I have read Harari's “Sapiens”, but I did not want to go on with the sequel. The main reason was his way of always seeing clouds on the horizon and predicting doomsday, probably because fear sells more books.
I believe the metaphorical clouds he is talking about here will probably drift by. This is because I believe that the main reason why most people don't act like tyrants, is not that they don't have the opportunity (because most people have the opportunity to be someone's tormentor); it is that it is in their economic interest to cooperate with others, benefiting their own survival.
Conjuring up dystopian visions of the future is no challenge; I'm sure most readers could come up with ten just to argue with this comment. But society's been getting better in every aspect of living almost every decade since the enlightenment. While this is not a law of nature, it is reasonable to assume that this will continue for a little while.
Society has been getting better, but at what cost? Human's have radically disrupted ever biosphere on Earth throughout the past 10,000 years and are almost certainly the prime driver of a current mass extinction of life on Earth. Our global society depends on healthy ecosystems, so where does it leave us when those ecosystems collapse? Every day human life might be getting better, but for how long? Can we sustain modern Western lifestyles for thousands of years? The Romans lived through hundreds of years in relative affluence where their civilization seemed unbreakable. Look at where that empire is today. 70 million years ago dinosaurs were the undisputed rulers of the planet, but where are the dinosaurs now? What's to say that ours is the civilization that lasts forever when all historical evidence is to the contrary?
The sequel Homo Deus isn't as good, and it felt like something that was written in a rush after Harari managed to break into the best-seller list.
The point of surviving is not to last forever; it is to last longer. Feeling slightly depressed that your civilization may undergo changes during the next hundred years or that your species may not be able to last until the end of time is a privilege of living in an abundant, technologically advanced society. To paraphrase Stein's law and one of its corollaries: Something that can't go on forever, won't, but it can go on for longer than you think.
The reason why everyone points to Western Rome as an example of fleeting success (forgetting that its eastern part survived for an additional millennium), is that it was the last empire to go out with a real boom. As a counter-example, you could point to the British empire, whose heritage is still alive and well: We are discussing using its language and it is still a part of the G7. The same goes for the Roman language, which is still one of the world's most spoken, just under another name (Spanish). And you probably have dinosaur descendants living in your city, in the form of birds. Things survive, and so will we.
Worrying about imminent ecological collapse is as old as the industrial revolution. Thomas Malthus postulated that agricultural yields would not be able to keep up with population growth. But here we are, more than two hundred years later, better equipped than ever to tackle the challenges ahead of us. I am certain that we will make it out alive, as long as we keep up our good work.
We are in massive unpayable (with todays technologies) debt to the biosphere. The difference between Rome and now was Romes fall was due to being superseded by other humans. We are in a totally different time now. Western hegemony failing will not be replaced by Chinese or whatever. Humans will die off is unprecedented numbers, along with most other species. This time it won't be humans replacing other humans unless we achieve some pretty remarkable technological breakthroughs in the coming decade. You talk about 100 years in the future but I think you'll be in for a shock when you see the climate change in the next 10 years even.
I don't see the prediction of humanity's immediate extinction on the front pages of these organizations. From what I have gathered, their perspective, like mine, is that these challenges are substantial, but surmountable. And we can all contribute.
As I see it, the best thing anyone can do right now is to convince their friends and relatives that nuclear energy is safe and necessary; that will buy us a lot of time.
I agree on nuclear. But, you will not see a government agency predicting imminent doom. They’re constrained by politicians not to do so. The individual scientists, however, are more grim.
I can’t find it, but I read an article of some of the top climate researchers in Australia basically planning to abandon the country for themselves and their children.
Just the other day, there was an article here where the world’s leading coral expert was saying unequivocally that almost all the world’s coral will die within our lifetime (it sounds like he expected more like 10-20, though he wasn’t specific). He noted that 25-33% of ALL ocean species have part of their lifecycle in this coral.
We're past the tipping point to run away warming according to some reputable climate scientists. Im not saying we can't reverse it but we're not even attempting to at the moment beyond half hearted deals like the Paris climate accord.
These challenges are technically surmounted but politically insurmountable.
Which means that you may have the cure, but no one will be able to afford it.
The western style/modern life is not compatible with the planet, and our economy depends on massive growth being realized - if only to service our debts and loans.
Our biosphere is dying under the weight of just the past few years, with only a small fraction of the world enjoying a first world living standard.
Someone has to tell everyone that the party is over, and that they wont be getting that better life after all.
A lot of British people would disagree that the heritage of the British Empire is alive and well.
And there's not just "worry" about imminent anthropogenic ecological collapse, but growing empirical evidence for it - something that has never happened before.
And the brits would be wrong, for the reasons I have already mentioned. The remains of their empire are more visible than that of any other.
Again, I do not claim that there are no ecological problems. I just think that they are solvable if we put our minds to it, because they have always proven to be so before. I may be wrong, but I don't see any better plan of action than being a rational, action-taking optimist. :-)
Homo Deus (the sequel as mentioned) answers the question of why he has formed his particular view of the future.
In essence, yes economic incentive is the basis for much of today's human corporation, but with growing AI/robotics, the same economic incentive will make much current human input unnecessary.
Then, for example, would counties see so many humans as a big cost? How do they solve that if they no longer need them to work?
You could have asked the same question in 1700: What will the state do with its inhabitants when they no longer work the fields or make wool? The answer is “something else”. The economy adapts, and unimaginable professions and social structures appear. I would be amazed if anyone in 1700 thought that programmer could be a profession.
And maybe we don't need as many as 6 billion people on earth, maybe one billion will do (the slow population growth in industrialized countries indicates that depopulation is possible). But the need for them won't disappear overnight; we are nowhere near artificial general intelligence, no matter what Ray Kurzweil tells you.
Your point is, of course correct: slow growth is growth. However, it worth clarifying that population growth in much of Europe is driven by immigration rather than natural growth, and therefore does demonstrate population decline which is offset by other regions population growth.
I started reading Homo Deus yesterday, I'm only about 50 pages in but enjoying it so far. I haven't noticed much doom and gloom in it yet, in fact the first few sections are about the positives of the modern age (advances in medicine, eradication of famine, etc).
Without giving any spoilers, unfortunately, as the book (Homo Deus) progresses, there's more and more speculation.
He also wrote a third book, that will come out in a week, with a heavily click-bait title :-( 21 Lessons for the 21st Century—I just can't stomach the lacklustre title, and probably just stay away from it, as I'd assume it'll be a "thin wrapper" around his two other books.
Sapiens was the book I enjoyed 3 years ago, before it became popular. Reading that single book gives insight into his fresh and original perspectives.
True, the book is indeed about "future", so I of course accept that by definition there will be speculation. I'd be lying if I didn't find the book valuable. I think my gripe is about his not-so-strong solutions—but the author does admit upfront that he sees his role as a historian is to raise questions. So maybe my complaint was unfair :-)
My memory is fading, but I appreciate the three "key questions" he asks to think about at the end of the book (transcribing looking at the physical copy near me):
- Are organisms really just algorithms, and is life really just data processing?
- What's more valuable—intelligence or consciousness?
- What will happen to society, politics and daily life when non-conscious but highly intelligent algorithms know us better than we know ourselves?
Though I'm hopeful enough about the future to start a family I do foresee possibly insurmountable challenges on the horizon specifically around climate change. Lack of resources will challenge societies' "getting better in every aspect of living almost every decade since the enlightenment" like never before. We are in for a serious kick up the ass in the next decade as climate change kicks up a few gears. I think we way under-estimate the ferociousness of the weather systems on the horizon and what it means to us. The only way we can beat this is by achieving free limitless renewable energy very soon.
I recommend Steven Pinker's “Enlightenment Now” as an antidote to pessimistic views of the future with regards to climate change: We have to act, but the outlook is not as grim as many environmentalists paint it. We are acting, and we still have enough time and the ingenuity to reduce the causes and effects of global warming.
On a similar vein, I'd also recommend the book Factfulness by the fantastic Hans Rosling (who, sadly, died last year). It is full of exciting anecdotes from the real world and much-needed reminders with lots of informative and fun statistics (one of the amusing ones: "guitars per capita"), and it's a fun read. Rosling isn't all theory; he actually worked as a doctor in Africa (at one point he was the only doctor for 300,000 people!) and many adventures across the world, educating people about Global Health and helping create sensible policies.
I like the term: "possibilistic", which Rosling uses as a less-naive alternative to "optimistic".
The book is college-level reading, though, and not as rigorous as Steven Pinker's book. (Bill Gates was giving away a free digital copy of Factfulness to all graduates in the U.S.)
Thanks for the recommendation. Im cautiously optimistic tbh but this summer in Europe didn't look great. 3 years ago in Indonesia was a disaster of biblical proportions and i guarantee you must people don't even know about it.
I read another book recently that was quite indirectly enlightening on the subject. Energy by Richard Rhodes
Being disheartened by one warm summer is as anecdotal as dismissing global warming after a warm winter. It's true that it was hot, but that may actually have been good, as people may finally be getting their act together (the chances of which are MUCH larger if they're told that there's still time).
The world has never been better equipped to tackle its problems than now. Take comfort in that. And as a citizen of, probably, a democratic state and with the Internet at your fingertips, you have more power than ever, as an individual, to affect our collective destiny.
17 of the last 18 years have been the hottest on record.
If you want to know the challenge ahead of us go visit the slums of Manila or walk on practically any beach in the world and count the pieces of plastic.
> But society's been getting better in every aspect of living almost every decade since the enlightenment.
For us but certainly not for society in other parts of the world. And certainly it was not continuous uptrend.
The greatest man-made catastrophes in human history has happened since the enlightenment. Native genocides, holocaust, WW1/WW2, Taiping Rebellion, intentional famines in india killing tens of millions, etc. And we aren't even factoring climate change, environmental degradation and species extinction.
From an absolutist perspective, if you compare an african or asian today to an african and asian 400 years ago, of course they are doing "better". But if you compare the proportional difference between an asian/african-european 400 years ago and asian/african-european today, the asian or african of 400 years was doing better vis a vis the european of 400 years ago.
In an absolute sense, everyone is doing better. But comparatively, the poor south is doing far worse today than it was 400 years ago. The last 400 years has been a story of wealth and resource extraction from the rest to the west. So while we sit pretty absolutely and comparatively, the rest sit worse comparatively.
> While this is not a law of nature, it is reasonable to assume that this will continue for a little while.
It's also reasonable to assume things will change. Not just from a political or economic sense. But from an ecological sense as well. Economically and politically speaking - all empires collapse. The western empire is getting older by the minute. And not to sound like a malthusian, but from an ecological point, the population increased from 500 million to over 7 billion in less than 200 years. That's rather amazing.
tl;dr “The reason you haven’t heard much about bioweapons is that they’ve been held back by a pretty severe limitation, which is the potential for blowback." Unlocking the ability to target specific genes will overcome this since the same tech that allows targeting only cancer cell will allow targeting specific groups or individuals.
> What, for example, if groups spread their agenda in a very direct way, by literally rewriting DNA to make it impossible to live a life against their credo? Suppose militant vegans wanted to end meat eating: there’s a gene for that. Or imagine if radical misogynists wanted to force the veiling of all women: there’s a gene for sunlight intolerance, and the genetic functions of gender are already well-known.
> Or, he suggested, attacks could be done on an individual level: targeting public figures by stealing their genetic code, or targeting their whole family by sequencing the genes of someone who’s closely related. And the attacks could be subtler than what’s expected: Sotos cited genes for intractable diarrhea, massive weight gain, total baldness and “an intense fishy body odour”.
Do any of you guys can think of something that we can do in order to get rid of the problems that's described in this talk.
I am asking for solutions that may or may not work but just a guess.
What about the problem with Bio-Engineering? What about hacking humans and predicting humans behavior?
I want to hear what is your thoughts on the solutions to these problems?
I believe the metaphorical clouds he is talking about here will probably drift by. This is because I believe that the main reason why most people don't act like tyrants, is not that they don't have the opportunity (because most people have the opportunity to be someone's tormentor); it is that it is in their economic interest to cooperate with others, benefiting their own survival.
Conjuring up dystopian visions of the future is no challenge; I'm sure most readers could come up with ten just to argue with this comment. But society's been getting better in every aspect of living almost every decade since the enlightenment. While this is not a law of nature, it is reasonable to assume that this will continue for a little while.