Yuval Noah Harari

“After all, when ‘the Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become’ He resolved to ‘wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created – and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground – for I regret that I have made them’ (Genesis 6:7). The Bible thinks it is perfectly all right to destroy all animals as punishment for the crimes of Homo sapiens, as if the existence of giraffes, pelicans and ladybirds has lost all purpose if humans misbehave. The Bible could not imagine a scenario in which God repents having created Homo sapiens, wipes this sinful ape off the face of the earth, and then spends eternity enjoying the antics of ostriches, kangaroos and panda bears.”

“The basic human reaction to pleasure is not satisfaction, but rather craving for more. Hence, no matter what we achieve, it only increases our craving, not our satisfaction.”

“The most dangerous thing about terrorism is the over-reaction to it.”

“For thousands of years, humans believed that authority came from the gods. Then, during the modern era, humanism gradually shifted authority from deities to people.”

“Rather, when famine, plague or war break out of our control, we feel that somebody must have screwed up, we set up a commission of inquiry, and promise ourselves that next time we’ll do better.”

“You take fantasies, which for thousands of years belonged to the religious realm - overcoming death or our merging with the universe - and you suddenly start talking about them in a more technical perspective as something that can be achieved, not after you die with the help of supernatural beings, but in this very life with the help of technology.”

“When the first humans reached Australia about 45,000 years ago, they quickly drove to extinction 90% of its large animals. This was the first significant impact that Homo sapiens had on the planet's ecosystem. It was not the last.”

“How do you cause people to believe in an imagined order such as Christianity, democracy, or capitalism? First, you never admit that the order is imagined.”

“fantasy gives meaning to the suffering.”

“Traditionally, life has been divided into two main parts: a period of learning followed by a period of working. Very soon, this traditional model will become utterly obsolete, and the only way for humans to stay in the game will be to keep learning throughout their lives and to reinvent themselves repeatedly.”

“I'm a historian. I really like the past. But most people seem far more interested in what you can tell them about the future.”

“If you want to see philosophy in action, pay a visit to a robo-rat laboratory. A robo-rat is a run-ofthe-mill rat with a twist: scientists have implanted electrodes into the sensory and reward areas in the rat’s brain. This enables the scientists to manoeuvre the rat by remote control. After short training sessions, researchers have managed not only to make the rats turn left or right, but also to climb ladders, sniff around garbage piles, and do things that rats normally dislike, such as jumping from great heights. Armies and corporations show keen interest in the robo-rats, hoping they could prove useful in many tasks and situations. For example, robo-rats could help detect survivors trapped under collapsed buildings, locate bombs and booby traps, and map underground tunnels and caves. Animal-welfare activists have voiced concern about the suffering such experiments inflict on the rats. Professor Sanjiv Talwar of the State University of New York, one of the leading robo-rat researchers, has dismissed these concerns, arguing that the rats actually enjoy the experiments. After all, explains Talwar, the rats ‘work for pleasure’ and when the electrodes stimulate the reward centre in their brain, ‘the rat feels Nirvana’.To the best of our understanding, the rat doesn’t feel that somebody else controls her, and she doesn’t feel that she is being coerced to do something against her will. When Professor Talwar presses the remote control, the rat wants to move to the left, which is why she moves to the left. When the professor presses another switch, the rat wants to climb a ladder, which is why she climbs the ladder. After all, the rat’s desires are nothing but a pattern of firing neurons. What does it matter whether the neurons are firing because they are stimulated by other neurons, or because they are stimulated by transplanted electrodes connected to Professor Talwar’s remote control? If you asked the rat about it, she might well have told you, ‘Sure I have free will! Look, I want to turn left – and I turn left. I want to climb a ladder – and I climb a ladder. Doesn’t that prove that I have free will?”

“Why is English so widespread today, and not Danish?”

“השלב הבא של ההיסטוריה עשוי לכלול לא רק שינויים בטכנולוגיה ובארגון החברתי של הומו סאפיינס, אלא גם שינויים כה מהותיים בתכונותיו ובכישוריו הבסיסיים ביותר של הומו סאפיינס עצמו, עד כי הומו סאפיינס יהפך למשהו שונה לגמרי.”

“מה פירושה של חירות בעולם שבו ניתן להנדס גם את הרצון?”

“רוב המדינות כיום כבר לא נלחמות זו בזו מסיבה פשוטה, והיא שרוב המדינות איבדו את עצמאותן. [...] מעל ראשיהן של המדינות הולכת ומתגבשת אימפריה גלובלית הנשלטת על ידי אליטה בינלאומית.”

“ככל שידיעתנו המדעית מגיעה - האמת היא שלחיים אין שום משמעות... החיים הם תוצר של תהליכים אבולוציוניים עוורים הפועלים ללא כל תכלית... קיומנו אינו חלק מאיזושהי תכנית קוסמית גדולה, ואם כדור הארץ יתפוצץ מחר בבוקר, היקום ימשיך בעיסוקיו הרגילים כאילו לא קרה דבר... כל משמעות שבני אדם מוצאים לחייהם, אינה אלא אשליה.”

“כל החברות האנושיות בנויות על חלוקה היררכית של בני אדם לקבוצות שונות, כל החלוקות הללו הן מדומיינת, וכל החלוקות הללו יוצרות אפליה לא צודקת. אולם ללא היררכיות מדומיינות המפלות לרעה קבוצות מסוימות כנראה שאי אפשר ליצור סדר.”

“כדי לשנות סדר מדומיין קיים, אין אפשרות אלא להאמין בסדר מדומיין אחר [...] לכן, אין מוצא מן הסדר המדומיין. כשאנו פורצים את חומת הכלא ורצים אל החופש, אנו רצים אל תוך חצר הטיולים של בית כלא גדול עוד יותר.”

“כל אדם נולד לתוך סדר מדומיין קיים, ורצונותיו מתעצבים מרגע היוולדו על ידי המיתוסים המכוננים של הסדר הזה. כך למשל היום הרצונות היקרים ביותר ללבנו מעוצבים על ידי מיתוסים רומנטיים, לאומיים, קפיטליסטיים והומניסטיים שהחלו להיווצר לפני למעלה ממאתיים שנה.”