5 Learning Take Aways from Sapiens

A book review of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari

Sapiens was an amazing read for many reasons. First and foremost, it helped catch up on all the world history classes I missed at school. Secondly, it provided me with a fresh context to the world as I knew it. Common perceptions were challenged in this piece of literature and it was amazing how the author pieced together the giant billion year jigsaw in a mere 400 pages.

These are some of my key Leanings:

1) The success of the human race rests on the concept of 'Shared Fiction'

The difference between humans and all the other species on the planet came down to the manner in which we collaborated in large numbers flexibly.

There were inspects that collaborated in large numbers but were not adaptable to social scenarios. Their collaboration was rigid and often failed at dealing with situations what required superior decision making capabilities. E.G ants could not rebel against their queen and set up a new government to better their lives.

Monkeys on the other hand were able to collaborate, but not in vast numbers. They worked together because they fostered relationships with other monkeys and used emotions like trust to exchange food and make decisions for the benefit of their groups. However, imagine taking 20,000 monkeys and putting them in a stadium. There would be chaos because they fail to collaborate in huge numbers. In addition, monkeys brains failed to adapt to complex conversations. It was not possible to pry a banana off a monkey promising him an eternal supply of bananas in his afterlife.

Humans however managed to create 'shared fiction' to set governance over their people through religions, nationalities and even money. Shared fiction refers to the concept of creating a story that is believed by a vast spectrum of people. Take for example money. Technically, money does not have any value but because billions of people believe in its worth, it is used as a trading currency among people who don't even know each other. Trust is form on a shared fiction associated with its value.

Having shared fictions coupled with our sociable personalities allowed us to cooperate and work together through the trials of evolution. This was one of the reasons that lead us to the top of the food chain.

2) Animals don't have rights - we choose what rights some animals should have

With the agricultural revolution, the production of food increased to cater to the needs of the growing population. This included the systematic breeding of farm animals.

'The evolutionary perspective in an incomplete measure of success. It judges everything on survival and reproduction, with no regard to personal suffering and happiness.

Domesticated cattle and chicken may well be an evolutionary success story, but they are among the most miserable creatures to have ever lived.'

The world contains 40,000 lions but, by way of contrast, there are around 1 billion domesticated pigs;1.5 billion domesticated cows; and 20 billion chickens.

What makes the existence of domesticated farm animals particularly cruel is not just the way in which they die but above all how they live.

People talk about animal tights. Animals never had rights, we determined what rights some animals have over others.

3) Empires helped shape the world

There is debate today on whether empires benefited societies or impacted them negatively. We often hear of how the British pilfered from the Indians during their days of colonization.

I am not going to argue on what they did was right or wrong, but I would like to state the fact that the world today is a product of colonization and the establishment of empires.

An alternative reality may have shaped the world today minus the struggles, conquers and falls of empires, but we cannot deny its influence.

Today, Tea drinking and Cricket is popular in Sri Lanka and India - and perhaps would not have been so without the cultural influence of the British.

For centuries, explorers ventured out to new lands and the seedlings of globalization datig back to primitive times as neanderthals & homo sapiens migrated to far off lands in search of better sustenance.

Our cultures are a mix of our different conquerors and like evolution itself, it will keep involving with the changing times. We are a fruit salad of our experiences and will be molded by the conditions that are essential for the survival and prolonging of the human race.

4) Capitalism - the necessary evil

Capitalism is an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state.

It is because of capitalism that we have progressed so quickly in our evolutionary journey. We have invested in research & technology; push the boundaries of science and even solved world problems like famine by simply re engineering the way we produce food to feed the masses.

What is the general world-view on capitalism?

References were made in the book in relation to Slave Trade. Were the White Industrialists and Farmers actually racists or were they followers of Capitalism who wanted to maximize their profits by using cheap labor to maximize their outputs. Rather to pay enormous amounts of money to local workers, it was far cheaper to hire slaves to work to their bidding.

If we are totally repulsed by that rationale, we can try to relate it to current contexts to understand if we are any better than the slave owners.

Today, developed nations hire cheap labor from the third world at prices below minimum wage.

We have industrialized farming where animals are subjected to cruel conditions whilst being ignorant to their feelings and emotions. When a calf is born, it is separated from its mother, force fed and plumped up for slaughter. The Cow (mother) on the other hand is confined to a small hatch in a farm barely having room to turn around and milked periodically like a vending machine in a grocery store. Does this mean that every human is barbarian? Well, the answer is Yes and No. In one way, we are no better than the slave owners as we have neglected the feelings and emotions of the livestock; but on the other side we are just pawns in the capitalist agenda simply looking for the cheapest and most effective method of increasing output & making money.

Its not that we hate chickens, pigs and cows but we have realized that their role in our world is essentially defined by our requirements. Most people enjoy meat, how do we maximize its supply, at the cheapest price? Oh - I shall try my best to ignore their feelings because it is not inline with my plan for them.

Governments do some good in regulating certain aspects of our life but whilst capitalism harnesses innovation and technology, capitalism alone is ruthless and unless regulated it will always look for the best way of making a profit.

5) Ignorance is a great companion

The fact that we do not claim to know everything has been a huge advantage in our evolutionary blue print because we leave ourselves open to new ideas & fresh perspective.

Once upon a time many scholars believed the earth was flat and a majority of people did not argue that fact. But with new knowledge, we challenged that concept and re plotted our map of the world.

Back in the day prior to anesthesia and potent medicinal practices, makeshift doctors sawed off people's limbs because they simply did not have a better way of curing someone. Not only were these practices painful but extremely ineffective as well. But thanks to ignorance and our willingness to learn and progress, we today have the ability to send tiny cameras into people veins to detect hearth blocks and conduct surgery with incisions as small as pin holes.

But How?

A vital competency in our DNA is our sense of curiosity. From day one in the human race, we ventured out looking for new sources of food and often found adventure.

Sure, our prehistoric selves we predominately influenced by our survival instincts, but that helped us venture to new lands looking for sustenance. The difference between animals and humans though was the fact that we were able to adapt better and learn from our environment. We came up with our own tools, we were able to understand the seasons and collaborate to achieve common goals.

(Although, this may not be the case today because if you put an overly tech dependent human and a monkey on a deserted island, chances are that that monkey would survive longer)

But back in the day, we were quite the adventurers. We migrated to foreign terrains and traveled across oceans to map the world. We shared knowledge through generations and in the past even created best practices such as law and religion to bring order to societies.

Our learning journey through generations helped us acquire new skills and knowledge. We found ways to harness fire, invent gunpowder to start sophisticated wars, and today we use physics & atoms to generate our own power.

We never claimed to know everything and I believe this has been vital to our growth.

If we rested on our current situation, then progression would have been painstakingly slow.

Instead, through collaboration, curiosity and ignorance, we continue to solve complex earthly problems while many species before have failed.