How to Apply Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow
Humanity just finished conquering famine, plague and war, and now it wants to become gods
About This Book
For thousands of years, famine, plague and war ran human life. Yuval Noah Harari opens with an uncomfortable fact: in the early twenty-first century, more people die from obesity than starvation, more from old age than infectious disease, more from suicide than from soldiers and terrorists combined. If those ancient enemies are being tamed, what fills the vacuum? Harari argues humanity's next projects are immortality, engineered happiness and something close to divinity, and he traces the strange machinery underneath it all: emotions as biochemical algorithms, fictions that override reality, and a Problem of Other Minds that may soon decide how we treat animals, AI, and each other.About the Author
Yuval Noah Harari is a historian who studies the long arc of human history, from the Agricultural Revolution through the Scientific Revolution, and turns that same lens on where biotechnology and computing might take us next. He writes from personal experience of a region where the old Law of the Jungle has not been broken, and he draws on genetics, neuroscience, economics and behavioural science to make his case. He is openly sceptical of some of the boldest Silicon Valley predictions about eternal youth, treating them as a serious historical bet rather than a certainty.
Biggest Takeaway
You will start noticing which of your worries belong to an era that's mostly over, and redirect that energy toward problems that still matter. You will catch the moment a win's good feeling fades and stop mistaking the chase for the destination. You will read reports, KPIs and official numbers with a sharper eye for when they've drifted from what you can see on the ground. And you will make more consistent, less hypocritical calls about the animals, AI systems and other minds you deal with, because you will know exactly which assumption you're making and why.
Key Insights from This Book
Explore the most important ideas and learn how to apply them in your life.
Famine plague and war just lost their five-thousand-year grip on humanity
Silicon Valley executives are quietly betting real money against death
Why the best moment of your life stops feeling good so fast
Your body runs hidden maths before you ever feel a hunch
A horse that fooled all of Germany was never doing algebra
Eighty thousand cheering supporters turned on a dictator in seconds
One stamp saved thirty thousand lives one report starved millions
Why a well-fed disease-free animal can still be miserable
Want More Actionable Insights?
Get the Mentorist app and turn knowledge from hundreds of books into daily actions.