Harari with his genius for history, narrative and insight creates another masterpiece. This book will be a guidebook for anyone observing today’s socio-political & techno-economical challenges and changes. This short note is not comprehensive and only serves to inspire someone to read the book itself

Part I: The Technological Challenge

1. DISILLUSIONMENT

We had 3 predominant stories in the past 100 years or so — Fascism, Communism & Liberal Democracy. The first two fell off on the way — one in 1945 and the second in 1968. Harari thinks the third is also under threat from the technological & biotechnological revolution evoving right in front of us. The capitalist market driven ideals that drive our economic activities seems to be causing massive inequalities within the developed societies, they also seems to be creating huge divide between the developed nations and the rather under developed countries. The principle of free will and democracy is also under threat with populism and increasing cries to protect the culture. We seem to be heading for a ‘no story’ society. Or in need of finding a new story which brings these polarities and paradoxes.

2. WORK

Work is no longer guaranteed. Nor is the prosperity which seemed to be assured from generation to generation as observed in the past 200 years or so. We have come to expect a better future for ourselves than our parents. With AI disrupting every aspect of the work in modern society humans are in need to constantly needing to renew their skills. There is no guarantee that new jobs will be created. Nor there is a guarantee that even if new jobs are created there will be any better income, perhaps lower income. Humans will come to a point if they could ever have a meaningful occupation and place to go into every day morning as the day starts. So far in all technological changes, humans moved up as new creator or a consumer. We may be at a technological revolution in which machines themselves could be the consumers. Regardless, one thing is clear, there will be a huge part of human workforce who will be ‘irrelevant’. Harari thinks its worse than the status of prolitariate who were condemned to ‘exploitation’ until they revolted. There are further questions on how we will propel such a society where meaning is no longer in the work or career or vocation. There are only fewer vocations themselves. When there is no work to be rewarded for and no venues to toil how will one feel satisfied at all. What would one live for. How would society see to the fact that a very small minority controls the wealth, aggregates all the decision making with help of machines and what is left for the majority is to just ‘exist’ in irrelevance as the ‘useless’ class.

3. LIBERTY

Liberal ideology emphasis on free will as the corner stone of its founding principle. People decide on the matters of spirit and matter as they chose to fit as long as it doesn’t conflict with interests of the fellow citizens. This free will is the foundation of democracy. Each individual is valued equally when it comes to the rights they have to make choices. Only an individual will be able to know for sure what they ‘feel’ therefore want to agree or disagree with something. None else could fathom. Now, that is changing with the biotechnology revolution. It is now possible for machines or monitors to know what each one is feeling and what biomechanical and chemical changes one goes through for events in one's life and possibly know more than they know about them. In such circumstances, machines must only make optimal decisions for the individuals than they would have made themselves. This will end liberty as we know it. There are further questions on how individuals will find meaning in their lives what should be treated as ‘basic’ and what should be considered ‘luxury’. There are also philosophical questions on the ‘right’ thing in any situation — the greater good or the individual betterment. Digital dictatorship is also extensively discussed in its mechanism and resources

4. EQUALITY

Human civilisation is habituated to inequalities to the extent that they believe that it is pre-ordained to have hierarchies or even divine blessing to have them perpetually in place. So the society had high priests, nobles, aristocracy and industrialists along the course of commoners, peasants, subjects and proletariate. However, this structure was up for disruption in the 20th century with progress in increasing the mobility of people and increasing information sharing resulting emergence of democratic values across the globe. That progress into a more equitable society is not to be taken for granted anymore, in fact, it is under serious threat by a combination of biotechnology and information technology progress led by AI. We are now seeing the prospect that the human species will have the ability to enhance its physical and psychological capabilities by engineering it using the new tools offered by biotechnology. The new emerging humans from such a process will be far superior to the ones without it. The people who are likely to have access to this would be the elites who are controlling the vast array of today’s economic and human resources. Not only we are looking at a biomechanically differentiated human community, we are also looking at a digital dictatorship where the ‘have nots’ are haplessly controlled into submission and irrelevance. There are no immediate solutions other than ensuring equitable access designed into this progress of human technological progress in all spheres

Part II: The Political Challenge

The technological progress needs to be controlled by a political process, but actually, everything that enabled that political process is also under threat from the technological progress that is being made. This political process is enabled via institutions of the community, civilisation, nation-states, and religion where we face challenges of a similar kind.

5. COMMUNITY

Humans are living in an evermore networked world, but very little real human interaction than their family members. Even that is under threat in micro families and in situations where individuals decide to remain not in a marriage or in situations of migration where they leave their family behind for a new country or distant city. Communities were centred around religion, political ideology, social class, and employment to name a few — but each of which is now in the process of disruption or even irrelevance. To enact a political process we need strong elements of community back. The answer could be in digital communities ordained by the likes of Facebook. However, all the incentives for Facebook are wrongly placed. The social networking giants despite their lofty ideals of building communities are still driven by their inherent goal of driving profits and continually doing so. They will have no particularly viable business model in building a true community where offline and online models merge and work with each other. Giving them more authority over our biology through our man/machine interfaces will be a bad idea given the level of disorientation humans are facing due to the excessive use of social media with the compulsive algorithms which tempt people into it. So another challenge laid out but not particularly commendable solutions.

6. CIVILISATION

Civilisation is in larger aggregate our total of social customs, values, beliefs, hierarchies and even existential views. This could be at the level of a tribe, but equally at a nation-state level or ethnic group level. In the global context, we seem to be orienting ourselves towards a Western civilisation and an Islamic civilisation. Both these civilisations hold vastly different world views and are at odds with each other and possibly a clash is inevitable for domination. This could be a very pessimistic view given that the basis of both these civilisations is rooted in the recent 200 years of history though they both take inspiration from the ancient Athenia or 7th century Umaid caliphate respectively. The heritage they both seem to hold onto themselves is very much a result of creative story telling and thus looks radically different.

7. NATIONALISM

Nation-states did not exist until the last couple of centuries. Until that point tribes and ethnic groups, counties, and cities made the highest geographical groups people belonged to. 100 years ago each nation state had its distinct cultural identity. These lines are now blurring. Regardless of the ideology, religion, location, or cultural setting — the context in which a nation-state exists, the economic, political, medical, scientific, and military prerogatives remain the same or similar between nations. Nation state’s existence now seems to be justified by cultural and ideological grouping for convenience rather than anything of a distinct ideology or principle. Emphasising too much on this identity is only going to take us away from the real goals of global integration and problem-solving. The example cited in recent times is ISIS which tried to establish a caliphate which will influence Muslims worldwide

8. RELIGION

Until medieval times, religions extended their sphere activity far beyond theological, spiritual and healing to matters of psychology, physiology, education, society building and even mobilising for war. Gradually renaissance, the advance of science, the progress of industrialisation, and advances in medicine made religion less and less of a pacific force. In the Western world it doesn’t hold even a spiritual force, let alone any significant political influence. Rightly so as the priests ordained were not particularly trained in the breadth of matters mentioned above.

9. IMMIGRATION

Immigration was made possible with advances in travel and the progress of industrialisation in the 20th century predominantly — in a way we have seen in current times. Of course, colonisation and associated resettlement may also be thought of as migration, but they were some kind of land grab from the aborigines rather than a process that involves applying for a permit to be in the country and once granted slowly attaining membership in that new country. This process is now severely contested between pro and anti-migration forces. It is not the racist ideas that prevailed in the 1930s which are now the hurdle but the consideration that each migrant comes from a completely different cultural, religious and ethical milieu — which is a cultural discrimination, but still amounts to be the same. The problem lies on both ends, in fact usually with a minor group on either side — host country citizens who are too critical to see the perspective of the migrant and the migrants who are too protective of the cultural settings they grew up in. Even after 2 generations the alienation and conflict continue. We are seeing this conflict becoming increasingly acrimonious and reshaping the political discourse across the world. To solve today’s problems humans are facing, we need to at least establish that we can deal first with the relatively simpler problems of a few million migrants.

Part III: Despair and Hope

10. TERRORISM

Terrorism is an act of creating drama so that terrorists can make maximum impact with the least amount of resources, often not directly getting identified. Often governments and military organisations tend to overreact to these terrorist organisations, creating disproportionate responses and eventually failing to control the terrorists’ ultimate aim of spreading the wrong narratives. Governments need to be realistic about their aim of spotting and preventing every single threat — as far as terrorists are concerned, they have myriads of places to strike(as much as this is an unpopular stance for the public)

11. WAR

Wars were fought among clans, tribes, city-states, and nations to settle disputes over resources, allegiances, pride, and values. Nations are still preparing for wars on grand scales. There is always a need to diffuse threats. Yet the chances that a war will bring its stated goal anymore or subjugate the enemy for finality is very much in doubt. Besides, it's difficult to wage a war without causing ultimate destruction to humanity as a whole with nuclear weapons involved. There is a significant chance than ever that a wrong gesture or mild provocation may be treated as an ultimate threat and one of the parties may take to using the weapons. Yuval no longer thinks this is how wars are going to be fought anymore. In fact, wars will be fought over with no boots on the ground at all — cyber wars, drone wars, cyborgs and so on, where the impact will be as mortal as or even worse

12. HUMILITY

Every culture thinks and reinforces its supremacy over all others — this has become ever-forceful. The narratives from each culture get to primarily to the people who belong to that culture amplifying the divergent views on cultural and racial priority. Greeks, Spaniards, Italians, Russians, Anglo-Saxons, Indians, Chinese, Japanese, Incas, Persians, Islamists, Jews — every one of those has their storyline of how they created human progress. There is a need for an element of humility in acknowledging that every culture contributed at some point in history and they may still maintain some of that brilliance in specific areas. But thinking that it is their dominance and trying to create false narratives is creating such divisions in global culture. It's becoming clear, as with nations and religions — our cultural heritage is increasingly shared and ideas are flowing around between cultures. It is going to be extremely hard to work on a superiority theory and attempts should be detested

13. GOD

14. SECULARISM

Part IV: Truth

15. IGNORANCE

16. JUSTICE

17. POST-TRUTH

18. SCIENCE FICTION

Part V: Resilience

19. EDUCATION

20. MEANING

21. MEDITATION