What's Veeky Forums's take on Yuval Harari...

What's Veeky Forums's take on Yuval Harari? I'm reading homo deus right now (got it as a gift) and can see why normies like it so much. Like the new blade runner movie it makes the audience feel smart without challenging them too much.

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dont buy this shit

I'm currently reading Sapiens.

It’s on my reading list although I heard some of sapiens is factually incorrect

They're not perfect but they're both very very good.

i like eating food :3

could you elaborate? besides being enjoyable reading, do they offer any valuable insight?

I've only heard him give the TL;DR in a few podcasts but it sounded a lot like Stirner repackaged for normies.

He's reintroducing the concepts of spooks.

Sure.

In Sapiens, thinking about Imagined Human Orders was interesting to me. It clues you in to how many things we perceive to exist have literally no tangible existence in the universe and only exists in our minds. i.e. political systems, religions, corporations, etc.

I don't think Homo Deus was quite as good as Sapiens, and some of its predictions are undoubtedly exaggerated. But there's truth to idea that we're practically making gods out of ourselves and wielding an alarming amount of power.

The idea that things that can't suffer, like institutions or currencies, aren't fully real or something like that? Pretty obvious. National laws are quite literally social constructs which can be changed if we want them to.

The more interesting parts of Homo Deus were his predictions for the future. How genetic engineering will enable the rich to modify themselves and create superhuman children. AI will increasingly do most jobs, enabling a dystopian oligarchy or utopian star trek society. He makes it clear that what happens is still not for certain, and we have some control over what emerges.

The predictions on Homo Deus are not about what is going to happen; but rather about what is going to be subconsciously (or, in very specific cases, explicitly) pursued by humanity.

It's pretty obvious in a way but at the same time easy to forget in day to day life. Most people live in service of spooks in some way or another most of the time.

The realise most if not all of the time that spooks are spooks is extremely emancipating.

Sapiens was interesting because I knew nothing about pre written history before reading it.

I suppose you could say these 'spooks' still serve useful purposes. They're a bit like the software that runs on the hardware of human nature. Laws maintain order, enabling a more stable life and greater prosperity, which people desire. Religions can be thought of as adaptive mindsets / lifestyles, which are most likely incorrect metaphysically, but are onto something in terms of social cohesion and success.

Thought Sapiens was great, Homo Deus not so much

Jewish messianism and transhumanism

Sure, but it's very beneficial for the individual to go meta mode at all times and not buy into them too much.

I also think it's funny that the new despook guy is a gay vegan married pseudo-buddhist jew living in a zionist colony.

>Sure, but it's very beneficial for the individual to go meta mode at all times and not buy into them too much.

How so?

It frees you from having to comply with an 'ought' that is not necessarily in your interest.

Prevents you from being shamed into dying in a trench because some slut gave you a feather for example.

how the fuck does bladerunner make the audience feel smart without challenging them? what the fuck does it do to make anyone feel smart at all?

>The idea that things that can't suffer, like institutions or currencies, aren't fully real or something like that?
The test of suffering is A test. If it suffers it's real, that don't mean that if it doesn't suffer it's not real. Mountains are rivers can't suffer but are cited in the book as real things by opposite of fictions like nations and corporations.

like, it makes obvious references and stuff

Most normies complained that the new Blade Runner was boring or made no sense though.

I like that as technology advances individual suffering grows, using the example of cattle. I'm an idiot so I never made that connection.

What is a spook I thought it was a CIA agent

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I really enjoyed deus and am gonna read the first one soon

Yuval Harari impressively manages to combine baseless speculation with an incredibly boring sense of nuance: ancient hunter-gatherers were probably neither warmongers nor pacifists, but who can say for sure? They might have lived in rigidly hierarchical societies or in egalitarian ones, Yuval Harari just does not know.
I did not learn anything new from this book, and that's about the most damning thing I can say about a work of non-fiction on a subject that interests me greatly.

Did anyone else notice how he will slate Christianity, Islam and Buddhism for violence but seems to avoid a certain 12 tribes.

Its bad

sp00ks are intelligence agents from any country

spooks are idealistic abstractions that become your telos as a human, they replace the Creative Nothing which Stirner called the Ego as the purpose of your behavior, or what you tell yourself, reify and often worship. Humanity, soul, spirit, history, Stirner, God, the Nation, the Race, the Imperium, Capital, the Revolution or worker, paradise, pleasure, wit, happiness, morality or anything like is a spook.

the first type are more dangerous though, you wouldn’t know if you were near one so don’t worry about it

This is basically how I felt. He doesn’t reveal much that isn’t already covered in an introductory anthropology course. The most useful thing Sapiens does is repackage ideas. I think if more people read Sapiens, we could have more intelligent conversations about our past and future.

I wouldn’t go as far as hating or bad-mouthing the book. It’s a synthesis. If we want really deep insights, we have to dive into the academic literature ourselves.

How does this invalidate the book's insights?

How does bias affect peoples views you mean?

Stupid question.

I never thought I lived to see the day that I will be elitist guy on lit, but I read Sapiens and it's incredibly superficial.

in what way? I have zero background in anthropology and I am enjoying it. It seems like good popsci.