than under their own homegrown dictators? What would that say about the process of decolonisation and the value of national self-determination? ([Location 5810](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=5810)) - Though few have studied the long-term history of happiness, almost every scholar and layperson has some vague preconception about it. ([Location 5821](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=5821)) - Evolution moulded our minds and bodies to the life of hunter-gatherers. The transition first to agriculture and then to industry has condemned us to living unnatural lives that cannot give full expression to our inherent inclinations and instincts, and therefore cannot satisfy our deepest yearnings. ([Location 5832](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=5832)) - Medieval peasants may indeed have been more miserable than their hunter-gatherer forebears. But in the last few centuries humans have learned to use their capacities more wisely. The triumphs of modern medicine are just one example. Other unprecedented achievements include the steep drop in violence, the virtual disappearance of international wars, and the near elimination of large-scale famines. ([Location 5841](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=5841)) - Philosophers, priests and poets have brooded over the nature of happiness for millennia, and many have concluded that social, ethical and spiritual factors have as great an impact on our happiness as material conditions. ([Location 5863](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=5863)) - One interesting conclusion is that money does indeed bring happiness. But only up to a point, and beyond that point it has little significance. ([Location 5884](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=5884)) - Most current ideologies and political programmes are based on rather flimsy ideas concerning the real source of human happiness. Nationalists believe that political self-determination is essential for our happiness. Communists postulate that everyone would be blissful under the dictatorship of the proletariat. Capitalists maintain that only the free market can ensure the greatest happiness of the greatest number, by creating economic growth and material abundance and by teaching people to be self-reliant and enterprising. What would happen if serious research were to disprove these hypotheses? If economic growth and self-reliance do not make people happier, what’s the benefit of Capitalism? What if it turns out that the subjects of large empires are generally happier than the citizens of independent states and that, for example, Ghanaians were happier under British colonial rule than under their own homegrown dictators? What would that say about the process of decolonisation and the value of national self-determination? ([Location 5887](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=5887)) - Another interesting finding is that illness decreases happiness in the short term, but is a source of long-term distress only if a person’s condition is constantly deteriorating or if the disease involves ongoing and debilitating pain. ([Location 5891](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=5891)) - But the most important finding of all is that happiness does not really depend on objective conditions of either wealth, health or even community. Rather, it depends on the correlation between objective conditions and subjective expectations. If you want a bullock-cart and get a bullock-cart, you are content. If you want a brand-new Ferrari and get only a second-hand Fiat you feel deprived. This is why winning the lottery has, over time, the same impact on people’s happiness as a debilitating car accident. When things improve, expectations balloon, and consequently even dramatic improvements in objective conditions can leave us dissatisfied. When things deteriorate, expectations shrink, and consequently even a severe illness might leave you pretty much as happy as you were before. ([Location 5909](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=5909)) - Another interesting finding is that illness decreases happiness in the short term, but is a source of long-term distress only if a person’s condition is constantly deteriorating or if the disease involves on-going and debilitating pain. ([Location 5969](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=5969)) - How can this be squared with the above-mentioned psychological and sociological findings that, for example, married people are happier on average than singles? First, these findings are correlations – the direction of causation may be the opposite of what some researchers have assumed. It is true that married people are happier than singles and divorcees, but that does not necessarily mean that marriage produces happiness. It could be that happiness causes marriage. ([Location 5990](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=5990)) - There is only one historical development that has real significance. Today, when we finally realise that the keys to happiness are in the hands of our biochemical system, we can stop wasting our time on politics and social reforms, putsches and ideologies, and focus instead on the only thing that can make us truly happy: manipulating our biochemistry. ([Location 6021](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=6021)) - Assessing life minute by minute, medieval people certainly had it rough. However, if they believed the promise of everlasting bliss in the afterlife, they may well have viewed their lives as far more meaningful and worthwhile than modern secular people, who in the long term can expect nothing but complete and meaningless oblivion. ([Location 6052](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00ICN066A&location=6052))