21 lessons for the 21st century

I read the third international bestseller from an Israeli historian called Yuval Harari.

A modern day thinker, this man has unpacked a lot in his writings over the past few years. All his writings revolve around trying to answer some of history's most complex puzzles. Who are we? What is our purpose? What comes next?

In this latest installment he takes us on a journey way into the past to the point of creation and brings us crashing into the modern day earth and then paints a scary picture of what is to come. Or at least a possible future.

While it is hard to completely digest the entirety of this man's writings here are a few takeaways I can enumerate -

1. Humans are really bad with large numbers. Each of us to varying degrees has a switch that fails at computing 'scale'. We can think of ourselves and our surroundings over a period of time but it is far too limited when appreciating our role as a species over extended periods. Millenia, Eons etc. That is part of the problem of humankind.

2. Humans are storytellers. As a social animal we like to hear stories and use it to placate and pander to others.

3. Religion is the biggest story ever told. Religion has been used to keep people contained in order to avoid (perceived) chaos.

4. We seriously do not know what the future holds. Chances are like any other organic life form before us we are destined to vanish. How soon depends on what we do with ourselves, today.

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