"Sapiens," Yuval Noah Harari's sensational and in many ways revolutionary book, told the story of how our species became dominant on Earth. How we became who we are.
"Homo Deus" continues the logic of the first book, answering the question: we are the crown of creation. And what next? We organized ourselves to satisfy our basic needs. Now we strive to attain bliss and immortality.
This is where Harari's main provocation lies. Should we even strive for this? Harari argues that absolute happiness, immortality, and god-like status will not necessarily be a boon for the human race. The author paints the following picture of a possible future: elites, through biotechnology and genetic engineering, will enhance themselves and their lives and create a god-like species, Homo Deus; an artificial intelligence will emerge that "knows us better than we know ourselves"; and the god-like elites and super-intelligent robots will eventually decide that the existence of the rest of humanity is pointless.
Harari does an excellent job of showing how we might reach such a state and what the consequences could be. A "brief history of the future" is being written right now, and we are active participants in this process.
Author: Yuval Noah Harari
Translator: Alexander Andreev
Pages: 496 (offset). Hardcover
Dimensions: 234x158x30 mm
