Review of “Sapiens” by Yuval Noah Harari (4/5)

Time now for the penultimate review of Sapiens. In the first three parts, we saw the emergence of our species, its spreadaround the globe, and some of the unifying forces that have made human culture truly global. Now it’s time for the discovery that helped humans totally transform the planet and which could one day transform our species itself. It’s time to cover the Scientific Revolution.
 
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Chapter 13 The Secret of Success

• (p. 267) History cannot be explained deterministically and it cannot be predicted because it is chaotic. So many forces are at work and their interactions are so complex that extremely small variations in the strength of the forces and the way they interact produce huge differences in outcomes.
• (p. 267) history is what is called a ‘level two’ chaotic system. Chaotic systems come in two shapes. Level one chaos is chaos that does not react to predictions about it. The weather, for example, is a level one chaotic system. … Level two chaos is chaos that reacts to predictions about it, and therefore can never be predicted accurately. Markets, for example, are a level two chaotic system.
• (p. 269) So, why study history? Unlike physics or economics, history is not a means for making accurate predictions. We study history not to know the future but to widen our horizons, to understand that our present situation is neither natural nor inevitable, and that we consequently have many more possibilities before us than we imagine.
• (p. 271) Around AD 1500, history made its most momentous choice, changing not only the fate of humankind, but arguably the fate of all life on earth. We call it the Scientific Revolution.

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This is just a quick little transition chapter on the way to Part 4 of Sapiens. It didn’t really fit in the last review so I moved it here. I also really liked starting with this definition of “level 2 chaos” since that acts as a good lead in to the Scientific Revolution where prediction plays such a large part in any progress. Harari’s reminder of the futility of specific predictions in the dismal science of economics is especially apt for the coverage of capitalism that is coming too.
 
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Part Four: The Scientific Revolution
Chapter 14 The Discovery of Ignorance

• (p. 275) In the year 1500, there were about 500 million Homo sapiens in the entire world. Today, there are 7 billion. The total value of goods and services produced by humankind in the year 1500 is estimated at $250 billion, in today’s dollars. Nowadays the value of a year of human production is close to $60 trillion. In 1500, humanity consumed about 13 trillion calories of energy per day. Today, we consume 1,500 trillion calories a day. (Take a second to look at those figures – human population has increased fourteenfold, production 240-fold, and energy consumption 115-fold.)
• (p. 277) The historical process that led to Alamogordo and to the moon is known as the Scientific Revolution. During this revolution humankind has obtained enormous new powers by investing resources in scientific research. It is a revolution because, until about AD 1500, humans the world over doubted their ability to obtain new medical, military, and economic powers. While government and wealthy patrons allocated funds to education and scholarship, the aim was, in general, to preserve existing capabilities rather than acquire new ones.
• (p. 279) modern science differs from all previous traditions of knowledge in three critical ways: (p. 279) a. The willingness to admit ignorance. … b. The centrality of observation and mathematics … c. The acquisition of new powers.
• (p. 279) Premodern traditions of knowledge such as Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, and Confucianism asserted that everything that is important to know about the world was already known.
• (p. 281) Modern-day science is a unique tradition of knowledge, inasmuch as it openly admits collective ignorance regarding the most important questions. Darwin never argued that he was ‘the Seal of the Biologists’, and that he had solved the riddle of life once and for all.
• (p. 282) All modern attempts to stabilize the sociopolitical order have had no choice but to rely on either of two unscientific methods: a. Take a scientific theory, and in opposition to common scientific practices, declare that it is a final and absolute truth. This was the method used by Nazis (who claimed that their racial policies were the corollaries of biological facts) and Communists (who claimed that Marx and Lenin had divined absolute economic truths that could never be refuted). b. Leave science out of it and live in accordance with a non-scientific absolute truth. This has been the strategy of liberal humanism, which is built on a dogmatic belief in the unique worth and rights of human beings – a doctrine which has embarrassingly little in common with the scientific study of Homo sapiens.
• (p. 288) In 1620, Francis Bacon published a scientific manifesto titled The New Instrument. In it he argued that ‘knowledge is power’. The real test of ‘knowledge’ is not whether it is true, but whether it empowers us. Scientists usually assume that no theory is 100 percent correct. Consequently, truth is a poor test for knowledge. The real test is utility.
• (p. 298) People avoided the issue of death because the goal seemed too elusive. Why create unreasonable expectations? We’re now at a point, however, where we can be frank about it. The leading project of the Scientific Revolution is to give humankind eternal life.
• (p. 301) A few serious scholars suggest that by 2050, some humans will become a-mortal (not immortal, because they could still die of some accident, but a-mortal, meaning that in the absence of fatal trauma their lives could be extended indefinitely).
• (p. 304) To channel limited resources we must answer questions such as ‘What is more important?’ and ‘What is good?’ And these are not scientific questions.

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Those are some astounding figures about the growth of our species. However, I don’t know how a historian could possibly claim that “the discovery of ignorance” dated to 1500AD when Socrates famously said, “the only thing I know is that I know nothing.” Skepticism has been around for a very long time. I thought the philosopher Michael Strevens made a better argument for the eruption of science in his book The Knowledge Machine, where the focus was on discarding religious and philosophical assertions. For example, he characterized the fight at the time as saying, “There was nothing wrong with…emphasizing that observation matters, but everything wrong with its insisting that only observation matters.” That may have been an objection from religious holders of power, but it was this methodological naturalism that really provided the impetus for the great leap forward of the scientific revolution.
 
As for how to stabilize the sociopolitical order and decide where to go next, I think evolutionary epistemology provides a robust third alternative to the “absolute truths” that Harari noted. More on that when my draft paper gets through peer review and is published. And I’ve been sitting on a finished novel about how a-mortality could be handled well with the right evolutionary ethics and politics too. More on that when I finally self-publish it. (Hopefully for Easter 2026.)
 
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Chapter 15 The Marriage of Science and Empire

• (p. 311) In 1775, Asia accounted for 80 percent of the world economy. The combined economies of India and China alone represented two-thirds of global production.
• (p. 312) In 1950, western Europe and the United States together accounted for more than half of global production, whereas China’s portion had been reduced to 5 percent.
• (p. 314) The Chinese and Persians did not lack technological inventions such as steam engines (which could be freely copied or bought). They lacked the values, myths, judicial apparatus, and sociopolitical structures that took centuries to form and mature in the West and which could not be copied and internalized rapidly.
• (p. 315) What potential did Europe develop in the early modern period that enabled it to dominate the late modern world? There are two complementary answers to this question: modern science and capitalism.
• (p. 340) Behind the meteoric rise of both science and empire lurks one particularly important force: capitalism. Were it not for businessmen seeking to make money, Columbus would not have reached America, James Cook would not have reached Australia, and Neil Armstrong would never have taken that small step on the surface of the moon.

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These are some more fascinating statistics. The claim about the importance of capitalism to science is super interesting and one that I had not really contemplated before. Before judging this claim, let’s see what Harari says as he goes into more depth about it in the next few chapters.
 
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Chapter 16 The Capitalist Creed

• (p. 341) to understand modern economic history, you really need to understand just a single word. The word is growth.
• (p. 344) our entrepreneur is in a bind. Without a bakery, she can’t bake cakes. Without cakes, she can’t make money. Without money, she can’t hire a contractor. Without a contractor, she has no bakery. Humankind was trapped in this predicament for thousands of years. As a result, economies remained frozen. The way out of the trap was discovered only in the modern era, with the appearance of a new system based on trust in the future.
• (p. 344) The problem in previous eras was not that no one had the idea or knew how to use it. It was that people seldom wanted to extend much credit because they didn’t trust that the future would be better than the present.
• (p. 348) Smith’s claim that the selfish human urge to increase private profits is the basis for collective wealth is one of the most revolutionary ideas in human history … What Smith says is, in fact, that greed is good, and that by becoming richer I benefit everybody, not just myself. Egoism is altruism.
• (p. 348) when the pie grows, everyone benefits. The rich are accordingly the most useful and benevolent people in society, because they turn the wheels of growth for everyone’s advantage. All this depends, however, on the rich using their profits to open new factories and hire new employees, rather than wasting them on non-productive activities.
• (p. 349) In the new capitalist creed, the first and most sacred commandment is: ‘The profits of production must be reinvested in increasing production.’ That’s why capitalism is called ‘capitalism’. Capitalism distinguishes ‘capital’ from mere ‘wealth’.
• (p. 351) Governments too strive to invest their tax revenues in productive enterprises that will increase future income – for example, building a new port could make it easier for factories to export their products, enabling them to make more taxable income, thereby increasing the government’s future revenues. Another government might prefer to invest in education, on the grounds that educated people form the basis for the lucrative high-tech industries, which pay lots of taxes without needing extensive port facilities.
• (p. 352) Over the last few years, banks and governments have been frenziedly printing money. Everybody is terrified that the current economic crisis may stop the growth of the economy. So, they are creating trillions of dollars, euros, and yen out of thin air, pumping cheap credit into the system, and hoping that the scientists, technicians, and engineers will manage to come up with something really big, before the bubble bursts. Everything depends on the people in the labs. New discoveries in fields such as biotechnology and artificial intelligence could create entire new industries, whose profits could back the trillions of make-believe money that the banks and governments have created since 2008. If the labs do not fulfil these expectations before the bubble bursts, we are heading towards very rough times.
• (p. 367) its extreme form, belief in the free market is as naive as belief in Santa Claus. There simply is no such thing as a market free of all political bias. The most important economic resource is trust in the future, and this resource is constantly threatened by thieves and charlatans.
• (p. 368) In a completely free market, unsupervised by kings and priests, avaricious capitalists can establish monopolies or collude against their workforces.
• (p. 370) This is the fly in the ointment of free-market capitalism. It cannot ensure that profits are gained in a fair way, or distributed in a fair manner.
• (p. 372) Capitalism has two answers to this criticism. First, capitalism has created a world that nobody but a capitalist is capable of running. The only serious attempt to manage the world differently – Communism – was so much worse in almost every conceivable way that nobody has the stomach to try again.
• (p. 372) The second answer is that we just need more patience – paradise, the capitalists promise, is right around the corner.

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Once again, Harari seems to dodge the negative role that religion played here. My guess is that’s because he wants to keep it (along with all fictions) as important unifiers of humankind. But the long history of usury shows that it wasn’t a lack of imagination or trust in the future that stopped credit from unlocking business. It was because, “In many historical societies including ancient Christian, Jewish, and Islamic societies, usury meant the charging of interest of any kind, and was considered wrong, or was made illegal. … Christian religious prohibitions on usury are predicated upon the belief that charging interest on a loan is a sin.” As modern societies threw off that nonsense, progress ensued.
 
Adam Smith did contribute much to help unlock all of this (which is partly why he ended up number 3 in my rankings of the survival of the fittest philosophers). But there are even better answers now to capitalism’s critiques than communism and patience. For example, David Sloan Wilson’s series on “Evolution, Complexity, and the Third Way of Entrepreneurship” provides a great overview of the need for properly regulated capitalism to improve human societies as well as the lot of life on Earth.
 
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Chapter 17 The Wheels of Industry

• (p. 374) Economic growth also requires energy and raw materials, and these are finite. When and if they run out, the entire system will collapse.
• (p. 379) Only a tiny proportion of the sun’s energy reaches us, yet it amounts to 3,766,800 exajoules of energy each year
• (p. 380) All the world’s plants capture only about 3,000 of those solar exajoules through the process of photosynthesis. All human activities and industries put together consume about 500 exajoules annually
• (p. 387) Before the industrialization of agriculture, most of the food produced in fields and farms was ‘wasted’ feeding peasants and farmyard animals. Only a small percentage was available to feed artisans, teachers, priests, and bureaucrats. Consequently, in almost all societies peasants comprised more than 90 percent of the population. Following the industrialization of agriculture, a shrinking number of farmers was enough to feed a growing number of clerks and factory hands. Today in the United States, only 2 percent of the population makes a living from agriculture, yet this 2 percent produces enough not only to feed the entire US population, but also to export surpluses to the rest of the world.
• (p. 387) For the first time in human history, supply began to outstrip demand. An entirely new problem was born. Who is going to buy all this stuff?
• (p. 389) “A real treat with the wonderful taste of more.” Throughout most of history, people were likely to be repelled rather than attracted by such a text. They would have branded it as selfish, decadent, and morally corrupt. Consumerism has worked very hard, with the help of popular psychology (‘Just do it’), to convince people that indulgence is good for you, whereas frugality is self-oppression.
• (p. 390) The history of ethics is a sad tale of wonderful ideals that nobody can live up to. Most Christians did not imitate Christ, most Buddhists failed to follow Buddha, and most Confucians would have caused Confucius a temper tantrum.
• (p. 391) most people today successfully live up to the capitalist–consumerist ideal. The new ethic promises paradise on condition that the rich remain greedy and spend their time making more money, and that the masses give free rein to their cravings and passions—and buy more and more. This is the first religion in history whose followers actually do what they are asked to do.

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Ouch. Adam Curtis’ amazing documentary The Century of the Self offers great insights into the role that Sigmund Freud’s descendants (both literal and intellectual) played in inducing this hyper individualist style of consumerism. Once marketing professional learned about the unconscious and how to appeal to it, they quickly got better and better at tapping into our unfulfilled longings.  How will we ever get people to crave buying less? To value experience more than things? To think more about long-term happiness rather than short-term pleasure? I’m hopeful my art and philosophy can help with inspiring this fundamental shift, but I’m worried the money and momentum behind selfishness is far too large. This is another area for regulation that a well-formed government will have to consider.
 
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Chapter 18 A Permanent Revolution

• (p. 396) in 1880, the British government took the unprecedented step of legislating that all timetables in Britain must follow Greenwich. For the first time in history, a country adopted a national time and obliged its population to live according to an artificial clock rather than local ones or sunrise-to-sunset cycles.
• (p. 398) The Industrial Revolution brought about dozens of major upheavals in human society. Adapting to industrial time is just one of them. Other notable examples include urbanization, the disappearance of the peasantry, the rise of the industrial proletariat, the empowerment of the common person, democratization, youth culture, and the disintegration of patriarchy.
• (p. 398) Yet all of these upheavals are dwarfed by the most momentous social revolution that ever befell humankind: the collapse of the family and the local community and their replacement by the state and the market.
• (p. 401) Life in the bosom of family and community was far from ideal. Families and communities could oppress their members no less brutally than do modern states and markets, and their internal dynamics were often fraught with tension and violence—yet people had little choice.
• (p. 403) But the liberation of the individual comes at a cost. Many of us now bewail the loss of strong families and communities and feel alienated and threatened by the power the impersonal state and market wield over our lives.
• (p. 403) Millions of years of evolution have designed us to live and think as community members. Within a mere two centuries we have become alienated individuals. Nothing testifies better to the awesome power of culture.
• (p. 411) As kingdoms and empires became stronger, they reined in communities and the level of violence decreased. In the decentralized kingdoms of medieval Europe, about twenty to forty people were murdered each year for every 100,000 inhabitants. In recent decades, when states and markets have become all-powerful and communities have vanished, violence rates have dropped even further. Today the global average is only nine murders a year per 100,000 people, and most of these murders take place in weak states such as Somalia and Colombia. In the centralized states of Europe, the average is one murder a year per 100,000 people.

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As the power of culture far outstrips that of genes in the evolution of our species, this liberation from the family only makes sense. For those of you lucky enough to have a wonderful family around you, you still have the freedom to enjoy that. But for those who prefer a Friendsgiving to a Thanksgiving with their biological family, that is now possible too. We will have to invent new and better ways to deal with alienation and isolation. But if that is done well it could be seen as the next logical step towards larger and larger groups of cooperation. The statistics about drops in violence for better-organized societies may indicate that this is indeed the right path.
 
Next up, we’ll finish with some musings about the future of Homo sapiens and then render a judgment about the book Sapiens as a whole. Stay tuned!