Homo Deus: Humanity’s Evolution from Social Institutions to World Peace

by Brian

We are living in times of unprecedented technological development. Many of the tools and devices we invented 20 years ago are obsolete today. In his internationally best selling book, "Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow", Yuval Noah Harari observes that this development is continuing in important fields such as genetic engineering, regenerative medicine and nanotechnology. Harari predicts that developments in these fields will transform us into super-humans. We might become biologically enhanced humans, cyborg beings or possibly fully non-organic beings. At the same time though, Harari notes that this technological development, and the unrestrained economic growth needed to support it, are leading us to potential ecological catastrophe. This raises the question, can we keep on growing the economy indefinitely without facing ecological disaster? If our technological development is on a collision course with ecological disaster, maybe our future isn’t just ‘more technological development’ but something else all together? ...To gain a deeper understanding of who we are as Homo Sapiens, Harari looks back to the Cognitive Revolution, 70,000 years ago. Something changed for us in the Cognitive Revolution such that we went on to dominate all other species. Prior to the Cognitive Revolution, our ancestors had the best technology and highest intelligence on the planet for over a million years. Yet we remained an insignificant ape, with little impact on the ecology around us. So what changed? Harari points not to technology, but to changes in the way we cooperate. During the Cognitive Revolution we developed ‘imagined orders’ that enabled large groups of strangers to cooperate together flexibly. Other animals are not able to do this, and this lead to our dominance. ... I really liked Harari’s book. He is an excellent writer and has many great insights. But at the same time, I think he overlooked some aspect of human evolution that if properly considered, would lead to a different most likely future. In this podcast “Homo Deus: Humanity’s Evolution from Social Institutions to World Peace”, we will review the ideas raised in Harari’s book, but also explore alternate possibilities. In particular, could there be another change in the way humans cooperate coming? If our previous major evolutionary step had to do with how we cooperate, maybe our next evolutionary step will too? If you are interested in thinking about the future this podcast is for you. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Latest episodes

Showing 12 · updated from the feed

#11 Practice Makes Perfect

In episode #10 we completed our review of Harari’s book, but there is still a little bit more to talk about. Throughout this podcast I have referred to re-training our de

Feb 15 2021
35 min

#10 Survival of the Fittest

Having established that humanism is in decline, Harari addresses the question, ‘what new religions or ideologies might fill the resulting vacuum?’ Two religions that are

Feb 4 2021
36 min

#9 The Risk of Alien Invasion

In chapter 9 of his book, Harari discusses the threats posed by Artificial Intelligence including (1) undermining our understanding of ourselves as individuals, (2) elimi

Jan 24 2021
37 min

#8 Transition Points in our Development

In chapter 8 of his book, Harari describes how advances in science are undermining the ‘facts’ that Humanism depends on. When these advances result in changes to everyday

Jan 13 2021
34 min

#7 Solid Ground for Ethics?

In chapter 7 of his book, Harari gives his fullest description of the Humanist religion. In modern society, humanity plays the role that God used to play in monotheism. T

Jan 1 2021
50 min

#6 Hope is a Fuel

In chapter 6 of his book, Harari sums up our current predicament well. Modernity is a deal he tells us - humans give up meaning in exchange for power. This deal is fuelle

Dec 16 2020
31 min

#5 The Veil of Misunderstanding

In chapter 5 of his book, Harari talks about the relationship between science and religion. It seems that people have already said a million times everything there is to

Dec 9 2020
29 min

#4 Losing your Religion is Difficult

In chapter 4 of his book, Harari explains how ancient Sumerian gods are similar to today’s corporations. This sounds odd at first, but Harari explains how both the Sumer

Dec 2 2020
33 min

#1 The Greatest Threat to Humanity

In his book, Harari claims that war, plague and famine are the three great challenges that humanity has faced and that we have now largely overcome them. Therefore, in th

Nov 24 2020
32 min

#2 The Religion That Never Changes

This episode focuses on chapter two of Harari’s book, the Anthropocene, the age of man. Harari observes that the world is now mainly populated by humans and their domesti

Nov 24 2020
36 min

#3 What Happens When We Run Out of Stories?

What is unique about Homo sapiens that enables them to dominate all the other animals? People often guess tool production or intelligence. But Harari explains that the re

Nov 24 2020
34 min

What is this podcast about?

This extended trailer episode discusses what this podcast is all about and who would be interested in it. It also discusses the evolutionary disruption that the grey wolv

Nov 7 2020
10 min